Group Leader: Mahama
Braimah
Recording and Notes by: John
M. Chernoff
Rounder Records 5086 (2001)
More
than half a million Dagbamba people live and farm in the lightly wooded
savanna
area of northern Ghana. Maps
of Africa
usually show their largest town, Tamale, and their traditional capital,
Yendi. The Dagbamba
are heirs to a rich
tradition. Their
traditional state,
Dagbon, was one of the earliest centralized states consolidated in the
medieval
Volta River Basin. Dagbamba
chiefs
belong to one of the oldest existing dynasties in the world: the Dagbamba paramount
chieftaincy has passed
from fathers to sons within one lineage for more than six hundred years. As in many other African
societies, the
reputed knowledge of traditional history is vested in musicians. In Dagbon, it is drummers
who have dominated
the musical repertoire. Drummers
are
descended from the early line of the Dagbamba chiefs, and they have
their own
system of chieftaincies as titled elders in major towns. They play an ensemble that
includes an
hourglass-shaped squeeze drum with two heads, called lunga,
sometimes
known in Europe and America as a “talking drum,” along with a big bass
tomtom,
called gungon.
Rounder has
released two CDs of Dagbamba drumming, Master Drummers of
Dagbon,
volumes 1 and 2 (5016 and 5046).
Apart
from drumming, there are many other types of music in Dagbon. There are other types of
drums played by
young people for recreational purposes.
The Dagbamba musical repertoire also features several
types of flutes, a
musical bow that is similar to a Brazilian birimbao,
several types of
horns, and several different plucked lutes; however, apart from the
hourglass
drum ensemble, the instrument that has attained the most popularity and
visibility is a one-stringed bowed lute called goonji. Variants of the name goonji
are
widespread in related traditions:
for
example, the fiddle is called goge among the Hausa,
godji among
the Songhay.
Fiddles
like the goonji are widespread in the sub-Saharan savanna cultures of
Africa. In fact,
fiddles are so
widespread that I sometimes wonder why so little attention has been
paid to
their possible contribution to the soundscape of the African-American
Diaspora. And
indeed, as alien as the
sound of goonji music may seem at first, the music is surprisingly easy
to get
with. There is no
documentation of the
one-stringed fiddle’s origin in West Africa, but based on the various
versions
of the instruments’ basic structure and their distribution among Muslim
societies, one-stringed fiddles are generally presumed to have been
disseminated from Arabic Muslim societies of North Africa and the
Middle
East. Trans-Saharan
trade and cultural
contact has been documented for more than a millenium, and the
significant
conversion of sub-Saharan Africans to Islam began in the tenth century.
Like
most fiddles in West Africa, the Dagbamba goonji is held horizontally,
often
hung over the shoulder with a scarf.
The
resonator is made from half of a gourd calabash covered with the skin
of a
monitor lizard. The
bow is semi-circular. The
strings on the fiddle and the bow are
made of hair from a horse’s tail.
The
sound of the goonji may sound a bit scratchy at first to Westerners
used to the
sound of bowed instruments like the violin; nonetheless, the seemingly
rough
texture of the goonji’s sound is consistent with West African concepts
of sound
richness. The
qualities of the sound are
enhanced by the accompanying play of rattles called zaabia. The rattles are filled
calabashes that are
both shaken and also struck with the free hand.
The words goonji and zaabia
can be used to refer the
instrument itself or the musician who plays it.
The rattles are played by children of either gender or by
women, and it
is worth noting that the Hausa word zabiya refers
to a female
praise-singer.
Goonji
music occupies a position that is secondary to drumming in the Dagbamba
musical
tradition, mainly because the goonji is a recent introduction, at least
in
relative terms given Dagbon’s lengthy existence.
