Orthodox Christianity in Ethiopia (c. AD 321)

Orthodox Christianity became the established church of the Ethiopian Axumite Kingdom under king Ezana in the 4th century through the efforts of a Syrian Greek named Frumentius, known in Ethiopia as Abba Selama, Kesaté Birhan ("Father of Peace, Revealer of Light").

Ezana of Axum ( Aezana or Aizan), was ruler of the Axumite Kingdom (c. 321 – c. 360) located in present-day in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, southern Saudi Arabia, northern Somalia, Djibouti, northern Sudan, and southern Egypt; he himself employed the style "king of Saba and Salhen, Himyar and Dhu-Raydan." Tradition states that Ezana succeeded his father Ella Amida (Ousanas) while still a child and his mother, Sofya served as regent.



Frumentius (c. 306-383) was the first bishop of Axum, and is credited with bringing Christianity to Ethiopia. He was a Syro-Phoenician Greek born in Tyre.

According to the 4th century historian Rufinus, who cites Frumentius' brother Edesius as his authority, as children (ca. 316) Frumentius and Edesius accompanied their uncle Metropius on a voyage to Ethiopia. When their ship stopped at one of the harbors of the Red Sea, people of the neighborhood massacred the whole crew, with the exception of the two boys, who were taken as slaves to the King of Axum. The two boys soon gained the favour of the king, who raised them to positions of trust, and shortly before his death, gave them their liberty. The widowed queen, however, prevailed upon them to remain at the court and assist her in the education of the young heir, Ezana, and in the administration of the kingdom during the prince's minority. They remained and (especially Frumentius) used their influence to spread Christianity. First they encouraged the Christian merchants present in the country to practise their faith openly; later they also converted some of the natives.

Ezana sent Frumentius to Alexandria to ask the Patriarch, St. Athanasius, to appoint a bishop for Ethiopia. Athanasius appointed Frumentius himself, who returned to Ethiopia as Bishop with the name of Abune Selama.



[Ethiopian Orthodox Wedding]

Ethiopia - Orthodox Service




The Church of St. George (Amharic: Bete Giyorgis) is a monolithic church in Lalibela, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. It is the most well known and last built (early 1200's) of the 13 churches in the Lalibela area, and has been referred to as the "Eighth Wonder of the World." The dimensions of the complex are 25 meters by 25 meters by 30 meters,[2] and there is a small baptismal pool outside the church, which stands in an artificial trench.

According to Ethiopian cultural history, Bete Giyorgis was built after King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty had a vision in which he was instructed to construct the church; Saint George and God have both been referred to as the one who gave him the instructions.

[7340 Ambrose / 7321 Ethiopia / 7300 Zimbabwe]

Bantu to Zimbabwe (c. AD 300) - Mbira

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest, and Mozambique to the east.


The majority of the population speaks Shona, which is the native language of the Shona people; the other native language of Zimbabwe being Sindebele, which is spoken by the Matabele people.

The name Zimbabwe derives from "Dzimba dza mabwe" meaning "great stone house" in the Shona language. Its use as the country's name is a tribute to Great Zimbabwe, site of the capital of the Empire of Great Zimbabwe.

Iron Age Bantu-speaking peoples began migrating into the area around AD 300, eventually displacing earlier hunters. These newcomers included the ancestors of the Shona, who account for roughly four-fifths of the country's population today



Zimbabwe - Shona - Nhemamusasa (Thumb Piano)





In Zimbabwean music, the mbira is a musical instrument consisting of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a deze that functions as a resonator. Mbira performances are often accompanied by hosho.



The hosho is a Zimbabwean musical instrument consisting of a maranka gourd with seeds, usually hota (Canna indica) inside it,[1] or net of beads around it and which often accompanies Shona music, especially mbira music. It is a type of rattle. A smaller version of the hosho is made of a wild orange called a damba, tied together with sticks and filled with hota seeds or pebbles.

Other related percussion instruments from Zimbabwe include the magavhu (leg rattle) and ngoma (drum).

Among the Shona there are three mbira types that are very popular. The Mbira is usually classified as part of the lamellophone family of musical instruments. In some places the instrument is also known as a sansa.

