The Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of South Africa

Percival Kirby

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781868148288
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Ethnomusicology

Percival Kirby was a musician and ethnomusicologist and for many years head of the music department at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Between 1923 and 1933 he undertook more than nine expeditions as well as many shorter excursions around South Africa. He was hosted by local chiefs and taught to play the instruments he encountered. He managed to purchase many of them, and this collection, now known as the Kirby Collection, is housed at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town. First published as Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa in 1934, the book was the culmination of research trips undertaken by Percival Kirby. It became the standard reference on indigenous South African musical instruments. The bulk of the material is concerned with detailed information on the making and playing of each instrument, and is accompanied by a large number of musical examples. This third edition contains an introduction by Mike Nixon, Head of the Ethnomusicology and African Music at the South African College of Music, and new reproductions of the valuable historic photographs, but leaves Kirby's original text unchanged.

— 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 Stow did not state his authority, either in his work as printed or in the references which were incorporated in his original manuscript, and which Theal, his editor, deleted. I have not been able to verify this form of Bushman rattle.

The Hottentots, so far as I have been able to discover, never used dancing-rattles. They had an elaborate ensemble of reed-flutes (vide p. 193), which supplied music for their dances, and this has been described by many travellers, who make no mention whatever of dancing-rattles.

Dancing-rattles worn on the ankles were used by the Damara. Baines (1861)⁸ saw them; they were made from hard seed-shells, and, to the ears of the Damara, ‘sounded most melodiously’.

Figure 1.3. Chwana ankle-rattles made from cocoons. Photograph by W. P. PAFF.

The dancing-rattles of the Berg-Dama of to-day consist of long strings of cocoons like those of the Bushmen already described; like those, they are twined round the lower part of the dancer’s legs and tied securely. The Berg-Dama call them /kin or /namen. They are only used by men, and the occasion of their use is the dance called /geis, which in the past was a sacred ceremony. It was performed before a hunt in order to ensure success in the chase, or in time of drought, when the rains were overdue.

The Herero also possess dancing-rattles which they call ozohahi. These are made from cocoons, filled with small stones, which are strung on strips of leather, and tied round the ankles of the performer. The ozohahi are only used at the outjina or women’s dance, and only women are allowed to wear them, the men being mere spectators. Dr. Vedder has suggested that these rattles were acquired by the Berg-Dama and Herero from the Kalahari Bushmen.

Dancing-rattles, to be worn upon the legs of the performer, are used by the Chwana men who call them mathlo. They are made from cocoons of a moth (Gonometa postica) like the similar ones of the Bushmen, and they are, like them, constructed in long strings. One such string is seen in Figure 1.3 and Figure 1.4 shows how they were wound round the legs of a Bakgatla native. These rattles were observed by Burchell (1812)⁹ among the Batlaping, and he even obtained the name, which he rendered makków. He, however, said that they appeared to be made of skin, each separate ‘pod’ ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD BY MICHAEL NIXON
• PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
• PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO THIRD EDITION
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• 1 RATTLES AND CLAPPERS
• 2 DRUMS
• 3 XYLOPHONES AND ‘SANSAS’
• 4 BULL-ROARERS AND SPINNING-DISKS
• 5 HORNS AND TRUMPETS
• 6 WHISTLES, FLUTES, AND VIBRATING REEDS
• 7 REED-FLUTE ENSEMBLES
• 8 THE ‘GORA’, A STRINGED-WIND INSTRUMENT
• 9 STRINGED INSTRUMENTS
• 10 BUSHMAN AND HOTTENTOT VIOLINS AND THE ‘RAMKIE’
• 11 SOME EUROPEAN INSTRUMENTS PLAYED BY NATIVES
• APPENDIX
• ADDENDA
• INDEX