4. Scope
4.1 Fields of Research 11
This study is interdisciplinary, encompassing insights from liturgical study, theology, ethnomusicology, anthropology, missiology, and ritual studies (Tovey 2004:160). It is part ethnography, part personal journey, part musical and cultural analysis, part theologising, and part investigative reporting. I employ techniques and ideas from the disciplines mentioned above and borrow concepts from grid/group cultural theory to
organize and analyse my data. My purpose is to build on what others have done and lay the groundwork for further serious thought and practice on the issue of a worship and music in the Songhai context.
4.2 Goals
Here are some contributions I can make to the conversation about music in the culture and in the church (Nettl 2005:264–6; Shelemay 2008:142–3; King 2008a:5–8):
1) Stimulate further discussion by both insiders and international scholars about music, culture, and the church;
2) Provoke a mutually beneficial dialogue between the church in the west and the church in the south;
3) Document the story and place of music in the life of one African church;
4) Kindle a respect for one of the world’s musical cultures in scholarly and ecclesiastical circles;
5) Have a lasting input on the insider culture and nation;
6) Put a new perspective on people’s understanding of culture and music; and 7) Promote the transmission and preservation of a rich musical tradition.
4.3 Sources
My primary sources for this research were Songhai people and churches. Through observation, interviews, case studies, and lessons on the three-stringed lute, I engaged in dialogue with Songhai people to learn about their music and their attitudes toward music. The data I present comes from fieldwork and from my reflections living and working alongside the Songhai over many years. Secondary source material comes from the disciplines mentioned above (Section 4.1) and includes ethnographies, books, films, articles, theses, and other documents from the scholarly and ecclesiastical worlds. All Bible citations are from the New International Version (Barker 1995) unless otherwise stated.
I cite primary sources in the following manner. To protect the confidentiality of each participant, I use their initials.3 Following the initials and the year of the interview, I put the time in which the citation appears on the interview transcript (example: IH 2014, 40:16-44:39). For people who have the same initials, I add a number according to the order in which I interviewed them (example: HM4). Occasionally, I did follow-up interviews with participants. If an ‘–A’ follows the initials, it refers to the first interview with that person. A ‘–B’ after the initials refers to a follow-up interview. If the interview was not recorded, after the initials and year I place a hashtag followed by the question number of the interview in Roman numerals. If there were sub-questions under the primary one, I continue the numbering using standard outline format (example: SS 2012, #I-B-2). For focus groups, I listed a title for the group (Men, Elders, Women) in place of the initials. For church observations, I used an abbreviation to designate the church denomination followed by a number which designates the particular church. The numbers are in the order I visited them (example: AD-7).
4.4 Limitations
Writing about music is a challenging and limiting task. How does one put on paper what one hears and feels and performs? While both writing and music are related to speech, neither is the same as speech. Much of the experience of music gets lost in writing about it. John Chernoff states that
The most important gap for the participant-observer … is not between what he sees and what is there, but between his experience and how he is going to communicate it. In attempting to do anthropological research, to translate the ‘structures’ and ‘processes’
which appear in another culture into the textual structures of his own, a social scientist must evaluate his own experience with flexibility. Finding the proper level of abstraction to portray with fidelity both the relativity of his own viewpoint and the reality of the world he has witnessed necessarily involves an act of interpretation. (1981:11)
What appears in this thesis, then, are my interpretations of the phenomena I have witnessed. I do not believe they are completely different from what the Songhai see and
3 In light of the events of 16-17 January 2015, in which 76 churches and many Christian homes, schools, and businesses were burned in Niger, I feel justified in making the decision to protect the confidentiality of my research participants.
hear, but they do reflect my viewpoint. It resembles the situation in which two people witness an accident from different angles. Their positions and stances will inevitably colour their testimonies of the incident. Neither position is totally wrong, but each testimony is both partial and imperfect. With that in mind, here are some further limitations I imposed on the research and some limitations that were imposed on me.
To make my research more focused and manageable, I did little analysis of the technical, artistic, or aesthetic aspects of Songhai music. Instead, I looked mainly at the role of music in its social and cultural context, and how it relates to people and the church (Merriam 1964:6–7, 14–15). I therefore did not focus on the study of song texts or the analysis of musical style. Neither did I use the technique of music transcription.
Rather, my emphasis in the thesis is on the material aspects of music and on music in relation to other aspects of culture (Garba 1992:20–21).
My emphasis in this research is on the Protestant church. Because of French influence, the impact of the Roman Catholic Church in Francophone countries is sometimes greater than that of the Protestant church. While I have observed and learned from Catholics for the sake of comparison, I have focused my research on Protestants for the following reasons:
1) Catholics are more numerous than any Protestant denomination in Niger, and it would render the research too broad if I had extended it to the Catholic Church.
