Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest revision - Oct. 22, 2023
This pancocojams post presents information about South African Prophet Ntsikana.
This post also presents an excerpt from the 2010 journal article entitled "Sing on, Ntsikana: The Story of Christian Music Among the Xhosa people of South Africa."
Pancocojams readers are encouraged to read the complete article.
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The content of this post is presented for historical, educational, and cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Jonathan Wright for his research and writing and thanks to Ntsikana and others documented in this article for their cultural and musical legacies. Thanks to digitalcommons.cedarville.edu for its online publication of this Musical Offerings journal article.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/10/south-african-prophet-ntsikanas-great.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "South African Prophet Ntsikana's Great Hymn (Information, YouTube Video, & Partial Lyrics)".
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INFORMATION ABOUT PROPHET NTSIKANA
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntsikana
"Ntsikana (born 1780-1821) was a Christian Xhosa prophet,
evangelist and hymn writer who is regarded as one of the first Christians to
translate Christian ideas and concepts into terms understandable to a Xhosa
audience.[1]
[...]
Music
Ntsikana also composed Christian hymns in isiXhosa which included
“Intsimbi” (Ntsikana’s Bell),“Dalibom (Life-Creator), “Ingoma engqukuva” (Round
Hymn) and “Ulo Thixomkulu” (“Thou Great God” - the Great Hymn).[2]
(Some of the so called hymns he “composed” have been proved to have been sung by the Xhosas king way before he was born.)
Legacy
Ntsikana is regarded as one of the first Christians who
tried to adapt Christianity to African culture."
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Given this information and the information in the journal article excerpted below, it's likely that early on the currently popular isiXhosa Christian hymn "Ndikhoklele Bawo" and some other IsiXhosa hymns were first sung in praise of Xhosa kings before being adopted as Christian hymns.
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ARTICLE EXCERPT
From https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=musicalofferings
© 2010, Jonathan Knight, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND "Sing on, Ntsikana: The Story of Christian Music Among the Xhosa people of South Africa"
[by] Jonathan Knight, Cedarville University
"The Xhosa, a people group united by language and history, occupied a large portion of what is now eastern South Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans. The Dutch were the first white men to touch South African’s shores, and the British followed soon after. The forward progress of European forces caused the expulsion of the Xhosa from their native, ancestral land. But the seeds of Christianity were planted through contact with (mainly) English missionaries who told them the story of Jesus. One of the earliest converts to Christianity, Ntsikana, was also the first Xhosa to compose music meant to worship their newfound Savior. Though this music in the traditional Xhosa style lay dormant for some time, enthusiastic Xhosa ministers in the past century have done much to learn from and expand upon the musical, spiritual legacy of Ntsikana. A unique blend of European and South African music has birthed among Xhosa Christians a distinct flavor of worship, which, though reflecting foreign influences, strongly retains indigenous traditions.
[…]
Musical Offerings ⦁ 2010 ⦁ Volume 1 ⦁
Number 1 25
.... Ntsikana was instrumental in spreading Christianity. He had a much greater influence than the missionaries in bringing the faith to his people. He also gave his people another gift, one that continues to impact them today, side-by-side with their faith: originally composed hymns.
At the time when Ntsikana began composing hymns, the idea of
writing Christian music in an African musical idiom was unheard of. The
European hymn was standard among the missionaries in South Africa, and from
the beginning of the 19th century this form, with its straight rhythms and
four-part harmonies, was established by the missionaries as the standard for black
church music.
[...]
Missionaries encouraged the Xhosa to reform their ideas of music. This meant compartmentalizing the arts according to the European manner. Interestingly, the Xhosa had no abstract word for “music” in their language. Instead, they conceived of music in terms of the activities which it accompanied: the song, the dance, even the role of the singers. The Xhosa word i-culo was chosen by the missionaries to represent music in a European fashion. The missionaries’ music was strictly diatonic, with careful avoidance of African rhythm. Their intent was to make a clear distinction between the cultural music making they were familiar with, which was an integral part of Xhosa community life, and the “Christian” music that was appropriate in church and school (Somniso, 132). Today i-culo retains the definition given by the English, and is defined in Kropf’s Xhosa dictionary as “originally a short song, now a hymn” (Elphick, 319). It refers exclusively to “church or school singing performed without bodily movement” (320).
The European system was clearly inadequate for rendering the complexities of traditional Xhosa music effectively. However, some Western music did roughly resemble the established Xhosa tonal system, which was patterned on major triads. Two major triads a whole step apart (such as F and G) made up the fundamental harmonic movement in the Xhosa musical system. 2
2 This tonal system have developed based on the performing instrument of choice, the uhabi, or “musical bow.” The overtones produced by this instrument (manipulated by the player) are the basis for their harmonic system. Elphick notes that, “the repeated use of major chords in the diatonic harmony of pieces like Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ was appealing to the Xhosa ears”(Elphick, 320).
26 Knight ⦁ Sing on, Ntsikana
As the missionaries attempted to reshape the Xhosa concept of music, they immediately encountered significant difficulties. As the missionaries translated Protestant hymn texts directly into Xhosa, they failed to recognize the tonal nature of the language.3
Words in Xhosa have different meanings depending on changes in tone. In some Xhosa phrases, each word has its own individual tone! This is a linguistic characteristic shared by other nearby peoples, including the Zulu and Sotho. The pattern proceeds as follows: “the first phrase begins high, falls (through the steps of the word tone), and ends lower; the new phrase begins high again, but lower than the phrase before, then falls at its end, and so on” (Elphick, 321). Thus, the meaning of a translated hymns often proved to be humorous, at best, though more often they became totally absurd (Hawn, 108). For some reason early missionaries were either ignorant of this problem or chose to ignore it. Others sought to adjust selected syllables to alleviate the problem (Elphick, 321).
