Bekiviro

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Bekiviro is a ritual drum that occurs in few copies on some islands off the north and north-west coast of Madagascar and represents the power of the dead kings in the ancestral cult of the Sakalava . The almost life-size tumbler drum made from a tree trunk is only struck on special occasions and is at the center of obsession rituals for Madagascan ancestor worship . When dealing with it, numerous prohibitions ( fady ) must be observed.

Cultural background

The culture of Madagascar combines the influences of the settlers, traders and colonizers who have immigrated over the last two millennia. Presumably, in the first centuries AD, seafarers from the Malay Archipelago reached the island either directly or via the African coast. The Malay cultural influence was mainly retained by the Merina settling in the central highlands . In music, the tubular bamboo zither valiha most clearly indicates a Malay origin. Another cultural influence for the entire island brought from the 15th century to the Bantu kidnapped slaves and free immigrants from Africa. The north and northwest is also characterized by Arab seafarers, whose traces can be traced on the coast from the 10th century. During this time, the Islamization of the East African coast began from Zanzibar . While in the 16th century the majority of the population of the northern Comoros adopted the new religion, Islam in Madagascar only reached the north coast. At the same time, the island of Nosy Be off the coast in the north was the first stop for French Catholics from 1840, who began missionary work in the Sakalava area from here. This results in an African, Arabic and European influenced culture and music in the north and north-west, the variety of forms of which is greater than in the rest of the country. The Malagasy version of popular music styles introduced from mainland Africa in the second half of the 20th century spread across this region, including soukous (in Madagascar to sekosy ), benga (to watcha watcha ) and mbaquanga (to zolo ). In the economically dominant north, smaller ensembles also have the necessary instruments (namely electric guitars), while in other regions self-made imitations are still used in the villages.

The cult of ancestors, which is firmly integrated into the traditional social order, asserts itself as a conservative antipole against the cultural imports and the technical achievements of modernity. This is where the ancestors influence the living. Through the ritualized reference to the ancestors, they represent figures of identification and anchors of stability for the individual members of the community.

Social order

The Sakalava formed an area of ​​power under their first King Andrianmisara I around 1400 and formed the leading empire in Madagascar from the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century. According to oral tradition, the Sakalava originally came from the southwest of the island. The Kingdom of Menabe, established in the middle of the 17th century under King Andrianihaniñarivo (posthumous name, during his lifetime he was called Andriandahifotsy) became the model for the later social structure of the Sakalava. The settlement area of ​​the Sakalava along the west and north-west coast was preferred (from 1500) by European seafarers, which is why most reports from pre-colonial times are available about them. This shows the existence of a pronounced cult of possession, which the Sakalava practice to this day and whose kibuki spirits have entered the East African Pepo cult. The cult of possession and relic of the Sakalava has parallels with the Bantu speakers. The ethnologically well-studied Sakalava offer a vivid insight into the persistence of social structures from the time of the kingdoms ( fanjakana ).

At the beginning of the 19th century, the two Sakalava kingdoms Menabe in the south and Boeny (Boina) in the north came under the influence of the Merina Empire, which was expanding with the support of the English . The coastal strip in between became the refuge region of the independent Sakalava, which led to an economic boom in the previously neglected region. In the 19th century, the coastal region, which was split up into several small empires, was in a permanent state of war with the Merina, which meant that, according to contemporary observers, the Sakalava always carried weapons. It was not until the French colonial army that between 1896 and 1904 succeeded in conquering the west coast and subjugating the Sakalava. Since then, the old structures of rule have only persisted on the social level.

The story of the Sakalava is the story of the ruling dynasties and their branches. The Sakalava draw legitimacy and authority for today's institutions from the past. With a 6.2 percent share (2010) of the total population, they form one of the 18 to 20 ethnic groups in the country. Their society is made up of clans that are linked to the royal clan through a certain history of origin ( tantara ). The community is ruled by the living monarch ( ampanjaka ) and his deceased predecessor at the same time, with the dead rulers ( razana ampanjaka ) having greater power due to their older age. With age, power and authority grow. The counting of the years of age is not interrupted with death, because death is only considered a transition into another realm of existence. The living monarch, whose power lies in the succession of previous rulers, has a key role to play in preserving tradition. He acts as a spiritual mediator to the ancestral world, which is why he is nicknamed tompondrazania ("master of the ancestors") and tompon 'ny lambantánana ("master of the cupped hand"). The latter refers to the gesture of adoration towards the ancestors.

