LANDSCAPES
Also, for some reason, “inhospitable” landscapes intrigued me, in relation to human cultures there too. Deserts like the Sahara, but also dense jungles. Again, hard to explain why. One explanation could be is that I grew up in the Netherlands, its Western part, with a non-wild, quite “ordered”, partly even “geometrical” landscape, and a hospitable, man-made accessibility. The flat, ordered, humid and fertile “polders” - crossed by ditches and canals -, and mostly in agricultural or livestock farm use, characterize a large part of the Netherlands.
These Dutch polders are not entirely without charm, to give my honest opinion. Sure, it is not really “wild” nature, but as a historically developed “cultural landscape” it still has a mind-easing, “down to earth” vibe. Those Dutch “polder” landscapes I was surrounded by lacked however “drama” and “character”, more natural and “wilder” landscapes elsewhere in the world had. Even landscapes that can be seen as arid, “barren”, “eroded” or “deficient” (steppes, desserts), still had some “character”, especially when in mountainous or hilly areas.
Visiting Spanish family in central and southern Spain in the summer I noticed that already: impressive landscapes with character, even if arid.. though for agriculture probably more difficult and limited, requiring even for basic production irrigation (irrigation in Dutch agriculture was only to increase production). That part where my mother was born (not far from Córdoba, SW Spain) therefore by necessity specialized in olive production, though other nice fruits grew there too (figs, oranges, a.o.).
OVERWHELMING
Even more I was intrigued by the overwhelming, mighty Sahara and other African landscapes, and the Sahara, also with cultural connotations (how do people live there?).
A Syrian friend of mine, who travelled a time throughout Northern Africa, before settling in the Netherlands, described to me journeys he had through the Egyptian and Algerian Sahara, as magical, existential experiences – perhaps even “life-changing” experiences: “you are nothing there”, he told me. He meant as a mere human in that wide, overwhelming desert, even compared to more “manageable” desert-like landscapes he knew from Syria.
Maybe it is good for humans to be reminded that sometimes nature is stronger than humans, who so often want to dominate or “tame” it. The Dutch “polders” are of course an example of such “tamed nature”, but more parts of the world adapted for intense agricultural use as well, mostly more accessible, less accidented or mountainous landscapes. A large part of England too, for instance, man-made plantations, etcetera.
CHAD
A country with also a name that intrigued me was Chad (Tsjaad, in Dutch), including how it was located on the map, amid the “untamed” Sahara desert, largely, but also extending South of the Sahara. It seemed “empty” or inhospitable, but I started reading about its inhabitants and their culture as well. Chad had indeed a relatively low population density. Later my attention shifted to other, equally interesting parts of Africa.
Still, I remember my fascination with the country Chad, and why I had that. Now I think it’s time to focus more deeply on Chad. Having studied more intensively other parts of Africa that got my interest over time, also related to music and percussion (and other interests and passions) of mine, especially Nigeria, Congo, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Ethiopia, all varied an intriguing areas as well. I am glad I studied them.
Having learned about these other African countries, Chad in reality only became more interesting: how does Chad relate to those other parts of the African continent? It is an interest that “connects” to these other ones I learned about, you can say.
I can also look from the perspective of my interests culture, music, and percussion. Southern Nigeria and Congo influenced my percussion playing as musician – to put it somewhat simplified, but still factual. For this blog, I also delved a bit into Hausa culture and music (in northern Nigeria). What has Chad then to offer musically? Always an interesting question, of course.
DEAD HEART
Quite negatively, Chad is sometimes called “the dead heart of Africa”. Its Saharan, inhospitable location and barren territory made some call that. Too negative, because the dramatic Sahara has an undeniable “strong” and overwhelming character, making – as it did with my Syrian friend – realize his own nullity and futility. Besides, also in the less populous Sahara part (the northern half of Chad), and the half-desert Sahel part (central Chad) people live their for ages, mostly living nomadically. The more fertile, savanna-like South is more populated, largely by the Sara people, a Nilotic people with an interesting culture, more akin to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Northern and Central Chad are inhabited by nomadic Fulani, Arab, Toubou, and other peoples. The Fulani are racially mixed, and even what are called “Arabs’, are by now quite mixed with “black” Africans.
Like with the Hausa, Arab and Islamic influences are also there, and most people in the Northern half of Chad embraced Islam, albeit in their own way, and most often Sufi (milder, freer) variants. The Sara in south Chad are mostly Christian (again: in their own way) or maintained ancient, animist beliefs.
