Tom Mould

Prophetic Riddling: A Dialogue of Genres in Choctaw Performance

Riddles claim obscurity. Prophecy claims clarity. Despite this initial divide, the two can be so similar they appear to be indistinguishable. The similarities are both inherent and constructed. The A. explores the similarities between the two both when viewed as verbal genres and when brought into dialogue during the act of performance. Prophetic discourse among the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians provides a particularly informative case study. Tribal members have cultivated an oral tradition of prophecy with rigorous aesthetic, structural, and temporal miles. As the prophecies become fulfilled, however, these rules have become virtually impossible to uphold. Many Choctaw narrators have found a creative compromise by exploiting the similarities between prophecy and riddle. An examination of the structural, functional, stylistic, and linguistic parallels between riddle and prophecy at the nexus of performance shows how Choctaw narrators maintain one tradition by borrowing from another.

Loon: Memory, Meaning, and Reality in a Northern Dene Community (review)

ics can mean different things to a listener, based on such variations as the words a singer chooses to emphasize in performing the text. Bowden’s study is most assured when she explores various levels of meaning to be found in Dylan’s lyrics. While discussing “Idiot Wind,” from the 1975 album, Blood on the Tracks, she convincingly explicates the multiple meanings and simultaneous references in many lines. A comment like “I can’t help it if I’m lucky,” which ends the first verse, is a joking reference to a romantic conquest and further hints at the singernarrator’s status as a hero manufactured by popular culture (p. 140). Bowden’s affection and familiarity with Dylan’s work also appear in the occasional note of humor in an otherwise straightforward analysis of a song. Bowden’s consideration of Dylan’s songs ends with recordings he made in 1976. Performed Literature was first published in 1982, and the current edition is the same, except for a brief preface and two updated appendices. Since the time she wrote her book, there have been more technical and music-centered studies of rock songs. Dylan’s sixtieth birthday in 2001 was marked in print by a number of biographies and retrospectives, as well as this reissue of Bowden’s book. Her discussion of selected songs from the 1960s and 1970s still contains valid insights. Its limitations are due in part to Dylan’s active career over the intervening years, as well as more recent and thorough studies of the music of popular performers. Since I was (and still am) a Dylan fan, reading Bowden’s book made me nostalgic for the importance that rock music held for listeners at that time. In this sense—and I do not mean this disparagingly—Bowden’s book is a period piece.