Telling Tales: Memory, Culture, and the Hudhud Chants
Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
Type
Thesis (B.A.)
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
en_US
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
This paper explores the strategies used by the Ifugao people of the
Philippines to remember and recite their epic hudhud chants. The hudhud
have been recited almost unchanged since the 7th century, and represent
the most successful oral tradition of a largely nonliterate society. To
explain the success of the hudhud’s transmission from one generation to
the next, I apply Rubin’s (1995) model of memory in oral traditions to the
text of the chant. This model posits three different types of memory cues
present in oral traditions which aid in their memorability: thematic,
imagistic, and poetic/sound cues. An analysis of the text of the hudhud
shows all three types of cues to be at work in the chant, thus lending more
strength to Rubin’s model. As this model is firmly based in the thought
traditions of a Western, literate society, however, it seems insufficient to
describe the phenomenon of hudhud recitation. Instead, the collective
process of reciting the chant seems to be the main factor that enables
future generations learn the text, and helps chanters to recall the epic as it
unfolds. I apply a distributed model of cognition to the collective process
of chant recitation in order to explain the phenomenon of hudhud recall in
its own cultural terms.