“Aboriginal Dances Were Always in Rings“: Music and Dance as a Sign of Identity in the Argentine Chaco

Abstract

We analyze circular song-dances, one of the dominant performing genres in the aboriginal rituals of the Argentine Chaco, focusing on the comparison between the Toba and Movoví. We examine the aesthetical structures and the performative processes of these expressions, including the role of our research. Discussing the iconic and indexical potential of music and dance, we show how these expressions evoke some aspects of their cosmological world as well as their experience of communitas, and how they have become a legitimate sign of an idealized unified "aboriginal identity" among the Mocoví, and a controversial and disputed sign among the Toba.