British Forum for Ethnomusicology

Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Marilyn Herman
Reviewed work(s):
A Song of Longing: An Ethiopian Journey by Kay Kaufman Shelemay
Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 5 (1996), pp. 171-177
Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060879
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British Journal
of Ethnomusicology,
vol. 5
(1996)
British Journal
of Ethnomusicology,
vol. 5
(1996)
such is life: these are Sardinians, but
Sardinian individuals.
The CD inside the back cover-twelve
tracks, 61 minutes-includes wonderful
examples
of the
major
traditional Sardinian
styles:
secular and sacred
polyphony,
launeddas (1 track
only),
diatonic accordion
(1 track
only), "guitar songs",
a
sung
"poetry joust".
One does wish that it had
been better coordinated with the text. We can
only guess
that the Tonino we meet on
p.
70
is the same heard on track 3, but otherwise it
is
impossible
to
identify any
of the tracks
with
any
of the
people
or occasions in the
book. The musicians we meet are thus
denied the chance to
speak
to us via their
primary
voice. One also wishes for more of
the
lyrics,
but L-J does not
speak
Sardinian
(35), only
Italian.
This
sampler
CD should
spur
sales of
some of L-J's
genre-specific
Sardinian
albums. His
recordings
are included in a list
of "Other Works
by
Bernard Lortat-Jacob",
along
with several
writings
that have
nothing
to do with Sardinia.
Might
we instead have
been
given
a list of other authors' works on
Sardinian music to
go along
with L-J's own
valuable
output?
DAVID W. HUGHES
School of
Oriental and
African
Studies
University of
London
dh6@soas.ac.uk
such is life: these are Sardinians, but
Sardinian individuals.
The CD inside the back cover-twelve
tracks, 61 minutes-includes wonderful
examples
of the
major
traditional Sardinian
styles:
secular and sacred
polyphony,
launeddas (1 track
only),
diatonic accordion
(1 track
only), "guitar songs",
a
sung
"poetry joust".
One does wish that it had
been better coordinated with the text. We can
only guess
that the Tonino we meet on
p.
70
is the same heard on track 3, but otherwise it
is
impossible
to
identify any
of the tracks
with
any
of the
people
or occasions in the
book. The musicians we meet are thus
denied the chance to
speak
to us via their
primary
voice. One also wishes for more of
the
lyrics,
but L-J does not
speak
Sardinian
(35), only
Italian.
This
sampler
CD should
spur
sales of
some of L-J's
genre-specific
Sardinian
albums. His
recordings
are included in a list
of "Other Works
by
Bernard Lortat-Jacob",
along
with several
writings
that have
nothing
to do with Sardinia.
Might
we instead have
been
given
a list of other authors' works on
Sardinian music to
go along
with L-J's own
valuable
output?
DAVID W. HUGHES
School of
Oriental and
African
Studies
University of
London
dh6@soas.ac.uk
KAY KAUFMAN SHELEMAY, A
song of
longing:
an
Ethiopian journey.
Urbana/Chicago:
Univ. of Illinois Press,
1994.
xxvi+177pp,
index. ISBN 0-252-
01798-6 (cloth), 0-252-06432-1
(pb).
The title of this book refers to the tezzeta-a
song
of reminiscence for a
country
or a
loved one. This title befits
Shelemay's
role
as
ethnomusicologist,
as well as
expressing
her
feelings
towards
Ethiopia,
her ethno-
musicological
field which became her home,
but which she was forced to leave because of
the course of
political
events. The front
cover of her book is adorned
by
a favourite
picture
she mentions, of a musician playing
a krar
(lyre)
and
singing, presumably,
tezzeta.
The main
subject Shelemay
sets out to
study,
Bet Israel
(Ethiopian Jewish) music, is
detailed in her 1984
monograph, Music,
ritual and Falasha
history (Michigan
State
KAY KAUFMAN SHELEMAY, A
song of
longing:
an
Ethiopian journey.
Urbana/Chicago:
Univ. of Illinois Press,
1994.
xxvi+177pp,
index. ISBN 0-252-
01798-6 (cloth), 0-252-06432-1
(pb).
The title of this book refers to the tezzeta-a
song
of reminiscence for a
country
or a
loved one. This title befits
Shelemay's
role
as
ethnomusicologist,
as well as
expressing
her
feelings
towards
Ethiopia,
her ethno-
musicological
field which became her home,
but which she was forced to leave because of
the course of
political
events. The front
cover of her book is adorned
by
a favourite
picture
she mentions, of a musician playing
a krar
(lyre)
and
singing, presumably,
tezzeta.
The main
subject Shelemay
sets out to
study,
Bet Israel
(Ethiopian Jewish) music, is
detailed in her 1984
monograph, Music,
ritual and Falasha
history (Michigan
State
University,
African Studies Centre).1
A
song
of longing complements
this work, being
a
personal
account of her fieldwork carried
out in the thick of the
Ethiopian
Revolution.
In the documentation of several worlds in
flux-even
disappearing-Shelemay's
work
is of
unique
historical value.
