Popular songs and the creation and expansion of Shona orthography in Zimbabwe

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Popular songs and the creation andexpansion of Shona orthography inZimbabweArthur Takawira P. Makanda a & Maurice T. Vambe ba Zimbabwe Republic Policeb University of South AfricaPublished online: 22 Nov 2012.

To cite this article: Arthur Takawira P. Makanda & Maurice T. Vambe (2012) Popular songs and thecreation and expansion of Shona orthography in Zimbabwe, Muziki: Journal of Music Research inAfrica, 9:1, 99-117, DOI: 10.1080/18125980.2012.737108

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99

Popular songs and the creation and expansion of Shona orthography in Zimbabwe

Arthur Takawira P. Makanda (Zimbabwe Republic Police) [email protected] T. Vambe (University of South Africa) Email: [email protected]

AbstractMusic research in Africa has tended to focus on the analysis of lyrics in search of overt political content. This has yielded enormous and sometimes incisive academic work. However, research in music is yet to explore the political economy of the infrastructure of music production from composition, recording, marketing and paying of royalties. One aspect of music research that has also received little scholarly attention is the role of songs not simply in carrying the messages from composer to audience, but in helping in the creation of new words that are then popularised in cultural communities where these words are absorbed into the community’s cultural and linguistic grammars. In Zimbabwe, two momentous historical periods, which are the liberation struggle (1970s) and the era of the Third Chimurenga (from 2000), reveal how the medium of song was used to generate a new vocabulary that has become part of the country’s orthography. While some of the vocabulary so created during these periods is yet to enter dictionaries, most of these vocabularies have become the lingua franca in most African communities. This paper illustrates how the three domains of culture, politics and economics have benefitted from the capacity of song in creating, assimilating, appropriating and naming new realities in contexts marked by the inexorable processes of the violent uncoupling between the old political order and the new nationalist political dispensation ushered in by the various and legitimate phases of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggles.

Key words: Song, orthography, Zimbabwe, Liberation struggle, Third Chimurenga, old political order, new nationalist political order.

The syntactic structure of language in Shona SongPopular song has been part of cultural activities used to contest or celebrate an event in African societies. In diverse recognition of cultural activities song and dance can help to organise and give an identity to a particular event or festival. The reasons for that positive belief in the capacity of songs in indigenous languages to express cultural realities are based on the assumption that music plays a critical role in defining, shaping and reinforcing cultural activities, which in turn identifies community groupings and their socio-economic and political lives. Steven Field et al (2003) explored the linguistic sophistication of the language in music and noted that music provides a unique way

© Unisa PressISSN (Print) 1812-5980ISSN (Online) 1753-593xDOI: 10.1080/18125980.2012.737108

9(1)2012pp. 99 – 117

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of communication among members of the society. Music language, as it is known in spoken and written structures, follows certain grammatical rules. According to Steven Field et al (2003: 322) “looking at the products … one recognizes critical differences between linguistic approaches to form and meaning”. From a semiotic point of view, music seems far more syntactically redundant and over-determined (to produce a certain meaning or outcome) when compared with language. At the same time music is semantically more diffuse and ambiguous than language. This observation makes music a suitable site for social interaction that brings with it entertainment and deploys meaning which helps society to shed off or load certain burdens without going through the burden of trying to decipher the meaning as with proverbs, idioms and other figures of speech.

This therapeutic function of music does not mean that music language is not complicated. Music’s spiritual healing capacities allow one to have the leisure of listening to it over and over again, enjoying the tune at the same time creating emotions. Ideally, in music

forms of repetition, cyclicity, and predictable reclusiveness dominate music structure more than language structure. In this sense music may seem a formal system to describe with logical rules, but at the same time, meaning in music is notoriously more complex to formally characterize when compared to the semantic structures of language (Field et al ibid).

Musical language has enabled societies to celebrate its achievements. It is this transgression of language rules that enables music/songs to be identified as a certain genre that can be used to summon the correct mood of the singers or the listeners. The stretches, the repetition, and the changes in the vowel pronunciation as exemplified by Field et al (2003: 334) on the songs by Faith Hill, This Kiss where she ‘‘gently modifies the monophthongal vowel /i/ in the word ‘kiss’ in the chorus into a diphthong / i ∂ /’’ derives its meaning from the content of the words as much as from the pronunciations of the verbal signifiers in music. The shape of the mouth in singing also implicates numerous cultural values and proper style (Field et al 2003: 334–335). In traditional mbira song, a raspy baritone bass struggles to free itself from dregs infested throat connecting the voice and language with the ancestors. This allows musical language to provide an aesthetic platform for the cultural ritual to reach its climax during communication between the living and the departed.

