Waji

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Waji ( Nuristani ), also waj, vaj, vaji, wuj, wadzh, wanz, English Kafir harp , is a four-, less often five-string bow harp of the Nuristani , a small ethnic group in the eastern Afghan province of Nuristan and in the neighboring Pakistani district of Chitral . The waji , which is hardly played today and is unique in its design, represents one of the earliest developments in the musical bow and has survived as the last bow harp in Central Asia within the special musical culture of Nuristan . The Indian harps probably came with the spread of Buddhism from the 3rd century BC. To Afghanistan.

origin

Musical bows are the simplest and oldest stringed instruments. They consist of one or seldom several strings attached between the two ends of an elastic support rod, the tension of which bends the rod. In the special case of the oral arch, the player's oral cavity serves to amplify the sound , otherwise a resonance body attached to the string support. With the African musical bows, this is often a calabash .

In Mesopotamia , the earliest musical instrument is depicted on a clay tablet from the late Uruk period at the end of the 4th millennium. It shows a three-string harp with a boat-shaped sound box at the lower end, from which a curved string support extends. From the 26th century BC Fragments of harps and lyres were found together.

The oldest harps in Africa are bow harps, which are based on wall paintings in burial chambers from the ancient Egyptian 4th Dynasty around 2500 BC. Are shown; the angular harp, known for a long time from Mesopotamia, came from the 16th century BC. In the Middle Kingdom . Bow harps in Africa are still played in a few variants in Uganda and the Central African Republic . The southern Ugandan ennanga can be compared directly with the waji , while the azande kundi has a slightly different neck .

The Vedic and post-Vedic texts, in which those in the 1st millennium BC The ancient Indian Gandharva music theory developed in the 3rd century BC , use the word vina as a collective term for stringed instruments. From the 2nd century BC Images of bow harps on stone reliefs of Buddhist cult buildings ( stupas ) have been preserved; in the Brahmanas they are already in writing before the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Occupied. A relief fragment in Gandhara style on the stupa of Loriyan Tangai (near Peshawar ) from the 3rd century shows a harp-like instrument that is very similar to the waji .

The long-necked lutes and rod zithers with calabash resonators ( rudra vina ), now referred to as vinas in Indian music , only developed after the turn of the century and were depicted from the 6th century. Around the same time, the use of bow harps in India declined; some harp variants, probably originally from India, have been preserved in regional musical cultures in Central Asia. Aside from the waji, the almost last remaining Asian bow harp is the Burmese national instrument saung gauk . Further still exists in the Karen in the Burmese-Thai border area equipped with six metal strings arched harp na to . With her young men accompany courtship songs. The na den is traced back to an older Mon bow harp with more strings , which has now disappeared .

Not with the Waji used is in the Georgian region of Svaneti played six to neunsaitige tschangi , the name and by the type of the medieval Persian angular harp chang derived. In the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on the banks of the Narmada, among the Adivasi people of the Pardhan, a five-string bow harp called bin-baja , which is occasionally used instead of the three-string fiddle bana for vocal accompaniment, goes back to the same original forms. The Pardhan maintain the neighboring Gond as a musical caste .

According to Christian Poché (2014), waji about wanj goes back to an Arabic harp that was mentioned in some literary sources from the 7th to the 10th century when . Dating back to the Middle Persian -derived word when used at one location on the site of the early Arab poet al-A'shā (around 570-625) in front, along with mushtaq (Chinese Jew's harp ), barbat (lute) and sanj . Presumably, wann, sanj and tschang denoted identical or at least similar harps. The historian at-Tabarī (839–923) tells when and sanj were invented by the biblical Tubal , the son of Lamak . In later Arabic sources, sanj no longer stands for “harp”, but for a percussion instrument ( zang ). While the harp, which was called tshang ( jank ) until it disappeared , disappeared, its name as a corrupted form has been preserved in Nurestan. Alastair Dick (2016) thinks it possible that waji comes from the ancient Indian Sanskrit word vadya for "musical instrument" via the medieval Prakrit vajji .

Design

The waji is a unique hybrid of a single-stringed musical bow with attached resonator and a multi-stringed bow harp with a body , i.e. with an integrated resonator. It forms a very old link between the two classes of instruments. Another further development to a multi-string instrument is the African Pluriarc with up to eight curved strings. The body of the waji consists of a boat-shaped, waisted block of cedar wood about 40 to 45 centimeters long, which has been hollowed out to a narrow edge. A common width is 11 centimeters, with a total height of the instrument around 40 centimeters. Untanned goat or calf skin is pulled over the box. Skin strips drawn through holes at the edges and led to the underside of the skin remain taut.

