RESOUND a Quarterly of the Archives of Traditional Music
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RESOUND A Quarterly of the Archives of Traditional Music Volume 25, Number 3/4 October/December 2006 Senufo Balafon Music by HugoZemp Part two~ continued from Resound VtJl 25~ No 1/2 same time [film 2]. We find here a simultaneity of different words analogous to the one between the Repertoires: Themes connected to circumstances solo balafonist and a singer during funerals and Other sets of circumstances during which collective labor. different types of ensembles of balafons perform As for the dance-music of the IJ 9 ~ r ~ have more specific repertoires. Of the 60 texts celebrating the end of the cycle of initiation into the translated in Marianne Lemaire's article, all without poro, the baba ('father' in Jula) , leader in Nganaoni, exception had to do with work and competition. maintained that the young .female dancers knew The author correctly saw that contrary to the songs only dance steps, but not the words of the balafons, made to accompany tamping down the earthen understood only by initiates [film 2]. Forster floors of houses, there was not "the same profound' (1984:32) published translations for three balafon interweaving of the music and the gestures of tunes (or flute tunes ?) from the IJ 9 ~ r ~, but he is working, nor the same inclination in the music an initiate. At any rate there are other words played to imitate the movements made while working" on musical instruments and linked to the poro (1999:56). In effect, each worker wields his hoe at rites that are secret: those beaten on the big drums his own rhythm, independently of the rhythm and at funerals, whose meaning is only known to the the tempo of the music, in contrast to what is found drummers, who receive special training regarding it in many other forms of collective work in Africa, in (Forster 1997:316, 361, 396). which the rhythm of working movements is actually synchronized with music being played. JOY THROUGH BALAFON MUSIC At the c 3' 5m3 ceremony that takes place Amusement-game-music-dance before the boys go into the sacred woods, balafons Among the Kafibele Sen ufo - as in most and flutes play words directly connected to that African societies - activities that would be event and also to the relations between the sexes. characterized in the West as "musical" are not The adolescent boys who play transverse flutes know designated by an equivalent expression which the texts that go with their tunes; they use the words occupies the same semantic field. One word often to help memorize the tunes. Young girls who dance used in reference to balafon performances is k 5' 5 r i to them know the words "by their intelligence," as (definite singular), which includes such Weste~n- one of them said, without anyone having to teach °d"I eas as amusement, """" game, mUSIC, 0" "d ance, " them. The balafonists play different words at the whose verbal form is k~'~. Mills' dictionary of Tiebara speech gives 5 terms for "amusement" of are considered necessary. The leading poro masked which one is also translated as "music": k3'3r3. figure, wearing an animal-form head in sculpted Forster (1997:590) gives two different m~anings wood, has the task of assuring that the spirit has for k55r i (with no nasalization and no glottal left the dead person in order to travel to the "village stop): 1) "that which is hidden," 2) "music, dance" of the dead." For this purpose the masked person (without mention of the idea of amusement).? strikes with increasing rapidity a small drum that Francophone Senufo, speaking of a festive event is placed on top of the body wrapped in cloths. that includes music and dancing, generally use the During all of this ritual - from the moment the word "dance," a word whose acceptation for them is big poro drums are heard, struck by the initiates broader than it is in French, and which corresponds coming out of the sacred woods, up to the moment the drummers return to the sacred woods - the to their term k 5 ' 5 r 1. balafons and the other ensembles gathered for the Another ~o;d, used in a more restricted sense, funeral must keep silence. is closer to French "danser': yoo, whose nominal form singular is y 51 i. This is only used to describe "Without the balafon, there is no joy" bodily movements without reference to music or to Nahoua spoke these words while speaking the world of "amusement": for example, in speaking of other "doings of the poro" (c ama): the festive of the spinning movements of harp players, or of behavior two or three years befo;e the boys enter r i young girls dancing to the sound of the b 3 1 5 the sacred woods to be initiated (c 3' 5m3) and ensemble. the festivities that bring a six-year peiiod