1 Maskanda, Umkhosi Wokukhahlela and the Articulation of Identity in South Africa “Maskanda is not for Zulus only but for all of us. …Maskanda is our thing as African people. … [and] goes hand in hand with being African.” -- Mamaduna Umkhosi Wokukhahlela (“Royal Reed Dance”) is an annual ceremony celebrating virginity among girls and young Bhaca women from the KwaBhaca Great Kingdom.1 On the morning of the event, participants take a three-hour walk from the town of Mount Frere to the KwaBhaca royal kraal (the village community of KwaBhaca’s King Madzikane II) (see Figure 1). The women and girls, shirtless, dressed in short, beaded skirts, and carrying tall reeds, march to the accompaniment of traditional antiphonic singing, the repertoire varying from songs commenting on relationships to ones that boast of Bhaca strength. The carrying of the reeds represents the Bhaca’s connection to nature and recognizes the traditional belief that Bhaca ancestors descend from along the African riverbeds (where the tall reeds grow wild). Upon arrival to the royal kraal, these reeds are laid near the King’s residence, further marking the women and girls’ agreement to the ritual’s mandate of abstinence. Once their reeds are laid, the participants are provided brightly coloured strips of cloth, one for each year of participation in the ritual. These are carefully clasped to the beaded skirts, and serve as colourful, visual reminders of the participants’ commitment, which, although celebrated at this annual event, has often lasted their lifetime. 1 KwaBhaca is located in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, formerly the Transkei region, situated between the cities of Kokstad and Mthatha. 2 The community joins the participants in their walk to the royal kraal, either following behind on foot or inside vehicles that tread slowly after. At the front of the participants’ line march the virginity inspectors—the older women of the Kingdom who, in addition to verifying virginity testing of each girl or young woman, offer regular counselling sessions throughout the year. At these sessions participants learn the traditional Bhaca dances and songs to be performed at the rituals, and are also taught the myths and legends of the Bhaca ancestors. As one young participant says it, “It is where we learn to be proud Bhaca women” (interview, 2016). Halfway to the royal kraal the participants are met by a herd of cows and heifers, from which one heifer will be slaughtered later that day. Herded alongside the community to the royal kraal, the cows and heifers represent the community’s pride and acceptance of the girls and young women’s involvement in the ritual. With the arrival of the women and young girls to the royal kraal, the Bhaca dancing begins, with participants swaying in long lines to rhythmic, stomping movements meant to enable communication with the ancestors. “Ntombazanavala” (“Be careful playing with boys”), the lead singer calls out, followed by the unaccompanied response, “Ungadai amakhwenkwe ungavuli!” (“Hide your private parts!”). Soon after, a DJ, seated at the back of the ritual, begins playing popular cassettes and CDs of maskanda, the mass-produced recordings of Zulu music contrasting starkly to the live a cappella singing of traditional Bhaca songs. The playing of the recorded music is met with immediate shouts of appreciation from the crowd. Participants immediately change their dancing to include movements visually similar to the Zulu ngoma dance; the high kicks of ngoma are noticeably distinct against the Bhaca stomps (see Figure 2). Audience members, too, assume more participatory roles, some even jumping into the ritual space to dance alongside the participants. Others can be seen dancing on the side-lines, the men 3 (as they later confirm for the authors) competing with one another to achieve the highest ngoma kick. Maskanda, defined and marketed globally as a Zulu-specific musical genre, constitutes an important way of articulating Zulu identity within South Africa. Yet, in KwaBhaca, maskanda has become a tool for celebrating a contemporary Bhaca identity and fighting against HIV and gender-based violence. In this article we examine Umkhosi Wokukhahlela and its reliance on maskanda, and enquire into how and why maskanda was adopted in this ritual, and how that adoption impacts on issues like health and Bhaca identity. The authors emphasise how musical meaning may be attached to particular places, communities and themes (like health), and how that meaning may be borrowed and transformed to provide further opportunities for shaping individual subjectivities and social identities. Central to the discussion is how an epidemic like HIV changes a community, demanding it create new strategies of empowerment and awareness, requiring it revise traditions that foster collective identities based on positive and informed concepts of the disease. This article approaches materials collected during fieldwork conducted in KwaBhaca Great Kingdom, with the authors attending three separate Umkhosi Wokukhahlela celebrations, held 23-28 September 