Innovation crushing cultural memory: harps in South Cameroon - HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2023

Innovation crushing cultural memory: harps in South Cameroon

Susanne Fürniss

Résumé

Musical instruments are particular carriers of cultural knowledge and history. Their variability over time may be a testimony to the individual or collective creativity which is inherent in a living tradition. Instruments may also be indicators of social, cultural and religious change. The objective of this essay is to illustrate this phenomenon through the study of the eight-stringed ngueme harp among the Fang Ntumu in South Cameroon.1 On one hand, historical sources – recordings, photos and descriptions – going back to the German colonization at the beginning of the 19th century show some harps with a sculpture representing a man. On the other hand, the current practice of a harp with a polychrome female sculpture in the context of the syncretic Bwiti cult (see below, p. 2-3). The difference between these instruments – all of them named ngomo or ngueme according to dialect – raises the question of how such a change could have occurred2 This article illustrates and deepens an observation made in 1985 by Pierre Sallée in his doctoral thesis on the harp in Gabon.3 This French researcher, who passed away too soon, had noted that, although the Fang no longer remember it, a harp of slightly different morphology had existed in their culture long before the reintroduction of this instrument through the borrowing of the Bwiti cult in which the harp is currently practised among the Fang. I corroborate this finding with material evidence from South Cameroon.
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Dates et versions

halshs-03286510 , version 1 (03-10-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-03286510 , version 1

Citer

Susanne Fürniss. Innovation crushing cultural memory: harps in South Cameroon. Helen Lawlor; Sandra Joyce. Harp Studies II – World harp traditions, Four Courts Press, pp.259-282, In press. ⟨halshs-03286510⟩
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