Interesting variation, although of course the result of “colonial” borders, reflecting French colonial interests. The ethnic groups in Chad share in fact only that European colonial interests made them part of the same country, but that applies to other countries as well.
SHORT HISTORY
The Islamic Northern Muslims “bothered” and molested the non-Muslim Black African Sara and others in south Chad, and regularly enslaved them (slave raids) in the past, so it’s not a tension- or conflict-free past.
Under French colonialism later, the Southern Chad was deemed more “utile”, or “useful” than the more arid, lesser populated North, for French economic (read: exploiting) goals. The French colonial system invested thus more among the Sara and neighbouring peoples, leading to some degree to an “assimilation” within the colonial system and economy. This – albeit vulnerable – upper economic hand of more populated southern Chad thus became an ironic change of relative power toward those once raided to enslave by Muslims from the North.
After independence from France, since 1960, came – after a hopeful beginning – dictatorships, several coups d’etats, civil wars, and political violence up to recently. An unfortunately all-too-familiar neo-colonial trajectory. Tensions between the Islamic North and the Sara-dominated South of Chad recurred in internal power tensions, up to the present. Sometimes external North African or Islamic support to Northern Chad rebels against the South, increased military conflicts.
This has in a broad sense several parallels within Africa. It is comparable to what happened in Nigeria (British colonial emphasis on Christian South), Benin, Cameroon, though different from elsewhere in Africa, such as Sudan, where Muslims in the North remained dominant.
The later independence struggle also began in Chad’s South. After independence in 1960 – as elsewhere – remained a dependency on the West (France, Esso and other multinationals) and neo-colonialism forced its independence toward failure, even though the discovery of “oil” and a risen petroleum industry, brought wealth into the country after 2000. Predictably this ended up primarily in Western pockets, and the remainder among a wealthy elite in Chad, especially in the South. According to critics, these economic gains hardly “trickled down”, though the government claimed it increased crucial investments in health and education.
Whatever is the truth, poverty levels remain high and the society unequal. Life expectancy is a bit over 50 years, in Chad (to compare: a bit over 80 years in the Netherlands)..
Thus contextualized, I can relate Chad better to other African countries, after all a goal of studying something.
Most interesting as a person I consider cultural history. What ethnic groups came to constitute Chad, what are their cultural customs, their location, and differences among them?
COMPARING
Again, similarities with other parts of Africa. The widespread Fulani people, found in a large part of “Sahel” Africa, from Gambia and Mali in the west, to Nigeria in the south, and Sudan in the West, are quite present in central parts, whereas the South is inhabited by the sedentary, farming Sara people, speaking a Nilo-Saharan language. In North Chad, the nomadic people include Arabs, but also Toubous, Islamic, but speaking a Nilo-Saharan language, travelling through the Sahara.
Not much use to repeat what each person can study for oneself through the Internet (Wikipedia, documentaries) about the general history and characteristics of Chad.
What is I think more interesting for my blog is how I can relate it to other countries or themes I personally studied, also for this blog. More interesting and more educational, albeit shaped by my personal interests.
CULTURE AND MUSIC
Southern Chad, dominated by sedentary farming, has a more Central African culture, with more drums, and also the balafon (xylophone-like) instrument found in Africa from Senegal to Moçambique, calabash resonators (discussed on my blog before), also common throughout Africa. Maracas-like shakers are also used. Musical structures I could find information and examples from, tend to be polyrhythm-based.
The North and Centre/East of Chad is mostly Islamic, with Arab and North African influences, mixing with local (e.g. Fulani) or Toubou (Nilo-Saharan people, but islamicized). Whereas the Sara and related peoples in the South of Chad are racially Black, the Chadians of the North and Centre tend to range from light Berber-like to (mostly) mixed-raced (with dark Africans). Ironically, this increased with the slave raids.
Musically, also in line with what I studied before, string instruments’ dominance, like the zither, show Arab/North African influences.
More peculiar, though also found among the Hausa (I also discussed the Hausa people on this blog), are a long metal trumpet, and further the use of flutes and whistles used by the Kanembu and Sara peoples in other parts (the South) of Chad, often mixed with kodjo drums. The Fulani also use single-reed flutes.
There seems to be no use of Talking Drums in Chadian traditional music (which I could find, anyway), unlike the Hausa in Northern Nigeria and bordering Niger. This makes me hypothesize that the Talking Drum is an influence from Nigeria’s South (the Yoruba know talking drums), or Sahel areas West of Nigeria, on the Hausa in Nigeria.
