The re-emergence of Amahubo song styles and ideas in some modern Zulu musical styles.
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Date
1992
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Abstract
Amahubo songs are at the centre of the traditional Zulu cultural,
religious and political lives. Their age is often associated
with the very "beginning" of things, when the very
first Zulu people emerged from the bed of reeds.
As musical items amahubo tend to be easily associated with
the old, pre-colonial era when Zulus were in charge of their
lives and their destinies. The performance contexts of
amahubo songs are the wedding, the funeral of a King, Chief,
induna, umnurnzane, war and other commemorative ceremonies.
Amahubo are also called ceremonial music because of their
association with the ceremonial. Ritual and symbolism
dominate amahubo performance contexts, amahubo themselves
being symbols that stand for other ideas.
It is noteworthy that despite missionary and colonial
propaganda against traditional Zulu music and culture,
amahubo continue to survive and are still performed at clan,
regional and Zulu 'national' levels. In addition, there has
emerged new syncretic styles which demonstrate the fusion of
Zulu and Western (hymnal) musical ideas.
From time to time the new musical styles emphasize a Zulu
identity which makes them to be mostly symbolically associated
with or related to amahubo songs. Today, amahubo
and seven modern Zulu musical style can easily express a
broad statement of the Zulu ethnic entity of ,some seven to
eight million individuals. All these musical styles, when
claimed by Zulus draw "imaginary borders" between Zulus and
non-Zulus and get referred to as Zulu (ethnic or 'national')
music. such references, however, are situational. The period
1988 - 1992 in which research was conducted culminating in
this thesis has been marked by Zulu ethnic resurgence
characterized by the performance of amahubo songs and other
modern styles of religious, choral, wedding, mbhaganga, maskanda
and isicathamiya, all of which, through manipulation
of text and musical sounds, get situationally claimed for
the Zulu ethnic (national) identity.
Description
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1992.
Keywords
Zulu (African people)--Music--History and criticism., Theses--Music.