According to the drummers, the goonji was
introduced in the early nineteenth century during the reign of Naa
(Chief)
Ziblim Kulunku. The
ancestors of the
Dagbamba goonji players originally came from the Guruma traditional
area in
southeastern Burkina Faso. When
some
Gurumas moved from their original area to the south and west, Guruma
goonji
players settled in the Mamprusi traditional area to the north of Dagbon
in
northern Ghana. They
intermarried and
brought forth Mamprusi children who were playing the goonji. It was from the Mamprusi
area that they went
to Dagbon, where they also intermarried, and their descendants became
Dagbamba. According
to drummers, the
goonji players’ “starting was in Guruma and Mamprusi,” and they
“entered”
Dagbon, and so the goonjis are “strangers in our midst.” Today, despite the great
popularity and
ubiquitous presence of goonji music in Dagbon, some Dagbamba do not
even
consider the goonji to be a part of Dagbamba custom because the goonji
was not
there at the beginning of the chieftaincy tradition that Dagbamba
consider the
center of their culture. Some
goonjis
claim that their introduction into Dagbon occurred during the reign of
Naa
Andani Sigli, in the early eighteenth century, that Naa Sigli brought
the
goonjis from the extreme north of Ghana, and that they stayed with Naa
Sigli’s
son, Naa Saalana Ziblim, who was chief in the mid to late eighteenth
century. Drummers
would respond that
they know more about people than the people themselves know. Whatever the case, it took
many, many years
for the roots of goonji playing to grow to the goonji’s recent
flowering in the
late twentieth century.
In
Dagbon’s traditional capital, Yendi, the goonjis have a chief, a titled
family
elder called Yamba-Naa, but they do not have a relationship to the
Dagbamba
chieftaincy comparable to drummers, either as descendants or elders. They are not inside the
drum history, and
they do not have titles or chieftaincy hierarchies in the other towns
of
Dagbon. Drummers in
Dagbon, along with
several other occupational groups such as blacksmiths, butchers,
barbers, and
soothsayers, are “born” into their work.
In modern times, the situation has loosened up a bit for
cash-based work
like blacksmithing and butchering, but within Dagbamba custom, only a
child
born into such a family can practice the vocation.
According to custom, special symbolism is
attached to the drum, the knife, the blade, the bellows, or the
soothsayer’s
bag: each is an
“old thing” that
“follows” and “catches” people in the respective families. Although there is obvious
family continuity
in the perpetuation of goonji playing, the goonjis do not face the same
types
of sanctions as these other groups.
The
goonjis are nicknamed vulunvuuna, after a mud wasp. After a mud wasp gets a
place to build its
nest, it goes outside, kills insects and puts them inside the nest and
leaves
them there. I was
told, “It shows that
the ones it has brought have become its children.
How a goonji is, it is a goonji child who
will shake the zaabia. A
goonji player
will be there, and his child will not be from anywhere:
if he has no child, any child who wants to
run and come and enter the playing of the zaabia, that child becomes
his child
and will grow up to play the goonji.
If
a goonji marries any woman, he will show the woman how to shake the
rattle. And so a
goonji player has no beginning; God
can turn a child to become a goonji child.
As for the goonji, you can go and learn it without
following a family
door. The goonji is
like that.”
The
logic behind this standard of seniority is grounded in the Dagbamba’s
sense of
themselves as an ancient people. At
first glance, Dagbamba society appears to be separated into two groups: nobility and commoners. Yet in a manner parallel
to the continuous
integrity of the chieftaincy lineage, Dagbamba also conceive of
themselves as a
single family. Not
every son of a chief
becomes a chief, and the descendants of those princes who do not attain
chieftaincy are thus the people who become commoners.
Every Dagbamba traces his or her ancestry to
some point on the chieftaincy line, and in that sense, the history of
Dagbon is
understood in terms of the gradual evolution of an elaborately
segmented
descent group. The
work of Dagbamba
drummers involves keeping track of the genealogical relationships that
operate
within the political realm itself and also the genealogical
relationships that
link individuals to the chiefs. Drummers
are therefore recognized for their knowledge of history and of their
local
communities, and this knowledge is expressed through their music.
