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

12.2 Periodisation ofAfrican Eclectic Compositions
12.2.2 Second period
Early Choral Composers and the Imitation of Hymns
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The missionaries came with their songs from
overseas and tauf5ht us. Then we developed
from there. Thats wl!J!you find that the earlY
compositions were almost I!J!mn like. 62
It is remarkable that, after Ntsikana's death, more than thirty years passed before the ftrst generation
of composers from a mission school background emerged. Their music was very different
from the works of Ntsikana as they were modelled closely on the hymns taught by the missionaries.
Given the fact that towards the mid-nineteenth century, Ntsikana had already attained the status of
a prophet and his compositions enjoyed wide popularity - certainly one of the reasons why Bokwe
published a series of notations of Ntsikana's hymns between 1878 and 1914 - it seems surprising
that the generation following Ntsikana did not attempt to continue this tradition. Asked for an explanation
of this, Khumalo argues that, unlike Ntsikana, who remained independent when formulating
and practising his indigenous Christian theology,63 the fust generation of mission-educated
composers was fumly integrated into mission station life and strongly influenced by the missionar­
les:
You have to understand the difficulty that most people have gone through: the Christian church did not
like African traditional music, in fact, [when] they spoke about African traditional music, they said it was
pagan music... Yes, it was something that was very beautiful, but which was forbidden us - our own thing
forbidden US!64
The fact that BOkwe was able to publish his songbook Amaculo esoLovedale through Lovedale
Press, suggests that missionaries did encourage the use of church music composed by these converts.
65 Browsing through hymnbooks published in the nineteenth century, however, reveals that not
a single hymn was composed in a traditional African musical style, taking up Ntsikana's model. In
most cases, melodically, harmonically and rhythmically, those compositions were purely Western in
idiom.
In the fust part of this thesis, we saw that the missionaries demanded that their fust converts
should commit themselves to Christian belief exclusively: they had to be members of the mission
church, in most cases residents of the mission station, and were prohibited from maintaining any
form of contact with their 'heathen' communities. Missionaries aimed at separating their converts
from their traditional way of life so as to mould a new identity secure from 'heathen' influences.
The converts were quick to adopt the missionaries' doctrine, and soon developed a marked craving
to be progressive and 'Europeanised' in all aspects of life. In the field of music this meant that they
needed to be proftcient in the singing of hymns, and "the blessings which came with the White
62 Personal communication with Leslie kuna, Grahamstown,]uly 02, 2000.
63 It is only after Ntsikana's death that his followers joined the new mission at Tyhwne near Alice in the Eastern Cape
under his instigation.
64 Personal communication with Mzilikazi Khumalo,]ohannesburg, SAMRO, February 13, 2001.
65 In the Preface to his songbook, Amaculao ase Lovedale, Bokwe even acknowledges the "encouragement extended to
this hwnble effort by the Lovedale Mission Press".