2) Protestant Songhai churches are having trouble creating indigenous worship music.4
3) My church contacts are mainly amongst the Protestant community.
4) Very little has been written by or about the Songhai Protestant church.
4 Both Rob Baker (2012:115) and Thomas Hale (2010, #XII-B) observed that Catholics have been more open to traditional forms of music than Protestants. I have observed two masses in different Catholic parishes in Niamey (one of which was billed as a ‘Zarma’ service) and was disappointed to hear little indigenous Nigerien music (either instruments or tunes) in the worship service. Some of my participants told me that the Catholic parish in Dolbel north of Téra has more indigenous styles and instruments, but
Another limitation of the research involves the history of Songhai music. There are too few written sources available to construct a reliable history of music amongst the Songhai. I will relate what is known, but it is very sketchy. Of course, historical elements do play a role in the current expression of the Songhai traditional music-culture and have an important impact on this research (Hale 1998:272–85, 313–20;
Diawara 1996; Bornand 1999:295–8). What is clear, however, is that music in the Sahel region of Africa has undergone dramatic changes through contact with the West and with Islam in the past two centuries. Thus, my emphasis here is on the current use of music in the Songhai church and culture.
An unfortunate limitation imposed on this research was the issue of security. At the beginning of my research journey, I had hoped to survey the culture and churches in Mali, the Songhai heartland. The impact of extremist groups operating in the desert region of West Africa closed the door to research in that country as well as some areas of northern Niger. Except for a few interviews with people from Mali, I had to limit my research to places in Niger and Benin. While this is regrettable, I did not want to place my life or anyone else’s in jeopardy.
There is insufficient space in this thesis for an extensive, in-depth study of music amongst the Songhai/Zarma peoples, although I recognize the necessity for such a study. The research is comprehensive but concise, focusing only on the major elements of traditional Songhai music and its social and cultural role in society and in the church.
Similarly, this is not the place for a full ethnography of the Songhai people. I have provided a summary of the history and culture of the Songhai and their music in Chapter Two, but otherwise I will make use of these elements only as they relate to and set the scene for the study of music in the church.
There are three final distinctions I need to make which set boundaries on this work. First, I am mainly concerned with worship in a communal setting. Often, that
setting is a building or structure, but it may be outside a church building during celebrations and social events. Thus, I am not concerned with private acts of devotion and piety.
Second, I need to define the term ‘church’. In this thesis, the church is a community of people in a particular locality who take the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as their authority for belief and practice. They emphasize the salvific work of Christ through his life, death, and resurrection as the central theme of their faith.
While the broader meaning of the word ‘church’ is not confined to a particular place or building, in this thesis, it usually refers either to local groups of believers who meet together regularly or to the Christian community amongst the Songhai.
A final distinction concerns the functions of music in liturgical settings. I am limiting this study of church music primarily to its worship function even though there is overlap with other functions like proclamation, teaching, and edification.
4.5 Audience
My primary audience for this research is the Songhai/Zarma Christian community.
Through this study, I hope to promote dialogue, critical thinking, and action about music and worship in the church (TB-B 2013, 24:41-26:22). The questions I have asked in this chapter will have a wider applicability to the worldwide Christian community, but my primary focus is on the church in a particular region. Another important research audience is the scholarly world, especially theologians, missiologists, missionaries, and academics who are interested in issues related to liturgy and the use of music in worship.
5. Terms and Spellings
There are a number of terms that I need to define more precisely. The first is the somewhat awkward appellation Songhai/Zarma. The Songhai and the Zarma were two different ethnic groups that moved to what is today Niger, Mali, and Benin several
centuries ago. In the twenty-first century they share a culture and language. I will sometimes use the terms separately to refer to people from each ethnic group. My use of the term Songhai/Zarma highlights the ethnolinguistic group as a whole, but at times I resort to the simpler name Songhai to designate the entire group. The context will clarify if I am referring to the Songhai as a whole or to the Songhai ethnic group proper.
There are variant spellings for both Songhai and Zarma in the literature. The most common variant for the former is ‘Songhay’ (Stoller 1989a; Hale 1990; Cissoko 1984;
Dubois 1899; Fuglestad 1983). Others spell it as I do (Bovill 1933; Davidson 1998;
Charry 2000b; Bebey 1975; Villiers & Hirtle 2007). French texts often use Sonrai. I have chosen the spelling that I think most closely approximates my English pronunciation of the word. No variation really comes close to the pronunciation of the Songhai themselves: Soŋey (see the pronunciation guide at the beginning of the thesis) (Zoumari 1982). As for the term Zarma, other spellings include Zerma and Djerma, the latter being the term most commonly used in French. All three spellings reflect actual pronunciation of Zarma people from different dialects.
