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A Continuing Legacy of Song 35

The multi-cultural landscape of even as small a country as Malawi -
whose many identities overlap adjacent geographies - offers a variety of avenues
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for lyrical interpretation. It is not the intent of this essay to insist on a singular
military tradition in Malawian song lyrics within the nation’s various popular
culture spheres. Rather, this brief analysis aims to reinsert the asilikali tradition
into the understanding of how Malawi’s popular culture, and especially its vibrant
lyrical heritage, has developed over the last century and insinuated itself into
Malawian popular discourse. It also mirrors ethno-musicologist Stephen Hill’s
conclusion that, by the twenty-first century, Mganda song and dance traditions in
neighbouring Tanzania - despite having post-World War One historical origins
traceable both to colonial military bands and Malawian lyrical and dance
performances - have adopted “a flexible framework that allows tradition to serve
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contemporary needs.”
I certainly want to share in the caveat noted by Margaret Read many
years ago when writing about Ngoni lyrics in the then Nyasaland: “Not being
either a musician or a linguist … I hope this selection may invoke criticism from
scholars.” I welcome a similar discussion of this essay in the Society of Malawi
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Journal, or in any other appropriate forum.

Melvin E. (Mel) Page a Ph.D. graduate of
Michigan State University, is Professor of
History (Emeritus), East Tennessee State
University. He was Fulbright Lecturer in
History, University of Malawi (1971-1974) and
Fulbright Professor of History, University of
Natal, Durban (1998). He authored The
Chiwaya War: Malawians and the First World
War (Westview, 2000), Founding editor of H-
Africa, he currently is Africa section co-editor
for 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopaedia of the First World War.

49 A rough indicator of this diversity can be seen in the map depicting the language
and ethnic diversity of Malawi offered by Schoffeleers and Roscoe, Land of Fire,
8.The beginnings of a fuller analysis of this diversity can be found in Gift
Wasambo Kayira, Paul Chiudza Banda, and Amanda Lea Robinson, “Ethnic
associations and politics in contemporary Malawi,” Journal of Eastern African
Studies 13, 4(2019):718-738.
50 Stephen Hill, "The Death of Mganda?: Continuity and Transformation in
Matengo Music," Africa Today 48, 4 (2001): 39.
51 Margaret Read, “Songs of the Ngoni People,” Bantu Studies 11, 1(1937): 1.