Hymns and Constructions of Race: Mobility, Agency, De/Coloniality [1 ed.] 1032394536, 9781032394534

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Hymns and Constructions of Race

Hymns and Constructions of Race: Mobility, Agency, De/Coloniality examines how the hymn, historically and today, has reinforced, negotiated, and resisted constructions of race. It brings together diverse perspectives from musicology, ethnomusicology, theology, anthropology, performance studies, history, and postcolonial scholarship to show how the hymn has perpetuated, generated, and challenged racial identities. The global range of contributors covers a variety of historical and geographical contexts, with case studies from China and Brazil to Suriname and South Africa. They explore the hymn as a product of imperialism and settler colonialism and as a vehicle for sonic oppression and/or resistance, within and beyond congregational settings. The volume contends that the lived tradition of hymn-singing, with its connections to centuries of global Christian mission, is a particularly apt lens for examining both local and global negotiations of race, power, and identity. It will be relevant for scholars interested in religion, music, race, and postcolonialism. Erin Johnson-Williams is Lecturer in Music Education and Social Justice in the Department of Music at the University of Southampton, UK. Philip Burnett is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Music at the University of York, UK.

Congregational Music Studies Series Series Editors Monique M. Ingalls Baylor University, USA

Martyn Percy

University of Oxford, UK

Zoe C. Sherinian

University of Oklahoma, USA

Congregational music-making is a vital and vibrant practice within Christian communities worldwide. Music can both unite and divide: at times, it brings together individuals and communities across geographical and cultural boundaries while, at others, it divides communities by embodying conflicting meanings and symbolizing oppositional identities. Many factors influence congregational music in its contemporary global context, posing theoretical and methodological challenges for the academic study of congregational music-making. Increasingly, coming to a robust understanding of congregational music’s meaning, influence, and significance requires a mixture of complementary approaches. Including perspectives from musicology, religious and theological studies, anthropology and sociology of religion, media studies, political economy, and popular music studies, this series presents a cluster of landmark titles exploring music-making within contemporary Christianity which will further Congregational Music Studies as an important new academic field of study. Church Music Through the Lens of Performance Marcell Silva Steuernagel Studying Congregational Music Key Issues, Methods, and Theoretical Perspectives Edited by Andrew Mall, Jeffers Engelhardt and Monique M. Ingalls Ethics and Christian Musicking Edited by Nathan Myrick and Mark Porter Hymns and Constructions of Race Mobility, Agency, De/Coloniality Edited by Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/CongregationalMusic-Studies-Series/book-series/ACONGMUS

Hymns and Constructions of Race Mobility, Agency, De/Coloniality Edited by Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-39453-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-41186-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-35667-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677 Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of Figures vii List of Tables ix Acknowledgmentsx Notes on Contributors xii   1 Introduction: Constructing Hymns and Race

1

ERIN JOHNSON-WILLIAMS AND PHILIP BURNETT

  2 Tonic Sol-fa Abroad: Missionaries, Hymn-Singing, and Indigenous Communities

11

ROBIN S. STEVENS

  3 Global Mobility: Hymns and Worship Practices in the Miao (Hmong) Ethnic Group of Southwest China

34

SHUJIN ZHANG (张书瑾) AND HUIJUAN HUA (华慧娟)

  4 Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns: White Racial Frameworks in the Works of Emily Kathleen Hooper (胡秉道 Hu Bingdao, 1878–1974)

53

ELLAN A. LINCOLN-HYDE

  5 “Wash the Ethiop White”: Whiteness and Salvation in the Hymns of Charles Wesley

73

DANIEL JOHNSON

  6 Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody: The Training, Career, and Contribution of Reverend Daniel Malgas ANDREW-JOHN BETHKE

91

vi  Contents   7 We Become What We Sing: Hymnody as Control

114

JUNE BOYCE-TILLMAN

  8 Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation

134

LIZ GRE

  9 Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing: Perspectives from South Brazil

150

MARCELL SILVA STEUERNAGEL

10 Translation and Endurance: Cherokee Hymnody and the Acculturation of Christianity

169

T. WYATT REYNOLDS AND ABRAHAM WALLACE

11 Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance

181

BECCA WHITLA

12 Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility: A Case of Re-Location and Altered Musical Aesthetics

198

KGOMOTSO MOSHUGI

13 Hymns as Heritage: Decolonizing Javanese Music and Culture in Paramaribo, Suriname

218

JUN KAI POW

14 Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership: The Nigerian Christian Songs Project as Cultural Archive, Pedagogical Tool, and Decolonial Resource

234

MONIQUE M. INGALLS, AYOBAMI A. AYANYINKA, AND MOUMA EMMANUELLA CHESIRRI



Afterword: Singing Down the Dividing Walls

250

C. MICHAEL HAWN

Index257

Figures

2.1

An example of Curwen’s application of solmization to staff notation. 13 2.2 An example of Curwen’s tonic sol-fa notation. 14 2.3.1,2 Title page and sample hymn in tonic sol-fa notation. 19 3.1 The region where A-Hmao live. 35 3.2 The musical scale of Pollard script notation refers to tonic sol-fa notation from Britain. 36 3.3 Sacred Songs for the Lord. No. 134. 37 3.4 The Chinese and English versions of No. 134. 38 3.5 Local spiritual song sung by the congregation of Dajie church. 39 3.6 “L” and his Dlix ad nal 丽阿娜 performing team holding Lusheng and posing by a stream. 40 3.7 Image showing “L” teaching the A-Hmao children and the college students Lusheng fingering at the training site. 41 3.8 Hallelujah! 哈利路亚 (from Handel’ s Messiah) partial piece with both Miao and Chinese lyrics. 44 3.9 The A-Hmao band of Xiang Bai Mu 香柏木 performing music in Da Qing Church, Yunnan. 45 4.1 Contents page of Hooper’s Scripture Words Book I.56 4.2 Miss E. K. Hooper. 58 4.3 Manuscript insert attached to page for Book I, Piece 16. 61 4.4 Partial transcription of Alma Gluck’s vocal line demonstration the Hatikva melody. 62 4.5 Transcription of harmony insert from Book I, Piece 16. 62 4.6 Partial transcription to Western notation of the Hatikva melody with harmony (second line) from Book I, Piece 16. 63 4.7 Extract of letter to Hooper which Hooper adapted for use in Book IV, Piece 3. 64 4.8 Partial transcription of handwritten manuscript (roughly bars 1–36) as shown in Figure 4.7.65 4.9 Image shows example of Chinese text, with over-written Pitman shorthand English text. 67

viii  Figures 4.10 7.1 8.1 0.1 1 12.1 12.2 2.3 1 13.1 13.2 13.3 14.1

Transcription to Western notation of Hooper’s melody bars 1–40, as seen in Figure 4.9.68 The musical experience. 116 Liz Gre and Enam Gbewonyo in performance of We Invoke the Black. To Rest. in front of works by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Tate Britain. 145 Hymns from the Cherokee Hymn Book.175 Hymn relocation chart: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” 203 As it appears in “Christ in Song”—“What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” 211 As it appears in “uKrestu Esihlabelelweni.”213 A photo of the angklung instrument. 219 The Rum House. 224 The Indonesian embassy. 224 Nigerian Christian Songs landing page. 241

Tables

3.1 The curriculum of the biblical training course organized by Fumin Church in 2006 3.2 A comparison form between the past and present ritual services 12.1 Translation grid 14.1 List of songs from Nigerian Christian Songs website 14.2 Characteristics of 26 songs from Nigerian Christian Songs site

46 47 208 242 243

Acknowledgments

Just as hymns become more meaningful when experienced together with a community of people, so too do collaborative projects. Almost a decade ago, we met over a shared interest in hymns as cross-cultural expressions of identity, having both grown up within the frameworks of religious practice in post/colonial contexts. After organizing an initial study day in 2015 at King’s College London with our wonderful colleague and dear friend Yvonne Liao on the topic “Taking British Musics Abroad: Soundscapes of the Imperial Message,” we started building up to a longer discussion about how to approach, listen to, sing, and study hymns as a powerful societal phenomenon in post/colonial settings. Several years later, in part as a response to Black Lives Matter and rising conversations about decolonization, we wanted to think in a focused and truly global way about hymns, constructions of race, and political identities. We therefore organized a virtual study day on the topic of “hymns and race” in October 2021, which was generously supported by the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies at Durham University, directed by Bennett Zon. We would like to thank all the people who participated in and contributed to this event, which drew in attendees from around the world. In addition to presentations from many of the authors in this book, there were also wonderful contributions from Emmett G. Price (as keynote speaker), Michael Webb, Martin Clarke, Meredith A. Doster, Sara Snyder Hopkins, Jesse P. Karlsberg, James Abbington, Ayla Lepine, Alisa Clapp-Itnyre, and Jonathan Hicks. Following the 2021 study day, we were very grateful to Monique M. Ingalls for reaching out to us about working toward an edited volume for the Routledge Congregational Music Studies series. Drawing on the papers from the study day, we then branched out into two publication projects: (1) editing two special issues of the Yale Journal of Music and Religion on the theme “Hymns Beyond the Congregation: Constructions of Identity and Legacies of Meaning” (which contain articles by both of us, as well as contributions from Emmett G. Price, Jonathan Hicks, Oskar Cox Jensen, Jesse P. Karlsberg, Kaylina Madison Crawley, and Sara Snyder Hopkins), and (2) the present edited collection, which focuses more specifically on hymns and constructions of race. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Katherine

Acknowledgments xi Ong, Monique M. Ingalls, Martyn Percy, and Zoe C. Sheridan at Routledge for their enthusiasm and support for our project. We would also like to thank Rachel Cowgill and Bennett Zon for their ongoing support of our work in their capacity as our postdoc mentors. Our thinking about hymns has been shaped by fruitful conversations with many people over the years: they are too numerous to name here, but we thank them all! To the authors in this book—Robin S. Stevens, Huijuan Hua and Shujin Zhang, Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde, Daniel Johnson, Andrew-John Bethke, June Boyce-Tillman, Liz Gre, Marcell Silva Steuernagel, T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace, Becca Whitla, Kgomotso Moshugi, Jun Kai Pow, Monique M. Ingalls, Ayobami A. Ayanyinka, Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri, and C. Michael Hawn—thank you for your insights, for your willingness to engage with such fascinating material, and for making the volume the diverse and unique project that it is. Finally, thanks to Ed, Owen and Luke Johnson-Williams, and Courtney Nimura for the love and support that you give us every day.

Notes on Contributors

Ayobami A. Ayanyinka is a lecturer in the Faculty of Church Music at the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary. She is an ICETE Academy fellow and serves as the music minister of New Heritage Baptist Church in Ogbomosho, Nigeria. Andrew-John Bethke is a Senior Lecturer in music theory and choral studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His research focuses primarily on Anglican music-making and liturgical praxis in South Africa. He holds a PhD in liturgical musicology from the University of Cape Town and is a Fellow of Trinity College London in organ performance. June Boyce-Tillman MBE is an international performer, composer, hymn writer, and keynote speaker. She is Emerita Professor of applied music at Winchester University UK, and extra-ordinary professor at North West University, South Africa. Her large-scale works for cathedrals involve professional musicians, community choirs, people with disabilities, and schoolchildren. She is editing the series on Music and Spirituality for Peter Lang, which includes her autobiography Freedom Song. She founded MSW—Music, Spirituality, and Wellbeing—an international network sharing expertise and experience in this area. She is an Anglican priest. Philip Burnett is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Music at the University of York, UK. His research examines the hymn repertoire found on mission stations established in Southern and Southeastern Africa during the nineteenth century and the ways in which the musical language of missionary hymns was localized and indigenized. He holds a PhD from the University of Bristol. Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri is a lecturer in the Faculty of Church Music at the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary. She serves as the media technical coordinator of Victory Baptist Church Isale General in Ogbomosho, Nigeria. Liz Gre (née Lassiter), born 1991, is a composer and vocalist originally from Omaha, Nebraska (USA). She works through practice-as-research rooted

Notes on Contributors xiii in storytelling and the visceral imagery. Her works utilize electro-acoustics, traditional and graphic notation, improvisation, and performance to negotiate power and control. Her research traverses disciplines, finding meeting points between experimental ethnography, collaborative practice, and acoustemological study. Compositions, performances, and installations have been shared at Washington National Opera (US), Lisson Gallery (UK), Marian Goodman Gallery (UK), and Tate Britain (UK). She is currently a PhD student at City, University of London and a Senior Teaching Fellow in technology and creative composition at University of Southampton. Huijuan Hua 华慧娟 is a PhD candidate studying in the School of Performing Arts, University of Otago, New Zealand. She has specialized in the history of Christian music among the Miao ethnic people of Southwest China since 2005 and got her master’s degree (MA) at the Xi’an Conservatory of Music in 2007, China. Huijuan currently expands her research on comparisons of folk music and belief between the Miao in Southwest China and Hmong in Southeast Asia. Monique M. Ingalls is an Associate Professor of Music and the church music graduate program director at Baylor University. She is the author and editor of several books on congregational singing and serves as a senior series editor of the Congregational Music Studies book series from Routledge Press. Daniel Johnson is from Nottingham, England. His PhD in history at the University of Leicester focuses on the Dissenter Isaac Watts (1674–1748) and his place at the intersection of early Evangelicalism and the Enlightenment. He has a Master of Research in theology and religious studies from the University of Nottingham and a BA Hons in popular music and music technology from the University of Derby. His broader area of research is the history and practice of Protestant worship, with a particular focus on the hymn tradition. Daniel has worked as a lecturer at various institutions, including Nexus Institute of Creative Arts, Coventry University, London School of Theology, and Buckinghamshire New University. Erin Johnson-Williams is Lecturer in Music Education and Social Justice at the University of Southampton, UK. Her research focuses on decolonizing the nineteenth century, the imperial legacies of music education, trauma studies, gender and maternity, and biopolitics. Erin is Co-editor of Intersectional Encounters in the Nineteenth-Century Archive (2022) and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Music Colonialism. Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde is an Australian interdisciplinary researcher and multi-disciplined performing artist. Their doctoral research on the spread of Western classical music in China in the early twentieth century was awarded a Bloomsbury Studentship, the Royal Anthropological Institute’s

xiv  Notes on Contributors Emslie Horniman award, and an Ormond Exhibition Scholarship from the University of Melbourne. Ellan was also a 2017–2019 Yenching Academy scholar. Ellan’s current research engages queer, gender, and feminist theories in the examination of music during times of conflict and great social change. Kgomotso Moshugi holds a PhD (awarded 2022) from the music department in the School of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He studied the migration of cultural ideas and focused on the mobility of Euro-American hymns into African local contexts, where he recognizes multiple intelligences often employed in localization. He is a cultural practitioner, musical arranger, and scholar whose work incorporates conventional qualitative modes of inquiry with those that are artistic. He is a 2022/23 postdoctoral fellow financially supported by the National Institute of Humanities and Social Science (NIHSS) at Tshwane University of Technology, where he continues to undertake his research. Jun Kai Pow, PhD, is a cultural historian and musicologist. His research interests include the gender, heritage, and media history of twentiethcentury Southeast Asia. He is the co-editor of Singapore Soundscape and Queer Singapore and is published in South East Asia Research, Transgender Studies Quarterly, and Music and Psychoanalysis. He is also an arts producer and literary translator. T. Wyatt Reynolds is a doctoral student in the Department of History at Columbia University, and he is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. He holds degrees from Washington University in St. Louis (AB history 2017) and Yale University (MAR 2021). Marcell Silva Steuernagel, PhD, is Assistant Professor of church music and director of the Master of Sacred Music and Doctor of Pastoral Music Programs at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. Marcell writes at the intersection of church music, theology, musicology, and performance theory. He served as Minister of worship, arts, and communication at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Curitiba, Brazil, for more than a decade and is an internationally active composer and performer. His most recent monograph is  Church Music Through the Lens of Performance,  published on Routledge’s Congregational Music Studies series. Robin S. Stevens was formerly Associate Professor of music education at Deakin University in Australia and is currently a Principal Fellow in the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, The University of Melbourne. He was a contributing co-editor, with Gordon Cox, of The Origins and Foundations of Music Education: International Perspectives and has written extensively on music education history in Australia, South Africa, and Asia.

Notes on Contributors xv Abraham Wallace is a doctoral student at the University of Michigan studying pipe organ performance and sacred music. He holds degrees from Yale University (MM: pipe organ performance) and the University of Oklahoma (BMA: piano; BS: geophysics). He is the Edwards Organ scholar at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Detroit, Michigan. Becca Whitla is the Professor of Practical Ministry and the Dr. Lydia E. Gruchy Chair in Pastoral Theology at St. Andrew’s College in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where she teaches liturgy, preaching, religious education, and practical theology. Her book Liberation, (De)Coloniality, and Liturgical Practices: Flipping the Song Bird (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) examines ways to liberate and decolonize liturgical practices, especially community singing. Shujin Zhang 张书瑾, born in 1996, is a female of Chinese Han ethnic group. She received her undergraduate degree in musicology from the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing, China). She studied the history and status of Miao Christian belief and music of northwestern Guizhou Province. She is currently studying for a master’s degree in cultural anthropology and development sociology at Leiden University, researching the sense of belonging of Chinese new migrant Christian women in the Netherlands.

1 Introduction Constructing Hymns and Race Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett

The rise of discussions in recent years around the topics of decolonization, critical race theory, and Black Lives Matter has provided a timely opportunity to re-examine musical traditions in light of questions about race, identity, and post/colonial history. In direct response to many of these topical conversations, we offer this collection of essays as a way to explore how global hymnic practice can be a mediator between colonial pasts and post/ colonial presents. We propose that the musical and textual elements of the hymn—arguably one of the most powerful musical mechanisms ever used by Christian missionaries as a “​​tool of control for evangelism and civilization” (McGuire 2009, 114)—are ripe for an intersectional (and, indeed, global) set of decolonial reassessments. We consider how the spiritual, theological, and communal aspects of hymn-singing, particularly in line with the hymn’s long history of global missionization, may be placed in creative, reflexive dialogues with histories of colonial encounters and ethnographies of contemporary experience. Out of these conversations, new constructions of hymns and race are emerging. Ultimately, we suggest that hymns can both reinforce and disrupt hierarchies of social power that are founded on notions of race, identity, and belonging. This collection of essays is the first edited volume to examine how the hymn, historically and today, has reinforced, negotiated, and resisted constructions of race. We approach a racial and cultural history of the hymn by considering how post/colonial hymnic practice has (since the nineteenth century, in particular) been indelibly marked by colonial legacies. Drawing on a wide array of interdisciplinary perspectives from post/colonial history, ethnomusicology, anthropology, congregational studies, biography, and composition, and showcasing case studies from China to Brazil to Suriname to South Africa, we bring together a diverse group of scholars who, without the technology of Zoom for an initial virtual study day on hymns and race that we organized in 2021, would likely never have all come together. Collectively, these global perspectives set up innovative insights into the hymn as a site of interracial encounter, past and present. Our chapters variously explore the hymn as a product of imperialism and settler colonialism and as a vehicle for sonic oppression and/or resistance, within and beyond congregational DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-1

2  Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett settings. We hold that the lived tradition of hymn-singing, with its connections to centuries of global Christian mission, is a particularly rich lens for examining global and local negotiations of race, power, and post/colonial identity. Our authors come to this project from backgrounds in congregational studies, musicology, ethnomusicology, composition, sociology, literature, and anthropology and hail from academic institutions in China, South Africa, Singapore, the USA, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, and Canada. We have actively sought out contributors who represent a variety of career stages, including graduate students, early career scholars, and highly established leaders in their fields. This broad range of perspectives encourages a (re)assessment of the hymn as a porous genre that both enacts and resists hierarchical and racial systems of oppression. While quite a few of the chapters are rooted within the long nineteenth century (the era that spans the height of Western imperialism), Hymns and Constructions of Race is not focused solely on one historical period, nor have we arranged the chapters by geographical region, as the themes running across all essays are often transcultural and transhistorical. Our project therefore intentionally locates the hymn as an intersectional site for study, one that provides a creative space to tackle issues of race, colonial violence, ownership, and aesthetic agency. As editors, we had the primary objective in this project to facilitate a discussion around the idea of what the “hymn” means in a variety of post/ colonial and post/imperial contexts by bringing together voices from a range of geographical regions, academic disciplines, and backgrounds. A  unique biographical aspect that we share is that we both grew up as white children of clergy-affiliated parents in different parts of the Global South (Fiji and South Africa), and yet we have also (and no doubt made easier by our racial privilege) undeniably benefited from the entitlements of Anglophone higher education, not only within our postcolonial home societies, but also in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. As such, we are both profoundly entangled, in our academic communities and, indeed, in our track records of research funding, with the academic institutions and aesthetic values of the Global North. We came together as collaborators, however, over a shared interest in how the hymn is often derided as analytically and even culturally uninteresting by mainstream Anglo-American historical musicology, and yet in the context of post/colonialism, our archival research evidence, as well as our shared life experiences of hymn-singing in a variety of Western and non-Western contexts, kept pointing to the hymn as an ongoing source of social power: sometimes coercive, sometimes redemptive. To that end, while developing this project in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, we felt an ethical imperative to bring together scholars, artists, and hymn writers from around the world who could, themselves, collectively define and redefine what the hymn has meant—and continues to mean—across postcolonial contexts. For this reason, we have attempted to provide a balance of perspectives from different

Introduction 3 parts of the world about what a hymn means and who “gets” to write about the topic. We have also made the editorial decision to leave the racial capitalization of terms up to individual authors, as we recognize that these terms, and their written representations, carry contrasting connotations in different places around the world: to that end, we have left racially charged capitalizations at the discretion of our individual authors, to embrace sensitivity toward the ways that racial terms come across in different contexts. Sounding Hymns: Toward Mobility, Agency, and De/Coloniality Our chapters collectively examine (1) how the genre of the hymn is a product of imperialism and settler colonialism, (2) how hymnic practice can be a means of individual and communal expression, and (3) how the hymn has the structural potential to be an aesthetic form of oppression as well as resistance. The conversations that we generate here are in dialogue with academic literature on the genre of the hymn as a form of colonialism (Agawu 2016; Bohlman 1997); the cross-cultural dynamics that arise from issues of translation, conversion, and self-determination (Rademaker 2018); and community singing as liberation (Hawn 2003; Whitla 2020). The volume is structured around four overlapping themes. The authors in the first section, on “mobility,” consider the physical movement of hymns. Inevitably, as hymns move (and moved) around the world, people of different cultures, religions, and races encountered each other through singing. “Agency”—the degree to which individuals and cultures have been controlled by or themselves control the writing and singing of hymns—is an important factor in these encounters, as explored through text, biography, and composition. The contributions in the final part of the volume—on “coloniality” and “decoloniality”—critique the ways in which hymns reflect a state of colonial order and the structures of Western cultural domination, which provided a backdrop to the historical growth of hymnody. In the final section, the lens of decoloniality is offered to explore how hymns have participated in the undoing—and often chaotic redoing—of the racial and cultural injustices of colonialism, facilitating dialogues and collaborations across space and time. Honing in on the hymn as a powerful and yet often ambiguous mode of constructing racial identity (cf. Feagin 2020), we argue, is also a crucial project today, given the shifts that have taken place in a lot of recent Christian congregational music scholarship and in contemporary church music rhetoric from “hymnody” to “congregational song” (Mall, Engelhardt, and Ingalls 2021; Moore 2021; Ingalls 2018). Such rethinking in the taxonomy around congregational singing has often been framed in relation to the idea that the “hymn” is outmoded or associated with older, dying, or old-fashioned repertoires. As Monique M. Ingalls, Carolyn Landau, and Tom Wagner note: Academic commentators, conservators of musical “tradition” and congregation members alike often contrast “hymns”, by which they refer to

4  Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett a wide range of musical styles defined or perceived to be “traditional”, to newly composed “contemporary” songs, often set to popular music styles, whose names range from “praise choruses” to “worship songs”. (Landau, Ingalls, and Wagner 2016, 2) While the broadening out of terminology to ideas like “contemporary congregational song” to embrace worship music reflects a very welcome and largely positive adoption of more contemporary and popular musical styles within congregational music studies scholarship, such shifts, as noted by Marcell Silva Steuernagel (2020), obscure a critical consideration of the hymn itself as a lived tradition that continues to do racially charged cultural work. In Hymns and Constructions of Race, we therefore intentionally focus on the enduring power of the historical genre of the hymn, because we suggest that, as a genre, it indelibly carries connotations of class, social discipline, and colonial history that are still resonant today. With its persuasive textual content and structured yet malleable musical style (not to mention the vast, creative oral traditions that exist beyond “the hymnbook”), the hymn is thus a living signifier of the complexities of race and multiculturalism today. As Silva Steuernagel notes, if we consider the hymn to be a powerful living “lens” through which to view decolonial scholarship, then we will also reveal the Western-centric aesthetic structures that hymnology (the study of hymns) has passed down within academia: “Like all lenses,” Silva Steuernagel argues, “the tools developed within hymnology help us see some dynamics clearly but obscure others from view” (Silva Steuernagel 2020, 24). Recognizing the hymn as a living lens through which musico-religious-racial constructions have been (and still are being) negotiated, we celebrate in this volume a highly diverse range of perspectives on the hymn’s history, geographical mobility, and cultural longevity. As the hymn is a form of religious expression that draws on both musical sounds and lyrics, we also argue that it naturally lends itself to interdisciplinary study. Yet in terms of the existing academic literature on hymns, surprisingly few truly interdisciplinary studies have emerged: most studies of the hymn have come from within disciplines, notably literature, theology, and musicology. Traditional hymnology has typically focused on hymnody from the Western European tradition. The growing field of congregational music studies has, nevertheless, broadened understandings of the hymn by using it as a tool to understand a more diverse range of topics, such as ethics, digital culture, globality, and gender (Nekola and Wagner 2015; Myrick and Porter 2021). The contributions to this volume aim to progress this scholarly turn by showing that the hymn is as much an expression of culture as it is of religion, and furthermore, its mobility around the world is indicative of its close association with colonialism and empire. Our approach to studying the hymn thus speaks to several key areas of the humanities—history, musicology, anthropology, sociology, and literature, to name a few—not to mention subfields such as gender studies, queer studies, post/decoloniality, and