The string carrier, curved in the shape of an arc of a circle, is made of solid dark wood. A little outside of its center it lies lengthways on the ceiling, to which it is firmly connected by another wide strip of skin. This creates a contact area between the string carrier and the resonator, as it is produced in a less rigid form by the tuning loop in a musical bow. Four strings, or five strings for larger instruments with a length of up to 60 centimeters, are inserted through the drilled holes at the lower end and tied to the rod. At the upper end they are wrapped around the string support and held in place by thick cords. As with the saung gauk , the mood is created by moving the cords. The strings consist of an animal tendon (beef or roe deer).

The tuning of the strings is not uniform and is based on a diatonic scale. According to various statements, a semitone is above or below two whole tones. The player sitting on the floor or a chair holds the waji (like a Parhan his bin-baja ) between his knees across the body, while he holds the instrument with his bent left arm. The strings are in an approximately horizontal position and are plucked from the inside with a pine pick in the right hand. Plucking is usually done in an up and down motion across all strings ( strumming on the guitar ). Strings that are not supposed to sound are muted with the fingers of the left hand gripping from the outside. This way of playing has been known since ancient times and is also practiced with the Ethiopian lyre krar and the lyre simsimiyya , which is common on the Red Sea . A noisy rhythmic pattern is added to the melody tone.

Cultural background and style of play

The settlements in Nuristan, between a handful and up to 400 houses, are located on terraced steep slopes or in the middle of the (wheat) fields in the valley floors. The pass crossings between the mountain valleys are often language borders. The residents of an area can hardly communicate with their neighbors unless both of them speak a supra-regional language such as Persian or Pashto in addition to their mother tongue . The topographical conditions in connection with the isolated communities have led to different local cultural forms, consequently there is also no uniform Nuristani music. What the Nuristani have in common is that they see themselves as descendants of the army of Alexander the Great . Another common feature is an animistic local religion in connection with shamanic rituals, which were practiced until the end of the 19th century and which made the Nuristani appear as "primitive savages" and "idol worshipers" ( kāfir ) for the Muslim ethnic groups in the area . This is how the foreign name Kafiristan came about for the Nuristani settlement area; a derogatory term adopted by the British of colonial British India . After their submission by the Afghan emir Abdur Rahman Khan in 1896, the population of the area renamed by the emir in Nuristan ("Land of Enlightenment") was almost completely Islamized; certain musical styles associated with religious practice disappeared with the consumption of wine. A refined art of wood carving and an equally high-quality metalworking tradition have been preserved.

The main source of pre-Islamic culture is the book The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush by British colonial servant George Scott Robertson , published in 1896 . At one point he describes a singer who sang a monotonous alternating chant with a few syllables together with another man and accompanied himself on his waji with a plectrum stroking all the strings without variations . The second singer beat the rhythm on a wooden bowl, two other men began a long and fast-paced dance. The word “monotonous”, which occurs frequently in the description of the music, is also related to the colonial attitude of the observer at the time.

In fact, the melodies revolve around a few notes and the range is barely more than a fourth , but the polyphony is the only pronounced polyphony in Central Asia. The musical culture, which is isolated from the outside world, knows three-part chants, which are usually performed separately by men and women. Singing and instrumental accompaniment create a complex layering of melodic and rhythmic patterns. A song can begin with two vocal parts, supported by the ostinate pattern of the harp, later expanded by a choir that adheres to a second interval. Finally, the group's rhythm is thwarted by syncopated clapping of hands. In general, dissonances are characteristic. Meters are 6/8, less often 5/8 and 4/4. A polyphonic style is at home in the Waigal Valley, based on the alternating song ( call and response ) of first voice ( mit-alol ), second voice ( at-alol ) and choir. In the Parun Valley, the choir responds to a solo part with a longer melody. Some of the polyphonic chants are accompanied by a waji or a saringi (the local form of the sarangi ).

While the melodies of the individual songs are quite similar, the lyrics contain epic heroic stories from the long tradition. A singer accompanies himself on a waji or on the plucked urba . The waji used to be popular with all age groups and was often heard outdoors mostly solo or together with the frame drum bumbuk . It can also play with the narrow two-string fiddle saringi , the strings of which are tuned to the waji and always played together without interruption. The melodies played on the waji in the Waigali Valley usually consist of step-by-step tone sequences to the highest or lowest string.

