Three Swedish Missionaries
Images of Music in Southern Africa
Stig-Magnus Thorsén
The world is full of beautiful music
Thanks to Africa (…)
Thanks to Africa we live
in a world full of rhythm,
Thanks to Africa we dance and sing
in a song of joy and freedom.
(Ingemar Olsson, 1994)[1]
[1]
The present Swedish perceptions of Africa are biased by an inherited view of African culture. Swedish missionaries have historically contributed to a narrative, disseminated through churches, schools, and mass media. Although anthropologists and colonisers have also portrayed Africa along with the missionaries, I assume here that the missionaries’ contribution to the narrative dominates the cultural discourse: The number of people involved with missions far exceeds the number of those in the other categories. Consequently, they have had a strong impact on the common understanding of music from Africa that I generally encounter in Sweden.
Interest in these cultural images grew out of developmental work in which I have been involved. Since 1993, my institution (School of Music at Göteborg University) has acted as a consultant in the foreign aid programme maintained by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). Our task has been to channel funding and expertise in music education to music organisations in the NGO sector. We sometimes ask ourselves if we just continue in the footsteps of our forerunners-the missionaries. This study aims at understanding an influential part of our historical heritage.[2]
My central question is: How have missionaries reflected music in Africa? Data is limited to the Church of Sweden’s mission in southern Africa 1875–1990. Written accounts form the basis of my research material, and are supplemented by interviews. In particlar, I will discuss Hedvig Posse, Henry Weman, and Olof Axelsson, leaders who represent three generations of missionaries. These three names are particularly recognised for their work in music. Each of them offered a different understanding of the image of music in Africa. Their written accounts from Africa are significant both in details and extent.
[2] To Reflect
In order to understand the consequences of missionaries’ images of music we must apply a method that gives a perspective on individuals and societies in both southern Africa and Sweden, and of the intercultural relations between the countries. I am thus studying a first link in a chain of musical narratives in Africa, constructed by Swedes, namely their accounts of what they saw and took part in. (The word reflection is used as a description of the wider involvement of the onlooker: Reflection meant as missionaries’ mirroring of and meditation on music in Africa.) I refer here to an imagery of encounter between “them” and “us” described by Palmberg (2001:10). Is the image a result of looking through a window or gazing in a mirror? The window metaphore, on the one hand, tells that there is a frame that provides a certain limited perspective. The mirror metaphor, on the other hand, tells us that the picture is mixed with our own assumptions and prejudices.
I subscribe to K.F. Boulding’s theories on images used by Mbaekwe (1980) and Palmberg (2001), that “it is not only the reality or facts as such that is decisive in our actions, but it is also our cumulative knowledge, and our subjective interpretation of it” (Mbaekwe 1980:2). Mbaekwe investigates written documents from Swedish missionaries produced during their work in African before 1914. Mbaekwe finds in these sources a general image of Africa that is both positive and negative.
It viewed all human beings as potentially equal in its opinion on how the African Christians conformed to Christian dogmas. It could be added that the mission literature had extensive first-hand information, since most of its practitioners had been resident in Africa for over decades at any one time. […] Its description of the natives as heathen pagans […] was done in order that the native non-Christian should be discredited or blackmailed into conformity. In a way, this could also be related to a lack of understanding and a misconception or even gross misinterpretations of prevailing conditions in Africa (p. 76).
It is necessary to understand the missionary’s reflection not only in written documents, but also as expressed in musical or other actions. The missionary work is based on a geographical and cultural move into a deliberate encounter with the Africans. The purpose was to convert Africans to Christianity; the rationale behind this was the mission command. “They” should become one of “us” in terms of religious beliefs.
[3] Musical Functions
I will focus my discussion on non-verbal societal phenomena that comprehend central functions in a culture: body movements, feelings, and thoughts, as well as lifestyle, identity, religious, and ritual experience. I adhere to a sociological perspective on music, entailing the study of societal or individual functions of music. The reason for this approach is that I want to look at consequences of the studied images on a societal level.
Many musicologists have investigated musical functions. Anthropologists, who want to highlight the societal context of music via a holistic approach to cultures, often make use of the method.[3] Alan P. Merriam, a scholar of epoch-making importance, renewed the anthropology of music through contextual analyses (1964). This made a change not only to the study of alien cultures, but also to the study of music in the researcher’s well-known vicinity. Recent studies of cultural phenomena are also founded on a functionalistic and context-based look at music. I will not relate to any of the lists of functions but rather select some functions that I find pertinent in this study.
A fundamental function of music relates to the construction or confirmation of cultural differences (Stokes 1994). As a co-operative action, music can manifest and strengthen togetherness, and specifically symbolise a shared ideology (Berger and Luckmann 1967). Music will act inwards to the group and outwards towards other individuals or groups to define or demark differences in cultural identity. In the latter case, music appears as an exclusive emblem marking group affiliation (Thorsén 1980:106ff). This function-demarking of cultural differences-is interesting as missionaries engage deliberately in a cultural encounter with the purpose to convert individuals or rather “a people.” Mission in Africa has been successful and has impacted social orientations, and new groupings: by certain transitional rites (baptism), by the formation of assemblies and denominations and in the first place by constructions of a specific culture at mission stations (Axelson 1970). In this context it is worth pointing out that a majority of African scholars in musicology received their initial education at Christian mission stations (Nketia 1998) .