Introduction 5 mission history. Given the multivalent meanings of the hymn, the list of areas and academic literatures with which it intersects is wide and broad-ranging. We aim to build on existing scholarship in these and other areas and to demonstrate the potency that the hymn can bring to academic research in a wide variety of disciplines and fields. We also show how the hymn goes beyond the church and intersects with expressions of culture, modernity, and mobility. The “global reach” of the hymn is not, we admit, a novel idea. John Julian’s A Dictionary of Hymnology (1879/1907) included an entry titled “Missions. Foreign” which, over 21 pages, surveyed the regions of the world where hymns were found. The article concluded by noting that hymns were now being sung in “languages spoken by all the great divisions of the human race.” In common with many of the Anglophone reference works of the nineteenth century, such as Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Julian organized knowledge about a specific field—hymnology—from the viewpoint of Britain and its empire, and, significantly, to resonate with the typologies of race and evolutionary theory prevalent at that time. Reading Julian now demonstrates not only how much the field has moved on, but also how far understandings of the global profusion of hymnody, and the many regional forms, have shifted. Reflecting these shifts, The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology now contains entries on hymns and hymn writers from all over the world (e.g., Pittman 2023; Whitla 2023). As Pittman notes: Twenty-first century postcolonial theology, in particular, has provided resources for helping preachers, as well as musicians, and their congregations to move beyond the western cultural hegemony of the 19th and 20th centuries so that the ideas, beliefs, and cultural gifts of Christians around the globe can be voiced. (Pittman 2023) The growing awareness of global hymn traditions has steadily gained traction in the humanities over the past two decades. In what could be described as the “global turn” in church music worship, practitioners in the Global North have increasingly drawn on “non-Western” church music traditions. While this shift can be construed as celebrating global traditions and increased diversity in the church, it can just as easily be misconstrued as appropriation and as using forms of expression outside of the context in which they were originally created. These issues have been addressed and debated by, among others, C. Michael Hawn (2003), Swee Hong Lim (2016, 2018, 2019), and Grant Olwage (2004, 2010). The hymn has also provided a means for musicologists to explore how race intersects with music. Olwage (2006) has explored this idea in his study of the South African hymn writer John Knox Bokwe. Using Bokwe’s hymn compositions, and then scrutinizing the way in which Bokwe has been understood by the academy, Olwage considers not only how “ ‘race’ may enter

6  Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett music” and “intrudes to establish music’s political meanings” (Olwage 2006, 6) but also how race can be conflated with culture, and the ways in which the music “itself” is understood. Becca Whitla (2020) further analyzes the tensions in congregational song resulting from, on the one hand, its liberating action for individual and group expression and, on the other, its use for over 500 years as a tool for colonization and religious coercion. As Jeffrey Richards (2001) has further explored in his history of music and the British Empire, the ideology of the hymn was also a vehicle for imperial expression. The British were often seen as a “chosen people,” the ones saved from the Armada, the Glorious Revolution. And because hymns, in Britain at least, were so ubiquitous and sung at almost every occasion and in almost every setting, imperial themes like “Onward, Christian Soldiers” became embedded into a national psyche and fused imperial values with religious ideas about being “a chosen group,” a “race set apart.” The hymn was therefore integral to the encounter between Indigenous people and British settlers/colonial religious groups and was often used to instill racial differences and understandings. As Dylan Robinson (2020) and others have explored, hymns were also used to highlight aesthetic difference as a means of missionary discipline: for missionaries, indeed, the straightforward “homophonic ideal of voices moving together was a corrective to the unruly voices of Indigenous people” (Robinson 2020, 55). In her recent book Liberation, (De)Coloniality, and Liturgical Practices: Flipping the Song Bird, Whitla (2020) brings such mission legacies into dialogue with more contemporary contexts by analyzing the tensions in Christian congregational song resulting from, on the one hand, its liberating action for individual and group expression and, on the other, its use for over 500 years as a tool for colonization and coercion. Taking up these challenges, we suggest that the themes of mobility, agency, coloniality, and decoloniality, considered together, highlight the deep complexity of the hymnic encounter and pave the way for future collaborative and interdisciplinary engagements with the hymn as an active form of racial expression. Summary of Themes Our first section, on “mobility,” establishes the genre of the hymn as a product of colonial movement, both past and present. The opening chapter by Robin S. Stevens examines how tonic sol-fa notation, used widely by British missionaries in the long nineteenth century, constituted a means of spreading Christian hymns to a wide array of colonial outposts, instilling these hymns within Indigenous communities. Examining the longevity of hymnsinging in the contexts of South Africa, Fiji, and Mizoram, Stevens argues that tonic sol-fa hymnody has effectively become “Indigenized” for postcolonial singing communities today. Exploring similar themes, our next chapter, co-written by Huijuan Hua and Shujin Zhang, draws on contemporary ethnographic research among Miao/Hmong ethnic groups in China to locate

Introduction 7 how the hymn has constituted a way to express mobility and Indigeneity for Chinese communities across historical time periods and disparate geographical locations. Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde then brings together approaches from queer, feminist, and gender studies to consider how the faith and politics of Emily Kathleen Hooper, a British missionary who travelled to China in the 1910s–1940s, impacted her hymnic encounters. Through exploring a seemingly “unremarkable musician,” Lincoln-Hyde complicates the role of a white missionary woman in the production of colonial knowledge, drawing on a close reading of Hooper’s notebooks. “Agency,” our second section, explores how the hymn offers reparative space for compositional individuality and resistance in the face of oppression, both past and present. Daniel Johnson provides a close reading of a hymn text—Charles Wesley’s “O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing”—to locate constructions of race within historical discourses of anti-slavery. Together, these chapters position global mobility, in both colonial and postcolonial contexts, as central to shifting (re)constructions of the hymn as existing for “all the world” to sing, as well as being tied to specific racial and ethnic hierarchies. AndrewJohn Bethke uses a close reading of a historical autobiography to examine the personal agency of Reverend Daniel Malgas, a Xhosa Anglican hymn writer who lived and worked in South Africa in the late nineteenth century. Bethke explores Malgas’s formation in Anglican ritualism and examines his hymnic translations into isiXhosa within the broader context of colonial Anglican missions. In Chapter 6, June Boyce-Tillman examines how the racist and colonialist history of the hymn is rooted in Victorian hierarchical structures. Bringing together insights from her compositional and scholarly expertise, Boyce-Tillman analyzes issues of power, control, and liberation through examples of contextualized hymns. Expanding on the issue of hymnic compositional agency, Liz Gre then explores co-compositional strategies rooted in contemporary sound practice to consider the ways in which egalitarian, collaborative, collective creating, and distributed authorship serves as a means of liberating, and giving agency to, Black women today as hymnic experts and co-composers. Our third section, on “coloniality,” analyzes the interrelationship of colonial power and the cultural dissemination of hymns across the contexts of Brazil, China, and the Euro–North Atlantic. Marcell Silva Steuernagel considers the multiple theologies, hymnodies, and liturgies that have impacted Brazilian Christian theology over the last half millennium, exploring the Brazilian hymn as an embodied, performative expression of race and identity. Our next chapter, co-written by T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace, also zooms in on a historical figure, in this case, Elias Boudinot, who, in 1830s colonial America, translated a collection of hymns from English into Cherokee. Reynolds and Wallace explore how these translations provided messages of resistance and perseverance for Indigenous singers within contexts of settler colonial violence. Expanding on the themes of “sounding coloniality and voicing resistance,” Becca Whitla then reflects on the legacies of coloniality in nineteenth-century British hymnody, looking at compositional

8  Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett style to show how the musical legacies of colonial hymns still have sway in the Global South. Her conclusions, relevant to the contemporary post- and de/colonial contexts of hymn-singing, provide a compelling bridge to our fourth and final section. The three chapters in the section on “decoloniality” examine reappropriations of the colonial hymn in the current contexts of South Africa, Suriname, and Nigeria (including Nigeria’s digital presence), respectively. In Chapter 11, Kgomotso Moshugi explores how re-locating and altering systems of hymnic aesthetics can decolonize a once-colonial hymn using a case study of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” as it is known among Seventh-Day Adventists in South Africa today. Exploring the localization of this nineteenth-century hymn, Moshugi examines the transformation of its musical aesthetics in contemporary South African renderings, illustrating how, in the mobility of a hymn, decolonial qualities are measurable through an analysis of local musical aesthetics. In keeping with the theme of hymnody as an active form of decolonial negotiation, Jun Kai Pow then examines the incorporation of Indigenous musical traditions into Surinamese Christian worship, locating the hymn as a form of hybridity that challenges the binary of the colonizer and the colonized. In our final chapter, Monique M. Ingalls, Ayobami A. Ayanyinka, and Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri explore the structures of canon formation in the online project Nigerian Christian Songs, arguing for the transformative potential of the digital humanities (DH) as a way to aid decolonial efforts to amplify previously unheard voices. Finally, in the Afterword, C. Michael Hawn draws on his vast expertise in global church music studies to bring these diverse and intersectional topics together. It is impossible, in some ways, to write a conclusion for a conversation that is really just beginning. Far from offering the definitive “take” on the idea of hymns as a way to mediate and initiate conversations about global mobility, agency, and de/coloniality, this book is a critical reflection of (and on) an urgent moment in the history of hymn-singing. Coming together out of a global pandemic, the technology of Zoom brought the contributors here together—many of us, at that time, still unable to sing hymns with other people, due to lockdown restrictions—as well as starkly highlighting the inequalities and cultural injustices that brought hymns around the globe in the first place. We hope that this book inspires a new surge of discussions about how the hymn has always been, and probably always will be, a source of constantly shifting aesthetic power. Above all, the hymn today sounds “out” long, entangled histories of cultural encounters that are urgently in need of repatriation and redemption, across and beyond worship settings. References Agawu, Kofi. 2016. “Tonality as a Colonizing Force in Africa.” In Audible Empire: Music, Global Politics, Critique, edited by Ronald Radano and Tejumola Olaniyan, 334–55. Durham: Duke University Press.

Introduction 9 Bohlman, Philip V. 1997. “World Music and World Religions: Whose World?” In Enchanting Powers: Music in the World’s Religions, edited by L. E. Sullivan, 61–90. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Feagin, Joe. 2020. The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing. London: Routledge. Hawn, C. Michael. 2003. Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally. Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies Series. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Ingalls, Monique M. 2018. Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community. New York: Oxford University Press. Julian, John, ed. 1879/1907. A Dictionary of Hymnology. London: John Murray. Landau, Carolyn, Monique M. Ingalls, and Thomas Wagner, eds. 2016. Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity and Experience. London: Routledge. Lim, Swee Hong. 2016. “World Christianity and World Church Music: Singing the Lord’s Song in a World Church.” In World Christianity: Perspective and Insights, edited by Jonathan Y. Tan and Anh Q. Tran, 338–53. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. ———. 2018. “ ‘Where Is Our Song Going?’ Vis a Vis ‘Where Should Our Song Be Going?’ The Trajectory of Global Song in North America.” The Hymn 69 (2): 8–11. ———. 2019. “We’re All ‘Bananas and Coconuts’: Congregational Song in the Global South.” International Journal of Practical Theology 23 (1): 136–56. Mall, Andrew, Jeffers Engelhardt, and Monique M. Ingalls, eds. 2021. Studying Congregational Music: Key Issues, Methods, and Theoretical Perspectives. London: Routledge. McGuire, Charles Edward. 2009. Music and Victorian Philanthropy: The Tonic SolFa Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, Marissa Glynias. 2021. “ ‘We Just Don’t Have It’: Addressing Whiteness in Congregational Voicing.” In Studying Congregational Music: Key Issues, Methods, and Theoretical Perspectives, edited by Andrew Mall, Jeffers Engelhardt, and Monique M. Ingalls, 156–73. London: Routledge. Myrick, Nathan, and Mark Porter, eds. 2021. Ethics and Christian Musicking. London: Routledge. Nekola, Anna, and Tom Wagner, eds. 2015. Congregational Music-Making and Community in a Mediated Age. Farnham: Ashgate. Olwage, Grant. 2004. “Discipline and Choralism: The Birth of Musical Colonialism.” In Music, Power, and Politics, edited by Annie J. Randall, 25–46. London: Routledge. ———. 2006. “John Knox Bokwe, Colonial Composer: Tales About Race and Music.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 131 (1): 1–37. ———. 2010. “Singing in the Victorian World: Tonic Sol-Fa and Discourses of Religion, Science and Empire in the Cape Colony.” Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 7 (2): 192–215. Pittman, Nancy Claire. 2023. “Preaching and Hymns.” The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Accessed February 28, 2023. www.hymnology. co.uk/p/preaching-and-hymns. Rademaker, Laura. 2018. Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Richards, Jeffery. 2001. Imperialism and Music: Britain, 1876–1953. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

10  Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett Robinson, Dylan. 2020. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Silva Steuernagel, Marcell. 2020. “Towards a New Hymnology: Decolonizing Church Music Studies.” The Hymn 71 (3): 24–32. Whitla, Becca. 2020. Liberation, (De)Coloniality, and Liturgical Practices: Flipping the Song Bird. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2023. “Postcolonial and Decolonial Perspectives on Hymnody.” In The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Accessed February 28, 2023. www.hymnology.co.uk/p/postcolonial-and-decolonial-perspectives-on-hymnody.

2 Tonic Sol-fa Abroad Missionaries, Hymn-Singing, and Indigenous Communities Robin S. Stevens

Introduction This chapter documents and discusses the introduction of tonic sol-fa, a nineteenth-century British music teaching method and notational system adapted by the Reverend John Curwen (1816–1880) from the Norwich solfa method devised by Sarah Anna Glover (1786–1867), that was introduced to Indigenous communities in British colonies by missionaries to promote hymn-singing as part of their efforts to evangelize. Hymn-singing through tonic sol-fa was largely embraced by local communities, who incorporated it into their own musical and religious practices. I argue that hymn-singing from tonic sol-fa notation is an integral part of the musical identity of many Indigenous populations and forms a link to hymn-singing as one aspect of local constructions of race. The singing of hymns and psalms is an integral part of worship for all Christian denominations, while also serving to inculcate religious dogma and moral precepts in their adherents. As is largely the situation today, hymnsinging during the nineteenth century in Britain relied principally on congregations learning hymn tunes by ear and then singing in unison. However, the goal for many proponents of hymnody was musical literacy, to enable congregations to sing at sight from hymnals and to facilitate singing in four-part harmony. Accordingly, tonic sol-fa was a helpmeet to missionaries in facilitating hymn-singing. The principal difficulty in promoting hymn-singing, both in Britain and abroad, was the lack of an effective means of teaching sight reading from staff notation. Several methods of teaching vocal music literacy were devised and widely promoted in Britain during the early and middle parts of the nineteenth century. Aside from serving the liturgical needs of the various Christian denominations, choral singing was utilized by the temperance movement as a means through which social reform could be achieved for poorer working-class populations in the industrial towns in the midlands (Nettel 1945). Indeed, Charles Edward McGuire has argued that the tonic sol-fa method in particular represented a form of “Victorian philanthropy,” particularly as it applied to workers and their families in factory and mining towns in industrial Britain and to converts in foreign missionary fields DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-2

12  Robin S. Stevens (McGuire 2009). Several music teaching methods of Continental and English origin contributed to the British choral singing movement (Rainbow 1967). However, tonic sol-fa proved to be the most effective and was hugely popular due to having a simplified notational system—based on alphabetical letters rather than the more complex staff notational system—and a systematized teaching method, based on sol-fa mnemonics for pitch and French time names for rhythm. Tonic sol-fa was adopted by many churches—particularly the non-conformist denominations—and by missionaries who travelled under the auspices of missionary societies to the far reaches of the British empire and beyond. The system survived in Britain until the 1920s, when competition from staff notation methods saw its decline, particularly among church and community choirs. However, the method has continued to flourish in several former British colonies, where, it has been argued, the method effectively became an exogenous aspect of choral music-making.1 As will become evident, tonic sol-fa was, and continues to be, important in promoting and sustaining not only church choir and congregational hymn-singing but also the expression of the religious beliefs of Indigenous communities. The Tonic Sol-fa Method: Origins, Pedagogy, and Notation As a non-conformist minister in his first pastorate, John Curwen received a commission from a conference of Sunday school teachers to discover and promote the simplest way of teaching music. He made several modifications to Sarah Glover’s movable doh solmization (sol-fa) system and later included additional features of his own devising. Curwen employed the first lowercase letter of the sol-fa syllables (doh, ray, me fah, soh, lah, te) on a movable basis as a mnemonic aid placed under staff notes for pitch reading.2 Curwen also built on another aspect of Glover’s method, refining her rhythmic notation system of bar lines and commas separating the solfa letters to his own system of bar lines, half bar lines, and semicolons to indicate sol-fa notes occurring on strong beats, medium beats, and weak beats in each measure. He used a full stop for marking half divisions of the bar, a comma for quarter divisions, and a dash to indicate the continuation of a tone from one beat to the next. As he originally conceived it, Curwen aimed to develop music literacy in three successive phases: first, reading from sol-fa notation; second, reading from staff notation in conjunction with sol-fa notation (see example in Figure 2.1); and third, reading from staff notation alone.3 In 1872, Curwen decided to dispense with staff notation altogether and henceforth relied solely on tonic sol-fa notation in his publication of textbooks and vocal scores (see example in Figure 2.2). One area where tonic sol-fa made considerable inroads was the overseas missionary work of organizations such as the London Missionary Society (LMS), the Church Missionary Society (CMS), and the Baptist Missionary

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 13

Figure 2.1 An example of Curwen’s application of solmization to staff notation. Source: Reproduced from John Curwen (n.d. [c.1866]), The Standard Course of Lessons on the Tonic Sol-fa Method of Teaching to Sing (London, England: Tonic Sol-fa Agency, 19–20).

Society (BMS). Aside from its well-structured teaching method, the use in tonic sol-fa of letter notations for representing pitches would have been far simpler for missionaries to teach than the more complex staff system of notation. Missionaries usually taught local people to read and write in the English, and so they would therefore have been familiar with the alphabetical letters used in tonic sol-fa and with the practice of reading from left to right.

14  Robin S. Stevens

Figure 2.2 An example of Curwen’s tonic sol-fa notation. Source: Reproduced from John Curwen (1872), The Standard Course of Lessons and Exercises in the Tonic Sol-fa Method of Teaching Music (London, England: Tonic Sol-fa Agency), 93.

Although no evidence was found that tonic sol-fa was included in formal courses of missionary training, Curwen welcomed requests from missionaries asking for tuition and printed materials to aid them in their missionary endeavors (The Tonic Sol-fa Reporter [herein after referred to as TSf Rep] 1863, 139). Moreover, groups of missionaries from both the LMS and the CMS were trained at Curwen’s pastorate at Plaistow by one of his assistants, Alfred Brown, from the early 1860s (ibid.). Case Study 1: Tonic Sol-fa and Hymnody in South Africa Missionary Influence in South Africa

Protestant missionaries came to South Africa in large numbers during the mid-nineteenth century (du Plessis 1911) and had as their objectives

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 15 spreading the Gospel and evangelizing Indigenous populations, which they believed was part of a moral expression of Christianity. From a modernday perspective, however, missionary endeavors represent a form of cultural imposition and indoctrination by those considered to be agents of the colonial power (see, for example, Okon 2014). In relation to the use of hymn-singing in such contexts, Athenkosi Nelani, quoting Muller (2004), maintains that: The missionaries established their institutions in the African villages, where they aimed to civilise, educate and evangelise the indigenous peoples. Western hymnody was central to the civilising work of the mission evangelists, and hymns were used strategically to replace African traditional dances and music. That is, to attract the indigenous to conversion, the missionaries used hymns. To the missionaries, the singing of hymns was more effective than sermons in attracting those who were targeted as converts. (Nelani 2021, 18) Early Proponents of Tonic Sol-fa for Hymn-Singing

One of the earliest instances of tonic sol-fa being introduced to South Africa and the use of its notation to compile a vernacular hymnbook was undertaken by a London missionary teacher, Christopher Birkett (1829–1896). Aside from his teaching of tonic sol-fa to local tribal groups at Grahamstown (now known as Makhanda) and nearby Cradock (Malan 1979a, 130), Birkett published a book of 100 tunes in tonic sol-fa notation titled Ingoma or Penult Psalm Tunes in 1871. In the preface to this publication, Birkett stated: The Sol-fa Notation, which I had the honour of introducing in South Africa sixteen years ago, seeing that the knowledge of it is so widely spread, and that its usefulness, and its cheapness, and its simplicity are so unparalleled, I think [that,] with the permission of Mr. Curwen, [it] will be the proper form in which to bring forth this collection of tunes so as most widely to extend the benefits of the book. (Birkett 1871)4 An English dentist, Thomas Daines (1829–1880), who lived at King William’s Town (now known as Qonce) was also an early promoter of tonic solfa (Henning 1979, 130). By 1862, he was teaching tonic sol-fa to Indigenous pupils at St. Matthew’s Anglican Mission School at Keiskammahoek, east of King William’s Town, and to African choirs in King William’s Town. In 1867, Daines conducted a choir of some 200 to 300 voices in part songs, singing hymns and music by Henry Purcell (ibid.).

16  Robin S. Stevens In an analysis of early South African hymn tune collections published in tonic sol-fa notation, Andrew-John Bethke considers the hymn tune collection published by Cyrill John Wyche (1867–1945), a missionary priest who was stationed at St. Matthew’s Mission (Bethke 2019, 16). In 1902, Wyche produced his compilation of hymn tunes titled St. Matthew’s Tune Book that comprised 37 hymn tunes, 19 of which were of European origin and the remaining 12 by local Indigenous composers. All the hymn tunes were notated in tonic sol-fa, and Wyche was able to successfully accommodate the problem, first pointed out by Birkett, of matching Xhosa words in trochaic meter with Western tunes that were in iambic meter (ibid., 18). Dissemination through Christian Missions and Hymns by Indigenous Composers

Although European proponents of tonic sol-fa for hymn-singing such as Birkett, Daines, and Wyche taught tonic sol-fa at local mission schools, the method was widely employed at rural mission stations in Basutoland, in Kaffraria,5 and around Port Elizabeth (now known as Gqeberha) in the south (TSf Rep 1883, 145). Tonic sol-fa was also taught at “native day schools” by Indigenous teachers trained at the Lovedale Missionary Institution and used for singing at local Sunday schools (TSf Rep 1887, 280). Much was made of the ability of local Indigenous people to utilize tonic sol-fa notation in their singing, not only of hymns, but also of larger choral works, such as the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah (ibid.). By the early 1890s, such was the spread of tonic sol-fa through the mission stations that, in 1891, a 16-voice “African Native Choir” representing several tribal groups from the Xhosa people visited Britain and sang at church services and on other occasions (TSf Rep 1887, 216; Erlman 1994). One of the most prominent missions in Cape Colony was the Lovedale Missionary Institution, at which tonic sol-fa was widely promoted. Lovedale was founded in 1824 by the Reverend John Ross and the Reverend John Bennie from the Glasgow Missionary Society near the inland town of Alice in what is now Eastern Cape Province (White 1987, 1). Aside from its religious activities, the mission’s principal objective was the education of the local Xhosa community. A school for boys was established at Lovedale in 1841 that later offered higher education for young Xhosa men. An important means of supporting the education of local people—and indeed of Indigenous South Africans generally—was the establishment at Lovedale of a printing press which, from 1823, produced evangelical and educational publications as well as hymnbooks in tonic sol-fa notation. The key figure at the Lovedale Institution during its heyday was the Reverend Dr. James Stewart (1831–1905), who joined the staff at Lovedale in 1867, became its principal in 1870, and strongly supported Presbyterian music and music education at Lovedale (Pieters 2021, 165). Tonic sol-fa was adopted at Lovedale Institution with considerable success, and a fine tradition of choral music was

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 17 established there so that almost half of the “African Native Choir” who visited Britain in 1891 came from Lovedale (The Musical Herald [herein after referred to as Mus Her] 1892, 73). With the publication of music in tonic sol-fa notation by the Lovedale Press, hymns composed by several Indigenous South Africans were printed and widely distributed through a series of Lovedale Sol-fa Leaflets. One Xhosa composer who achieved considerable prominence was the Reverend John Knox Bokwe (1855–1922). Bokwe came to Lovedale when very young and became a house- and stable-boy to James Stewart in 1867 before becoming his secretary (Shepherd 1941, 194). During his early years at Lovedale, Bokwe was taught piano and organ by Stewart’s wife, Mina, and later turned his hand to composing hymns and other choral music. Although Bokwe had learned tonic sol-fa as a pupil at Lovedale, his early compositions were in fact written in staff notation (Malan 1979b, 201). Nevertheless, his compositions were published in tonic sol-fa notation and widely disseminated throughout South Africa. During more than 20 years on the staff at Lovedale, Bokwe acted as choirmaster and trained singers in tonic sol-fa. After leaving Lovedale, Bokwe worked as a journalist before undertaking training for the ministry in Scotland. On his return to South Africa, he was the Presbyterian minister at Ugie from 1900 until 1920 (Shepherd 1941, 515). Bokwe’s most famous hymn was his “Plea for Africa,” composed while on a visit to Scotland in July  1892. Grant Olwage describes this hymn, with its verse– chorus form, as the “hallmark of revivalist hymnody” (Olwage 2006, 22). Vivienne Pieters maintains that, despite having received instruction in only basic music theory, Bowke arranged this hymn tune in four-part harmony using standard European harmonic progressions—tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords—but with additions, like chromatic auxiliary and passing notes (Pieters 2021, 146). In 1895, Bokwe also published a hymn collection titled Amaculo ase Lovedale that included songs in tonic sol-fa notation set to Xhosa words which had originally been published at Lovedale in 1875 (Mus Her 1895, 95). In a later version of Amaculo ase Lovedale published in 1910, Bokwe also included the music of other African composers as well as English hymn tunes with Xhosa words.6 Although his original compositions and harmonizations of existing hymn tunes were written in the style of European church music, Bokwe—unlike other contemporary African composers— insisted on preserving the correct accentuation of the Xhosa vernacular language (Malan 1979b, 201–2). Another prominent composer who was born and educated at Lovedale was Enoch Mankayi Sontonga (1873–1905). His most famous piece, “Nkosi Sikelel ’i Afrika,” was written in 1897 and was first publicly performed in 1899 (Kirby 1979, 245). This hymn is a prayer for God’s blessing on Africa and its people. It is a strophic piece with eight verses and employs European tonal harmony typical of Protestant hymnody that demonstrates the influence of his missionary schooling. Sontonga died in 1905 before any of his songs could be published, and it was not until 1929 that “Nkosi Sikelel ‘i Afrika”

18  Robin S. Stevens was published in the Presbyterian Xhosa Hymn Book by the Lovedale Press (ibid.). It was later incorporated as the first part of the national anthem of South Africa, and the melody was also adopted by other African countries, including Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, as their national anthem. As Coplan aptly puts it, this piece “has come to symbolise more than any other piece of expressive culture for African unity and liberation in South Africa” (Coplan 1985, 46). The rich choral tradition continued at Lovedale until the institution closed in 1955. Pieters has summed up the contribution of Lovedale to African hymnody as follows: Lovedale was one of the cradles of African hymnody. It was also a sociological “melting pot” where people from various regions interacted in mission station life. This included Africans, Coloureds and some whites, which resulted in a “mixed Euro African genre of music.” (Pieters 2021, 276–77) There were many other missions in rural areas where tonic sol-fa was used to promote hymn-singing as part of the evangelical outreach to Indigenous communities. Indeed, as Yvonne Huskisson observes, generations of Indigenous South African musicians and composers acquired their music education through missionary institutions: The Bantu composer of serious music came into being in this religiouseducational Western-orientated milieu and evolved within the framework of the principles of Western song writing, both religious and secular . . . entirely choral, based on the madrigal or hymnal concept, in 3–6 part-writing, using Tonic Sol-fa notation and the Western toneand-interval system, although rarely including chromaticism. (Huskisson 1969, xviii) Nelani (2021) provides information on some notable Indigenous composers of choral music, many of whom contributed to the corpus of African hymnody.7 Many of the successive generations of post-colonial and postapartheid composers and choral directors have continued to employ tonic sol-fa as their notation of choice. Tonic Sol-fa in Contemporary South Africa

There have been numerous hymnals published in South Africa that include tonic sol-fa notation and hymns arranged in four vocal parts.8 Several Christian bookshops in South Africa supply copies of Hosanna Hymnal—Tonic Sol-fa (Uniting Reformed Church in South Africa) and the Methodist Hymn Book (Methodist Church of Southern Africa) in various Indigenous languages, including Sepedi, Zulu, and Sesotho, and isiXhosa (see examples in Figures 2.1 and 2.2).9

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 19

Figures 2.3.1 and 2.3.2  Title page and sample hymn in tonic sol-fa notation. Source: From Hosana: Incwadi Yamaculo Yenederduite Gereformeerde Kerk in Afrika Ngesixhosa (Hosanna: Hymnbook of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa in Xhosa) (Bloemfontein: CLF-Uitgewers, 2003). Reproduced with permission from the publisher.

