BOOK REVIEWS 216The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of ZimbabweBy P.F. Berliner. London, Univ. of California Press, 1978, 280pp.,£12.00.Africa: Shona Mbira Music Recorded by P.F. Berliner. New Yotk, NonesuchRecords, H-72077, Stereo, 1977, no price indicated.The Soul of Mbira: Traditions of the Shona People of Rhodesia Recordedby P.F. Berliner. New York, Nonesuch Records, It-72054, Stereo, 1978,no price indicated.Although most African instruments have roles in addition to their being used andappreciated for sheer enjoyment and entertaining purposes, few have such well-defined additional roles as the mbira of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Standingout as a sacred symbol for unity, strength and solidarity in Shona society, it seemsto embrace the whole life-philosophy of the living Shona man, his closerelationship with the life of the past, and the life beyond the pastŠthe ancestryand the overall creative force of life. What then could have been more appropriatethan to present a very broad study on this instrument at a time when Rhodesia,with its majority of people living in separation from, and in suppression by, aWhite minority, finally moved through the shattering experience of armedstruggle into the independent land of Zimbabwe, in which there is now a deeplyfelt urge for unity, reconstruction andreconciliatioa The mbira, in itself a symbolfor such desires in its old environment, could certainly symbolize those very idealin the modern and independent Zimbabwe.In the introduction Berliner draws the reader's attention to the profoundrelationship between the mbira, its music, its musicians, and societyŠarelationship which he follows up with clear and adequate description of all itsdifferent aspects. He argues that this relationship applies not only to thisinstrument and its music but also to most Shona music in genera!, which hascarried on living, changing and developing in spite of Western colonial andmaterialistic pressures. As all Shona music is believed to have originated from illpeople's ancestry, it is perceived as an all-embracing functional art form andexpressive cultural force, and is thus held in highest esteem by the people. Henceit is also protected, at least to a certain degree, from derogatory exploitation. Inhis preface Berliner furthermore notes the complexity of such music, especiallythe mbira music, which is rich in polyphonic structure and sophisticated melodicmovement, and so draws attention to the subtlety and beauty of such music. ThaiAfrican music as a whole, and Shona music in particular, has nothing to do with'primitive' music.Berliner states that the main purpose of his study is a multi-disciplinaryendeavour, which has involved him in 'research on related cultural aspects of tBemusic such as its history, its folklore, the poetry which accompanied the music,the process of learning the mbira, the meaning of the mbira in the lives of itsmusicians, the role the music played in Shona culture and analysis of the musicitself (p. xv). With such objects he attempts in nine well-defined and revealingchapters to cover the profound philosophy which has evolved around theinstrument and its music since its origin in the distant pastHe begins by giving a comprehensive review of African music among theBantit-speaking peoples of the continent, focusing on aspects of the humanexperience of the music, its instruments, and its emotional and expressive valuesto man in his social environment, and in his relationship with the supernaturalforces. Nevertheless, the basic, as well as the intrinsic, ethnographic values arenot evaded to any extentŠon the contrary, he is able to associate such surface216BOOK REVIEWSnotions with the inner and deep values of human musical experience within theBlack cultures.Turning more particularly to the Shona mbira Berliner reiterates what hasalready been established within the anthropological discipline; that is, that thembira has a long and fascinating history in Zimbabwe among the Shona people.However, he also adds that archaeological evidence ought to be supplementedwith historical aspectsŠa method which he embarks upon with apparent success,drawing attention to Shona culture in general and its folklore and religiousexperience in particular. By describing the common belief among the Shona thatthe instrument originated from their ancestors and was then handed down to thepeople, he points to the profound sanctity of the instrument. This belief carrieswith it great responsibilities, obliging the people to learn how to make and play theinstrument in order to keep the link between the ancestors and the livingunbroken. By their so doing, the instrument holds protecting powers, both for theactual player and for the society at large, as well as being the very means ofestablishing desired contacts between ancestors and the living.Berliner firmly emphasizes that visual notation in any form is not sufficientfor describing the essence of a cultural music such as Shona music, as 'nosatisfactory analogy for conveying its quality to one who has not heard mbiramusic performed' is at hand (p. 52). Nevertheless, he attempts 'skeleton'notations for the sake of conveying the cyclical patterns of melody/harmony andrhythm upon which all mbira music depends, and how such patterns undergo acontinuous stream of subtly changing musical ideas, which interact and alsochange the rhythmic experience. For the sake of making such subtleties morenoticeable and clear Berliner has supplemented his visual notations with two L.P.records of outstanding technical and musical quality.On the record The Soul of Mbira, four major types of Zimbabwean mbiraare