In Shona music, the mbira dzavadzimu ("voice of the ancestors," national instrument of Zimbabwe, has been played by the Shona people of Zimbabwe for thousands of years. The mbira dzavadzimu is frequently played at religious ceremonies and social gatherings called mabira (sing. "bira").

A typical mbira dzavadzimu consists of between 22 and 28 keys constructed from hot- or cold-forged metal affixed to a hardwood soundboard (gwariva) in three different registers—two on the left, one on the right.

While playing, the little finger of the right hand is placed through a hole in the bottom right corner of the soundboard, stabilizing the instrument and leaving thumb and index finger of the right hand open to to pluck keys in the right register from above and below. The left hand is cupped around the left side of the instrument, with all fingers but the thumb placed behind the instrument. Both registers on the left side of the instrument are played with the left thumb.
Bottle caps, shells or other objects ("machachara") are often affixed to the soundboard to create a buzzing sound when the instrument is played. In a traditional setting, this sound is considered extremely important, as is believed to attract the ancestral spirits.
During a public performance, an mbira dzavadzimu is frequently placed in a deze (calabash resonator) to amplify its sound.

Tunings vary from family to family, referring to relative interval relationships and not to absolute pitches. The most common tuning is Nyamaropa, the western Mixolydian mode. Names may also vary between different families. For example, Garikai, whose family plays an "mbira orchestra" that has seven different tunings, each starting on a different interval of the same seven-note scale, calls his version of "Nyamaropa" the "Nhemamusasa" tuning. There are seven tunings that Garikai uses: Bangidza, Nyamaropa, Nhememusasa, Chakwi, Taireva, Mahoroho, and Mavembe (all of which are also names of traditional songs save for Mavembe).

Common names for tunings are:

Dambatsoko (Ionian mode) - Played by the Mujuru family. The name refers to their ancestral burial grounds.

Dongonda - usually a Nyamaropa tuned mbira with the right side notes the same octave as the left (an octave lower than usual).

Katsanzaira (Dorian mode) - The highest pitch of the traditional mbira tunings. The name means "the gentle rain before the storm hits".

Mavembe (also: Gandanga) (Phrygian mode) - Sekuru Gora claims to have invented this tuning at a funeral ceremony. The mourners were singing a familiar song with an unfamiliar melody and he went outside the hut and tuned his mbira to match the vocal lines. Other mbira players dispute that he invented it.

Nemakonde (Phrygian mode) - Same musical relationship as the mavembe, but the nemakonde tuning is a very low pitched version.

Saungweme (Whole tone)

[7321 Ethiopia / 7300 Zimbabwe / 7300 Kenya]

Settlement of Tahiti (c. 300) - Chant

Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean.

Tahiti is some 45 km (28 mi) wide at the widest point and covers 1,045 km² (403.5 sq mi), with the highest elevation being at 2,241 m (7,352 ft) above sea level (Mount Orohena). Mont Roonui, located on the southeastern part is 1332 m high. The island consists of two roughly round portions centered on volcanic mountains, connected by a short isthmus named after the small town of Taravao, which sits there. The northwestern part is known as Tahiti Nui ("big Tahiti"), and the southeastern part, much smaller, is known as Tahiti Iti ("small Tahiti") or Taiarapu. Whereas Tahiti Nui is quite heavily populated (especially around Papeete) and benefits from rather good infrastructure such as roads and highways, Tahiti Iti has remained quite isolated, its southeastern half (Te Pari) being accessible only by boat or hiking. A main road winds around the island between the mountains and the sea while an interior road climbs past dairy farms and citrus groves with panoramic views. Tahiti also has many swift streams, including the Papenoo in the north.

The vegetation is tremendously lush rain forest.

November through April is the wet season, and the wettest month is January, with 13.2 inches (335 mm) of precipitation in the capital of Papeete. August is the driest month with only 1.9 inches (48 mm) of rain. The average low temperature is 70 °F (21 °C) and the average high temperature is 88 °F (31 °C) with very little seasonal variation. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Papeete was 61 °F (16 °C) and the highest temperature recorded was 93 °F (34 °).



Tahiti is estimated to have been settled by Polynesians between AD 300 and 800 coming from Tonga and Samoa, although some estimates place the date earlier. The fertile island soil combined with fishing provided ample food for the population.