Song, rituals, performances and creation of new cultural Shona vocabularyIn popular culture the creation of meaning through the use of language in songs, music and dance is as old as the Bantu tribes themselves. In the traditional African culture songs and dance help in reinforcing cultural values. Indigenous languages carry popular cultural values and this phenomenon of assuming a new identity can be found in songs that recreate hunting escapades. In reciting praise poetry as is common in the Shona culture, language is the medium through which societal values are transmitted

Arthur Takawira P. Makanda and Maurice T. Vambe

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101Popular songs and the creation and expansion of Shona orthography in Zimbabwe

from people to people. For instance those of the shumba (lion) totem will assume the characteristics of a lion and will thus be praised as in

Maita nyamuzihwa - You have done a service, nyamuzihwaMaita chiwombo - You have done a service, the roarerMwana wechirombo - Offspring of the fearsome one Shumba, hara, maita muchori - Lion, animal of prey, thank muchori you Adopted from Pongweni (1996:46-47)

Similarly, song or praise poetry that introduces new vocabulary in the Shona language is deftly experienced in love poetry. The encomias associated with the sublime moments of love making normally uttered by women are represented in the Shona totemic poetic narrative below:

Mazviita wamambo wangu - You have done me a service, my wamamboNungu yangu yiyi - My porcupine, this very one Nyama dzati chechetere - My body now feels relaxedNdanzwa parere moyo - Now I feel contented Ndanga ndongokapaira zvangu - I was lonely and distressedSetsiru rapfumvura - Like a cow in heatZvaonekwa maposa - You have demonstrated your generosityMaita mukapotsera - You did well to castMbeu isakaonekwa - The seed which no one ever saw Adopted from Pongweni (1996:118–119).

Praise poetry on love making is said in a discreet way that young children may not comprehend the pragmatic meaning. Popular music is a method of imparting knowledge from generation to generation in an oral tradition system. This system continued even after the scripts and alphabets were established. Music played a critical role in the lives of the society. Meadows (2010: 14) observes in Musical Roots that

in pre-colonial Zimbabwean society music permeated every aspect of daily life … music was religiously, recreationally, functionally and ceremonially vital to every ethnic group in the country. It was used for religious ceremonies, celebrations, lamentations, battle preparations, summoning the spirits or communicating with neighbouring tribes.

These functions of music cut across a broad spectrum of life activities in the domains of life. Language in music permeated the whole gamut of life. Different situations in society were premised on the tone and tune of the songs that were sung to depict what sort of function the society was engaged in. The language of music defined some cultural concepts and helped to organise social realities.

In both pre-colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwean traditional music brought in a sense of déjà vu especially when it was accompanied by musical instruments such as mbira, drums, rattles and hand clapping. A feeling of arriving at cultural destinations, whether the occasion was religious, recreational, lamentation or a battle preparation, was achieved and the soul was carried away to distances beyond, into the metaphysical world.

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102 Arthur Takawira P. Makanda and Maurice T. Vambe

The function of traditional music as the generator of new words has been maintained in the post-colonial Zimbabwe. This is against Meadows (2010: 14) who believes that “technology has long negated the need for drums to spread news, Christianity has increasingly eclipsed traditional faiths and musical instruments have lost much of their religious impetus”, however, the consoling fact is the acknowledgement that “traditional music still tugs at the spiritual hearts of most Zimbabwean”. In the African traditional religion and cultural practices, music and musical instruments are a necessary accompaniment as they play a critical role of connecting the living and the dead.

In recreating life through music, it is not only the same pieces of songs that are retained, but also the strategies of dialoguing with the living as well as the departed. The multi-voiced rhetoric in songs represents the strategies of linguistic dialogism. This helps to introduce new pitchy sayings in the nation’s vocabulary. Every act of preserving one’s culture through song necessarily implies creation of new language that is fused with old vocabulary. Sometimes the new vocabulary is inflected with new meanings that the song genre enables when deployed in new contexts. The use of songs and drums brings in the aspect of participation by members of the society, thereby fostering a sense of belonging and oneness. For instance if it is ridiculing social ills everyone is supposed to participate and it is in this way that even the one who is being mocked finds spiritual salvation. This then spreads the knowledge of the society’s taboos. It is the use of language through songs/music that has persistently helped the societies to maintain and promote new cultural values. Some of the cultural values that have outlived their usefulness are jettisoned during compositions of new songs.

Kahari (1990: 278) emphasises two levels of language usage in the environment and this language also invites our attention to its aesthetic values. He says that “this use of language is aesthetically pleasing and calls our attention to it as the medium through which we derive pleasure”. As the people go about their ritual ceremonies they also feed their aesthetic senses through the use of language. In the process, the ordinary people who are both the creators and the end users of their languages are involved in corpus language planning as well as status planning that implies implementing the very language in active contexts.

Certain cultural values are introduced to young members of the family and community through games and vigils where family structures are imitated. An examination of one method of courting can help to explain this passing on of knowledge from generation to generation through the oral mode. Games are one such method as demonstrated below:-

In a circular structure a group of children sing songs such as

Sarura wako - choose your ownKadeya deya nendoro chena - with a white crownWangu mutsvuku/mupfupi/ - mine is brown / tall / short /black murefu or mutema (depending with the taste of the suitor especially the males)

In another context, similar songs when sung by women can reveal how women subvert men and secrete new meanings into old words, thereby proving that women are initiators

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of social action. These new social actions are named through new words appropriately, as follows:-

Sarura wako - choose your ownKadeya deya nendoro chena - with a white crownhandidi rume gobvu/dema /dzvuku (again depending with the suitor) - I don’t want a stout / brown / black man

This imitation of courtship prepares the children into adulthood and gives them the courage and know-how to confront real situations as they grow. With the knowledge that cultural courtship is allowed, the children move into the future with confidence.

As real life is dramatised the society is conscientised of cultural practices, the invasion of cultural values by outside influences and the reactions of people. Through the use of song and dance the society is able to use language as a safety valve in which it releases its anger and anxiety if the social ills are committed by authorities such as the headman or chiefs and politicians. This is in addition to the use of naming as a mode of communicating messages intended to ridicule, praise, warn or complain. As the songs become community property, the authorities cannot direct their anger towards one individual, as can be possible in the case with naming.