of At the funeral of an old initiated man, initiation (l)g~ r~) to an end. In both cases it is an the most important and costly of Senufo ritual "amusement-ga~e-music-dance of the doings of performances, two kinds of ensemble are indispensable: that featuring the drums of the poro, the poro" (c~m~ k~'~ r~) during which the balafon the men's initiatory society, and the k po y e balafon brings "joy" (fiida r i). Even during collective work ensemble. When the novices and the initiates of in the yam fields, this feeling is not lacking. the poro come out of the sacred woods marching in a column, beating long drums and barrd-shaped drums, and when they mill around the body wrapped in cloths, they are not p~rforming an RESOUND "amusement-game-music-dance" (k ~' ~ r i), but a A Quarterly of the Archives of Traditional Music "work of the poro" (p ~ r ~ fa 1il), that is, a ritual. Marilyn Graf, Editor There is nonetheless a word for "dance" (y 5 1 i) in We are pleased to accept comments, letters, and submissions. Please address your correspondence the more restricted sense of bodily movements that to RESOUND at: take place when, to the sound of drums, the masked Archives of Traditional Music ones (ya raj 0) come near the dead person one after Morrison Hall 117 the other, pressing against one leg, lifting another Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405 up, and finally mounting the body to pantomime a [email protected] sexual act. The day after the burial, they repeat the www.indiana.edU/-libarcbm same dance around a catafalque containing a stick Daniel B. Reed, Director wrapped in cloth to symbolize the dead person. Marilyn B. Graf, Archivist Suzanne Mudge, Librarian Forster (1999:58-59) has given a detailed Mike Casey, Associate Director for Recording SeIVices analysis of the role of these masked persons, who Megan Glass, Office Services Assistant do not produce an aesthetic pleasure for the people ISSN 0749-2472 who attend the ritual (initiates and the direct descendants of the dead person), but whose actions 2 Player ofthe small timpani kneels down to honor a guest (and earn a coin), Kafibele Senujo, 1964. According to the Senufo tradition, if you want to o f "amusement-game-muslc- . dance, "because t he cultivate a big field, you hire a balafon ensemble. When plea~ure of playing makes it easy to forget fatigue. it plays for the field workers, they are filled with joy. If The words struck on the balafon and the words this was a field [showing with an arm gesture], without sung by the singer, if there is one, not only give joy the balafon they would stop and leave the rest. But to workers, but ~lso "physical strength" (f pgu). A thanks to the balafon, to this joy, they'll work to the very few days after my arrival in Sirasso at the end of end. the rainy season, a old man, having learned that I - Finishing it thanks to the balafon? wanted to film people working collectively in the - Absolutely! With joy! The balafon is indispensable fields, came to tell me he was about to organize for us! [film 2] collective labor. Later in the day I received the message that the owner of the field to be worked In an inquiry in the Tiebara region (in which in wanted to reduce the expenses, essentially for collective labor had not been performed in twenty food and beer made from corn, which would be years), Marianne Lemaire (I 999:58-59) insisted connected to the hiring of musicians, and which to the contrary upon the "moral and physical would be added to the cost of the laborers. Still later suffering" that balafonists shared with laborers. I learned that the young people of his neighborhood According to her, the Senufo did not think of the refused to work without music, and finally a balafon playing as entertaining, in contrast with "friendly contest" indeed took place, with an the singing of voices, but as a kind of work she ensemble ofbalafons - otherwise the workers would compared to the demanding work of the laborers. not have used their hoes to pile up large hummocks At all events, in the Kafibele region, even if balafon of earth in the man's field, in which yam roots must playing during collective work can be called then be planted. 'work', it still remains just as much an example 3 The main day of a funeral, the day when the times to the sound of the same songs. The young body is buried and when a vigil or wake is also girls who dance behind the ensemble of balafons held, is called k ii f u1 0) "crying over the dead." at wakes or at informal dance panies also know a Nonetheless, as Forster wrote concerning the large number of popular tunes, as evidenced by the ceremonial dance during the enshroudment of the enthusiasm with which they sing them [disc 4, A5, dead person [film 5, commentary]: Bt].