20  Robin S. Stevens

Figures 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 (Continued)

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 21 A case study of the use of tonic sol-fa in contemporary (post-Apartheid) choral music undertaken in 2004–2005 revealed that many African choir directors continue to use tonic sol-fa with their church choirs and congregations (Stevens 2005, 157–67). From the interview data, it was clear that tonic sol-fa is now an integral part of the Indigenous cultural milieu—as one interviewee stated, “Most Africans—they understand tonic sol-fa better than any other music [system]” (Stevens 2005, 161). For all those interviewed, tonic sol-fa had been part of their upbringing and was present in their home, church, community, and/or school lives. As another interviewee put it, “[W]ith black communities . . . we think it’s ours [tonic sol-fa is ours]—and there’s no way we can sing without those tones [sol-fa syllables]” (ibid., 164). One issue that loomed large for nearly all the choir directors was the music notation employed. Tonic sol-fa notation was almost universally used, with the implication that it also provided a sense of community cohesion and cultural identity for the Black population through everyone being “[b]asically tonic sol-fa people” (ibid., 161). Interestingly, it was observed in one of the principal “white” churches in Cape Town that the congregation used hymnbooks with music in staff notation. This points to a racial as well as a cultural divide between Black and white South African church communities in relation to congregational hymn-singing. Case Study 2: Tonic Sol-fa and Hymnody in India Most Protestant missionary activity in India occurred in the northern provinces, where it had a greater hold as a missionary endeavor than Catholicism, which was more dominant in Christian-influenced areas in the south. The first mention of tonic sol-fa being employed by missionaries in India is Alfred Brown’s reference to a young teacher trained in the method being sent to Meerut in northern India in 1861 (TSf Rep 1861, 135). Two years later, it was reported by a Wesleyan missionary, the Reverend Ellis Roberts, that the tonic sol-fa exercises had been adopted by a young native missionary for use by the Khasi people in the northeastern province of Assam (TSf Rep 1863, 139). Later, in 1882, Roberts was in charge of an orphanage in Bangalore in southern India and reported thus: “It struck some of us that they [the orphans] might learn a little Tonic Sol-fa. . . . The friends of the Sol-fa system would be delighted to hear these bright little Hindoo [sic] children doh-me sohing” (TSf Rep 1882, 162). The Reverend W. S. Price, the resident missionary for the Church Missionary Society at Sharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, taught tonic sol-fa at its orphanage and poor asylum. He reportedly used the method not only to promote hymn-singing but also as “a most pleasant auxiliary in the management of so many young people” (TSf Rep 1865, 43). However, the major focus for tonic sol-fa activity was in the northeast province of Assam, where missionaries from such organizations as the Welsh Calvinistic Mission, the Welsh Presbyterian Foreign Mission, and the Baptist Missionary Society promoted the method.10

22  Robin S. Stevens Welsh Missionary Endeavors in the Northeast

The earliest missionary incursions were in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, a district located northeast of the border with what is present-day Bangladesh, and then in Mizoram, a strip of land between what is now Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma). One of the first arrivals in the northeast was the Reverend Robert Evans (1849–1916), a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist missionary who had learned tonic sol-fa at his village school in Wales and who was cited as one of the pioneers of the method in the Khasi Hills (Rees 2002a, 44–45). In 1874, he arrived at Shillong, a hill station in the eastern Khasi Hills, where he established a tonic sol-fa class for young people. While previous attempts to teach singing from staff notation proved unproductive, Evans was able to achieve considerable success using tonic sol-fa. He then moved to the Shangpung District in the adjacent Jaintia Hills, where the musical achievements of the local population had previously been regarded as “hopeless,” and who were rather unkindly described as “the fools of Shangpung” (ibid.). Nevertheless, by 1882, Evans had achieved success with a class of 20 schoolchildren (TSf Rep 1882, 272). Whilst at Shangpung, Evans prepared a handbook explaining the tonic sol-fa method in the Khasi language, which was based on previous work by Eleazar Roberts, a pioneer of tonic sol-fa in Wales (Rees 2002a, 44).11 By 1890, Evans’s teaching and his use of the handbook resulted in “the natives [being] wonderfully expert in learning tunes, and hundreds and thousands can use Tonic Sol-fa notation” (Mus Her 1890, 450). Evans later compiled a book titled Solfa bu (Sol-fa Book), produced in the Lushai language12 and published at Madras by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Press in 1908.13 This book was reprinted in 1914 and revised and reprinted in 1923 under the title Mizo solfa bu (Mizo Sol-fa Book) (Lalzama 1990, 336). Evans’s work in promoting tonic sol-fa was paralleled by other Welsh missionaries working in the lower northeast of India in the Lushai Hills among the Mizo people (who were also referred to as Lushias). Missionaries working in this area included the Reverend Frederick William Savidge (1857–1935) and the Reverend James Herbert Lorrain (1870–1944) from the Baptist Missionary Society, and the Reverend Edwin Rowlands, known locally as Zosapthara, (1867–1937) and the Reverend David Evan Jones (1870–1947) from the Welsh Presbyterian Mission, all of whom promoted hymn-singing as part of their proselytizing endeavors.14 A common love of music by both the Welsh missionaries and the Mizo people has been commented on by Joy Pachua and Willem van Schendel: Many Mizos loved to sing, and they found happy companions in the missionaries who came to live in the hills. Quite a few were from Wales and had been sent out by churches with strong choral traditions. Singing became equally essential [to playing instruments] in the churches of Mizoram. As a Governor of Assam, in inimitably essentialist terms,

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 23 once put it: “The Welsh have a special affinity for the Lushais as the Lushais are as musical as they are”. Soon choirs were formed, and these became a fixture of social life that persists today. (Pachuau and Schendel 2015, 40–41) Lorrain and Savidge arrived at Aizawl in Mizoram at the beginning of 1894 and were joined in their work there by Jones in August 1897 and by Rowlands at the end of 1898 (Killacky 2002, 124). Despite their being affiliated with different missionary organizations, there was cooperation among the missionaries in contributing to a series of hymnbooks first published in 1899 (ibid.) The words of English and Welsh hymns were translated into the Mizo language, and the hymnbooks continued to be printed in revised and enlarged editions with tonic sol-fa notation until at least the end of the 1980s (Lalzama 1990, 310). As experience in other areas of missionary work had shown, teaching singing from staff notation with its more complex system of symbols—as opposed to tonic sol-fa’s more accessible system of letters and punctuation marks—was problematic. From the outset of his work at Aizawl, Savidge had introduced tonic sol-fa to the local Mizo people (ibid., 333). Edwin Rowlands had previously been a schoolmaster in Texas, USA, and David Jones had been his predecessor there. Rowlands was fluent in tonic sol-fa as well as having a fine singing voice, which greatly impressed the local people (Hminga 1987, 52). Both Rowlands and Jones were gifted linguists and produced not only hymnbooks with words in Mizo but also translated books from the New Testament into the Lushai language, as well as publishing religious tracts and school textbooks in Lushai (Indus n.d.). In the meantime, with the Khasi and Mizo churches effectively working as one, Welsh missionaries produced hymnbooks in tonic sol-fa notation in the local languages from the second decade of the twentieth century. As outlined earlier, Robert Evans produced his instructional book Solfa Bu in 1910; a revised and reprinted edition, Lusei Hla bu (Lushai Hymn Book), in 1923; and Lusei Hla bu solfa nen (Lushai Hymn Book with Sol-fa names) in 1926 (Lalzama 1990, 336). In addressing the influence that tonic sol-fa had on the Mizo community, Lalzama has commented that: The introduction of tonic solfa in the school as well as the church and the frequent publications of the [instructional] book[s] of solfa gradually spread the knowledge of [the] tonic solfa system in the whole of Mizoram. It had become quite familiar [to] the Mizo Christians especially with the church leaders. (ibid., 337) One missionary who was a prominent tonic sol-fa advocate was Catherine (Katie) Hughes (1889–1963). Hughes was a member of the Presbyterian Church of Wales, Charing Cross in England, where she developed her musical talent and had trained as a schoolteacher (Rees 2002e, 63–64;

24  Robin S. Stevens Thangtungnung 2012, 241–22). Accepted for missionary work in 1924, she sailed that year for India, where she took charge of the Girls School at Aizawl. Hughes became a highly skilled tonic sol-fa teacher, and because of her fine singing voice, she was given the name Pi Zali (the singer, or “Madam Singer”) by the Mizo community (Rees 2002e, 63). Hughes went on to establish singing classes and choirs all over the district, contributing greatly to an improved standard of choral singing, particularly among Mizo women (Thangtungnung 2012, 241–42). Over the following decades, the Welsh missions, and later the Khasi and Mizo churches, produced several tonic sol-fa publications, many of which were compiled by Hughes with the assistance of local Mizo people. Many of these publications were reprinted several times during the 1950s and 1960s (Lalzama 1990, 337–38). The significance of Hughes’s musical leadership and promotion of tonic sol-fa has been aptly summed up by Lalzama with the statement: “Knowledge of tonic solfa kindled a great interest in hymns and music of all kinds among the Mizo and the choir[s] could be formed and organised in every church in the whole of Mizoram” (Lalzama 1990, 341). Hughes’s work in developing a choral music culture and tonic sol-fa as the means of music reading in Mizoram was the culmination of similar endeavors by Welsh missionaries over several decades, and her efforts in particular were recognized by the local Aizwal community, who built a memorial hall to commemorate her (Rees 2002e, 64). Contemporary Use of Tonic Sol-fa in India’s Northeastern States

Internet searches confirm that a vibrant choral music culture is present in Mizoram and its neighboring states of Assam and Manipur, and that this is largely based on the use of tonic sol-fa by local churches and other community groups. Several hymn, anthem, and song books, including websites with downloadable music in tonic sol-fa notation, have been produced by local church groups and individuals. In addition to hymnbooks using staff notation listed in the bibliography for her doctoral thesis, Joanna Heath (2016) includes a selection of Mizo hymnbooks in tonic sol-fa notation published during recent decades by the combined Presbyterian and Baptist Synod Literature and Publications Board and by the Baptist Church of Mizoram, as well as some privately published hymnbooks in tonic sol-fa (see Heath 2019; Lalzama 1990, 323). There are also online sources for hymns that have downloadable pages of both words and tonic sol-fa notation. One of the most comprehensive is an app for the Android platform titled Kristian Hla Bu. Last updated in May 2020, this app includes image files from the eighteenth edition of the Christian Hymn Book published in 2005 by the Synod Literature and Publications Board, Aizawl, Mizoram.15 Some 600 hymns with words and music of both British and local (Mizo) origin in four-part harmony may be downloaded for printing.

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 25 A similar online resource with downloadable image files of hymns in tonic sol-fa notation is Fakna Hla (Solfa) by Ronald Lalramsaong.16 Yet another online resource originating from Mizoram that is now possibly inactive is the Ralte Tonic Sol-fa Series, claimed by its editor Steven Lalsangliana Ralte to be the “world’s only blog for Tonic Sol-fa sheet music.”17 Aside from providing an overview of the origins and pedagogy of the tonic sol-fa method, specific pieces of music in tonic sol-fa notation may be requested through the website or through Facebook. Case Study 3: Tonic Sol-fa and Hymnody in the South Pacific: Tonga and Fiji Tonic sol-fa was widely propagated throughout the Pacific Islands almost exclusively by Christian missionaries. Four-part hymn-singing by missionaries, when first heard by Pacific Islanders, was frequently regarded by Indigenous people “as a form of recreational amusement in the void left by missionary prohibitions,” and the missionaries themselves exploited the attraction of hymn-singing as a means of evangelizing Indigenous population (Stillman 1996, 469). The tonic sol-fa method gained an initial foothold in Tonga but was subsequently adapted into a tonic numeral as opposed to a tonic sol-fa form, whereas in Fiji, the method was adopted in its entirety in the Methodist Church in particular to the extent that it has now been fully assimilated into the musical culture of congregational hymn-singing. Adaptation of Tonic Sol-fa in Tonga

The first missionaries to come to Tonga were from the London Missionary Society in the late 1700s, but these early attempts failed, and it was not until 1822 that the first Wesleyan missionary, the Reverend Walter Lawry (1793–1859), arrived in Tonga (Gunson 1978, 17–18). However, rivalries developed between different churches—the Wesleyans and the Free Church of Tonga—and this was not fully resolved until the “reconciliation” of 1924 with the formation of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga (Cummins 1978, 103). Tonic sol-fa appears to have been introduced to Tonga during the early years of Wesleyan missionary activity. However, in the 1860s, the Reverend Dr. James E. Moulton (1841–1909), who was founder and first principal of the Tupou College18 and the composer of several hymn texts in Tongan, decided to discard Curwen’s solmization syllables in favor of Tongan note names and a system of numeral notation (Moyle 1987, 25–26). This somewhat-drastic action was, however, entirely warranted, given the cultural and religious context of that time—unfortunately, the first two solmization names when sounding consecutively formed a word in Tongan which was inappropriate for saying in public.19 Moulton therefore decided to substitute numeral names for the sol-fa names—starting on 3 for the tonic and progressing to 9

26  Robin S. Stevens for the leading note—presumably in order to correlate as closely as possible with the pronunciation of the original sol-fa syllables. He also replaced the first letters of the tonic sol-fa syllables with numerals to develop a Tongan form of music notation. However, Moulton retained the tonic sol-fa method of notating rhythm with bar lines and punctuation marks. The Tongan tonic numeral method was widely used for notating of music throughout the Tongan islands and was also employed in Samoa, where it was reported in 1916 that “figure” notation was being used (Mus Her 1916, 200). Adoption of Tonic Sol-fa in Fiji

Christian evangelizing in Fiji, initially by three Tahitian missionaries sent by the London Missionary Society, and later by European missionaries, was undertaken from the 1830s. Early missionaries included David Cargill (1809–1843) from the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, who was initially located in Tonga before going to Fiji, where he worked with the Reverend William Cross (1797–1842) and others to lay the foundations for Wesleyan Methodism as the predominant denomination in Fiji.20 The earliest report of tonic sol-fa being introduced to Fiji was in 1873 by two Wesleyan missionaries, the Reverend J. H. Simmonds (1846–1936) and the Reverend J. Carey (d. 1914), who were stationed at the town of Levuka on the island of Ovalau. They promoted tonic sol-fa among the European population as well as local Fijians and prepared a collection of tunes and exercises in the Fijian language for the Indigenous community (TSf Rep 1873, 59). Wendy Ratawa lists several Fijian musical genres that have a mixture of both traditional and non-traditional features. She separates these genres into pre-contact and post-contact and notes that the sere nilotu (hymns) show strong evidence of transcultural musical styles (Ratawa 1995, 11). This genre refers to both congregational hymns and choir anthems that are sung in unaccompanied four-part harmony, have European melodic and harmonic features, and are specifically related to the nineteenth-century Protestant hymn repertoire (ibid., 16). Ratawa expands on the notion of the transcultural hymn by asserting that it was: probably the greatest influence on . . . tonal material in Fijian song [was] the diatonic scale [that] came to Fiji in two ways: from the European influence using prescribed tonic solfa, and from the Tongan influence in the polotu which was orally transmitted. They are most probably inter-related. (ibid., 17)21 According to Ratawa, tonic sol-fa is “enthusiastically used by Fijian choir singers who customarily rehearse new repertoire using the solfa syllables before they commence learning the Fijian text” (ibid.). She also mentions that:

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 27 Western based harmony in Hymns is deliberately taught to Fijian children and youth. The tonic solfa style of training with fixed four-part harmonisation is passed on to the children by their Sunday school teachers, and in the household singing of hymns in family devotionals. (ibid.) As with the present-day situation in South Africa (Stevens 2004), tonic sol-fa is currently the most widely used form of music notation and therefore the most widely accepted music teaching system among Indigenous Fijians involved with community and church choral music. Although Fijians have a rich and diverse musical culture, congregational hymn-singing is one of the most important forms of musical expression and, with about 85% of the Indigenous Fijian population being affiliated with the Methodist Church (Russell 2001, 212), of religious expression as well. The sere nilotu is one of several Fijian and specifically Labasan22 musical genres identified by Ratawa that includes both congregational hymns and choir anthems (Ratawa 1991, 165). The main source of hymns for Fijians is Ai Vola ni Sere (Fijian Hymn Book), which was published most recently in 1985 by Methodist Church Press, Suva. This hymnal includes over 400 hymns arranged in four parts and notated exclusively in tonic sol-fa. Transcriptions of other choral music from staff into tonic sol-fa notation are widely used by Fijian choirs. An additional point made by Ratawa is that hymns (sere nilotu) and patriotic songs (sere nivanua) were used by Fijian protesters as a means of “selfdefinition” when, in July 1989, they sang hymns on roadsides during their blockading of Hindu and Muslim Indian truck drivers who were working on the Christian day of rest. This ban by Indigenous Fijian Methodists on leaving the house on Sunday for anything other than church attendance was seen by the Indian population as Indigenous conservatism opposing foreign modernization and capitalism (Ratawa 1991, 165). Many local as well as overseas Fijian congregations enter choirs in annual choral competitions held all over Fiji, with the major choral competition being held in August as part of the Methodist Church Conference in Suva. Anecdotal evidence from conversations with members of a local Fijian congregation in Melbourne, Australia, who have entered a choir in the annual Methodist Church Conference choral competition in Suva annually for several years suggests that a vast majority, if not all, of these choirs use the tonic sol-fa method and notation as the basis for their choral work. My own observations while attending a Fijian church service in Melbourne in 2000 were that the members of the congregation were musically literate—singing from tonic sol-fa notation to harmonize in four-part harmony. Conclusion Several aspects emerge as significant in any consideration of the role that tonic sol-fa has had and continues to have in relation to congregational

28  Robin S. Stevens hymn-singing in former British colonies or protectorates. As has been discussed, the introduction of the tonic sol-fa method and its notation by missionaries as the means of promoting hymnody during the nineteenth century also represents the imposition of a foreign musical genre that largely deposed traditional Indigenous music. This was the case not only in the examples of South Africa, India, and the Pacific Islands that have been considered in this chapter but also in the situation in several other countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Botswana in Africa and Madagascar, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Japan, China, and so on that came under European colonial influences to greater or lesser extents. However, the point remains that many local Indigenous communities embraced congregational hymn-singing and extended their music-making to choral performances of well-known works from the Western musical canon. As time went on, and with an increasing degree of emancipation from both missionary and colonial influences, local Indigenous communities, through their own agency, have continued to utilize tonic sol-fa, and indeed, the method and its notation have become “Indigenized” as an exogenous part of both their religious lives and the wider cultural milieu. Indigenous composers and compilers of hymnals have utilized tonic sol-fa not only to notate hymns and other religious music but also, as was the method’s pedagogical intent, as a mnemonic aid to realizing the four-part harmonizations of hymn tunes. Another factor that is not always explicitly stated is nevertheless evident in South Africa to the present day. Despite the dismantling of the Apartheid system, remnants of a racial divide still persist in South Africa, as well as in Fiji (between the Indian and Indigenous populations). This was very apparent when data was being collected for the 2005 case study of community and church choral music. As outlined, Indigenous (Black) choirs and church congregations use hymnals and other choral scores that are in tonic sol-fa notation, whereas in predominantly white churches, hymnals in staff notation are used. Although this situation does not exist to the same extent in northeast India or the Pacific islands, the fact is that local communities continue to use tonic sol-fa notation, whereas European and Western-trained inhabitants rely on staff notation. Indeed, the continued use of tonic sol-fa may, for some, represent an important aspect of their cultural identity. Although there appears to be a commitment by leaders in church music communities and by other musicians in South Africa, Mizoram, and Fiji to tonic sol-fa notation, the experience of choir directors competing in choral competitions in the Cape Town area in 2004 was that tonic sol-fa notation was being progressively replaced with staff notation when their music involved a more sophisticated and complex repertoire (Stevens 2005). This issue has particular relevance in a more globalized world, where the means of communication has become increasingly standardized. Nevertheless, present indications are that the Indigenous populations in Mizoram, Fiji, and South Africa adhere to the Victorian method of tonic sol-fa for congregational hymn-singing. This practice may endure well into the future as an

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 29 inheritance from their colonial pasts that, for the present at least, may be said to have been Indigenized. Tayyab Mahmud (1999, 1220) makes the point that consideration of Europe’s colonial enterprises is fundamental to modern constructions of race, and that these colonial encounters facilitated a relationship of domination and subordination by colonists of Indigenous people. He further maintains that the relationship of colonialism to Indigenous people is not only one of domination but also one of difference, with race being the primary marker of difference. Another writer, Audrey Smedley (1999, 690–95), maintains that race is essentially a cultural invention reflecting social meanings imposed on physical difference. She further posits that, in colonial settings, race served as a form of social identification and stratification, and that race (as well as the physical features attendant to it) was, in these contexts, a dominant source of human identity, superseding all other aspects of a person’s identity. Given that Christian missionaries acting under the auspices of colonial administrations attempted to displace the belief systems of Indigenous populations, there was an attempt not only to dominate and subordinate local people but also to recast their identities in terms of colonial belief systems. As has been demonstrated in South Africa, Mizoram, and the Pacific islands of Tonga and Fiji, part of Christian missionary evangelizing was the use of tonic sol-fa as a medium though which hymn-singing could be promoted and, in turn, religious dogma inculcated in colonial populations. The net result in the three locations considered in this chapter is that the majority of Indigenous people now utilize tonic sol-fa for their music reading—“making it their own” (Stevens 2004)—whereas many non-Indigenous Christian populations, particularly those of European backgrounds, do not use tonic sol-fa, relying instead on staff notation. Accordingly, hymn-singing from tonic sol-fa may be viewed as an integral part of the musical identity of these Indigenous populations and may therefore represent a link between constructions of race and living traditions of hymn-singing. Notes 1 The term “endogenous” in this context refers to aspects of cultural/social identity originating or developing from inside the culture, whereas the term “exogenous” refers to those aspects originating from outside the culture. See Stevens (2007). 2 For details of Glover’s method, see Glover (1835). See also Southcott (2020). 3 For a fuller explanation of the tonic sol-fa method and a history of its propagation in Victorian England, see McGuire (2009, 9–29). 4 The preface to this hymnbook is reproduced in Lucia (2005, 18). 5 Kaffraria was a tribal area in eastern Cape where the Indigenous language was isiXhosa. 6 For a complete listing of all of Bokwe’s compositions, see Olwage (2003, 210–12). 7 See Nelani (2021) for a comprehensive discussion of colonial first- and secondgeneration Indigenous composers (Chapters  3 and 4) and post-colonial Indigenous composers (Chapter 5).

30  Robin S. Stevens 8 For a listing of some of these published between 1871 and 1969, see Jones (1976). 9 See a catalogue of hymnbooks available from Gospel Initiative at gospelinitiative.com/product-category/hymn-books/, CUM Books at cumbooks.co.za/ search?q=hymnal and Littera, accessed December  20, 2022, www.littera.co.za/ product-category/music. 10 In the 1960s and 1970s, the then State of Assam was divided into three new states: Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Mizoram. 11 Roberts’s main tonic sol-fa publication was Llawlyfry tonic sol-ffa (1862). 12 The Lushai language is spoken by Mongol hill people inhabiting the mountainous region between India and what was then called Upper Burma. 13 A copy of this book is held in the British Library. Shelfmark: Asia, Pacific  & Africa 14180.c.12(2). 14 For biographical details, see Rees 2002b, 209 (Savidge), Rees 2002c, 121 (Lorrain), and Rees 2002d, 80–81 (Jones). For Rolands, see Killacky (2002, 123–25). 15 This app, accessed December 8, 2020, play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com. zofate.kristianhlabu. 16 See this website, accessed December  8, 2020, sites.google.com/site/ronald lalramsanga19/fakna-hla-solfa. 17 The website is at raltetonicsolfaseries.wordpress.com/, and Facebook access is at www.facebook.com/RalteTonicSolFa/. Note that the posting to the blog was in June 2011. 18 Tupou College was established in 1866 by the Wesleyans and is now the oldest secondary school still operating in the Pacific Islands. 19 The first two solmization syllables represented the Tongan word for vagina when sounded consecutively; cited in Moyle, Tongan Music, 26. 20 “Cargill Diary (Administrative/Biographical history),” MundusGateway, accessed April 26, 2005, www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/52/1038.htm. 21 Note that the Tongan polotu is a Christian narrative celebration consisting of singing, speeches, and prayer usually performed at night and is accompanied by a triangle or struck metal objects. 22 Labasa is in the north of the Fijian island of Vanua Levu.

