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Mbira: A Zimbabwean treasure to cherish

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MODERN-DAY music in Zimbabwe includes instruments such as guitars, piano, keyboard and the saxophone, among others.
And the most common type of music among the youth is the Zim-dancehall and the urban grooves genre which has taken the market by storm.
All instruments in this type of music are Western.
Sadly, Zimbabwe’s own musical instruments such as the ngoma, hosho and mbira do not feature prominently or make the foundation of local music.
Musicians who play the mbira instrument such as Hope Masike, Sekuru Gweshe and Stella Chiweshe while being recognised as excellent artistes, have very few fans in Zimbabwe compared to those in European countries.
The same applies for mbira ensembles such as Mbira Dzenharira, Mawungira Enharira, Pasi Vanhu Mbira and Musha Waparara Mbira Group.
However, there is need for the promotion of the mbira instrument locally so that Zimbabweans are able to appreciate their own local products.
Paul Berlin, in his book Soul of Mbira, notes that archaeological and historical evidence points to the fact that the mbira was an ancient instrument among the Shona people with several examples of mbira parts found at the ruins of Nyanga and other parts in north-eastern Zimbabwe.
Some of the mbira remains were found at the Great Zimbabwe monuments in Masvingo.
Berlin notes that the diaries of the first European missionaries and adventurers in southern Africa clearly indicate that the Shona were highly skilled blacksmiths and that the mbira was a well-established musical instrument among the Shona at least by the 16th Century.
He identifies about five types of mbira instruments which are the matepe, ndimba, mbira dzevadzimu, njari and the mbira dzevaNdau.
The geographical distribution of these general types of mbira and their centres of popularity have in some instances remained fairly constant.
The concentration of matepe playing has always been Mashonaland Central, especially in Bindura and Mt Darwin.
It is also found in some parts of Mutoko.
Mbira dzevaNdau remains the instrument of the Ndau people in eastern Zimbabwe.
In contrast, the centre of popularity for the mbira dzevadzimu has moved over the past 100 years.
In the later part of the 19th Century, the instrument was played by the Karanga people in southern parts of Zimbabwe, particularly in Masvingo.
The arrival of the missionaries challenged its popularity.
Today, mbira dzevadzimu is associated more closely with the Zezuru people.
And the differences can be distinguished from one another on the basis of physical characteristics, musical style and function within the cultural functions.
The shape of the keys and their layout on the soundboards of the instruments also differ from one mbira type to another.
During the pre-colonial period, the association of the mbira with the traditional Shona religion was strong in the lives of mbira players.
While mbira players were always respected, the acculturation process that has been taking place in Zimbabwe since the late 19th Century has challenged their position.
Among the influences most detrimental to the African arts in general and to mbira music with its strong religious connotation in particular, have been missionary movements.
Berlin posits that: “Missionary groups have promoted unfortunate stereotypes of traditionalists and have often caricatured mbira players as uneducated, lazy, beer drinking heathens.”
In the past, as today, the mbira was used in traditional Shona religious ceremonies to create the essential link between the world of the living and the world of the spirits.
The mbira was believed to have the power of projecting its sound into the heavens and attracting the attention of the ancestors, who are the spiritual owners and keepers of the land and the benefactors of the people’s welfare.
It is a basic tenet of traditional Shona religion that after people die, their spirits continue to affect the lives of their progeny.
In the traditional Shona view, then, a person’s fortune and fate in the world are to some extent the result of an interplay of forces outside of the person’s own control.
If for instance, individuals within a family offend the departed ancestors, the spirits can punish their children directly by withdrawing their support, leaving them vulnerable.
If illness occurs, the individual privately consults the spirits of his or her ancestors in prayer or goes to the traditional healer for treatment.
If herbs recommended by the healer do not help the patient, chances are the disease is not natural.
In such a case, the patient’s problem becomes the domain of a svikiro (spirit medium) and the traditional healer advises that the family of the affected person arrange a traditional religious ceremony called a bira for the ancestral spirits ‘to make a ritual offering’.
