CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE) Musique Pygmée de la Haute Sangha – BAM – LD 325 – Collection du Musée de l'Homme

CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE) 
Musique Pygmée de la Haute Sangha – BAM – LD 325 – Collection du Musée de l'Homme, recorded by Gilbert Rouget in 1946 (7 inch, 33 RPM)

In 1946, the 23-year old ethnologist Noël Ballif (1922-1993) organized and led the Ogooué-Congo scientific expedition, whose 12 team members included André Didier from CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers), ethnomusicologist Gilbert Rouget (1916-2017), and the documentary filmmaker Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (1923-1997). The team made 600 field recordings, took 3,000 photographs, shot film footage and collected artifacts of disappearing cultures and ways of life in the Republic of Congo and Gabon. 

Following our post of Bantu music collected during this same expedition, we now feature the spellbinding and complex polyphonic vocal music of the Babinga Bangombe and Babenzélé Pygmy peoples in the region of Ouesso, on the left bank of the Sangho river in Republic of the Congo (aka Congo-Brazzaville). These nomadic hunter-gatherer forest people’s collective music and dance accompanies many of their daily activities, most notably magical rituals for the hunt.

En 1946, l'ethnologue Noël Ballif (1922-1993), alors âgé de 23 ans, organisa et dirigea les 12 membres de l'équipe de la mission scientifique Ogooué-Congo, notamment André Didier du CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers), l'ethnomusicologue Gilbert Rouget (1916-2017) et le documentariste Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (1923-1997). Lors de cette expédition, l’équipe réalisa quelques 600 enregistrements sonores, 3 000 photos, et des films de cultures et de modes de vie en voie de disparition en République du Congo et au Gabon.

Suite à notre post de musique bantou enregistrée lors de cette même expédition, nous présentons l’envoûtante et complexe musique vocale polyphonique des peuples pygmées Babinga Bangombe et Babenzélé de la région d'Ouesso, sur la rive gauche de la rivière Sangho en République du Congo (Congo-Brazzaville). Ces chasseurs-cueilleurs nomades de la forêt accompagnaient nombre de leurs activités quotidiennes de musiques et de danses collectives, notamment des rituels magiques liés à la chasse.

A1 – Female Babenzélé solo singing. 

A2 – Female Bangombe two-voice singing. 

A3 – Yéli – Bangombe solo singing by the wife of the camp’s chief and most skilled hunter with women’s choir and hand clapping. 

A4 & A5 – Sandzo ritual hunting dance with women’s choir, the hunters’ shouts, drums and a struck iron bell. 

 

After the Bangombe have killed a huge long-tusked male elephant, they summon Edzingi, a spiritual entity from the forest, to a dance. Side B captures the music accompanying Edzingi’s hunting dance ritual featuring male and female vocals and shouts, clapping, drums and a struck iron bell:
B1 – Edzingi hunting dance ritual – Waiting for Edzingi. 

B2 & B3 – Edzingi hunting dance ritual – Dance around Edzingi. 

B4 – Edzingi hunting dance ritual – Edzingi’s agony and departure.

Download:

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MP3

Our other related posts:

Musique Bantou d'Afrique Équatoriale – BAM LD 324 here

Musique Pygmée et Musique Nègre – Barclay 86.019 here

Photographs below are from The Dance, Art and Ritual of Africa by Jean-Louis Paudrat and Michel Huet, Pantheon Books, 1978, and In a Pygmy Camp by Elizabeth Shepherd, William Morrow, 1969:

Mbuti Pygmy gentleman playing harp, Ituri region, Democratic Republic of Congo:

"One man brings out his bow and tests its strings. Then he holds it close against his cheek 

and taps the bow with an arrow. His mouth makes the sound box." 

Ituri region, Democratic Republic of Congo:

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