Language therefore also helps in creating and expanding a nation’s orthography. Palmer (1996: 133) observes that “among the Shona of Zimbabwe there are close connections among mediums, animals of the forest and ancestral chiefs. The spirits of ancestral chiefs live in the bodies of lions.” This spiritual experience is rendered as lived experience via the use of new words that capture the essence of socio-spiritual interactions. Gelfand (1956: 23) suggests, for example, that the adoption of animal characteristics in Shona culture signifies the power and the changed environment in which the mhondoro now resides. The language of the mhondoro will be taken seriously as it is viewed as not coming from an ordinary human being but a super being that plays a role of intercessor between the living chiefs and the departed. In other words, the sophistication of the Shona language enables its users to deploy concepts and communicate them at both the literal and metaphorical levels.

Language socialisation and cultureKulick and Schieffelin (2003: 349) defined language socialisation as “a theoretical and methodological paradigm concerned with acquisition of ways of habits of being in the world”. This language socialisation results in the creation of new words because each social experience expands the morphological boundaries of the language used to describe life experiences. Children learn new belief systems when they are the morphological and phonological structure of ordinary language.

However, it is in the imaginative language of song that the metaphorical structure of language can be said to embody publicly or privately elaborated speech acts. The paradox of language creation through song is that this is a highly selective process; there is the process of popularising new words and phrases, the approval of certain

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sayings, and admonishment or warnings when certain languages (words) are said. Language socialisation is thus not simply confined to only language acquisition but also to knowledge acquisition. In discussing the dietary habits and cultural traditions of the Shona people, Gelfand (1971: 29) demonstrates how the Shona people dealt with matters involved gathering, preparing, serving and eating their food. New words play a critical role in imparting the knowledge required to achieve this cultural process.

Knowledge systems of the social groups among the Shona derived from and relied mostly on the traditional oral story telling. Oral story telling enabled the coining of new words that would then be allowed to circulate in the cultural sphere of the ordinary people. The command of the oral mode and the tendency of this orality to deflect meanings often meant that several meanings of words were implied in new word constructions. Whenever people felt that one word was crowded with potentially several meanings, new words to describe ancillary meanings were also coined. In Shona oral tradition, language was used to create “the facts of the story” because it was viewed by its users as a medium that delighted the souls.

Geertz (1973), Hudson (1996) and Wardhaugh (1998) noted that language is a self-contained system of words, sounds and meanings linked to one another in various complex ways that provides a screen or filter to reality, thereby determining how speakers perceive and organise the world around them, both the natural and social world. Language use is implemented to challenge the cultural behaviour of a society, its retrogressive beliefs and ways of life. For example, an HIV/AIDS advert whose caption was “small house yako haina vamwe vadiwa here? Pafunge”, provoked semantic contestations at the level of interpretation. Some members of the Zimbabwean community felt that the social construction of the Zimbabwean cultural values and the rights of women had been violated. The caption of the adverts literally suggested that it is women who are unfaithful when translated into English thus: “is your girlfriend not co-habiting with other lovers?”

The rhetorical question in the advert addressed married men, without questioning their amoral behaviour. The women felt that they were being abused as they were being blamed for spreading HIV/AIDS. They argue that the advert portrays women as objects of sex that are responsible for spreading diseases and that it is only women who are promiscuous. In this debate it is the deployment of language that enraged the women as they felt the words “small house” sticks a bad label on them. This has not been the case when one is in a polygamous marriage or is referred to as a concubine. Concubinage or bondwe was thought by men that it gave women some dignity and a status that was acceptable to the society when compared with the appellation implied a “small house” and its association to “whoredom”. In popular songs contestations over meaning generated new words. These words were accepted into the linguistic repertoire of the nation or rejected depending on the new words’ capacity to carry the freight of people’s belief systems.

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Song and creation of new political languageThe use of popular music in politics confirms the capacity of indigenous languages in articulating social experiences of the African people. According to Pongweni (1982: iv), “language is an instrument of control as well as of communication”. In their state as potential instruments of control “linguistic forms allow significant [messages] to be conveyed and to be distorted”. But language can also be manipulated to distort realities depicted. Shamuyarira cites a song that was “composed by officials of the Whitehead Administration of 1962 in Rhodesia and which was intended to persuade blacks to vote” in favour of white interests in the colony:

Come sit everybody and listen to me I’ll sing you a story to help the country ... The road to your future is really so clear, Your vote is quite secret, with nothing to fear

So make up your minds to vote- you will be glad ‘coz people who don’t vote – they will be sad This country is good enough for us all to enjoy Lets work together, every men and each boy

(Shamuyarira 1965: 13–14, quoted in Pongweni 1982).