The dead monarchs are worshiped in simply designed graves in the ancestral cemetery ( mahabo ), from where their effect emanates. This cemetery is usually located on an offshore island. In addition to the kings ( ampanjaka ), the social organization consists of the bourgeois people ( vohitry or vahoaka ), slaves ( andevo ) and royal slaves ( sambarivo ). The sambarivo , descendants of the slaves abducted from Africa during the Arab slave trade on the East African coast and during raids by the Sakalava, act as guardians of the royal tombs and as media that deliver news during the ceremonies (possessed, saha ). In ceremonies called tromba , the ancestors speak with the voice of the sambarivo about current and past events. Because the sambarivo were abducted, they have no ancestors and therefore no history of their own. This explains their low social status, in spite of which they are closest to royalty due to their essential role in ancestor worship. There is a mutual dependency relationship between the slaves acting as media and the living ruler, in whose sense they have to reproduce the "words of the ancestors" ( tenin-drazana ), and from the ruler to the media, who legitimize his power with their ancestral words.

Design and origin

The bekiviro is an unusual size drum made of a tree trunk. One specimen measured a total height of 139 cm. The diameter of the body ( loha ) of this instrument is 62 cm and the body height is 89 cm. For this type of drum and for drums in Madagascar in general, the wood of the marula tree ( Sclerocarya birrea subsp. Caffra , also Poupartia caffra, in Madagascar sakoa ) is used. A conical base is connected to the half-round carved body base, which merges into a base plate with the diameter of the body. The membrane consists of ox skin ( angozy ), which is stretched with a double row of wooden pegs running around the edge. A little below, four circular rings made of silver are attached to the body as handles. The silver rings gave the drum the Malagasy name bekiviro , which means "large earrings" ( be kiviro , otherwise kavina ). In the middle of the body, the drum is decorated with a notched ornament band. It is struck with two wooden mallets ( kobay , "stick").

Wooden tumbler drum with nail tension and four handles of the Lulua in the Congolese province of Kasaï-Occidental .

While the name bekiviro is of Malayo-Polynesian origin, the drum belongs to the large group of beaker drums with nail tension that are widespread in southern Africa and is therefore one of the instruments of African origin. "Nail tension" refers to a membrane attached with a narrow row of nails or with wooden dowels that often protrude far out. A comparable beaker drum is the singanga played by the Makonde in northern Mozambique, among other things, in the mask dance mashesho. However, the singanga does not have a stand, but a wooden rod that extends the body at the bottom, which looks like a tooth root and is speared into the ground so that the drum can be struck by the standing player with two thin sticks. An unusually long, slender drum with nail tension and a stand is called nnea (also neya ) by the Makonde . Related to this are single-headed hourglass drums , the membrane of which is attached with a row of nails and which are held between the legs of the standing musician, such as the ngoma fumbwa of the Wagogo in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. In Mozambique there are other drums comparable to the bekiviro , but they are much smaller.

The bekiviro was probably only introduced to Madagascar in the 19th century. According to one Sakalava, this happened under the king of the Bemihistra-Sakalava, who ruled the island of Nosy Lava from 1849 to 1869. In a travel report from 1799, in which the Malagasy musical instruments are described, the bekiviro does not yet appear. The royal ancestors, who take possession of the media and the living rulers in the ceremonies, are entertained with songs and dances, collectively called soma ("pleasures"). They appreciate the history and characteristics of royalty. A form of soma , called soma bekiviro after the drum , deals with the origin of the royal slaves from Africa, which makes a connection between the slave trade and the importation of the drum likely.