It does not appear that any missionaries at this time
considered teaching the Xhosa people to write Christian music in their own
tradition. Instead, it was Ntsikana who embarked into uncharted territory,
composing songs for his congregation (Stone, 763). He personified his peoples’
attempts not to be culturally whitewashed by Western influences. His first and
greatest song, now known as the “Great Hymn,” was composed the night following
his conversion in 1814. He claimed to receive the Holy Spirit immediately, and
stayed awake the entire night singing the chorus of his great composition
(322). His contact with missionaries was minimal, so he “composed” in the only
style he knew: the style of his people. It was not long before Xhosa choirs
began performing the song, accompanied by dance (Somniso, 135). It has been
passed on orally to this day (Stone, 763). In fact, his “Great Hymn” is
“regarded as the summit achievement of Xhosa song” (Elphick, 322). It is also
considered “the prototype of church music in a Traditional Xhosa style” (Hawn,
128).
[...]
After Ntsikana’s death in 1821, his followers, as well as
some missionaries, set out to transcribe his hymns, which, though performed choirs
everywhere, were
28 Knight ⦁ Sing on, Ntsikana
not accessible apart from oral transmission. But transcriptions in English (Sol-Fa) singing style (with rigid rhythm) failed to do justice to the African harmonies.4 Nevertheless, the stiff musical tastes of the missionaries did not stop the Africans from keeping their music their own. Choirs continued to perform the hymn according to their culturally conditioned sense of harmony, a practice that has been termed “Afro-diatonic” music. African singers instinctively bend the diatonic scale to match their “sweeter” tonal system. They incorporated blue notes into their choral sound, adjusting the scale degrees as they feel the need. This instinctive harmonic freedom produces the sound that makes African choirs distinct. Each singer moves parallel to the melody, searching for the next court member by ear. Even in the absence of traditional rhythms, they refused to surrender their musical voice (Elphick 320).
In the late 1800’s, a man named John Knox Bokwe played an important role in reinvigorating the musical legacy of Ntsikana, and adapting Xhosa music to the solfege system. His parents and grandparents were faithful disciples of Ntsikana, and he was the first Xhosa to be ordained, serving as a choirmaster in the Presbyterian church (Stone, 763). Bokwe spent much time studying Ntsikana’s musical works, and published a series of transcriptions of Ntsikana’s hymns between 1878 and 1914 (Elphick, 323). Bokwe’s “revival” of Ntsikana’s work proved to be the first in a growing tradition of Christian Xhosa songwriters. The Catholic Church has been the most notable example of a Christian group to encourage and facilitate worship in an African style. The papal encyclical Musicae sacrae in 1955 first “encouraged missionaries to promote local music for use in worship.” South Africa was among the first African nations to begin widespread usage of culturally traditional music in church worship5 (Elphick, 321). With the unique influence of Ntsikana in South Africa, this comes as no surprise!
In the 1960s, Catholic missionaries began actively assisting
the Xhosa (and other tribes) in composing liturgical music in traditional styles.
This shift took place following the historic Vatican II, 1962–1965, which opened
the doors for indigenous liturgies. These were days of “encouragement in
creativity and
experimentation” (Hawn, 108).
In 1965, prolific Xhosa composer (in western style) Benjamin
Peter John Tyamzashe was commissioned by Fritz Lobinger and Oswalt
Hirmer, members of the Lumko Missiological Institute, to write a liturgical
piece in Xhosa style. Tyamzashe had not considered composing music in his native
style before, so he
4 The Sol-Fa
(solfege) method of singing was developed by a British educator named John Curwen.
5 The use of African musical idioms today is most notably seen in the Zionist churches of South Africa, the first of which were planted in the early 1900. This “denomination” was formed with the specific intent of resisting white religious domination and worshiping in an African way. (Peires, 136; Elphick 323)
turned to Ntsikana’s hymns for inspiration (Hawn, 108). The result was his “Gloria,” the first original piece of Christian Xhosa music written in traditional style since the death of Ntsikana over 140 years earlier (Elphick, 321).
David Dargie, a Catholic missionary, was next to pick up the baton in the growing momentum of Xhosa composition. At first glance, a white priest would not appear to be an effective candidate for promoting ethnic African music. But, as a third generation South African and outstanding musicologist, Dargie has proved to be a central figure in training the Xhosa in composition and performance of their native music, in both liturgical and cultural life (Hawn, 108). He himself is an accomplished composer and performer of traditional Xhosa music, and between 1977 and 1986 he organized a number of composition workshops for local Xhosa pastors. At these seminars, appropriate liturgical texts were suggested, musicians were brought in for demonstration and inspiration, and a panel of ministers developed the music together. At the ends of the seminar, recording of their work were produced, for pastors to take back to their congregations. In this way clergy and congregations could fully embrace their African heritage of oral tradition in learning and performing liturgical music, instead of remaining dependent on Western notation to learn the songs.
These slow steps of musical progress all took place under the crushing hand of “apartheid” policy under British rule. The system legislated segregation and suppression of Africans until it dissolved in 1998. Since then, “choral singing, clapping, body movement, and even drumming is entering worship in the mainline churches more and more often, most of all in those churches in areas where the spirit of resistance to apartheid had been strongest” (Elphick, 325).
Western musical elements certainly maintain their presence
through strictly notated music, “to be performed under a conductor’s baton by
uniformly robed choirs” (Elphick, 325). But many choirs continue to
interpret music with a strong African flair. The resistance that the Xhosa demonstrated in the face of
cultural oppression is a microcosm, revealing a larger movement among Africans to
claim back their traditional heritage. …. Although highly influenced by
European and Christian traditions, Xhosa music today remains, at its
core, African."
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This journal article includes an extensive bibliography.
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