In most societies music has an ethical function used in educational purposes. This has been connected to construction of a common culture, for example, in the bourgeois conception of music’s power to mould a person’s character according to pronounced norms of value. This function is sometimes expressed generally among missionaries as a negative effect of “African music” and a positive effect of “Christian music.”
A central aspect when analysing musical functions is the relation between music and religion. I look at religion generally in order to compare religious and musical functions. I chose a description of religion that connects to a recent study of religion and music in youth cultures: “that religion deals with our way of managing existential issues with help of imaged higher powers and superior meanings of life.” (Bossius 2003:23). Religion is by that “…connected to our images of forces that we believe or do not believe to have ultimate power over our lives” (ibid. p. 24).
The social aspect of this religious function is related to the theory of knowledge concept symbolic universe, as defined by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann: “The symbolic universe is conceived of as the matrix of all socially objectivated and subjectively real meanings; the entire historic society and the entire biography of the individual are seen as events taking place within this universe.” (Berger & Luckmann 1967:114). The concept is applied in music studies by Thorsén (1980) and Bossius (2003), among others. Berger & Luckmann’s concept is also in agreement with what in recent Cultural Studies is called Cultural Identity, a concept that in its essentialist interpretation even more emphasises the “true one self” and is thought to be formed out of a common history, ancestry and set of symbolic resources” (Barker 2000:176 with original emphasis). The identity forming function of music can also turn into a transpersonal and transcendental experience often termed in religious words (Ruud 1997). I conclude that we can see music and religion as partly operating with similar mechanisms, that is, music can in some instances substitute for religion or vice versa. Typically, this happens in constructions of identity in relation to transcendental experiences (Lindström-Wik 2001).
Music and religion can also concretely operate in symbiotic or complementary activities that are interwoven as in the rites where music often assists or even makes up ritual actions.[4] Such a functionalistic approach to music gives a tangible background to the study of missionaries’ image of music. Music’s relation to religion underlines in other words some crucial aspects of the specific cultural encounter between missionaries and Africans they aim at converting.
[4] Representing African Music
The image of music in Africa is inextricably connected to representation of music in Africa. The outsider’s images conveyed by westerners precede or even overrule the possibility of giving an impartial African account. To this end, Kofi Agawu has summarised a critique of the discourse on “African music” in his most recent book Representing Africa: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions.
Agawu contests what he calls “the invention of African music.” Scholars of music in Africa are collectively accused of stereotyping and generalising music in Africa. Especially harsh is his judgment on statements that more or less connect “African music” with “African rhythm.” Agawu refers to Valentin Y. Mudimbe and Kwame Anthony Appiah’s postcolonial discussion on “the invention of Africa” as an outgrowth of European racialism. “‘African rhythm,’ in short, is an invention, a construction, a fiction, a myth, ultimately a lie” (Agawu 2003:61).
A Ghanaian American, Agawu is tired of being represented by others. Musicology on music in Africa seems to be totally dominated by westerners or Africans trapped into Western thinking. Nobody can find favour in his eyes-not even Kwabena J.H. Nketia. (Later I’ll return to Agawu’s approach to Henry Weman.) Agawu advocates for new attitudes, such as to “…eschew the ‘soft’ strategies of dialogism and the solicitation of insider viewpoints and work towards the direct empowerment of postcolonial African subjects so that they can eventually represent themselves” (ibid. p. 70).
Accentuation of “difference” as a point of departure in nearly all descriptions of music in Africa is also severely critiqued by Agawu. He is searching for musicologists who start their investigations by looking at “sameness.” In the same manner as philosopher Charles Taylor uses as his point of departure “presumption of value,” a “presumption of sameness” would give a more enthralling but ethically acceptable view of how music with fundamentally the same function can be expressed in different manners. Agawu also indicates that music is unique in being a complex and comprehensive phenomenon.
It might be argued, in fact, that the symbolic residue of musical language is greater than that of verbal language. Music is, in that sense, more marked than literature. Thus, ballroom dancing or the composing and performing of string quartets by Africans today would seem to be more marked cultural activities, “louder” in their legible significance, than the writing of poems, novels, or plays in English, French, or Portuguese (p. 10–11).
Paulla Ebron (2002:33 ff) likewise is critical of the regional distinctions that are configured between Africa and Europe: “rhythmic repetition” and “community feeling.” These salient features represent facts not about “music” but about “Africa.” She writes:
Whenever commentators try to eschew the other stereotype-Africa in ruins, the coming anarchy-why do they retreat into an idyllic unstratified Africa, the Africa of “African music”? (p. 34).
[5] Swedish Missionary Work in Practice
The Swedish Moravian missionary Hans Peter Hallbeck arrived in 1817 to Western Cape. He later became the first evangelical bishop of the continent. In 1876 the Church of Sweden (the established national church of Lutheran denomination) started an organised mission that lasted for many decades in South and East Africa. The Church of Sweden’s mission started in Natal. In 1878 the pioneer Otto Witt bought a farm at Rorke’s Drift and established the Swedish station called Oscarsberg. It became a stronghold that still functions as a crafts centre. For a period, the war between Zulus and Englishmen in Natal disturbed the activities, as Oscarsberg became a basis for English warriors.
I have not found any documents written by Witt regarding his work. There is, however, a book by Frans Fristedt, in which he describes his co-operation with Witt in Natal from 1877 and other endeavours up to the establishment of the first Swedish station in KwaZulu. His book is filled with illustrative descriptions about many practicalities. He tells about the art of ox carting, his encounter with Boers’ hostile attitude towards missionaries, and Englishmen who furnish the country with law, order, and subsidies to mission schools.