In association with other musical instruments, the bekiviro is sometimes called dadilahy be ("great-grandfather"); her "children" ( zanany ), with whom she is played together, are two double-skinned, conical tubular drums tsapoa , and the surcharge idiophon patso ( Swahili , "plate, plate"), which consists of two copper plates placed on top of one another and struck with wooden sticks or alternatively from a piece of sheet metal. Sometimes the double reed instrument kabiry ( corresponding to the cone oboe nzumari used in Swahili culture ) is added. The two tsapoa , which differ slightly in size, are usually hit with both hands by crouching musicians lying on the floor. They are about 70 cm long, the larger fur diameter is up to 28 cm, the smaller around 20 cm. The membranes are braced against each other with Y-shaped skin strips. In the garasisa dance style , one of the two tsapoa is beaten by a dancer while hanging from a shoulder strap. This way of playing has its model in European marching music. With the tsapoa related Zeremonialtrommeln be in the Swahili region of East Africa chapua called.

In Madagascar, the bekiviro is the only drum of its type and of this size. Ceremonial drums used outside of the Sakalava cultural area in Madagascar are mostly double-headed conical drums with Y-shaped tensioned membranes. The most common Malagasy name for this is hazolahy . The hazolahy's skins are beaten with one hand and a stick in the other hand; like the tsapoa , they always belong to the ensemble in pairs. The holy drums are called hazolahy after the tree used to build them (literally "foul-smelling wood") and are used in rituals for rulers in the highlands.

In pre-colonial times, the ceremonial drums hazolahy and amponga at the court of Merina had a similar meaning for the king, who could not rule without the power of his drums. Amponga ntaolo is the name of the cylindrical "ancestral drum". In addition, amponga stands for percussion instruments in general, including the earth zither amponga tany ("earth drum"). In some traditions a king Andrianamponga ("Prince of the Drums") is mentioned as the founder of the Merina Empire. If the drum is placed at the beginning of the kingdom in order to emphasize its central role, it is obvious that the Merina rulers who were defeated in campaigns had their drums and the snail horns antsiva removed. The snail horns were used like drums in religious rituals and state ceremonies.

The men of the Sakalava play a tubular drum called dabalava in traditional boxing competitions ( morengy ) and the women accompany them with kolondoy songs. Another two-headed sacral drum of the Sakalava that is struck with a stick and one hand is the manandria . In the highlands, flute-drum ensembles play at festivals, which consist of a small drum with snarling strings ( langorona ) and a large cylinder drum ( amponga ).

Ancestor worship ritual

There are a number of rituals that are performed at the royal tombs ( mahabo ) at certain intervals . One way of remembering royal ancestors is songs and dances. Whenever the gates in the fences around the royal cemetery are opened or closed to carry ritual objects, and when cattle are sacrificed, women stand and sing short songs called kolondoy . Predominantly women act as media of possession and in the tromba rituals convey the messages of the ancestral spirits who have come to life, which as a group are also called tromba . Women and men also sing antsa be ("great songs"), with which they praise their ancestors at the royal tombs and ask for their blessings. Here the women sit in the north and the men sit opposite them in the south. Both groups face the royal tomb to the east. Boys and girls further south can sing popular folk songs ( goma, kaoitry ) at the same time . A popular dance that is performed at various ceremonial events in honor of the deceased kings is the slow, sedate rebiky. Only with the rebiky do citizens fall into the state of obsession with royal ancestors and play their roles in past battles.

The membrane of a tumbler drum ( ngoma ) in Tanzania is tuned over the fire.

The holy drum is only beaten by men at the royal tombs and is considered a "difficult" ( sarotra ) instrument, in contrast to the tsapoa , which women and young boys are also allowed to play. When visiting the ancestral cemetery on one of the islands, some prohibitions and regulations ( fady ) must be observed, which include taking off your shoes at the entrance to the village. Shoes are generally considered unclean. The holy grave may not be photographed. On the island of Nosy Faly, the tomb is a simple house that stands on the top of the hill surrounded by the houses of the slaves. The bass drum is kept in her house, the zomba bekiviro, and is only taken out on a few ritual occasions. The drum has to be carried forward by eight men. Once the head has been cleaned with a cloth, the drum is tilted flat to one side in order to tune it by heating it with a flame. For this purpose, a burning tuft of grass is moved counterclockwise in front of the fur in a circle. Then the drum is set up vertically in front of the tomb, as August Schmidhofer observed during his visit to Nosy Faly in January 1992, so that the player has to stand on a chair next to the drum. Gillian Feeley-Harnik (1988) found on the island of Nosy Lava that the drum is leaning diagonally against a horizontal wooden rod. In order not to slip away, the drum was fixed with a cord pulled through the two metal rings. The skew allows the player to hit them while standing on the floor. Before or after the drum has been given its place, the idiophone patso , which is also kept in the house, and the small drums tsapoa are fetched and placed in a certain order. The musician brings the bowling oboe kabiry with him from his home.