While the main purpose of the bira is religious, the event affects participants deeply in other ways as well.
Throughout the evening people dwell on the strong cultural associations of the mbira music.
When the music stops, the mediums convey their messages as official representatives of the spirit world. Mbira music is played both for entertainment and in connection with special occasions such as the all-night dancing which precedes certain ceremonies.
Mbira music also played an important role at special rain-asking ceremonies (mukwerera), memorial services (nyaradzo) and at times funerals.
It was used to contact both ancestors and tribal guardians, to give guidance on family and community matters and exert power over the weather and health.
The mbira was played to ask for rain during drought and stop the rains during floods.
It was also essential in celebrations of all kinds, including weddings and installation of new chiefs.
Mbira was also played at funerals and is played for a week following a chief’s death before the community is informed of his passing.
At the kurova guva ceremony, approximately one year after a person’s physical death, mbira was used to welcome that individual’s spirit back into the community.
In previous centuries, court musicians played mbira music for Shona kings and their diviners.
Dr Michelina Andreucci, in a recent article in The Patriot elucidates the role women played in mbira music when she says: “On March 8, we commemorated the United Nations (UN) International Women’s Day (IWD) and it is worth remembering that women are the carriers of our culture – ndovanobereka hunhu wedu – ‘women carry the culture on their backs’.
In fact, in Zimbabwe, women mbira players articulated the First and Second Chimurenga in their musical repertoire.
Women in the Shona context were often viewed as the recipients of spiritual messages; our most notable and noble being Charwe Nehanda.”
Dr Tafataona Mahoso, a culture expert on the other hand, believes Christianity played a role in the lukewarm appreciation of mbira hence the need for the promotion and re-adoption of the mbira as a national instrument.
Said Dr Mahoso: “I grew up playing chimatende and my elder brother played chimazambi.
At that time playing also meant being able to make the instrument.
What I could not understand, however, was that once I started school, I never again came across these instruments or any other African musical instruments.
The magnitude of my loss became clearer to me when I was outside the country in the US in the late 1970s when I heard excerpts of our mbira music in Philadelphia and realised how much I missed the sounds of our own instruments.”
Upon his return, he tasked students to find out which churches accepted the mbira, ngoma and other indigenous instruments in their services.
The students established that Orthodox churches like the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist, among others, used African instruments extensively but did not include the mbira.
“As long as the mbira is not allowed in church, we can be sure that the church remains un-African, resisting Africanisation and fearing the power of African creativity implied in the institution of mbira,” said Dr Mahoso.
“This resistance is universal in white colonial civilisation.
“It is not only resistance to mbira and ngoma but to what I have called African rituals of space and place, a resistance to African memory as power.”
Albert Chimedza, the director of Mbira Centre, believes that most of the mbira information is foreign and was written by whites, while the indigenous people have not invested in writing about their own heritage.
“Such an attitude is a result of colonial education, hence the mbira should be used as a way to decolonise the mind and get us to realising that our knowledge is important and the need to invest in it,” Chimedza said.
“The mbira has been demonised and a lot of the attitude is based on what we were taught and we were taught that anything cultural is backward and not for the urbanites.”
Such a mindset, said Chimedza, is stopping Africans from developing their own things.
“It’s interesting how the whites come to Zimbabwe and go to Binga to buy about 2 000 Tonga baskets and take them to England for resale and come back again for more and the whole Binga community, including the local businessmen, do not question the rationale behind the hoarding of baskets,” said Chimedza.
“What the whiteman has simply done is to teach us to look down on our things but they know their value which is why they buy them and keep them in their homes.”
Chimedza added that while indigenes looked down upon the mbira and other local instruments, whites were buying tickets to come to Zimbabwe to learn the mbira and eat the local delicacies.
The solution, said Chimedza, is mental decolonisation.
“We must not see the mbira as something that we do on top of our education, but we should see it as the basis of our education,” he said.
“We must professionalise indigenous knowledge and export our mbira just like other countries do.
“It is very easy for black people to buy a foreign instrument like a guitar or piano, but the same people will not buy the mbira.”

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