In
particular,
she
captures
the life of the
Bet Israel before their waves of
migration
from their
villages
in and around the Gondar
region.
She
portrays
the Bet Israel of the
village
of Ambober, location of her field-
work, as
caught
in the middle of different
worlds, and in the
process
of
major
transformation.
Contrary
to what
might
be
expected among
inhabitants of a remote
Ethiopian village,
evidence of international
and
cosmopolitan networks, influence and
experience
abounds in all
spheres.
This
manifests itself
mostly
in the
expression
of
dreams of Jerusalem:
posters
and momentos
from Israel and Jewish communities
elsewhere are
displayed
in homes; some
members of the
community
have studied in
Israel or
Europe;
some families have
members
remaining
in Israel and
hope
to
join
them.
Shelemay
shows them to be
deeply
affected
by political
events relating
to
Israel, remarking
on the
sobering
effect on
their
unique Seged ceremony
of the break in
Israeli-Ethiopian
relations in the wake of the
Yom
Kippur
War. A commercial
aspect
of
international contact involves visits to Bet
Israel
villages organized by
the American
tourist
industry-whose impact
is
probably
less dimensional than the
snapshots
taken
by
the tourists. Traditional customs and rituals
are
juxtaposed
with elements and influences
introduced
by
Jews from abroad, exempli-
fied
by
a Bet Israel
teenager
who serenades
her, alternating
Hebrew
holiday songs
with
popular Ethiopian songs.
Presented
especially
as between worlds, in
Shelemay's eye-witness account, are the
religious
traditions of the Bet Israel in their
Ethiopian village-traditions
which
disap-
peared
from the face of
Ethiopia
with their
migration
to Israel. This
aspect
is
particu-
larly
manifested in
generational terms, with
the
splitting
off of
younger
Bet Israel who
observed and
performed
their
liturgy
in
1
1
use the term "Bet Israel", an Amharic term
meaning
"House of Israel", since Bet Israel have
insisted to me that this is their name. Shelemay
uses the term "Beta Israel", which has come into
conventional
usage.
University,
African Studies Centre).1
A
song
of longing complements
this work, being
a
personal
account of her fieldwork carried
out in the thick of the
Ethiopian
Revolution.
In the documentation of several worlds in
flux-even
disappearing-Shelemay's
work
is of
unique
historical value.
In
particular,
she
captures
the life of the
Bet Israel before their waves of
migration
from their
villages
in and around the Gondar
region.
She
portrays
the Bet Israel of the
village
of Ambober, location of her field-
work, as
caught
in the middle of different
worlds, and in the
process
of
major
transformation.
Contrary
to what
might
be
expected among
inhabitants of a remote
Ethiopian village,
evidence of international
and
cosmopolitan networks, influence and
experience
abounds in all
spheres.
This
manifests itself
mostly
in the
expression
of
dreams of Jerusalem:
posters
and momentos
from Israel and Jewish communities
elsewhere are
displayed
in homes; some
members of the
community
have studied in
Israel or
Europe;
some families have
members
remaining
in Israel and
hope
to
join
them.
Shelemay
shows them to be
deeply
affected
by political
events relating
to
Israel, remarking
on the
sobering
effect on
their
unique Seged ceremony
of the break in
Israeli-Ethiopian
relations in the wake of the
Yom
Kippur
War. A commercial
aspect
of
international contact involves visits to Bet
Israel
villages organized by
the American
tourist
industry-whose impact
is
probably
less dimensional than the
snapshots
taken
by
the tourists. Traditional customs and rituals
are
juxtaposed
with elements and influences
introduced
by
Jews from abroad, exempli-
fied
by
a Bet Israel
teenager
who serenades
her, alternating
Hebrew
holiday songs
with
popular Ethiopian songs.
Presented
especially
as between worlds, in
Shelemay's eye-witness account, are the
religious
traditions of the Bet Israel in their
Ethiopian village-traditions
which
disap-
peared
from the face of
Ethiopia
with their
migration
to Israel. This
aspect
is
particu-
larly
manifested in
generational terms, with
the
splitting
off of
younger
Bet Israel who
observed and
performed
their
liturgy
in
1
1
use the term "Bet Israel", an Amharic term
meaning
"House of Israel", since Bet Israel have
insisted to me that this is their name. Shelemay
uses the term "Beta Israel", which has come into
conventional
usage.
171 171
172 British Journal ofEthnomusicology,
vol. 5
(1996)
Hebrew, as
opposed
to the traditional Ge'ez
(language
of
liturgy)
of their elders. In her
description
of the Berhan
Saraqa (New Year)
celebrations, there is an almost tangible
picture
of the
priests swaying
to
prayers
of
alternating
choruses chanted in Ge'ez, while
a
gong (kacel)
and kettledrum
(kebaro)
are
struck with a
rhythm
which she describes as
hypnotic.
This is followed, the next
morning,
by
a Hebrew
prayer
service in a form she
found familiar, led
by young
Bet Israel who
had refused to attend the Ge'ez ritual.
