National anthems and collective identity

What is a national anthem?

A prayer to the nation.

The national anthem—also known as a hymn in the religious sense—is a song of praise addressed not to God but to the nation, conceived as a sacred entity. At other times, the nation takes on the traits of a father or mother and is addressed informally, as in the former French colonies where it is addressed using the familiar form of address. The anthem is sung on ceremonial occasions as a formal expression of patriotism. Whether sung by African schoolchildren or performed by military bands, the national anthem has played and continues to play a significant role in the process of national indoctrination.

Althusser : the hymn as interpellation.

Louis Althusser’s notion of interpellation is useful for understanding how national anthems function. The ideology is perpetuated by the ideological apparatuses of the state (AIE) – the churches, the education system, the family, the political and cultural system. The communication system provides citizens with a “daily dose of nationalism” . The IEAs appeal to individuals as subjects, i.e. “call them forward” . Thus, by repeatedly addressing or hailing a subject, we can culturally challenge them by inculcating certain values. National anthems clearly “call out” . The Nigerian anthem begins: ” Arise O compatriots, Nigeria’s call obeys… ” . The “Stand and sing of Zambia” in the Zambian anthem operates in the same register: it is close to the policeman’s “Hey You” that Althusser gives as an example of interpellation: by turning around to respond to the heliage, you become a subject. In the Nigerian and Zambian anthems, individuals are hailed by the ideology as “subjects always-already” (even before Nigeria or Zambia existed). Similarly, when children sing at the start of each school day, as part of the Althusserian educational IEA, “for the Gambia, our homeland, we strive and work and pray” , they too are hailed as subjects – a “we” that says we are all Gambians. The subjects seem happy to collaborate with the ideology, because it offers them the comfort of a social sense, of belonging to an inclusive group.

Butler : identity as performance.

As Judith Butler has argued about gender identities, “there is no gender identity behind gender expression; identity is performatively constituted by the very expressions said to result from it. So it is performance that creates identity: identity does not result from performance” . Performing religious rituals in church, mosque or school nurtures religious identities; singing national anthems in school and at sporting events performatively constitutes a national identity. If performance or ritual is indeed a key element in identity formation, then national anthems are crucial to the national construction project. Another way of looking at the link between anthems and identity is to consider that every time a putative citizen joins in the singing of the anthem – or simply stands up – he or she is performing something that is firmly embedded in nationalist discourse. How the anthem is received will depend on the particular historical circumstances and the place where it’s heard: in the midst of a crowd of fellow citizens at a state ceremony, at school, or even at the cinema, the comfort of belonging to a large group will only increase the anthem’s nationalist potency.

The two functions of the hymn

A universal function, a specific function.

National anthems serve two slightly different functions. First, on a universal level, they advance the ideology of nationalism itself. Nationalism assumes that every individual belongs to one nation or another: everyone has a national identity. This is not necessarily the case for other types of identity, such as ethnicity or regional identity. Second, on a case-bycase basis, anthems help proclaim a number of characteristics specific to each country—such as the references to dust and the sea in the new Cape Verdean anthem. These narratives set the nation apart from others, much like how the dance of the masks has been claimed as characteristic of Côte d’Ivoire and no other. Anthems, at times, thus promulgate such discourses, even if the fossilized nature of some and the often-evolving nature of national identity discourses can cause them to deviate from this function. The very act of singing the familiar anthem recalls the nation’s uniqueness and its supposedly unique history.

The Janus face of nationalism

Convince the people, make the nation.

If nationalism is conceived as an ideology that proclaims that “political unity and national unity must be congruent” (Gellner, 1), then the political unit – that is, the state and the ruling elite – must convince “the people” that they belong to a nation with unique characteristics that distinguish it from others. It should also be remembered that the African ruling elites at independence, whether socialist, state capitalist or Afro-Marxist, were all nationalists committed to a project of nation-building. The ruling elite can be seen as a political, cultural and economic group. These elites intertwined and together produced the anthems.

A timeless past, a limitless future.

Benedict Anderson has shown that, “even though nation-states are widely acknowledged to be ‘new’ and ‘historic’ , the nations to which they give political expression still emerge from an immemorial past and, more importantly, slide into a limitless future” . So most emerging nations need an imagined past as much as a vision of the future. The nation has two faces – that of Janus – looking to the past as well as the future, and national anthems reflect this dichotomy. They look to the past – to history, culture and tradition – establishing a retrospective gaze, but they also project themselves into the future, offering the people an almost religious belief in the glorious march of the nation. The “we” encompasses the ancestors, the present generation, the sons and (rarely) daughters, the grandchildren and their descendants. In the early days of African independence, people were optimistic about rapid economic progress, so one might have expected hymns to focus mainly on the future. Indeed, the jaunty, marching melodies of many of the hymns suggest a certain impatience to reach some point in the future. Later, with the disillusionment of economic failure, African leaders turned more to tradition to characterise their national identity (Steiner). This can perhaps be seen in some of the new anthems.

A brief world history of the anthem

Colonial models and the figure of God.

In an earlier work on the national anthem, Cusack (2005b) had noted the relationship between the British national anthem and those of its former colonies – in particular the way in which God is incorporated in various ways. The musical model was undoubtedly the Christian anthem. For the former French colonies, the link with La Marseillaise is obvious – its bloody call to arms and the absence of any reference to God. For Portuguese-speaking Africa, a socialist revolutionary tone has been noted, but the story is, as we shall see, more complex.

The oldest hymns.

The oldest European national anthem is thought to be that of the Netherlands, the words of which were written in 1568 and the music taken from a popular French tune. The origins of the British God Save the King are obscure: the music is thought to have been borrowed from the French in the 17th century, but Handel, Purcell and John Bull have also been suggested as possible composers. The first recorded performance dates from 1745 in London. The oldest hymn lyrics, however, are those of the Japanese hymn, Kimigayo, The Reign of Our Emperor, taken from an anonymous poem in the Kokinshu or Kokin Wakashū compiled for the emperor in 905 AD. The hymn itself was first performed in November 1880.

Themes common to postcolonial hymns

Rent the land, God, the party, the ancestors.

In their themes, postcolonial hymns express the Janus face of nationalism: looking back and looking forward. They praise the existing nation which, at the time of the first performance, already has a real or imagined past. The most common of these retrospective looks is praise for the land, the geography, the imagined location of the nation, or the fruits of that land (Brazil, Bangladesh, Benin). Some praise God for blessing the nation, as in Liberia: ” A home to glorious liberty / By God’s command! Others praise the political party of liberation, as in Mozambique’s first anthem “Viva, viva a FRELIMO… ” , or the nation’s heroes, as in Zimbabwe: “We praise our heroes’ sacrifice” . Sometimes it’s “our ancestors” who are honoured, as in Benin: “Jadis à son appel, nos aïeux sans faiblesse / Ont su, avec courage, ardeur, pleins d’allégresse, livrer au prix du sang des combats éclatants” . («In days gone by, when called to arms, our ancestors, undaunted, / fought with courage, zeal, and joy, waging glorious battles at the cost of their blood»).

Wake up, get up: the call to action.

These extracts show that national anthems project an image of the nation that is special in many ways: it is blessed by God, it is uniquely situated on the world map, it produces goods in abundance for the mind and body, it has great heroes and courageous ancestors. However, alongside this celebration of the uniqueness of the past and present nation, the hymns often chart a course for the future. There is often a call to stand up or wake up – as in Botswana: ” Awake, awake, O men awake! And women close beside them stand” (note the sexist tone), or as in Chad: “Peuple tchadien, debout et à’ ouvrage” . Sometimes a little more is demanded of the people, as in Mali: “Pour l’ Afrique et pour toi, Mali / S’il te plaît mourir nous le ferons” (For Africa and for you, Mali / Please die—we will do it), or Kenya: “Build our nation together” . Most of these anthems have several components. They consolidate the ideology of nationalism.

Anthem of Cameroon before 1970 : “O Cameroon, cradle of our ancestors / Go, stand upright and jealous of your freedom / Like a sun your proud flag must be / An ardent symbol of faith and unity… You once lived in barbarism / Like a sun you are beginning to appear / Little by little you are emerging from your savagery. “

Hymns from the Portuguese-speaking world

Brazilian and Portuguese models.

The Brazilian and Portuguese anthems served as models for those of Portuguese-speaking African countries in the 1970s, only to be withdrawn and replaced as those countries moved away from socialism. The Portuguese anthem was inspired by the British ultimatum to Portugal in 1890, as part of the race for Africa. Adopted by the abortive Republic of Porto in 1891, it was incorporated into the constitution of the new Republic of 1911. The Portuguese Republic of 1911 was modelled on the First French Republic, which was fundamentally anti-monarchical and anti-clerical. As a result, the anthems of these republics tend to reflect a national sovereignty that rests with the people and not with a king or queen. They often refer to the homeland, fatherland, motherland, patria or fatherland – the home of the people. The patria is a semi-sacred land where the citizens of the nation actually live or hope to live (Israel before 1948, or the European settlers in the United States with the Manifest Destiny project claiming the right to occupy the entire continent). The Brazilian national anthem was inspired by Italian classical music – opera (the same goes for the countries of South and Central America). The elite wanted to retain their cultural prestige and distance themselves from the Indians, African-Americans and others. Their new nation-states were to resemble European nations. One characteristic of the national anthems of the former Portuguese colonies is the important role played by literature in the national project. Leading writers wrote or contributed to these anthems: Manuel Rui Monteiro (words of the Angolan anthem: novelist and poet), Costa Andrade (poet and playwright, co-author of the Angolan anthem), Mia Couto (Mozambique), Rui Nogar (Mozambique), Alda Espírito Santo (São Tomé) and Francisco Borja da Costa (East Timor). This has resulted in hymns that are more interesting than the fairly banal hymns, akin to English hymnals, from the former British colonies.

Angola: the revolutionary march.

The Angolan anthem is a coherent revolutionary march, in which the people are called upon to fight alongside the progressive forces of the world. This anthem is in tune with the Afromarxist period of MPLA rule, rather than the capitalist kleptocracy that runs the state today. It celebrates the heroes (Os herois) of the “do quatro de Fevereio” – the attack launched to free prisoners from Luanda’s jails, touted as the start of the MPLA ‘s anti-colonial war. It is the archetypal anthem of Marxist socialism: it mentions “O Homen Novo” , “Revolução” , “Os povos oprimidos” . It celebrates the past and the heroes of 4 February, but its focus is on building the future. The music is by Rui Alberto Vieira Dias Mingas, a famous composer of Angolan revolutionary music who became Secretary of State for Physical Education in 1982. Imperial anthems, in Nigeria as in Angola, were broadcast on the radio several times a day. Angolan nationalists wanted to reject these colonial anthems and look elsewhere for models: Russia, Cuba (La Bayamesa), and the Internationale used during the Paris Commune in 1870-71 (“Debout les damnés de la terre, debout les forçats de la faim”). Manuel Rui also produced an Angolan version of the Internationale. Many writers and poets took part in the liberation struggle in Portuguese-speaking Africa and Asia. There was such a thing as “combat poetry” – including some poems by Agostinho Neto – that a revolutionary anthem became the norm. But the immediate origin of the anthem is clear. There had been a long tradition of battle songs among the African liberation forces: in Kenya (Mau-Mau), Zimbabwe, South Africa (struggle songs) and Angola. These revolutionary songs were important during the war, and many of the words and phrases of the current Angolan national anthem can be found in these songs born in the guerrilla camps – particularly in the MPLA anthem. A new flag and anthem were adopted in 2003.

Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau: parting the ways.