Tahiti - Chant



Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the music of Tahiti was dominated by festivals called heiva. Dancing was a vital part of Tahitian life then, and dances were used to celebrate, pray and mark almost every occasion of life. Examples include the men's ʻōteʻa dance and the couple's 'upaʻupa.

Professional dance troupes called ʻarioi were common, and they moved around the various islands and communities dancing highly sensually and erotically.

Traditional instruments include a conch-shell called the pu and a nose flute called the vivo, as well as numerous kinds of drums made from hollowed-out tree trunks and dog or shark skin.

[7300 Zimbabwe / 7300 Tahiti / 7200 Kenya]

Bantu Culture in Kenya (c. AD 200) - Work Songs

Bantu culture most likely reached Kenya from the west, and possibly the south, around AD 200, having passed through what is now Congo.



[Elephants in Amboseli Park, Kenya, looking south to Mt. Kilamanjaro, Tanzania]

Although uncertain, ethnologists believe the Kikuyu came to Kenya from West Africa together with the other Bantu groups. On reaching present Tanzania, they moved east past Mount Kilimanjaro and into Kenya,



finally settling around Mount Kenya. They were originally hunter-gatherers but unlike the Nilotic tribes who were pastoralists, they began farming the very fertile volcanic land around Mt. Kenya and the Kenyan highlands.

As cultivators, the Bantu sought out abundantly watered areas, often in the highlands, and were the first to begin large-scale forest clearance for cultivation, with the result that even today many Bantu areas suffer enormous losses of topsoil each year through erosion.

Although the new-comers were frequently displaced, and sometimes fused with previous Bantu immigrants, Cushitic peoples (from whom some pastoral practices were adopted) or the hunters and gatherers they came across, the essence of Bantu identity remained the same, namely the reliance on agriculture, and hence a relatively settled way of life. Other pan-Bantu cultural elements which have survived, and not just in Kenya, are cosmological beliefs, such as the belief in a single creator God, and the belief in the survival of ancestors as spirits or intermediaries between the living and God.

Although it's obvious that the Bantu must have moved north to populate the areas they cover today in Kenya, the oral legends of the central highlands Bantu invariably point to the north - usually the Nyambene Hills which lie north of Mount Kenya - as their place of origin (ie. some five hundred years ago).

From there, say their oral histories, the ancestors of the present-day Kikuyu, Meru, Embu, Chuka and Kamba, and possibly others as well, migrated south into the foothills of Mount Kenya itself, where they eventually dispersed to their present locations.

This would indicate that once in Kenya, the Bantu headed much further north than their present territories, and were pushed back by either the Nilotes or Cushites. This theory is backed-up by other oral histories which state that the central highlands Bantu came not from the north or west, but from the Indian Ocean coast to the east.

Being a settled culture, the Bantu were inherently at risk of attack from the mobile nomadic Nilotic and Cushitic cattle and camel herders such as the Maasai, Borana (Oromo) and Somali, and as a result many Bantu societies became characterised by their defensive nature. None of the Kenyan Bantu groups lived on open land (ideal territory for the herders), having preferred, for both economic (agricultural) and defensive reasons, to occupy the less accessible highland regions.

Settlements were built with the greatest attention to defence, and were also well concealed: Europeans found they could be walking only yards from a settlement without knowing of its existence.

Some tribes, like the Kikuyu, became experts at adapting and adopting to new realities, and rarely resorted to conflict. Others, like the Chuka, developed an array of inventive defensive measures, ranging from ingenious traps to tree houses and fortifications. Almost all the Bantu groups also adopted a rigid system of age-sets (an idea possibly borrowed from the Nilotic or Cushitic peoples they came across), in which all people of similar age were initiated into an age-set, which together progressed through clearly defined phases of social responsibilities, functions and status, from initiation, through warriorhood, marriage and elderhood to death.

The system ensured the cohesion of society, as well as enabling the development of the warrior system, by which all the young men of a given society would, shortly after initiation to adulthood and their age-set, take up the role of defending the entire society.



A work song is typically a rhythmic a cappella song sung by people working on a physical and often repetitive task. The work song is probably intended to reduce feelings of boredom.

Kenya - Jembelangu (My Spade)



[7300 Tahiti / 7200 Kenya / 7100 Uganda]

Agriculture in Uganda (c. AD 100) - Call/Response

Between approximately 2000 to 1500 years ago, Bantu speaking populations from central and western Africa migrated and occupied most of the southern parts of Uganda.


