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NOTES from the FIELD: Resurrecting African Music and Dance

Each time a Griot, Jaly, or Ayan (keepers of African oral traditions) dies, they literally take libraries of African music and dance to the grave where it is entombed and lost to the world forever. Since the music and dance of Africa is largely an oral tradition that is verbally passed down from one generation to the next, sheet music is not available. Younger generations of Africans no longer practice or know the traditional music and dance of their ancestors, therefore, African music and dance is an endangered species.

Griots, Jalys, and Ayans

The Paradoxes of War and Its Aftermath: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala

Between 1978 and 1984 the western highlands of Guatemala became a "killing field." It was there that the Guatemalan army waged a rural counterinsurgency operation against not only a small, armed guerrilla force, but also against a large unarmed, civilian, and mostly Mayan population (Falls, 1994). It was the most extensive attack on the highland indigenous people since the time of the Spanish invasion five centuries earlier. By the Guatemalan military's own admission, it destroyed over 440 rural communities in the highlands and partially razed countless others.

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