References Bethke, Andrew-John. 2019. “Ingoma and St Matthew’s Tune Book: Two South African Missionary Tonic Sol-Fa Hymn-Tune Collections.” Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa 16 (1–2): 1–27. Birkett, Christopher. 1871. Ingoma or Penult Psalm Tunes Composed for the Use of Native Churches in South Africa, Part I. London: Tonic Sol-Fa Agency. Coplan, David B. 1985. In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre. London and New York: Longman. Cummins, H. G. 1978. “The Archives of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga.” Journal of Pacific History 13 (2): 102–6. Du Plessis, J. 1911. A History of Christian Missions in South Africa. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Erlmann, Veit. 1994. “ ‘Africa Civilised, Africa Uncivilised’: Local Culture, World System and South African Music.” Journal of Southern African Studies 20 (2): 165–79. Glover, Sarah Anna. 1835. Scheme for Rendering Psalmody Congregational. Norwich: Jarrold and Sons. Gospel Initiative. n.d. “Hymn Books.” Accessed December 24, 2022. www.gospelinitiative.com/product-category/hymn-books/. Gunson, Neil. 1978. Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas, 1797–1860. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 31 Heath, Joanna. 2016. “Khawhar Zai: Voices of Hope in the Bereavement Singing of Mizo Christians in Northeast India.” PhD thesis, Durham University. ———. 2019. “Overcoming Dissonance: Choral and Congregational Songs in Mizoram.” Accessed November 26, 2020. www.sahapedia.org/overcoming-dissonance-choraland-congregational-songs-mizoram. Henning, C. G. 1979. “Daines, Thomas.” In South African Music Encyclopedia, Vol. I, edited by J. P. Malan, 307. Cape Town: Oxford University. Hminga, Chhangte Lala. 1987. The Life and Witness of the Churches in Mizoram. Mizoram: Literature Committee, Baptist Church of Mizoram. Huskisson, Yvonne. 1969. Music of the Bantu. South Africa: University College of the North. Indus: The Free Archival Encyclopedia of South Asia. n.d. “Mizoram 1870–1926: Christianity and Literacy.” Accessed November  23, 2020. www.indpaedia.com/ ind/index.php/Mizoram_1870-1926:_Christianity_and_literacy. Jones, A. M. 1976. African Hymnody in Christian Worship: A Contribution to the History of Its Development. Gwelo: Mambo Press. Killacky, Christopher. 2002. “Lushai Missionary Society.” In Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India 1800–1970, edited by D. Ben Rees, 123–25. Pasadena: William Carey Library. Kirby, P. R. 1979. “Sontonga, Enoch.” In South African Music Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, edited by J. P. Malan, 245. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Lalramsanga, Ronald. n.d. “Fakna Hla (Solfa).” Accessed December 6, 2020. www. sites.google.com/site/ronaldlalramsanga19/fakna-hla-solfa. Lalzama. 1990. “Growth and Development of the Mizo Language and Literature with Special Reference to the Contribution Made by Christian Missionaries from 1897 to 1947.” PhD thesis, Gauhati University. Littera. n.d. “Music & Songbooks.” Accessed December 24, 2022. www.littera.co.za/ product-category/music. Lucia, Christine. 2005. The World of South African Music: A  Reader. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Malan, J. P. 1979a. “Grahamstown.” In South African Music Encyclopedia, Vol. II, edited by J. P. Malan, 130. Cape Town: Oxford University. ———. 1979b. “Bokwe, John Knox.” In South African Music Encyclopedia, Vol. I, edited by J. P. Malan, 201–2. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Mahmud, Tayyab. 1999. “Colonialism and Modern Constructions of Race: A Preliminary Inquiry.” University of Miami Law Review 53 (4): 1219–46. McGuire, Charles Edward. 2009. Music and Victorian Philanthropy: The Tonic Solfa Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moyle, Richard. 1987. Tongan Music. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Muller, Carol Ann. 2004. South African Music: A Century of Traditions in Transformation. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, Denver and Oxford: ABC-CLIO. Mundus Gateway. n.d. “Cargill Diary (Administrative/Biographical History).” Accessed April 26, 2005. www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/52/1038.htm. The Musical Herald, 1891–1916. Nelani, Athenkosi. 2021. “The Prominence of Choral Music in the Search for, and Preservation of, an African Identity: A Study focusing on the Role of Choral Composers in the Formation of Black Nationalism during and after the Colonial Era in South Africa.” MMus thesis, Rhodes University. Nettel, Reginald. 1945. Music in the Five Towns, 1840–1914: A Study of the Social Influence of Music in an Industrial District. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

32  Robin S. Stevens Okon, Erim E. 2014. “Christian Missions and Colonial Rule in Africa: Objective and Contemporary Analysis.” European Scientific Journal 10 (17): 192–209. Olwage, Grant. 2003.“Music and (Post) Colonialism: The Dialectics of Choral Culture on a South African Frontier.” PhD thesis, Rhodes University. ———. 2006. “John Knox Bokwe, Colonial Composer: Tales About Race and Music.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 131 (1): 1–37. Pachuau, Joy L. K., and van Schendel, Willem. 2015. The Camera as Witness: A Social History of Mizoram, Northeast India. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Pieters, Vivienne. 2021. “Music and Presbyterianism at Lovedale Missionary Institute 1841–1955.” PhD thesis, University of South Africa. Rainbow, Bernarr. 1967. The Land Without Music: Musical Education in England 1800–1860 and Its Continental Antecedents. London: Novello. Ralte, Steven Lalsangliana. n.d. “Choral Music in Tonic Sol-Fa.” Accessed December 24, 2022. www.raltetonicsolfaseries.wordpress.com/ and www.facebook.com/ RalteTonicSolFa/. Ratawa, Wendy. 1991. “Fijian Vocal Music and the Vanua: A  Field Study from Labasa, Vanua Levu.” MA thesis, Deakin University. ———. 1995. “Fijian Methodist Music.” South Pacific Journal of Mission Studies 13: 11–20. Rees, D. Ben. 2002a. “Evans, Robert (1849–1916).” In Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India 1800–1970, edited by D. Ben Rees, 44–45. Pasadena: William Carey Library. ———. 2002b. “Savidge, Frederick William (1857–1935).” In Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India 1800–1970, edited by D. Ben Rees, 209. Pasadena: William Carey Library. ———. 2002c. “Lorrain, James Herbert (1870–1944).” In Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India 1800–1970, edited by D. Ben Rees, 121. Pasadena: William Carey Library. ———. 2002d. “Jones, David Evan (1870–1947),” In Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India 1800–1970, edited by D. Ben Rees, 80–81. Pasadena: William Carey Library. ———. 2002e. “Hughes, Catherine (Katie) (1889–1963).” In Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India 1800–1970, edited by D. Ben Rees, 63–64. Pasadena: William Carey Library. Roberts, Eleazar. 1862. Llawlyfry Tonic Sol-Fa. Wrexhan, Wales: Hughes a’I Fab. Russell, Joan. 2001. “Born to Sing: Fiji’s ‘Singing Culture’ and Implications for Music Education in Canada.” McGill Journal of Education 136 (3): 197–218. Shepherd, Robert H. W. 1941. Lovedale, South Africa: The Story of a Century, 1841– 1941. Lovedale: Lovedale Press. Smedley, Audrey. 1999. “ ‘Race’ and the Construction of Human Identity.” American Anthropologist 100 (3): 690–702. Southcott, Jane. 2020. Sarah Anna Glover: Nineteenth Century Music Education Pioneer. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Stevens, Robin S. 2004. “Making It Their Own: The Indigenisation of the Curwen Method and Notation in South Africa.” In Proceedings of ISME’s 26th World Conference 2004—Part 2, 180–86. Tenerife, Spain: ISME. Accessed February 18, 2023. www.isme.org/sites/default/files/documents/26%2Bworld%2Bconference%2Bproc eedings_2of2.pdf.

Tonic Sol-fa Abroad 33 ———. 2005. “Tonic Sol-Fa in Contemporary Choral Music Practice: A South African Case Study.” In Australian Association for Research in Music Education: Proceedings of the XXVIIth Annual Conference: Reviewing the Future, edited by Peter de Vries, 157–67. Melbourne: AARME. ———. 2007. “Tonic Sol-Fa: An Exogenous Aspect of South African Musical Identity.” In Music and Identity: Transformation and Negotiation, edited by Eric Akrofi, Maria Smit, and Stig-Magnus Thorsén, 37–51. Stellenbosch: Sun Press. Stillman, Amy Ku’uleialoha. 1996. “Beyond Bibliography: Interpreting HawaiianLanguage Protestant Hymn Imprints.” Ethnomusicology 40 (3): 469–88. Synod Literature and Publications Board, Aizawi, Mizoram. 2005. “Kristina Hla Bu 18th (Revised).” Accessed December  8, 2020. www.play.google.com/store/apps/ details?id=com.zofate.kristianhlabu. Thangtungnung, H. 2012. “Anglo-Lushai Relations, 1890–1947.” PhD thesis, Department of History, Manipur University. The Tonic Sol-Fa Reporter, 1861–1890. White, Timothy Raymond Howard. 1987. “Lovedale 1930–1955: The Study of a Missionary Institution in its Social, Educational and Political Context.” MA thesis, Rhodes University.

3 Global Mobility Hymns and Worship Practices in the Miao (Hmong) Ethnic Group of Southwest China Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟) Hymns and worship are two core components of Christianity that have been disseminated among people of many ethnicities throughout the world. In Southwest China, a subgroup of the Miao/Hmong people called A-Hmao (or Ad Hmaob) 阿卯1 has embraced Christianity for over a century. This chapter has two case studies involving A-Hmao Christian communities located in Guizhou Province and Yunnan Province (Figure 3.1), where we find differences in the hymnody and worship between the A-Hmao communities, even though they have been localized since the Western missionaries preached Christianity to the A-Hmao people in the early twentieth century. Recently, there has been a great deal of research on Chinese Christianity and music concerning the history of Western missionary work (Gong 2016), hymnody (Chen 2003; Lin 2009), localization (Xu 2020; Yang 2022), and Christian music in various ethnic groups of China (Xu 2015; Yang 2011). Most studies regarding the hymns and worship of ethnic groups pay more attention to the Christian ritual music, impacted by localization and modernization (Hua 2007; Sun 2015; Yang 2008). Apart from the Christian music research topic, the interaction of Christianity and the state as well as modernity is widely discussed (Huang 2014; Huang and Yang 2018; Hu 2022; Wang 2014). We find that in the field of A-Hmao Christian music, very few studies capture new trends of global mobility that have currently emerged among the A-Hmao Christian communities. In this chapter, two authors from China will present anthropological and ethnomusicological perspectives on transformation and syncretism in hymns and worship practices, through two case studies concerned with the A-Hmao ethnic group, a subgroup of Miao/Hmong in China. The first case study will outline a historical overview of Western missionary work in the Miao region of Southwest China to discuss why and how the A-Hmao youths from the church community of Guizhou Province are shifting the tradition of Christian worship to the tradition of Miao Indigenous practices. The second case study will elaborate on the syncretic hymns and worship practices in the A-Hmao Christian community of Yunnan, and how these hymns were shaped by per­ forming in social activities, developing various styles and forms of performances for both religion and secularization as a representation of diversity. DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-3

Global Mobility 35

Figure 3.1 The region where A-Hmao live (circled area). Source: China Discovery (n.d.).

Youth’s Revitalization: Shifting Miao Christian Hymnody to Indigenous Practice Shujin Zhang

In Southwest China, missionaries at the turn of the twentieth century spread Protestantism among some ethnic groups that inhabited the region. Now, in the northwest of the Guizhou Province, the A-Hmao people, who mainly reside in the Bijie area, especially in the Hezhang and Weining counties, are more than 90% Christians (Hezhang and Weining Counties’ Government 2019). Recently, A-Hmao youths have been reframing their Christian traditional hymnody by returning to Indigenous styles.2 To understand this cultural phenomenon, I  undertook an ethnomusico­ logical study in Hezhang and Weining counties. Before their conversion to Christianity, the A-Hmao people were polytheists with animistic beliefs. They also had a musical culture that included Feige 飞歌 (mountain songs) and Lusheng 芦笙 (a Miao reed pipe). They were originally proselytized by Dang Juren 党居仁 (J. R. Adams, 1863–1915), a missionary of the China Inland Mission, and Bo Geli 柏格理 (Samuel Pollard, 1864–1915),3 a missionary of the Methodist Church of Great Britain. Due to the introduction

36  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟)

Figure 3.2 The musical scale of Pollard script notation refers to tonic sol-fa notation from Britain. Source: Hua (n.d.).

of Christianity, Western Christian practices replaced Miao Indigenous customs, and the Christian Church dominated the organizational structure of the communities (Dong 2003; Wu 2006; Zhang 1992). The crucial changes began in 1930 when an American missionary, Liu Gusen 刘谷森,4 came to one of the most prosperous churches of the A-Hmao, Gebu Church. Liu’s wife was a musician and came to teach the A-Hmao fourpart chorus singing. In 1939, the couple gathered the pastoral workers of Gebu Church to standardize the “Pollard script” notation (Figure 3.2.) and compiled The Hymnal, which contains 213 hymns. From 1943 to 1949, an Australian missionary Luo Weide 罗伟德 entered the Gebu Church. In 1946, he and the staff of Gebu Church collated The Hymnal, adding 62 more hymns and renaming them (Sacred Songs for the Lord) (Figure 3.3), containing 275 hymns. In 1948, Yang Guoguang 杨国 光, a music teacher at the Gebu Bible School, brought this collection of hymns

Global Mobility 37

Figure 3.3 

(Sacred Songs for the Lord) No. 134.

Source: A-Hmao Church (2010).

to Kunming in Yunnan Province for printing and use by the Miao churches in Yunnan and Guizhou. Sacred Songs for the Lord is still in common use today.5 The lyrics of the songs are enshrined with theological ideas. During fieldwork, I asked several A-Hmao Christians why singing was at the core of their spiritual practice. One interviewee, “Z,” summed it up by saying that spiritual songs and joy are the way of life in the kingdom of heaven.6 He also felt that God used these songs to save and comfort suffering people, to remove the deep pain inflicted upon the Miao by more than thousands of years of migration and oppression. So they worship God with one heart and soul and enjoy the joy of grace, feeling that no hardship or danger could stop them from worshipping and praising.

38  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟)

Figure 3.4 The Chinese and English versions of No. 134. Source: Crosby (n.d.).

Recently, the A-Hmao people have started composing spiritual songs and songbooks using the melodies they created, which the local elders are very fond of. During the singing and transmission of the spiritual songs, they permeate their aesthetic interests, collating passages from different popular spiritual songs (Figure 3.5). As a result, they gained a great deal of subjectivity and selfemergence in their music. However, they generally considered the creation of spiritual songs to be entirely inspired by the Holy Spirit, with no emphasis on

Global Mobility 39

Figure 3.5 Local spiritual song sung by the congregation of Dajie church (arr., transcribed and translated by Shujin Zhang).

any self-composition or expression. Thus, their subjectivity was hidden under their Christian identity. This also set the stage for intergenerational conflict.7 In my fieldwork, I encountered a local youth, “L,” who has become my key cultural narrator. “L” was born and raised in a conservative Christian family

40  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟)

Figure 3.6 “L” and his Dlix ad nal 丽阿娜 performing team holding Lusheng and posing by a stream. Source: Picture courtesy of “L” (August 5, 2019).

in Xinglong village, a church community as famous as Gebu. During middle school, “L” began doubting his faith. Eventually, while studying economics at Guizhou University, “L” fell in love with the Miao Indigenous instrument Lusheng8 and became the first Miao in Northwest Guizhou to promote the modified Lusheng in Southeast Guizhou, despite local opposition. The previous cultural traditions surrounding the Lusheng in Northwest Guizhou were relatively monotonous. In functional contexts such as rituals and weddings, the Lusheng became extinct in Christian areas and marginalized in others, apart from in the traditional Miao festival, Hua-shan-jie 花山 节, where it is used as a dance prop. “L” studied different ways of performing the Lusheng from Northwest Guizhou, which included delicate staged performances, varied Lusheng structures, and a diverse repertoire, which “L” reintroduced to the local community, revitalizing and reconstructing the diverse and performance-oriented culture of the Lusheng. “L” revived the Lusheng in the village of Xinglong and changed the villagers’ attitudes toward the Lusheng. Previously, generations of people in Xinglong had no idea about the Lusheng, so they rejected it initially. To mitigate this, “L” adopted a progressive cultural strategy. He started by practicing on his rooftop, playing for neighbors, and publicly performing at a neighbor’s wedding. This was the first time the traditional Miao instrument was incorporated into Christian liturgy in the local community. In 2017, “L” performed the Lusheng at a local festival in front of the whole community and encouraged youths in the village to form a performing team he called Dlix ad nal. After slowly gaining a reputation, “L” began to perform in different places while learning about Miao traditional cultures. In the summer of 2019, “L” organized a visit to several Miao villages for A-Hmao college students so they could teach the Miao music and language. This time, “L” received praise and support from the villagers, and many people became willing to send their children to attend classes at the training center. Since then, the revitalization and reconstruction of the Lusheng in Northwest Guizhou

Global Mobility 41

Figure 3.7 Image showing “L” teaching the A-Hmao children and the college students Lusheng fingering at the training site. Source: Photo by Shujin Zhang (July 22, 2019).

has been very successful, despite previous resistance, which has subsided due to the efforts of “L.” The Dlix ad nal community is now transforming into a hybrid “third space” due to the mixing of different ethnic groups, cultures, and languages. Hybridization is a strategy employed by the colonized to question and subvert the hegemonic position of their colonizer’s culture. Such a process of inter-subjectivity, in which the colonizer and the colonized mix with each other, allows all cultural systems to form a “third space.” It eliminates the “authenticity” and “essentiality” of culture and opens the possibility of creating and generating new meanings (Bhabha 1994). The A-Hmao youths’ “third space” has been created by learning and revitalizing A-Hmao Indigenous culture, rehearsing and participating in various cultural performances, and producing handwritten materials to promote their activities and summer or winter youth gatherings and training. In Summary After Christianity was introduced, the community formed a Western Christian folklore system and identity, which marginalized Miao Indigenous customs as the material representation outside, with Western Christianity as part of the spiritual and social core. However, upon entering the modern era, the original single Christian folklore system is now becoming a hybrid multicultural ecology. Within this new hybrid ecology, the A-Hmao people are experiencing a “crisis of identity” (Hall 1996, 595–634). Prior to more recently encountering

42  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟) modern Chinese society, cultural categories such as ethnicity, religion, and status in the early twentieth century provided them with a clear sense of self as “Miao Christians.” However, their identities are increasingly becoming fragmented, dislocated, and decentered. Regarding the Miao youths, inner anxieties of identification are catalyzed by the transformation that has come about through the change of their cultural ecology, which has become hybridized. This has prompted them to study and revive the Miao Indigenous music of Northwest Guizhou. These youths have tried to build a multi-dimensional identity of the “modern Miao” as a cultural adaptation strategy through music, as it is an important medium connecting the inner hometowns to the outside world. When they are home, they use music to worship and maintain a communal Christian identity. When they go out and leave their hometowns to reside in other places, they can move closer to the non-Christian mainstream Miao of Southeast Guizhou, to avoid the marginalized identity of A-Hmao Christians, having transcended different internal branches, while gaining a greater sense of identity as being part of the Miao community in China. The preceding phenomenon also shows intergenerational tensions in the cultural identity of the Miao. How are these tensions being resolved within the community? The story of “L” shows that one way could be through engagement and the consensual compromise of the elders. “L” told me in an interview that he would be baptized soon, an act of deference as opposed to an outward act of internalized religious belief (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38–39). He was doing this to avoid being rejected by the village, as his parents were serving in the church. However, he indicated that everyone must attend training every week before the baptism ceremony, so he could seize this opportunity to promote his “true” ethnic culture. I also interviewed some acquiesced elders. “Z” told me that although the youth were leaving the church, he wasn’t worried too much, as he remarked, “No one can be without faith, it’s just that they haven’t experienced a life crisis yet. . . . They will come back in the end.” We can see from my research earlier that the A-Hmao people are a resilient and adaptable people whose faith was previously a stabilizing influence on their identity. However, with time and the influx of modernity and globalization, the younger generation’s identity is now in flux. Nevertheless, some elder members of the community, such as “Z,” still hold out hope that the younger A-Hmao will continue a Christian way of life. Now we are going to look at the hymnody and worship of A-Hmao people from Yunnan Province. Syncretic Performance: The Miao Hymn-Singing and Worship in Yunnan Province Huijuan Hua

In the early twentieth century, Samuel Pollard and the Western missionary organizations transformed religion in Southwest China by inventing the Miao

Global Mobility 43 written script in an attempt to localize hymns and worship. The Christian transmission among the A-Hmao people has been localized by the Chinese Three-Self Patriotic Church since 1949.9 In Yunnan Province, most A-Hmao Christians have almost lost some Indigenous Miao customs. Instead, Christian traditions based on the hymn-singing of Western missionaries as well as localized worship practices have been maintained. After the millennium, an A-Hmao choir from Xiao Shuijing 小水井 village in Yunnan became well-known for its multicultural style of singing performance on the public stage, and more A-Hmao choirs began to imitate its singing style and perform locally and elsewhere in secular activities. The singing repertoires, performing style, and worship practice in the A-Hmao Church of Yunnan are an example of syncretism for religious purposes, as well as secular events. In music research, the term “syncretism” initially refers to integrating various elements of music from different cultures and traditions (Merriam 1964) and focuses on the diffusion of ethnic music or folk music (Kitahara 1966). It also enlarges a wide interest in world music (Nettl 1985), pop music (Manuel 1988), jazz music (Lopes 1999), and cross-cultural music (Brill 2016; Hyder 2017). The syncretic performance in this study indicates that a performing hybrid of Christianity compromised the merits of Western, Miao, and Chinese styles, affected by the missionary history and Miao culture. Moreover, some global popular influences (from both Western and Chinese styles of music) as well as the tourist industry are superimposing transformations on the social and religious livelihoods of the local A-Hmao Christians in Yunnan.10 Hymn-Singing

Hymn-singing has been identified as the A-Hmao’s traditional music since the 1990s, when the A-Hmao choirs were getting well-known for their Westernized singing style in church and social activities. Notably, some A-Hmao choirs in Yunnan have attained a high standard of performance in the style of bel canto, which is considered “authentic Western singing” but is also a reinvented tradition that is a hybrid musical style, affected by Christianity and ethnic cultures. There are small differences between each A-Hmao choir in Yunnan. Some choirs focus on practicing the singing and learning of the Western vocals in the bel canto style. Such an example is the Xiaoshuijing Choir, which is taught by nationwide top musicians. Other Miao choirs persist in their local singing styles, influenced by the age of choir members. The older they are, the less bel canto they use, and vice versa. The tones of the young sopranos and altos in Miao choirs are fairly bright, but not sharp; the tenors and basses are strong. The older local A-Hmao singers keep their singing style from the oral tradition of missionaries, as opposed to the young singers, who are learning standardized vocals from musical experts and social media. The musical genres in these choir performances are distinctive in worship and secular activities. Hymns embodied by the Western, Chinese, and Miao

44  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟) types are the pinnacle of sung music in Miao liturgy. The musical styles of the Chinese and Miao people are similar in tonality. Most Chinese and Miao hymns use the pentatonic scale, which hardly distinguishes their genres in terms of tunes. The overall styles today, in a similar fashion to worldwide church traditions, are influenced by and borrow from Western popular music, rather than the style of missionary hymns. Almost all the musical genres, such as Chinese and Western hymns, Western Classical songs, Chinese folk songs, art songs, and even pop songs, are zealously encouraged to be performed in secular activities. Consequently, in A-Hmao choir performances, the repertories are diverse, regardless of whether the performance is intended for liturgical purposes or secular activities. The A-Hmao Christians have syncretic performances not only in a variety of repertories and styles but also through language. A few Western folk songs are used in religious services, such as the Scottish folk song “Auld Lang Syne,” translated to “Youyi Di Jiu Tian Chang” 友谊地久 天长, which means “friendship lasts forever.” This song is sung in the English, Chinese, and Miao languages for greeting guests and tourists at liturgical and secular events. Equally, some sacred songs are well received in public performances, such as the hymn “Amazing Grace” and the “Hallelujah” Chorus from Handel’s Messiah (Figure 3.8).11 Some of these Western songs are accompanied by an orchestra and sung in Chinese and Miao languages.

Figure 3.8  Hallelujah! 哈利路亚 (from Handel’s Messiah) partial piece with both Miao and Chinese lyrics. Source: Picture taken by Wenyi Zhang 张文义, in Damaidi Church, 2023.

Global Mobility 45 Sometimes the A-Hmao church takes part in official performances organized by the local government, becoming a syncretic formation for the sake of politics. This is especially the case when the A-Hmao choirs participate in national events or public performances to sing “Hongge” (revolutionary and patriotic songs).12 In a concert for the Memorial Day of the Anti-Japanese War, for example, the Chuxiong A-Hmao choir sang the old “Hongge” “Gaobie Nanyang” (告别南洋 “Say Goodbye to Southeast Asia,” written by Nie Er). The Xiaoshuijing choir performed two new pieces of “Hongge,” “Muqin Shi Zhonghua” (母亲是中华, “Mother Is China”) and “Zai Canlan Yangguang Xia” (在灿烂阳光下, “Under the Bright Sunshine”), to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding gala of the Communist Party. These songs are uniformly adapted to the chorus with bel canto style, which reflects the national unity of ethnic groups through the chorus as performing empowerment. Furthermore, several A-Hmao choirs affected by popular culture have appeared recently in the parochial Church of Yunnan. A few musical instruments that were formerly prohibited in Miao church, such as the Western drum set and guitar, have currently been presented to some A-Hmao churches, and even a band called Xiang Bai Mu (香柏木 “fragrant cypress”) is allowed to perform pop music in some Miao churches (Figure 3.9.). However, the band’s repertoires that are performed in churches are all about Christianity. In stage

Figure 3.9 The A-Hmao band of Xiang Bai Mu 香柏木 performing music in Da Qing Church, Yunnan. Source: Photo taken by Xuewen Pan (2014).