In this song, the white officials of Rhodesia wanted to portray a picture of blacks as people who were enjoying their stay in the country and their freedom to exercise the rights to vote. However, what is absent in the song is that the same white officials did not endeavour to explain the segregative laws that clearly marked the racial divisions such as the laws governing the existence of each race. Through the language of persuasion the officials displayed “a systematic distortion in the service of class interest” Pongweni (1982: v). Jordan Chataika’s song, Ndopatigere pano, illustrates the differences in perspective about life in Rhodesia between whites and blacks when the singers oppose the picture of a life of racial harmony by singing, telling a different story for black lives:

Ndopatigere pano This is where live, Ndopatigere pano Yes, this is our home,

uyayi muone pamakatiisa baba Please Lord, come and see where you have dumped us.isu ndopatigere pano Yes, we now live here Pasi pemuti baba Under the treesnetuhupfu twedu turi We and our mealie meal packed inMusaga baba ragged sacksndopatigere pano This is now homeTumapoto twedu turi pamiti iyo Our pots are under thoseBaba trees over therendopatigere pano Yes, we now live here;madzimai edu achidzungudzika Our mothers are in utter Baba distress

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isu ndopatigere pano This believe it or not is our home new tine vana vedu vachitambudzika We have children here destitutendopatigere pano We have to call this homeuyayi muone zvamakaita baba Lord come and see what you have chosen for usndopatigere pano Whether we like it or not this is our home chokwadi makatotikanganwa baba We have no doubt that you have forgotten us. isu ndopatigere pano This is home sweet home for us.zuva rikauya rinongotipisa The scorching sun comes and fries us,ndopatigere pano That’s home for us.mvura ikauya inongotinaya Come the torrential rains,ndopatigere pano And they find us exposed.mhepo ikauya inongotivhuvhuta The wind tosses us about like dry leavesndopatigere pano Who would have thought we would call this home?chando chikauya chinongotitonhora the chilling cold leaves us baba completely numb. Yes, our home sweet home Built by our own hands Yet, Lord we were living in homes ndopatigere pano but we now have to make do with thistakanga taka rima minda yedu baba We had ploughed our fields dear fatherndopatigere pano But now we find our selves heretakanga takarima chibage chedu baba We had planted our maize crop as usualndopatigere pano How far from home we are now!Takauya tichifudzawo mombe dzedu baba we used to graze our cattle on open plainsisu ndopatigere pano But oh how fickle fate is!

Song adopted from Pongweni (1982: 122–123)

Jordan Chataika contradicts the officials of Whitehead’s administration through his song Ndopatigere pano (this is where we live). The song provokes some emotions by portraying a situation of wretchedness of blacks in Zimbabwe in a country where the officials had declared that “the road to your future is really so clear”. The clarity of the road is absent because black African families are living under trees and exposed to all the vagaries of weather that play havoc on the families. The song confirms Pongweni’s (1982: 1) view that political songs are “a barometer of the mood of our people; in the times of tribulation it is exhortatory, defiant, supplicatory and educative”. Chataika’s song uses words and rhetorical linguistic features that underline the desperate situation under which blacks survived. The song creates values that become the fertile ground for resistance.

Political songs also display the ability of indigenous languages to create images that aptly describe a situation and calls for action to reverse the unpalatable conditions. The song is not only a challenge to the country’s authorities but it also appeals and challenges God by informing him of the condition of the black race. Baba (father) in

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Shona is viewed as the provider, protector and responsible for the good well-being of the family, hence the looking up to him. If he abandons his families to the vagaries of weather and other races, he becomes a figure of ridicule. The political strength of some Shona songs lie in the purported innocence of the words especially those songs sung by musicians who were in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) during the time of the struggle.

The purported simplicity of language of the everyday in Jordan Chataika’s song, Ndopatigere pano, harbours strong currents of emotions of the blacks in the then Rhodesia through the creation of the images of desperateness that are a manifestation of deep-seated anger. Pongweni (1982; 5) made an interesting observation on the language of the Shona songs when he said that “the idiomatic Shona of the song-texts, deliberate ambiguities, proverbs, the convoluted syntax and pithy expressions – were veritable political landmines on which the white regime of the day sat with ignorant equanimity”. The vocabulary used in the songs by African singers singing from the Rhodesia – then the belly of the whale – forced Jonah (African singers) to couch their musical messages in figurative speech whose resistive potency was difficult to detect. In this way, African singers were able to hide their anger and resentment of the colonial system.

For instance the language used by Mutsvairo in his poem Nehanda Nyakasikana in Feso (1957) appeals to Nehanda to help with spiritually scaffolding blacks to stand up and fight colonialism. The use of names such as vanyai to represent the blacks and pfumojena to represent the whites clearly set positions of the struggle and resistance as either one was to identify with the blacks (vanyai) or whites (pfumojenas). The poetic language in the poem transcends the boundaries of social relations and it brings out the grievances of the blacks against the whites. For instance, the following lines in the poem forcefully capture the suffering of blacks that eventually created the conditions of a resistance discourse among the blacks:

apa napapapo pazere rufuse Everywhere they stand as on hot ashes,Makumbo avo ava nematuzu Their feet with blisters are covered through hot oppressionnokungofuviswa neriri pfumojena. Of the forces of pfumojena.Ko vosvikepiko? How far will the tyrants go?... pfuma yenyika nhasi yakatorwa Our old man are treated like children Vakagovana paukama hwavo In the land you gave them, wepfumojena. merciful creator Nhasi vari kudya mafuta ayo nyika They no longer have human dignity Isu tichidya nhoko dzezvironda”. They possess nothing

Adopted from Pongweni (1982: 91)

The last two sentences are clearly using the indexical language to point at the two groups that are involved in a “fight” against each other. This technique is used by the oppressed blacks in the face of a powerful enemy and it can be witnessed throughout most of the songs of resistance sung by the people and those who composed songs of resistance but did not have the opportunity of carrying a gun.