Harps are also known in the South of Chad, so the distinction: string instruments in Islamic North, and percussion and wind instruments in the South, is appropriate, though somewhat generalized.
The varied cultures within Chad, often mix own ethnic traditions with Islam or Christianity, in an interesting way.
The landscape variety adds an extra dimension I find interesting. Nomadic people in the desert-like North and Centre of Chad, like all nomadic peoples, cannot travel with too much material culture, like e.g. large musical instruments. Less trees to make drums as well, logically. Nomadic people – like the Gypsies in Europe -, combine an own culture flexibly with cultures they encounter, adopting and adapting it even. This happened with Flamenco music in Southern Spain, whereas related Roma gypsies in Bulgaria and Romania adopted musical aspects from there (more violins), quite different from Flamenco.
This nomadic travelling in Chad, and the ethnic/racial mixing, enabled some flexible cultural adaptations, within the same Islamic-influenced context. Also the Sara people in the South of Chad remained connected with bordering Central African peoples (e.g. in Cameroun and Central African Republic), including cultural influences.
This makes Chad much more than the negative description as “dead heart of Africa” by outsiders, only thinking of their own interests and loyalties. This reflects the common problem of colonization and exploitation of many African countries: only used by foreigners for selfish, external interests, with no interest in the people, let alone improving the lot of the Chadian people themselves.
Thus contextualized, I would like to focus on one of my main interests: African music. Interestingly, I can also relate it to what I learned thus far – throughout my life, partly reflected on this blog and on my music – about African music, and music in general.
BORDERS
As mentioned already, like most other African countries at present, the borders of Chad are externally imposed – according to foreign interests - , explaining the wide variety of ethnic groups, not sharing so much before – or even in conflict -, cultures and livelihood/economic choices, and variety in landscapes and natural conditions.
Of course, this can also be found in European countries, but the borders of countries like Spain or France were decided by internal elites, rather than foreign ones: kings with kingdoms joining forces, royal intermarriages, and so on, or at times belated “nationalist” movements uniting smaller states (Germany, Italy), based on some sense of a common identity.
This “common identity” was at the start absent in the case of Chad, though also in some “elite-constructed” European countries this should not be exaggerated (peoples like Frysians or Basques crossing borders, internal regional differences in France, Spain, or Italy – many dialects – or Spain, Flemish and Welsh in Belgium, Muslims and Albanians in former Yugoslavia, etcetera) .
In the case of Chad – as it was even imposed by foreigners with no ties to it - it was even more artificial, and remained as such. The animist/Christian South of Chad, where the Sar(a) people live, are culturally a world apart from the Muslim North, despite political ‘streamlining” efforts, not unlike as happened in Nigeria, and continuing conflicts.
The nomadic peoples in Northern Chad still tend to cross borders (Fulani, Arabs, Toubou) with Niger, Sudan, Lybia, and other countries.
MUSICAL COMPARISONS
From a musical perspective, much of the knowledge I have acquired about African music, percussion, and musical culture in general, can also be applied to Chad. That’s the interesting thing about learning gradually and organically.
In a general sense, that is, with peculiarities in the case of Chad.
Anthropologists and musicologists like Robert Farris-Thompson and Ned Sublette made the useful distinction in categorizing African music, also in relation to the African diaspora (slave trade of Africans to the Americas). “Sahel or Griot” Africa, with Islamic influences (string instruments, more mono-rhythmic, less drums, the “swing” principle), and “clave” or “forest” Africa, with “clave”-based (key) rhythms, polyrhythmic structures (several rhythms at the same time), and in general more percussion and drums.
“Griot Africa” influenced Blues and Jazz, “forest Africa” Afro-Cuban/Latin music, to put it in a simplified manner (in Afro-Jamaican Reggae you find both, for instance).
This can easily be applied to Chad as well, having a desert in the North, arid steppe (Sahel) in central parts, and a more fertile, wooded (in fact: Savanna) part in the South. The Griot and Sahel influence can be found in central parts, among the Fulani and others, with string instruments like the zither or lute being more dominant with some drums (mostly mono-rhythmic, but meandering), and the use of melisma (stretching a note over several vowels) vocally, a bit in line with the “meandering” instrumental patterns. Less straight or multiple rhythms as in the South. These are in part adapted North African and Arab influences.