By
contrast, in the ritual for Astasreyo
(comparable
to the Jewish
Day
of Atone-
ment),
the
priests
defer to the
young
Bet
Israel
performance
of Hebrew liturgy
in
accordance with mainstream Jewish practice
outside
Ethiopia.
In
juxtaposing
the traditional religion
of
the Bet Israel and those
aspects
of
mainstream Jewish practice
which
they
adopted, Shelemay
uses a modern/traditional
dichotomy, labelling
the Judaism introduced
by
visitors from overseas as "modem" or
"Western" rather than "Halachic"2. By
"modem", Shelemay
is referring
to when
practices
were actually received, rather than
when
they originated.
The modern/
traditional dichotomy recurs, with the same
meaning,
as a means of
categorisation:
in her
early descriptions
of Addis Abeba, for
example, anything
Western rather than
traditional to Ethiopia-such
as dress-is
classified as "modem". Favouring
the use
of concrete phonemena
to
symbolise
abstract concepts
and ideas, Shelemay
treats
the
prayerhouse
as a
metaphor
for the co-
existence of "old" (in its architecture) and
"new"
(in
its
incorporation
of "Western
Jewish
symbols')
in Bet Israel life.
Interestingly, Shelemay
refers to
magical
practices
in the case of both the Bet Israel
and the Christian debteras
(liturgical singers/
musicians)-which
in both cases were too
sensitive either to discuss or witness. In
addition, she mentions the Zar cult
practised
by
Bet Israel, which
they
were reluctant to
draw attention to since it
might
be
considered at odds with their Judaism.
A
prominent
concern of Shelemay's
is
with
gender-unsurprisingly,
since her sex is
2
Halachic refers to
interpretation
and codification
of Jewish law and
teachings developed
in Jewish
academies of Babylon, Egypt
and Palestine after the
time of the Old Testament, subsequently incorpor-
ated into Judaism and considered integral
to it.
something
that
significantly shapes
her
fieldwork experience.
This was an issue even
before embarking
on fieldwork, when it was
suggested
to her that her sex would
impede
her undertaking. Among Ethiopians,
whether Bet Israel or Christian, she
interprets
her role as that of a
"marginal
male". This
role commences during
a visit to a church in
Addis Abeba when someone pushes
her into
the men's section, and foreshadows similar
expectations
of her in Gondar among
Bet
Israel.
The classification of "marginal
male"
might
seem obvious, given
her need to
distance herself from women in order to
associate with men. It seems she was not
expected
to
spend
time in a menstruation
hut, as Bet Israel women did while
they
were
menstruating.
However, since she was unable
to form any
real friendships
with men, and
therefore felt socially isolated, it is
ques-
tionable whether
being
treated differently
from Bet Israel women was sufficient to
make her "male", albeit marginal.
Another
significant explanation
for her differential
treatment would be her status as a
guest
whose honour, in Bet Israel tradition, is
paramount.
Also
significant
is her status as a
"professional". Shelemay
terms her
tape
recording equipment
as "male
apparatus",
assuming
that
professional
status is, in
Ethiopia, by
definition male.
Although
this
might
be a fair assumption,
in fact the
possession
and use of this
equipment
distinguished
her also from the
Ethiopian
men she encountered. Instead, her
professional
role would have compounded
her honourable status as a
guest,
rather than
necessarily endowing
her with a masculine
identity.
There are other
aspects
to her role as a
foreign
woman in
Ethiopia.
Thus her arrival
in Gondar is
greeted-upon
visiting
a tedj
bet (beer house)-by
an azmari (a musician
who accompanies
his
singing
on a one-
stringed
bowed fiddle masenqo) singing
a
parody
on a Christian hymn
in traditional
genre-praising
a saint and
listing
his
body
parts
which have been
preserved
as relics. In
this version, the azmari
praises parts
of
Shelemay's body,
and the embarrassed
ethnomusicologist
makes a rushed exit.
Shelemay points
out the need to be
guarded
about her behaviour, as a
foreign
woman would be subject
to close scrutiny
and unchecked rumour. On the
way
from
British Journal
of Ethnomusicology,
vol. 5
(1996)
Addis to Gondar, she is treated with
special
courtesy, being given
a seat at the front of
the bus. Yet when the bus makes an
unanticipated stop,
someone leads her to a
bunnabet (coffee house, where the clientele
is
mainly male, apart
from women
perhaps
of
"ill-repute")
to
spend
the
night,
where
she and her female Western travel
companion
find themselves to be the butt of
an
unpleasant practical
joke.
Then, travelling
in the
countryside,
as a
foreigner,
she is
considered to be at
greater
risk of harm
from
spirits.
Shelemay's
fieldwork
experience
turns
out to be dominated
by
the romance of her
life, as
shortly
after her arrival she meets her
husband-to-be, Jack
Shelemay,
a member of
a
prominent
Adenite Jewish
family living
in
Addis Abeba. In the context of this
family
and the other worlds she inhabits
during
her
fieldwork, she
consciously presents
herself as
avoiding
a conventional woman's role. It is
in fact
among
the Addis expatriate society
rather than
among Ethiopian
Christians or
Bet Israel that she feels in real
danger
of
compromising
her feminist
identity
and
values in her role as a
Shelemay
wife. She
explains
her decision to take on the
Shelemay
name rather than retain her own
upon marriage, referring by
contrast to Bet
Israel women who, she
says, keep
their own
names
upon marriage.
