Description:
The centerpiece of this paper is the performance of a traditional Kuna chant by Chief Olopinikwa of the village of Sasartii on the San Blas island of Sasartii‐Mulatuppu on April 2, 1970. It is represented through various transcriptions and translations by the author and his Kuna consultant at that time, Alberto Campos, in consultation with a number of Kuna individuals, over the years since the original performance. Alberto Campos's transcription and especially his translation of the performance transform a traditional oral performance into 20th‐century “educated” Spanish. The audior's transcriptions and translations are ethnopoetic, in that they aim at reflecting and retaining, as much as possible, the distinctive features of the oral performance. The performance and the various written representations of it reveal the history of the Kuna and especially their relations with outsiders, changes that have occurred in Kuna life within the past 20 years, and the ways in which orality and literacy intersect in the Kuna world.