In a general sense this applies, but in the details are more peculiarities, and own ways in which the various ethnic groups in Chad shape their own cultures, often with interesting, creative and unique aspects. Culture is after all not just expressing heritage, but also personal creativity, albeit in the African context often mediated socially, rather than in the detached, ego-driven “stardom” idea, more common in the Western world.
The polyrhythms in southern Chad are partly provided by the common use of Balafons (types of Xylophones, with calabash resonators) combined with several drums (some with steady rhythms, other varying, as elsewhere in Africa), harps and flutes. Crucially, the balafons, whistles, add rhythmic layers and patterns - interacting with the drums - rather than leading melodies, as would be more the case in other musical cultures.
What some people in Europe seemed to have forgotten, is that this music is also meant to dance to, in line with its inherent “rhythmicality”. In the South of Chad, this is more exuberant (shaking the whole body), also for women, while in the North this is limited due to Islamic norms of (erotic and female, public) restraint. To a degree, as dancing is nonetheless also common in the North and Centre of Chad.
There, where nomadic people live, there are some interesting, “flexible” cultural, musical aspects, somewhat countering the “serious” Islamic or conservative norms, with joyful festivities, clapping and dancing, reminding somewhat of Gypsy, Roma music in Europe, or elsewhere, with lively, merry expressions, found in e.g. Flamenco as well. The mostly non-fundamentalist, musical minded Sufi interpretation of Islam in Chad, also helps. While not as rhythmically advanced as music from Chad’s South, it still has interesting rhythmic syncopations and flows, as also found among the Griot or Jeli (with e.g. the Kora lute/harp) musicians, also travelers and nomadic, in Guinea, and other Mande-speaking areas of West Africa. This thus connects with that Griot culture in “Sahel” Africa, to repeat the anthropological categorization of Farris-Thompson and others.
Still rhythmically interesting, but more subtly, than more to the South (“forest”, Central Africa), to which southern Chad (with the Sara people) connects more. The rhythms of these arid and Sahara areas interestingly seem to mimic the camel’s cadence, in a “groovy” way. This has similarities with modernized Tuareg music (with Mali/Mande influences), such as from the well-known Saharan (Algerian) band Tinariwen.
CONCLUDING
When one reads the English Wikipedia article on Chad, one notices the problematic aspects: extreme poverty, underdevelopment, lack of democracy, and political violence, plaguing Chad up to today. A counterpoint – or response – to it is the interesting culture , with certainly room for “joy”, among all ethnic groups, mixing influences from African animism with Christianity in the South, and Islam in the North.
Culture is what you get when people are left to their own devices, undisturbed, seeking love, connection, and beauty. Politics is disturbance, limitation, greed, corruption, and power.
There seem to exist “political animals” among humans, actually liking the dynamics of such political power games, the spectacular fight for power, political parties in competition, etcetera.. I am not one of those. Like Jamaican Reggae singer Peter Tosh, who said “I am not a politician, I only face the consequences of politics”, I only feel the need to address politics when hindered by it, and bothered in my human, cultural efforts.
My fascination with Chad, even as a child starting to read, always was about curiosity in its landscapes (Sahara and South of it), how people lived there, their ethnicity, their culture, and their music. “Anthropological”, one might say, “exoticism”, perhaps, but at least more “kosher” (pure) than exploiters and economic and political powers historically and presently, taking mere mercenary or geopolitical interests in a country like Chad, betraying themselves as predatory, materialistic “money sharks” and/or political animals.
Focussing on humanity and culture, I thus found out that Chad is not a “dead heart”, neither the “dead heart of Africa”, albeit with a low population density (as all desert and arid areas on this world).
Finally, - to bring my point home that Chad is not a “dead heart” - I can recommend two ways to study that oneself, through the Internet. One is an interesting documentary from 1989 to be found online (on YouTube) about one nomadic ethnic Fulani group in Western Chad (also living in Niger) and a cultural, “mating” festivity (men dancing and showing charm to women who choose them.. all playfully, and kind of “cute”, without macho nonsense). It is called ‘Wodaabe: herdsmen of the sun’, and is made by famous German filmmaker Werner Herzog, surprising his followers with this “ethnographic” change of documentary repertoire.
The other one is an extensive and educational playlist of folk music videos and recordings someone (a Steven White) made on YouTube, combining examples of recorded and filmed music from all parts and most ethnic groups of Chad (there are over 200): the polyrhythmic, “Central African” South, and the Islamic/Saharan North, and in-between. Several interesting musical examples, showing also representative instruments and dances.
