Religious Postulates, Ethnic Boundaries and Popular Music

GARCÍA, MIGUEL ANGEL

Sheffield

Conferencia; 38th World Conference of the International Council for Traditional Music; 2005

University of Sheffield

These last years there has been a significant change in the musical consumption of the Wichi -an aboriginal group settled in the Province of Formosa, Argentina. A music band originally linked to the Anglican Church has emerged with a new formula that articulates clear evangelic postulates, subtle ethnic marks and popular music genres. They have called the group Cristo Vive (Christ lives) and the members are five Wichi aboriginals and a Toba. This is the first time a band conformed mostly by Whichi has reached an important level of popularity among that ethnia, to the point of replacing the Creole and Toba music groups that had dominated the music scene in the region for several years (Center North Argentina and South of Bolivia and Paraguay). They use synthesizers to produce the sounds of bass, drums and other percussion instruments, and amplifiers to play a musical genre they call "cumbia evangélica". Close observation of their activities shows the beginning of a growing process of professionalism characterized by the production and sales of cassettes, the organization of regional tours and the implementation of fandom and merchandizing practices. Their case seems appropriate to consider ethnomusicological and anthropological issues such as the relations between music, religion and ethnicity; the strategies for opening and closing the ethnic boundary around practices of adoption, transformation and performance of music genres considered alien; the tours as covert forms of neo-nomadism, and the concept of ownership of musical manifestations, among others. This case also presents a challenge from the theoretical and methodological point of view, since it undoubtedly produces a tension between the application of an ethnographic approach and the sociological focus that has prevailed these last years in the study of urban popular music.