Zulu wedding dance. November 1937. Wellcome Trust Corporate Archive. WT/D/1/20/1/43/50.
In copyright. Source: Wellcome Collection. M0005319. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/c6ae9tbf
Nondel ‘ekhaya. Wedding at home. South Africa, Ngqoko, Lumko district. Xhosa people. 1983.
Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie, Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, unité mixte de recherche du CNRS et de l’université Paris Nanterre (UMR 7186). Free listening. https://archives.crem-cnrs.fr/archives/items/CNRSMH_E_1996_013_001_002_035/
“Playing upon on the musical bow by Jofirsti Lungisa, performance on the instrument of the song entitled Nandel’ekhaye, “Married at home”.
The musician grips the wood of the bow between the teeth and scrapes the string with a small stick. She obtains two fundamental sounds, a major second apart, by letting the string vibrate freely or by placing the big finger of her left hand at a precise position, to shorten its vibrating part and simultaneously increase its tension.
While altering the volume of the buccal cavity by the position of the tongue and the lips, she selects harmonies 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12 of the fundamental on B, and the harmonies 6 and 8 of the fundamental on C#.”
All indigenous society is based on the family, which in turn is based on marriage. Marriage does not create a separate home as it does with us, but enlarges and strengthens the extended family. This is the most important aspect of the custom, but the least known to Europeans. Native marriage is a contract by which a family acquires for one of its members the right to use a woman from another family. It is a contract: like a sale, a loan, a pledge, etc., but with certain specific characteristics which are difficult to define and which make it possible to confuse it with these different contracts. Marriage is a typical contract that gives rise to numerous and complicated conflicts that show the native in his true light. […]
This chapter required a great deal of development. Because, I repeat, the subject is extremely important and delicate. It must be understood. The fate of many peoples depends on it.
“Le mariage”, in Le droit coutumier des Boulous, monographie d’une tribu du Sud-Cameroun : thèse pour le doctorat
présentée par Maurice Bertaut [born on Réunion Island ], Université de Paris, Faculté de droit. Paris : F. Loviton, 1935, p. 169, 222.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Droit, économie, politique, 8-F-38293. Gallica. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9806512j/f171
Zogohoum: wedding song. Dahomey (Benin). Hounsou, solo singer (man); men’s choir; iron bell and drum accompaniment.
Song in Gun language, spoken by the Ogu people in Benin. Musée de la parole et du geste. Exposition coloniale internationale, Paris, 1931.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Audiovisuel, AP-2650. Gallica. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k128510r/f2.media
Set of 10 Nesting Wedding Baskets. Western Sudan, Burkina Faso, Lobi, 20th century (?). Plant fiber and leather.
https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1975.1011-set-of-nesting-weddi
The Harold T. Clark Educational Extension Fund. The Cleveland Museum of Art.
Creative Commons (CC0 1.0). https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1975.1011
Bubakari sidiki. Wedding song. Sung voices: solo and women’s choir; Struck container (calabash); Clapping hands. Mali, Twara. Marka people. 1956.
Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie, Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, unité mixte de recherche du CNRS et de l’université Paris Nanterre (UMR 7186). Free listening. https://archives.crem-cnrs.fr/archives/items/CNRSMH_I_1970_012_017_02/
