This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Fiddles in Luso-Afro-Brazilian cultures subaltern aesthetics Moretto, Luiz Fernando Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 05. Oct. 2021 FIDDLES IN LUSO-AFRO-BRAZILIAN CULTURES: SUBALTERN AESTHETICS Luiz Moretto PhD King´s College London 2018 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the significance of bowed stringed lutes and of fiddle playing to musical traditions across the cultures of the contemporary Luso-Afro-Brazilian world. The research is based on a multi-site ethnography conducted in Cape Verde, Brazil and Mozambique, covering practices related to the violin, rabeca and one-stringed bowed lute. Taking as its starting point the narratives of living musicians about their daily practices in local or transnational social and cultural contexts, the analysis focuses on fiddle traditions in Africa and the African diaspora, reflecting on the dynamic processes of creolisation that have reinvented these practices in modernity, transcending the geopolitical boundaries established in the colonial era. I analyse the violin in Cape Verde, rabeca playing in a quilombo community in southeastern Brazil, and the one-stringed bowed lute which intersects with the African fiddle-playing heritage. I trace the dynamics of past traditions and the revival of these fiddles in continental and insular Africa and Brazil, hypothesising a linkage between them. The major conceptual concern structuring my analysis, informed by critical readings of the literature on African music and its representations, is how an understanding of musical aesthetics and especially the question of rhythm can contribute to a decolonial perspective on the significance of these musical practices. The qualitative outcomes of the research suggest that fiddle playing should be understood as allowing musicians to play a relatively autonomous role in a wide variety of contexts in contemporary multi-ethnic societies in a state of flux: as participants in the internationalised world of Cape Verdean music; as elements of the cultural environment in which quilombo inhabitants are campaigning for recognition of their land rights; and as contributors to Mozambique’s national project to integrate its diverse ethnic groups. Ultimately, I argue that the fiddle is an active agent in the decolonial ‘thinking and doing’ of those of African descent in Luso-Afro-Brazilian cultures. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Maps 6 List of Illustrations 7 List of Music Examples 9 List of CD Tracks 11 Acknowledgements 12 Chapter One - Introduction 15 African musical aesthetics? Perception, the ‘sensuous’ and improvisation 23 Rhythm 26 Methodology 35 Organology 42 Transcription 43 Previous fieldwork experience 47 Thesis outline 52 Chapter Two - The Violin in Cape Verde 55 Introduction 55 Transnational Cultures 61 The Violin in Cape Verde 69 Antoninho Travadinha – the improviser 73 Research in Santiago (the Ilhas do Sotavento) 88 Kim Alves 90 Nhô Djonzinho Alves 93 Nhó Nani 100 Research in the Ilhas do Barlavento 104 Francisco Sequeira (archivist) and Malaquias Costa (violinist) 105 César Costa 111 Nhô Kzik 112 3 Breka 117 Conclusion: Kriolu violin playing 120 Chapter Three – The Cultural Dynamics of African One-Stringed Fiddles 122 Introduction 122 3.1. The cimboa 125 A Fulbe heritage? 126 The cimboa in batuku 133 The rhythm of cimboa music 136 Mano Mendi and Pascoal Fernandes 140 Ntóni Denti d’Oro 155 3.2. The cimboa in Brazil 160 Gentil do Orocongo 160 3.3. Mozambique and the tchakare 174 Vestiges of Mozambique in Brazil 175 The fiddle in northern Mozambique: the Makua and the Yao 191 On the way to Niassa 195 The tchakare in Niassa 199 Mandimba – Mitande 205 Nfani Wathunia 208 Marupa – Chireka: Almirante Bilale 221 Conclusion: a nationalist agenda 227 Chapter Four – The Rabeca in a Brazilian Quilombo Community 228 Introduction 228 The Vale do Ribeira 230 The quilombo communities 232 The Caiçara people 236 Bonifácio Modesto Pereira 242 The fandango-rufado 248 4 Foot-stomping rhythms 250 The role of the rabeca 253 The tuning of the rabeca 261 Hermes Modesto Pereira 266 Music and religion 279 Conclusion: musical change 284 Conclusion 287 The Kriolu