Early References to Music in the Western Sūdān

Henry George Farmer

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00078849

Early References to Music in the Western Sūdān

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

Henry George Farmer

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A Glance at the recently published African Native Music: An Annotated Bibliography (London, 1936), will reveal the fact that early references to the music of negro and negroid peoples are rare. Indeed, in this very useful bibliography no work earlier than the seventeenth century is quoted. The truth is that many early references have been neglected. It may be admitted that these neglected references occur in Arabic works, but most of these have been translated into European languages, so that they are available to the general musicographer.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , October 1939 , pp. 569 - 579

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00078849 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1939

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^{page 569 note 1} The author, Varley, D. H., appears to be unacquainted with my contributions to the Encyclopædia of Islām and Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, especially an article in the latter entitled “A North African Folk Instrument” (JRAS., 1928)Google Scholar, and reprinted in my Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments, ser. i (1931). An earlier article on the subject, from my pen, appeared in the Musical Standard (November, 1924), entitled “The Arab Influence on Music in the Western Soudan.”

^{page 570 note 1} Ta'rīkh al-fattāsh (Publications de l'École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, ser. v, vol. 9, Paris, 1913), p. 30Google Scholar. Wrongly called a tambour by the translator.

^{page 570 note 2} Notices et Extraits, xii, 656.

^{page 570 note 3} Ibid., loc. cit.

^{page 570 note 4} Ibid., xii, 644.

^{page 570 note 5} Kitāb al-masālik, Algiers, 1857Google Scholar. See translation in Journal Asiatigue, ser. v, tome 13, p. 508.

^{page 570 note 6} One of these, Lyon, G. F., Narrative of Travels in Northern Africa …, London, 1820, p. 234Google Scholar, calls the instrument the dubdaba although his Arabic text has .

^{page 570 note 7} Analectes sur l'histoire at la littérature des Arabes d'Espagne, Leyden, 1855–1861, ii, p. 143Google Scholar.

^{page 571 note 1} Op. cit., i, 59, 366.

^{page 571 note 2} Analectes, as cited.

^{page 571 note 3} Vocabulista in Arabico, ed. Schiaparelli, C., Florence, 1871, pp. 216, 392Google Scholar.

^{page 571 note 4} Reallexikon der Musikinstrumente, p. 2, sub “abu karun”.

^{page 571 note 5} The singular is used for the instruments rather than confuse non-Orientalists with the dual or plural forms.

^{page 571 note 6} Masālik al-abṣār, by al-'Umarī, Ibn Faḍlallāh, translated into French by , Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Paris, 1927, pp. 65, 69Google Scholar.

^{page 572 note 1} Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah, Paris, 1853–1858, ii, 108Google Scholar.

^{page 572 note 2} See my article “Ṭabl Khāna” in the Encyclopædia of Islām, Suppl. vol., p. 217.

^{page 572 note 3} JRAS., 1936, p. 24. Strictly speaking a reed-pipe is a wind instrument played by means of a reed, but I have defined the instrument with a cylindrical bore a reed-pipe and that with a conical bore an oboe.

^{page 572 note 4} Voyages, ii, 126.

^{page 573 note 1} Voyages, iv, 403–6. The translators give the singular as gunbarā, but see my Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments, i, 39 seq.

^{page 573 note 2} The translators read saṭṭā'a as a plural. In the eleventh century Glossarium Latino-Arabicum (Berlin, 1900)Google Scholar, saṭṭā'a equates with plectrum. Cf. Archives Marocaines, viii, 189.

^{page 573 note 3} Sachs, Curt, as cited, and Anthropos, i, 689Google Scholar.

^{page 573 note 4} Pinkerton's Voyages (1808–1814), xv, 643Google Scholar.

^{page 573 note 5} Ta'rīkh. al-fattāsh, 49.

^{page 573 note 6} Ibid., 54–6.

^{page 573 note 7} The translator writes tambour.

^{page 573 note 8} Ta'rīkh al-fattāsh, 56.

^{page 573 note 9} Ibid., 70.

^{page 574 note 1} Notices et Extraits, xvii, 360.

^{page 574 note 2} Ta'rīkh al-fattāsh, 84.

^{page 574 note 3} Ta'rīkh al-sūdān (Publications de l'École des Langues Orientates Vivantes, ser. v, vols. 12, 13, Paris, 1898–1900), text, p. 87Google Scholar.

^{page 574 note 4} Ta'rīkh al-fattāsh, 95. Wrongly called a tambour by the translator.

^{page 574 note 5} Ibid., 120.

^{page 574 note 6} Ibid., 137, 153.

^{page 574 note 7} Ta'rīkh al-nisyān (Publ. de l'École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, ser. iv, vols. 19, 20, Paris, 1899–1901), text, p. 45Google Scholar.

^{page 575 note 1} It is more likely that the xylophone is intended. This instrument was not used by the Arabs and there is no special word for it in Arabic. For this reason Ibn Baṭṭūṭa was unable to give it a name. If it had been a viol it is highly probable that the author would have called it the rabāb.

^{page 575 note 2} I have devoted a chapter to the gunbrī and gunībrī in my Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments, ser. i, pp. 39–49.

^{page 575 note 3} Sachs, op. cit., p. 148.

^{page 576 note 1} Journal of the African Society, xiii, pp. 102–3.

^{page 576 note 2} For method of playing see Engel, Carl, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments in the South Kensington Museum, London, 1874, p. 153Google Scholar.

^{page 576 note 3} Now on loan to the Museum of the Scottish National Academy of Music.

^{page 576 note 4} Carl Engel, loc. cit.

^{page 576 note 6} G. F. Lyon, op. cit., p. 234. Cf. also the Galla gunguma.

^{page 576 note 6} Nachtigal, G., Sahara und Sudan, i, 745Google Scholar.

^{page 576 note 7} Loc. cit.

^{page 576 note 8} See the example in Wieschhoff, Heinz, De afrikanischen Trommeln, Stuttgart, 1933, tafel iv, No. 2Google Scholar.

^{page 577 note 1} Encyclopédie de la Musique, v, 3224.

^{page 577 note 2} Musée du Conservatoire National de Musique de Paris, Nos. 812–14. Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles, No. 387. Musée Ethnographique de Genève, Nos. X, 26, 28.

^{page 577 note 3} Encyclopédie de la musique, v, 3224.

^{page 577 note 4} Pinkerton's Voyages, xvi, 878.

^{page 577 note 5} Paris and Brussels.

^{page 577 note 6} p. 204.

^{page 577 note 7} Ta'rīkhal-nisyān, pp. 93, 154, 156 of text.

^{page 577 note 8} p. 274. It is, however, a poor folk instrument which is shown.

^{page 578 note 1} See my Facts for the Arabian Musical Influence, pp. 142–4.

^{page 578 note 2} Nuzhat al-hādī (Publ. de l'École de Langues Orientales Vivantes), p. 117 of text.

^{page 578 note 3} Ta'rīkh al-nisyān, text, 93. Indeed the cylindrical single membrane drum of the darabukka class, called in Morocco the agwāl, may be of negro origin. It is mentioned, however, as early as Al-Shaqundī (d. 1231) among the instruments of the Moors of Spain.

^{page 579 note 1} The earliest printed book containing delineations of African instruments of music is the Gabinetto armonico piena d'istromenti sonori indicati, e spiegati, Rome, 1722, by Bonanni, FilippoGoogle Scholar.

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