Although it is now a French administrative département, the island of Mayotte remains remarkable for its multi-ethnic, traditional musical culture, which is closely related to migratory movements within the Comoros Archipelago which it is part of. This geographical area – located north of the Mozambique Channel between Zanzibar and Madagascar – shares a common identity, and Mayotte’s musical practices intersect African, Malagasy, Persian, Yemeni, Indian and European influences. There is a very wide variety of musical instrument types on the island, and this is reflected in their different materials, shapes, craftsmanship, playing techniques and sounds. Born of the makers’ ingenuity, these instruments from Mayotte have developed unique characteristics that we invite you to discover through four articles each focusing on a different group of musical instruments: membranophones, idiophones, chordophones, and aerophones.

In ethnomusicology, musical instruments are divided into four main families. The term “membranophone” refers to the family of musical objects with one or more membranes and whose sounds come from the vibrations produced by hitting and/or rubbing them. On Grande-Terre and Petite-Terre, the two main islands of Mayotte, there are five traditional drums that are regularly used during secular and sacred festivities. Four of them, the mwana dori, dori, fumba and msindrio, are similar in shape but progressive in size, and together make up the ngoma ensemble, a generic word of Swahili origin meaning “drum” in the geographical area inhabited by the Bantu people of central, southern, eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, the tari (fifth drum in this collection) is unique in that its frame is covered by a single membrane.

Tari

To understand the tari we need to look at its etymology and distribution, which takes us from the tar – an Arab-Andalusian tambourine widespread in North Africa that reached medieval Europe and still survives today in Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Guatemala, the Middle East – to the tari in the Comoros Archipelago, rika in Zanzibar, thaara in the Maldives, and amponga tapaka in Madagascar. However the Mayotte tari differs from its Arabic ancestor the tar in that it has no jingles.

This round frame drum has a membrane made of shaved female goat skin, stretched by wooden pegs. The frame consists of a hollowed-out piece of tree trunk stripped of its bark. Woods traditionally used are m’landrema (Broussonetia greveana), sirisa (Albizia lebbeck), jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), tamanu (Calophyllum inophyllum), or Indian almond (Terminalia catappa). Due to deforestation issues, nowadays the wooden frame may be replaced by a piece of PVC pipe. A handmade cord of twisted polyethylene strands (the fibre bags for rubble are made with) is generally tied to the frame and if necessary is used to (re)tighten the skin. To do this, it is inserted in the sound box, on the edge of the frame, between the latter and the skin that it helps to tighten.

There are two sizes of tari: small ones about 20 cm in diameter, and larger drums, averaging 40 cm. The smaller ones are played by women at deba and tari ceremonies (tari can refer to a dance, a repertoire and a festivity). Although becoming rarer, large tari are played by men during wedding processions, in the moulida shenge rituals or moulidi.

Ngoma ensemble drums

The term ngoma – which has a variety of meanings depending on where it is used – is found across most of the African continent, particularly in the vast cultural area called the Great Lakes region and which includes Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Congo, and Tanzania.

While ngoma in Gabon means “harp” – an instrument used in particular in the bwiti religion (which features a prayer also called ngoma) – in Rwanda for example it describes a set of eight to ten percussion instruments (ishakwe, inyahura and igihumurizo) in addition to a drum (ingoma, plural ngoma). Despite the cultural unity of the Great Lakes region and further afield, there is thus a real diversity of definitions, shapes, music and dances conveyed by the ngoma.

The Comoros Archipelago borders this region, and the island of Mayotte has three or even four ngoma drums in its array of traditional and contemporary instruments. In order of increasing size, these are the mwana dori, dori, fumba, and msindrio. All of a similar design, these are tubular, barrel-like drums with two goatskin membranes, laced in a N – or sometimes W – shape and held together by a double ring of stalks from the rubber vine Saba comorensis. The sound box is a hollowed-out piece of wood whose ends are covered with two rawhide skins (unlike the African models which usually only have one). The wood used for the shell is mango (Mangifera indica), tamanu (Calophyllum), sirisa (Albizia lebbeck) or jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus). Played with bare hands in polyrhythmic fashion, ngoma drums are typically heard interacting with the rest of the instrumental group and/or voices in traditional repertoires such as shigoma, maulida, madjiliss, manzaraka, or mgodro.

Mwana dori

The mwana dori (literally “little dori”) is the smallest drum of the ensemble, but it can be similar to – or even confused with – the dori, which is spelled “dory” in Madagascar, as there are no standard measurements and/or they vary according to the maker. Its size makes it the highest pitched and least audible of the ngoma ensemble, and nowadays it is often omitted. Although it is made from similar raw materials and techniques as the other three ngoma drums, the latter are more in demand so production of mwana dori has been dwindling.

Dori, fumba, msindrio

The dori is considered the smallest drum of the contemporary ngoma trio. The fumba is intermediate in size, and then comes the msindrio, the loudest and deepest of the three percussion instruments. The dori, fumba and msindrio (found in Zanzibar under the name of msondro) remain very popular and are integral to all musical and choreographic activities on the island. Paradoxically however, the makers of these instruments can now be counted on the fingers of one hand. Given the physical difficulty and rigours involved in the job, particularly searching for raw materials and hollowing out tree trunks, there is no guarantee future generations will succeed them. Although they are still being made for now, younger people’s current tendency to neglect them could soon have regrettable consequences (the instruments cannot be restored once they are worn, nor renewed in large numbers).

Fanie Précourt

Traduction réalisée par Catharine Cellier-Smart (Smart Translate).