Njari

Assessing the terrain of Zimbabwean mbira performance in 1932, ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey called the njari “by far the most widely spread variety in this country” (79). Yet the njari’s popularity declined over the coming decades, even as the mbira dzavadzimu experienced an apparent revival. Writing in 1963, for example, Andrew Tracey observed young men playing the mbira dzavadzimu in both rural and urban areas, even as he declared that “the njari appears to be played mainly by older men” (23). This trend continued, leading John Kaemmer to observe that by 1975 the njari was “a type of mbira which is not widely used today; at Madziwa the performers are old men who have not played regularly for several years” (86).

The njari in Guruve

The njari was the first type of mbira that Sekuru Chigamba ever heard. Within his extended family, there were at least two njari players. Among them were his brother Fryson, who actively played njari until losing one of his thumbs in a car accident, as well as one of Sekuru Chigamba’s maternal grandfathers.

The brother to my grandfather, my mother’s father, he was playing njari. So when he used to play njari, I used to go and sit.  But you know, I was laughing at him – “Why do you play these things? Why do you play mbira? And singing? No one asks you to sing, but you sing!” You know, in those days I was young. I loved his music. But you know, I didn’t want him to play alone. Just seated there playing, singing, with no other people watching him.  So that’s what I didn’t want him to do. I wanted him to sing for people. But he said, “No, this is mbira. It’s music. You can play any time. Even when you are alone, you can play.”

The njari’s presumed distribution

Hugh Tracey has suggested that the njari was originally played by Nyungwe-speaking communities in the Zambezi Valley, likely near the Mozambican region of Tete. According to Tracey, the instrument traveled via Portuguese trade routes, reaching the Zimbabwean region of Buhera in the late 17th or early 18th century. traveled via Portuguese trade routes. Tracey has suggested that the njari had spread to areas within a hundred mile radius of Buhera by 1900, including “Mrewa, Rusapi, Bikita, ‘Victoria [Masvingo]’, Chibi, Chilimanzi and ‘Salisbury [Harare]’ districts” (1932: 89) By 1932, Tracey suggests that the njari had also spread to Mutoko. On the other hand, Tracey specifies that the njari was not played as far north as the Mount Darwin region. Furthermore, Andrew Tracey associates various types of njari with Nyungwe, Sena/Tonga, Njanja, Karanga, Hera, Bocha, Garwe, Manyika, Zezuru, Nohwe, Shangwe, and Chikunda speakers, but not with Korekore speaking communities (1972: 87).

Mapping the njari further north

Here, Sekuru Chigamba’s early experience with the njari appears to challenge established understandings of the instrument’s historic range. Indeed, Sekuru Chigamba asserts, “Njari was played all over Zimbabwe.” At the same time, he associates the instrument specifically with his home region of Guruve, which is located nearly 200 miles north of Buhera. Comparing the njari to the mbira dzavadzimu, he told me

If you go to Guruve, they were playing njari all along, but very few people were playing these. And we are still few, because it’s me, my brother, and a few other people there. They are very few who play this. But most of them, they know njari.

In addition to members of his own family, Sekuru Chigamba recalls hearing other njari players from Guruve in the early 1940s. These include a player named Chimanikire, who was featured on national radio broadcasts alongside other njari players, such as Simon Mashoko.

In Guruve, Sekuru Chigamba remembers encountering one particularly talented blind njari player:

When we moved to the rural area, I saw a blind man playing njari. He was a very good mbira player. When he was called to a bira ceremony, he didn’t need someone to take him there. He could walk, even at night, and get there. In the morning, he would come back, with nobody else accompanying him.

He was one of the best njari players. He came from Mangula – the area was Doma. So that’s where they came from. They moved away from there in 1943 because the Europeans pegged some farms where they were staying, because they were staying in an area with good soil. So they were moved to our chief’s area, and they came together with their chief, Chief Bepura. Before, the whole area for one chief. But now we have two chiefs.

Sekuru Chigamba would have encountered this njari player sometime during or shortly after 1946, when his family moved back from the commercial farm where his father worked to their rural home. His description of this musician as highly accomplished suggests it is likely the blind njari player began learning his instrument prior to moving from Doma to Guruve in the early 1940s.

Doma’s location west of Guruve extends the njari’s range in the late 1930s to well over a hundred miles northwest of the area identified by Hugh Tracey in 1932. After taking nearly two hundred years to spread a hundred miles from its initial point of introduction in Buhera, it seems highly unlikely that the njari could have spread another hundred miles in less than ten years.

Njari as both secular and sacred

Unlike the mbira dzavadzimu, which Sekuru Chigamba strongly associates with the ritual context of bira ceremonies, the njari appears to have crossed easily between sacred and secular contexts. In 1949, for example, Hugh Tracey reported encountering a njari player who could “play almost any tune upon his instrument transposing even guitar pieces to his own mode.” At the same time, Tracey observes that the njari “has ritualistic significance, sometimes in connection with the Midzimu, the ancestral spirits, and sometimes with the Mashavi souls” (1932: 79).

The njari’s associations with the world outside the bira come through clearly in Sekuru Chigamba observation that njari players were historically permitted to carry their instruments with them, while players of the mbira dzavadzimu were obligated to leave their instruments inside the banya, a building constructed specifically for the purpose of hosting bira ceremonies. As he says:

You know, at my place they play njari. Njari, well, you can keep your njari with you. But this chakwi, they were played it in Chihota and Nyandoro. So they used to build a big house which they call banya. In that big round hut, all our mbira will stay there.

Although the njari was not safeguarded within the banya, it too was performed during bira ceremonies for the vadzimu ancestral spirits. In this context, Sekuru Chigamba suggests that the njari was often incorporated within pre-existing drumming genres, such as humbekumbe, stating, “When it is humbekumbe they play drums and they play njari also. They mix them together.” Here, the njari’s close associations with drumming further distinguish it from the mbira dzavadzimu, which is often played without any drums at all. Even when the mbira dzavadzimu is joined by drums, Sekuru Chigamba suggests that only one drum should accompany the mbira players, as opposed to the multiple drumming parts involved in humbekumbe.