Another word I use in this thesis is the term ‘Nigerien’. In English it is impossible to distinguish between a citizen of Niger and a citizen of Nigeria. Both would be
‘Nigerian’. French makes the distinction clear by putting a second ‘e’ in the place of the
‘a’ for a citizen of Niger. To minimise confusion, I have used the French term for a citizen of Niger without an acute accent on the first ‘e’.
It is also important that I define the term ‘Western’ since I use it so much in the text.
When I use the word, I am generally referring to the peoples and cultures which have their origin in Western Europe. This includes Canada and the United States even though both these countries are a mixture of peoples, many of whom do not come from Europe.
While Western Europe and North America have many different cultures, they share similar worldviews and perspectives on art (Wolterstorff 1980:24–8). Since these
countries dominated the world in the twentieth century and have a hegemonic cultural and social influence in the contemporary world (Farhadian 2007:154; Hawn 1999:127), I will often group them under this term, even though it is contested and ambiguous.
I also use the terms ‘traditional’ and ‘indigenous’ quite freely in the thesis and need to explain what I mean by them. In this thesis, I put a heavy emphasis on what Brian Schrag calls ‘heritage traditions’. By this he means traditions that are older, more rural, more localized geographically, and emanate from particular ethnolinguistic communities (2010:56). Taking Schrag’s definition as my point of departure, I would define ‘traditional’ Songhai music as that which existed in some form before the colonial era, is produced locally by professional musicians brought up in the culture using locally-made materials, and is claimed by Songhai/Zarma people as their own.
The term ‘indigenous’ has similar connotations for me without any definite time period attached to it (MD1 2014, 47:36-48:08).
I realise the terms ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ can lead to misunderstanding and confusion. They may imply either/or thinking about music: either a primitive past or a modernized present. They may also give the impression that, before the advent of the colonial era, Africans lived in a static, primitive present (Agawu 2003:5). Change only occurred as they made contact with and came under the influence of Europeans (Manning 1988:184; Bohlman 2008:256–7; Nettl 1978:12–13). My use of the terms is in no way meant to imply any type of either/or ideology or praxis. Quite the contrary,
‘Traditional and modern worldviews complement each other, meld together, and also remain distinct in … Africa.’ (Charry 2000b:24, 27) Nor do I mean to infer that change did not occur before the nineteenth century or that Africans are or were in any way inferior to other peoples (Agawu 2003:182). Rather, I am looking at African ‘traditions’
as valuable contributions to the world’s knowledge and historical database. I am using terms that other Africans and scholars have used to describe a way of life that has roots
in African soil and is in many ways distinct from other traditions but in no way excludes or diminishes them.5
The term ‘professional’ can also be misleading. In this context, it does not necessarily refer to those who earn their primary income through music. That is rare amongst the Songhai in the twenty-first century (Erlmann 2005:905). Instead, it refers to a class of musicians who inherited the profession from their ancestors or who are recognized as musicians through compensation for their services (Merriam 1964:125–6;
JD 2012, 57:02-57:17; JM & MA 2012, 48:32-49:29; GZ 2013, #IV). Many of them had free-born or noble patrons who supplied their needs. While that type of musician still exists, it is the exception to the rule.
The spellings of several sets of terms need further explanation. One is the word jembe. The most common spelling for this West African drum in the literature is djembe. Eric Charry says that the latter spelling is a legacy of French colonialism and does not reflect a phonetic rendering of the word (2000a). As a linguist, I agree with him that spellings which use more than one symbol for a single phoneme are unnecessary. Furthermore, it is not like I am singling out French spellings. I would also use only a ‘c’ to represent the ‘ch’ sound in English when writing African languages.
Thus, I prefer Gurmancé to Gurmanché. My view on this is supported by a French scholar who used phonetic spellings in her book analysing the possession-trance cult amongst Hausa women in Niger (Monfouga-Nicolas 1972:vi).
For place names in Songhai regions, I have generally chosen conventional English spellings of the words rather than their French equivalents. Since I am writing in English, I want my readers to be able to recognize and pronounce the place names as comfortably as possible. I also am following the linguistic principle of one symbol for
5 For examples of those who use the terms ‘traditional’, ‘indigenous’, and ‘modern’, see, Garba (1992:14–
15), Bornand (2005), Charry (2000b), Olivier de Sardan (1984), Diawara (1996), Agawu (2003:12), McLaughlin (1997), Nettl (1985), Muchimba (2008), Krabill (2006) , and Nketia (1974).
each phoneme. Thus, for example, I have used the spellings ‘Timbuktu’ and ‘Jenné’
rather than the preferred French spellings ‘Tombouctou’ and ‘Djenné’. As for place names that are generally recognizable and in much current use like Ougadougou and Abidjan, I have kept the French spellings rather than write Wagadugu and Abijan. I have kept spellings of personal names the way they are spelled on their identity cards.