46  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟) performances, some popular music from the Western gospel genre, as well as Chinese songs, are prevalent as well, such as “I Will Follow Him” from the film Sister Act (1992), “Scarborough Fair,” and “Tong Yi Shou Ge” (同一首歌, “The Same Song”). Miao Christians even write sacred songs in a pop style, such as the church song called “Ni De Tong Zai” (你的同在; “You Are in Company”), which was composed by two Christians from Xiaoshuijing church. This church pop song is accompanied by the electronic organ, piano, guitar, and bass—instruments which are engaged more often in secular activities performed by female and male choir members who sing in a pop style instead of the bel canto singing style. The arrangement is such that ordinary audiences are unlikely to know that “Ni De Tong Zai” is related to Christianity if they do not understand the meaning of the lyrics. Worship

The A-Hmao church in Yunnan built a particularly compatible relationship with the local government, embedding political thought into their religious practice. In the Miao church of Fumin County, for example, there is an office of the Three-Self Patriotic Church located in the building of the Fumin County government, which administrates about 12 churches and their 37 affiliated chapels. Since 1982, the Fumin church has yearly launched one or two training courses for the Miao pastoral staff (Fu 2012). The training courses, mostly taught by the Miao intellectuals in Fumin County, mainly contained national regulations, the Bible, and worship practice. The governmental leaders from the Fumin Bureau of Religion and the Miao pastors taught regular subjects, such as laws and theology. By 2006, when I visited the Fumin church, the training courses were improved further to a full-year study with ten subjects (see Table 3.1) for 20 recruits who came from the Fumin parish. Some church professionals started to teach liturgical praxis, including Miao script writing, hymn-singing, and musical keyboard accompaniment.

Table 3.1 The curriculum of the biblical training course organized by Fumin Church in 2006 The contents of the curriculum:   1. Laws and religious regulations   2. Systematic theology   3. Method of the sermon and biblical hermeneutics   4. Brief history of the church   5. Study of the Bible   6. Spiritual theology, Pollard script for reading and writing   7. Biblical geography   8. Politics and world affairs   9. Chinese language and literature for practical writing 10. Sacred music

Global Mobility 47 The curriculum of the training courses is designed to promote and ensure the quality of the religious services offered. The contents of the curriculum are 70% focused on Christianity and 30% focused on other topics. The bilingual teachings of Chinese and the Miao language are practical lessons designed to improve reading and writing for both liturgical and social purposes. The unit on sacred music is there to teach singing, conducting the choir, and playing keyboards (there is more emphasis on the accordion than the piano). Such training for the young Miao intellectuals has synthetically manifested in rituals and social activities involving choral performances. Two decades ago, the liturgical calendar of the Fumin church generally contained Sunday worship services, feast days, and sacraments. However, these liturgical services have undergone adjustments. The worship order for celebrating the building of new Miao chapels is included in the liturgy of the services. This involves an open-air party with hundreds of Miao Christians attending in greater numbers than for indoor worship. The following table shows a comparison between the past and present liturgies (Table 3.2). According to the preceding table, Sunday worship at present contains a wide variety of content for congregations. The feast days in the A-Hmao Table 3.2 A comparison form between the past and present ritual services Services

The past

At present

Sunday worship

Saturday (occasionally) Sunday (regularly)

The feast days (holy day)

Christmas Thanksgiving Good Friday Easter Day Whitsunday

The sacraments

Wednesday for preaching service (religious policy, basic laws, etc.) Saturday (occasionally) Sunday (regularly) Other days: singing practice and rehearsals Same as left, but new added: International Women’s Day (March 8) Chinese Yuan Dan Festival (New Year’s Day) More choir performances New added: Holy Communion: selfcheck and more prayer service Baptism: more stringent for candidates; for the Miao Christians and other ethnic Christians who go to the Miao churches

Holy Communion: the first Sunday of each month; confessing and communion wafers, but no wine Baptism: a sacrament for adult Christians over 18 years old; watering etiquette; service only for the Miao Christians Sermon and prayer The Miao choirs from neighboring villages have performances alternated

Worship for completing new chapels

48  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟) church attach more importance to Christmas, Easter Day, and Whitsunday, but the time sequence of these days is flexible, depending on the slack season in different A-Hmao villages.13 Another new addition is the fact that the choir highlights these important religious occasions in their performances. Some musical suites adopted from various styles of sacred music (Chinese composition and Western church music) are added to the services. For example, the choirs on a feast day always perform selections of George Friedrich Handel’s Messiah and “Easter Suite,”14 produced by the Shanghai Community Church. The A-Hmao Christian Church translated the lyrics of these suits into Miao’s writing (Pollard script), normally comprising both Chinese lyrics and Miao lyrics in collections. So far, two national holidays—International Women’s Day and Chinese Yuan Dan Festival (元旦 New Year’s Day, January 1)—have been added to the liturgical calendar and adapted to national regulations. I attended a worship service for the International Women’s Day at a Miao church in 2014, and some of the A-Hmao Christians spent time relearning their Indigenous dance and folk songs along with hymn-singing for public events. The manifestation of syncretism instructs the legitimization of contemporary value (Leopold and Jensen 2014). In brief, the A-Hmao choirs in Yunnan constitute a unique practice of cultural syncretism, and this is manifested in their musical performances for both worship and public performance, which currently share the same repertories with a variety of musical styles and languages, expressed through hymn-singing and the performing arts. The syncretism in terms of the A-Hmao choir performance, therefore, expands its religious scope to social practicality with ambiguous boundaries related to movable types of performing for occasions and events. Conclusion Based on our earlier discussions, we have found that the idiosyncrasies and trends of contemporary church praxis in hymns and worship among Chinese minority ethnic communities also influence the construction of their identity as ethnic minority groups. In Shujin’s case, the A-Hmao Christian community in Guizhou is encountering tensions because some youths are revitalizing the Indigenous Miao music and their distance from Christianity to construct multi-dimensional identities of the modern Miao, yet their families still keep Christian traditions. Both the young and older A-Hmao people have anxieties about faith and Indigenous culture, identity, and intergeneration. However, the tensions between the youths and seniors have strategic compromises concerning faith and music. In Huijuan’s case, syncretism in hymn-singing and worship is another trend that the A-Hmao Christians in Yunnan have, using public performances to rehearse, sustain and therefore retain their faith as the tradition, although the hymnal singing and repertoires in the A-Hmao choirs compromise the

Global Mobility 49 merits of Chinese, Miao, and Western styles. Additionally, performing singing onstage is a political choice more than a secular issue, which also helps retain the Christian tradition in a public way. Accordingly, the two case studies here have shown two different ways that the A-Hmao hymn is capable of surpassing tensions between sacredness and secularization, political restriction and diversified participation. The A-Hmao hymn is also a strategy for the A-Hmao Christians in Guizhou Province and Yunnan Province to adapt reality to their local society. Furthermore, it appears that the revitalization of Miao Indigenous music or the syncretic performances of hymn-singing and worship re-understanding processes to the traditional cultures is affected by globalization and popular culture. In conclusion, these case studies demonstrate the significance and adaptability of hymnody within Chinese worship practices in terms of multicultural coexistence and syncretic performances and as a form of modern cosmopolitanism. Acknowledgments We, the authors of this chapter, would like to express our gratitude to pastor and musician Charlotte-Catherine Hope-Rivers, and our colleague Xue Bai, who is an assistant professor of the School of Music at Southwest University, Chongqing, China; her current research is on ethnic music and musicians in Southwest China. We thank them for their guidance and support in the writing of this chapter. Notes 1 The  A-Hmao/Ad Hmaob, also known as Big Flowery Miao (Chinese: Da Hua Miao 大花苗), is a subgroup of Miao living in Southwest China belonging to the Hmong language. Unless specifically stated, A-Hmao and the Miao in this chapter refer to the same group. 2 It is an imaginary, constructed, hybrid tradition of local youth fusing Miao contemporary music with the music of other Miao branches. All the traditions I mention in the text refer to this kind of tradition. 3 J. R. Adams (1863–1915) and Samuel Pollard (1864–1915) both gave themselves Chinese names to aid relations between him and the locals. There is no known date for when these name changes occurred. Missionary Samuel Pollard and the local A-Hmao people co-created the Pollard script around 1905. The seven Miao symbols in the script notation were taken directly from the large characters of the Pollard script. As the contrast form (Figure 3.2.) shows, the three kinds of notations with di erent symbols are sung in the same tones; only the symbols are di erent (Enwall 1995). 4 Dates unknown. Born with another name that is unknown, Gusen gave himself a Chinese name to aid relations between him and the locals. 5 Born with another name that is unknown, Weide gave himself a Chinese name to aid relations between him and the locals. 6 This paragraph’s information is from “Z,” the leader of the administration of the Gebu church. Interview by author, Guizhou Province in China, February 15, 2019. I  triangulated the interview information with the local literature (Gebu Church 2004).

50  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟) 7 Respondents are all anonymized to protect their identity. 8 For more relevant research by the author, see Christian Ritual Music of Miao Nationality in Northeast Guizhou, a chapter of the Studies on the Religious Music of China’s Ethnic Minorities National Volume Funded by Chinese National Social Science Fund and hosted by Central Conservatory of Music (in press). Miao Indigenous music and instruments, such as Feige 飞歌 (mountain songs) and the Lusheng 芦笙(a Miao reed pipe), were replaced by Christian music and thus have disappeared in most Miao communities. 9 Mark 16:16 [NLT]—[16] “Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned”; Acts 2:38–39 [NLT]— [38] Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. [39] This promise is to you, and to your children, and even to the Gentiles—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” 10 The Three-Self Patriotic Church is a Christian organization resulted from Movement Committee of the Protestant Churches in China, 1949. Three-Self means selfsupporting（自养） ，self-governing（自治） ，self-propagating(自传) to build an Indigenous church for Chinese Protestants. 11 This songbook of Messiah is printed by Xiaoshuijing Church in 2009, which is mainly used in Xiaoshuijing Church and its surrounding Miao Churches for worship and for concerts in public. 12 “Hongge” is a classification of Chinese songs for singing the praises of revolutions and the mother country, according to the definition from Wiki Encyclopedia. It is split into two general types: the old Hongge refers to the songs composed during the wartimes, which embodied Chinese folk music; the new Hongge has arisen in chorus and solo performance since the 1980s, and the music style is affected by pop music. 13 Most Miao Christians in villages are peasants who have their land to cultivate during farming season, and the slack season usually is winter. 14 “Easter Suite” is a renewed melodrama based on an old version from Shanghai Community Church, which includes several music pieces and a drama section. The Fumin Miao Church selects some pieces of music to translate into Miao script without drama section and collects them into the hymnal chorus called Xin Xiang Zan Mei 馨香赞美 for worship. This information from “Easter Suit” is cited from Xin Xiang Zan Mei, published in 2012.

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52  Shujin Zhang (张书瑾) and Huijuan Hua (华慧娟) Hezhang County Government Office and Weining County Bureau of Statistics (赫章 县政府办；威宁县统计局). 2019. “Handbook for Leaders” (领导干部手册). Internal Material (内部资料). Hu, Qirui (胡其瑞). 2022. Identity, Nationality, and Modernity: The Hmong People’s Journey Towards Christianity in South-West China, 1900–1960 (中国西南苗族基 督徒与国家 (1900–1960)). Taiwan: Chinese Christian Literature Council Ltd (台湾 基督教文艺出版有限公司). Lin, Miao (林苗). 2009. “The Study of Chinese Christian’s Hymnal Named in Hymns of Universal Praise” (中国新教赞美诗集之研究). Doctoral diss., Chinese National Academy of Arts (中国艺术研究院博士论文). Sun, Chenhui (孙晨荟). 2015. Lily of the Valley: A Culture Study of Christian Music in Ethnic Groups of Lisu and Da Hua Miao (谷中百合: 傈僳族与大花苗及塑胶音 乐文化研究). Taiwan: Hua Mulan Culture Press (台湾花木兰出版社). Wang, Naiwen (王乃雯). 2014. “The Encounter Between Christian Belief and Nation: Using the Cross-Border Chuanqiandian Miao People as an Example” (基督徒信仰 与国家的遭逢). Chinese Studies (汉学研究通讯) 33 (2): 8–18. Wu, Xinfu (伍新福). 2006. “The Dissemination and Influence of Contemporary Christianity in the Miao Region of China” (近代基督教在中国苗区的传播和影响). In Studies on the History of the Miao People in the 21st Century in China’s 100 Miao Studies Library. 1st Series (载于21世纪中国百部苗学文库 (第一辑) 苗族史研 究). Beijing: China Literature and History Press (北京: 中国文史出版社). Xu, Songzan (徐颂赞). 2020. Songs of Chinese Galilee: The Canaan Hymns and Contemporary Chinese House Church (中国加利利的歌声: 迦南诗歌与当代中国家庭 教会). Taiwan: Chinese Christian Literature Council Ltd (台湾基督教文艺出版有 限公司). Xu, Tianxiang (徐天祥). 2015. Research on the Christian Music Culture of the Jinghpaw-Kachin Cross-Border Ethnic Group in China and Myanmar (中缅景颇-克钦跨 界民族基督教音乐文化研究). Beijing: Youth Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China in Art (中国国家社科基金艺术学青年项目). Yang, Minkang (杨民康). 2008. The Music Study of Christian Ritual in the Ethnic Minorities of Yunnan (本土化与现代性：云南少数民族基督教仪式音乐研究). Beijing: Ethnic Press (北京民族出版社). ———. 2011. “New Variation of the Christian Ritual Music in Yunnan Ethnic Groups” (云南少数民族基督教仪式音乐的新变异). Journal of World Religious Culture (世界宗教文化) 5: 41–49. Zhang, Tan (张坦). 1992. The Shimenkan in Front of the “Narrow Door”: Christianity and Miao Society in the Border of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan (“窄门”前的石 门坎：基督教文化与川滇黔苗族社会). Kunming: Yunnan Education Press (云南教 育出版社).

4 Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns White Racial Frameworks in the Works of Emily Kathleen Hooper (胡秉道 Hu Bingdao, 1878–1974) Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde [W]hites “critiquing whites,” “refusing complicity,” “naming what’s going on,” “subverting white authority,” and “dismantling whiteness” is sorely needed in music theory if we are to make positive change with respect to race in our field. (Ewell 2020)

The most common variety of musician—the obscure, un-memorialized, noncelebrity learner, teacher, or performer of music (though perhaps even virtuosic in their own right)—is the “unremarkable musician,” a term coined by David Gramit (2006). Ruth Finnegan calls them “hidden musicians,” and Bruno Nettl refers to the “ordinary musician” (Finnegan 2007, xviii; Nettl 2010, 396). Hymn singers, arrangers, and some composers are perhaps some of the most “ordinary musicians” in society, and many would hesitate to describe themselves as musicians at all. Throughout written music history, the growth of canonization has meant that there is an imbalance in who gets to be considered remarkable, unremarkable, or even “a musician.” They remain beyond the binaries of “professional/amateur,” “prolific/provincial,” and yet often have significant influence on the creation and boundary-marking of frameworks in musicking communities. In my research, I apply queer theory to re-center everyday musicians’ subjectivities and reinstate their influential impact on the world of music. In this chapter, I  use queer theory techniques to center Emily Kathleen Hooper (1878–1974), a white British woman who trained as a missionary, a musician, and a shorthand correspondent, who worked mostly in northern China from 1913 to 1945, and who published in 1930s China four books of hymns titled 國韻經歌 Guoyun jingge Scripture Words (Hooper 1930, 1931, 1933, 1937). Hooper is an ideal case study, sitting between several binary constructions that hide figures such as herself. She is unremarkable for her chosen pursuits in the context of her community, but remarkable for the rarity of the resources she chose to have archived. Her work is also remarkable for the number of musicians it may have reached to this day but

DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-4

54  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde simultaneously unremarkable for the era in her identity as a white woman writing hymns in China. My use of “queering” focuses on the historical ethnomusicological and acts as a practical application of the theory to subjects beyond social and legal frameworks (Ahmed 2006; Brett, Wood, and Thomas 2006; Eng, Halbert, and Muñoz 2005; Ferguson 2004; Henderson 2019; Muñoz 1999; Spade 2015). My definition of queering is: [T]he “queer” is that which does not fit in a binary. What some may call “liminal space” is a highly charged aura of human possibilities for existence. Ignoring queer existences is a dangerous curtailment of the broadening of human knowledge. Seeking “queerness” is not about unearthing gay or non-cis identities exclusively. Rather, it focuses on non-binarist, anti-homogenous approaches to cultural and historical analysis. (Lincoln-Hyde 2022, 21–22) Queering aids in both identifying and complicating binaries in Hooper’s life and musical outputs and, in this chapter, reveals the minutiae of racial hierarchy-building that hymn creators in early twentieth-century China were creating. In this chapter, I will briefly overview the broader historical publication context of Hooper’s hymn collection, 國韻經歌 Guoyun jingge Scripture Words, then give a brief synopsis of Hooper’s life in light of her socio-musical context. I  will then give a close examination of two of the most notable hymns of Hooper’s construction: a setting of John 1:11–12 to a “Jewish anthem” acquired by Hooper in Tianjin, China, and a setting of Psalm 19: 1–4, 7–9 to the popular film song 渔光曲 Yuguangqu (“Song of the Fishermen”). I will examine the white racial frameworks Hooper overlaid on these hymns as they were printed and annotated in her “working” copies of Scripture Words and demonstrate the complexity of hymn creation in China in the early twentieth century which might otherwise go overlooked should one only consider the classical music or religious inspirations of hymn creation in early twentieth-century China. It is not my intention to replicate the work of other historians such as Hong-Yu Gong, Charter and DeBernardi, Isabel Wong, or Ruiwen Chen (among others) in examining the construction of hymns or hymnbooks per se (Gong 2013, 2017; Charter and DeBernardi 1998; Wong 2018; Chen 2015). Neither is there enough scope in this chapter to equally cite Chinese influences and theory. Instead, I will demonstrate the variety of influences beyond the “Christian sphere” which contributed to one missionary’s construction of the sonic identity of her communities, focusing on the granularity of “white racial” decision-making that is possible to detect in hymns. Hooper’s notes are unique in that they offer insight into the incredible complexity and serendipity of white racial framings that fed hymn construction.

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 55 Hooper’s work, viewed through the lens of queer studies, allows for a pairing back of what Phillip Ewell calls the white racial frameworks of Western music construction and what Loren Kajikawa has identified in their work on Western classical music as the prestige of culturally white musical idioms (Ewell 2020; Kajikawa 2019). This chapter identifies the minuteness of white racial framings which were (and continue to be) injected into the creation of hymn musics globally and the longevity of this practice in the Chinese context, even when inspired by sources beyond Western classical or church music. The Colonial Context of 國韻經歌 Guoyun jingge—Scripture Words, 1931–1937 This chapter is a condensed analysis of just some aspects of Hooper’s 國 韻經歌 Guoyun jingge, translated by the Religious Tract Society (RTS), Shanghai-based Evangelical publishing house, as Scripture Words.1 These four volumes of Chinese biblical texts are set to 简谱 jianpu notation with tonic sol-fa markings and some reference to 工尺 gongche notation. Whereas my doctoral thesis made a detailed analysis of the legacy of western classical music in China using Hooper’s work as a fulcrum, this chapter hones in on what may be considered “unexpected” elements of hymn construction in China. Sound recordings and film scores of the early twentieth century, for instance, are still under-analyzed sources of inspiration or evidence of colonial influence (Jones 2006).2 The RTS published all four volumes using Hooper’s English name, Miss  E. K. Hooper, and her Chinese name, 胡秉道 Hu Bingdao.3 國韻經歌 Guoyun jingge is probably an invented phrase. The character 國 guo conveys the notion of “country” or “national,” 韻 yun being “music,” 經 jing perhaps referring to “scripture,” as in the Buddhist term 佛經 fojing, meaning sutra, and 歌 ge meaning “song.” Perhaps “national musical scripture songs” would be a more accurate translation. Most of the Scripture Words text appears to be taken from the 1919 和合本修訂版 Hehe ben xiuding ban Chinese Union Version (CUV) of the Bible, a translation of the 1885 Revised Version (RV) of the King James Bible.4 The music brought with missionaries was part of both European and North American colonial systems, and the work of musical missionaries often passed Chinese musics through a white racial framework. This is not to say that the missionary presence was monolithic, but the vast majority of foreign missionaries in China were, at this time, ethnically white. Moreover, Hooper and other European and North American missionaries were trained in Western classical music; this training adhered to the tenets of Western concepts of musical meaning, and Western concepts were overwhelmingly represented and developed by white people. Again, this education should not be seen as monolithic—there is huge variety in the

56  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde manner in which different classes and genders received musical education at this time. Erin Johnson-Williams’s work lays out the massive class discrepancies in terms of the types of music education that British children in particular were receiving in the late Victorian era (Johnson-Williams 2019). However, the underpinning tonality, theory, and general “rules” of musicking were largely uniform. In Hong-Yu Gong’s words, “Chinese music historians and musicologists have long believed that missionaries were cultural imperialists and mission schools were a fertile nursing ground for producing graduates who viewed their own culture with deep contempt” (Gong 2006, 15–16). As Ambrose Mong further states, “the truth is quite simply that Christian missions entered China on the tailcoats of military domination” (Mong 2016, 1). Closely associated, I would add, were colonial commercial interests. As Janet Lee writes, white women missionaries “perpetuated the racial dynamic of colonial order,” and Hooper’s life work in music aligns with this observation (Lee 1996, 621). I do not claim that Hooper was malignly altering the musical sources she heard within China, but I do assert that the potential impact of these small but numerous alterations to music in China had profound effects on both musical reception and meaning. There are two copies of the complete Scripture Words held by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Special Collections in London: one

Figure 4.1 Contents page of Hooper’s Scripture Words Book I. Note the use of traditional Chinese (top–bottom, right–left) reading format. The markings above are written in Pitman shorthand and are slightly obscured. Shorthand reads: “Important = through . . . of turn of old music.” Source: Emily Kathleen Hooper, Guoyun jingge Book I, 1930, CIM/PP Box  24/Folder 481, SOAS Special Collections.

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 57 “clean” set and a second, bound volume of all four books. This second volume—given the extensive notes and addendums, as well as performance and teaching notes—is most likely Hooper’s own “working” copy used within education and religious settings (Figure 4.1). In her worked copies, Hooper provided notes in English longhand and Pitman shorthand regarding the provenance of various hymns, as well as attaching letters and manuscripts relevant to certain hymns within the books themselves.5 Through the colonial network of non-Chinese individuals in China (missionaries, diplomats, etc.), and by using the colonial infrastructures of postal, rail, education, and mercantile systems, Hooper collated the melodies featured in Scripture Words. Many are drawn from Western hymnbooks which are the products of several centuries of the reflexive influence and musical aesthetics of various Christian denominations, including, but not limited to, Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican/Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, Charismatic, and Evangelical. However, as I will explain, a larger part of Hooper’s collation efforts appears to be from passing interactions with Chinese people in domestic and urban environments, as well as collaborative collecting efforts with acquaintances. The Socio-Musical Context of Emily Kathleen Hooper (1878–1974) The scope of this chapter prevents a detailed description of the information I have unearthed on Hooper’s biography, but an extended examination can be found in my doctoral thesis (Lincoln-Hyde 2022, 150–73). Hooper was born to a working-class household in Brynglas, Monmouthshire, Wales, on September 3, 1878.6 By 1901, Hooper appears to have been supporting her mother in a small household in Fulham, working as a “shorthand correspondent.”7 By 1911, Hooper was a resident in Star Hall, Manchester, as a boarder and “Bible student.”8 Her application date to join the China Inland Mission (CIM) is listed as August 1912, and she was accepted by the CIM council as a missionary in November 1912.9 She was at this time described as “Baptist” but “brought up in English Church [sic.],” and that she applied from within the United States.10 In the 1912 North American edition of the CIM’s China’s Millions, I  have located a picture of a Miss  E. K. Hooper with a brief caption indicating that she was set to sail for China in 1913 (Figure 4.2). Arriving in China in 1913, Hooper moved between mission stations or departed completely from China for various trips every two to five years over the course of her career, listing her country of residence as “China” on all passenger manifests I have yet sighted. Not long into her time as a missionary, Hooper was publishing her thoughts on musicking and displaying a racialized approach to hierarchy of music and sound: she does not recognize these sounds as music, only as “weird” and “heathen.” I  quote here an article

58  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde

Figure 4.2 Miss E. K. Hooper. Source: China’s Millions North American Edition (1912): 145.