The traditional beliefs of the Nuristani included numerous gods and mountain spirits, thought to be helpful, as well as an even larger number of lower, malicious spirits. The male sucha and the more dangerous female suchi, for example, were feared by the Waigal and Ashkun for stealing newborn babies and causing obsession. The denik (also denilo ) were witch-like demons who could appear as naked women. They also stole babies and clarified butter ( ghee ). To identify the denik , a healer gifted with magical abilities came into action, who played on a specially made waji . Its body was covered with a lizard skin, it was played with a bird's beak as a pick. The healer sat down to play by a walnut tree whose lower branches had been cut off. Lured out by the sounds, the denik appeared as a wildly dancing naked woman who tried in vain to climb the tree. Exposed in such a way, the ghost vanished from the village.

From the 1960s onwards, a group of mullahs who had received their Islamic training in a madrasa in the village of Panjpir near the Pakistani city of Mardan and who are therefore called Panjpiri began their “true faith” in Nuristan, which is related to the goals of the Indian Deobandi , more fundamentalist To propagate coinage. They banned traditional festivals, music and dance from everyday public life.

There was a general trend towards modernization in the 1970s. Wooden sculptures on houses increasingly found their way onto the international art market, tolerated by the communist government that came to power through a coup in 1978 , against which armed Nuristanis had started an unsuccessful uprising. The Taliban also paralyzed the musical life of the entire country in the 1990s. Today waji are offered in western art dealers for around 1000 euros.

literature

  • Thomas Alvad: The Kafir Harp. In: Man, Vol. 54. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, October 1954, pp. 151-154
  • Alastair Dick: Waji. In: Grove Music Online, January 20, 2016
  • Maximilian Klimburg: A Collection of Kafir Art from Nuristan. A Donation by the Federal Republic of Germany to the National Museum of Afghanistan. In: Tribus. Publications of the Linden Museum Stuttgart, No. 30, November 1981, pp. 155-202
  • Maximilian Klimburg: The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush: Art and Society of the Waigal and Ashkun Kafirs. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 978-3515063081
  • Christer Irgens Møller: Remnants of the Kafir Music of Nuristan - a Historical Documentation. (PDF; 5.0 MB) In: DSCA Journal, Danish Society for Central Asia's Electronic Quarterly, No. 2, October 2005, pp. 57-68
  • Christer Irgens Møller: Music in Nuristan: Traditional Music from Afghanistan. (Jutland Archaeological Society Publications) Aaarhus University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-8788415582

Web links

  • Waji. School of Music, Theater & Dance, University of Michigan (Figure)
  • Georg Morgenstierne: Song. pliktavlevering.no (contains the sound recording of a one-minute song fragment with waji accompaniment , recorded by the Norwegian Indo-Iranist Georg Morgenstierne in 1968. Also recordings from 1929 on wax rollers in poor quality)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roger Blench: Reconstructing African music history: methods and results. (PDF; 2.3 MB) Safa Conference, Tucson, May 17-21, 2002, Chapter: The arched harp and its history , pp. 2–6
  2. ↑ Walter Kaufmann : Old India. Music history in pictures. Volume II. Ancient Music. Delivery 8. Ed. Werner Bachmann. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1981, p. 35
  3. ↑ Alvad, p 154
  4. ^ Theodore Stern, Theodore A. Stern: "I Pluck My Harp": Musical Acculturation among the Karen of Western Thailand. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 15, No. 2, May 1971, pp. 186-219
  5. ^ Roderic Knight: The Pardhan people of Dindori District, Madhya Pradesh (MP), India. Oberlin College
  6. ↑ Christian Poche: Wanj. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 5, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 285
  7. ↑ Alastair Dick: Waji. In: Grove Music Online , 2016
  8. ↑ Klimburg 1981, illus. P. 200
  9. ^ Rudolf Maria Brandl: To the singing of the kafirs. In: Max Peter Baumann , Rudolf Maria Brandl, Kurt Reinhard (eds.): Festschrift for Felix Hoerburger for his 60th birthday. Laaber, Laaber 1977, pp. 191–207, here p. 192
  10. ^ John Baily : Afghanistan II. Regional Styles, 5th In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Vol. 1. Macmillan Publishers, London 2001
  11. ↑ Klimburg 1981, pp. 158-160
  12. ^ George Scott Robertson: The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush. Lawrence & Bullen, London 1896 ( online at Internet Archive )
  13. ^ Robertson, pp. 199f
  14. ^ Joseph Jordania: Who Asked the First Question? The Origins of Human Choral Singing, Intelligence, Language and Speech. ( Memento of March 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 3.1 MB) Tbilisi State University, 2006, p. 152
  15. ↑ Klimburg 1999, p. 68
  16. ↑ Møller 2005, pp. 64-66
  17. ↑ Klimburg 1999, p. 157
  18. ↑ Klimburg 1999, p. 58
  19. ↑ Klimburg 1981, pp. 156–158