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The language of the songs sung by freedom fighters in the bush.The songs sung by the freedom fighters in the bush were more daring and used direct language in their criticism of the colonial system. Guerrilla songs such as Tora gidi uzvitonge (take up your arms and liberate yourselves) were more direct in their assertiveness and determination to fight the colonial system. The language in the song is daring and direct; it does not carry an ambiguous message and the discourse cannot be mistaken to be poetic. Pongweni (1982: 26) observes that the song “Tora gidi uzvitonge (take up your arms and liberate yourselves) was a recruitment song”. Two stanzas of the song will help in explaining the political fecundity of the vocabulary in the Shona language:

1. Mbuya Nehanda kufa vachitaura shuwa Our ancestor Nehand died with these words on her lips, Kuti “zvino ndofira nyika ino” “I’m dying for this country”

Shoko rimwe ravakatiudza She left us one word of advice Tora gidi uzvitonge x 2 “Take up arms and liberate yourselves” 2. Wasara kuhondo Aren’t you coming with us to fight? Shuwa here Aren’t you really? Tomhanya-mhanya nemasabhu We are running about carrying submachine guns Totora anti-air We carry anti-air missiles Tora gidi uzvitonge x 2 “Take up your arms and liberate yourselves.” Adopted from Pongweni (1982:26)

The language in the song does not burden the hearer with the grievances of the society but they are contained in the lines “zvino ndofira nyika ino” and “tora gidi uzvitonge”. The other antics are meant to persuade the recruits to join the struggle. Pongweni (1982) categorises the songs into various groups as being conscientisation songs, argument by proxy songs, appeal to ancestral spirits, songs of defiance and derision and lastly songs of celebration. This ability by indigenous languages to create an organised structure of an approach to issues supports the notion that political concepts and activities could also be expressed and achieved through the use of indigenous languages.

Guerrillas also created songs in which they nativised the names of the guns that they were using. In the song ZANU YEDU, there are references to “Masabhu” (submachine gun) and “Mabhazooka” (Bazooka)

ZANU yedu x2ZANU yedu baba ZANU ZANU yedu ZANUTinoida a

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109

Pamwechete nemasi yayoZANU ZANU yedu ZANU MoroteroMasabhu Zvese tinazvoZANU ZANU yedu ZANU

KanyauMabhazooka

Zvese tinazvoZANU ZANU yedu ZANU

These words that are borrowed from the language of the country and that made this particular type of the gun suggest popular songs used the technique of “borrowing” and “resyllabification”. This is a situation where the name of an object is more or less given a new name that is then inserted into and becomes part and parcel of the vocabulary of the nation. Others songs such as Mwana Ndewepi that were sang at the war front also used English words that had been nativised or Shonalised. Words such as Kusheya Mota, which in English would mean shelling enemy positions using motar bombs, were also appropriated into the Shona language and became orthographed differently from their initial English contexts. In short then on a political plane songs in Zimbabwe not only popularised old songs in new contexts; the songs appropriated new vocabulary that has since become part and parcel of the Shona people’s imaginary.

Song and creation of new words into the Shona economy The introduction of the money economy in Zimbabwe in 1890 encouraged the use of foreign words that were adopted into the Shona vocabulary. The Shona communal song, Mombe Mbiri naDhongi Mashanu, reveals transformations that were happening at the linguistic level as the country was colonised economically by white people. In the song we hear the lyricist coin new words to capture moments of economic ruptures in the Shona communities:

Mari yedu yave madhora ne masenzi Our money is now in sevenza nhamo ichauya dollars and cents work hard poverty is coming Mombe mbiri dzine madhongi mashanu Two herd of cattle and sevenza nhamo ichauya five donkeys work hard poverty is comingSevenza nhamo ichauya Work hard poverty is coming

This song was partly motivated by the fact that there had been a change from the use of pounds and shillings that the colonial authorities had imposed on the local population to the use of dollars in Zimbabwe. The song was a clear demonstration of the use of indigenous language in protesting against the laws that were introduced by the colonial

Popular songs and the creation and expansion of Shona orthography in Zimbabwe

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administration and which were aimed at reducing the numbers of a herd of cattle and donkeys a family could have. Cattle and donkeys were part of the wealth riches of an African family. Thus, in African societies when a man does not have cattle he is not adequately an African man. The various uses of cattle in African societies range from payments to settle disputes, whether these are social, economical or spiritual, to paying lobola and other ceremonies, trading or selling in order to attend to family economic needs.

Donkeys and cattle were considered as draught power and wealth, and therefore, the limitation of Africans to only keep two cattle and five donkeys became a grievance that also chalked the struggle as evidenced by some verses in a song Mbuya Nehanda:

Mbuya NeHanda x2 O’ NeHandaBuritsai vana veZimbabwe, release the children of ZimbabweMombe dzedu vakatora, vakatora they have takenBuritsai vana veZimbabwe release the children of Zimbabwe Majeri avo, akazara their jails are fullBuritsai vana veZimbabwe release the children of ZimbabweTozvireva, Votisunga when we say it they arrest usBurutsai vana veZimbabwe release the children of Zimbabwe (as in sons and daughters)

The song was an appeal to the spirit medium of NeHanda to help by releasing the nationalist (sons and daughters of Zimbabwe) from the colonial jails. Further protests against the imposition of change by the colonial masters without even consulting the natives who were going to bear the brand of such change were found in the songs such as the one below, Bvumai Vapambe Pfumi:

Bvumai vapambe pfumi admit you capitalistsZvamunoita zvakaipa that what you do is badMochinja zita renyika You change the name of the countryMochinja mari zvitamba You change the stamps on the moneyMoisa misoro yenyu and you put pictures of your heads Bvumai bvumai Bvumai Admit admit admit