At
the center of the Dagbamba musical tradition is the history of the
state. Twice a
year, drummers in major towns gather
outside the house of the chief to sing selected parts of Dagbamba
history, a
performance that begins in the evening and lasts until dawn. The chiefs have both their
given names and
also praise-names. These
praise-names
are in the form of proverbs that refer to a chief’s deeds, to a chief’s
ancestor, or to ideas a chief may have believed in strongly. Commoners also have
praise-names that either
refer to their ancestors in the chieftaincy line or to their own lives
and
thoughts. Dagbamba
say that a person
does not praise himself. Public
praising
is the work of the musicians, and praise-names that fit a person are
often
bestowed by drummers, who have a broader knowledge of proverbs and of a
person’s position in society. The
praise-names can be either sung or beaten on a drum.
In recent years, the rhythms of praise-names
have become the basis for social dances that are done at community
gatherings
like weddings or funerals or the namings of newborn children. At such events, dance
circles are formed, and
drummers move from one person to another, praising the person and then
inviting
him or her to a brief solo dance or two performed inside the circle. The dancer’s friends and
relatives in the
dance circle respond to this public display by entering the circle and
giving
money to the dancer, who allows the money to fall to the ground where
it is
picked up by children of the musicians.
The
role of the goonji players at such gatherings duplicates that of the
drummers. At a
large funeral, there may
be a number of dance circles, of which one or two will feature goonji
music. But the
extent of the goonjis’ knowledge of
families and chieftaincy does not reach that of the drummers. Although goonji songs have
historical
allusions, goonji players do not sing historical songs for the chiefs. When a chief comes out of
his house for any
type of procession or gathering, goonji players join drummers in
walking with
the chief and playing their instruments, but when the chief sits down,
the
goonjis also sit down, and it is drummers who will play and praise the
chief. The goonjis
pattern their singing
after drummers, for their songs are generally a series of proverbs and
praise-names, and such songs are what their Dagbamba audiences and
patrons want
to hear. Nonetheless,
the family of the
drummers “started” from inside chieftaincy, but the goonji families did
not,
and the goonjis would defer authority to the drummers.
The
increasing popularity of goonji playing is quite recent, and I believe
that the
main reason for this development is simply that goonji music is so nice. With modern changes in the
economic life of
the region, many commoners have become well-to-do, and there are many
more
occasions for musicians to perform.
All
musicians in larger towns like Tamale have benefited.
Now, almost everywhere drummers are, goonjis
are also there. Goonjis
also roam the
markets playing and singing and collecting gifts of money. People like
goonji music. Although
one might think that drumming is the
ideal music for dancing, to my mind, the popularity of goonji music is
strongly
rooted in its qualities for dancing.
I
have experienced nothing quite like dancing to goonji music, and my
advice for
appreciating the music on this recording is to try to dance to it. Imagine yourself invited
by goonjis to dance
in the center of a Dagbamba dance circle.
When you step into the circle to dance, the musicians
surround you. Perhaps
there will be three or four goonjis
and maybe two rattles. The
leader of the
goonjis sings and plays his fiddle while the other goonjis drive the
music with
responsive rhythms and harmonies.
The
rattles in particular pack a real punch.
When the rattle players smack their rattles and accentuate
their
rhythms, the sound is sharp and penetrating.
When all these musicians are playing, the music envelopes
you and goes
right into your body. The
dance itself
is typically a simple two-step movement, right-right left-left, but
sometimes
the dancer steps to each beat and sometimes the dancer adds an
intermediate
step in syncopation. Male
dancers may
add a flourish by lifting a leg and rotating half-way to mark the beat;
as they
turn, their flared smocks bell out and swing.
When you are dancing, as you feel the beat, the
counterrhythms lift you
and turn your body. Because
of this
palpable energy, as with the two Rounder recordings of Dagbamba
drumming, I
also recommend listening to the goonji music on headphones at high
volume. In my
previous liner notes, I wrote that in
the actual context of a performance, the sound is more than
quadraphonic, and
we should appreciate the musical inspiration behind such a performance
model as
a kind of technological prescience.
In
the notes on the individual songs, I have also included the vernacular
of the
vocal responses for those who might wish to position themselves further
into
the music by singing along with the chorus.