Hooper wrote for the 1914 edition of China’s Millions which encapsulates her initial missionary attitudes toward musics in China: As I write the wind is now howling and rain falling heavily. From the temple opposite there come the strident sounds of clanging cymbals, ringing of bells (sounds as if they are cracked), and beating of tom toms, and, at intervals, the weird chanting of the priests. The dead man’s officer has offered food and incense on a table to the departed spirit. . . . You may think, “But how is it possible that these ignorant superstitions can obtain in a place only about five hundred miles from Shanghai?” They have a great hold upon some of these people. Even in Shanghai itself, the heart of things, so far as idolatry is concerned, is unchanged [sic.]. One is more than ever convinced that the heathen heart will only yield and change through the power of the Gospel; any amount of civilization will not change it. (Hooper 1914, 73) It seems that Hooper was noted for her musical evangelizing as early as 1914, and perhaps she felt her reconstruction of melodies in Scripture Words was the best way make the “heathen heart” “yield” to the Gospel. The only information I  have found concerning Hooper’s activities from 1914 to 1929 is an article by Guo Wenshen and Li Chen (Guo and Li 2015).11 They make a passing comment on the recruitment of a Hu Bingdao to a school for women and girls in Jinzhou in 1925, although they appear to believe Hu Bingdao was male. They note that Hu Bingdao edited a volume titled 國韻經歌 Guoyun jingge, which was intended to be used as part of

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 59 teaching a music class, and state that it “was popular in various churches in the Northeast” (ibid.). By 1929, Hooper is described in the sources as being “loaned” to the Irish Presbyterian Mission (IPM), and I  have found sourcing information about her IPM years to be quite elusive.12 Around 1940, information becomes even more scant, and at the time of writing, I have no information on Hooper from 1945 to 1958. Documentation on Hooper’s life peters out to several memos from a retirement home in Kent, England, from where she sent her last copies of Scripture Words in 1966.13 The last available records I  have found state Hooper’s service began on February  24, 1913, and ended January 1, 1945 (Cornford House Archive). She entered Cornford House on October 17, 1958, and died there on July 7, 1974.14 Of notable absence in this biographical sketch is a record of Hooper’s musical training. In my doctoral thesis, through extrapolation from similar biographies, I  reconstruct Hooper’s possible music training, supplemented by Hooper’s own “working” copies of Guoyun jingge (Lincoln-Hyde 2022, 158–70). The working copy of Hooper’s volumes describe a variety of situations from which she collected melodies, and even for which communities she arranged her works. These notes date from 1914, a year after her first arrival in China as a missionary. The notes are sometimes so brief that  their  rel­ evance has been obscured over time. She mentions hearing one piece from a “[b]lind fiddler, Chankiang [which was] repeated for hours (Book I, Piece 12)”; another was arranged for memorial services, including one for “Chien Su Chieh, a girl in Chienhsien school who died in hospital during an out­ break of Typhoid fever  .  .  . 1920” (Book I, Piece 17), and from medical situations, such as, “[m]usic gathered in a hospital in Chinchow in 1930” (Book II, Piece 20). It should be emphasized that Hooper’s informants were often not practitioners of Christian religion nor were melodies collected from persons with formal or informal permission, as with one piece collected on a train in February 1930 (Book 1, Piece 24). Neither are many of the melodies originally religious, such as a piece described as a “Lover’s Lament” from 1930 (Book II, Piece 15). This lack of particular concern with how she encountered the melodies is typical of what Arthur Knevett terms the late Victorian “craze” for folk song collecting, which coincided with, and fueled notions of, British nationalism and a nostalgia for what many felt was “dying out” (Knevett 2011). This trend has also been noted across North America, Europe, and Western Rus­ sia, where institutionally educated musicians “gathered” folk songs (Cole 2022; Bohlman 2010; Buchanan 2000; Hickerson 1977). This enthusiastic and, some may argue, bombastic approach to “cultural preservation” meant the erasure of the identity of the song providers, their communities, and the melodic and harmonic nuances of the melodies that could not be replicated in Western staff notation. Conversely, were it not for the work of many folk collectors, perhaps many more oral transmission traditions would have been lost to the relentless nature of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century

60  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde European modernity’s obsession with printed materials. Folklorists and ideologists, Chinese and colonizers alike, adopted and promoted this trend in various regions in China. In combination with her late Victorian upbringing, Hooper’s missionary training and possible interaction with both Chinese Nationalist and Communist ideological and cultural workers were typical of the era.15 Taken one piece at a time, the alterations may seem small—simply personal aesthetic choices. Consider several changes to the pieces together, however, and then across the full 100 hymns in the four volumes, and suddenly Scripture Words becomes a demonstration of how the white framing of various aspects of Chinese musical and sonic realities may have occurred on a granular level. Hooper was certainly not alone in her endeavor or identity as a white woman writing hymns in China, which, as I have mentioned, scholars such as Hong-yu Gong have demonstrated extensively. Her papers in SOAS, however, are the only “worked” personal copies that I have seen, providing a notable dimension to the study of hymn creation and adaptation. In the following two examples, it is my aim to complicate and broaden the notion of how hymns were constructed in the early twentieth century, and the kinds of influences and networks white women in China were using to gather and disseminate their particular framings of Western musical idioms. A Jewish Anthem from a Tianjin Record (Book I, Piece 16: 約十一章二十五節 Yue shiyi zhang ershiwu jie John 1:11–12) The brevity of Hooper’s setting of John 1:11–12 belies the complexity of its melodic origins and Hooper’s textual choices. The melody, Hatikva or “hope,” is perhaps best known today as the national anthem of the State of Israel. Various versions served as an informal anthem for the cause of Israeli statehood prior to 1948. In 1915, the words were published in English by the Hebrew Publishing Company thus: O while within a Jewish heart, Beats true a Jewish soul, And Jewish glances turning East, To Zion fondly dart; O then our Hope—it is not dead, Our ancient Hope and true, To be a nation free forevermore Zion and Jerusalem at our core. (Zion and Folk Songs in Hebrew 1915) Discussions regarding the origins of both the text and melody remain highly politicized. According to Edwin Seroussi, the text is a mix of disparate sources across several hundred years of religious and secular Jewish poetry (Seroussi 2009). Seroussi asserts that the best documented source for the melody in its earliest form hails from the early 1600s in contemporary Northern Italy (ibid.). It is a version of this tune, La Mantovana, with the 1915 words which was released in 1918 by Victor records (Zimbalist 1918). This record is presumably the one referred to in a note by Hooper, affixed on Book I, Piece 16, in which she writes (Figure 4.3):

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 61

Figure 4.3 Manuscript insert attached to page for Book I, Piece 16. Source: Emily Kathleen Hooper, Guoyun jingge Book I, 1930, CIM/PP/Box 24/File 481, SOAS Special Collections.

Tune “Hatikva” first heard from a [?] record bought in Tientsien [Tianjin] 1928—Yingkow [Yingkou]—Sung in Hebrew by Alma Gluck acc. by Zimbalist—The Song of the Zionists as they return to Palestine— Subject—“The land that was dead is now living.” (Hooper 1937) The record Hooper refers to was most likely recorded by Romanian American soprano Alma Gluck (1884–1938), who was married to the record’s violin soloist, Russian American violinist Efrem Zimbalist (1889–1995). Zimbalist toured within China and neighboring areas from 1922 to 1928 and was popular in the urban areas near Tianjin in which he performed (Malan 2004, 183–204). The North-China Herald, a significant English-language publication popular in the European concession port city of Shanghai, praised his 1924 tour by writing, “[W]e know no musician with whom it is more satisfying to spend an evening” (O M G 1924). Whether Alma Gluck was similarly popular among the European and American colonizer elite in China at this time is unknown, but given her status as one of the most successful recording artists of the 1910s, it is not impossible (Eisenstein Baker 2021). As explored thoroughly by Andrew Jones, the use and distribution of records in China exposed the population to a variety of performers and musical styles (Jones 2006, 7–10). A Zimbalist record was present in Tianjin,

62  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde where Hooper acquired it, and the piece was adapted and appears to have been used frequently by Hooper in her missionary work (Figure 4.4). Of note also is the harmony stuck to the manuscript page of Hooper’s working copy, described as “Benson’s harmony” (Figure 4.5). It is likely that this melody’s harmonization is taken from The Hymnal (1895), edited by the American hymnist Louis FitzGerald Benson (1855–1930) (Walker 1993, 176–79). The text for Hooper’s setting of Hatikva is simply: “復 活 在 我 、 生 命 也 在 我． 信 我 的 人 、 雖 然 死 了 、 也 必 復 活 (I am the resurrection, and the life. Those who believe in me, even in death, shall live),” repeated twice. This is significant for two reasons. Firstly, Hooper uses a direct quote from Jesus but does not credit Jesus as the speaker. This is notable as it indicates that Hooper could perhaps assume that those with her mission community would know the identity of the speaker. The original CUV quotation (耶 穌 對 他 說 、 復 活 在 我 、 生 命 也 在 我 ． 信 我 的 人 、 雖 然 死 了 、 也 必 復 活; in RV: Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth of me, though he die, yet shall he live) does retain this. Secondly, Hooper has chosen to set the first line to repeat twice in the text; with repeats in the music, this is then sung four times in a row. The effect is an emphatic affirmation of the notion of life beyond death. The melody Hooper has similarly adapted to suit the more syllabic nature of the

Figure 4.4 Partial transcription of Alma Gluck’s vocal line demonstration the Hatikva melody, drawn from “Hatikva.” Source: From Efrem Zimbalist, Alma Gluck, and Josef Pasternack (Victor 1918: 00:39–01:29).

Figure 4.5  Transcription of harmony insert from Book I, Piece 16, as shown in Figure 4.3.

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 63 Chinese language and, in doing so, has utilized several sources to create her final version. This selective use of inspiration from multiple sources has made the piece unique, even within the Scripture Words volumes. Hooper had printed both the melody and a harmonic line within the music but has made some changes to the melody sung by Gluck (Figure 4.4), and the harmony is adapted from Benson’s harmony (Figure 4.5). The melody of Figure 4.6 seems closely aligned in meter to Gluck’s melody (Figure 4.4) but has been simplified in some parts to appear more as the Benson harmony (Figure 4.5). Hooper has retained one dotted quaver rhythm ( ) to echo Gluck’s melody but otherwise has followed Benson’s simpler version. Moreover, Hooper has chosen to set the piece in the slightly lower-pitched D minor, rather than Gluck’s E minor. Though this may seem a small change, it may be an indication of Hooper’s formal musical training, in which the high E would, at this time, have been taught as the highest “acceptable” limit of an amateur soprano.16 Hence, lowering the key to D minor may both be a choice to follow Benson’s setting and a part of Hooper’s attempt to make the demanding “octave leap” within the melody more accessible for amateur performers, as dictated by the standards of harmony taught in this period (Figure 4.6) (Dale 1999; Damschroder 2008). Hooper also includes a second, lower part to “harmonize” the top line (see Figure 4.4). This is a slightly more complex version of Benson’s corresponding second line, but this may reflect a desire to have the piece sound more like the Gluck recording, in which Zimbalist plays a countermelody on the violin in the second verse and onward. However, the harmony part is significantly simplified from Zimbalist’s countermelody and bears little resemblance other than some interval choices. Additionally, it is not impossible that Hooper may have written the piece in D minor but performed the piece in a higher or lower pitch, as tuning was not standardized in Western music at this time (Halewood 2015). Whether this has been done to ease reading or singing abilities, its result is that the uninformed user of this manual will assume the tonality to be D minor.

Figure 4.6 Partial transcription to Western notation of the Hatikva melody with harmony (second line) from Book I, Piece 16. Music is marked as 2/4 (two crotchets to a bar), and doh = F (that is, F is the base note of the scale). By the standards of Western music theory, this melody is in D minor.

64  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde This is a remarkable instance of intersections between early recordings, missionary hymn writing, and the harmonic legacies of Western classical music. What is demonstrated through this setting of Hatikva is, firstly, the use of modern technologies and colonial infrastructures in the collation of material, especially sound recordings, postal systems, and even railways. Secondly, this analysis demonstrates the minute yet impactful aesthetic decisions Hooper made in changing the melody, countermelody, and text. When multiplied across the number of pieces in Scripture Words and the number of possible performers of these settings, this amounts to a potentially significant affectation to the reception of Western-styled melodic and harmonic structures precipitated by the aesthetic decisions of one, relatively unknown musical missionary. Simultaneously, this setting—likely unintentionally—obscures the Jewish influences of this work. Hooper repeats this pattern of mixed media and small but significant alterations in Book IV with similar treatment of film music. In what follows, I shall examine how Hooper, perhaps unwittingly, elided any publication information regarding the original composer and librettist of a piece from Chinese Cinema. Film Scores as Unwitting Inspiration (Book IV, Piece 3: 詩十九篇 一至四節七至九節 Shi shijiu pian yizhi si jie qi zhi jiu jie Psalm 19:1–4, 7–9) Stuck into Hooper’s working copy of Book IV on the page for her setting of Psalm 19:1–4, 7–9 is a piece of hand-drawn Western-style manuscript

Figure 4.7 Extract of letter to Hooper which Hooper adapted for use in Book IV, Piece 3. Source: Emily Kathleen Hooper, Guoyun jingge Book IV, 1937, CIM/PP/Box 24/File 481, SOAS.

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 65 (Figure 4.7), followed by a letter dated October 1934, most likely to Hooper. The most pertinent sections run thus: While on the train journey from Peking I  noticed my fellow-passenger . . . was looking over a song. . . . It seemed to me to be a plaintive little tune + I wondered if you had got it,—or would like it. So I copied it out there + then while the train stopped at a station, + got her to write in the words, so that if you liked it to use, you could be sure of it’s [sic] origin. . . . The tune seems odd to me, but I suppose that is Chinesey.17 From this missive, several elements of Hooper’s broader process may be determined. That her collecting of pieces was well-known to this individual correspondent and therefore perhaps a significant part of her identity within her network of connections. Secondly, that Hooper was, in some respects, concerned with the origins of the pieces she collected, though this is otherwise not obvious from her manuscript notes. What is also of note is the language used to describe the piece itself. It is a “little tune” which “seems odd” and, because of this, innately “Chinesey” to the writer, indicating that to the author at least the song was decidedly “other.” Hooper’s changes to this piece and final printing decisions indicate that she shared these aesthetic opinions and personal musical sensibilities, as evidenced by other melody and textual changes (Figure 4.8). This melody remains today a well-known tune, often covered by pop artists and referred to as “folk” in contemporary Han Chinese culture. 渔光曲

Figure 4.8 Partial transcription of handwritten manuscript (roughly bars 1–36) as shown in Figure 4.7, using melody from Ren Qianfa’s Yuguangqu (Song of the Fishermen) Book IV, Piece 3 insert.

66  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde Yuguangqu (“Song of the Fishermen”) is most frequently attributed to 任光 Ren Guang (1900–1941), one of the first cultural workers of twentieth-century China, who is today associated strongly with the Nationalists’ cultural ambitions (Yang 2008). Ren wrote the piece for the 1934 film of the same name, a cornerstone work in the history of Chinese cinema. The lyrics were by 安娥 An E (1905–1976), a known collaborator of Ren Guang. The notable composer 聂耳 Nie Er (1912–1935) also wrote most of the original score for Song of the Fishermen, with the exclusion of Ren Guang’s title theme, and some extracts of Western classical compositions. An E’s lyrics for Song of the Fishermen also appear to have been: 雲兒飄在海空， 魚兒藏在水中。 早晨太陽里曬魚網， 迎面吹過來大海風。 潮水升，浪花湧， 魚船兒飄飄各西東。 輕撒網，緊拉繩， 煙霧裡辛苦等魚踪。 Clouds float in the cosmos, The fish hide in the depths. In the morning sun the fish nets are drying, The sea breeze blows head on. The tide rises, the waves surge, The first boats sway from side to side. Cast the net lightly, draw the lines tightly, Waiting long for the fish through the haze.18 The film Song of the Fishermen premiered in 1934 in Shanghai, and it appears that the letter sent to Hooper was written around October of that year. It may be that the popular Chinese singer referenced in the letter was the lead actress of the film, 王人美 Wang Renmei (1914–1987), who was also known for her singing voice and performed the film’s solo arrangements. The more well-known version that is often cited was performed by vocalist 白光 Bai Guang (1919–1999), but this was not recorded until 1940. Hooper published her version in 1937 and chose to set it to Psalm 19:1–4, 7–9, although she removed some of the original words and repeats others. Hooper also retains the four-bar opening refrain (Bars 1–4, Figure  4.7), which appears periodically through her setting. In Pitman shorthand, she has also provided her own altered version of the words (Figure 4.9): And night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, their voices cannot be heard. Their line is one out through all the Earth. And their words to the end of the world. [x 3]

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 67

Figure 4.9 Image shows example of Chinese text, with over-written Pitman shorthand English text. In the upper right hand corner, the Pitman shorthand reads: “Fishermen’s Song.” Source: Emily Kathleen Hooper, Guoyun jingge Book IV, 1937, CIM/PP/Box 24/File 481, SOAS Special Collections.

Hooper’s melody changes the rhythmic values from the manuscript sent to her by letter and syncopates the melody further than the Wang Renmei rendition. Hooper also reduced the beats per bar to two rather than four, which at first seems to ignore the letter’s suggestion that the piece should be sung with three beats to a bar. However, this syncopated dotted-quaver-to-quaver rhythm was a common way of turning three-beat pieces into four-beat pieces and often used by arrangers of waltzes and similar tunes in Europe to instantly indicate a “march-like” or “military” aesthetic (as they codified it). Along with the words chosen by Hooper, this decision seems to indicate that she unknowingly made a lament into a piece which calls to action, and which also demands rigorous vocal training to keep up with the tempo (Figure 4.10). It is worth noting that it also may have been the person who wrote to Hooper with this melody that effected this change. Notably, by the time of Bai’s more famous 1940 recording, Hooper had already turned the tune into a hymn and published it (Hooper 1937). Both Wang’s and Bai’s versions are sung slowly, in considerable contrast to Hooper’s version. The placement of this melody within the film is striking when considered together with the rest of the music. Nie Er’s original score for Song of the Fishermen is interspersed with arrangements of Ellens Gesang III (D. 839, Op. 52, No. 6, or Ave Maria), composed in 1825 by the Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797–1828). Both Guang and An’s Song of the Fishermen melody and the Ave Maria melody are repeated at various times during the movie. It is notable that Wang’s rendition uses a vocal timbre that is audibly more “rounded,” with an emphasis on the melodic production, rather than acknowledging the tonal fluctuations of the words, as is characteristic of many eastern Chinese styles. It is notable that the film’s producers chose to feature Western classical music pieces within Nie Er’s score and aurally equate Ave Maria with Ren and An’s title piece. The process of

68  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde

Figure 4.10 Transcription to Western notation of Hooper’s melody bars 1–40, as seen in Figure 4.9.

sonically levelling Western and Chinese pieces suggests that Western aesthetics already effected the creation of this piece before Hooper used it in her hymn creation, and the practice of using well-known secular tunes for hymns was a popular evangelizing technique more globally. This legacy is perhaps most notable in the techniques of Methodist leader Charles Wesley (1707–1788), as explained by Martin Clarke (Clarke 2009). It is not impossible that Hooper’s 1937 melody may have been circulating within the same populations as Bai’s 1940 version, leading us to the intriguing speculation that the flow of musical influence in early twentieth-century China may have been circular rather than linear—a point which I hope this chapter inspires future researchers to examine. Conclusion The borrowing of melodies from records and films by missionaries may not seem a straightforward connection between musical frameworks and whiteness, but Hooper’s setting choices and assumptions are informed by systems of Western music training. I cannot ascertain in the case of Hatikva or Song of the Fishermen if Hooper was aware of the histories or cultural legacies of these works. I have aimed in this chapter to illuminate the life of just one British missionary who, from the 1910s to the 1940s, created hymns which may have reached potentially thousands, if not tens of thousands, of worshippers. By analyzing just a few of the copious notes, amendments, and reflections written in various languages on the composer’s own scores, a series of pedagogical and performance techniques is revealed, and with them the process of how one individual sought to convey meaning through hymn music. In the future, a similar analysis of the source material using Chinese musical analysis techniques would, I hope, reveal the ways in which Hooper contributed to the transcultural phenomenon of Chinese hymn writing in this era. This chapter highlights just how remarkable a process this unremarkable musician’s work was. I have used a layering of queer, feminist, and gender studies to examine

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 69 these works and their historical context, which in so doing highlights the white racial framings of music used by a white woman agent of empire in the context of colonial northern China in the first half of the twentieth century. Acknowledgments Given the rarity of Pitman shorthand today, I am indebted to the skills of transcriber Tracey Harding, who transcribed all Pitman shorthand present in Books I–IV and whose transcriptions I have used throughout this chapter. I would also like to thank the archivists and staff of the following institutes for their assistance in accessing materials over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: Billy Graham Center Records, Evangelism and Missions Archives Repository, Wheaton College, Illinois; the National Archives, London; OMF Cornford House Archive, London; SOAS Special Collections, London. My thanks also to the Royal Anthropological Institute for their generous Emslie Horniman Grant, which funded part of the research for my PhD and this chapter. Notes 1 An expanded analysis of Hooper’s works can be found in my doctoral thesis (Lincoln-Hyde 2022, 145–207). 2 I define “Western classical music” here as being the music of white colonizers that was associated with prestige, elites, and often both Catholic and Protestant institutions for Christian worship, though this is a highly contextualized and debatable term (ibid.). 3 Feng Jintao lists Book II in a dossier of publications found during an examination of Christian church worship in Shanghai, and also a 1931 publication, Budao geji pu (Sermons Collection), edited by a Hu Bingdao. Unfortunately, I have not found further record of Hooper’s works beyond the four Scripture Words volumes at the time of writing (Feng 2005, 72). 4 Unless otherwise indicated, I have used the CUV for Chinese text and RV from their respective translations (Chinese Union Version 1919; The Holy Bible 1885). 5 English shorthand studies remains a relatively small field (Russon 2022). 6 “Subdistrict St Woollos, Brynglas” (Census of England and Wales 1911), RG11, The National Archives UK (NAA UK). 7 “North-West Fulham District 4, 28 Mablethorpe Road” (Census of England and Wales 1911), RG13, NAA UK. 8 “RG14, District 466, Star Hall Training Home” (Census of England and Wales 1911), RG14, NAA UK. 9 China Inland Mission Personnel Card for Emily Hooper, c. 1912, CN215/17/3, Billy Graham Center Archives. 10 Ibid. 11 At the time of writing, I have not been able to contact Guo or Li for further information. Guo Wenshen and Li Chen, “Jidujiao zai jinzhou diqu de chuanbo ji qi shehui huodong (The Spreading of Christian and Its Social Activities in Jinzhou District),” 101. 12 “China Inland Mission Directory, 1929,” 37, CN215/1/13, BGCA. 13 Kathleen Hooper, letter sent from Pembury to Mr. Scott of the China Inland Mission, Cornford House, Kent, February 6, 1966, CIM/PP Box 24/Folder 481, SOAS Special Collections.

70  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde 14 “UK Births, Deaths and Marriages for July–September 1974,” 402, BMD/D/1974/ 3/AZ/000483, NAA UK. 15 “Nationalist” is a term for adherents to the policies of the 中國國民黨 Zhongguo Guomindang (Nationalist Party of China), active in mainland China from 1912 to 1945. “Communist” refers to followers of the 中国共产党 Zhongguo Gongchandang (Chinese Communist Party), founded in mainland China in 1921. 16 In 1904, one British organist praised the lowering of pitch in recent hymnbooks, in which soprano lines rarely reached over a high E on the stave, and which they felt meant “congregations will be able to grip tunes better, and improved singing result” (Baldwin 1904, 137). 17 Letter affixed to manuscript in SOAS Special Collection “worked” copy of Hooper, Book IV, Piece 3 (Hooper 1937). 18 Translation by Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde (Cai 1934).

References Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press. Baldwin, W. J. 1904. “The New Methodist Hymn-Book: Opinions by Some Wesleyan Organists and Choirmasters.” The Non-Conformist Musical Journal 17: 137. Billy Graham Center Archives. Wheaton College, IL. File names CN215/1/12, 13, 20; CN215/17/3. Bohlman, Philip V. 2010. Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe. New York: Routledge. Brett, Philip, Elizabeth Wood, and Gary C. Thomas. 2006. Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology. London: Taylor & Francis. Buchanan, Donna A. 2000. “Bartók’s Bulgaria: Folk Music Collecting and Balkan Social History.” International Journal of Musicology 9: 55–91. Cai Chusheng. 1934. Yuguangqu (Song of the Fishermen). Film. Shanghai: Lianhua yingge gongsi, Lianhua Film Company. Charter, Vernon, and Jean DeBernardi. 1998. “Towards a Chinese Christian Hymnody: Processes of Musical and Cultural Synthesis.” Asian Music 29: 83–113. Cole, Ross. 2022. The Folk: Music, Modernity, and the Political Imagination. Berkeley: The University of California Press. Chen, Ruiwen. 2015. Fragrant Flowers Bloom: T. C. Chao, Bliss Wiant and the Contextualization of Hymns in Twentieth Century China. Contact Zone. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. China’s Millions North American Edition. 1912. Philadelphia and Toronto: China Inland Mission. Chinese Union Version (Hehe ben xiuding ban). 1919. Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Council. Clarke, Martin V. 2009. “John Wesley’s ‘Directions for Singing’: Methodist Hymnody as an Expression of Methodist Beliefs in Thought and Practice.” Methodist History 47: 196–209. Dale, Catherine. 1999. “Towards a Tradition of Music Analysis in Britain in the Nineteenth Century.” In Nineteenth-Century British Music Studies, edited by ­Bennett Zon, 269–302. London: Routledge. Damschroder, David. 2008. Thinking About Harmony: Historical Perspectives on Analysis, 85–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Complicating the Analysis of Chinese Christian Hymns 71 Eisenstein Baker, Pauline. 2021. “Alma Gluck.” Jewish Women’s Archive. Accessed September 27, 2021. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gluck-alma. Eng, David L., Michael H. Halbert, and José Esteban Muñoz. 2005. What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now? Durham: Duke University Press. Ewell, Philip A. 2020. “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame.” Music Theory Online 26 (2). https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.2/mto.20.26.2.ewell.html. Feng, Jintao. 2005. “Cong guoji libaitangzhe jidujiao yinyue zai shangha (On Chri­ stian Music in Shanghai—a Case Study of the Community Church).” MA thesis, Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Ferguson, Roderick A. 2004. Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Finnegan, Ruth. 2007. The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town. Middleton: Wesleyan University Press. Gong, Hong-Yu. 2006. “Missionaries, Reformers, and the Beginnings of Western Music in Late Imperial China (1839–1911).” PhD thesis, University of Auckland. ———. 2013. “Protestant Missionaries and School Music Education in Late Qing China: The Case of Julia B. Mateer.” Chime: Journal of the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research 18–19: 101–34. ———. 2017. “Timothy and Mary Richard, Chinese Music, and the Adaptation of Tonic Sol-Fa Method in Qing China.” Journal of Music in China 2: 1–16. Gramit, David. 2006. “Unremarkable Musical Lives: Autobiographical Narratives, Music, and the Shaping of the Self.” In Musical Biography: Towards New Paradigms, edited by Jolanta T. Pekacz. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Guo, Wenshen, and Li Chen. 2015. “Jidujiao zai jinzhou diqu de chuanbo ji qi shehui huodong (The Spreading of Christian and Its Social Activities in Jinzhou District).” Journal of Heihe University 4: 99–102. Halewood, Michael. 2015. “On Equal Temperament: Tuning, Modernity and Compromise.” History of the Human Sciences 28: 3–21. Henderson, Bruce. 2019. Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries. New York, NY: Harrington Park Press. Hickerson, Joseph C. 1977. “American Folksong: Some Comments on the History of Its Collection and Archiving.” In Music in American Society 1776–1976. London: Routledge. The Holy Bible. 1885. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hooper, E. K. 1914. “Glimpses of Work in Antung, Kiangsu.” In China’s Millions North American Edition 1914, 72–73. Philadelphia and Toronto: China Inland Mission. ———. 1930. Guoyun jingge—Scripture Words. Book I. Shanghai: Religious Tract Society. ———. 1931. Guoyun jingge—Scripture Words. Book II. Shanghai: Religious Tract Society. ———. 1933. Guoyun jingge—Scripture Words. Book III. Shanghai: Religious Tract Society. ———. 1937. Guoyun jingge—Scripture Words. Book IV. Shanghai: Religious Tract Society. Johnson-Williams, Erin. 2019. “Musical Discipline and Victorian Liberal Reform.” In Music and Victorian Liberalism: Composing the Liberal Subject, edited by Sarah Collins, 15–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones, Andrew F. 2006. Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Durham: Duke University Press.