In fact, they keep
their father's or
grandfather's
names.
Paradoxically,
it is
precisely
because of the
privileged Shelemay
name that she is able to
avoid the conventional woman's role
among
the
ex-pats,
without too much
pressure
to
conform.
The fact that
Shelemay's
research
brings
her into contact with members of
indigenous
Amhara
society
is
something
she has in
common with the male members of her
husband's
family
in contrast to their wives.
While the
Shelemay
men had
relationships-
whether based on business, common
activities or
friendship-with
various sectors
among
the Amhara, their wives would
simply
network
among
other
expatriates, having
little to do with the
indigenous population.
By contrast, Shelemay points
to the isolation
of
Ethiopian
women who have been
educated abroad
having
no
place
in
traditional
Ethiopian society, yet having
even
less in common with the
expatriate women,
presumably
because the latter were married.
It seems the closer to home, the more
threatened she feels her feminist values to
be. This is most acute in relation to her own
conventional Jewish
background:
she
describes how she has
greater difficulty
in
accepting
her own "ritual
impurity"
in this
context-for
example,
the
religious
requirement
of
immersing
herself in a mikva
(ritual pool)
before her
marriage-than
in
the Bet Israel
village. However, the mikva
experience
moves her to
appreciate
the
power
of ritual, which must seem
especially
appropriate
in relation to her fieldwork
among
Bet Israel. Her ambivalence con-
cerning
the mikva
experience
could be seen
to
parallel
the Bet Israel
objections
to
immersion in the mikva
upon reaching
Israel, as in their case it
symbolised
conversion.
The
"permanent" foreign community
in
Addis Abeba is another sector of
society
in
Ethiopia,
documented
by Shelemay,
which
disappeared
in the midst of the revolution.
Detailing
the
lifestyles, occupations
and
different nationalities within this
community,
her
major biographies
are confined almost
entirely
to
expatriates.
The most detailed
biographical
accounts are of the extended
Shelemay family,
of
Sephardic
descent and
from Aden.
They
are
presented
as central to
the
"permanent"
Jewish
community
of
Addis, a subsection of the
expatriate
community.
Before the start of the Revolu-
tion, this
community
is suffused in a mood
of
complacency,
lulled
by
the belief that
Ethiopia
would
always remain
strongly
allied
to the West. She also describes the
expatriate
community
in Gondar, together
with its
folklore, defining
the
farange community
as
a
group
which functioned as a
support
system. (Farange normally
refers to
people
of
European descent, but in this context
includes two teachers from India.)
Contrasting
with her intense involvement
in
expatriate life, we see her remoteness from
the life and traditions of the Bet Israel. For
example,
she
depicts
herself as isolated
without the
priests
when
they
leave the
village. She makes it clear that the
inability
to form real
personal relationships
with
any
individual Bet Israel-man or woman-was
the
price she had to
pay,
as a woman, in
order to conduct research
among
men. This
lack of closeness with
any
Bet Israel,
together
with the fact that
Ethiopian
Christian
clergymen
were
essentially
her
assistants, would
explain why
she uses the
term "Falasha", considered
derogatory
and
insulting by
Bet Israel. (They insist that it
173
174 British Journal of Ethnomusicology,
vol. 5
(1996)
was
only
used
by
their
neighbours
as an
insult, referring
to someone
perceived
as
having
no link or not
belonging
to the land.)
Shelemay depicts
Addis Abeba in the last
days
of Emperor
Haile Selassie's reign,
steeped
in an atmosphere
of uncertainty
as
to what would
happen
after the
Emperor
was
gone.
Invited to lunch at his
palace-one
of
the last
public
events to be hosted by
the
Emperor-she
contrasts the immense
imperial
wealth with the
poverty
of his
subjects
who are concerned with basic
subsistence. At this
banquet,
a
visiting
African scholar makes a reference to the
severe
drought
and
subsequent
famine in
Wollo Province, responded
to
by
the
guests'
silent shock. Somehow, this famine and the
resultant death of thousands of
people,
mere
rumour in Addis Abeba and unacknow-
ledged by
the
government,
is unmentionable
according
to correct
etiquette by recipients
of the
Emperor's generous hospitality.
Thereafter, Shelemay's
work
provides
a
documentation of the revolution, enabling
us
to view its
development
from a
very unique
perspective.
Characteristic of her
presenta-
tion is the
juxtaposition
of the
private
and
public,
and of the
personal
and international.
Her own
marriage
to Jack Shelemay
is
paralleled
with the onset of the revolution in
a
chapter
entitled "Marriage
and
revolution". This begins
with her
marriage
preparations,
and ends with the commence-
ment of the "roundings up"
marked
by
the
imprisonment
of a number of former
officials in the Menelik Palace. The
"roundings up"
are
preceded by
a second
marriage:
a
wedding party
for the
daughter
of General Habte, a
high
officer of the
Ethiopian army.
In
anticipation
of an
impending
commission of
enquiry,
tension
underlies the interaction-or its avoidance-
among
the
guests,
who include
government
officials, aristocracy, diplomats
and
perma-
nent residents.
In the rich mosaic that is Shelemay's
book, the Bet Israel
experience
is
paralleled
among
other peoples
in other times and
places.
The Bet Israel's link to Israel
parallels Shelemay's,
whose
wedding
takes
place
in Israel, and that of her in-laws. In the
same
way
as the Bet Israel had to await
recognition
of their Jewish status in order to
gain entry
to Israel, and once there,
incidentally,
even to
marry,
the Shelemays
found that
they
too were almost unable to be
married because of
difficulty
in
proving
Jack's Jewish descent.
Characteristically perceiving
the symbolic
in the concrete, Shelemay
refers to the
"prophetic" label, "Gypsy",
of a set of
pottery
received as a
wedding present. Later,
the
Shelemays'
evacuation of
Ethiopia
in the
course of the revolution starts with the
gradual despatch
of their
possessions
overseas. This includes another
symbolic
set
of
pottery-"Mrs
Victor's china"-sent on
ahead in another evacuation at another time
and
place, by
another
family
who were
fleeing
Nazi
Germany. Shelemay presents
the Bet Israel
migration
to Israel as an
evacuation which can be seen to
parallel
hers: she
says
that the
Ethiopian revolution,
despite restoring rights
lost to the Bet Israel
centuries before, also acted as a
catalyst
in
their desire to leave for Israel. A further
parallel
is her account of the
escape
of the
Shelemay family
from Aden in the face of
rioting by
local Moslems in
response
to the
vote to establish the State of Israel.
Little
by little, we observe the
incipient
unfolding
of the Revolution, through
changes
which are all the more vivid and
tangible
where
they
touch directly
on
Shelemay's
own life and those whose
personal
lives are entwined with hers.
Among
the
striking
events and scenes from
the Revolution to which her work bears
testimony, Ethiopia
comes ablaze with fires
fed
by money
when the
population
are
instructed to
bring
in
money
to exchange
for new issue. Her friend Father
Marqos
and
her assistant Tamrat are
eventually
conscripted
into Zemecha, a new
programme
ostensibly
to send
young
urban
people
to
rural areas to
explain
and institute aid
programmes,
but in fact of a
punitive
nature:
those considered
potentially
subversive
might
be sent to
perform
menial and
humiliating
tasks. Growing
mistrust among
people (since the identities of the members
of the
Derg
are
kept secret, and
hearsay
has
been used as evidence
against
individuals in
trials)
is manifested in the Shelemay
household in relation to an
Ethiopian
employee.
As the Revolution develops,
visits to the
Gondar
region
become
impossible,
and
Shelemay
finds herself in
danger
of
"losing
her field". In
response,
she sets out to
explore
the musical life of Addis Abeba, and
through
it
paints
a
fascinating
and rare
picture of the changing political
situation.
British Journal
of Ethnomusicology,
vol. 5
(1996)
She describes the Orchestre
Ethiopia,
originally
assembled
by
the
Emperor,
consisting
of musicians
brought together
from all over the
country
to form a national
folklore ensemble. This orchestra is led
by
a
young
musician trained at a
conservatory
in
the United States and at the Yared School in
Addis Abeba, which
incorporated
both
"Western" and
Ethiopian
music.
Shelemay
refers to the
problems
of
blending
solo
musicians, with different
regional styles
and
tunings,
into a
Western-type
orchestra. The
limitations to the freedom of
interpretation
and
opportunities
for
improvisation imposed
by
this ensemble situation, she
explains,
led
to discord and confrontation. She
provides
a
delightful
account of a
system
of notation
designed
to
remedy
this situation, to
standardise
performance
in the formation of
a "new
truly
national musical idiom". This
includes
pictographs
such as a turtle
signifying
the
slowing
down of
tempo,
and a
bee
hovering
above
places
where
ornamentation is
permitted.
Shelemay
remarks on the role of radio
and television in
reflecting
and
conveying
changes
in national
policy
and international
influences.
Foreign
shows such as "Hawaii
Five-O"-"symbols
of
capitalist
deca-
dence"-are
replaced by
theatrical
productions
and musical ensembles often
representing
the success of the Revolution.
Shelemay describes how
song
becomes an
important
medium for
transmitting
informa-
tion on
changes
of
policy implemented by
the Provisional
Military
Administrative
Council, with well-known musicians in
every
area enlisted to
sing revolutionary songs
in
traditional
style
and in
regional languages.
On an untraditional level, Shelemay
relates
how the influence of mainland China
manifests itself in
Ethiopia
with an influx of
Chinese
people, including
the
presence
of
acupuncturists
in urban and rural areas, and
the
broadcasting
of Chinese
opera
on the
radio. This is then substituted with the radio
transmission of the Soviet Red
Army chorus,
as Soviet influence
replaced
that of the
Chinese. Another musical manifestation of
this new influence is a
song
which wins a
competition
to
compose
a new
Ethiopian
anthem.
