Hummingbirds of the cloud forest

When I originally tried to work with this song, a dance of the U’wa people of the cloud forests of north-east Colombia, I kept hitting walls. It was the hardest track I have ever tried to create. I had a niggling feeling that this dance may be a sacred song to the U’wa, who are still singing and dancing their songs. I was aware I had no permission from the U’wa people to use or alter it. Sacred songs, after all, are seen to be alive. 

 So I stepped back and found a new way into the track. I researched the many, incredibly beautiful names of some of the hummingbirds of Columbia, and voila! my song fell into place. In the tradition of many original intact cultures it is the humans who, through their singing and ceremony, sing the Earth back to life. So in this vein I like to think that saying the names of these exquisite birds is, in some small way, honouring them and reminding us of their existence. 

To create the track I recite these poetic names of these birds and accompany this simply with humming. The track of the U’wa singing their dance I clipped to the smallest possible bit, and slipped it as respectfully as I could into the last whisper of the track. 

U'wa Cobaria dance reimagined by Allis Hamilton.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds