Música chamánica para mover las cosas: Charles Boilés y la etnomusicología tepehua oriental

Abstract

Here we give an account of the role of music in Eastern Tepewa shamanic rites. This music, which Tepewa people say it “speaks,” is played with violin, five string huapango guitar (a kind of big guitar), and/or jarana (a kind of little guitar with five cords). Boilés, the ethnomusicologist who has best understood Tepewa shamanic music, affirms that it can be directly decoded, for it to be translated as a sequence of explicit verbal statements. Here we offer the ethnographic context of Tepewa shamanic ritual practices in which this music is performed, and we point out some ethnographic and theoretical consequences that derive from Boilés’ interpretation, such as, following Austin, to postulate the performative character and the perlocutory consequences of those musical acts.