2013 (including the pre-celebratory workshops held 14-18 August of that year); 26-28 September 2014; and 30 September – 2 October 2016. Data was generated through ethnographic concepts and techniques, relying primarily on in-depth interviews and focus groups, conducted in English and isiBhaca (a language closely related to Swati), and involving a wide range of ritual participants, community leaders and audience members. Some 40 interviews were conducted and a dozen focus groups were consulted during the writing of this article.2 2 King Madzikane and the elder sisters made the request that the confidentiality and privacy of young ritual participants be maintained. As a result, we share the participants’ first names only in this article. Assurances that 4 The thematic findings are analysed using cultural and critical theories, borrowing especially from neo-Gramscian principles. The notion of “articulation”—understood by Antonio Gramsci as a way of reusing existing ideological or political frameworks for different purposes to those intended for them—is introduced as a methodological frame for discussing and analysing Umkhosi Wokukhahlela. As Leon De Kock writes, “South Africa has been a fertile ground for foundational binary inscription, a place of blatant dualisms, such as the civilised and the savage, settler, and indigene, White and Black, oppressed and privileged, rich and poor” (2001: 285). Such binaries are common in KwaBhaca Great Kingdom, and, as is argued in this article, the Bhaca challenge, control, articulate and negotiate those contradictory binaries through their adoption of maskanda in Umkhosi Wokukhahlela. The ritual transforms as a result, capable of cutting across age, gender and HIV status. Articulation provides us with a principle for discussing and analysing Umkhosi Wokukhahlela’s transformation in meaning, and, in the process, for thinking about local strategies for coping with HIV and gender based violence. In the words of Gramsci, “If the union of two forces is necessary in order to defeat a third, a recourse to arms and coercion can be nothing more than a methodological hypothesis. The only concrete possibility is compromise. Force can be applied against enemies but not against a part of one’s own side which one wants to assimilate rapidly and whose ‘goodwill’ and ‘enthusiasm’ one needs” (1971: 168). This article represents a single instance within a constellation of work by the authors reflecting wider analyses of Umkhosi Wokukhahlela: one essay examines Umkhosi Wokukhahlela as a health initiative (De Jong and Madzikane 2013b); another as an example of modernism (De Jong and Madzikane 2013a); and, this present essay, as a Bhaca ritual that employs Zulu music authors would use only first names in the published article were discussed with participants and their families prior to the interviews and at the start of focus group discussions. 5 as a vehicle for Bhaca collectivity. Each of these essays involves the collaborative effort of a cultural outsider and insider who, coming together to frame the questions that guide the research, have worked as a team to gather and interpret these studies. The essays represent an action-based methodology that is designed to encourage local actors to take active roles in gathering evidence and building research agendas, thereby repositioning them as producers rather than subjects of research. As co-authors, King Madzikane and De Jong came together frequently in person and over the telephone to analyse the collected research data, and to finalise working theses regarding Umkhosi Wokukhahlela. Portions of this research have been shared by both authors with the Bhaca people at public fora held during and directly following the Umkhosi Wokukhahlela rituals and at traditional Bhaca royal leadership meetings. This collaborative strategy has helped enable a deepening public understanding and acknowledgement of the social and cultural determinants behind Umkhosi Wokukhahlela. In the words of King Madzikane, “Nanette has shown us that, by getting the community involved in the research, the community is more ready to take ownership of the results of the research … Nanette’s research approach gives the community tools for making change and being part of change” (interview, 2015). [Figure 1] [Figure 2] Maskanda, ‘Zuluness’ and the Fragility of Definition Central to the argument in this article is the claim that uses of maskanda are doing particular and remarkable kinds of cultural and social work in Umkhosi Wokukhahlela. Maskanda—the Zulu pronunciation of the Afrikaans word musikant (‘musician’)—is a popular South African music style that began as songs of courtship sung by young Zulu men on their walkabouts or 6 by the loved ones who remained behind. When these Zulu men migrated to the cities for work, living with other migrant workers in black male hostels, “they transformed the nostalgic songs of love…into the multipart guitar melodies of migrant longing” (Coplan 2001: 112). In the 1930s, recording companies travelled South Africa in search of music to record and sell to African audiences.