Music Within and About Myth / Myths About and Within Music: 30+ Years of Decentering Approaches to Discourse in Native Amazonia

This article starts by revisiting Sherzer and Urban's 1986 volume on Native South American Discourse as an important beginning for more integrative ways of exploring the dynamic interrelations between musicality and lexicality in native Amazonian discourse. Sherzer and Urban's focus on the intimate relationship between musicality and speech was a radical decentering of traditional linguistic approaches and was nicely complemented by the inclusion of a cassette recording that allowed readers to hear the sounds of native discourse genres in actually occurring performances. My article will survey some of the intellectual genealogies that have descended from the discourse‐centered approach during the three decades since 1986. Attention will be given to the diverse ways in which researchers have combined discourse‐centered approaches with music‐centered studies that attach equal significance to musicality and lexicality.