Fristedt’s approach to the Zulus was ambiguous. He reports about terrible heathendom and its cultural expressions via music and dance, but is often astonished by the hospitality he met when visiting African homes. This ambiguity is a theme that one can trace throughout all missionary accounts.
He wrote little about his actual objective: converting Zulus to Christianity. His main concern regarding “the blacks” was rather that they were not civilised. Fristedt concludes: “The Zulus’ skills and craftsmanship ought to be developed, to enable them to earn their living and clothing” (p. 46). Another important theme was the difference between Zulus who are still heathens and those who have become Christians. Fristedt visited the American mission station Inanda, and was impressed by exams performed by Zulus (p. 117). He listened to showcased insight in Bible history and general acquaintance. “Some could even read whole chapters of the Holy Scriptures both in English and Zulu.” Other subjects were mathematics and handicraft. Singing and music was also examined and “some could even play piano and organ.” Fristedt was inspired by these cultural progresses made by the Africans and consequently schooling became an urgent task at Ekutuleni.
The Swedish mission in east South Africa was enlarged by several new missionaries and new stations, including Aangelegen 1883, Appelsbosch 1886, Ifaye 1890, Dundee Coalfields 1891, Emtulva 1896, and Czesa 1910. By 1920 the Swedish Zulu mission comprised 9 main station, 61 satellite stations, 225 places for sermons, 7970 members of the congregation, 133 “black” mission workers of which 7 were ordained, and 65 everyday schools with 1668 pupils (Ollén 1920). 1881 British and American missionaries translated the Bible to isiZulu. 1902 Axel Liljestrand was heading the first expedition to Rhodesia and in due course the Belingwe station was erected.
[6] Hedvig Posse-The African is Educable
Hedvig Posse was a missionary extremely interested in music. She was from an upper-class family in Stockholm and her assignment was, as expected by the mission organisation, dealing with upbringing of “the blacks.” Her reports are filled with empathetic biographies of Zulus, who were convinced by missionaries to convert. She also reports how they fought for freedom from family and culture. Education, Christianity, and a cultural change were incentives for their step into the European realm (Posse 1899).
Hedvig Posse instructing pupils in needlework at the mission in South Africa. Source: Church of Sweden archive (Svenska kyrkan, Kyrkokansliets arkiv) in Uppsala. [Click on the image for a full-size version.]
Posse was very interested in language studies and she soon learned isiZulu. She also had been active in musical life of Stockholm and Uppsala. In 1885 she published “Sångbok för Församlingarna och Skolan” [Song-book for assemblies and schools] with lyrics in Zulu, and in 1914 she published “Tokozani” with many songs for children. Posse is well known for her fine sense of language and her respect for the intonation and rhythm of Zulu. On the contrary, the musical material is purely from “the North.” Swedish folk tunes and hymns, and in many cases songs from student life captured from her happy youth in Uppsala. “Humming a tune from everyday student life in Uppsala she inspired her Zulu school girls to […] perform click-stuffed songs to these blond melodies” (Sundkler 1974:79).
Posse worked for a long period at Oscarsberg at Rorke’s Drift. After having visited a morning service, she wrote down following:
After the sermon we, just like you back at home, rise and sing, to organ accompaniment, “The Lord bless you and keep you,” which has always been one of my favourite moments in the service. When the altar service is done, children from the school and the orphanage sing, in parts, the most recent song they have learned from our songbook. It contains 100 songs for school and church, many of which are based on Swedish folk melodies. Others, like “Here a bright spring ripples” and “So God loves all the world” and others come from collections of songs we have come to love from home (Posse 1899:15–16, my emphasis).[5]
Posse committed herself to individuals and respected each person’s integrity. In many conflicts, she stood up on the Africans side (Sarja 2002:191). In that, she overruled a stereotype treatment of the “heathens,” but rather looked at the human potential of everyone.
One chapter in her “Letter from the mission field” (Posse 1899) is called “The story of Daniel Magwasa” attached with a photo (p. 50) of Magwasa dressed in a fair suite with a valve cornet in his hands. We can from her story learn that Magwasa went to Posse’s school at Oscarsberg. After that, he was trained as teacher at Ehkanzeni for the German pastor Riebeling, who at the same time taught Magwasa wind instruments. Magwasa was asked to perform at many a Boer party, but his progress as a musician was looked on with discredit. Posse wrote how they put much effort in convincing that a “kaffir” could learn to play according to a written score.
Hedvig Posse did not particularly comment on Zulu music. It is significant that she out of her own standards and values met Africans with respect but on her own conditions. She showed evidence of a treatment in acknowledgement of their individual integrity, but overlooked their collective culture. She acclaimed their potential to learn the music that she carried from Sweden. In her vicinity, however, several missionaries were quite negatively outspoken about African music (Liljestrand and Hallendorff 1907). The approach to “black people” is illustrated by Fristedt in a comparison between a “Christian wedding with four-part singing” and heathen funeral:
(I)t was horrifying to listen to the dreadful, monotonous shouting (aö-mammå-aö), and to see the wild gestures of waving their arms about and swaying their upper bodies forward and back rhythmically, with which the mourners exhausted themselves. (Ibid. p. 106).
Fristedt was at the same time attracted to their “multi-part singing with euphonious sadness” (in Swedish: “välljudande vemod,” Liljestrand and Hallendorf 1907:48–49). It is possible that Posse subscribed to the same opinion, but refrains from writing anything negative about the Zulus.