The migrants brought with them agriculture, ironworking skills, and new ideas of social and political organization.



In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first. It corresponds to the call-and-response pattern in human communication and is found in many traditions.

In Sub-Saharan African cultures, call and response is a pervasive pattern of democratic participation -- in public gatherings in the discussion of civic affairs, in religious rituals, as well as in vocal and instrumental musical expression.



The Hen Killer




Children of Wanseko - Traditional Song



[7200 Kenya / 7100 Uganda / 7100 Mesomenes]

Mesomedes of Crete (b. c. AD 100) - Modes

Mesomedes of Crete (b. c. AD 100) - Hymn to the Sun (AD 130)




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4q9tmxetLg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu8dBDbdlVc

Mesomedes was a Roman-era Greek lyric composer, poet, and freedman of Emperor Hadrian,.

His works include two epigrams in the Greek Anthology, and three hymns -- respectively to Nemesis, Calliope, and the Sun.

***

The few bits of Greek and Roman notation that survive are often in asymmetrical and/or changing meters in one of the Greek modes, named after regions of Greece proper or the outlying lands of Asia Minor. The Medieval theorist Boethius would later misidentify the modes as listed below, with solfege patterns (Ra, Me, Le, Te are lowered versions of Re, Mi, La, Ti, and Fi a raised version of Fa) and comments/examples.

Lydian - Do Re Mi Fi Sol La Te Do (Exotic Major - First Delphic Hymn, c. 138 BC)

Ionian - Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do (Major - Roman Church Father St. Ambrose Eternal Founder of All Thing, AD 388 [Ambrosian Hymn])

Mixolydian - Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Te Do (Blues Major - Epitaph of Sekilos, AD 1)

Dorian - Do Re Me Fa Sol La Te Do (Blues Minor [Plato's favorite!] - Gregorian Chant - Kyrie IV, c. AD 600)

Aeolian - Do Re Me Fa Sol Le Te Do (Minor - Chinese Entrance Hymn of the Emperor, 1000 BC)

Phrygian - Do Ra Me Fa Sol Le Te Do (Exotic Minor - Mesomenes of Crete Hymn to the Sun, AD 130)



[7100 Uganda / 7100 Mesomedes / 7100 Mozambique]

Chopi to Mozambique (c. AD 100) - Xylophones

Mozambique is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest.



Between the first and fourth centuries AD, waves of Bantu-speaking people migrated from the west and north through the Zambezi River valley and then gradually into the plateau and coastal areas. The Bantu were farmers and ironworkers.



The Chopi are an ethnic group of Mozambique. They have traditionally lived primarily in the Zavala region of southern Mozambique, in the Inhambane Province, a life of subsistence agriculture, a rural existence.

The Chopi speak Chichopi, a tonal language in the Bantu family.



The Chopi identify culturally, as a people, with the elephant.



Mozambique - Chopi - Hingayengisa Masingisa (Xylophones)





They are famous for their traditional music, the best known of their instruments being the mbila (plural: timbila), a xylophone played in large groups. This music was proclaimed a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.

Other instruments used by the Chopi include panpipes, whistles, animal horns, rattles, drums of various sizes, musical bows, and a globular flute with three holes made from the dried shell of the nkuso fruit (bush orange).

The Chopi's traditional foods include cassava (manioc) and cashew nuts. They also produce a number of traditional alcoholic beverages, which are produced from fermented tangerines or cashews.

The xylophone (from the Greek words xylon, "wood" + phone, "voice," meaning "wooden sound") is a musical instrument in the percussion family which probably originated in Indonesia.

It consists of wooden bars of various lengths that are struck by plastic, wooden, or rubber mallets. Each bar is tuned to a specific pitch of the musical scale. Xylophone can refer to western style concert xylophones or to one of the many wooden mallet percussion instruments found around the world. Xylophones are tuned to different scale systems depending on their origin, including pentatonic, heptatonic, diatonic, or chromatic. The arrangement of the bars is generally from low (longer bars) to high (shorter bars).

The earliest extant xylophone is from the 9th Century in southeast Asia, however, a model of a hanging wood variant exists, dated to c. 2000 BC in China.

[7100 Mesomenes of Crete / 7100 Mozambique]