Until 1996, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau shared the same national anthem, the lyrics of which were written by liberation hero Amílcar Cabral. After the defeat of the Partido Africano da Independência de Cabo Verde (PAICV) in 1991, a new anthem was finally adopted in Cape Verde in 1996. It is usually said that Cabral wrote the words and composed the music: Esta e Nossa Patria bem Amada. Until his assassination in 1973, Cabral had been the leader of the rebellion in Guinea-Bissau and of the Partido Africano da Independência de Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC). Unlike Angola, the liberation fighters in Guinea-Bissau had managed to control large areas of the country, and this anthem, written and composed in 1963, was used in the liberated territories. It is reminiscent of the South African anthem, also used by the ANC as early as 1925, well before its official adoption in post-apartheid South Africa in 1995. Cabral was also an accomplished poet, a man of many talents (see Ferreira, 1990): poet, freedom fighter, theorist of the anti-colonial struggle trying to apply Marxist ideas to the society of Portuguese Guinea, agronomist and even footballer. There is, however, another version about the composition of the anthem’s music (by the Chinese composer Xiaohe, or a collective of Cape Verdean and Chinese composers). The anthem focuses on building the future, with strong revolutionary and socialist overtones. Despite the break-up with Guinea-Bissau in 1980, Cape Verde kept Cabral’s anthem until 1996. The lyrics of the new anthem were written by Dr Amilcar Spencer Lopes, a native of São Nicolau and an active MDP politician. This anthem is closely linked to the specific discourses of Cape Verdean identity – it sings of the seed planted in the dust of the naked island. Gone are all references to the struggle for independence, which in any case took place mainly on the mainland, in Guinea-Bissau. Like the Brazilian anthem, the new anthem focuses on the land that already exists, not on what might be built on it. The socialist focus on building a future has disappeared: what matters now is the present reality of the islands and the past experience of the nation. The Janus face of Cape Verdean nationalism has reoriented its gaze.

Mozambique: from Viva a Frelimo to Pátria Amada.

For most of the period following independence, the Mozambican anthem was another relic of the revolutionary war – a hymn to the ruling FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) party, which opened with “Viva, viva a FRELIMO… ” , words and music by musician and writer Justino Sigaulane Chemane. Now in his eighties, Chemane chaired the committee that recommended the introduction of the new Mozambican anthem, Pátria Amada (2004). The proposal was not immediately accepted. Samora Machel, President of Mozambique, asked a group of six writers and six musicians to produce a new anthem. In 1981, Machel had recognised that the old anthem, born of the armed struggle, was too partisan and did not work for the nation. Mia Couto told the story of a group of writers and musicians who were locked up in a residence in Matola, with the task of producing an anthem before being released – well fed, with servants and a swimming pool. When they heard the sirens of FRELIMO’s political leader arriving in a motorcade, they rushed to the piano like teenagers caught in the act. The group produced half a dozen anthems, but none were approved: the proposals were all weak, and it was decided to go back to the 1982 anthem proposal. Pátria Amada was chosen in May 2002. The revolutionary song celebrating FRELIMO was replaced by a song celebrating Mozambique and its people. The song was written collectively (by Rui Nogar, Mia Couto, Albina Magaia, Salomão Manhiça, Y ana, José Vedor and Calane da Silva), but with the ruling elite in full control of the process. The music of this second Mozambican anthem has a much more African flavour than many others, and is reminiscent of South Africa’s new Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. The music is non-militaristic, non-aggressive, rather sad and contemplative – in contrast to the bellicose anthems of the imperial powers. The use of the word Pátria perhaps reflects the republican origins initially discernible in the Portuguese anthem. The gaze of the nationalist Janus has, as in Cape Verde, shifted back to the past, to “Moçambique nossa Terra Gloriosa” .

https://youtu.be/c2MSrUMGdTs (Viva a Frelimo)

São Tomé and Príncipe: a woman’s voice

Another famous Lusophone poetess, Alda Graça do Espírito Santo, wrote the national anthem – the only African woman to have done so. Hymns written by women are rare in the world: only Austria, the small island group of Nauru (Micronesia) and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (West Indies) have hymns written by women. These hymns are all non-belligerent songs that gently praise their country. Espírito Santo wrote most of her work before independence. His work is a passionate indictment of the Portuguese perpetrators of the massacres and torture inflicted on the Forros in 1953. Her national anthem sings of combat – but her “Guerrilheiro da guerra sem armas na mão” (Guerrilla of war without arms in hand) reflects the author’s gender through the absence of weapons. She has been a member of the government on several occasions since independence, including as Minister of Education and Culture. The origin of the music is the subject of controversy. Before independence, there was a battle song in local Creole, similar to the current anthem. One version has it that, as Independence Day approached, Espírito Santo sent the fight song – music and text – to Romania with the request that the music be composed. But as the Romanians did not understand Creole, the Saotomeans considered the result unsatisfactory and asked Barreto de Sousa e Almeida, a member of the police orchestra, to adapt the Romanian composition more closely to Alda Graça Espírito’s text. This was done on the eve of Independence Day (12 July 1975). The anthem remains a forward-looking socialist anthem.

Eastern Timor: hero of the liberation, twice

Timor was under Portuguese colonial rule from 1596. The words of the Timorese anthem Patria were written on the eve of independence, in November 1975, by the poet and journalist Francisco Borja da Costa. Borja was killed shortly afterwards, on 7 December, the first day of the Indonesian invasion. The composer, Afonso Maria do Santíssimo Redentor Araújo, was the brother of Abílio Araújo, who had also worked with Borja, and who was then studying economics and finance in Lisbon – he would become the first Minister of Social and Economic Affairs. Afonso Araújo was executed shortly after his capture by the Indonesians in 1979. When the Indonesians invaded and annexed Timor in 1976, they killed 200,000 people – a quarter of the population. In 1999, they organised a referendum in which the Timorese population voted 78% in favour of separation from Indonesia. Despite subsequent massacres by the Indonesian army and the looting of Timorese towns, the vote led to independence in 2002. After independence – the second time, in 2002, once the Indonesians had left – the anthem was sung again, but only the chorus: three leaders of the new Republic did not like the polemical nature of the rest of the anthem – “vencemos o colonialismo, gritamos / abaixo o imperialismo” . These words were a little harsh for a government hoping for the support of a Portugal that was no longer perceived as the old imperialist enemy.

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and the Liberation of the Spirit of South Africa

From the paper by David Coplan & Bennetta Jules-Rosette, “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and the Liberation of the Spirit of South Africa”, African Studies, October 2011.

A song at the frontiers of the sacred and the secular

Popular culture as remembrance of the present.

The objects that circulate in a mobile popular culture blur the boundaries between sacred and secular, between public and private social life. In music, as in other popular arts, the inscription of images through lyrics, harmonies and melodies engraves historical moments in what Johannes Fabian calls a remembrance of the present. Each interpretation of a song is linked to the community or context in which it is played, and imbues the piece with a distinct, historically emergent social and political meaning. Anthropologists and oral historians have recently become fascinated by the way in which songs, rumours, fantastical tales and images are embedded in a mobile, self-evident African popular culture. Indeed, children’s songs – whether folkloric or composed like Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika – have, in their resilience, played an important role in the indexical transmission of African history.