Shelemay
describes this anthem,
composed by
an
Ethiopian
musician who
had received
training
in
Bulgaria,
as
resembling
an Eastern
European
folk tune.
The Radio Voice of the
Gospel
is
nationalised, and
Shelemay
is invited
by
a
foreign journalist
to record sections of its
archives whose future is unclear.
Among
the
recordings
which interest her is the music of
"Lalibela", whom she
subsequently
meets
and interviews. Members of Lalibela, whose
ancestors had suffered from
leprosy,
although they
themselves were
healthy,
would arrive at the entrances of wealthy
compounds
with their faces hidden in shawls,
and
sing
loud verses of
praise
to the owners.
If these were not
quickly rewarded, they
would be followed
by
still louder verses of
insults.
Attempting
to
cope
with the
increasing
impingement
of the Revolution which
prevents
her from
concentrating
on her
research, Shelemay preoccupies
herself with
strategies
to
keep
herself
together.
She starts
work on a
patchwork quilt-another object
which becomes
symbolic
of her situation
with
Jack-something
which has to be
abandoned and
put away,
to be
brought
out
and
pieced together
later in another
place,
along
with their lives.
Shelemay organizes
women's
meetings
for the discussion of issues
concerning
expatriate
women abroad. These
meetings
dwindle as the
ex-pat
women
disappear
from
Ethiopia
one
by
one.
Shelemay
herself
reaches the limits of her endurance when,
personally endangered by
the sudden
appearance
of a
pervasive anti-Americanism,
she is forced into a
position
of "virtual
house arrest".
Another
way
in which
Shelemay responds
to her confinement to Addis Abeba is to
commence lessons on
Ethiopian
Church
music. The curfews, together
with the
precarious position
of the
Ethiopian
Church
during
the Revolution, make it difficult for
her to attend mass at the Church. Instead,
therefore, the Church attends her
study
in
Addis in the form of
Marigeta3 Yohannes,
who officiated at his own church. At this
time, the future of the Church's tradition is
uncertain, and Yohannes is therefore
appreciative
of the
opportunity
to
pass
it on,
and of
Shelemay's
interest in it. At the same
time his
teaching
of Church
liturgy
to
Shelemay
is indicative of her status as a
professional, overriding
considerations both
of her
gender
and of her
religious
background.
Shelemay's
research of
Ethiopian
Christian
liturgical
traditions leaves her
3
leader of Church
singers/musicians
175
176 British Journal
of
Ethnomusicology,
vol. 5 (1996)
aware of their similarities with those of the
Bet Israel. However, she can find no relation
between Bet Israel
liturgical
tradition and
mainstream Judaism, or what could be
considered a
pieserived
pre-Halachic
Jewish
liturgical
tradition. She is aware of the
importance placed by
Bet Israel on the
Christian monk Aba Sabra who introduced
monasticism to their
community. However, it
is not until some
years
after her fieldwork
that, returning
to her
original
field sources,
she makes the
revolutionary
realisation that
rather than the monastic office
having
died
out with monasticism
among
the Bet Israel,
the monastic office in fact constitutes the
core of modem Bet Israel liturgy.
Based on this
discovery, Shelemay puts
forward a reconstruction of Bet Israel
history. Maintaining
a
generally
held
assumption
that the Bet Israel were
originally
an
Agau-speaking people4-since Agau
passages
from their
presumably prior
religion appear
in their
liturgy,
and because
they
inhabited traditional
Agau
areas-she
speculates
that their entire
religious practice
and
liturgy
in its
contemporary
form was
brought
to them
by
Christian monks
during
the mid-fifteenth
century,
although
Bet israel
religious practice may
have been influenced
by preceding
orders of monks. She
contradicts what she refers to as "the brick
wall" of Bet Israel belief: that "the monks
came to us and we converted them". She
insists that the historical context makes it
clear that these monks were
intensely
committed to their own traditions-the
reason for their exile to the
Agau
areas,
rather than remain with the church and be
forced to
give
these
up.
Shelemay explains
that she was blocked
from
drawing
an obvious conclusion from
unmistakable evidence while she remained
within a framework
whereby
she
sought
an
exclusively
Jewish
explanation
for the
origins
of Bet Israel
liturgy,
her
preliminary
preparation
for fieldwork
including
a
year's
study
of Jewish
liturgy. Despite this, her
introduction to Bet Israel
liturgical
music
had occurred within a Christian context,
when a
professor played
a
recording
of Bet
Israel
liturgical
music in a class on
European
Christian chant. Further
along
the road of
her academic research, on her
way
to the
4
See,
e.g.,
Edward Ullendorf
(1965)
The Ethio-
pians:
an introduction to
country
and
people
(London University Prss).
field, her first
point
of call is the Gabriel
Church in Addis Abeba. Later, in
transcribing
her
recordings
of Bet Israel
liturgy
in her
study
in Addis Abeba, she is
assisted not
by
someone familiar with Bet
Israel
liturgy,
but
by Tamrat, a student from
a Christian
Theological College.