Until
you experience the music as something that surrounds you while you
move, it is
hard to believe that so much intensity and energy can come from a
ensemble of
fiddles. I used
this recording as a
pace-setter when I worked out aerobically on an exercise bicycle. Most of the songs start at
a moderate pace
between 80 and 110 beats a minute and then gradually speed up,
typically
reaching and sustaining a pulse between 120 to 140 beats a minute. I halved that tempo by
pedalling on the first
and third beats, an ideal for my standard on the apparatus I used. Next, I danced from one
Nautilus contraption
to another. I used
this music for about
six months and never got tired of it.
Finally, I changed my music on general principles, trying
other music
from my vast collection, but I lost some of my power.
I’m now back with the goonji music, which is
still keeping me pumped up.
Although
I have made of number of recordings of goonji music, I have chosen to
include
only selections from one recording session because the performance was
just so hot. The
group was led by the late Mahama Braimah
of Tamale. I called
Mahama Braimah my
uncle. My drumming
master, Alhaji
Ibrahim Abdulai of Tamale, who was the group leader on Rounder’s
releases of
Dagbamba drumming, had been married for some time to Mahama’s sister,
Gurumpaga
(literally, Guruma woman). Insofar
as I
took Alhaji Ibrahim to be my father in Dagbon, then his wife’s brother
was my
uncle. I had known
Mahama for years
because we often saw each other at musical events and around the town. He and his brother
Alhassan Braimah had made
a lovely recording for me several years earlier, but when I asked him
for
another recording, he brought along two additional goonjis. We went to a quiet field
outside of town, and
the musicians made this recording in a single sitting.
With
impressive musicianship, the ensemble of four goonjis and two zaabia
performed
a selection of goonji songs. In
most
goonji songs, the vocal phrasing of the chorus or responsive line is
duplicated
in the responsive parts of the fiddles.
The songs generally begin with this phrasing maintained
for enough time
to establish the song and its rhythmic dynamic.
The leader sings various stanzas against this response,
and the song
gradually builds in intensity as the tempo quickens and the goonjis
take
flights on their instruments. Sometimes
the whole song takes a turn into a different responsive pattern. In this performance,
Mahama’s brilliant
singing is anchored by the vocal chorus of the other three goonjis. The presence of four
goonjis fortifies the
responses; moreover, instead of playing their responses in unison as is
often
the case with other groups, the supporting fiddlers themselves employed
sophisticated and tasteful counterrhythms and harmonies. Much of the rhythmic drive
comes not from
solo work but from the music’s steady yet shifting pulsations. Goonji music offers a
superb illustration of
how one may attribute the notion of percussive attack to a fiddler’s
bowing
technique. The
rattles’ complementary
flourishes are broken by extended periods of straightforward yet
energized
time-keeping, and I cannot think of any other music in which that
simple beat
from the rattles would seem so stunning.
It is not surprising to find that the players in
larger towns like Tamale seem
more accomplished in terms of sheer musicianship:
there are more people in the towns, and there
are also more occasions for playing, more funerals, more weddings, and
more
money. As I stated
earlier, most goonji
songs are collections of proverbs that have become identified with
people as
praise-names, and people in Dagbon often identify themselves through
the
praise-names of their particular ancestors who were chiefs. By the mid-twentieth
century, as more and more
of the common people acquired sufficient means to patronize musicians,
it was
not unusual for those who were not chiefs to have their own
praise-names. Well-to-do
commoners and householders, called
“youngmen” even though they would typically be in their forties and
fifties,
could sponsor musical gatherings, and the type of music and dancing
performed
by drummers was called taachi, a word taken from the
Hausa word taake,
referring to a type of Hausa praise-drumming.
Drummers sang most taachi songs either in Dagbani, the
Dagbamba
language, or in the local variant of Hausa.
The goonji songs of today resemble taachi songs at least
in the sense
that they are often in Hausa or in a mixture of Hausa and Dagbani. Actually, although many
Dagbamba are
multilingual, many are not, and many do not understand what the goonjis
are
singing. Most
people know when they
themselves are being praised, but in fact, even some of the younger
goonji
musicians themselves may not know all the meanings of the songs in
their repertoire. Like
us, though, those Dagbamba who cannot
understand the songs can still enjoy listening or moving to the music. It is a strange and
beautiful circumstance
that allows us perhaps to share an unmediated experience of music and
to bridge
some of the cultural differences that might normally separate us from
them.