A blessing at the crossroads of religion and popular culture.

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (God Bless Africa), known as the African as well as the South African national anthem, occupies a field of experience and practice at the intersection of public religion and popular culture. “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika has come to symbolise, more than any other form of cultural expression, the struggle for African unity and liberation in South Africa” (Coplan, 1985, p. 46). Yet the song’ s popularity extended beyond South Africa and beyond the liberation struggle it so actively led. Composed in the form of a benediction, it carries a message of unity and upliftment, and urges moral and spiritual action on behalf of the entire African continent. A close examination of the hymn’s variations and the contexts in which it is performed reveals, however, the complexity of its messages as presented in different performative spaces. The image of Africa and the very conception of the blessing can be questioned according to the groups performing the song and the audiences targeted. The field of song thus becomes a mutable Gestalt (form), which changes not only across linguistic and cultural categories or performative settings, but also within a single performance, as Nkosi moves from the opening blessings to his closing exhortations (Gurwitsch, 1964, pp. 144-146). In this respect, we might ask whether the first printed version of the song is indeed the ‘original’ , and examine the relationship of this text to the various contexts in which Nkosi… is performed. Songs are contextualised by their histories, fields and occasions of performance, as well as by the presence of other songs and rituals performed in their immediate environment. To analyse a song as a single tune and text with a fixed versified structure is to displace its concreteness into a Western format, and to establish the song as a cultural object over which claims of auctoriality and authenticity can be made. The fact remains that we must, inevitably, take these claims seriously.

Enoch Sontonga: the origins of the hymn

A teacher, a poet, a photographer.

In 1897, Enoch M. Sontonga, a teacher at a Methodist mission school in Nancefield (Johannesburg), composed Nkosi… as part of a repertoire prepared for his pupils. Sontonga was a Tembu Xhosa of the Mpinga clan, born near Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape in 1873 and trained at Lovedale. He wrote the first verse in Xhosa, and the song was first performed in public in 1899 at the ordination ceremony of Reverend M. Boweni, the first Tsonga to become a minister in a Methodist church – indeed in any missionary church. Enoch was a man of many facets: not only a schoolteacher, but also an accomplished poet, composer, choirmaster and lay preacher in the church of the Reverend P . J. Mzimba, and amateur photographer. Sontonga wrote the first verse and chorus of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika at the age of 24, and composed the music the same year. Sontonga’s choir sang the anthem around Johannesburg and in Natal, and other choirs followed.

From school to the ANC: a political trajectory.

Seven years after Sontonga’s death in 1905, on 8 January 1912, after the closing prayer of the first meeting of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC, later African National Congress, ANC), the song was performed by the Ohlange Institute choir under the direction of Reuben T. Caluza. It was used in street demonstrations in Johannesburg from 1919. ANC founding member and writer Solomon Plaatje recorded the song in London on 16 October 1923, accompanied by Sylvia Colenso on piano. In 1925, when the organisation became the ANC, it also adopted the song as its official anthem, to be sung at the end of all its meetings. The more universal and timeless vision of Nkosi… thus replaced Reuben Caluza’s iLand Act, a song denouncing the dispossession ratified by the Natives Trust and Land Act of 1913, deemed too dated and too topical. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika is the national anthem of Tanzania and Zambia, and is widely sung in a Shona version in Zimbabwe (Mutloatse, 1987, p. 160). According to Alan Buff, before his death in 1929, Sontonga’s wife Diana sold the rights to the song for six pence.

Mqhayi: seven stanzas for the Xhosa national poet.

The seven additional stanzas composed by the poet Samuel E. K. Mqhayi appeared in his first collection, Imihobe Nemibongo (Hymns of Praise), published in 1927. Mqhayi was a major literary figure, often referred to in his day as the “Xhosa national poet” . An avatar and embodiment of the “New African” movement, he was ousted in 1945 by H. I. E. Dhlomo, one of the leaders of this movement. Mqhayi’s education and training combined a deep immersion in Xhosa law and custom (he was descended from Mqhayi, the great adviser to Chief Ngqika) with a commitment to Presbyterian Christianity. It is perhaps no coincidence that one of his prose works, the African utopian tale U-Don Jadu (1929), envisages an integrated system based on a mixture of indigenous political and legal principles and Christian prescriptive values, in the kingdom of his Pan-African philosopher-king (Gerard, 1971, pp. 53-62). It is precisely this style of political and religious integration that we believe characterises the fundamental spirit of Sontonga’s original verse, and which Mqhayi faithfully extends in his additional stanzas of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.

An urban Afro-Christian syncretism

Methodist hymnody and African song of praise.

The original song reflects both the patterns of Methodist hymnody and those of African praise song – and it is not known whether, in a common practice among African composers, Sontonga’s inspiration came from an existing folk melody. In any case, he chose to combine a generic Methodist harmony with an African blessing. As John Blacking has written, the invocation of the Holy Spirit (Moya) combines fundamental Protestantism with African traditions of ritual purification. This symbiosis, both spiritual and musical, has reinforced the song’s deep appeal across a variety of religious and secular settings and communities. After its official adoption by the ANC, the anthem accompanied and galvanised the organisation’s victories and struggles as it crossed borders in exile. The cast of the all-black musical King Kong sang the anthem at Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg before departing for London in 1960. Both non-African speakers in the anti-apartheid movement at home and their comrades abroad remember the role that learning the anthem played in building solidarity and providing a powerful call to action. Yet as early as 1969, the apartheid government, which had already banned the song, was still trying to deny its political status. As the first verse of the South African national anthem since 1997, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika has been officially released in isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho, English and Afrikaans (Coplan, 1985, p. 46).

A melancholy that speaks conflict.