She
describes how
together,
she and Tamrat
struggle
to
decipher
the
prayer
texts she sets
out to transcribe. Her Eritrean Christian
friend, the
priest
Father
Marqos,
who
introduced Tamrat to her, jokes
that
surely
even God would not be able to understand
these
prayers.
Having
made her
revolutionary discovery,
Shelemay
finds herself in an ethical
dilemma: how to resolve the conflict between
her academic
integrity
and her
loyalty
to the
Bet Israel, who had offered her
hospitality
and entrusted her with their traditions, since
her
findings
contradict Bet Israel
history
as
they themselves relate it, as well as their more
recent shift in self-identification from
"Israelites" to Jews in a more universal
sense. She is also concerned that her
findings
could be abused to the
disadvantage
of the Bet Israel, and is
encouraged
to
suppress
her
findings
as
possibly
en-
dangering attempts
of American activists
involved in
organising
the
migration
of Bet
Israel to Israel. She reveals her ambivalence
on the issue of the
"arrogance"
of
"Westerners" who
sought
to
impose
their
image
on Bet Israel, and the
migration
of the
Bet Israel to Israel. Nevertheless, she decides
to address her own internal conflict
by
publishing
her data
only
in
scholarly
journals,
while
stating
her desire that the
matter should be treated as historical and not
implicated
in
contemporary politics.
However, when she and her
findings
are
publicly
attacked in a demonstration at an
exhibition in New York
City
on the Bet
Israel, which she curates, she decides to no
longer suppress
her
findings. She notes the
lack of Bet Israel
response, undoubtedly
because, as she
points out, her work was
inaccessible to the Bet Israel themselves, as is
most literature concerned with them, mainly
for reasons of
language
and lack of
educational
opportunities.
A
song of longing
therefore extends in
time to several
years
after her fieldwork was
completed,
and in
place
to another
continent. It extends in time, also, to
many
years
before her fieldwork commenced,
again
in another continent. Her
proposed
British Journal
of Ethnomusicology,
vol. 5
(1996)
British Journal
of Ethnomusicology,
vol. 5
(1996)
area of
study
was a
single
musical tradition
of a
single people,
and
yet
her fieldwork
account
spans
diverse
peoples,
cultures and
traditions. The narrative extends in
range
from the
deeply personal
to the historical
and international, the two often
being
intertwined. In her "Cubist"
style
of
writing,
themes are
presented simultaneously
from a
multidimensional
perspective
in time and
space:
the
present
or recent
past
are
embedded in their historical
setting
while the
past anticipates
scenarios to follow, the local
is located in its national and international
setting
while events on a national and
international scale are focussed in on local
and
personal impact.
area of
study
was a
single
musical tradition
of a
single people,
and
yet
her fieldwork
account
spans
diverse
peoples,
cultures and
traditions. The narrative extends in
range
from the
deeply personal
to the historical
and international, the two often
being
intertwined. In her "Cubist"
style
of
writing,
themes are
presented simultaneously
from a
multidimensional
perspective
in time and
space:
the
present
or recent
past
are
embedded in their historical
setting
while the
past anticipates
scenarios to follow, the local
is located in its national and international
setting
while events on a national and
international scale are focussed in on local
and
personal impact.
Academically
thought-out
works
may
be
expected
to cohere, and to
converge
onto a
central
point
of focus. Within the whole
spectrum
of human
experience, however,
events and
thoughts
do not
hang together
in
the same
way,
and this work of
Shelemay's
shows how the fieldwork situation relates to
this whole
spectrum-reaching
far
beyond
the boundaries of "the field". Her account
reflects the
hugeness
of her research
experience,
and the
deeply
human dimen-
sion of the researcher.
MARILYN HERMAN
Suite 33, 10
Barley Mow
Passage
London W4 4PH
100427.2730@compuserve.com
Academically
thought-out
works
may
be
expected
to cohere, and to
converge
onto a
central
point
of focus. Within the whole
spectrum
of human
experience, however,
events and
thoughts
do not
hang together
in
the same
way,
and this work of
Shelemay's
shows how the fieldwork situation relates to
this whole
spectrum-reaching
far
beyond
the boundaries of "the field". Her account
reflects the
hugeness
of her research
experience,
and the
deeply
human dimen-
sion of the researcher.
MARILYN HERMAN
Suite 33, 10
Barley Mow
Passage
London W4 4PH
100427.2730@compuserve.com
recordings recordings
An archive of black South African
popular
music:
recently
released reissues
Cold Castle National Festival: Maroka-
Jabavu Jazz 1962. Various artists, Teal
Records, TELCD 2302; 1991.
From marabi to disco: 42
years of township
music.
Compilation,
Gallo Music, CDZAC
61; 1994.
Hamba Notsokolo and other
original
hits
from the 50's. Dorothy Masuka, Gallo
Music, CDZAC 60, -.