The bekiviro is used exclusively to accompany the songs and ritual dances soma bekiviro at the royal tombs. The performances take place at night, according to Feeley-Harnik (1988) the bekiviro must neither be heard nor seen during the day. Several photos and the demonstration arranged for Schmidhofer in 1992 show that this prohibition does not exist or is not strictly observed. While the music ensemble is playing, the dancers always walk counter-clockwise in a row or in a double row around the outside without touching. Only women and children take part in almost all dances. According to Schmidhofer's observation, the only ritual dance in which men also participate is the garasisa . Feeley-Harnik (1988), on the other hand, describes that at the head of the row of dancers the men walk around the bekiviro , followed by women and men who join later. As they move, they sing antsa Silamo (Swahili, "Muslim chants") or antsa Makoa ("Makoa songs"). The Makoa in Madagascar are descended from enslaved Makua from Mozambique.

The ceremony at the royal cemetery lasts all night until dawn. The antsa be ("great songs") alternate with soma bekiviro (songs and dances) and sometimes with popular songs. The spectators come and go in between, most of them come back early in the morning at the end. Shortly before dawn, eight men carry the bekiviro - as it came - back into the drum house with their feet first, followed by the smaller tubular drums and finally the metal plate patso . Meanwhile, the women clap in unison and sing “great songs”.

meaning

The still practiced ritual ancestor worship is understood as a reaction to the great social and political changes that have occurred since the beginning of the 19th century as a result of European colonization and further after independence in 1960. Even if some members from the lower classes came to property during this time and the nobility largely became impoverished, the aristocratic class retained the prestige given by their descent. Serious events in the past led to epidemic-like obsessional illnesses. When the ruler Ranavalona I died in 1861, the successor Radama II fundamentally changed the foreign policy. He favored the British and the French, whereupon Christian missionaries came to the island in large numbers. This resulted in a mass hysteria known as Imanenjana in which several people declared they were obsessed with the reappeared Ranavalona I. They danced and accompanied by musicians through the streets of the capital Tananarivo . The dance addiction soon paralyzed public life in the city and spread to the entire island. A contemporary British doctor described the symptoms of illness in the possessed. The insecurity caused by the strangers suddenly breaking in caused the retreat to the ancestors, which was expressed in increasing cults of possession and ancestry.

In particular, the bekiviro stands for a symbol of the ancestral world and embodies the past times ( fanjakana taloha ), which means the old feudal order. The bekiviro is not like some African ritual drumming a symbol of power of the living king. Even the living king of the Sakalava is forbidden to visit the graves of his ancestors, which is why he never gets to see a bekiviro .

The reasons for the prominent importance of the bekiviro as a symbol of the ancestors have only partly to do with their sound quality and high volume, which comes from the enormous dimensions of the drum body. The rings made of pure silver make the instrument precious. In addition to its material value, silver ( vola fotsy , “white money”) symbolizes the royal ancestors. In tromba -Besessenheitszeremonien and other rituals the colors white and red play a role. Red means gold ( vola mena , "red money"), another ancestral symbol.

The small number of an estimated five to ten copies (Schmidhofer 1998), none of which is outside of the traditional area of ​​use, and the use that is limited to rarely held ceremonies make the drum exceptional. The sacred character of the bekiviro is reinforced by the presented old age of the instruments, the long tradition and the prohibitions and obligations ( fady ) that must be observed when using them. This includes that ten cattle have to be sacrificed during production. The drum players come from the lowest social class, their work is of the highest level. The drum thus unites the entire social spectrum.