The melody’ s lamenting tune reflects not only social and economic oppression, but also religious, racial and political conflicts between Lovedale’ s white missionaries and the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) clergy, conflicts that had already emerged when Nkosi… was first performed in 1899. Lamentable, too, was the premature death of this widely popular composer in 1905, at the age of just thirty-two. He was buried in Braamfontein Cemetery, Johannesburg, in a numbered grave recorded as the resting place of “a cafre” . Just after President Mandela’s election in 1994, archival research by Alan Buff, Regional Director (Parks and Cemeteries) of the Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council, together with excavations by Professor Thomas Huffman of the University of the Witwatersrand, led to the precise identification of the grave, which was declared a national monument on Heritage Day, 24 September 1996. Sontonga’s original song was an appeal beyond the injustice of powerful men (particularly the white rulers of the Transvaal) to the blessing and judgement of Almighty God. As a member of the rising black elite in turn-of-the-century South Africa, Sontonga wanted to instil in his pupils a sense of hope and dignity. The “melancholy” (Coplan, 1985, p. 46) – the expectant musical impulse – emerges both from Sontonga’s probable social discontent and from his efforts to unite two musical and cultural traditions in an atmosphere of solemnity and reverence.

The Jubilee Singers, the AME and the genesis of syncretic music

The Virginia Jubilee Singers’ tours coincided with the expansion of the AME Church in South Africa. The Church welcomed McAdoo’s presence as a valuable bridge to the United States and an instrument of liturgical revitalization. Talented African students such as Charlotte Manye and Simon Hoffa Sinamela were able to secure scholarships to study in the United States through these networks. Sinamela also formed the African Jubilee Singers, which performed both in South Africa and abroad. Veit Erlmann (1991, p. 49) reports that Sinamela produced a series of hymns, including “Kgoshi Sekukuni” , which combined jubilee spirituals and uplifting songs with local forms of oratory and praise poetry. The result was a new form of syncretic music that went beyond the hymns of ecclesiastical composers and performers such as Sinamela or Manye, and began to influence the educated black public and its collective self-images. Both the musical form and content of Jubilee-style songs conveyed messages of spiritual and social protest, masked beneath religious decorum and solemnity. The solemn sonorities and spiritual impetus characteristic of Enoch Sontonga’s compositions, including Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, were the products of an urban Afro-Christian syncretism (in Xhosa: isidolophu) at a time of transforming social consciousness and growing cosmopolitanism among the black South African elite. Sontonga was probably involved in the AME Church movement for social uplift and justice in British South Africa. In 1899, when the Anglo-Boer War broke out, conflicts between AME missionaries – African and African-American – and the United Free Church of Scotland, which ran the Lovedale Institute, came to a head (Page, 1982, pp. 180-182). Although Lovedale Institute was the first school to offer a teacher training programme for Africans, it followed a strictly segregated vocational model, with tight control over African pupils and the ideas to which they were exposed. AME missionaries were seen as ‘evangelical pan-Africanists’ responsible for inciting religious protest, schism and disruption in local Protestant churches (Page, 1982, p. 191; Martin, 1999, pp. 71-92). Although these accusations appear exaggerated, the AME Church provided a forum from which African ministers … The sense of lament that emerges in the last verse of Mqhayi’s stanzas reflects the religious, racial and political conflicts that had already emerged when the song was first performed in 1899. In fact, the hymn goes beyond the mere expression of frustration to become an expression of protest and resistance – albeit in a very circumscribed mode. The ANC sensed this charge of protest and worked to amplify it by adopting and promoting its interpretation. Throughout the anti-apartheid struggle, ANC choirs such as the Sechaba Singers (Amandla!) toured and recorded Nkosi… in Sweden, the United States and Britain to promote their political cause. When migrant workers came to South Africa from other colonies and territories, they too were exposed to Nkosi… as a veiled protest song that they brought home, linking the music and lyrics to new communities. Nkosi… ‘ s multidirectional stylistic voices derive from its primary spiritual ethos – “blessing” – which allowed it to be appropriated and translated by missionary education institutions such as Lovedale Institute, while also serving as a protest anthem for resistance movements and oppositional independent churches.

Popular music, religion and political culture

A schoolboy song turned continental emblem.

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, a song originally composed for schoolchildren, was adopted by religious and political leaders across the African continent as an emblem of hope and unity. The song itself occupies a singular cultural space in the landscape of memory. It stands at the crossroads of utopian visions of African unity and political action. The use of the verb “to bless” (mutikomborere) in the subjunctive tense in the manyika religious version of the song signals the desire for utopian freedom in a virtual Africa that does not yet exist. The substitution of the words “save” and “remember” for “bless” in several versions suggests that Africa has been lost or forgotten, and is awaiting redemption. Independent religious leaders position themselves as intercessors ready to bring about this utopian change, while the song’s political interpreters wait for blessings to descend on their leaders. In all cases, the anthem acts as a preamble (unlike in South African political events, where it is sung as a closing song) and sets the scene for more dramatic events – religious ceremonies, meetings, funerals, celebrations. As John Mushawatu described for the Vapostori, the song “solemnises” events by moving from oration to hymn. Ceremonial framing plays a critical role in political action. It serves as a basis for shaping a civil religion and civic culture, within which dialogue can take place. Yet this civic culture remains as fragile and mutable as the changing words and melodies of a song. The terms of dialogue and coalition shift according to personal, community and institutional memories. Robert Bellah (1970, p. 186) notes: “Behind civil religion are biblical archetypes at every point: Exodus, Chosen People, Promised Land, New Jerusalem, Sacrificial Death and Rebirth” . These images underline not only the “transcendent purposes of politics” (Bellah, 1970, p. 173), but also the political purposes of religion. In the primitive version of Sontonga and Mqhayi, it is Africa (as opposed to any particular sub-group or nation) that is blessed, and its colonial and potentially revolutionary rulers are held accountable to transcendent goals beyond those of the state. Spiritual intervention is invoked as a method of achieving the desired end. The last stanza of Nkosi… or Mwari…, however, is the most variable, as it contains the ambiguous narrative outcome of the exhortation to act. Who ultimately assumes the agency and responsibility for change, and who benefits from it? This question is posed and resolved differently in each variant of the anthem, as it moves from one context and population to another across the continent. This change of agency points to shifts in loci of power and spaces of political debate.

Beyond imagined communities

Highly mediated signs and sacred space.