Hedvig Posse focused on the Zulu language in her field studies. Phonetics and intonation were always well regarded in her compositions. On the other hand, she was ignorant of the indigenous Zulu music. In practice this entails that both Swedish and Zulu music are considered to have neither context nor function. To use her own music (and other forms of Swedish culture as handicraft, clothing etc.) in the upbringing of the African does not seem to be an issue. Zulu pupils, whom she took to her heart, were looked upon as if they had no culture of their own. Zulus were equal to all other humans-by God created. She was in a sense indifferent to culture.
But this stance was just a part of her view. Zulus were at the same time impregnated with many cultural or social flaws: wrong religion, bad habits, devastating demands from the Zulu community, etc. She needed to eradicate many features of Zulu culture. Or rather, a cultural mind shift and alteration of trained behaviour should follow suit the Christian conversion. The vacant space after Zulu music (dance and rite) was filled with Christian hymns, but also songs randomly chosen from whatever Posse brought with her from her upbringing in Sweden. Another rationale for using markedly Christian songs was that they were instrumental for the religious teaching. Posse wrote that learning songs was a first step towards taking part in liturgy and prayer for non-literate Zulus. Music facilitated the accomplishment of Christian mission.
What I observe are examples of cultural metamorphoses. Enculturated meanings and a common symbolic universe connected to music and dance must be thrown over board as a consequence of religious conversion. As I take for granted that music generally must be regarded as connected with cultural identity, the musical conversion will add much more to the religious conversion.
On the one hand, Posse, and her colleagues, was probably naïve regarding questions of cultural identity. Music was looked upon as neutral. The attitude could, on the other hand, have been deliberate. Posse might have considered values built-in the Swedish culture as normative, and aimed at civilising Zulus. Regardless of her objectives, she must have looked at the result of her education and assessed it as good. Her discursive image of Zulu culture expressed that she gazed at a culture not only different but also of alien status.
Mission at this stage demanded a musical mind shift of a radical kind, hitting major parts of the society and the continent. The growth of music education, institutions, industry, and culture policy in Christianised parts of Africa will bear stamp of imagined “difference” and alienation.
[7] Henry Weman Discovers “African Culture”
From mid-twentieth century cultural policy of the Church of Sweden’s mission was imprinted by three salient persons: Bengt Sundkler, Henry Weman, and Olof Axelsson. Sundkler became well known for his recognition and research of African Independent Churches (AIC). In 1948 he published Bantu Prophets in South Africa where he described around 2000 syncretistic denominations (Sundkler 1961 [1948]). Sundkler worked most of his time as a missionary in kwaZulu, but travelled over the whole continent. After his death, his studies were published in the extensive overview A History of the Church in Africa (Sundkler and Steed 2000).
Henry Weman conducting choir singing in Masvingo, Zimbabwe 1967.
Photo: Tord Harlin. [Click on the image for a full-size version.]
In his writings, he spoke out against racism and European supremacy in the mission. Sundkler took a clear standpoint in the harsh debate among mission societies regarding African Independent Churches (AIC). His friendship and scholarly studies reflected a political opinion in favour of African culture. A lot of his time was spent in the midst of the inner circle of some African churches, particularly together with Isaiha Shembe. Where Sundkler opened new approaches to African culture, Henry Weman continued the same path in music.
Weman was a Swedish cathedral organist in Uppsala between 1927 and 1964. He went to South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania in 1954, a journey followed by several more. The Church of Sweden sent him out on several travels to East and southern Africa. The second and most extensive journey, 1956–57, took him to South Africa and Congo. During his travels, he recorded hundreds of traditional music items.
He was well read on African music through texts by leading ethnomusicologists of the time. He recorded Magogo Buthelezi at the kraal of Zulu chief Gatsha Buthelezi. With the assistance of Hugh Tracy, Weman also visited John Galilee Shembe on the sacred mountain Nhlangakazi during a religious festival. A major report was published 1960: African Music and the Church in Africa. The book is an account of his travels and studies, but also a discussion of aesthetics, cultural identity and social function of “African music.” The second part of the book is a survey of the necessity and the possibility of using “African music” in Christian service and Church life, which was his actual commission by the Church of Sweden.
Weman suffered from the fact that Africans were forced to alternate between European “Sunday music” and African “everyday music.” When many other missionaries talked about the dark Africa, Weman was curious about “folk music out in the villages and kraal schools [that] was sporadic, such lightening glimpses.” He advised Europeans to rethink in order to open up for new aesthetics and to give up ingrained opinions on intonation, scales in major and minor, functional harmony etc. He critiqued the use of hymns in schools, the westerners patronising attitude in general and British school inspectors in particular, they who only “will bring up the African so that he can give a practical account of himself in European music.”
Weman, however, was faced with a dilemma: Would it be possible to develop African music, the adequate expression for the indigenous people, when many Africans want to embrace Western music? At the same time, Weman’s own intentions carried an ambiguity towards “African music.” There was a limit for multicultural recognition. He could not accept the use of music directly from African sources.
No one wants African music kept to the level of the kraal, even though it may exhibit elements of rare beauty even at this stage; it must be allowed to develop (p.13).
One cannot help being reminded of music of the less developed sects, in which coarse folk music and dance is allowed to develop unchecked, without either finesse or polish in movement or voice (p.188).
