been retained exactly as Kirby wrote it.
The 73 plates consisting of some 150 photographs have been refigured and placed within the text with faithful adherence to Kirby’s citations. The negatives were sourced from the Special Collections at the University of Cape Town Libraries where Kirby’s research material on African music is housed. Many of the original negatives were scanned and tidied. Several were too old and damaged to be used and the plates were scanned.
The original musical examples have been rescored using Sibelius. The footnotes have been placed at the end of each chapter.
It has been a great honour and a privilege to be able to bring this extraordinary work to light again. Percival Kirby’s phenomenal abilities and his meticulous research methods place him, after all this time, as one of the greatest musicologists and ethnomusicologists of South Africa.
I would like to thank Veronica Klipp and Melanie Pequeux for making this publication possible; to Lesley Hart of the University of Cape Town Special Collections for so kindly and patiently helping me source and scan the photographs; to Karen Lilje for her clear-sighted, professional and creative approach and to Michael Nixon, curator of the Kirby Collection, for all his support and advice. And to my grandfather – may your spirit live on and on.
ANTHEA VAN WIERINGEN
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece. Rock-painting, copied by G. W. Stow, showing a Bushman using seven shooting bows as a musical instrument. From the original coloured drawing in the South African Museum, Capetown.
Map. General Distribution of the Native Races of South Africa in 1934. Originally drawn by Miss Dora Kotzé, B.A.
Figure 1.1.Bushman ankle-rattles made from springbok ears.
Figure 1.2.Bushman ankle-rattles made from cocoons.
Figure 1.3.Chwana ankle-rattles made from cocoons.
Figure 1.4.Chwana ankle-rattles made from cocoons.
Figure 1.5.Pedi ankle-rattles made from cocoons.
Figure 1.6.Venda ankle-rattles made from fruits.
Figure 1.7.Zulu ankle-rattles made from cocoons.
Figure 1.8.Pondo ankle-rattles made from palm-leaf.
Figure 1.9.Sotho (Bas.) ankle-rattles made from goat-skin.
Figure 1.10.Hand rattles.1, 2, 3, 5, Thonga; 4, 7, Venda; 6, 8, Venda children’s rattles.
Figure 1.11.Venda dancing-skirt made from reeds.
Figure 1.12.Thonga playing the spagane.
Figure 1.13.1, 3, Chwana marapo; 2, Zulu amatambo.
Figure 1.14.Chwana girl playing the marapo.
Figure 2.1.Hottentot woman playing upon the /khais.
Figure 2.2.Hottentot woman playing upon the /khais.
Figure 2.3.Xhosa women playing upon the ingqongqo.
Figure 2.4.Amaqoqa, or engraved sticks used for beating the ingqongqo.
Figure 2.5.Swazi warrior with shield.
Figure 2.7.Swazi men playing upon the intambula.
Figure 2.8.Zulu playing upon the ingungu.
Figure 2.9.Zulu friction drum, called ingungu.
Figure 2.10.Venda khamelo, or milking-jug, and murumbu, a drum.
Figure 2.11.Venda girls playing upon the murumbu.
Figure 2.12.Pedi drum, called moropa.
Figure 2.13.Pedi woman playing upon the moropa.
Figure 2.14.Sotho (Bas.) moropa, made from clay.
Figure 2.15.Sotho (Bas.) woman playing upon the clay moropa.
Figure 2.16.Pedi friction drum, called moshupiane.
Figure 2.17.Venda ngoma and murumbu.
