With regard to some specific objects, especially those of leather
or fabrics of cotton and embroideries, the superiority of the
southern peoples over the Sudanese is no longer apparent.
Manifestly it is because we are dealing with industries imported
from North Africa, together with their techniques and their motifs
of decoration. Sudanese artisans are not more highly gifted in
this domain than in the others with respect to their congeners of
the south, but they have received knowledge of which the latter
are still ignorant.
AArrcchhiitteeccttuurree
The same observation can be made with regard to architecture.
It is very certain that this art, which is almost unknown to the
populations of the Gulf of Guinea or equatorial Africa, except
in its ornamental branch, has reached a remarkable develop-
ment in the Sudanese zone. Nevertheless, it does not show its
full richness except among Islamised populations and, as we
have seen above, the architectural style of Sudan, although it
has taken on a distinctly local character in the course of time,
is of Arabo-Berber origin. It does not on this account furnish a
less striking proof of the artistic faculties of the Negroes, since
they have been able to produce such brilliant results after
seeing only a few models in a field for which their traditions
had in no ways prepared them.
MMuussiicc
In this brief review of the arts having a place of honour among the
Negroes we must not forget music. In France, when we speak of
Negro music we immediately evoke the diabolical harmonies and
cacophony of a jazz-band. Now nothing less resembles the music
of the Negroes, at least the Negro music of Africa, than the music
of the jazz-band. I do not know from what source the latter is
derived, but it is certainly not from Africa. In truth, it may, as far as
the sound of certain of its instruments are concerned and the
remarkable precision with which it furnishes the rhythm for the steps
of the dancers, recall, to a certain degree, those orchestras of
drums, rattles, iron rods struck against each other, and horns or
oliphants, to which Europeans give the significant name of tom-
toms and which, in sunlight or moonlight, accompanied by the
clapping of hands and cries, stimulate the movements of the men
and women dancers. But the tom-tom is not music; it is only the
instrument of the dance. Upon reflection, I think that the jazz-band
is nothing else than that, and it is undoubtedly for this reason that
it is related to the tom-tom of the Negroes.
Those who play the drum or blow a horn are no more
considered within the category of musicians in Africa than they
are in Europe, and it is a great mistake to think that we may
judge Negro music according to the noises, assuredly in very
fine rhythm but hardly melodious, of the tom-tom. The real instru-
ments of African Negro music are the xylophone, sometimes
with, sometimes without resonance boxes made of calabashes,
a whole series of violins, guitars, zithers, and harps, and various
sorts of flutes and flageolets. The most universally used is the
xylophone, giving two or three octaves of sounds which are not
at all disagreeable. Many xylophone players are real virtuosos.
Sometimes they are associated in groups, one of them impro-
vising the recitative and the others taking up the refrain or the
leitmotif, each doing their own part. The harpists, too, obtain
very harmonious effects.This music is ordinarily accompanied by singing, the words
and the air being composed at the same time by the musician.
Often the women sing, without the accompaniment of any
instrument, songs that they remember or that they themselves
have made up. The men, unless they belong to the caste of
musicians, rarely sing; at least seldom for the simple pleasure
of recreation, reserving their voices for religious ceremonies or
war parties or training themselves to paddle or use a steering-
pole during navigation.Whether the singers be men or women, professional or amateur,
the voices and the ears are always remarkable for their true pitch;
it is extremely rare that a false note is heard and, if it does occur,
it is immediately covered by the hooting of the other singers or
simply of the auditors. Whether the choruses are executed in
unison or in parts, the harmony is generally impeccable. As for the
melodies themselves, many are mediocre, but the majority have a
charm to which European ears are as sensitive as African, a charm
imprinted with sweetness and melancholy much more often than
with gayety, sometimes with force and with pride in the war-songs
and the odes praising a famous hero.The only reproach that could be made of these melodies is that
they are too short: each one is generally composed of a very brief
musical phrase which is repeated over and over, twenty or thirty
times. This phrase is often delightful, but we are quickly satiated
with the most exquisite things. The Negroes, on the contrary,Headgear crest (Senufo), detail.
Ivory Coast.
Wood, height: 86 cm.
Musée du quai Branly, Paris.