Weman put a limit towards cultures around him. Even if he aimed towards interculturality, he did not manage to fully accept a reciprocal encounter. In the name of Christianity, traditional religions in Africa and connected cultural utterances would remain inferior in his writings. Consequently, his standpoint entailed limits for what was allowed and aesthetically possible in the services. His suggestions to changes of the liturgy were, after all, quite marginal.
Weman’s perspective on African music in general is clearly expressed in a description of his admiration for a Chopi music ensemble:
It is impossible to forget the majestic sound produced by some dozen xylophones of different sizes, with a battery of large and small drums in full attendance. The players handle their instruments with supreme mastery; their rhythmic invention sees to know no bounds in an interplay of rhythm and movement which incites the lithe-limbed Africans to give their outmost in whirling dance. The westerner observes all this with amazement; he cannot cease to wonder that behind this apparent confusion of rhythm, melody and movement there lies a strict confirmity to rule, and that everything is remarkably synchronized, in spite of the absence of an obvious leader. Here it is the westerner who must feel himself to be surpassed by a rhythmic outburst which lacks any counterpart in a ponderous Europe. But there is revealed here something of the mystery of Africa, a perfection and maturity which has been attained by dint of the striving of generations in search for some adequate expression of freedom and liberty, solidarity and the community spirit, and for an inherent joie de vivre (p. 19).
The quote reveals many of his beliefs: Some remarks are well known from other authors and recorded experiences: The overwhelming music (“majestic”), Admiration (“amazement”) for skills and artistry (“supreme mastery”). Weman was taken back by the musical quality expressed in the performance. The rhythmic complexity of the performance seemed to be unattainable for a European. He recognised the immense work behind, in composition and training. In a self-critical mode, he wrote about the “ponderous” Europe. But Weman went further in attempts to explain what wass behind the amazing showcase. The fact that he perceived “closed” underlying rules, and an “invisible” leader hints his attitude in meeting another, radically different musical practice. Weman’s explanation of “the mystery of Africa” reflects his confusion. In the passage, he emphasised the search for “freedom and liberty, solidarity and the community spirit.” These are terms rarely used by missionaries, but here conveyed by the musical performance as interpreted by Weman.
It is difficult to imagine Weman’s clear-cut thoughts behind the words. One wonders if missionaries had missed out these cultural ideals in their earlier judgement of Africans? Was there something “inherent” that should be left untouched? Were Europeans lacking essential values in their lives? Had Africans more personal, communal, or material prosperity to be happy about, or had they just a more joyful character from birth? Weman’s musical immediate experience was doubtless honest, but it caused confusion when he tried to understand and formulate a rationale for specific feature of “African music.” We can trace several similar ambiguities running through his book. The music of “the African” or “African music” is a core concept in Weman’s book. On the one hand, music was assessed as different; on the other hand, he strove for an amalgamation of European and African music for use in the African Christian church.
The differences in musical material (scales, melodies, rhythms) were elaborated in many analyses. He found the scale of the string, the scale of the pipes, and the scale of the Mbira. He thereby showed-often in deep admiration-the various and versatile scales. Other parts in the book explains “melody and song technique” and in yet another “rhythm.” Generally Weman blended his own observations and his own transcriptions with references from other scholars: F. Bose, H. Tracey, P. R. Kirby, E.M.v. Hornbostel, J. Blacking, A.M. Jones, J. Rycroft. I will not go further into musical details or evaluate his analyses of the musical material, as I am studying cultural aspects.
One specific detail is worthwhile to note, however. Weman summarised among other items that “Certain African ‘tonalities’ show marked resemblance to the original ecclesiastical modes” (p. 153). We can question what was meant by “original.” Did Weman actually come over reminiscences from Catholic mission, or did he show evidence of, that we all are part of a greater Christian musical language? Regardless of the answer to that question, Weman suggested that constructed “African psalm tunes”-a derivate of African scales and Gregorian chants-should be a foundation in the merge of African music with European church music.
The difference of the musical cultures was treated as a leitmotif in his thinking and Weman went further into extra-musical explanations of the divergence between music of the continents.
We have altogether different ideals of sound and form, and if we feel confused and out of place when we hear African music we must beware of passing hasty judgement, since criteria involved are so essentially dissimilar. The same care must be taken when it is a question of judging emotive value of the music. Joy and sorrow are expressed in completely different ways according to different cultural environments; this is a part of racial tradition and development (p. 21).
It is obvious that Weman had problems when explaining causality. What was cultural and what was racial? Weman innocently mixed many concepts: race and culture, tradition and development. From following passage, we can understand that he was strikingly unaware of his Eurocentric horizon.
A second or third part is immediately added to the [newly-heard] melody, without any form of instruction being given as to how this is to be done. This seems to be an inborn ability (p. 75).
It is maybe too easy to criticise the term “inborn ability.” But what in spontaneous harmonizing was possibly inherited from earlier European mission or stemmed from African traditions? Further, the fact that something was done without obvious instruction was also puzzling to Weman, probably not experienced from Western improvised music.
We find here and in several other bewildered accounts of Weman, a missionary’s encounter with people subject to mission. Weman believed that he met an entirely different idea of music. What happened was rather a clash between the missionary’s prejudices and reality. The ground for this clash was, regrettable, uninformed misunderstandings of “the mission.” We can anticipate a conclusion: the aim of Weman’s commission impacted his interpretation of the music he heard. His perception was filtered through the mission command.