72  Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde Kajikawa, Loren. 2019. “The Possessive Investment in Classical Music: Confronting Legacies of White Supremacy in U.S. Schools and Departments of Music.” In Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness Across the Disciplines, edited by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz, 155–74. Oakland: University of California Press. Knevett, Arthur Albert Alexander. 2011. “The Rescue, Reclamation or Plunder of English Folk-Song? A History of the Folk-Song Society 1898–1932.” PhD thesis, University of Sheffield. Lee, Janet. 1996. “Between Subordination and She-Tiger: Social Constructions of White Femininity in the Lives of Single, Protestant Missionaries in China, 1905– 1930.” Women’s Studies International Forum 19: 621–32. Lincoln-Hyde, Ellan A. 2022. “Western Classical Music in China: Case Studies of Its Dissemination from the Mid-Nineteenth to Early-Twentieth Centuries.” PhD thesis, SOAS, University of London. Malan, Roy. 2004. “Discovering the Orient (1922–1928).” In Efrem Zimbalist: A Life, 183–204. Pompton Plains, NJ: Amadeus Press. Mong, Ambrose. 2016. Guns and Gospel: Imperialism and Evangelism in China. London: The Lutterworth Press. Muñoz, José Esteban. 1999. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. The National Archives. London, UK. File names BMD/D/1974/3/AZ/000483; RG11, RG13, RG14. Nettl, Bruno. 2010. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. OMF Cornford House Archive. London, UK. Boxes 1–4. O M G. 1924. “Zimbalist and His Music.” The North-China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette (1870–1941), November 1. Russon, R. A. 2022. “Shorthand.” In Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed February 10, 2023. www.britannica.com/topic/shorthand. Seroussi, Edwin. 2009. “Hatikvah: Conceptions, Receptions and Reflections.” Jewish Music Research Centre Journal IX: 1–43. SOAS Special Collections. London, UK. File CIM/PP/Box 24/File/481. Spade, Dean. 2015. Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. Durham: Duke University Press. Walker, J. Michael. 1993. “Louis FitzGerald Benson: The Union of Praise and Prayer.” American Presbyterians 71: 175–84. Wong, Isabel K. F. 2018. “Geming Gequ: Songs for the Education of the Masses.” In Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1979, edited by Bonnie S. McDougall, 112–43. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yang, Hon-Lun. 2008. “Power, Politics, and Musical Commemoration: Western Musical Figures in the People’s Republic of China 1949–1964.” Music and Politics 1 (2): 1–14. Zimbalist, Efrem. 1918. Efrem Zimbalist, Alma Gluck, and Josef Pasternack. Record­ ing. Paris: Victor. “Zion and Folk Songs in Hebrew, Yiddish and English with Notes.” 1915. Hebrew Publishing Company.

5 “Wash the Ethiop White” Whiteness and Salvation in the Hymns of Charles Wesley Daniel Johnson

In recent years, debates have raged around the legacy of eighteenth-century evangelical leaders. Those who have previously been lauded as heroes of the faith, such as New England minister Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) and itinerant evangelist George Whitefield (1714–1770), are now subject to intensified scrutiny. How do we harmonize the fact that many were converted to Christianity through their preaching while these men also owned slaves? More broadly, a perceived “cancel culture” leaves many unwilling to grapple with the complexities that come with contested legacies; men who were once virtually saints are now potentially anathema for their problematic and racially motivated views and actions. This chapter enters into these conversations neither to cancel nor defend but to do the work of the historian and ensure that a more complete story is told. This chapter is an etymological study of long-forgotten and problematic verses in the hymns of the preeminent Methodist hymn writer Charles Wesley (1707–1788).1 As such, this chapter will interpret these verses by locating them within Wesley’s life, work, and context. The 1780 publication A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists was designed to be the definitive hymnbook for the fledgling Methodist movement. Hymn number 1 was written by Charles Wesley on May 21, 1739, and was originally titled “For the Anniversary of One’s Conversion” and began with the words, “Glory to God and praise and Love” (J. Wesley 1780, 7–8; J. Wesley and C. Wesley 1740, 120). Wesley had been seeking spiritual assurance, having returned to England following a failed missionary excursion to America. For over a year, he grappled with doubts. Eventually, on Pentecost Sunday 1738, he underwent a salvation experience.2 Today the hymn is more commonly known by the opening verse of the 1780 version and the seventh verse of the original: “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” The hymn was first published in 1740 and quickly established itself as one of the landmark contributions of evangelical and Methodist hymnody, as well as an articulation of the movement’s piety. One example of the hymn’s significance is seen in a letter from Elizabeth Ritchie to Mary Fletcher, written

DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-5

74  Daniel Johnson in 1797. The letter describes the death of a mutual friend, Mrs. Jones, due to complications in childbirth in the following way: He [that is, Christ] banished all her fears by giving her the full efficacy of his Death; she broke in praise, rehearsing O for a thousand tongues to sing, My Dear Redeemer’s praise The glories of my God and king The triumphs of his grace. (Letter 1797) The original publication contained 18 verses, and many of the original verses are no longer used today. The second original verse began with a moving description of Wesley’s conversion day: On this glad day the glorious Sun Of righteousness arose, On my benighted soul he shone, And fill’d it with repose. The hymn then moves from Wesley’s personal experience of his salvation encounter to a desire to share this newfound faith with others. As Jonathan Powers writes in his chapter on this hymn, Wesley has an “active soteriology” in his hymns, and therefore, “the message of salvation through Christ was paramount in Wesley’s ministry and lyrical thought” (Powers 2020, 18). To this end, Wesley uses several verses to describe the power of Christ’s grace. Jesus can, Wesley writes, set the prisoner free, make the foulest clean, cause the deaf to hear, the blind to see, and the lame to leap for joy.3 These descriptions are adapted from the pages of the New Testament, as Wesley overlays the miracles of Jesus onto Pauline categories of righteousness through faith. In the fifteenth and sixteenth verses, Wesley addresses many groups of people specifically, calling upon them to turn from their sinful ways and share in the faith he has now encountered: Harlots, and publicans, and thieves, In holy triumph join! Sav’d is the sinner that believes From crimes as great as mine. Mutherers, and all ye hellish crews, Ye sons of lust and pride, Believe the Saviour died for you; For me the Saviour died. (J. Wesley and C. Wesley 1740, 122)

“Wash the Ethiop White” 75 The focus of this chapter, however, will be the seventeenth verse, which reads: Awake from guilty nature’s sleep, And Christ shall give you light, Cast all your sins into the deep, And wash the Ethiop white. In this chapter I  argue that, here and in other instances, Wesley is using a racialized phrase which is laden with implications that whiteness is associated with salvation. The phrase “to wash the Ethiop white” has two origins. The first is biblical; in the King James Version, which Wesley would have used, Jeremiah 13:22–23 reads: And if thou say in thine heart, wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are they skirts discovered, and they heels made bare. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. The phrase is also the basis for one of Aesop’s Fables, wherein the Black slave is washed to make him white. So while there is a reading of this phrase that implies to “wash the Ethiop white” would be akin to “whipping a dead horse”, it will be seen that this phrase was increasingly used in the early modern world with racially derogative connotations. Categories of white and Black had long been used to represent good and evil, and so Black skin was increasingly represented in moral contrast to white skin. Anu Korhonen summarizes the subject effectively: “outward appearance could never be wholly separated from the soul and human nature. . . . Black skin was equated with ugliness, or, rather, with deformity” (Korhonen 2005, 96), and later: Demonisation of Black skin was helped by a long and powerful Christian tradition of depicting demons and the devil himself as Black. Their dark skin was both comic and horrifying; it embodied vice, sin, and terror. Sin was Black, virtue was white; the body was Black, the soul was white. (Korhonen 2005, 106) Being Black was therefore seen to be morally and spiritually inferior. The darkness of sin was imputed onto the Black body. It is into this context that we can begin to consider Wesley’s use of these categories. Washing the Ethiopian Surveying the ways “to wash the Ethiop white” was used in the early modern world is necessary for interpreting Wesley’s hymn. According to Tamara Lewis, “when used as a symbol of sanctification, the ‘Washing an Ethiop/Blackamoor white’ trope is depicted in many cases as the gradual

76  Daniel Johnson transformation from African ethnicity to whiteness. The imagery is the ultimate glorification of an African to a European” (Lewis 2014, 102). Later, she writes: Black ethnic images in early modern English religious texts symbolize sin and evil in human nature, from the depraved constitution of body and soul to the acquired evil habits of ordinary sinners. Expressive word play graphically depicts not only Black skin color, but also Blackamoor and Ethiopian terms as metaphors for the intransigence of immorality and demonic forces against divine redemptive power. Moreover, employment of the scriptural tropes Jer. 13:23 and the classical proverb Aethiopem lavare contribute to the substantiation of Blackness and Black skin color as loathsome beyond the rhetoric used to represent the universal human condition. (Lewis 2014, 105–6)4 There are several examples which support Lewis’s argument. As Presbyterian minister Thomas Hall (1610–1655) wrote, “the God of nature can change nature; he can make a Black more white, and take spots from a Leopard, he can turn a Lion into a Lamb, and water into wine” (Hall 1658, 98). The clear allusion to Jeremiah 13:23 is superimposed upon the eschatological promises of Isaiah and the miracles of Christ. Bishop John Hacket (1592–1670) likewise stated succinctly, “[W]e are all Black before God like the Children of an Ethiopian” (Hacket 1675, 904). Here, Black skin is used as a description for universal sinfulness; the Black embodiment of sin is contrasted with the (white) holiness of God. Thomas Horton, (d. 1673) another Presbyterian minister, wrote: The Ethiopian, he is Black from the womb, and the Leopard, he is spotted from the birth; what ever deformity there is in either of them, it is rooted in their very nature it self. Why thus now it is likewise with sin, in the heart of a sinner. . . . The wicked they are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. This is their condition. In a word, it is the condition of all. Whosoever has sin in them (as there is none but have) that their sin is natural to them. We are all Ethiopians by our birth, even the best that are. (Horton 1679, 392) Here, Horton adds to Jeremiah. There is no hint in the biblical text that the leopard, and therefore the Ethiopian, carry any deformity; the purpose of the verse is to highlight how impossible it would be for a sinner to change themselves without God’s intervening grace. But Horton uses Blackness as a literal and physical manifestation of this sinful nature. In John Bunyan’s widely read Pilgrim’s Progress, Mr. Great-heart and his companions are taken by the Shepherd to meet a series of characters, which reads as follows:

“Wash the Ethiop White” 77 They had them also to a place where they saw on Fool and one Want-wit washing an Ethiopian with intention to make him white, but the more they washed him the Blacker he was. They then asked the Shepherds what that should mean. So they told them, saying, Thus it shall be with the vile person. All means used to get such an one a good name shall in conclusion tend to make him more abominable. Thus it was with the Pharisees, and so shall it be with all Hypocrites. (Aravamudan 1999, 3) Examples of the phrase continue into the eighteenth century. The Calvinist Anglican John Edwards (1637–1716), writing in his Treatise on Repentance, uses Jeremiah 13:23 to ground his argument about the inability of the human heart to repent by its own volition: Whilst a Sinner continues his evil Courses without thoughts of Repenting, he loses all sense of Sin, and grows obdurate, and finds it impossible to soften his Heart, and to change his Nature, and do what before he brag’d of, i.e. to Repent when he pleased. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots? Then may be also do good who are accustomed to do evil . . . to endeavour to do Good after a long and inveterate Custom of doing Evil, is but washing an Ethiopian. (Edwards 1718, 229) In the Americas, men such as Boston divine Cotton Mather conflated physical and spiritual darkness. Richard Bailey notes that Mather specifically used the Blackness of slaves to demonstrates their need for spiritual awakening. Elsewhere, Mather preached to slaves, encouraging them to find salvation by being “washed White in the Blood of the Lamb,” despite stating that their “Skins are of the colour of the Night” (Bailey 2011, 45–47). Slave-owner and revivalist George Whitefield recounts in a diary from 1748 that he preached to a congregation of slaves: Upon enquiry, I found that some of the negroes did not like my preaching, because I told them of their cursing, swearing, thieving, and lying. One or two of the worst of them, as I was informed, went away. Some said, they would not go any more: They Mr. M—r better, for he never told them of these things; and I said, their hearts were as black as their faces. (Gillies 1774, 160) He goes on to describe a conversation between two Bermuda slaves in which one of the brothers wondered why Whitefield has said that “Negroes had black hearts.” The other replied, “Ah thou fool, dost thou not understand it? He means black with sin” (Gillies 1774, 161). These entries demonstrate the blurred boundaries between skin, race, and salvation. In these instances,

78  Daniel Johnson Whitefield is describing sin as being metaphorically black, but his language toward slaves implies a double damnation—that the black skin reflects the black heart. The expression continued into the later eighteenth and even nineteenth centuries. Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, a Methodist convert, wrote in her memoirs: The blessed Spirit continued to work in a way of conviction, so that I could not rely in any thing I had received; the light of God shining clearer and clearer, manifested my whole soul to be infected with the leprosy of sin: neither men or angels could help me, nothing but the blood of Jesus could wash the Ethiop white. (Johnson 1799, 14–15) This excerpt uses language that is strikingly similar to Wesley’s hymn. Sin is compared to leprosy, and therefore spiritual uncleanliness. The Ethiop is washed white in the same way that the leper was washed clean. It is not unreasonable to see a comparison between the two; leprosy carried social and religious stigma in the biblical world, and the Ethiop’s washing can be seen in an analogous way. There were examples of the metaphor being subverted. Joshua Marsden, the antislavery poet and Methodist missionary, used the language of black and white to present a contrast between the internal condition and the external appearance. He wrote: A black man’s heart may be as white and fair As polar snows or cherub’s garments are; While thine as black as hell, and stain’d within, Belies the lily-whiteness of thy skin. (Basker 2002, 653) But while Marsden steps away from the traditional use of this phrase, by separating spiritual and physical categories of black and white, the more typical usage did not disappear. As late as 1870, Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, an outspoken critic of American slavery, preached on John 13:8, which is taken from the Last Supper account and reads, “Jesus answered him, if I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.” While the gospel narrative is comparing Jesus’s washing of the disciples’ feet with his cleansing grace, Spurgeon said: First, no man has any part in Christ who does not receive the first all-essential washing in the precious blood, by which all sin is once and forever put away.  .  .  . Though he may have been up to now black as an Ethiopian, yet is he washed in the fountain filled from the Redeemer’s veins, and he stands before God without spot wrinkle, or any such thing. (Spurgeon 1870)

“Wash the Ethiop White” 79 Alongside this, in popular culture, the metaphor was used. The 1884 advertisement for Pear’s Soap, seen in Kettler’s “The Smell of Slavery,” shows a white child washing a black child “clean” (Kettler 2020, 71). And as a sidenote, lest we imagine that these sentiments belong to a bygone age, see the Dove bodywash advert from 2017, which visibly demonstrated a Black woman being washed white, with a clear message that her Blackness was a dirt which needed to be cleansed (Mire 2020, 71). Returning to the nineteenth century, the relationship between whiteness and cleanliness continued in religious poetry; Martin Marquhar Turper’s Proverbial Philosophy, from 1881, describes the biblical lineage of sin from Adam to Cain to Ham as having a curse that was “blackness universal” and that their offspring was “stained,” in part through the “negress wife of Ham.” The poem continues: Not but that Christ’s glad gospel hath since made all things new, The leopard’s spots are scattered, and the Ethiop’s skin is changed, Peter’s sheet had every kind, and none are now unclean, Candance’s sable eunuch is as pure a soul as Abel; In Jesus all are made alive, and sons of Ham and Canaan, Even in Cainites, are made clean, and white as snow on Salmon. (Tupper 1881, 368) However, Black sources also propagated this metaphor correlating whiteness and salvation. Olaudah Equiano, the emancipated slave, described the following event in his memoirs: This mate had a little daughter, aged about five or six years, with whom I used to be much delighted. I had often observed that when her mother washed her face it looked very rosy; but when she washed mine it did not look so: I therefore tried oftentimes myself if I could not by washing make my face of the same colour as my little play-mate (Mary), but it was all in vain; and I now began to be mortified at the difference in our complexions. (Paul 2009) This literal attempt to wash the skin demonstrates the shame that was associated with skin color and ethnicity. While this is more of a literal example of washing, the undertone is the same as has been seen earlier; there is a form of redemption in the washing of Black skin. Elsewhere, Samuel Barber, the son of Francis, who was the Black servant of Dr. Samuel Johnson, grew up in England. His life is recounted in John Smith’s memoir of him, published for the Primitive Methodist magazine in 1829. This is the account of Barber’s spiritual turmoil: The powers of darkness beset him around, hell was up against him, and the enemy suggested that there was no mercy for him, because

80  Daniel Johnson he was of African extraction, and of the coloured tribe. The enemy of souls insinuated, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, which is by nature dark? Or the leopard his spots, which are woven int the skin?” (Barber 1829) Here, Blackness is used as a means of spiritual condemnation, and Barber felt that he needed a form of salvation that would wash not only his sins but also his skin, white as snow. He felt, by being Black, doubly damned, and that his salvation needed the outer and inner man to be redeemed. By contrast, the emancipated slave-turned-preacher Jupiter Hammon wrote in a sermon: [I]f you become Christians, you will have reason to bless God for ever, that you have been brought to a land where you have heard the gospel, though have been slaves. If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being Black, or for being slaves. (Hammon 1970, 117) Here, Hammon subverts the notion that Black is antithetical to righteousness and envisages an eschatological future free from condemnation for either his status or ethnicity. The preceding analysis demonstrates the context of “to wash the Ethiop white” and shows the ways this racially aggravated metaphor was used for several centuries. This argument informs the reading of Wesley’s hymn and helps establish the case that he is using a racialized description of salvation. A common objection to my thesis, which I have already encountered, is that John Wesley opposed the slave trade, in publications such as Thoughts Upon Slavery, and therefore the Wesleys could not hold a racialized perspective. While I do not wish to dimmish the significance of their opposition to the slave trade, this is not entirely identical to championing true racial equality. Isaac Watts, the early eighteenth-century dissenting minister, never once (to my knowledge) made any mention of the slave trade. But Watts, one of the most significant theologians in the years preceding the evangelical revivals, was comfortable in expressing sentiments that clearly regard whites and Europeans as socially, intellectually, and spiritually superior: Never certainly were there, in Matters of Religion, so obstinate and infatuated a People. Some Hottentots5 in the hands of Europeans, have dissembled a Profession of Christianity for a while, but have ever renounced it for their native Idolatries as soon as they could get out of their Hands. I have never heard of a Hottentot that died a Christian. They see born with a moral Antipathy to every Religion but their own. (Watts 1731, 146) Watts is here articulating the same view that others held, which is that whiteness was a spiritually superior category. Elsewhere, Watts argues that it is the

“Wash the Ethiop White” 81 gift of reason which elevated “the European World, almost as much above the Hottentots and other Savages of Africa, as those Savages are by Nature superior to Birds, the Beasts, and the Fishes” (Watts 1725, iii).6 A similar sentiment is found in John Wesley’s The Dignity of Human Nature, published in 1762: An ingenious Writer, who a few Years ago, publish’d a pompous Translation of the Koran, takes great Pains to give us a very favourable Opinion, both of Mahomet and his Followers. But he cannot wash the Ethiop white. After all, Men who have but a moderate Share of Reason cannot but observe in his Koran . . . the most gross and impious absurdities. (J. Wesley 1762, 32) John Wesley also describes “heathens of the basest sort, many of them inferior to the beasts of the field” and compares “Mahometans” to “their four-footed bretheren,” describing them as “a disgrace to human nature.” He acknowledges that the celebrated writer Lady Mary Wortley Montague “labours to wash the Ethiop white” by arguing to the contrary, but he dismisses her verdict (J. Wesley 1788, 191–92). By the 1790s, his views had clearly changed to some degree. He wrote with indignation to William Wilberforce, the abolitionist, regarding the injustice that a Black man will suffer simply for the color of his skin (J. Wesley 1791). A Foul Incarnate Fiend The chapter now returns to Wesley’s hymn. He was not the first to employ Jeremiah 13:23 in his hymnody. Isaac Watts’s Custom in Sin is one such example: Let the wild Leopards of the Wood Put off the Spots that Nature gives, Then may the Wicked turn to God, And change their Tempers, and their Lives. As well might Ethiopian Slaves Wash out the Darkness of their Skin; The Dead as well may leave their Graves, As Old Transgressors cease to sin. (Watts 1709, 270) Notice how Watts adds the description that the Ethiopians are slaves, and that their skin is not merely changed but washed. Watts’s verses show how Wesley has taken the biblical text further again, by not just suggesting an impossible and hypothetical scenario where, in the words of Jeremiah, the

82  Daniel Johnson Ethiopian can theoretically change their skin, but Wesley repeatedly and explicitly states that the Ethiopian becomes white. Wesley did write a hymn based on Jeremiah 13:23, and it demonstrates a plainer reading of the text, without any of the racial overtones that other verses contain: Can the Ethiop change his skin? His spots the leopard lose? Can a soul injur’d to sin The paths of virtue choose? Yes, my kind almighty LORD, At thy transforming word they may; I at thy transforming word Repent, believe, obey. (J. Wesley and C. Wesley 1742, 242) This example is not typical of the way Wesley versified Jeremiah 13:23. My argument—that Wesley is using a racialized metaphor to signify some degree of relationship between whiteness and salvation—needs to be located within the wider context of Wesley’s actions. Establishing his precise meaning is complex, because while Wesley refers to the Ethiop being washed white alongside other groups of people that he would have believed to be sinful, defective, or unrighteous, other evidence also demonstrates an apparently high degree of care for both Black slaves and prisoners. This somewhat nuanced view must be accounted for. While serving as a missionary in America in 1736, Wesley had diary entries that attest that he witnessed the horrors experienced by slaves firsthand (Kimbrough Jr. 2009, 35). Later, upon returning to London, Wesley ministered to an imprisoned slave on death row. On July  12, 1738, he wrote in his diary that he shared the gospel with “a poor Black that had robbed his master.” On July 15, he wrote, “Preached there again with an enlarged heart and rejoiced with my poor happy Black, who now believes the Son of God loved him, and gave himself for him” (Kimbrough Jr. 2009, 37). And on July  18, Wesley administered the sacrament to this same man and eight other prisoners before their executions. Several decades later, in 1774, correspondence from Charles Wesley to William Perronet reveals an incident where two emancipated slaves, Ephraim and Ancona, were baptized by Charles and received the sacraments three times from John Wesley. Charles observed that “they received both the outward and visible signs & the inward & spiritual grace in a wonderful manner and measure” (Cruickshank 2009). There is an evident hierarchy in both accounts; the social and spiritual Wesley benevolently condescends to the prisoners and slaves. To some degree, that hierarchy is inevitable: the prominent clergyman and those who have been deprived of their basic freedoms. But the eighteenth-century anglophone world

“Wash the Ethiop White” 83 would have undoubtedly seen Wesley’s white skin as an aspect of his cultural, and spiritual, superiority. The tension in Wesley’s relationship to race and slavery has been discussed, somewhat sympathetically, by Kimbrough; Wesley’s rage at the treatment of slaves in 1736 had given way to a more spiritual concern in 1738. There is no mention in the later account that the imprisonment, or execution, of the slaves was unjust; rather, his attention and efforts are entirely on the conversion of the imprisoned. To borrow language from Bebbington’s Quadrilateral, Wesley prioritizes conversionism above activism. While his treatment of Ephraim and Ancona is undoubtedly gentle and generous, Kimbrough is right to notice the conspicuous silence regarding the evils of slavery; when living in Bristol, slavery was an unavoidable dimension of daily life. It is therefore logical to assume at least apathy or indifference in Wesley toward the plight of Black and enslaved peoples. This, in turn, substantiates the racialized reading of his hymns. Returning to Wesley’s use of “to wash the Ethiop white,” further examples abound in his hymns. In A Prayer Against the Power of Sin, the narrative builds upon the notion that, should God sanctify him, he would become more holy. In verse 12, Wesley prays that Jesus would not only save him by faith but also “make [him] meet for heaven.” The final two verses read: Speak, and the deaf shall hear thy voice The blind his sight receive, The dumb in songs of praise rejoice, The heart of stone believe. The Ethiop then shall change his skin, The dead shall feel thy power. The loathsome leper shall be clean, And I shall sin no more! (J. Wesley and C. Wesley 1740, 82) Again, Wesley uses examples of the miracles of Jesus being applied literally to those who have found the grace of God. Especially in the final verse, Wesley draws on two other metaphors which signify ceremonial uncleanliness in Scripture, and there is a clear implication by association that the Ethiop falls into this category. An almost-identical formulation is repeated in a hymn based on Acts 8, which is an account of the Ethiopian eunuch being converted following a miraculous encounter with the apostle Philip: But thou can’st wash the leper clean, The stone to flesh convert, Can’st make the Ethiop change his skin, And purify my heart (J. Wesley and C. Wesley 1742, 95)

84  Daniel Johnson In another hymn, taken from Chronicles 28:22, Wesley plumbs the depths of his own sinfulness, describing himself as a wretch, under the wrath of God, and a rebel who was claiming for himself “the hottest place in hell.” The second verse reads: Tis not in pain to move This most obdurate heart; Only the power of bleeding love Can stone to flesh convert. Bid my rebellions end, And wash the Ethiop white, And change a foul incarnate fiend Into a child of light. (C. Wesley 1762, 207–8) The image is used again in Groaning for Redemption. The penultimate verse of the three-part hymn reads: Speak; and an holy thing and clean Shall strangely be brought out of me My Ethiop-soul shall change her skin Redeem’d from all iniquity. The hymn then moves to an eschatological scene, where Wesley exudes that he shall “forever praise,” in part because he shall then “the pure and heavenly nature share” (J. Wesley and C. Wesley 1740, 79–80). The relationship between whiteness and the eschaton was hotly debated at that time. Christopher Trigg has demonstrated that several New England divines (Samuel Sewall, Cotton Mather, and John Beach) all believed, in subtly differing ways, that the resurrection body could not be Black (Trigg 2020). One example of this would be the inscription on the tombstone of Caesar the Ethiopian, a slave buried in Woodstock Cemetery, Massachusetts, which reads: In memory of CAESAR Here lies the best of slaves Now turning into dust; Caesar the Ethiopian craves A place among the just. His faithful soul has fled To realms of heavenly light, And by the blood that Jesus shed Is changed from Black to White. (Mann and Greene 1993, 47) It seems evident, then, that Wesley’s words fit into a theology of racialized sanctification, in which the Gospel is believed to provide a metaphorical whiteness in this life and a literal whiteness in the next.

