The Oral Literature Research Programme – Fieldwork with the Department of English at Chanco

The Hayter Committee at the University of Edinburgh offered a grant, which would support fieldwork in Malawi. I partnered up with the Department of English at Chancellor College to provide staff and students affiliated with the M.A. program in Oral Literature on 4 medical-humanities field excursions.

On 31 July, we paid a visit to the The Oral Literature Research Programme in Chileka Blantyre, where we met Dr Moya Malamusi, an ethnologist, cultural anthropologist and musician, and Professor Gerhard Kubic, an ethnomusicologist and professor at the University of Vienna.

This was an extraordinary experience for all of us. In other cultures, music is a distinct art form which is studied separately from literature. We learned in this trip about the Chileka forms of music and how it intersects with storytelling and healing.

Professor Kubic plays the ‘kalimba’, a small instrument which creates a soothing and therapeutic sound

It was an introduction for me about the history of storytelling forms in Malawi but also an opportunity to recognize that this centre is one of the few places that is preserving audio recordings and instruments which are now endangered. It has opened my eyes to the importance of preservation of oral literature and traditional music.

Chisomo Kalinga, postdoc, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh

The field Trip to Dr. Malamusi’s Oral Literature Centre in Chileka

The field trip was fun and very educative. Looking through their rich library and listening to both Dr Malamusi and his colleague (who are wells of knowledge on Malawian Oral Literature) taught me a lot.  I learnt about Oral literature research and the history of music in Malawi. The part I enjoyed the most on this trip was when we went to the Jacaranda Museum of Ethnographic Objects. There were so many musical objects; most of them were Malawian instruments and some from other parts of Africa. Up until this moment I did not know that we had this many music instruments in Malawi.

Dr Malamusi teaches Wongile Mbano about the instruments in the ethnographic museum.

I have not been exposed to that many indigenous Malawian musical instruments. Because of that I assumed that we did not have many musical indigenous instruments. Just by looking at the instruments, I could see that there were many similarities in musical instruments we have in here Malawi and to those of other African countries. Dr. Malamusi’s colleague explained that the technology of used to make some of these instruments was lost on the new generation. This statement made me realise our people had the mastery and technology to build complex instruments that made beautiful music such as the Malimba.  At the end Dr Malamusi’s colleague played the nsansi and sang for a bit. It was beautiful and soothing to listen to. We closed the visit with a video of the Kachamba Brothers.

Wongile Mbano,  recent B.A. English graduate, Chancellor College, UniMa

Museum of Ethnographic Objects

An initial step in conducting research is in understanding the research process, which involves delicate procedures of data-gathering and methods of recording in the field. Through the years processes inevitably change as new technologies evolve. Striking a balance between techniques of methodology, the Museum of Ethnographic Objects in Chileka, Malawi, maintains solid awareness of the value of ‘old’ disciplines while catalyzing contemporary technologies in the digital age to ensure a disappearing world of oral literature is recorded.

Instruments on display at the Jacaranda Museum of Ethnographic Objects at Chileka, Blantyre

The Museum is interesting in terms of its intersectionality and its temporality. Various facets of culture are manifested, highlighting that storytelling interlinks with music which interlinks healing practice showing how each has elements of the singular and of the collective ‘oral literature’ incorporated. The archival timeline spans from 1960s to the present day – black and white photographs show the rituals of the Gule wa Mkulu while hanging above these is an instrument made from a plastic carton by a small boy a number of months ago.

Walter Banjamin’s ‘aura’ is evoked in Chileka – an authentic feeling surrounds the objects, both material and abstract, creating a sense of measured endurance, symbolically referring to the people/community as much as to the survival of the objects themselves. The space inside the Museum and its library stands less as a space seeking revival as it does a space of remembrance. While it is at best puzzling to think that the TV took over storytelling practices around the fire, it is rather more conducive to think of the space of oral literature as an evolution in process – the art of yesterday becomes artifact, but rather than buried it is memoried and can in fact be sourced in contemporary art forms of today.

Joanna Woods, Lecturer, Department of English, Chancellor College, UniMa