South African Music Archive Project

Self delectative song with mbira dza WaNdau. The performer is one of the few Tonga people who have learnt to play the Ndau instrument, the mbira dza WaNdau, which has travelled southwards since the time of the Shangaan chief Ngungunyana for whom the Ndau fought as a subservient tribe during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Several of the fighting men stayed in the south and married Tsonga women and their children have used the paternal instrument, singing to it traditional songs.Further details refer ILAM field card no. H1R-8.

Topical song with guitar. "If you have no child it is no good. Other women have children, they fill the village. There are many men here standing in the queues for going to Johannesburg. You, my wife, you do not want to eat porridge - you want rice. There is no rice here, because I am poor. Go to the rich where they can afford rice."
So she went to a rich man to get her rice, but now she gets no clothes, no shoes, and at last, no food.
Details from ILAM record number TP4274-H1P14

Lament with raft rattle. The rattle has seeds inside a hollow raft of stout grass stalks.
"They put poison in my beer and that is why I have nochild. I am very worried about the guitar. I do not like to meet anyone. I went to my doctor to make myself effective to get a child. I asked my uncle if he had seen the way I dance. Did the old people kill a man on account of his dancing - or does that only happen to me?"
Details from ILAM field card H1P16