Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa. Percival Kirby

Vaillant, F., Voyage dans l’intérieur de l’Afrique, Paris, 1790, vol. ii, pp. 248–9; English translation, London, 1790, vol. ii, pp. 128–9.

      14Sparrman, A., Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, second edition, London, 1786, vol. i, pp. 229, 355.

      15Mahillon, V., Catalogue du Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire de Bruxelles, Gand, 1912, vol. iv, p. 167.

      16Arbousset, T., and Daumas, F., Relation d’un voyage, &c, Paris, 1842, p. 54; English translation, London, 1852, p. 54.

      17Ibid., Paris, 1842, pp. 487–8; London, 1852, p. 353.

      18Mahillon, V., Catalogue du Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire de Bruxelles, Gand, 1912, vol. iv, p. 3.

      19Kirby, P. R., ‘The Music and Musical Instruments of the Korana’, in Bantu Studies, Johannesburg, 1932, vol. vi, No. 2, p. 183.

      20Berliner Missionsberichte, No. 1, Jan. 1852, p. 17.

      21Alexander, J. E., Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa, London, 1838, vol. ii, pp. 182–3.

      22 Moodie, J. W. D., Ten Years in South Africa, London, 1835, vol. ii, pp. 250–1.

      23Campbell, J., Travels in South Africa, London, 1815, p. 433.

      24Shaw, B., Memorials of South Africa, London, 1840, p. 44.

      25Rose, C, Four Years in Southern Africa, London, 1829, p. 146.

      26Maclean, J., Compendium of Kafir Law and Custom, Mount Coke, 1858, p. 159.

      27Bryant, A. T., Zulu–English Dictionary, Pietermaritzburg, 1905, (bula and is-angoma).

      28Kropf, A., Kafir–English Dictionary, Lovedale, 1899; second edition, 1915.

      29Tongue, M. H., Bushman Paintings, Oxford, 1909, Plates XIV and XV.

      30Cook, A. W., ‘History and Izibonga of the Swazi Chiefs’, in Bantu Studies, Johannesburg, 1931, vol. v, No. 2, p. 198, ll. 25–6.

      31Harries, C. L., The Sacred Baboons of Lomondo, Johannesburg, 1929, p. 11.

      32Alberti, L., De Caffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika, Amsterdam, 1810, p. 159.

      33Rose, C, Four Years in Southern Africa, London, 1829, p. 141.

      34Lichtenstein, H., Reisen im südlichen Africa, Berlin, 1812, vol. i, p. 441.

      35Chase, J. C, Natal Papers, Grahamstown, 1843 (Part I), pp. 129–30.

      36Kropf, A., Kafir–English Dictionary, Lovedale, 1899; second edition, 1915.

      37Döhne, J. L., Zulu–English Dictionary, Capetown, 1857.

      38Davis, W. J., A Dictionary of the Kaffir Language, London, 1872, Part I, Kaffir–English.

      39Colenso, J. W., Zulu–English Dictionary, Pietermaritzburg, 1878.

      40Bryant, A. T., Zulu–English Dictionary, Pietermaritzburg, 1905.

      41Samuelson, R. C., King Cetewayo Zulu Dictionary, Durban, 1923.

      42Balfour, H., ‘The Friction-Drum’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 1907, vol. xxxvii, pp. 67–92, and Plates xii–xiv.

      43Casalis, E., Les Bassoutos, Paris, 1859, pp. 155–6.

      44Martin, M., Basutoland, its Legends and Customs, London, 1903, p. 48.

      45Stayt, H. A., The BaVenda, Oxford, 1931, p. 53.

      46 Ibid., passim.

      47Roberts, N., ‘Bantu Methods of Divination’, in South African Journal of Science, Johannesburg, 1916, vol. xiii, p. 406.

      48Junod, H. A., Life of a South African Tribe, second edition, London, 1927, vol. i, pp. 430.

      49Ibid. pp. 479–504.

      50Harries, C. L., The Sacred Baboons of Lomondo, Johannesburg, 1929, pp. 172–4.

      51Mayr, F., ‘A Short Study on Zulu Music’, in Annals of the Natal Government Museum, London, 1908, vol. i, Part 3, pp. 259–60.

      52Bryant, A. T., Zulu–English Dictionary, Pietermaritzburg, 1905.

      53Colenso, J. W., Zulu–English Dictionary, Pietermaritzburg, 1878.

      Figure 3.1. Calabash resonators of Venda mbila. Photograph by W. P. PAFF.

— CHAPTER THREE —

       XYLOPHONES AND ‘SANSAS’

      THE most elaborate musical instrument found in South Africa is the resonated xylophone, commonly called marimba. Two varieties are met with, the first among the Venda and the second among the Tshopi. Both are called by the same name, mbila, and both are constructed on the same principle; but the two types are made from different materials, and the two races have each their own manner of performance.

      The earliest reference to the instrument that I have been able to discover occurs in Fr. João dos Santos’ description of his visit to eastern Ethiopia in 1586.¹ The people he described were Karanga. The present-day successors of this race do not appear to use the instrument to any great extent, but their South African neighbours, the Venda, certainly do; and it seems to be their form of the instrument, rather than that of the Tshopi, that dos Santos describes with the greatest accuracy and detail in Book I, Chapter 10 of his account.

      Quiteve (the chief) makes use of another class of Kaffirs, great musicians and dancers, who have no other office than to sit in the last room of the king’s palace, at the outer door, and round his dwelling, playing many different musical instruments, and singing to them a great variety of songs and discourses in praise of the King, in very high and sonorous voices. The best and most musical of their instruments is called the ambira, which greatly resembles our organs; it is composed of long gourds, some very wide and some very narrow, held close together and arranged in order. The narrowest, which form the treble, are placed on the left, contrary to that of our organs, and after the treble come the other gourds with their different sounds of contralto, tenor, and bass, being eighteen gourds in all. Each gourd has a small opening at the side near the end, and at the bottom a small hole the size of a dollar, covered with a certain kind of spider’s web, very fine, closely woven, and strong, which does not break. Upon all the mouths of these gourds, which are of the same size and placed in a row, keys of thin wood are suspended by cords so that each key is held in the air above the hollow of its gourd, not reaching the edges of the mouth. The instrument being thus constructed, the Kaffirs play upon the keys with sticks after the fashion of drum-sticks, at the points of which are buttons made of sinews rolled into a light ball of the size of a nut, so that striking the notes with these two sticks, the blows resound in the mouths of the gourds, producing a sweet and rhythmical harmony, which can be heard as far as the sound of a good harpsichord. There are many of these instruments, and many musicians who play upon them very well.

      This is an extraordinarily interesting description. Its date clearly shows that the instrument was developed entirely without European influence. It will be noted that performers upon it were specialists, and that its name ambira is the same as mbila, by which it is known to-day. Further, that the beaters had heads made of balls of sinew, not of rubber, which is invariably used at the present time. This remark about the beaters explains why one pair in my possession has heads of thin rubber threads wound into balls upon the sticks. The rubber has been taken direct from the tree and wound thus after the manner of the sinew of old. This pair of sticks will be seen in Figure 3.11. João dos Santos’ statement that the slabs of wood of higher pitch are placed to the left of the instrument does not hold