The East Africa Collection

The earliest evidence of music in East Africa appears in rock art paintings from around 500 CE. Images of instruments, dances, and ritual processes demonstrate the connection between music and other aspects of daily life. By the 1700s, written documents of poetry and songs appeared on the Swahili coast. The Swahili coast also brought together a diverse range of communities, including many involved in the expansive trade between the interior of Africa and the coast as well as those forced into slavery. In each of these cases, a wide range of musical forms, instruments, and dances emerged as cultural groups interacted with one another.

(From the Oxford Research Encyclopedia)

Ngoma is the hallmark of music in East Africa and a performance that incorporates drumming, singing, and dancing. Using several towns and villages as examples. Ngoma performances function as important means of mediating conflicts, solidifying community and ethnicity, and communicating traditional values and social histories.

This collection is from Gregory Barz's book 'Music in Africa - Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture' which focuses on music from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The collection also includes 'Kikuyu Folk Songs by Joseph Kamaru.'

Kikuyu Peoples

The Kikuyu are a Bantu ethnic group native to Central Kenya, the term Kikuyu is derived from the Swahili form of the word Gĩkũyũ. Gĩkũyũ is derived from the word mũkũyũ which means sycamore fig (mũkũyũ) tree". Hence Agĩkũyũ in the Kikuyu language translates to "Children Of The Big Sycamore". The alternative name Nyũmba ya Mũmbi, which encompasses Embu, Gikuyu, and Meru, translates to "House of the Potter" (or "Creator").

Since they speak a Bantu language, they are culturally related to other Bantu-speaking peoples of East Africa, in particular the Kamba, the Meru, the Embu, and the Chuka. Most of their culture has been communicated through very rich oral traditions. Their oral literature consists of original poems, stories, fables, myths, enigmas, and proverbs containing the principles of their philosophy and moral codes. According to tradition, the founder of the tribe is a man named Gikuyu. His nine daughters are supposed to be on the origin of the nine sub-groups. Each member of the subclan (mbari) knows from which ancestor, or which daughter of Gikuyu, he or she originates.

The transition from one life stage to another in the Kikuyu society used to be marked by rites of passage, both for males and females. Were included in the main stages: the birth of a newborn, the stage of infant, the one of children before circumcision or excision, and after circumcision or excision, the period of mariage without and then with children, and old age. The concept of age-sets is still of the utmost importance in their society. Members of the same age-set are given a rank in the groups. This rank determines the behavior of the members within a age-set and their behavior towards members of other age groups. More respect is given to the elder. Relationships are very strong between members of the same age-set and continue throughout their lives, even if it is less true today.

Traditionally the Kikuyu worship their ancestors and their unique God called Ngai, name borrowed to the Maasai. In the past, they used to offer to Ngai sacrifices of animals on sacred places. Mount Kenya for instance is considered the home of God. The Kikuyu still gather sometimes on these places for religious or political meetings. Traditionally, the medicine man is a powerful person who forecasts the future, heals, or frees people from ill omens. His main attribute is a gourd. It contains river's pebbles collected during his initiation, as well as small bones and sticks, marbles, old coins and pieces of glass, among other things.

(Source Wikipedia and the Atlas of Humanity)

The East Africa Collection

(MP3 Googledrive Access)