represented, the Mbira dzaVadzimu, the Matepe, the Njari and theNdimba. The music performed is of the highest musical and technical quality andconstant references are made in the study to the music itself. A recording ofparticular and fascinating interest is the performance of the song 'NyamaropaYevana Vava Mushonga' on Side 2 on an ancient 25-keyed Mbira dzaVadzimuwith an old, and apparently most traditional, tuning. According to tradition thisparticular instrument is said to have been played at Chitungwiza, the ancientcourt of the great tribal spirit, Chaminuka. The second record, Africa: ShonaMbira Music, contains a number of Mbira dzaVadzimu tunes and songs. Theapproach adopted here is more strictly comparative and analytical, excerpts ofthe songs being presented in order to illustrate fully the fascinating complexity ofShona mbira music. (A third record, The Sun Rises Later Here (Chicago, FlyingFish Records, 1978), has no connection with Berliner's academic study of thembira but it is most interesting to listen to: the manner in which he has been able toblend the indigenous characteristics of other cultural musics with his ownWestern creative talents in a 'jazzy* way is absolutely amazing.)Berliner obviously strives to view and present the process of musicalexpression from an unbiased angle by avoiding 'inadvertent distortions that canresult when African music has imposed upon it Western concepts having little todo with the way in which Africans view their own art' (p. 53). This approach isintelligently applied all through the study, and is clearly noticeable, for example,when the relationships between keys of the mbira are described, or the Africanmusician's views on tuning are discussed in terms of the Shona-ized chuning,rather than the proper English word, as referring to 'a number of interrelatedaspects' (p. 61), and indicating many more emotional and expressive pointsŠand perhaps also indicationg more subtle modal conceptsŠthan is the case withthe Western term. Furthermore, in regard to the actual distance of degrees withinthe Shona mbira heptatonic scale, Berliner questions convincingly the hypothesisBOOK REVIEWS 217presented by a few ethnumusicologists of the equidistant character of such Łscale, although the matter cannot be said to have been fully covered yetFinally, in his last chapter Berliner attempts to describe the 'law of thembira' which, he states, is not to be regarded as a' systematized dogma' but ratheras a 'particular code of behaviour' (p. 235). In so doing he again underlines withfirmness the sanctity of the instrument and its music. Furthermore, he points outthat the ancestors themselves are believed to take an active part in the music-making processŠan activity which even more closely associates the livingsociety and living man with the ancestors and the overall creative and life-givingforce. That is certainly the deep and profound Shona mbira philosophy, that is,'the soul of the Mbira'.Kwanongoma College of Music, Bulawayo 0. E. AXELSSONAfrican Apostles: Ritual and Conversion in the Church of John MaraakeBy B. Jules-Rosette. Ithaca, Cornell Univ. Press, 1975, 302pp., no priceindicated.The New Religions of Africa By B. Jules-Rosette (ed), Norwood N.J.,Ablex Publishing, 1979, 248pp., no price indicated.The African Apostolic Church of Johane Maranke was established in 1932.Twenty years later, it had spread well beyond its country of origin, Zimbabwe,into Zambia and Zaire. Jules-Rosette's monograph deals with the results of herfield research, conducted between 1969 and 1972, among congregations inmost peripheral congregations, in terms of distance from the Zimbabweanreligious centre, in Kasai province, Zaire.Jules-Rosette's data are of particular interest not only because they comefrom a distant congregation, of markedly different background from the culturesof Zimbabwe, and shed interesting light on the process of cultural diffusion fromone part of Africa to another; nor only because they show precise ways in whichcongregations may differ from one another, at the same time diverging from idealdoctrinal prescriptions emanating from the Zimbabwean centre. Her data alsoindicate how complex the processes of symbolic combination and culturaladaptation are in independent religious sects. The use of different languages, bothAfrican and European, in a single service; the attempt to standardize marriagerules and marriage payments in congregations of different cultures; the reflectionof new governmental forms and new technology in instructions to members; theemphasis on literacy and efficiency in the performance of religious rolesŠallimpress upon the reader the specific aspects of coming to terms with social,political and economic change in twentieth-century Africa. Mamnke's apostlesdo not appear as a conservative, tradition-orientated, 'nativistic' sect looking tothe past, but rather as groups of people, related by many common ties, striving toadapt to a somewhat threatening contemporary world.Having noted the interest value of this monograph, one must also note itsdefects, the most important of which, from an anthropological perspective, aremethodological. Jules-Rosette admits to difficulties of language use, particularlyin transcribing and translating tapes, but nowhere does she reassure the readerthat defective transcriptions were remedied. Her questionnaires were regarded bysome respondents as aformof 'examinationaboutthechurch'sdoctrine\andshenotes without further comment that several 'were checked by the church'ssecretary for intelligibility, literacy and doctrinal completeness' (p. 54). Her roleas a representative of sect interests to various officials in central and municipal