BIG FAT GREEN RHYMES: UNFOLDING THE ENVIRONMENTAL CLUE OF CRETAN SONGS

Authors

  • Maria Hnaraki

Keywords:

Cretan music, rizitika songs, music ecology, place-based music education

Abstract

One type of Cretan songs, the rizitika, created by the inhabitants of Western Crete, suggests to Greeks, through lyrics that describe various Cretan landscapes, they have to protect their land and be strong because their ancestors fought for it. This paper shows how Cretan songs mediate traditions, reinforce cultural stereotypes and reconnect Cretans with their roots as Cretan souls, through music performance, identify with the soil of Crete.

References

Apostolakis, Stamatis. Rizitika: The Folk Songs of Crete. Athens: Gnosis, 1993.

Ball, Eric. “Folkism and Wild(er)ness: Observations on the Construction of Nature in Modern Greek Culture.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 32, No. 1-2 (2006): 7-43.

and Lai, Alice. “Place-Based Pedagogy for the Arts and Humanities”, Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition and Culture 6 (2), (2006): 261-287.

Baud-Bovy, Samuel. Musical Recordings in Crete: 1953-54. Center for Asia Minor Studies-M. Merlie M.F.A., 2006.

Dawe, Kevin, ed. Island Musics. New York: Berg Publisher, 2004.

Dreese, Donelle. Ecocriticism: Creating Self and Place in Environmental and American Indian Literatures. NY: Peter Lang, 2002.

Hadjidakis, Giorgos. Cretan Music: History, Music Theory, Songs and Dances. Athens: Unpublished, 1958.

Herzfeld, Michael. The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

. “Performances of Masculinity in Mountain Crete.” Archaiologia 41 (1991a): 72 - 78.

Hnaraki, Maria. “Souls of Soil: Island Identity through Song in Crete”. Forthcoming book chapter in G. Baldacchino (ed.) Island Songs, Lanham MD, Scarecrow Press, 2011.

. Unraveling Ariadne’s Thread: Cretan Music, Athens: Kerkyra Publications, 2007.

Kaloyanides, Michael. “The Study of Cretan Dances: A Study of the Musical Structures of Cretan Dance Forms as Performed in the Heraklion Province of Crete.” Unpublished PhD thesis, Wesleyan University, 1975.

Levin, Theodore (with Valentina Süzükei). 2006. Where Rivers and Mountains Sing: Sound, Music, and Nomadism in Tuva and Beyond. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Magrini, Tullia. “Manhood and Music in Western Crete: Contemplating Death.” Ethnomusicology 44, No. 3 (2000a): 429-459.

. Vocal music in Crete. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW CD 40437, 2000b.

Notopoulos, James. “Studies in Early Greek Oral Poetry.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 68 (1964):1-77.

Papalexandrou, Nassos. “Constructed Landscapes: Visual Cultures of Violent Contact.” Stanford Journal of Archaeology 5 (2007): 164-182.

Solomon, Thomas. “Mountains of Song: Musical Constructions of Ecology, Place, and Identity in the Bolivian Andes”. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Texas, Austin, 1997.

Spyridakis, Stylianos. The Voice of the People: Mantinades of Crete, New York: Pella, 2004.

Stokes, Martin, ed. Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford and Providence: Berg, 1994.

Wilson, James. “Political Songs, Collective Memories, and Kikuyu Indi Schools.” History in Africa 33 (2006): 363-388.

Downloads

Published

2010-12-31

How to Cite

Hnaraki, M. (2010). BIG FAT GREEN RHYMES: UNFOLDING THE ENVIRONMENTAL CLUE OF CRETAN SONGS. Papers in Ethnology and Anthropology, 16(5), 95–105. Retrieved from https://easveske.com/index.php/pea/article/view/158

Issue

Section

Чланци и студије