Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please

Subject: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 01:34 PM

Whenever people refer to the wicked English (or rather British) government banning bagpipes in Scotland, the indefatigable Malolm Douglas always pops up to tell us this actually never happened.
Well, on Women's Hour(Radio4 UK) this morning, it was claimed that the playing of the mbira was banned by the wicked colonial government in Zimbabwe(then Sothern Rhodesia), and in other African countries as well )unspecified. can Malcolm Douglas, or anyone else, shed any light on the truth or otherwise of this? It seems odd on the face of it. You could understand banning bagpipes (rousing up the natives, bloody awful racket)....but the mbira??

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 01:48 PM

Greg,

If you've got a question for Malcolm, sending a PM would perhaps be a better approach.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 01:58 PM

Thats called a rhetorical question, I think. It is actually addressed to anyone who could shed any light on the subject, or express an opinion, including GUESTS. Malcolm Douglas is just the sort of chap who knows about things like this.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 01:59 PM

Wazza "mbira"?

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 02:03 PM

Not when it comes to African history, about which I know hardly anything; I have no idea at all about this.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 02:12 PM

Mbiras are thumb pianos, springy bits of metal mounted on a box or gourd and plucked with the thumb.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 03:43 PM

I've had a look around. Nothing conclusive, but:

It's certainly stated in a number of places that the mbira was banned in pre-Independence Zimbabwe; this site adds that playing it was an imprisonable offence, but also that the "colonial government feared its magical powers", which rather weakens credibility. No dates or references are given.

Chartwell Dutiro makes no mention of any formal proscription, but says that Salvation Army missionaries banned it in some places.

AFRICANEWS states "The Rhodesian Government, fearing that mbira music would inspire revolution, banned it from radio". This seems altogether more likely than some sort of official attempt at governmental level to ban the instrument altogether, though we appear to be talking about the "UDI" administration of Ian Smith, which I suppose might actually have been stupid enough to try.

It looks as if it was mainly a case of missionary interference again, with a recording and broadcast ban imposed from some time in the 1960s or 70s (presumably during the breakaway administration led by Smith), perhaps lasting until the fall of that government. Of course, I may be quite wrong; perhaps someone could give us precise dates and details of any legislation?

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 04:03 PM

The Stella Chiweshe publicity material(MD's first link) was I think what Woman's Hour was drawing on. Thanks, malcolm, I knew you'ld come up with something. This is an exceptionally interesting story, and I hope someone can come up with more.History abounds with tales of hostile repressive reaction against folk music/bards etc etc, and they are interesting iftrue, showing the power and fear inspired by traditional music. And equally interesting if untrue, the"folklore of folklore" effect. Malcolm has put his finger on it, I think. The colonial administrators are hardly likely to have been scared of the magical powers of the mbira, but the Smith regime undoubtedly censoredthe media heavily and all sorts of African music must have been removed. But an actual ban on the mbira? cant believe it. (1) Nobody would be that stupid. (2) If they had been that stupid, lefty world music supporters would have heard the story before now, Mugabe and Nkomo had plenty of supporters in the British press who were always up for a liberation struggle story.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 04:05 PM

Ta for the 4-1-1

,-)

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 04:31 PM

Whats a 4-1-1?

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From:
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 05:41 PM

I guess you're not a North American, Greg.

Our telephone systems here, have always used 4-1-1 as the dial up for Directory Assistance. It was known for many years as Information. However, many cartoons and comedy sketches showed people calling it for information other than people's phone numbers. I remember one great cartoon which showed a panel with a child doing homework. He or she dialled up 4-1-1 for the information. "But it said: 'Dial 4-1-1 for information' in the phone book" was the final word-balloon.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 05:47 PM

Ta for the 4-1-1

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: curmudgeon
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 05:58 PM

I didn't realise how young you are, George. My memory includes dialing "0" to ask the operator; later dialing 1-555-1212 for in-state and inserting an area code after the "1" for out of state.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 05:00 AM

Maybe Smithy and the lads thought they were being used to pass coded messages - a la "Hello, hello" - listen carefully I will only play this once.

Greg said above: "...the Smith regime undoubtedly censoredthe media heavily ". He's been proved to be a bit of a Boy Scout in comparison to the present owner of the country.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 05:20 AM

The stories of these sort of things would make a great book. From the very real death of Victor Jara to the mythical(??) banning of the bagpipes. Via the strange case of the government stopping Prince Charles appointing a royal harper. And now the great Mbira Mystery.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 10:44 AM

Am I right in thinking that the mbira and kalimba are the same instrument. I can remember that the African musicologist Hugh Tracy used to market them.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 11:05 PM

The mbira and the kalimba are the same instrument. Hugh Tracy did and still does market them. We have had one of his instruments for many years. Also, we read somewhere that the mbira is the national instrument of Zimbabwe. Seems odd that the national instrument would be banned.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Pied Piper
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 07:17 AM

Thanks for the 192 Chaps. Highland pipes might not have been banned as such but were redefined as a "weapon of war". Two Pipers from the retreating Jacobite army were hanged in Preston Lancs, for carrying Pipes. All the best pp.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 10:20 AM

That was a single case, tried at York, in which a piper who was among the Jacobite forces captured while occupying Carlisle used the technical defence that, because he was not actually carrying a weapon, he couldn't be said to be bearing arms against the king, and was therefore not guilty of treason. The judge held that, because a regiment would not march without a musician, the pipes were in that sense equivalent to a weapon. James Reid was not executed for carrying pipes, but for active service in a rebellion against the crown. The fact that he was carrying pipes rather than, say, a pike, was held to be no excuse.