Thomas Turino (2000, p. 58) argues that folk songs contain “highly mediational signs” that reinforce a sense of community and group identity. What is at stake here is not just ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 1991, pp. 144-145), or what Terence Ranger (1975, p. 32) has called a political desire for ‘wish fulfilment’ , but the conscious construction of a solemn and sacred intermediate space, where groups meet, merge and mobilise in a shifting political environment. The blessing of Nkosi… sacralises unity by drawing on a powerful religious archetype that calls for justice beyond the boundaries of the state, in the name of sacred and invested community groups. This call for justice and redemption is present in both the ‘political’ and the strictly ‘religious’ versions of the song. The blessing of Nkosi… links religion to politics as a source of transcendent morality. The mediative space constructed by the song is sufficiently vast to allow different versions to develop and survive across cultural contexts. These contemporary variations are further strengthened by the song’s consecrated status as both official hymn and popular culture artefact that is reintegrated into vernacular culture. Nicholas Cook has this to say: “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika has a meaning that emerges from the very act of performing it. Like any choral performance – from the singing of a hymn to the collective singing of a football match – it involves community participation and interaction. Everyone has to listen to everyone else and move forward together. It not only symbolises unity, it achieves it. With its blocky harmonic construction and regular phrasing, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika creates a sense of stability and interdependence, with no one voice dominating over the others… It sits audibly at the interface between European traditions of common practice harmony and African traditions of community singing – giving it an inclusive quality that is perfectly suited to the aspirations of the new South Africa… By mobilising music’s capacity to shape personal identity, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika actively contributes to building the community that is the new South Africa. In this sense, singing it is a political act (Cook, 1998, pp. 75-76).

The new national anthem: perspectives and paradoxes

Nkosi in B, Die Stem in C: an assemblage in two keys.

In 1997, a combined isiXhosa-sesotho version, clumsily appended to the old white South African anthem Die Stem van Suid Afrika (The Voice of South Africa) in Afrikaans and English, became the new South African national anthem. This is the song in its current anthem version: first verse in Xhosa, second in Sesotho, third in Afrikaans, last in English translated from Afrikaans. It is worth noting, however, that this conglomerate version omits the original African feature of a response to the verses (Yihla Moya, yihla Moya…), which is nevertheless sometimes taken up by African ensembles and audiences during actual performances. In addition, the word “horn” , which refers to the medicinal horn of traditional non-Christian Xhosa diviners, has been replaced by the more universal, Western notion of “spirit” . The second verse, entirely new and in no way derived from the Xhosa verses of Sontonga or Mqhayi, offers different lyrics and a somewhat different melody, due to the differences in semantic tone in Sesotho.

Die Stem: what had to be subtracted.

The Afrikaans verse is taken from Die Stem van Suid Afrika (The Voice of South Africa), lyrics written by Cornelius Jacob Langenhoven in 1918, music by Marthinus Lourens de Villiers in 1921, and adopted by the white minority government as the South African national anthem in 1936 (as an alternative to the reviled God Save the King). Note that the current version is very different from Langenhoven’s original text, which reads: “Ringing out from our blue heavens, from our deep seas breaking round; / Over everlasting mountains where the echoing crags resound; / From our plains where creaking wagons cut their trails into the earth, / Calls the spirit of our country, of the land that gave us birth. // At thy call we shall not falter, firm and steadfast we shall stand, / At thy will to live or perish, O South Africa dear land” (Thompson, 1985, p. 37-38). Clearly, the exclusionary Afrikaner nationalism enco ded in the references to ‘our plains where the creaking carts cut their wake in the earth’ and ‘the land that saw us [the Afrikaner nation] born’ was intolerable to the ANC government and had to be eliminated. An English translation was adopted in 1952. This translation was all the more important for the National Party’s two-national-languages policy of white unity because English speakers, black and white, had grown up singing the song as The Voice of South Africa and paid little attention to the Afrikaans version. Despite the changes made to the original, the verses of Die Stem / The Voice… trumpet the group’s appropriation not only of the land, but also of the seas and skies, and the song does not end in Afrikaans: it switches to English as a sort of afterthought. The purpose of the anthem, after all, was not only to promote unity, inclusion and reconciliation, but also to demonstrate publicly that the language machine of the Afrikaner state had become the caboose of South African national identity. As for the English, of course they can’ t be anything but English – but it is their imperialist language that is given the only mentions of unity (two) and freedom (one) in this whole hybrid anthem.

Why two keys, two sides?

It should be noted that, while the ANC did commission new versions of Nkosi… in Afrikaans and English (as well as Zulu), the government chose not to add them to the anthem – reconciliation has its limits – leaving the whites with their original Die Stem / The Voice. The addition of Die Stem to Nkosi… was achieved by the addition of a modulation chord inserted by Wits academics Mzilikazi Khumalo and Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph, making this the only anthem in the world to be sung in two unrelated keys (B and C). This particularly awkward combination is food for thought. Why were verses of Nkosi… not simply sung in Afrikaans and English translation, as some mixed-race ANC activists in the Western Cape had done during the struggle? Why wasn’t Die Stem / The Voice transposed into the same key as Nkosi to make a single piece of music? Clearly, the ANC was in no mood to share its war song with whites, however eager it was to identify its party with the new South African nation as a whole through permanent musical symbolism. In the tradition of South African nationalism, old and new, one could paraphrase the American poet Robert Frost: “good [performance] barriers make good neighbours” . What’s more, the new government wanted to convince blacks and whites (leaving aside the smaller minorities of Indians and coloureds) that whites would remain a force to be reckoned with in South African society for a long time to come, and that they would not descend the political staircase as quickly as the notion of the “Rainbow Nation” was replaced by that of the ” African Renaissance” . Perhaps the ANC was right. In the years immediately following the adoption of the new hybrid anthem, rugby stadiums were silent during the playing of Nkosi… but came alive when Die Stem / The Voice was sung. The reverse was true at the national football team’s matches.