Jazz
Epistle
Verse 1. Jazz
Epistles,
Gallo
Music, 66892-2, -.
Jazz
fantasia. Gideon Nxumalo, Teal
Records, TELCD 2301; 1991.
Jazz in
Africa, vol. 1. Various artists, Teal
Records, TELCD 2304; 1991.
Jazz in
Africa,
vol. 2. Various artists, Teal
Records, TELCD 2314; 1991.
Jazz: the
African sound. Chris
McGregor &
the Castle
Lager Big Band, Teal Records,
TELCD 2300; 1991.
King Kong: original
cast. Gallo Music,
66890-2, -.
King
Kwela.
Spokes Mashiyane,
Gallo
Music, CDZAC
50;,
1991.
Miriam Makeba and the
Skylarks,
vol. 1.
Miriam Makeba and the
Skylarks, Teal
Records, TELCD 2303; 1991.
Miriam Makeba and the
Skylarks,
vol. 2.
Miriam Makeba and the
Skylarks,
Teal
Records, TELCD 2315; 1991.
An archive of black South African
popular
music:
recently
released reissues
Cold Castle National Festival: Maroka-
Jabavu Jazz 1962. Various artists, Teal
Records, TELCD 2302; 1991.
From marabi to disco: 42
years of township
music.
Compilation,
Gallo Music, CDZAC
61; 1994.
Hamba Notsokolo and other
original
hits
from the 50's. Dorothy Masuka, Gallo
Music, CDZAC 60, -.
Jazz
Epistle
Verse 1. Jazz
Epistles,
Gallo
Music, 66892-2, -.
Jazz
fantasia. Gideon Nxumalo, Teal
Records, TELCD 2301; 1991.
Jazz in
Africa, vol. 1. Various artists, Teal
Records, TELCD 2304; 1991.
Jazz in
Africa,
vol. 2. Various artists, Teal
Records, TELCD 2314; 1991.
Jazz: the
African sound. Chris
McGregor &
the Castle
Lager Big Band, Teal Records,
TELCD 2300; 1991.
King Kong: original
cast. Gallo Music,
66890-2, -.
King
Kwela.
Spokes Mashiyane,
Gallo
Music, CDZAC
50;,
1991.
Miriam Makeba and the
Skylarks,
vol. 1.
Miriam Makeba and the
Skylarks, Teal
Records, TELCD 2303; 1991.
Miriam Makeba and the
Skylarks,
vol. 2.
Miriam Makeba and the
Skylarks,
Teal
Records, TELCD 2315; 1991.
Township swing jazz!
vol. 1.
Compilation,
Gallo Music, CDZAC 53; 1991.
Township swing jazz!
vol. 2.
Compilation,
Gallo Music, CDZAC 54; 1991.
Under
apartheid,
art and culture
produced
by
black South Africans was
generally
undervalued,
if not
ignored, by
the establish-
ment. As black South African
popular music
was no
exception,
it was, until
recently,
extraordinarily
difficult to obtain historical
recordings. Stimulated
by the
changing
political
climate of the
early 1990s, however,
Gallo, one of the
country's
major
record
companies, transformed its
policy
on black
cultural
heritage: Albert Ralulimi and Rob
Allingham
were
employed
with a mandate to
convert the
company's archives, which at
that
point
consisted of vaults full of
unlabeled
master-tapes,
into a useable asseLt.5
The reissues
produced by GaUo as a result of
this initiative now amount to a sizeable
resource, to which this review is intended as
an initial
guide.
What follows is a brief
overview of these archival
recordings
specifically
for music lecturers
desparately
seeking teaching
materials.
5 Albert Ralulimi was a musician and has been
involved in the South African music
industry since
the sixties. Rob
Allingham
is a music historian
and the
country's pre-eminent discographer.
Township swing jazz!
vol. 1.
Compilation,
Gallo Music, CDZAC 53; 1991.
Township swing jazz!
vol. 2.
Compilation,
Gallo Music, CDZAC 54; 1991.
Under
apartheid,
art and culture
produced
by
black South Africans was
generally
undervalued,
if not
ignored, by
the establish-
ment. As black South African
popular music
was no
exception,
it was, until
recently,
extraordinarily
difficult to obtain historical
recordings. Stimulated
by the
changing
political
climate of the
early 1990s, however,
Gallo, one of the
country's
major
record
companies, transformed its
policy
on black
cultural
heritage: Albert Ralulimi and Rob
Allingham
were
employed
with a mandate to
convert the
company's archives, which at
that
point
consisted of vaults full of
unlabeled
master-tapes,
into a useable asseLt.5
The reissues
produced by GaUo as a result of
this initiative now amount to a sizeable
resource, to which this review is intended as
an initial
guide.
What follows is a brief
overview of these archival
recordings
specifically
for music lecturers
desparately
seeking teaching
materials.
5 Albert Ralulimi was a musician and has been
involved in the South African music
industry since
the sixties. Rob
Allingham
is a music historian
and the
country's pre-eminent discographer.
177 177