violin: local and overseas circuits, transnational identities 289 One-stringed fiddle connections 290 Fiddling in a quilombo community: land and identity as affirmative politics 293 Unperceived aesthetics and disappearing traditions 295 Glossary 297 Bibliography 306 Journals and Magazines 327 Interviews 327 Discography 328 Filmography 328 Appendix 1 329 Appendix 2 336 5 List of Maps Map 2.1. Administrative map of Cape Verde 56 Map 3.1. ‘Mozambique Island: destinations of slaves and home ports of vessels carrying them, 1664-1859’ 186 Map 3.2. ‘Political and ethnolinguistic boundaries of southeast africa, 1750 and 1850’ 187 Map 3.3. The linguistic groups in Mozambique 193 Map 3.4. Makua territory in Mozambique 194 Map 4.1. The environmental protection area of the Vale do Ribeira 230 6 List of Illustrations Figure 2.1. Travadinha playing the violin 73 Figure 2.2. Travadinha and composer Fernando Lopes Graça 74 Figure 2.3. The young Kim Alves playing the violin 91 Figure 2.4. Nhô Djonzinho Alves’s golden disc 97 Figure 2.5. Nhó Nani with Valter (cavaquinho) and Manel Calote (guitar) 103 Figure 2.6. Malaquias Costa playing the violin 107 Figure 2.7. César Costa playing the violin 112 Figure 2.8. Mar di Canal – Santo Antão 113 Figure 2.9. Nhô Kzik group photo 115 Figure 2.10. Breka playing the violin 118 Figure 3.1. Example of a cimboa 129 Figure 3.2. Example of a cimboa, viewed from above 129 Figure 3.3. The bridge of a cimboa 130 Figure 3.4. The tuning peg of a cimboa 130 Figure 3.5. A cimboa bow 131 Figure 3.6. Copy of an illustration in Alexander Gordon Laing’s 1825 journal Travels in the Timanee, Kooranko, and Soolima Countries in West Africa 132 Figure 3.7. Pascoal playing the cimboa 154 Figure 3.8. Ntóni Denti d’Oro’s album Cap-Vert – Batuque et Finaçon 155 Figure 3.9. Orocongos and bows made by Gentil do Orocongo 164 Figure 3.10. Orocongo resonator made by Gentil do Orocongo 165 Figure 3.11. Orocongo skin table made by Gentil do Orocongo 166 Figure 3.12. Orocongo neck, top nut and tuning peg made by Gentil do Orocongo 166 Figure 3.13. Gentil do Orocongo 167 Figure 3.14. Gentil do Orocongo 170 Figure 3.15. Watercolour by Joaquim Candido Guillobel 177 Figure 3.16. Sick Negroes by Henry Chamberlain (lithograph) 178 Figure 3.17. ‘Instrumentos e Notas Musicais – estudo’ by Jean-Baptiste Debret 179 7 Figure 3.18. Enlarged image of the ‘violin’, taken from Debret’s sketch 180 Figure 3.19. Musicians from East Africa (Lake Niassa) with a one-stringed tube fiddle, a rattle and clapsticks (1910) 182 Figure 3.20. Almirante Lichino Bilale playing the tchkwèsa 183 Figure 3.21. Examples of tchakare fiddles 200 Figure 3.22. A Yao kanyembe fiddle from Newala, Tanzania 201 Figure 2.23. A mugole fiddle with a tuning loop and four indents 202 Figure 3.24. A tchakare, bow and resinous stump 209 Figure 3.25. Nfani Wathunia playing the tchakare 210 Figure 3.26. Nfani Wathunia with his tchakare 211 Figure 3.27. Tchuntchu and ikoma iulupale drums 212 Figure 3.28. Nfani Wathunia’s group percussion session 213 Figure 3.29. Nfani Wathunia, in full costume, performs with his ensemble 219 Figure 3.30. Luiz Moretto with Nfani Wathunia’s tchakare 220 Figure 3.31. Almirante Bilale playing the tchikwèsa 223 Figure 3.32. Nfani Wathunias’s diploma 226 Figure 4.1. Bonifácio Pereira playing the rabeca 243 Figure 4.2. Bonifácio Pereira playing his new four-stringed rabeca 264 Figure 4.3. Hermes Pereira playing the rabeca 267 Figure 4.4. Reisado group with Hermes (guitar) and Bonifácio Pereira (rabeca) 270 Figure 4.5. A three-stringed rabeca de cocho 272 Figure 4.6. View from above of a four-stringed rabeca de cocho 273 Figure 4.7. Front view of a four-stringed rabeca de cocho 273 Figure 4.8. Hermes Pereira playing the caixa de folia 278 Figure 4.9. Hermes Pereira celebrating mass 282 Figure 4.10. The fandango group from the Quilombo do Mandira 285 8 List of Music Examples Music example 1.1. Brazilian ‘characteristic syncopation’ 32 Music example 1.2. Standard rhythmic pattern: twelve-pulse timeline of seven strokes distributed asymmetrically 33 Music example 2.1. ‘Stancha’ - transcription of the violin part (theme and two-and-a- half chorus improvisations) from the album Travadinha no Hot-Club 77 Music example 2.2.