Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T22:32:51.365Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

E. E. Evans-Pritchard
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In ethnological accounts the dance is usually given a place quite unworthy of its social importance. It is often viewed as an independent activity and is described without reference to its contextual setting in native life. Such treatment leaves out many problems as to composition and organization of the dance and hides from view its sociological function.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1928 , pp. 446 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1928

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 446 note 1 For general accounts of the Azande see , Lagae, Les Azande ou Niam-Niam, 1926Google Scholar , and , Larken, ‘An account of the Zande’ in Sudan Notes and Records, July 1926Google Scholar.

page 447 note 1 My expedition to the Sudan was made possible by the generosity of the Government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and by a Government grant from the Royal Society. I also thank the trustees of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund for additional assistance.

page 448 note 1 For a general account of African Negro music by a specialist see E. M. von Hornbostel on African Negro Music in this Journal, Vol. I, No. i. Accurate work on songs can only be done with the phonograph. I tried, on the river steamer on my way home, to get two musicians with the aid of two musical instruments to set down the notation of songs by Azande singers. The attempt was a failure.

page 449 note 1 E. M. von Hornbostel has drawn attention to the writing of African words to European hymn tunes by missionaries. The result is invariably unsatisfactory. European musical forms, like Arabic, are quite incongruous to an African ear. The Natives always sing the hymns out of tune. It is impossible to translate the words of a hymn into an African language without making a stupid parody of their meaning. Finally, correlated muscular movements which are an essential accompaniment of all African singing are left out of hymn-singing.

page 450 note 1 As the melody is not written I have given the words in their phonetic values in everyday speech not as they are sung.

page 458 note 1 Brown, A. Radcliffe, The Andaman Islanders, 1922.Google Scholar

page 460 note 1 The only exception to this statement is that the dance is held on visits by European officials. Amongst the Azande who have been concentrated by the Government into settlements there is, I believe, a growing tendency for the dance to be held as a play activity without any ritual associations.