Words such as “Vapambe pfumi” (capitalist exploiters) and “mari” (money) reveal the essence of the money economy against which the ordinary Africans felt alienated. In the field of economics, African words recreated the loss of control of the economy by the indigenous people. Africans protested that raw materials and goods obtained and manufactured from Africa had been christened with foreign language names and packed for foreign trade using foreign languages. Chinx Chingaira’s song, Hapana chavo apo (Nothing belongs to them) aptly captured the treacherous actions of the colonial masters. He sings:

Bhizinesi rako chii kune veZimbabwe? What value is your business to ZimbabweansNderenyuka veZimbabwe it’s yours Zimbabweans

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Ramakavaka veZimbabwe you built it ZimbabweansNevhu renyu veZimbabwe with your Zimbabwean soilNemvura yemuZimbabwe with your Zimbabwean waterHapana chavo apa nothing belongs to them

Chinx Chingaira suggests that the white capitalists who possessed large conglomates, and the huge business empire exploited African resources and labour to benefit the new colonial master who unashamedly and forcefully claimed ownership of the Shona people’s material resources.

Chinx Chingaira itemises the source of raw materials that were taken out of Zimbabwe by the white fortune seekers:

Tikatarisa mazvinocherwa if we look where the raw materials come fromNdemuno muZimbabwe they are from ZimbabweHamuna murwi we mhangura where there are no heaps of copperHamuna wefetiraza no heaps of fertilizerHamuna murwi wezvicherwa - no heaps of mineralsHapana chavo apa nothing belongs to them

A word such as “mhangura”, though not new to Shona people because it was used before 1890, is used here to describe copper. Chingaira reveals that the Shona language has recreated new words from loan words such as “fetiraza” from the English word, fertilizer. However and perhaps more significantly, the singer notes that the copper, chrome and chemicals such as fertilizers extracted from Zimbabwean soils using Africa labour are shipped to economically benefit Germany, France, Italy, England and America. There, the minerals are refined, packaged and labelled made in Britain, made in German, made in France, made in Italy and made in America, with not even an acknowledgement of the sources of the raw materials.

Even after the attainment of Zimbabwe’s political independence singers created new words that formed a language of describing the new economy. For example, Susan Chenjerai highlighted the difficulties brought about by the use of money as a means of economic trading as opposed to the barter trade that was used during the pre-colonial period. In her song, Upenyu hwedu (Our life), there is use of new terms that appear as colloquial language. Words such as “bhowa” from the English word “bore” and “mari” from the word “money” also reveal the creativity of the singers who appropriated English terms and nativised them to articulate their new realities:

Upenyu hwedu mudhara Our life oldman hwakati bhowa isu it bored us hwakati netsa it troubled us aingove madhisinyongoro it was disorganized

Waiti mari ne panapa You used money here Mari nekokoko money there Aingove madhisinyongoro it was disorganized

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Waiti dhizi nepanapa You used money here Dzizi nekokoko Money there Angove madhisinyongoro it was disorganized

This protest on the use of money through the use of Shona language and its colloquial dialect affirms the capacity of indigenous languages to deal with the new threatening economic situation.

Furthermore, the role of song in the creation and expansion of Shona orthography cannot be overemphasised. For example, in post-independent Zimbabwe some Shona advertisements in the area of agriculture use Shona language to describe the benefits of the land reform and the general economic development and empowerment of the people. The use of indigenous languages in advertising on the national television as a tool of economic development and empowerment can be illustrated by the use of the following two advertisement jingles:-

a) Zimbabwe inhaka yedu - Zimbabwe is our inheritance

Ivhu redu inhaka yedu - our land is our inheritanceIvo vane nhaka ngavaichengetedza those with our inheritance must guard it jealously.

Ivhu redu inhaka yedu - our land is our inheritanceIyo nhaka, nhaka haigohwi - inheritance is not given awayIvhu redu inhaka yedu - our land is our inheritance

The import of this jingle is to inform and alert the indigenous people to guard jealously what has been bequeathed to them as their land and natural resources. The land that ordinary people have been given by the black nationalist government is a resource whose importance is conveyed in the above jingle.

The deep meaning of the Shona jingles is understood by the indigenous people in its diversity. In another jingle, Pannar, the company that advertises a variety of the maize seed commonly known as Pannar also celebrates the benefits of the Third Chimurenga in Shona lyrics memorable for their hope in the success of the economic revolution in Zimbabwe:

b) Mombe dzose dzamunoona idzi - this herd of cattle that ndakadzitenga ndarima Pannar you see I bought it after harvesting PannarMotikari yamunoona iyi - this car that you see I ndakaitenga ndarima Pannar bought it after harvesting Pannar

Mukadzi uyu wamunoona - this woman that you see I ndakamuroora ndarima married her after harvesting Pannar Pannar

Musha uyu wamunoona - this home that you see I built it ndakauvaka ndarima Pannar after harvesting Pannar

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ChorusMbeu dzePannar ndidzo - Pannar seed variety is the one dzatipa goho guru that gave us a good harvest

Words such as mombe (cows), motikari (motor car), Mukadzi (wife) and Musha (Home) are linked to the land revolution. It is emphasised that Zimbabweans can be able to economically empower themselves through the farming. The choice of the language used in the advertisement Shona is primed to echo in the ears of many Africans. Therefore, to some extent, the advertisement is effective in appealing to the newly resettled indigenous farmers to use the Pannar seeds. The jingle also identifies the ordinary people as the principal beneficiaries of land reform. Therefore, in addressing the ordinary farmer in the language of their communities, the jingle also points to the shifts in economic ownership of wealth.