It seems to have been an unnecessary bit of judicial "cleverness" (in exchange perhaps for an "over-clever" plea), and has helped to distort history ever since. The judgement was never used as a precedent, and the legal definition and status of the pipes was not changed or otherwise affected.

Two pipers were found guilty of treason at York; one was hanged, the other transported. Two others were tried and acquitted, having successfully claimed to have been forced into service with the rebels against their will. There appear to be no other cases of pipers being prosecuted as pipers.

I quoted a relevant passage from the standard work on the subject, John G. Gibson's Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745 - 1945, (McGill-Queen's University Press/ National Museums of Scotland, 1998) in this earlier discussion; MusicalBS: Bagpipes in America.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Azizi
Date: 15 May 06 - 09:51 PM

I found this thread while "mudcatting" for archived threads that mention African music.

See this information about the mbira:

"The mbira (also known as sanza or thumb piano) is a unique kind of tuned percussion instrument. You produce sound by using your thumbs and fingers to pluck very thin strips or tongues of metal, wood or cane. These strips are attached to a gourd resonator or wooden box, often with sound holes. Sometimes, jingles or beads are added to the keys to create a rich, buzzing tone. You can change the pitch of each key by fixing wax to its free end, or by increasing or decreasing its length.

Among east African peoples, the delicate sound of the mbira is said to create a link between human and spiritual worlds, enabling the trance possession of people by spiritual beings. Depending on the context, these instruments may be played singly or in pairs. Among the Shona nations, ensembles of up to twenty mbira players performed at ceremonial events.

Mbiras travelled with African people to South, Central, and North America and to the Caribbean, particularly during the slave trade. In Brazil, these instruments are called a marimbao. In the Americas, mbiras are a vibrant expression of the rich heritage of the African peoples of these communities."

Information about various folk instruments

-snip-

I'm wondering if attempts to ban the mbira {thumb piano} among the Shona people of Zimbabwe, South Africa might have been like banning drum playing by enslaved African Americans in the US South.

In traditional African societies drums were considered sacred {and may still be considered that way among some modern day Africans}. Traditionally {and still today} mbiras are considered sacred in Zimbabwe and some other African nations.

It is common {among some African Americans and others I suppose} to assert that the reason why drums were prohibited in the US slave states at some point [historians can insert when] was that the drums signaled slave revolts. Maybe this was true, and maybe it was a fear turned into a "rural legend". But even if that reason for banning drums was true, it seems to me that it is too simplistic an explanation of what drums meant to enslaved African Americans.

Could it [also] be that drum playing was prohibited because it served a psychological, spiritual, physical healing, motivating, power giving unifying purposes among enslaved African Americans?

See this quote about Stella Chiweshe:
"Zimbabwe's foremost Mbira player, Stella Rimbisai Chiweshe - " The Queen of Mbira" - blends haunting mbira lines with percussion and call & response singing behind her evocative vocals. She sings and plays songs of liberation, spiritual experience and social commentary. The effect is the mbira dzaVadzimu, the classic Zimbabwean thumb-piano, which is a medium for playing songs handed down from generation to generation for centuries and for maintaining contact with the spirits of the Shona people. The Mbira consists of 22 to 28 metal keys mounted on a hardwood soundboard and is usally placed inside a large gourd resonator (deze). The keys are played with the two thumbs plucking down and the right forefinger plucking up."

http://www.cdroots.com/hm-chiwese02.html


-snip-

I would like to emphasize this sentence from that quote:
"She sings and plays songs of liberation, spiritual experience and social commentary."

Is that enough reason for banning that instrument? In a repressive culture. Yes.

Is that the same thing that happened in the US slave South? Maybe.

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 15 May 06 - 11:50 PM

G'day Greg, Malcolm, Azizi et al,

All this happened a long way from here ... but, I heard a story that bears, tangentially on the 'suppression', if not banning, of "thumb pianos".

Back in the early 1980s, Ewan McColl & Peggy Seeger were visiting Sydney. At a Master Class, which I attended, Ewan mentioned that he had attended some anthropological conferences. At one (many years before) he was intrigued see a great number of American officials - particularly of military persuasion. Amongst a group of US (Navy ... ?) delegates he was surpised to see Margaret Mead - complete with US (Navy?) ID tags.

In discussion, Margaret Mead explained she was employed to promote American culture in "third world" countries ... and cited, as evidence of her success, that - over the time she was working on this - the playing of "thumb pianos" had dropped by a considerable degree ... and the playing of juke boxes had increased by a similar amount.

I only have this "third-hand" ... but I believe such matters may have been covered in the 1971 A Rap on Race with James Baldwin. I only raise them to indicate that Ian Smith was not the only one who thought that suppressing native / national instruments and music might further their own interests.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Mbira banned? Malcolm Douglas, please
From: Azizi
Date: 16 May 06 - 12:00 AM

Hello, Bob.

Thanks for that interesting story.

I remember reading about Margaret Mead in my college classes decades ago {I won't mention how many but the number rhymes with "door"}.

Well, I must say I'm surprised at this side of Margaret Mead-
not that I know her [okay, her work] well.

But it does put a new spin on one of her famous quotes:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

I guess it all depends on which thoughts those thoughtful, committed group of people are thinking.

;o)