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika is not alone in its status as a religiously rooted protest song turned political “Negro National Anthem” , composed by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson in 1896, occupies a similar position as a song of protest and uplift in the United States. The Johnson brothers composed it for a school ceremony in honour of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, and dedicated it to Booker T. Washington. The song’s message of suffering, hope and veiled protest is reminiscent of Sontonga’s version of Nkosi…, and the song’s doctrinal roots in liturgical music and the African-American struggle for freedom share similar features. Although the Johnsons’ hymn was adopted by the NAACP and sung in black schools and churches on solemn occasions, it did not acquire the political pre-eminence or transnational appeal of Nkosi…. Nevertheless, the origins and messages of both anthems position them as mediating signifiers that unite and mobilise regional groups for a common cause. With its very different history, the civil rights anthem We Shall Overcome could also be analysed as a mediational signifier that unifies various groups by moving and assuming multiple meanings across contrasting contexts of interpretation. Gerald Platt and Rhys Williams (2002, pp. 343-344) suggest that the lyrics and uses of these hymns in the United States were intended to counter the idea that segregation was a divinely ordained and morally grounded plan of political action. In this sense, Nkosi… and the other hymns are redemptive prayers for social justice and reconstruction.

Organic momentum beyond borders.

In his short essay “Save the African Continent” , V . Y Mudimbe (1992, pp. 61-62) suggests moving beyond “anti-colonialist” and “decompositionist” critiques of African politics to develop concrete projects and new programmes that can extricate black Africa from its continuing cycles of conflict, dependence and underdevelopment. It is interesting to imagine the extent to which such projects could be rooted in the creative power and energy of popular culture – projects with an organic impetus of their own that would go beyond the ends of a strategic critique of the self and the other. The circulation of songs, stories and works of art across borders and boundaries reflects this organic momentum, and embodies the ongoing cultural mediations that take shape beyond the contours of variously defined communities. The utopian vision implicit in Nkosi… does not refer to a specifically bounded or even imagined community, but rather to the protean reshaping of landscapes of collective emotional experience, painted in cultural memory and solitary spaces. As we travelled around the United States and South Africa to present the paper from which this article derives – at conferences and seminars – we were struck by the number of listeners from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences who came to tell us their own personal stories of Nkosi… : in demonstrations, ANC cell meetings, student rallies, religious revivals, training camps, trade union meetings, in exile on four continents – wherever the freedom of South Africa, and, by an extended ideological geography, that of the whole of southern Africa, was at the centre. The strains of Sontonga’s solemn yet rousing melody accompany countless personal and public images that make up the collective memory of the struggle against apartheid and the ceremonial emergence of the new nation. Beyond South Africa’ s borders, the same melody creates a web of meaning and association around a common aspiration: to liberate Africa from the clutches of a seemingly immortal and protean imperialism, and to recognise the centrality of South Africa’ s liberation and success in this historic process. Sontonga’s vision of freedom, the ANC’s call to liberation struggle, the exhortations of the nation-state and the dreams of the prophets of the independent churches all represent different versions of a virtual Africa yet to be born. Emerging from a deep sense of discontent with a social world in which the creative process of self-definition and re-definition was brutally denied, all the transmutations of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, even in these post-triumphant days, conclude with the hope of change. But perhaps what has changed as much as everything else – always as a Trojan horse for newly emerging political realities – is the song itself, whose accents span the century of collective memory that separates Sontonga’s untimely death and South Africa’ s long-delayed rebirth.

Note. The demarcation of Basutoland’ s colonial borders by British resident Major Warden was commemorated in the Basotho children’s satirical verse Majoro Wardene, Majoro Wardene, Nka thipa ea hao u sehe naha (Major Warden, Major Warden / Take your knife and cut the country).

