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To create a choral reading of the text, transcribe
the poem
and add the "voices" as you would for a readers' theatre or play script.
This is a pdf file of the choral
reading.
Narrator: First four verses
Clouds: 5th verse
Saguaros: 6th verse
Clouds: 7th verse
Flowers: 8th verse
Saguaros: 9th verse
Clouds: 10th verse
and so on
In the manner of a cumulative folktale, each time
a new voice is added, the previous voices repeat in the order they entered
the poem: clouds, saguaros, flowers, women, grandparents, medicine man,
and headman.
The narrator comes back for the two verses that
begin with:
"Then out of the east..." and "The air fills with moisture..."
All the voices read the final two verses in unison.
At the end of the book, there is a page about
performing choral readings with students. As many students as can learn
to read in unison can work together to perform each voice. In a classroom
of thirty students, I ask two students to learn the narrator parts and
form groups of four for the other seven voices.
The oral tradition continues to be a key aspect
of modern-day Tohono O'odham culture. Please speak and perform this
poem with the reverence and respect
with which it was written.
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