Análisis etnomusicológico de los cantos ujáj en la cultura tradicional shuar de la amazonía ecuatoriana

Abstract

The ujáj chants are part of the shuar traditional music, a binational indigenous tribe located in the Amazon forest, between the south-center region of Ecuador and the northwest region of Peru. They are feminine chants that were sang in different rituals associated with the tsantsa, the most important celebration of the shuar, held a few decades back. It consisted in the appropriation of the enemy’s strength through the beheading and head reduction. This paper inquires the uses and functions of the ujáj in the shuar culture and analyzes the musical structure, centered in the patterns, intervals and specially the hertz and cents measurement of the tonal heights that shows a different nature from the western music nature. Therefore, refuting the thesis that some researchers maintained that the shuar music structure is made from thre or four sounds (triphonia and/or tetrafphonia)