Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa. Percival Kirby
which is an assemblage of boys who gather together at night in company with a number of girls, the occasion being known as umtshotsho. The girls sing and the boys tshotsha, or chant in a deep voice. Like the ingqongqo, the ikawu is also played at the abakweta dances.
Figure 2.5. Swazi warrior with shield. Photograph by W. P. PAFF.
The playing of the ikawu manifestly represents a survival of the ceremonial use of the shield, which at one time was one of the weapons of the Xhosa. One of the Zulu words for shield is ihawu (which means a small shield used in dancing), and undoubtedly the shield itself was formerly one of the principal ‘drums’ of the Zulu. The Zulu shield consisted of the familiar oval of stout reinforced ox-hide stretched along a long staff, and with it the warrior was wont to emphasize the rhythm of his battle-songs, either by striking it with his club or assegai, or by bringing it down upon the ground with force. The practice was known as ingomane. Many writers have described this practice in the past, and it may occasionally be observed to-day. It was shared by practically all the native peoples who used the shield as a weapon, whether Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa, or Sotho. Two of the rock-paintings reproduced by Miss Helen Tongue depict natives drumming upon Sotho shields.29 In the isibongo or praises of Dhlamini, one of the Swazi chiefs, which were collected and translated by Cook,30 there is a reference to the practice.
Ndundumela ngoti lomgobo
Oluhlom’ Amandanda lubuye lunduzele.
This, as translated by Cook, means
They drum with the stock of their shields
Which the Amandanda use again and again.
A typical Swazi warrior, one of the bodyguard of Sobhuza II, Paramount Chief of Swaziland, is shown with his shield in Figure 2.5
The Rev. Robert Godfrey, who drew my attention to the ikawu of the Xhosa, points out that it is used in a dance in which cattle, specially trained, dance in the middle of the ring of men and women. As this statement may strike some of my readers as perhaps somewhat improbable, I shall give in its support several historical references and other evidence of its having been witnessed in the past.
Lichtenstein (1804–6)34 observed the remarkable ability of the Xhosa to train their cattle, which would obey their master’s voices or the sound of little pipes which they would blow. Further, he noticed that the chiefs would teach their riding oxen, on a given signal, to run loose among the people, who had to counter by thrusting them aside with dexterous strokes.
But an actual performance of a dance in which trained oxen took part was observed by the ill-fated Piet Retief at Umgungundhlovu, the kraal of Dingaan, a few months before he and his party were massacred by the Zulu tyrant. The description occurs in a letter sent by Retief from Port Natal in November 1837.35
In one dance the people were intermingled with 176 oxen, all without horns and of one color. They have long strips of skin hanging pendant from the forehead, cheeks, shoulders, and under the throat, and which are cut from the hide when calves. [Also noticed by Lichtenstein.] These oxen are divided into two’s and three’s among the whole army, which then dances in companies, each with its attendant oxen. In this way they all in turn approach the King, the oxen turning off into a kraal, and the warriors moving in a line from the King. It is surprising that the oxen should be so well trained; for notwithstanding all the shouting and yelling which accompanies this dance, yet they never move faster than a slow walking pace.
During these dances the men beat upon their shields with their knobkerries.
Kropf (1899)36 gave as the meaning of the terms ixaka or ixaka eliqutu as ‘an ox with hanging horns; the dancing ox’.
The ingqongqo and the ikawu are representative of a very elementary stage in the development of the membrane type of drum, since they have no resonator attached to them. A drum used, although rarely, by the Swazi shows the temporary conjunction of skin with resonator. This instrument is called intambula, the name being in all probability derived from the Portuguese tambor. It consists of a clay beer-pot, or imbiza, over which a goatskin, not trimmed into circular form, is stretched temporarily. The hair of the skin is first removed, and the skin itself wetted. The player places the imbiza before him, and an assistant holds the goatskin tightly over the opening of the pot. The player then beats the intambula with a reed or stick held in his right hand. Figure 2.6 shows the pot, skin, and beater, and Figure 2.7 shows two Swazi men playing upon the instrument. The intambula may be played by a single individual. In this case he places the skin upon the ground with two of the leg-pieces towards him. He then kneels upon these to keep the skin in position, and, raising the skin, he puts the pot upon the ground beneath it. Then drawing the far edge of the skin tightly over the pot with his left hand and holding it in that position, he beats the ‘drum’ with the stick held in his right hand. The instrument was formerly used during the completion of the initiation of a witch-doctor, as well as at certain Swazi dances, notably the gida, or wedding dance. Nowadays, when employed at all, it is used for exorcizing evil spirits, in the same way that the Thonga use their mantshomane or tambourine drum described below.
Figure 2.6. Swazi intambula. Photograph by W. P. PAFF.
A drum of somewhat similar appearance, and made from similar materials, although vastly different in technique and function, is the ingungu of the Zulu. This drum is now difficult to find, since the ceremonies at which it was originally used have practically disappeared, and to many of the Zulu it is unknown to-day. Very little has been written about it. I have found no mention of it in the works of travellers, but it figures in the dictionaries of Döhne (1857),37 Davis (1872),38 Colenso (1878),39 Bryant (1905),40 and Samuelson (1923).41 Döhne describes the instrument as a ‘kind of drum made by fastening a thin skin over a large basket. This was beaten like a drum, making a noise like ngu’. Davis states that it is ‘a kind of drum. It is constructed by placing a thin skin over anything hollow, as a calabash, which is beaten like a drum; hence, a drum.’ Colenso and Bryant define ingungu as a drum made by stretching a piece of skin over the mouth of a beer-vessel, and state that it was played at the time of the first menstruation of a Zulu girl. Colenso affirms that the girl herself played it by striking it with a stick, when it gave forth a sound like a gong; but Bryant holds that it was tapped by the hand as an accompaniment to some song. Both these authorities quote the Zulu proverb ingungu yaleyo ntombi kayakali, ‘The