Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa. Percival Kirby
ngoma and murumbu. Photograph by P. R. KIRBY.
These instruments are usually played by women and girls, although the large ngoma, when the tshikona or national reed-flute dance is being performed, is generally played by a man, as is also the case when the drum is being played at the domba ceremony, or preparation of the young people for marriage. On both these occasions special modes of beating, demanding special skill, are employed. During the tshikona two ngoma are used, one being larger than the other. The larger is called ngoma nkulu, or the great ngoma, and the smaller is named thungwa. The names appear, however, to be relative, and applicable to the function of the drums in the music. The thungwa player keeps a steady beat throughout, while the ngoma nkulu player executes rhythmic variations. A musical example of these beats will be found in my description of the reed-flute ensembles of the Venda (vide p. 219).
The uses of the ngoma are manifold, and Stayt thus describes a number of them.45 It is employed as an accompaniment to the dances performed at the vhushu, or menstruation ceremony of the girls; and also as a signal, during certain portions of this ceremony, to warn men to keep away from the women, who are naked. It is also beaten to summon the initiates to the domba ceremony, at which the young people are taught everything pertaining to sex, and it is significant that sex matters are actually called dzingoma, or drums. At this ceremony, the nemengoza, a man who is in charge of the school of initiates, has in his care three sticks which are supposed to protect the school from evil influences. These he must keep in his hand, while the dancing is being carried on; but between the dances he may lay them upon the drums, and nowhere else. Another characteristic fact connected with the domba is that if the ‘sacred’ fire which has been lit by the doctor, and which is an essential feature of the ceremony, which takes place between sunset and sunrise, is allowed to die out, proceedings must stop and the drums must be reversed, while the doctor relights it with his firesticks. Yet another strange practice is that on the third night of the domba each initiate in turn must sit upon the ngoma, while the master of ceremonies sings matundi kwo dizula which means ‘the male first sits balanced’. When it is being played for the domba dances, the ngoma, as has been said, is suspended from a frame consisting of two poles about four feet high, with forked tops, which have been driven into the ground, and which carry a horizontal pole from which the drums hang.
The chief’s own drum is called ngoma khosi, and this term is also applied to one of the so-called ‘age sets’ in the social grouping of the Venda, which was, originally, a military grading of the boys, the members of which formed a ‘regiment’ for working or fighting. When the chief pays a visit to a kraal, he is greeted by the men who chant his praises, and by the ‘ululation’ of the women. If pleased, he beats the ngoma nkulu in the tshikona or reed-flute dance given in his honour. The spirits of departed chiefs have, like their living successors, their war-drums; and Venda tradition states that sometimes the sound of a war-drum, beaten by spirits, is heard proceeding from Pepiti Falls. A special manner of beating the drum was formerly employed to gather the people together in time of war, and another to signalize a victory after a fight.
Many of these practices observed and described by Stayt I have observed myself, together with several others. Those connected with the tshikona will be found in my description of that dance (vide 216). Another connects the ngoma with rain-making. At the kraal of Chief Sibasa, the paramount chief of the Venda, there is a very old ngoma which hangs from a frame in the quarters of the witch-doctor, who is of the Thonga race. This instrument was formerly used as a war-drum in the days when there was fighting in the northern Transvaal. It is now, however, used when there is a drought, and it is beaten by the chief himself in order to bring rain. If beaten by him, rain will fall within three days. The sound of the drum is like thunder; and thunder generally precedes rain! I was permitted to see this drum but was forbidden to touch it, since to white men it is taboo. These drums are usually kept under the narrow ‘verandah’ of one of the sleeping huts, so that they may be protected from rain; but in the dry season they are frequently left in the khoro or open meeting-place of the kraal. There they are available for practice when not required for official or ceremonial use; and I have seen at several kraals numbers of young girls seriously rehearsing the beats of the various dances. On such occasions one player kneels before the small drum, or thungwa, which rests on the ground in front of her, and sounds a steady succession of even beats with great force, holding the beater in either hand, and even changing it from hand to hand at her convenience. An older player, standing, takes the larger drum, or ngoma nkulu, tilts it into a slanting position with the left hand, and with the right hand grasping the beater, executes rhythmic variations upon it. The right hand only is used for this purpose.
The Venda ngoma has been adopted by certain of the Sotho-Chwana of the north-western Transvaal. The Rev. Noel Roberts47 described the instruments as made and used by the Bagananoa of Malaboch’s kraal prior to the storming of that chief’s stronghold and his final surrender to the Republican troops in 1894. Two sets of these drums are privately owned; one being a full set of five, and the other consisting of two only. These drums were called dikomana, and they were used for war and for magical purposes connected with fertility rites. Roberts emphasizes the fact that they were quite distinct from the usual moropa. Moreover, they were invariably consecrated by human sacrifice, which custom is, according to Roberts, enshrined in the Segananoa proverb ‘The man who makes the dikomana will see them with his eyes, but he will never hear them with his ears’. They were supposed to be ‘possessed’ or inhabited by the tribal spirit, and they were consequently jealously guarded, and hidden in a special hut. A note by Mrs. Franz states that at certain times libations of beer were offered by being poured upon the largest drum of the set. The set of five was called a ‘herd’, and the individual drums were named moradu, or the ‘big cow’ of the herd (the largest of the set), pau, maditsi, todiane, and bo-pampane. Like the Venda ngoma, these drums were carved from solid pieces of timber, with the handles characteristic of the drums of that people. The bo-pampane, however, had but one handle. The instruments varied in size, the largest having a diameter of eighteen inches, and the others diminishing in size, down to seven inches in the case of the smallest. The moradu and maditsi had a band of carving encircling the shell as in the case of the Bavenda ngoma; the remaining three were without ornament of any kind. One of the drums contained a pebble, and another a part of the femur of some animal. All the drums had ‘heads’ of undressed ox-hide. This set of dikomana was reputed to be over three hundred years old. I imagine, however, that their age has been considerably overestimated. Everything about them suggests Venda influence; the hemispherical shape, the characteristic handles, the carving, the pebble contained in one of them, and the suggestion of ‘possession’ by the tribal spirit, whose propitiation by occasional libations of beer recalls the similar Venda practice connected with the reed forest at Tshaula, as well as with the baboons of Lomondo, the spirits of Lake Funduzi and those of Pepiti Falls. For these reasons, I venture to criticize Roberts’s suggestion that the dikomana appear to have been modelled on the spherical clay pots of the Sotho. These drums were used at national crises, when all men who had been initiated in the dikomana ‘degree’ would be summoned to the chief’s cattle-kraal, where a solemn service would be conducted. Invocations, accompanied by the drums, would be chanted, and two or more of the men, ‘inspired’ by the spirits, and masquerading as such, would prophesy the course to be adopted by the people, using a curious ‘squeaker’ called sitlanjani (vide p. 188) which was supposed to represent the voices of the gods. Men only participated in this ceremony, the drums therefore being beaten by men, contrary to the usual Venda and Sotho practice. There is no doubt that in the northern Transvaal drums of this type are used, as has been frequently observed in more northerly parts of Africa, for conveying messages from one district to another. Mr. Roberts has informed me of a few instances of such ‘drum-code’ messages that have come to his notice. One of these, observed among the Magato, was a signal beaten upon a drum in order to warn the men to keep away from a kraal where female puberty rites were being performed. The signal consisted of the following rhythm, which was kept up without cessation throughout the night: