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

Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa

the friction bow.

Figure 9.17.Chwana boys playing at the game called sebatlo.

Figure 9.18.Stringed instruments, Group III (a). 1, Zulu umqangala; 2, Swazi umqangala; 3, Xhosa inkinge; 4, Sotho (Bas.) lekope; 5, Thonga umqangala; 6, Pedi lekope; 7, Venda lugube; 8, Chwana lengope; 9, Korana !gabus.

Figure 9.19.Korana Hottentot playing upon the !gabus.

Figure 9.20.Venda girl playing upon the lugube.

Figure 9.21.Stringed instruments, Group III (b). 1, Damara outa; 2, Karanga tshipendani; 3, Venda tshigwana; 4, Ndebele isitontolo; 5, Thonga isitontolo; 6, Sotho (Bas.) setolotolo; 7, Pedi lekope; 8, 9, 10, Zulu isitontolo.

Figure 9.22.Pedi playing upon the lekope.

Figure 9.23.Stringed instruments, Group III (c). 1, Bushman nxonxoro; 2, the same obtained from a Zulu in Natal; 3, 4, Venda tshizambi.

Figure 9.24.Stringed instruments, Group III (c). 1, 2, 3, 4, Thonga zambi.

Figure 9.25.Bushman playing upon the nxonxoro.

Figure 9.26.Thonga playing upon the zambi.

Figure 9.27.Stringed instruments, Group III (d). 1, 2, Swazi utiyane; 3, Xhosa umrube.

Figure 9.28.Pondo playing upon the umqunge.

Figure 9.29.Swazi playing upon the utiyane.

Figure 9.30.Pondo playing upon the isankuni.

Figure 9.31.Ovambo ‘guitar’.

Figure 9.32.Bushman playing upon the ≠goukha:s.

Figure 10.1Bushman violin made from tin.

Figure 10.2.Bushman violins made from 1, skin and 2, cardboard and wood.

Figure 10.3.Hottentot playing upon the ramkie.

Figure 10.4.‘The Dark Fantastic’, from a drawing by Charles Bell, about 1840, showing Malays playing upon drum, sea-weed horn, and ramkie.

Figure 10.5Stringed instruments. 1, Korana ramkie, 2, 4, ramkies made from tins; 3, Bushman !gawu-kha:s; 5, Bushman ramkie, original type.

Figure 10.6.Korana boy playing upon the ramkie.

Figure 10.7.Chwana boy playing upon the ramkie.

Figure 1.1. Bushman ankle-rattles made from springbok ears. Photograph by W. P. PAFF.

— CHAPTER ONE —

RATTLES AND CLAPPERS

DANCING is a most important feature of the social life of all the native peoples of South Africa, and, as an adjunct to the dance, rattles of different kinds are almost invariably used.

The Bushmen had two or three varieties. Pride of place must be given to the dainty ankle-rattles which their women fashioned from the ears of the springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis). They were observed by Burchell (1812),¹ who described them as worn by a Bushman. ‘Round each ankle he wore a sort of rattle, made (in this instance) of four ears of the springbuck, sewed up and containing a quantity of small pieces of ostrich-egg shell, which at every motion of the foot produced a sound that was not unpleasant or harsh, but greatly aided the general effect of the performances.’ Burchell gave a drawing of the rattle on the leg of a dancer,² and he actually obtained the instruments used by the performer. They are preserved in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, where I examined them through the courtesy of the curator, Mr. Henry Balfour. They are black with age and shrivelled up. Two pairs, however, may be seen in South Africa, one in the McGregor Museum, Kimberley, and the other in my collection, given to me by the late Miss D. F. Bleek. Both sets were used by Cape Bushmen, and were made by a Bushwoman near Prieska. They were obtained in 1910. One rattle from the former pair is shown in Figure 1.1. It consists of five ears, beautifully sewn with sinew.

In Bleek and Lloyd’s Bushman Folklore³ there is a quaint account, in the vernacular, of how these dancing-rattles, which were called /keriten, were made by the Qung Bushmen. Miss Lloyd translates it thus:

A woman takes off the skin [i.e. the hairy skin] of the springbok’s ear; and then, she sews the inner skin of the springbok’s ear, when she has laid aside the (hairy) skin of the springbok’s ear; for it is the inner skin of its ear which she sews. And she sews it, and she scoops up with her hand, putting soft earth into it. And they dig, lading in earth, because they wish that the springbok ears may dry; that they may put in //kerri berries when they have taken out the earth. And then they tie on a small piece of sinew at the top of the springbok ear, which was open, while they tie shutting in the //kerri berries, so that the //kerri berries may not come out of the springbok ears; and they put in little threads, which the men are to tie, fastening the springbok ears to their feet.

These rattles were made by the women, and always used by the men, who wore them on their insteps, with the pointed tips uppermost. In the description of a dance, also taken down in the vernacular by Dr. Bleek and translated by Miss Lloyd, there is a passage which contains a hint of a specialist maker of the /keriten: ‘The dancing rattles which the men tie upon their feet sound well, because a woman who works nicely is the one who has worked them. Therefore, they sound nicely, because they are good.’

In the passage which I quoted from Burchell it will be noticed that he used the words ‘a sort of rattle, made (in this instance) of four ears of the springbuck’; and he was correct in so qualifying his description, for dancing-rattles made from other materials were also in use among the Bushmen. The commonest of these are made from a number of empty cocoons, containing a few pebbles, or hard seeds, and strung on two cords of fibre. One of these rattles is from one and a half to two yards in length, and one is wound round each of the performer’s legs and tied securely in position. They are in use at the present day among the Masarwa, and also among the Red Dunes Bushmen of the western Kalahari. A single rattle of the latter people is shown in Figure 1.2. Miss Dorothea Bleek,⁴ in her study of the Naron of the central Kalahari, describes these rattles as made and used by the men of that race. She notes that the cocoons are threaded upon sinews, and that it is the dried grubs within them that cause them to rattle.

Figure 1.2. Bushman ankle-rattles made from cocoons. Photograph by W. P. PAFF.

Chapman,⁵ who in 1852 saw a Bushman dance near Goroge’s Post, described the leg-rattles used by them as being made of the fruit of the moana, the shells of which, perforated with holes and the pulp removed, were tied to the calves of the legs of the men, and rattled as they danced.

Dornan⁶, in his study of the Tati Bushmen, or Masarwa, recorded the use of the rattles of springbok ears by that race, and also ankle-rattles made from ‘the hollow shells of a kind of wild bean’.

Stow⁷ described what, according to him, were known as ‘Bushman bells’. They were made from the skin of the springbok, and might be large or small. The small variety, as Stow describes them, was probably the rattle of springboks’ ears; the larger type, he said, was in the shape of a large hollow sphere, and it was fastened to either the upper arm or shoulder. Unfortunately

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