There are other statements coloured by Weman’s purpose of being in Africa. On the one hand, he was markedly negative to Europeans being culturally colonising and insensitive to African culture. He was courageous and a pioneer among other missionaries in his strivings for Africanisation of African church music. He even brought Zulu music back home, to be included in the Church of Sweden’s liturgy.[6] On the other hand, he was pessimistic about the possibility for “Africans” to learn European music.
The western teacher has also to allow that this [European] melodies have very little to give the African where rhythm is concerned. The great gulf between African and European ideas of music is seldom so marked as here. The result is often a sluggish kind of song, which naturally fails to make an impression on the African (p. 120).
We can compare with Hedvig Posse’s unreserved trust in the capacity of Zulus to learn and embrace any cultural practice. She saw to the individual, not bothering about communal aspects of music. Weman grasped the cultural encounter from another angle. He generalised on an “African” continental level in his efforts to understand the possible success of the mission. The scope of perspective influenced the reflected image.
Weman expressed what I venture to call cultural chauvinism when he criticised music of African independent churches. “The music of the [orthodox European] Church aims infinitely higher and deeper than that of the sects, since it is anchored fast in the liturgy.” It is quite possible that Weman’s “mission” as a Christian influenced him even here. The subjective opinions are due to his inability to look outside the fence of his Christian faith.
Further, there was a contradiction between being a scholar and a missionary. No matter how hard Weman tried to understand and how great an effort he put into research, he carried a load of prejudices. His reliance in African culture stopped at a certain level. The first generation of missionaries (here represented by Hedvig Posse) brought African languages into the Christian service, but excluded the music. In Weman’s opinion, music was treated as neutral and allowed to be brought on board-given that Africans did not bother about cultural and semiotic contradictions. (We can only suspect plenty of other cultural misunderstandings being overlooked.) But when it came to expressions of African churches, he had no mercy. And consequently, he never mentioned a word about traditional African religions, or their musical practice.
Henry Weman was above all a Christian with the Church of Sweden and its liturgy at his heart. Investigating music in southern Africa was subordinate to his missionary work, a stance expressed by many missionaries (Sundberg 2001:93ff). Under these circumstances, anthropological investigations become primarily instrumental in the mission.
Alan P. Merriam reviewed Weman’s book in the journal Ethnomusicology (1963:136–137). Merriam criticised the wide generalisations that were made from geographically very limited material. Among several conclusion that he found unacceptable, he emphasised his concern about the statement from Weman: that “Western and African music are entirely different and ‘two distinct entities’.” At the same time he noticed that Weman contradicted himself on almost every single difference he suggested.
Merriam also noticed sincere interest from Weman’s side to recognise African music. He wrote that at best, Weman’s work can be regarded as applied musicology, and in that, it gives a decent background for “the missionaries who daily face the problems of how to handle music in religious proselytising in Africa. And if its impact is considerable, as indeed it may be, it will be extremely important to ethnomusicologists of the future as a basic document of planned change in African music” (Merriam 1963:137, my emphasis).
To this discussion we can add that Kofi Agawu (2003:64) is critical to Weman’s (and other’s) use of the term “the African.” Agawu is outspokenly unhappy with many researchers’ construction of concepts like “African rhythm” and especially “African free rhythm” as used by Weman (1960:152).
[8] Olof Axelsson moves into dialogue
Olof Axelsson is the third missionary in southern Africa selected for my investigation. He followed in the footsteps of Henry Weman, but was also critical of his forerunner. Axelsson was recruited by the Church of Sweden’s Mission in 1966 as school inspector and church musician for service in Zimbabwe. He began in 1967 in Belingwe and later served in Gwanda. In 1974 he moved to positions as organist in Catholic churches in Bulawayo. At an early stage, he became involved in the Zimbabwean Ecumenical Arts Association and worked in this comprehensive environment up to 1984. Around 1970 he occasionally came back to Sweden for studies in musicology and completed a Master’s thesis (Axelsson 1971).
Olof Axelsson with a reconstructed marimba in Bulawayo.
Source: Private collection, Peta Axelsson. [Click on the image for a full-size
version.]
Between 1972 and 1981 he served as headmaster for the College of Music (at Kwanongoma College) in Bulawayo, and during 1983–85 he devoted his full time to manufacture of “new” traditional African instruments: the marimba and the mbira (kalimba). After these years, he ended his life in Sweden as organist and lecturer in ethnomusicology. Axelsson’s lifetime achievement can be summarised in research, education, and manufacturing of instruments.
Axelsson should not be regarded solely as a missionary in this context, as he, from time to time, worked outside the Church of Sweden’s mission. The mission did not sponsor his roles as headmaster and the manufacturer. He rather settled as a musician (performer, composer, organiser, etc.) and took jobs in other denominations and governmental or private organisations.
Axelsson was very direct in his descriptions of music he met and became involved in (1971). He rejected earlier researchers generalisations and interpretations (including Weman’s). He never wrote about the difference between African and European music. Rather, out of his engagement with and enthusiasm for the music around him, he just started making music. The articles from his hand reflect and serve to a large extent his practical work. His way of getting absorbed by musical and cultural life in Zimbabwe may not have suited the Church, but he was prepared to live according to his personal ideals. We can see his involvement as a reflection of how he imagined music around him. In that sense, he did not leave opinions on “African music.” His contribution to Swedish audiences had other features: musical instruments, compositions, and later on films, dramas, and songbooks.
