The Intercessional Role of Music Among the Kalanga And Nyai- Shona People

Abstract

This paper explores the intercessional role of music among the Kalanga and Nyai-Shona people found in Botswana and Zimbabwe, respectively. The main aim of the research was to examine how the Kalanga of Botswana and the Nyai-Shona people of Zimbabwe intercede for rain.   The paper analyses the lyrics of “Mvura Ngainaye” by Thomas Mapfumo, a Zimbabwean Shona musician, and “Phondanyama” by Ndingo Johwa, a Motswana Kalanga musician based in Botswana. We argue that the Kalanga and Nyai-Shona are the same people, even though they reside in different countries and speak related language varieties. The two selected songs are the connecting thread for our argument. Anchored on the Afrocentricity theory, the study employed an emic-ethnographic approach and a qualitative research design. The two musicians and the two songs analysed in the study were purposively sampled.  Data were mainly collected through the analysis of the lyrics of the two pieces. Additional information was sourced through interviews with Ndingo Johwa, since he sings in Kalanga, a language which is not spoken by the current researchers.  The lyrics of the two songs were subjected to critical discourse analysis. Leitmotifs were identified and data categorised according to the identified leitmotifs. Findings reveal that musical practices serve as a medium for communication with the divine and offer a means of expressing individual and collective identity among the Kalanga and the Nyai-Shona people.  There are several similarities in the way the Kalanga and the Nyai-Shona intercede for rain. For instance, they both make direct appeals to Mwari/Mngwali and intercede for rain through spirit mediums and ancestral spirits. These similarities, among others, seem to point to a common cultural origin. This study contributes to the literature on the role of music in society as well as the fields of musicology, anthropology and decolonial studies, among other benefits.