South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the ...

126 Music at the Mission Station and the Importance ofthe Hymn
5.2 Early Musical Encounters: Missionaries and their Music
But do remember that even in the church
there were groups that were taught how to
sing the I?Jmns I:ry the priest. So that people
didn'tjust listen but thry were aftualfy taught
how to sing the I?Jmns correctfy.!)
Thulasizwe Nkabinde suggests that "the first major influence of missionaries on African music was
in church: hymns taught in four parts - soprano, alto, tenor and bass - and Western harmonies".16
Early reports, diaries and letters show that the missionaries used hymns as a medium to frame, de­
pict and emphasise the Christian message in their mission work. Hymn singing was associated to
such an extent with the "educated Native" that Anthony Trollope, who visited South Africa in the
1870s, commented in his travel diaries:
Out in the world, as I have said before, among the Europeans who regard the Kafir simply as a Savage to
whom pigeon-English has to be talked, it is asserted broadly that all this education leads to no good results
- that the Kaflt who has sung hymns and learned to do sums is a savage to whose natural and native
savagery additional iniquities have been added by the ingenuity of the white philanthropist.l7
Even though this statement reveals Trollope's critical view of the colonists' mindset, it also indi­
cates the importance of the singing of hymns and psalms in mission education. Elsewhere Trollope
notes a common view that "the Kafir is a very good fellow, and may be a very good servant, till he
has been taught to sing psalms and to take pride in his rapidly acquired book learning".18 Trollope's
observations confirm that colonists wished to see the mission-educated black Africans not as members
of a new middle class, but essentially as 'savage'. As we have seen earlier, the colonists rejected
the missionary endeavour of educating the 'savages', arguing that this would turn good 'savages'
into bad ones. (see 2.3.2).
Be this as it may, it is obvious that by the latter part of the nineteenth century, the teaching of
hymns was to have an important influence on mission-educated Africans. One might speculate,
however, on whether the 'hymn' in the context of these quotations stands for a specific genre of
religious singing or, more generally, for a musical approach that was distinctly Western and which
set the mission-educated black Africans apart from their traditional background.
Many early reports of missionary thought and endeavour show a lack of sensitivity towards the
cultural richness into which they had stepped. At no point was a thorough effort undertaken to
inquire into the musical practice of the people they found upon their arrival. It is therefore clear
that at the time the missionaries arrived in South Africa they were not sufficiently equipped to understand
and value the subtleties of African music and song. To put it more explicitly, missionaries
"lacked all appreciation of what was good and useful and of what was genuinely valuable in the
15 Personal communication with Mzilikazi Khumalo,Johannesburg, November 18, 2000.
16 Personal communication with Thulasizwe Nkabinde,Johannesburg, November 21, 2000; see also D. D. Hansen, The
Ltfe and Work t1 Be1yami11 IjJamzashe, (Grahamstown: Rhodes University, Institute of Social and Economic Research,
1968): 2.
17 J. H. Davidson ed., South Africa l?JAntho1!J! Trollope: a Reprint t1 the 1878 Edition (Cape Town: Balkema, 1973): 175.
18 Ibid.: 166.