In fact Chinx Chingaira puts the new language used to describe the post-independence economy of Zimbabwe based on agriculture and valuable minerals into historical perspective, revealing that Africans have had to fight to wrestle their resources (land) and used familiar language to described economic processes in which they have been principal beneficiaries of Third Chimurenga revolution. In his celebrated Shona song titled Hondo Yeminda ( Struggle for land), Chinx Chingaira exhorts, reminds and encourages the masses to appreciate the land reform ushered in by the ZANU PF’s benevolent leadership. The song contained the economic manifesto described and analysed through dialogical language that is familiar to the ordinary people when they talk about, imagine and carry out their economic activities, cognisant of the threats to their economic heritage posed by the opposition parties that are averse to the economic empowerment of the people. In Chinx Chingaira’s song, it is also intimated that Zimbabwe is the only country in Africa to may have meaningfully worked towards transforming political independence into economic freedom, though the process is an ongoing one.

The language of celebrating the economic successes of ordinary African people in Zimbabwe is further amplified in the mecurial song, Sendekera. In the song, the farsighted leadership of ZANU PF, particularly President Robert Mugabe is underscored as selfless, dedicated to the masses and a continental true son of the soil. Tambaoga’s song is seminal in the politics of Hondo yeminda and as such it also deserves lengthy quoting in order to lay bare the communal consciousness that gripped the nation when it succeeded in breaking the jinx of colonial control of African people’s wealth. Tambaoga sings:

Ivhu iri ramunoona machinda ndiro rinonzi Zimbabwe/This land that you see is calledZimbabwe/Kana mvura ikanaya gore rino tichazadza matura/If rain falls I abundance,we shall fill silos with grain/Iwe neni tine basa, rekushandira nyika/You and me should work for the country/Zvinodadisa kwazvo, Ivhu ravaredu/It gives all of us prideNgava gumbuke zvavo, vanewaya, Isu tave kufara/They can be sad but we happy

Ndiyoka hondo yeminda, hondo yegutsa ruzhinji/This struggle for land is one for and by the majority/ Ndiyoka hondo yevanhu, Hondo yekuwana hupfumi/This is a people’s war,

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A war to gain economic wealth/ Huyayi tibatane nhasi, Tose tinzi Mushandira pamwe/All,come so that we are one

Ndiyoka hondo yeminda – Sendekera/This is the war for landHondo yegutsa ruzhinji – Shandira nyika iwe mwana wevhu/A war for the good of theMajority/Zvinodadisa kwazvo – Sendekera/This gives all of us pride/Ivhu rava redu – Shingirira iwe mwana wevhu/The land is now oursNgava gumbuke zvavo – Vane waya?Let them be sad for they are madIsu tave kufara – Tsungirira iwe mwana wevhu/We are all happy

Ivhu riye rauya – Sendekera/That land we fought for has comeRauya zvachose – Sendekera/It has come for goodMhururu Zimbabwe – Sendekera/Zimbabweans should celebrate

Vakuru gadzirai ramangwana, vadiki vawane basa!/Elders should make provisions for Tomorrow/Vadiki tarisai nhaka yenyu, vakuru maita basa!The youth should witness what greats feats the elders have performed.Iye woye , Iye woye

Ivhu iri ramunoona machinda ndiro rinonzi Zimbabwe/This land you see is zimbabweKana mvura ikanaya chete gore rino tichazadza matura/Rain should fall so that wereap abundantly/ Shingirira iwe mwana wevhu, Strive on Zimbabweans/Tsungiriraiwe mwana wevhu/Be committed Zimbabweans/ Sendekera iwe mwana wevhuIwe neni tine basa – rekushandira nyika/You and me should work hard for the countryZvinodadisa kwazvo/It gives all of us pride (Tambaoga 2004).

The power of the lyrics (words) in this piece are that through them, the singer specifies and localises “land” as constituting that which every singer must sing about. Songs that do not mention land reform are irrelevant because the theme of land is fitting as constituting local content for the masses who have benefited from it. It has never happened in Africa that a nationalist government can deliberately put in place policies that massively benefit the masses. It may never happen anywhere except in Zimbabwe that such a project of turning the economy into the hands of the African blacks can succeed even when detractors from the west, working with their local puppets, threaten to return land to a minority white population. It is also arguable that in the whole of Africa President Mugabe has been able to carry the burden of advancing true and not piecemeal economic reform for the masses. To put it in this way is not at all to deify President Mugabe. Rather it is to acknowledge the fact that every generation has its historical task to accomplish; either to advance the interests of the masses or betray the revolution. And President Mugabe chose to uphold the revolutionary mandate he was given by the people of Zimbabwe, which is to restore the economy to the hands of the majority of people in Zimbabwe.