NOTES
ON THE SONGS
Dogua
Bayoyoyo: “Do
Not Feel Sympathy for the
Tallest Chief”
Wanda
Ya Chi Magani Yaa
Baata: “Someone
Who
Fears Wants to Use Juju (but it won’t work)”
Selection
3 (7:43)
Mai
Karatu: “A
Student”
Selection
4 (7:46)
Mai
karfi: “A Strong Person”
Sung
in Hausa, the chorus is Mai karfi zai che kawo fada: “A strong man will call
for a fight.” The
section of a town where African foreigners
(often Hausas) live is called a zongo in Hausa. This song is for the Hausa
chief of the zongo
in Yendi many years ago, named Labo.
Mahama sings: The
one who owns
milk will keep it; if you are in need of it, go to the owner. If a flock of sheep
gathers without a ram,
they are useless. The
fiddles and chorus
entertain the words Yaaro taaka during a bridge: “Son (of chiefs), walk
majestically.” Toward
the end of the song, the chorus and
leader alternate singing, “Go forward, father (of the retinue).”
Selection
5 (7:14)
Ka
Mi Zuhiri Maanga: “I
Have Invited Myself”
Sung
in Dagbani, the song is for Tugulana Yiri, that is, Chief Yiri of the
town of
Tugu. The goonjis’
responsive line
says: You have not
invited me, but I
have come. The idea
of the chief
inviting himself is that no rival contestant nor townsperson could
prevent him
from obtaining the chieftaincy. The
singer calls the names of past chiefs in the chief’s family and tells
them: walk
majestically. He
adds:
The one who is not invited has washed his hands before me. The one who is not invited
has taken a ball
of food before me. Before
I put mine in
my mouth he has already swallowed his.
Then the singer calls the past chiefs again.
Ninsal’
Ku Toi Ban O Dalirilana: “A
Human Being Cannot Know His
Benefactor”
Yaaro
Yaa Sani Baba: “A
Boy Knows the Father”
Wariye
Jelima Mai Makada: “The
Prince Who Has Many Goonji
Players”
Ba
Zai Karfi, Sai Allah Ya Yi
Lafia: “No
One Has
Power Unless God Makes It So”
Yelizolilana
Lagfu: “Lagfu,
Chief of Yelizoli”
Against
the chorus line, the leader sings:
The
Chief of Yelizoli has money. The
chief
says he has money. Money
has no fat, but
people love money. Using
the chief’s
name Yidantogma, the leader calls the chieftaincies Lagfu held before
he took
Yelizoli, including Zabzugu (another name for Yelizoli), Gbungbaliga,
Taginamo,
and so on. Then the
singer, in an
allusion to the chief, refers to a group of diviners called Jinwarba;
the proverb refers to the belief that when they are dancing, it is
dangerous to
knock your leg against one of their legs.
He sings: When
jinwarba are
dancing, it is interesting to watch, but if you don’t have juju (power)
yourself, you can’t come close; you have to hide or stand far off (to
look at
them). More
proverbial praises
follow: A man will
not eat plenty of
food before he is called a man. A
man
will not drink plenty of water before he is called a man. A man will not drink
plenty of alcohol before
he is called a man. Your
deeds show you
to be a man. When a
camel comes with a
load and dumps it, it is only a camel who can carry it again (that is,
only the
chief can deal with chieftaincy matters).
Then the song changes to Hausa and Dagbani, and the leader
sings: The stream
at Sabali is not for you (chief),
but you have used power to take it, and the chorus responds, Ba
ruwanka ba: “The
stream is not yours.”
PERSONNEL: The group leader was
Mahama Braimah of
Tamale. Also
playing goonji and singing
were Alhassan Braimah, Alhassan Ibrahim and Yimusah Seidu. The zaabia players were
Mashahudu Mahama and
Issahaku Mahama.