A woman can sing and dance but cannot dance with high leaps: musical performance of the Haya of Bukoba, Tanzania
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v9i2.1802Abstract
In the area covering the present day Muleba and Bukoba Urban and Bukoba Rural Districts, as is the case in other areas where Buhaya culture is predominant in the Kageraregion in Tanzania, musical performances - singing, dancing, and playing of musical instruments - are integral parts of everyday life. As is the case in many African societies, among the Haya musical performances are inseparable from the daily events and the social, political and cultural life of the community. Traditionally, events such as marriage, funerals, worship, installation, praise, and exaltation of kings (omukama), celebratory war dances (omutoro) and heroic recitations or self-praise recitations (ebyebugo), healing practices such as cleansing and chasing away evil spirits, and all occasions calling for celebration produced performances. In the contemporary Haya world, some such events (for example, war dances and installation of traditional leaders) have ceased, but the musical performances have been re-contextualized for religious, social, health and political purposes.References
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Meintjzes, Louise 2004 "Shoot the Sergeant, Shatter the Mountain: The Production of Masculinity in Zulu Ngoma Song and Dance in Post-Apartheid South Africa”, Ethnomusicology Forum 13/2: 173-201.
Mlama, Penina Mhando 1994 "Reinforcing Existing Indigenous Communication Skills: The use of Dance in Tanzania”. In Women in grassroots communication: Furthering social change, ed. Pilar Riano, 51-64. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Mulokozi, Mugyabuso M. 2002 The African Epic Controversy: Historical, Philosophical and Aesthetic Perspectives on Epic Poetry and Performance. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers.
Mutembei, Aldin Kaizilege 2001 Poetry and AIDS in Tanzania: Changing Metaphors and Metonymies in Haya Oral Traditions. The Netherlands: Leiden University.
Barz, Gregory and Judah Cohen 2008 "Music and HIV/AIDS in Africa”. In The Garland Handbook of African Music, Second Edition, ed. Ruth M. Stone, 148-159. New York and London: Routledge.
Barz, Gregory and Judah Cohen 2011 "Introduction: The Culture of AIDS: Hope and Healing Through the Arts in Africa”. In The Culture of AIDS in Africa: Hope and Healing Through the Arts, eds. Gregory Barz and Judah Cohen, 3-19. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blacking, John 1973 How musical is man? Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Bledsoe, Caroline 1984 "The Political Use of Sande Ideology and Symbolism”, American Ethnologist II (3): 455-472.
Brown, Bill, James Sorrel, and Marcella Raffaelli 2005 "An exploratory study of construction of masculinity, sexuality and HIV/AIDS in Namibia, southern Africa”, Culture, Health and Sexuality 7/6: 585-598.
Butler, Judith 2006 Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Carlson, Robert G. 1989 "Haya World Views and Ethos: An Ethnography of Alcohol Production and Consumption in Bukoba, Tanzania”. PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Comaroff, Jean 1985 Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Cory, Hans 1971 Customary Law of the Haya Tribe, Tanganyika Territory. London: F. Cass.
Cowan, Jane K.1990 Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Douglas, Mary 1970 Natural Symbols. New York: Random House.
Fodeba, Keita 1959 "The true meaning of African dances”, UNESCO Courier: 20: 18-23.
Fox, Aaron A. 2004 Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture. Durham: Duke University Press.
Frykman, Jonas 1994 "On the Move: The Struggle for the Body in Sweden in the 1930s”. In The Senses Still ed. C. Nadia Seremetakis, 63-85. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Geertz, Clifford 1988 Works and Lives: the Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Geiger, Susan 1987 "Women in Nationalist Struggle: TANU Activists in Dar es Salaam”, The International Journal of African Historical Studies 20/1: 1-26.
Gilman, Lisa 2009 The Dance of Politics: Gender, Performance, and Democratization in Malawi. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Gilmore, David D. 1990 Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven: Yale University.
Gotlieb, Alma 1990 "Rethinking Female Pollution: The Beng Case (Cote d'Ivoire)”. In Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender, ed. Peggy Reeves Sanday and Ruth Gallagher Goodenough, 113-138. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Gutmann, Matthew C. 1997 "Trafficking in Men: The Anthropology of Masculinity”, Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 385- 409.
1997 "The Ethnographic (G)Ambit: Women and the Negotiation of Masculinity in Mexico City”, American Ethnologist 24/4: 833-855.
Heath, Deborah 1994 "The Politics of Appropriateness and Appropriation: Recontextualizing Women's Dance in Urban Senegal”, American Ethnologist 21/1: 88-103.
Hebdige, D. 1979 Subculture: The Meaning of Style. New York: Methuen.
Herzfeld, Michael 1985 The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Kopytoff, Igor1990 "Women's Role and Existential Identities”. In Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender, ed. Peggy Reeves Sanday and Ruth Gallagher Goodenough, 77-98. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Koskoff, Ellen 1987 "An Introduction to Women, Music, and Culture”. In Women and Music in Cross Cultural Perspective, ed. Ellen Koskoff, 1-23. New York: Greenwood Press.
Lugalla, Joseph, et al. 1999 "The Social and Cultural Contexts of HIV/AIDS Transmission in the Kagera Region, Tanzania”, Journal of Asian and African Studies 1: 377- 402.
Martin, Randy 1990 Performance as Political Act: The Embodied Self. New York: Bergin Garvey Publishers.
Marcus, George E. 1998 Ethnography through Thick and Thin. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Maus, Marcel 1979 [1935] "Body Techniques”. In his Sociology and Psychology: Essays, trans. Ben Brewster, 95-123. London: Routledge.
Mascarenhas, Ophelia 2007 Gender Profile of Tanzania: Enhancing Gender Equity. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Gender Network Programme & Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.
McNeill, Fraser G. and Deborah James 2011 "Singing Songs of AIDS in Venda, South Africa”. In The Culture of AIDS in Africa: Hope and Healing Through the Arts, eds. Gregory Barz and Judah Cohen, 193- 212. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Meintjzes, Louise 2004 "Shoot the Sergeant, Shatter the Mountain: The Production of Masculinity in Zulu Ngoma Song and Dance in Post-Apartheid South Africa”, Ethnomusicology Forum 13/2: 173-201.
Mlama, Penina Mhando 1994 "Reinforcing Existing Indigenous Communication Skills: The use of Dance in Tanzania”. In Women in grassroots communication: Furthering social change, ed. Pilar Riano, 51-64. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Mulokozi, Mugyabuso M. 2002 The African Epic Controversy: Historical, Philosophical and Aesthetic Perspectives on Epic Poetry and Performance. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers.
Mutembei, Aldin Kaizilege 2001 Poetry and AIDS in Tanzania: Changing Metaphors and Metonymies in Haya Oral Traditions. The Netherlands: Leiden University.
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Published
2012-11-30
How to Cite
Ndomondo, Mathayo. 2012. “A Woman Can Sing and Dance But Cannot Dance With High Leaps: Musical Performance of the Haya of Bukoba, Tanzania”. African Music : Journal of the International Library of African Music 9 (2):[7]-31. https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v9i2.1802.
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