Bibliographic references

• References from the article by Igor Cusack, “From Revolution to Reflection: the National Anthems of the New Lusophone Worlds”, Luso-Brazilian Review, 2008, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 45-67.
• Althusser, Louis. « Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses », in B. R. Cosin (éd.), Education: Structure and Society, Harmondsworth, Penguin/Open University, 1972, p. 242-280.
• Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, éd. revue, Londres, Verso, 1992.
• Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths et Helen Tiffin. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, Londres, Routledge, 1998.
• Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism, Londres, Sage, 1995.
• Brinkman, Inge (éd.). Singing in the Bush: MPLA Songs during the War for Independence in South-East Angola (1966-1975), Cologne, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2002.
• Brookshaw, David. « Old Realisms and New Realities: African Literature in Portuguese since Independence and the Postmodernist Fiction of Germano Almeida », in Lisa Jesse (éd.), Portuguese at Leeds: A Selection of Essays for the Annual Semana Portuguesa, Leeds, Trinity and All Saints College, University of Leeds, 1995, p. 115-133.
• Burness, Donald. Fire. Six writers from Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde, Washington, Three Continents Press, 1977.
• Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Londres, Routledge, 1990.
• Cerulo, Karen A. « Sociopolitical Control and the Structure of National Symbols: An Empirical Analysis of National Anthems », Social Forces, 68/1, 1989, p. 76-99.
• Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Cusack, Igor. « African National Anthems: «Beat the Drums, the red Lion has roared» », Journal of African Cultural Studies, 17, 2, 2005b, p. 235-251.
• Cusack, Igor. « Tiny transmitters of nationalist and colonial ideology: the postage stamps of Portugal and its Empire », Nations and Nationalism, 11, 4, 2005a, p. 591-612.
• Cusack, Igor. « Janus or Hydra? Pepetela, the New Man and the Construction of Angolan Identities », in Hilary Owen et Phillip Rothwell (éd.), Sexual/Textual Empires: Gender and Marginality in Lusophone African Literature, Bristol, HIPLA, 2004.
• Cusack, Tricia. « Janus and Gender: women and the nation’s backward look », Nations and Nationalism, 6, 4, 2000, p. 563-590.
• Davidson, Basil. The Liberation of Guiné, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1969.
• Ferreira, Manuel. « Prefácio. Em Louvor da Esperança », in Antologia Poética da Guiné-Bissau, Lisbonne, Inquérito, 1990.
• Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism, Oxford, Blackwell, 1983.
• Guimarães, Fernando Andresen. The Origins of the Angolan Civil War. Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Conflict, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2001.
• Hyde, Christian, et Richard Trillo. « Angola, Struggle and Talent », in Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham et Richard Trillo (éd.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, Londres, Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books, 1999, p. 428-431.
• Kellas, James G. The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1991.
• Khan, Gulamo, in Maria Luísa Coelho et al. Para Além de Charrua: Poemas de Moçambique, Coventry, The Heaventree Press, 2007.
• Leite, Ana Mafalda. « Angola », in Patrick Chabal et al., The Postcolonial Literature of Lusophone Africa, Londres, Hurst, 1995.
• Lima, Conceição, et Caroline Shaw. « Island Music of Central Africa », in Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham et Richard Trillo (éd.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, Londres, Rough Guides, Penguin, 1999, p. 613-616.
• Newitt, Malyn. A History of Mozambique, Londres, Hurst, 1995.
• Niner, Sarah. « A long Journey of Resistance: The Origins and Struggle of CNRT », in Richard Tanter, Mark Selden et Stephen R. Shalom (éd.), Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2001, p. 15-29.
• Peres, Phyllis. Transculturation and Resistance in Lusophone African Narrative, Gainesville, Florida, University Press of Florida, 1997.
• Ragozat, Ulrich. Die Nationalhymnen der Welt. Ein kulturgeschichtliches Lexikon, Fribourg/Bâle/Vienne, Verlag Herder, 1982.
• Reed, W . L., et M. J. Bristow (éd.). National Anthems of the World, 10e éd., Londres, Cassell, 2002.
• Rui, Manuel. Quem me dera ser onda, Luanda, Cotovia, 1991 [1982].
• Scholl-Latour, Peter. Mord am Großen Fluß, Stuttgart, DV A, 1986.
• Seibert, Gerhard. Comrades, Clients and Cousins. Colonialism, Socialism and Democratization in São Tomé and Príncipe, Leyde, CNWS, 1999.
• Shaw, Caroline. « São Tomé e Príncipe », in Patrick Chabal et al., The Postcolonial Literature of Lusophone Africa, Londres, Hurst, 1995.
• Soares, Anthony. East Timor Revisited Once More (through the poetry of Francisco Borja da Costa and Celso Oliveira), NUI Maynooth Papers in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, n° 10, mars 2004.
• Soyinka, Wole. Aké, Londres, Methuen, 2000 [1981].
• Steiner, Christopher B. « The Invisible Face: Masks, Ethnicity, and the State in Côte d’Ivoire », in Roy Richard Grinker et Christopher B. Steiner (éd.), Perspectives on Africa. A reader in culture, history & representation, Oxford, Blackwell, 1997, p. 671-677.
• Thomson, Alex. An Introduction to African Politics, 2e éd., Londres, Routledge, 2004.
• Turino, Thomas. « Nationalism and Latin American Music: Selected Case Studies and Theoretical Considerations », Latin American Music Review, 24, 2, 2003, p. 169-209.
• Viegas, Aida. Abandonar Angola. Um olhar à distância, Aveiro, AVI, 2002. 2- References from the article by David Coplan & Bennetta Jules-Rosette, «
• Jules-Rosette, Bennetta, et David B. Coplan. « Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. From Independent Spirit to Political Mobilization », Cahiers d’Études Africaines, n° 173-174, 2004, p.343-367. [Disponible en ligne sur Cairn et OpenEdition.]
• Bellah, Robert. « Civil Religion in America », in R. Bellah, Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World, New Y ork, Harper and Row, 1970, p. 168-186.
• Berger, Peter, et Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality, Garden City, New Y ork, Anchor Books, 1966.
• Berliner, Paul. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994.
• Coplan, David B. In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre, Londres, Longman, 1985.
• Daneel, M. L. Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches, La Haye, Mouton, 1971.
• Dillon-Malone, C. M. The Korsten Basketmakers: A Study of the Masowe Apostles, an Indigenous African Religious Movement, Lusaka, Zambie, Institute for African Studies, 1978.
• Erlmann, Veit. African Stars: Studies in Black South African Performance, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991.
• Erlmann, Veit. Nightsong: Performance, Power, and Practice in South Africa, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Fabian, Johannes. Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996.
• Gurwitsch, Aron. The Field of Consciousness, Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press, 1964.
• Halbwachs, Maurice. « La mémoire collective chez les musiciens », Revue Philosophique, 2 (mars-avril) 1939, p. 136-165.
• Jabavu, D. D. T. « The Origin of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika », Nada, 26, 1949, p. 56-58.
• Jewsiewicki, Bogumil. « Corps interdits : la représentation christique de Lumumba comme rédempteur du peuple zaïrois », Cahiers d’Études Africaines, XXXVI (1-2), 141-142, 1996, p. 113-142.
• Johnson, James Weldon. Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson, New Y ork, Viking Press, 1933.
• Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. African Apostles: Ritual and Conversion in the Church of John Maranke, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1975.
• Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. Symbols of Change: Urban Transition in a Zambian Community, Norwood, New Jersey, Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1981.
• Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. « New Religious Consciousness and the State in Africa: Selected Case Studies », Archives de Sciences sociales des Religions, 64 (1), 1987, p. 15-35.
• Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. « The Apostolic Church of John Maranke (Vapostori or Bapostolo) », in Stephen D. Glazier (éd.), Encyclopedia of African and African-American Religions, New Y ork, Routledge, 2001, p. 38-39.
• Martin, Denis-Constant. Coon Carnival: New Y ear in Cape Town, Past and Present, Le Cap, David Philip, 1999.
• Page, Carol A. « Colonial Reaction to AME Missionaries in South Africa, 1898-1910 », in Sylvia M. Jacobs (éd.), Black Americans and the Missionary Movement in Africa, Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1982, p. 177-196.
• Schutz, Alfred. « Making Music Together », in Collected Papers, vol. II: Studies in Social Theory, La Haye, Martinus Nijhoff, 1964, p. 159-178.
• Sontonga, Enoch. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, partition originale, Lovedale Sol-fa Leaflets, n° 17, Johannesburg, Lovedale Press, 1904.
• Sundkler, B. G. M. Bantu Prophets in South Africa, Londres, International African Institute, 1961.
• Sundkler, B. G. M. Zulu Zion and Some Swazi Zionists, Londres, Oxford University Press, 1976.
• Thompson, Leonard M. The Political Mythology of Apartheid, New Haven, Y ale University Press, 1985.
• Turino, Thomas. Nationalists, Cosmopolitans, and Popular Music in Zimbabwe, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000.
• Turner, Victor W . The Drums of Affliction: A Study of Religious Processes among the Ndembu of Zambia, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1968.
• Vansina, Jan. Oral Tradition as History, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
• White, Luise. « Bodily Fluids and Usufruct: Controlling Property in Nairobi, 1917-1939 », Canadian Journal of African Studies, 24, 1990, p. 418-438.