Cover -- Contents -- 1 YODELING FOR ALTERNATIVES: AN INTRODUCTION -- The Quintessential Emblem -- BaAka "Pygmies" -- Bagandou -- Justin Mongosso -- A Quick Note on Language -- Critical Sensibilities and Socioesthetics -- Performance Ethnography -- About the Musical Illustrations -- BaAka Modernity -- On with the Story -- 2 BEARINGS ON PLACE, CIRCUMSTANCE, AND PERFORMANCE -- Telling an Arrival -- Cutting through the Historical Backdrop -- Language and Legends -- A Befogged Introduction to the Dance Called Mabo -- Early Reflections Outward, Inward, and Forward -- 3 AT NDANGA: "LIFE IN AN AFRICAN FOREST" -- Sketching Ndanga: Notes on Social Organization -- Reaching Ndanga: Sickness and Ceremony -- The Basics of Mabo -- An Unexpected Turn: Women's Dances -- Interim Refiections: Sensory Overload and the Limits of Prose -- Back to Ndanga to Study: Meeting Sandimba and Djongi -- A Gano Soirée with Sandimba -- Going Net Hunting -- Mabo and Net Hunting -- Justin, Ndanga, and the Power of Cigarettes -- A Focus on Elamba Songs -- Reluctance from Djongi -- 4 SEEKING THE MOTHER OF ELAMBA -- To the Congo -- Down the Oubangui River -- Up the Ibenga River -- Meeting Bongoï in Mopoutou -- Demonstrations, Initiations, and Misdirected Prestations -- Obstructed Return -- 5 SEIZING THE DANCE: AN APPRENTICESHIP IN ELANGA'S CAMP -- Elanga and Company in Bagandou -- To an Eboka with Elanga: Elamba Song and Percussion in More Detail -- Identity Crisis -- Settling In -- Exacting Negotiations: A Homecamp Elamba -- Socioesthetics: Zooming In -- Socioesthetics: Zooming Out -- Perceiving BaAka Song Style: Mabo -- Joining Mabo -- Hearing Ndambo -- An Elamba Debut -- Shadow Boxing the Ethnographer Hero -- 6 "TAKING" MABO: SOCIOESTHETIC DETAIL -- Receiving Friends from Kenga -- "Makala": A Mabo Song -- Sidelong Glances and Social Commentary -- The Detail -- Aftermath.

What Is Mabo Worth? -- 7 WOMEN'S DANCES DINGBOKU AND ELAMBA: THE POLITICS OF GENDER -- Contested Territories -- Are BaAka "Egalitarian"? -- Performing the Feminine -- Gender Tiffs -- Distress Performed -- Origin Myths, Academic Debates, and a Performance Perspective -- 8 THE "MATTER OF GOD" -- Initial Commotion -- Some Background -- Colliding World Views -- The Controversy Comes Home -- Masoï Confesses an Unexpected View -- BaAka Cosmology -- Evangelists, Apes, and Afterlife -- Dzanga: The "Matter of God" -- Talking to Evangelist Bala-bala -- 9 CONTINUATIONS: MANAGING MISSIONARIES AND MODERNITY -- Reality Check: Nola, Bayanga, and Louis -- Waylaid -- Farewell Lessons, Natural and Manmade -- Three Years Later -- To Ndanga: Dances Ekpelú and Njengi -- Back toward Dzanga -- The God Dance in Full Flower -- Zokela Interlude: Multiple Modernities -- To Mopoutou via Masilako: Mado's Crisis -- Mopoutou Revisited -- Missionary Reprise -- Time Perspective: Nzapa and Njengi -- Njengi at Djongo -- Focusing Controversy, Engendering Meaning -- Appendix -- Notes -- Glossary -- A -- B -- D -- E -- G -- K -- L -- M -- N -- S -- Track Notes for Compact Disks -- References -- Selected Discography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.