literature

  • Gillian Feeley-Harnik: Sakalava Dancing Battles. Representations of Conflict in Sakalava Royal Service. In: Anthropos, Volume 83, Issue 1/3, 1988, pp. 65-85
  • August Schmidhofer: The ancestral drum Bekiviro of the Sakalava (Madagascar). In: Franz Födermayr, Ladislav Burlas (ed.): Ethnological, historical and systematic musicology. Oskár Elschek on his 65th birthday. Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. ASCO art & science, Bratislava 1998, pp. 135-144
  • August Schmidhofer: Madagascar . In: MGG Online, November 2016 ( Music in the past and present , 1996)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lesley A. Sharp: The Sacrificed Generation: Youth, History, and the Colonized Mind in Madagascar . University of California Press, Berkeley 2002, p. 45
  2. ^ August Schmidhofer: Madagascar. II. In: MGG Online
  3. ↑ August Schmidhofer, 1998, pp. 135f
  4. ↑ John Middleton: World Monarchies and Dynasties. Routledge, New York 2015, p. 818
  5. ↑ Peter Kneitz: In the country "in between". The Sakalava kingdoms of Ambongo and Mailaka (western Madagascar, 17th – 19th centuries) . In: Anthropos, Volume 103, Issue 1, 2008, pp. 33–63, here p. 39
  6. ↑ Peter Kneitz: In the country "in between". The Sakalava kingdoms of Ambongo and Mailaka (western Madagascar, 17th – 19th centuries). In: Anthropos, Volume 103, Issue 1, 2008, pp. 35, 55, 59
  7. ↑ Benoit Thierry, Andrianiainasoa Rakotondratsima u. a .: Nourishing the Land, Nourishing the People: The Story of One Rural Development Project in the Deep South of Madagascar that Made a Difference. CABI, Oxfordshire 2010, p. 31, ISBN 978-1-84593-739-3
  8. ^ Gillian Feeley-Harnik: Divine Kingship and the Meaning of History Among the Sakalava of Madagascar. In: Man, New Series, Vol. 13, No. 3, September 1978, pp. 402-417, here pp. 403f
  9. ↑ August Schmidhofer, 1998, p. 136f
  10. ^ Gerhard Kubik : East Africa. Music history in pictures . (Volume 1: Musikethnologie, Delivery 10) Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1982, pp. 184, 186
  11. ^ Gerhard Kubik, 1982, p. 140
  12. ↑ Gillian Feeley-Harnik, 1988, p. 67f
  13. ↑ August Schmidhofer, 1998, p. 139
  14. ↑ August Schmidhofer, 1998, p. 138
  15. ^ Roger Blench: The Morphology and Distribution of Sub-Saharan Musical Instruments of North-African, Middle Eastern, and Asian, Origin. In: Laurence Picken (Ed.): Musica Asiatica. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1984, pp. 155-191, here pp. 163f
  16. ↑ Birger Gesthuisen: Supplement to the CD Madagascar. 4. Northern Music. Feuer & Eis, Moers 1997, p. 14
  17. ↑ Amponga. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 97
  18. ↑ August Schmidhofer: On the history of music at the Merina court before 1828. In: Elisabeth T. Hilscher (Hrsg.): Austrian music - music in Austria. Contributions to the music history of Central Europe. Theophil Antonicek on his 60th birthday. Hans Schneider, Tutzing 1998, pp. 327–336, here p. 339
  19. ^ August Schmidhofer: Madagascar. IV. In: MGG Online
  20. ^ Lesley A. Sharp: The Possessed and the Dispossessed. Spirits, Identity, and Power in a Madagascar Migrant Town. University of California Press, Oakland 1996, p. 122
  21. ↑ Gillian Feeley-Harnik, 1988, p. 67
  22. ↑ August Schmidhofer, 1998, p. 137
  23. ↑ August Schmidhofer, 1998, p. 139
  24. ↑ Gillian Feeley-Harnik, 1988, p. 68
  25. ^ Michael Lueger: Dance and the Plague. Epidemic Choreomania and Artaud. In: Nadine George-Graves (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, p. 951
  26. ^ Lesley A. Sharp: The Possessed and the Dispossessed. Spirits, Identity, and Power in a Madagascar Migrant Town. University of California Press, Oakland 1996, p. 120
  27. ↑ August Schmidhofer, 1998, pp. 140f