In fact, in the song Sendekera, it comes as no surprise that Tambaoga naturally identifies with the land reform and uses his song to shore up the ideology of the ruling class by encouraging the stockpiling the memory of land as history and the liberation struggle as the historical vocation of the ruling party (Vambe & Vambe 2006). In Sendekera Mwana Wevhu there is the narrative of Land, embodied in the rehearsal of the historical memory

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embedded in “Ivhu iri ramunoona machinda ndiro rinonzi Zimbabwe!” The connection of this narrative discourse of land to the politics of nationalism is, in the lyrics, clear when the chorus in the song respond, urging Mwana Wevhu, or a child of the soil to hold on to the struggle for land in its phase of the Third Chimurenga. The punch line of this narrative of soil, land, and history is the consummative statement ‘Ivhu rava redu’. This land, so the singer manipulates this official narrative, has come from the efforts of ZANU PF patriarchs: “vakuru gadzirai ramangwana, vadiki vawane basa”.

On the other hand the youth have benefitted from the historical and principled revolutionary stance of its elders that the youth should emulate: “vadiki honayi nhaka yenyu, vakuru maita basa”. Tambaoga’s song is suffused with the spirit of collective and communal self-sacrifice for the benefit of all, which is why the song correctly bids Africans to recognise that “iwe neni tine basa, rekushandira nyika”. Struggling for the nation is further welded on the ideas of knowledge that land is a contentious issue. The land struggle is also a struggle to satisfy the material interests of the majority and not the minority whites: “hondo yegutsa ruzhinji”. Here, Tambaoga performs for the benefit of masses who can recall the period of “golden eighties” when the Zimbabwean government openly advanced socialistic ideas. So it is that when the singer says in the first stanza: “Ngava gumbuke zvavo, vane waya, Isu tave kufara”, two issues arise. It is no speculation that, Tambaoga of the “firm” of “The Blair that I know is a toilet” can then be seen as addressing Britain, the mad country – vane waya. There is no room for compromise with imperialist forces. The consummation of a land reform that makes the leaders find happiness (Isu tave kufara), in particular economically emasculating the whites, is historically justified in that if the local whites were happy when blacks were sad, now blacks are happy when whites are sad. The singer is unapologetic about the benefits that the land reform has conferred on the majority to the chagrin of the minority whites. The singer’s understanding of the liberation struggle is based on the correct view that reconciliation with the fomer colonisers that does not touch the need to turn the economy to the majority is empty and a sham.

That is why in Sendekera Mwana Wevhu, the punch line “kana mvura ikanaya gore rino tichazadza matura” is not only reassuring; it is a genuine recognition that water – indeed, rain – is vital to the economy of Zimbabwe. But its repetition in the lyrics does more than perform a wish of plenty; there is, at a subconscious level, the re-enactment of the reversal of the pervasive archetypal spiritual/ideological drought in the song, which finds its manifest wish in “matura” or silos that are full of grain.

In other words, ZANU PF is rightfully identified as the liberator; the people’s party is symbolically akin to land and rain, both which are sources of livelihood for a majority of Zimbabweans. Thus, in post-independent Zimbabwe, some manufacturers have started to introduce the indigenous languages through the naming of their products such as mvuto, referring to surge protectors manufactured by Mukonitronics, Nhava referring to laptops, chimombe (milk), and tsotso, referring to the stove. This linguistic reality is a positive development in that the Shona language is enriched when new words are coined to capture the essence of new experiences. However, what needs to be emphasised is that the songs are still at the phase of celebrating the reform. Very few songs have

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evolved the language that emphasises the need to have trained people to work on the farms, the need to build dams so that the nation of new farmers does not have to depend on seasonal rain that can be erratic. Brian Taurai Muteki’s song Ivhu nderedu suggests that because land has come to the majority, therefore Nhamo yapera (poverty is ended). Such songs are important as they mark the advent of the democratisation of the control of land as the most important material resource in Zimbabwe. Artists such as Muteki are, however, yet to develop a new vocabulary of the Third Chimurenga that insists on the need to increase productivity using modern technology, provision of inputs such as fertilizer and the need for the majority of the people to have an important measure of control of the markets where they sell their produce. To the extent that on the ground, in the communities ordinary people receive fertilizers, and basic training in farming skills, that are not yet sung about in the songs, one can conclude that the songs seem to be lagging social reality.

ConclusionThe aim of this article was to reveal that songs derive their popularity from the fact that they use words that are already contained in the Shona language, and that this language has been developed over many centuries. It was argued that in the context of the Second Chimurenga of the 1970s and Third Chimurenga that begun in the year 2000 in Zimbabwe, songs have been the main cultural avenue through which new words are coined and absorbed into the Shona linguistic repertoire. New contexts of struggle necessitated a new vocabulary that was crucial in not only expanding Shona orthography, but also in naming new realities. It was observed that songs that emphasised cultural values were authorised during the liberation struggles of Zimbabwe. In some instances, singers appropriated or borrowed certain words from other cultures such as English. These words in English were then given Shona orthography so that they ended up being used in Shona communities. Songs were also instrumental in coining, preserving and expanding the political vocabulary through which Zimbabwe’s history is remembered and reconstructed. Some singers also translated words in foreign languages into Shona language so that these newly created words were used to discuss concepts related to the land reform of the economy of Zimbabwe in whose name the liberation struggles were waged. In short, language is dynamic and its transformation is demonstrated in the capacity of songs to use not only old words inflected with new meanings, but also the actual creation of new words to represent new material and spiritual interests of the people of Zimbabwe. This point is important because many analyses of Zimbabwean songs focus on the lyrics and do not pay attention to the important fact that creating and interpreting songs results in the production of new vocabulary that is then used in African communities. Such as an assertion implies that scholars involved in dictionary-making can actually tap for new words to read from the cultural site provided by songs.

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Documents

Popular songs and the creation and expansion of Shona orthography in Zimbabwe