Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression

Winner of the 1991 J. I. Stanley Prize of the School of American Research Now in its second edition, Sound and Sentiment is an ethnographic study of sound as a cultural system–that is, a system of symbols–among the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea. It shows how an analysis of modes and codes of sound communication leads to an understanding of life in Kaluli society. By studying the form and performance of weeping, poetics, and song in relation to the Kaluli natural and spiritual world, Steven Feld reveals Kaluli sound expressions as embodiments of deeply felt sentiments.

For this second edition the author has updated his original work with a new, innovative chapter that includes an interpretive review by its subjects, the Kaluli people themselves. He has also written a new preface and discography and revised the references section.