Africa

Abstract

which is still practised—are largely distinguished by the occasion of their use. Thus proverbs, for instance, occur in other genres. Some genres may be signalled by speakers' formulae and fixed audience responses. The skilled bard appears able to use different forms, such as riddles, as part of his art. Other genres, such as curses and invocations addressed to those accused of sorcery deaths, may have supernatural power or on occasion transform status, as in esoteric songs at rites of passage. The author points out that his are superficial sketches, though he clearly assumes that a typology is necessary, if insufficient. Thus 'genres' are grouped descriptively rather than by attention to their performance effects in ways that I have suggested above. The only comprehensive Yaka term for all these activities ' signifie propos des ancetres' (p. 65) and includes visual and tactile techniques. N'soko points out that contemporary topics are frequent, but for the Yaka the original skills of creation derive from ancestors. Power, in English usage, can include the sense of creativity which in African cases is also often an active force. This is not an area developed by the author, though as I have suggested, the examples he gives might suggest a comparable set of Yaka beliefs, as does his comment that bards are like smiths. I wonder also, on the evidence given, if there are indigenous notions of such power, including supernatural power and sorcery, as neutral but active forces which can be deployed for good or bad. The term mvwdala is applied equally to an accompanying instrumentalist, and most of N'soko's exemplars were also skilled thumbpiano players. The verbal root -vwadJmeans 'give birth' and by extension, create or invent (p. 69). Bards pointed out that they were the midwives who brought forth words. Earlier bards would have lived permanently at court. Now they often have other jobs such as working in a store, for example. They say that they have hereditary power, preferably from the mother's side (though descent is patrilineal) and all whose provenance is known to the author came from royal clans; one, indeed, was the son of a king, but was disappointed in the succession contest. Once bound by conditions designed to exclude the non-chiefly, to autochthonous ' owners of the land' they are sycophantic collaborators. Their own verses are realistically sardonic: ' Le [veritable] chef adore les louanges du barde/et le barde adore les cadeaux du chef' (p. 72). Their influence is monitored by the ruler's relatives though N'soko adds that they can be private mediators and are ' parfois de grand conseillers occultes pour le roi' (p. 72). For N'soko, ' pouvoir' is pragmatically coercive, and he stresses that mbiimbi, praises, are supports for the ideology of rulers and social cohesion, which is perhaps better termed social control since the verses proclaim that all should be obedient to their appointed status. The presentation of this analysis is functionalist rather than performative, but aided by ethnographic details with (sometimes tantalizing) references to religion and masquerading, including the case-history of a new ruler's political and symbolic choice of a court site, its ritual layout and development. N'soko presents eight texts chosen in consultation with local experts, who looked for organizational power, range of knowledge and mastery in delivery. He carefully elucidates the texts' implications and provides linguistic but not musical analyses—the bards' vocal delivery and the music are not dealt with except in an interesting discussion of tonal patterning and its relation to content. He also fruitfully considers the significance of personal names and titles which here, as so often, form substantial lists. His use of technical terms (synecdoche, chiasmus, etc.) does not seem to me to advance the study of the allusive metapohorical tropes which sustain the genre, but he demonstrates that practitioners build patterned and meaningful material for every performance, deliberately and with skill. This includes the repetition of formulae and of historical information which, N'soko points out, very often attests to the earlier arbitrary cruelty of the Lunda conquerors; he believes this was intended to remind the authochthones to be fearfully submissive (here more on audiences would be useful).