Introduction

In Chapter Three a biographical sketch of the chosen Xhosa choral composers was given at length. Their role in contributing to the development of isiXhosa literature was outlined.

This chapter will delve into the actual texts that they wrote and show how these texts display elements o traditional izibongo. As it was intimated in the problem statement, this study attempts to show how Xhosa song writers explore language and social dynamics, in the same way as writers of izibongo do in putting across a message to the perfomers and listeners.

In making a clear distintion it became necessary for me to arrange the material for presentation through exploring different themes. In traditional African life there is hardly any occasion or activity that is not accompanied by songs chants. Heese and Lawton (1988:151) assert that

Theme is what comes to light out of an examination of the point of view, the characters, the setting, the events and the language.

Again, Abrams (1988: 111) defines a theme as:

More useful applied to a general claim, or doctrine whether implicit or asserted, which on imagination work is designed to incorporate and make persuasive to the reader.

Whereas, Holman and Harman (1986: 52) believe that “A theme is a central dominatry idea in a work”.

Composers of songs, like writers of izibongo, playwrights and novelists, have a central theme which they want to bring out in their writings and this is how they structure their themes that determine their artistic prowess.

The themes of the texts that have been selected, many of them conveyed figuratively, will be clearly revealed in this chapter through the analysis of each song text. It will be observed that some of these song texts, on the surface, will portray an idea, but on further analysis and on a deeper level of understanding and appreciation convey a metaphoric idea.

The following three chapters will explore the themes adopted by the composers, using the song titles, an analysis of metaphorical language and imagery, and the “message” each composition attempts to offer. The chapters will also reveal the not-so-acceptable fact, in this age and era, that all the composers, both of selected song texts and izibongo, have been written by males. It is hoped that after this study the female authors will rise up to this challenge. The following chapters will contain the following themes; those depicting metaphor and commemorating events chapter four, texts depicting aspects of culture, protest and unity, (chapter five), those texts depicting personal circumstances, relationship between religion and nature, and lullabies (chapter six).

Worth noting is that there will be elements that overlap in the themes. For example, songs like Mfamana’s Hlabelingoma (start a song) characterised as a song that is commemorating an event, celebrating the becoming of age to the Republic of South Africa; but in its layout will display elements that characterise traditional culture of amaXhosa when

he uses phrases like “Namhla Uyindonda” (Today you are a man)

“Ukuthonjiswa” (coming of age of a girl child). Both these aspects symbolise the traditional culture of amaXhosa. When amaXhosa boys and girls reach the purberty stage (about sixteen years of age), they are taken to initiation school. For boys this is called “ukwaluka” (becoming a man) for girls “ukuthonjiswa” (becoming a woman). After graduating from these schools the boy is told “namhla uyindoda” (today you are a man).

This personification that Mfamana uses symbolises that the country of South Africa has now graduated to be a man, the Republic.

It will also be observed that all composers chosen, except for Mjana and Ngqobe, wrote songs at the peak of the Apartheid era. Instead of saying anything about the status quo, these composers preferred to write about themselves, about nature, about religion or were commissioned to write about events. Under the theme of protest there are only three texts of the fifty in total. However, Masiza’s Ngasemilanjeni yase Bhabheli (by the Rivers of Babylon) is a protest taken as is from the Bible (Psalm 137) where the exiles from Jerusalem refused to sing the songs of their country Zion, when they were captured in Babylon.

When Matyila protests against his dismissal from his teaching post by the Ciskeian government he also uses the language of the bible when he says:

Mayidlule le ndebe (may this cup pass) repeating the words of Jesus Christ on the cross. Tyamzashe in his Hay’ abant’ abamnyama (alas the black people), is protesting against the ugly migrant labour and pass laws which were oppressing the black person in South Africa by disintegrating families. The composers had very little freedom of expression.

Tyamzashe’s Hay’ abant’ abamnyama, Ivoti and Masiza’s Vukani Mawethu were banned by the government to be used in school

competitions up to the late 1980s. Tyamzashe’s two letters written in 1936 and 1937 respectively, which have been included in his biography in chapter three, testify to the hardship of a man literally begging to have his music prescribed in schools:

There is a great demand for 3pt songs. He will be writing to you.

Mr. Newns will place my songs on the Departmental catalogue (27^th August 1936) I now write to inform you that I am willing to have

the songs prescribed, I am willing to have the songs printed…many will be too glad to have them at 1/- for 5.

Rev. Shepherd was the chief of the Lovedale Printing Press but he would not print any song by a black man without obtaining permission from the school inspector Mr. Newns (13^th August 1937).