A myth’s nature in itself may cause the orator of said myth to question the explanations detailed within the story. It must be reiterated how an analysis of obscure mythic structures must be familiar with the culture of the ethnographic context (Douglas 1967: 66). The same sense of familiarity must also be applied to music and poetry. Again, the example of Suyá song shows that because music is an essential part of social production to the Suyá, its value can in no way be easily comparable to societies that treat music as a mere aesthetic novelty. It is no surprise that a lack of critical self-consciousness leads to “misreading of particular situations, either through ethnocentric and anachronistic projects of the key ideas onto the lives of people who think and act quite different…” (Rouse 1995: 352). Despite the preceding material about the precision of mythic, musical, and poetic allusions to societies, the diversity of sequences and themes is a perennial cloak of obscurity when it comes to different forms of literature. When analyzing social discourse, it is beneficial to report ethnographic findings in various ways, but it should never be forgotten that interpreting reality through myth, music, and poetry is never quite as simple as …show more content…
Myths are without an author, because “from the moment when they are perceived as myths, and despite their real origin, they exist only as they are incarnated in a tradition” (Lévi-Strauss & McMahon 1966: 64). It is as if out of nowhere comes certain meanings to individuals when myths are recounted, as so myths are reorganized and projected onto virtual or supernatural origins. The conditions to musical creation, on the other hand, is a mystery understood only to the few composers and skilled audience. After all, music is “a language by whose means messages are elaborated, that such messages can be understood by the many but sent out only by the few…” (ibid.: 64). Then there is poetry, a form of literature that lends itself to general usage. According to Lévi-Strauss, “any reasonably educated man could write poems, be they good or bad” (ibid.: 65). It is not to say that writing poetry is easy by any means. Rather, poetry operates through a primary form of communication the public could in no way misunderstand. It “utilizes a vehicle which is a common good: articulated language” (ibid.: 64). The vehicle of music, by contrast, is one that is exclusive, demanding skill of itself, for itself. The separation of affinities towards myth, music, or poetry can be understood as distinguished classes of creative