I-VIII -- Introduction -- Semiotic Functions of Macro-parallelism in the Shokleng Origin Myth -- Oratory Is Spoken, Myth Is Told, and Song Is Sung, but They Are All Music to My Ears -- Three Modes of Shavante Vocal Expression: Wailing, Collective Singing, and Political Oratory -- Quoted Dialogues in Kalapalo Narrative Discourse -- The Report of a Kuna Curing Specialist: The Poetics and Rhetoric of an Oral Performance -- Styles of Toba Discourse -- Topic Continuity and OVS Order in Hixkaryana -- The Decline of Dialogue: Ceremonial and Mythological Discourse among the Shuar and Achuar of Eastern Ecuador -- Guide to Tape Selections -- Index