Axelsson’s image of music in Africa was also expressed in practical work. He renewed instruments that have a declining tradition, which he wanted to give renewed use in Zimbabwean music. His effort to develop the marimba gave echo in whole of southern Africa. In cooperation with the Catholic mission the “Bulawayo marimba” became widespread in southern Africa and successively a salient instrument both in churches and street bands. It is unclear to what extent Axelsson was part of the introduction of the marimba also on the World Music scene (even in some Swedish and Norwegian municipal music schools). Nevertheless, we can today find remanufactured instruments all over the world. The mbira on the other hand was already in use all over Zimbabwe and in many variants. Thus, the Bulawayo factory probably did not change ongoing renaissance of that instrument.
In Axelsson’s writings, about five long scholarly papers and some instructions on manufacturing the marimba and the mbira, he investigated the use of Christian music in southern Africa, focusing on all experiments and achievements made so far in indigenisation and Africanisation of church music (Axelsson 1971, 1973, 1974, 1981, 1981/82, 1983, 1983, 1984). He approved of Weman’s pioneering work, but was indeed critical of his and others’ specific suggestions regarding Africanisation of western music. He pointed out that missionaries and anthropologists too often lacked a deeper knowledge of music in Africa, and that their Eurocentric methods had given wrong conclusions. Axelsson promoted, on the contrary, a dialogue between European and African scholars in development of a more relevant musicology. Despite his critique, Axelsson supported renewal of the music in the African Churches much in line with Weman’s, including responsorial singing, downdrift in melody, adherence to tonal pattern of the language, polyrhythmic structure, and both parallel and contrapuntal motions in multipart music. These features derived from African music, which he thought to blend well with European features: Western tonality and extension of harmonic feeling by addition of thirds.
The markedly new aspect of Axelsson’s attitude to music around him was his concrete commitment, knowledge, and understanding. This comes from his ability to shift between different professional roles and ability to reach outside the church walls. At the Bulawayo College he was engaged in secular music education, he also co-operated with African independent churches. Rumours say that he even participated in rites of traditional African religions. For many reasons his work became associated with conflicts on both personal and professional levels.
Axelsson’s analyses revealed many details about the mission in a wider historical and geographical context. He highlighted problems in the civilising project. He scrutinised the relation between Christendom and the Western cultural and political hegemony. He tried to understand reasons behind hesitation from Africans towards use of African traditional music in European churches in Africa, a paradox that earlier was considered inexplicable. Axelsson was well aware that music in Zimbabwe at that time was a mix of European and American musical practices, and that music used by Africans around him had a variety of social and religious functions overlooked by earlier missionaries. He could thenavoid conflicts between African culture (in this case Shona and Ndebele) and his own involvement as a European. He recognised ongoing acculturation and birth of neoindigenous and popular Euro-African musical styles. In that respect, he went beyond Weman’s limited scope of musical genres.
Axelsson continued his work while moving rather freely inside and outside the churches and the secular Zimbabwean music scene. He discovered the flexible interrelatedness between various musical practices in Zimbabwe. In his last article (1993), he displayed a close musical analysis of two “Church music operas” from 1965 and 1974. A part of the article labelled “functional aspects” comments on social-political aspects and he suggested that the operas are strongly connected to the liberation movement and that performances during the seventies were locally interpreted as political in text and music, here obviously in favour of the Chimurenga movement with a symbolic representation of the political parties ZANU and ZAPU in the libretto. He concluded by saying that “much of contemporary Black church music in Zimbabwe follows indigenous patterns” (p. 44).
Olof Axelsson had a dream of creating a new and African musicology (1973). In that way, he gave himself a new commission. He shifted his professional role and introduced new methods and perspectives into the study of music in Africa. His change of direction towards research come from being convinced that the West has developed a misconception of music and culture in Africa. At an early stage in his writings, he gave a vision for the Kwanongoma College.
The impact of Western technological civilisation and the general lack of interest in African music have meant that many instruments that were once wide spread in the country, are today more or less extinct. […] Thus it must be regarded as of the utmost importance that those instruments, which once played an essential and indispensable role in the musical life of the societies, should be re-introduced, and their artistic and functional values clearly emphasised (1973:64).
The mixture of roles of the missionary and the anthropologist are well known. Many others have done likewise: A.M. Jones, R. Kaufman etc. Others have worked in parallel with the mission: H. Tracey; some scholars have been raised at missionary stations, often with a blend of European and African ideals (Akrofi 2002:1–3, Flolu 2003).
[9] Conclusions
This investigation is subject to normal (scientific) uncertainty regarding the proportional size of the studied object. What the individual agent does in a specific moment can be rational, reasonable, and commendable, but regarded in a wider perspective in terms of time and social compass, we can trace consequences that can be even devastating. At the core of a postcolonial analysis is the embrace of a wide scope of time, communities, geography, and political systems. The difficulty in the present study lies in the transfer from observations on a micro level to conclusions on a macro level. I will look at the impact of the missionaries’ thinking on the presently dominating view on music in Africa.
The all-pervading theme of difference is obviously the most salient feature of the images. The religious conversion to Christendom emphasises a holistic cultural mind shift. This entails a shift in the relation between musical practice and musical functions that constructs new identities and symbolic universes for individuals and collectives. The difference is accordingly evidence of the success of the mission. It is up to the reader to see this as a success also outside the domain of Christendom. From my own perspective, where aspects of global equity and each people’s human rights are considered, I can rather regard the mission as a failure, entailing problems for the culture in Southern Africa. The image of The Other carries all traits that Edward Said articulates in his Orientalism (1993). Low self-respect for African cultural utterances and an overemphasised infatuation in Western cultures is maybe the most obvious consequence.
Stereotyping is also fundamental in the images I have displayed. Posse entirely overlooked the culture of Africans, Weman generalised on a broad cultural and continental level, and Axelsson asked for a new African musicology disregarding the amount of scholarship already available on the continent. More trustworthy descriptions occur when a person engages in an immediate intercultural confrontation or co-operation with another person. In practice it is obvious, however, that Henry Weman did not have the time or the commission to work on a grass-root level as Posse or Axelsson did.
It is clearhow these attitudes have imprinted contemporary Swedish perspectives on music from the South. In the name of commercial World Music and in many other cultural relations, Africa has been utilised, as a cultural source, which can fulfil the need of an Exotic Other. The stereotyped difference is a necessity for such an attitude, and is seemingly hard to get rid of. Even if many musicians and music connoisseurs have followed Axelsson’s deeper engagement in African musical life, the dominant image mirrors the needs of Northern urbanised “modern people.”
Hypothetically, I conclude from this study that many common features of the missionaries’ images are fundamental to ongoing constructions of intercontinental or global musical practices. The discourse of World Music sometimes relies on hereditary assumptions about global relations (Erlmann 1999) and the view of The Other (Bohlman 2002), which extrapolate much of what missionaries have told us about “African music.” The same holds true for development assistance practice, where music often is used in various settings by musically untrained staff. I can easily compare our own unprepared entrance into the “field,” in trying to materialise Swedish cultural exchange, that is, transferring Swedish governmental money and expertise to South Africa. Our own mistakes were due to a naïve and un-reflected adoption of the common understanding of culture in Africa-as taught in our own upbringing.
The ignorance of musical functions has to a large extent underpinned false generalizations and stereotyping. Evidently, Posse and Weman knew too little about the relation between music and society in the environment in which they worked. Posse seems to have had a very loose relation even to Swedish music. In Weman’s perspective, any music of Africa indifferently became a neutral language or carrier for texts, and the esthetical judgement of the end-result was filtered through his Western “church-music ears.” Lacking was a deeper and specific knowledge of how music per se permeates and reflects societal changes. Music is then often-as in the case of Posse-used as a means for extra-musical endeavours.
The mandate (self-assumed or divine) impacts the eyes and ears of the observer. In this case, the Christian mission-to convert, be it a person’s religion or culture-hampered the understanding of another culture’s music. In case of Axelsson, he had to go beyond his original plans to achieve new musical knowledge and practice. The mix-up of professional roles-here missionaries, educators, and scholars-obviously contributed to a problematic and biased image. Through the sources describing the missionaries’ work, we can find that the original undertaking was based on a pre-understanding of African culture and music. While carrying through the mission, this understanding encountered a conflict due to practical conditions. Above all, the co-operation with human beings gave a new perspective that contrasted the pre-understanding. A conflict emerged which was solved with various tactical attitudes from the missionaries. Posse turned her interest towards the individual persons and their life stories. She became, in a way, a forerunner of the anthropologists. Weman tried to change the musical liturgy, still referring to general assumptions of musical styles out of context. His image has become the most reiterated pattern for the general outlook on music from Africa. Axelsson dismissed his relationship with the Church of Sweden in an attempt to acquire a deeper understanding of music and context in Africa. His way of approaching African musicians’ practise has been followed by many others towards the end of the twentieth century.
The image of music must be seen as a comprehensive discourse where musical activities and utterances form the totality of the image. The three missionaries’ images have been a pertinent object of a study, which can explain even extra-musical perspectives. Here I have only started on a general level. Studies of the impact of missionaries on culture in Africa need to be furthered in two directions, both with intrinsic methods (due to music unique forms of representation) and with general methods of Cultural studies (in order to reveal societal functions).
I began the article with an epigraph from a song by Ingemar Olsson that in my opinion encapsulates in particular Henry Weman’s image of difference, rhythm, joy, and liberty. It is easy to endorse Olsson’s wish to celebrate African music on a general level. Africa has contributed to most of today’s popular music styles of African-American music. But, we know too well that the conditions for music in Africa are troublesome, and we can easily find expressions of sadness and submission as well as a spirit of revolt that emerged from the continent’s historical past.
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Acknowledgment
This study was carried through with financial support from Sida/Sarec. A preliminary version was discussed at the Nordic Africa Institute’s seminar Nordic Africa Days in 2003.
[1]
Världen är full utav skön musik
Tack vare Afrika (…)
Tack vare Afrika lever vi
i en värld som är full utav rytmer
Tack vare Afrika dansar och sjunger vi
I en glädjens och frihetens sång
The lyrics are part of a song written and sung by Ingemar Olsson on the CD “Olsson in Africa” (Little Beat Records LBRD 001). He is a well known musician in the genre “Christian pop” in Sweden. The CD was a cooperation between Swedish and South African musicians in the spirit of Paul Simons “Graceland.” It can be categorised as “Christian World Music.”
[2] The three missionaries’ work in music education is described in Thorsén (2004).
[3] For an overview of the concept of musical functions, see Ling (1976).
[4] The description of functional relations between music and religion are more elaborated in Merriam (1964:217, 224).
[5] Translation from the missionaries’ sources are made by Linda Schenck.
[6] Number 697:5 in Church of Sweden’s hymnbook: “Gloria and Laudamus” with music from “southern Africa.”