“Wash the Ethiop White” 85 It is important how much Wesley relies on the notion of washing, which— as I have said—goes beyond the biblical text. This suggests a dimension of purification and cleanliness; biblically, washing symbolizes sanctification. There is a reading of the hymns which suggests that Wesley is simply trying to describe the futile attempts of a sinner to change without divine grace. But given that every other example of transformation in his hymns relies upon something literal which receives healing or redemption, it is arguably too much of a stretch to argue that there are no connotations of whiteness in his picture of salvation, especially when it has been used on multiple occasions. And it is the references to the leper, the biblical archetype of ceremonial uncleanliness and unrighteousness, that establish this argument further. When Wesley pairs a leper being cleansed with Black skin being washed, the comparison is more substantiated. There is another factor to consider, and that is the references in Wesley’s hymns to the curse of Ham. This was a widely held belief in the early modern world, the biblical story in Genesis 9, in which Noah’s son Ham failed to cover up the drunk and naked Noah and was subsequently cursed to be a slave of his brothers; Black peoples were said (without any biblical justification) to descend from Ham, and so therefore their subjugation and enslavement were permitted, even necessary. On the ideology of curse of Ham theology in early modern life, David Goldenberg writes: Whether or not the negative value of Blackness was the cause of antiBlack sentiment and whether or not anti-Black sentiment led to Black slavery, it is clear that already by the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade in the fifteenth century Black and slave were inextricably joined in the Christian mind. (Goldenberg 2003, 3) Charles Wesley refers to the curse of Ham in one of his hymns. In his 1758 Intercession Hymns, Wesley published the hymn For the Heathen. The first verse expresses Wesley’s Arminian soteriology: Lord over all, if thou hast made, Hast ransom’d every soul of man, Why is the grace so long delay’d, Why unfulfil’d the saving plan, The bliss for Adam’s race design’d When will it reach to all mankind? The third verse reads: The servile progeny of Ham Seize as the purchase of thy blood, Let all the heathen know thy name; From idols to the living God,

86  Daniel Johnson The dark Americans convert, And shine in every pagan heart. (C. Wesley 1758, 27–28) Wesley describes the descendants of Ham as being slaves, or “servile,” having been taken to the Americas. They are also, in this verse, “dark.” So while Wesley locates their offer of salvation within the opening verse, part of that salvation must presumably involve a deliverance from the curse of Ham. The hymn, and this verse in particular, is given greater significance later when it was used by John Wesley to conclude his Thoughts Upon Slavery, which forcefully condemned the practice of slavery (J. Wesley 1774). John Wesley had previously espoused the curse of Ham in his Doctrine of Original Sin, where he quotes from Dr. Jennings: God has in other Cases actually punished Men’s Sins on the Posterity. Thus the Posterity of Canaan, the Son of Ham, is punish’d with Slavery, for his Sin. Noah pronounced the Curse under a Divine Afflatus, and GOD confirmed it by his Providence. (J. Wesley 1757, 98) John Wesley’s use of the curse of Ham carries with it the implication that he affirmed this extra-biblical view, and Charles Wesley’s lyrical articulation of it, within the context of universal redemption, further demonstrates a racialized view of salvation in his works. A Thousand Tongues By now, the analysis has demonstrated that Wesley’s hymn carries a racialized description of salvation; the context of his hymns clearly implies either healing, ceremonial cleanliness, or transformation. All of Wesley’s other examples— the leper, the dead, etc.—were unrighteous according to the Levitical law and ostracized from the offer of a covenant relationship with God. Wesley’s hymns allude to the many accounts in the gospels where Jesus brings a miraculous transformation which is equated to salvation, justification, and acceptance. While Wesley is—probably—not saying that only white people can be saved, he is using a metaphor which is laden with racial overtones, which stands in contrast to some of his work with Black slaves and prisoners. A further aspect of the hymn to be briefly considered is its reception history. John Wesley envisaged A Collections of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780) as being the definitive hymnbook for the fledging movement. In this volume, the original 18 verses of O for a Thousand Tongues were reduced to a far more manageable 10 or so. The verses about harlots and murderers had been jettisoned, but “wash the Ethiop white” remained. The subsequent publications of A Collection of Hymns continued to use this verse, and the most recent version I have been able to find was

“Wash the Ethiop White” 87 published in 1875. The most recent example of the verse’s publication that I have encountered is from 1889, in the Primitive Methodist Hymnal. What is striking is that the previous edition of this hymnal omitted the verse, and therefore we can conclude that it has, at least at times, been contentious. The hymn is discussed in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine in 1876, in the context of alleged plagiarism, rather than for the arguably offensive nature of the lyrics. The author argued that the Reverend John Berridge, a vicar from Everton in Liverpool, England, had published his own hymnbook, which had—supposedly—drawn extensively from the works of Wesley and others. When Wesley had written, “Cast all your sins into the deep, And wash the Ethiop white,” Beveridge wrote his own hymn with the line, “will cast your sins into the deep, and wash the Blackmoore white.” Seemingly, according to the discussion in the magazine, plagiarism was unacceptable, but racialized descriptions of salvation were permissible (The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine 1876, 531). Ultimately, the legacy of this verse has been summarized by Maggi Dawn, who writes that the verse has been entirely excised from hymnbooks because of its “imperialistic and racist overtones” (Dawn 2021, 131). While this study does not extend to assessing why the verse fell out of usage—was it intentionally excluded due to changing attitudes around notions of politeness and civility, despite the nineteenth-century rise in scientific racism, or was it simply dropped as hymnals published fewer verses?— the verse would be a significant source for studying possible links between whiteness and salvation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, if examples of his publication can be found. Notably, the Methodist hymnbook of 1904 does not include this verse. Conclusion Writing a conclusion to this piece is no easy task. Even as the final version returned to me from the editors, this section was still subject to discussion. But I return to my introduction and reaffirm that the purpose of this chapter is to accurately add, via primary source analysis, to our picture of Charles Wesley and the interpretation of his hymns. It can be said that Wesley’s view of humanity is seemingly tiered, and it can be confidently concluded that his original verses, in their hymnic context as well as the use of “to wash the Ethiop white” in the early modern world, rely on a deeply rooted anti-Black prejudice, and that sermons and hymns were used to perpetuate a theology which saw a dichotomy of Black and evil versus white and good. The role of the historian is to engage with contested legacies and contestable artifacts. The reader will, by now, have their own questions as to what we “do” with Wesley now. Some may wish to distance themselves from him and find other sources of hymnody. Others may wish to continue using the best moments from his body of work—and these moments are arguably unparalleled in anglophone hymnody—but with an increased awareness of Wesley’s life and views. It is vital, in either case, that we recognize the fuller picture of

88  Daniel Johnson Wesley. The purpose of this chapter is to contextually study a problematic verse in Wesley’s hymnody, rather than set the course for his legacy (he himself has done that). This picture reveals a man whose views of race, humanity, and salvation appear to be antithetical to his professed faith. While some of Wesley’s actions stand in contrast to many of the prevailing attitudes toward race and slavery in the eighteenth century, the original verses of this hymn are best and most accurately understood as being an example of the white centricity that dominated eighteenth-century Atlantic society and religion. Notes 1 For an introduction to Wesley as a hymn writer, see Berger 1989; Kimbrough Jr. 1992; for a broader study of Wesley, see Newport and Campbell 2007. 2 For a fuller account of the relationship between Wesley’s conversion and this hymn, see Powers 2020, 18–22; Dudley-Smith, n.d. 3 It is important to acknowledge the ableism that appears in Wesley’s hymns. It is, regrettably, beyond the scope of this present chapter to consider this in the detail it requires. 4 All emphasis, spelling, and punctuation from early modern sources are original throughout this chapter. 5 Hottentot is a now-offensive term for somebody of African descent. 6 It is telling that this book was published over 20 times in the eighteenth century and was adopted by both Oxford and Cambridge Universities as their textbook on logic, despite such flagrant racism appearing in the preface. Another point to mention is that, due to the ubiquitous status of Watts as the preeminent hymn writer of the eighteenth century, Dargan has written, “[T]herefore, slaves who learned hymns by various authors through the lining-out form apparently came to associate the entire tradition with the name and honorific title ‘Dr. Watts’ ” (Dargan 2006, 26). See also the comment from the Virginia minister Mr. Davies, who specifically asks for copies of Dr. Watts’s Psalms and Hymns along with Bibles for the edification of his slaves (Fawcett 1756, 37).

References Aravamudan, Srinivas. 1999. Tropicopolitans. Durham: Duke University Press. Bailey, Richard A. 2011. Race and Redemption in Puritan New England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barber, Samuel. 1829. Accessed January 13, 2023. www.myprimitivemethodists.org. uk/content/people-2/lay-people/surnames-beginning-with-b/samuel_barber-2. Basker, James G., ed. 2002. Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems About Slavery, 1660–1810. New Haven: Yale University Press. Berger, Teresa. 1989. Theology in Hymns? A Study of the Relationship of Doxology and Theology According to ‘A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780)’. Edited by T. E. Kimbrough. Nashville: Kingswood Books. Cruickshank, Joanna. 2009. “Charles Wesley, the Men of Old Calabar, and the Abolition of Slavery.” Theological Journal of the Wesleyan Theological Consortium 7: 8–16. Dargan, William T. 2006. Lining Out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans. Berkeley: University of California Press.

“Wash the Ethiop White” 89 Dawn, Maggi. 2021. “The Ethics of Adaption in Hymns and Songs for Worship.” In Ethics and Christian Musicking, edited by Nathan Myrck and Mark Porter. London: Routledge. Dudley-Smith, Timothy. n.d. “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” In The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Accessed February  6, 2023. www.hymnology.co.uk/o/o-for-a-thousand-tongues-to-sing. Edwards, John. 1718. A Treatise of Repentance. London: Printed for R. Cruttenden and T. Cox, at the Bible and Three-Crowns, in Cheapside, Near Mercers-Chappel. Fawcett, Benjamin. 1756. A Compassionate Address to the Christian Negroes in Virginia. London: Salop. Gillies, John. 1774. Memoirs of the Life of the Reverend George Whitefield. New York: Printed by Hodge and Shober. Goldenberg, David M. 2003. The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hacket, John. 1675. A Century of Sermons Upon Several Remarkable Subjects. London: Thomas Plume. Hall, Thomas. 1658. A Practical and Polemical Commentary. London: E. Tyler for John Starkey. Hammon, Jupiter. 1970. America’s First Negro Poet: The Complete Works of Jupiter Hammon of Long Island. Edited by Stanley Austin Ransom. Port Washington: Kennikat Press. Horton, Thomas. 1679. One Hundred Select Sermons Upon Several Texts Fifty Upon the Old Testament, and Fifty on the New. London: Thomas Parkhurst. Johnson, Elizabeth. 1799. An Account of Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson. London: W. Pine and Son. Kettler, Andrew. 2020. The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kimbrough Jr., S. T. ed. 1992. Charles Wesley: Poet and Theologian. Nashville: Abingdon Press. ———. 2009. “Charles Wesley and Slavery.” Proceedings of the Charles Wesley Society 13: 35–52. Korhonen, Anu. 2005. “Washing the Ethiopian White: Conceptualising Black Skin in Renaissance England.” In Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, edited by Thomas F. Earle and Kate J. P. Lowe, 94–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Letter (GB 133 MAM/FL/6/7/14). 1797. University of Manchester, The FletcherTooth Collection, Correspondence. Lewis, Tamara Elizabeth. 2014. “ ‘To Wash a Blackamoor White’: The Rise of Black Ethnic Religious Rhetoric in Early Modern England.” PhD thesis, Vanderbilt University. Mann, Thomas C., and Janet Greene, eds. 1993. Over Their Dead Bodies: Yankee Epitaphs & History. Battleboro: Stephen Greene Press. Mire, Amina. 2020. Wellness in Whiteness: Biomedicalization and the Promotion of Whiteness and Youth Among Women. London: Routledge. Newport, Kenneth G. C., and Ted A. Campbell, eds. 2007. Charles Wesley: Life, Literature and Legacy. Peterborough: Epworth Press. Paul, Ronald. 2009. “ ‘I Whitened My Face, That They Might Not Know Me’: Race and Identity in Olaudah Equiano’s Slave Narrative.” Journal of Black Studies 39 (6): 848–64.

90  Daniel Johnson Powers, Jonathan A. 2020. “O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing.” In Amazing Love! How Can It Be: Studies on Hymns by Charles Wesley, edited by Chris Fenner and Brian G. Najapfour, 18–26. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers. Spurgeon, Charles H. 1870. “The Sine Qua Non.” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. Accessed January  13, 2023. www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/ the-sine-qua-non/#flipbook/. The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine. 1876. London: Wesleyan Conference Office. Trigg, Christopher. 2020. “The Racial Politics of the Resurrection in the EighteenthCentury Atlantic World.” Early American Literature 55 (1): 47–84. Tupper, Martin F. 1881. Proverbial Philosophy: The Four Series Complete. London, Paris and New York: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. Watts, Isaac. 1709. Hymns and Spiritual Songs: In Three Books I. Collected from the Scriptures. II. Compos’d on Divine Subjects. III. Prepar’d for the Lord’s Supper (The Second). London: Printed by J. H. for John Lawrence at the Angel in the Poultrey. ———. 1725. Logick: Or, the Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth, with a Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error, in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life, as Well as in the Sciences. London: Printed for John Clark and Richard Hett, at the Bible and Crown in the Poultry Near Cheapside. ———. 1731. The Strength and Weakness of Human Reason. London: Printed for J. Pemberton. Wesley, Charles. 1758. Hymns of Intercession for All Mankind. London: J. Paramore. ———. 1762. Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures. Vol. I. Bristol: E. Farley. Wesley, John. 1757. The Doctrine of Original Sin: According to Scripture, Reason, and Experience. Bristol: E. Farley. ———. 1762. The Dignity of Human Nature. Bristol: No Publisher Given. ———. 1774. Thoughts Upon Slavery. London: R. Hawes. ———. 1780. A Collection of Hymns, for Use of the People Called Methodists. London: J. Paramore. ———. 1788. Sermons on Several Occasions. London: New Chapel. ———. 1791. “Last Writing of John Wesley (a Letter to William Wilberforce).” In Evangelical Advocacy: A Response to Global Poverty. Papers, PDF Files, and Presentations. Wesley, John, and Charles Wesley. 1740. Hymns and Sacred Poems. London: Strahan. ———. 1742. Hymns and Sacred Poems. Bristol: Farley.

6 Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody The Training, Career, and Contribution of Reverend Daniel Malgas Andrew-John Bethke Introduction Reverend Daniel Malgas (c. 1853–1936)1 was among the first group of local Anglican clergy to be trained in Grahamstown (now Makhanda), South Africa, in the 1870s. In Lent 1879,2 he completed his studies, was ordained as a deacon, and began his ministry on a mission station in the eastern part of the Cape Colony. An autobiographical sketch which Malgas wrote toward the end of his life (about 1929)3 describes his ministry and the influences which he had absorbed from a number of the colonial clergy with whom he worked.4 It also describes his life as an African clergyperson in the late nineteenth century within what I call the hybrid liminal ecclesiastical cultural space between traditional Xhosa life and Western colonial conventions.5 Malgas was an important member of the Christianized, educated Xhosa elite who lived in the Cape Colony. As one of the first African men to be ordained into the Anglican Church in South Africa, he held a special position in the local community. He appears frequently in Xhosa news articles of that time and was memorialized by Samuel Mqhayi (1875–1945) soon after his death.6 Undoubtedly, Malgas’s greatest legacy is his numerous original and translated hymns, a number of which are still sung today. However, his autobiographical memoir mentions nothing of writing Xhosa hymns or of his interest in hymnody. It is Malgas’s hymns which form the focus of the second part of the chapter. Their literary features are compared with hymns and poems by other contemporary Christianized and mission-educated Xhosa poets who also used Western poetic conventions. Their theological content is also analyzed in terms of its ritualist characteristics.7 I then contextualize their work within the greater milieu of the Anglican mission work in the colonial Cape Colony. Very little about Malgas’s career is formally documented.8 The first part of this chapter assembles a brief biographical picture of Malgas using his memoir, along with other archival materials. Large gaps in the sources, particularly from the latter part of his life, mean that a comprehensive biography DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-6

92  Andrew-John Bethke is not possible at this point. However, an exploration of Malgas’s formation in Anglican ritualism, along with some of his primary influencers, is included. As Goedhals (1989, 17–18) has noted, there have traditionally been three avenues of historical exploration of Southern African missiological endeavor: accounts which take the missionaries’ motives at face value, readings which look to Marxist interpretations of imperial domination, and those which favor readings that fall broadly in between these two poles. For the most part, mission history has been documented by white scholars, with an increasing number of contributions by historians of color in the past 20 years. However, despite the appeal to Marxist critique and other historical methods which aim for balance and neutrality, the South African missiological history is still largely a white-dominated field.9 Z. K. Matthews once critiqued the white telling of history, saying it bore little resemblance to that which was experienced by black people (Matthews 1981, 58). His critique is an important one. As this chapter is written by a white male, important nuances of meaning in the original sources may be lost because of racial prejudice. Nevertheless, as far as possible, sources which were written by black Xhosa role-players of that time are used (often translated directly from their original Xhosa), and then contextual material is provided in order to form an interpretation. I  draw on sources including original material written by Malgas himself, Mqhayi (a prominent Xhosa writer), Peter Masiza (the first Xhosa Anglican priest), and James Mata Dwane (an Anglican deacon, and the founder of the Order of Ethiopia).10 Additionally, Malgas’s hymns are assessed against the work of other contemporary Xhosa poets rather than against the products of white missionary writers such as William Philip (a white locally trained priest who was tutored alongside and ordained at the same time as Malgas).11 My aim is to produce not a neutral historical analysis but, rather, a space for Malgas’s voice to be heard again after nearly 90 years since his death in 1936. No doubt, further interpretations of his life and legacy will follow in time. Toward a Biographical Sketch of Daniel Malgas Daniel Malgas was introduced to missionary education in his late teens. He was of the Mfengu tribe (Mqhayi 2009, 494) and, like his contemporary Peter Mazisa (c.1840–1907), probably found himself caught between traditional Xhosa life and the ever-increasing Western cultural demands of a Christian convert.12 Yet as will become clear later, he was actively involved in Xhosa politics and was not uncritical of European domination, although for the most part he displayed a sense of deference to the white Christian ideology, with its attendant hierarchical power structures. Malgas began his personal memoirs of his ministry in the Diocese of Grahamstown with his admission as a boarder at St. Luke’s Mission in 1872.13 He would have been 18 or 19 years old when he started. He says nothing of his childhood or early teenage years in his autobiographical sketch. Mqhayi (2009, 494) attributes this late educational start to the fact that his parents converted to

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 93 Christianity quite late in life. He also notes that this may be the same reason Malgas did not have tertiary qualifications—presumably, he was too old. Nevertheless, four years later, Malgas was ready to start a teacher’s certificate at the local Institute for people of color in Grahamstown in January 1876 (Malgas c.1929, 1).14 While he never explicitly says this, it seems that during his time at St. Luke’s Mission, he felt called to the ordained ministry in the Anglican Church. At that time, there were no ordained black Anglican priests in South Africa, although Peter Mazisa was ordained to the priesthood by Henry Callaway in the Diocese of St. John’s a year after Malgas enrolled at the Institute (Goedhals 1989, 18). Education and Christian ministry, especially on the Victorian mission field, went hand in hand, and as a result, all those candidating for Anglican priesthood were required to be trained as teachers while, at the same time, being mentored as Christian pastors, hence Malgas’s enrollment at the Institute (Malgas c.1929, 1). Thus, he was concurrently a student teacher and a candidate for ordination. At that time, Anglican seminaries were still developing within the worldwide Anglican Communion. A fair number of English clergy went to Cambridge or Oxford to complete a bachelor of arts degree and were ordained soon afterward (Chadwick 1954, 3). Specific theological training was not provided for such men, but they were mentored during their academic training by college tutors (who were almost always ordained clergy). This usually filled in the theological gaps. Those who were not fortunate enough to attend Cambridge or Oxford went to newly established ministerial training institutions such as St. Bee’s15 and, for those intending to be missionaries, St. Augustine’s.16 In other words, formal theological education in the English system was still fairly underdeveloped at that time, many curates being mentored individually by senior clergy. In a similar system, Malgas did not receive formal theological training but was instead assigned to a theological tutor—John Espin (1836–1905).17 Malgas did not provide details about the curriculum of the teaching certificate,18 or of tutoring he received from Espin, so it is impossible to discern exactly what he was taught. Suffice it to say, his education was organized and provided by white clergy. Espin had been appointed in 1875 as a theological tutor in the Diocese of Grahamstown, and he set to work immediately to solidify a framework for local theological training (Goedhals 1982, 346). In 1876, he presented specific expectations and requirements for ordinands to the South African Provincial Synod for consideration: Anglican ordinands were expected to adopt a rule of life which included the practice of private prayer in the morning and the evening, regular Bible reading, weekday attendance at services where possible, monthly communion, observance of the seasons of the church’s year, and a course of reading including Keble’s Christian Year, the Imitation of Christ, and Law’s Serious Call. (Goedhals 1982, 348)

94  Andrew-John Bethke Both Malgas and Philip (mentioned earlier) made Xhosa translations of John Keble’s hymns, which may indicate that the Christian Year formed part of their formation.19 To this were added academic requirements: a broad knowledge of the Scriptures; confident familiarity with the Book of Common Prayer; understanding of Christian doctrine extrapolated from the ThirtyNine Articles of Religion,20 and creeds; acquaintance with the history of the Early Church; and a full understanding of the constitution and canons of the local Anglican Church (Goedhals 1982, 348). Although it was later decided that black candidates for priesthood did not need to learn Latin and Greek, Goedhals (1982, 348) has found evidence that some early candidates, possibly Malgas, did receive lessons in Greek. On March 23, 1879, Malgas was ordained to the diaconate along with Philip by Nathaniel Merriman, Bishop of Grahamstown (Mullins 1879, 1–2), and was sent to St. Luke’s Mission as an assistant to the missionary based there, Albert Maggs (1840–1882) (Malgas c.1929, 1–2).21 Here an important point needs to be made. Malgas was training alongside William Philip. Philip contributed 45 translations of hymns to the Xhosa hymnbook of 1919 and had already provided one Xhosa translation of a hymn to Alfred Newton’s hymn collection Incwadi Yamaculo in 1873 (Burnett 2020, 246). Newton (1842–1896), a missionary at St. Peter’s Indwe (Gwatyu), had been a passionate advocate of Xhosa hymnody for years, having first published a collection of Xhosa hymns in 1869 and then contributed 28 original hymns and translations to his Incwadi Yamaculo (Burnett 2020, 219, 246). Philip must have met Newton at some point before 1873 (probably at a missionary gathering) and imbibed some of his passion for hymnody, likely sharing it later with Malgas while they were training together in Grahamstown. Malgas, Philip, and Newton went on to be among the most prolific translators for the 1919 Xhosa Hymn Book. Thus, Malgas’s training in Grahamstown could well have been the starting point of his hymn writing career. In 1881, after three years at St. Luke’s, Malgas was sent to St. Andrew’s Mission in Queenstown as a teacher and missionary (Malgas c.1929, 3–4). He worked hard at Queenstown, among other things enlarging the chapel of which he was in charge (Malgas c.1929, 4). While there, he was visited monthly by Alfred Newton, who was based nearby at Indwe. It seems that Malgas admired Newton and looked forward to his visits (Malgas c.1929, 3–4). It may be through these monthly visits that Malgas’s interest in Xhosa hymnody was further developed and encouraged. Interestingly, though, he does not mention anything about this in his memoirs. After only two and a half years at St. Andrew’s Mission, Malgas was sent rather suddenly, according to him, to St. Stephen’s Mission in what was called Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha. It is not clear why the move was so sudden. A  report in a local Xhosa newspaper, Isigidimi Samaxosa, of October  1, 1883, confirms the date of Malgas’s arrival. The report says that members of a temperance group called the True Templars, as well as delegations from the Ethiopian Benefit Society (a burial society)22 and Mbumba Yamanyama

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 95 (literally “The Body of Flesh”; a political group established in 1882 to promote Xhosa ideals), came to meet Malgas as he arrived in Port Elizabeth (Isigidimi Samaxosa 1883). His predecessor had been vitally involved in all these organizations, and he, too, become an important part of the Xhosa political establishment as a result. It is known, for example, that he became an active member of Mbumba Yamanyama (Odendaal 1993, 6). In August  1885, Malgas was ordained to the priesthood at St. Mary’s Church in Port Elizabeth along with Philip. At that time, this parish was an advanced ritualist congregation (Bethke 2020a). Malgas says of his time at St. Stephen’s, “Dr Wirgman, one of my great friends, who was the Rector of S. Mary’s, took a very great interest in the mission under me” (Malgas c.1929, 7). Wirgman was a well-known ritualist, and it may be that Malgas was influenced by the ritualist circle which gravitated around several parishes in Port Elizabeth, St. Mary’s and St. Peter’s among them. Of some of the liturgical innovations in the Port Elizabeth area, Malgas had this to say: One Good Friday he invited me to attend the three hours’ Service at S. Cuthberts [sic] Church which was then in the Parish of S. Mary’s. The Service made such an impression on my mind that since then I do not remember conducting any other kind of Service on Good Friday. (Malgas c.1929, 7) At that time, a three-hour devotion on Good Friday was still a novelty in South Africa and was certainly a strong indication of the influence of ritualist clergy (Bethke 2020a, 176). By adopting such a practice, Malgas was aligning himself with the ritualists in local Anglican circles. From a musical and hymnological point of view, there is a vignette from St. Peter’s (Port Elizabeth) in 1881 which shows the use of plainsong antiphons and Adeste Fideles: The ancient custom of singing the Greater Antiphons before and after the Magnificat during the week before Christmas was observed in this Church. On Christmas Day  .  .  . [at the 11 o’clock service] the choir, preceded by Thurifer, Incense boat and Cross bearers, properly vested, entered the Church singing the Adeste Fideles, which was heartily taken up by the congregation. All the music in this church (excepting hymns) is plain song, and one could not help contrasting the volume of praise then going up, to the sounds of ribaldry once heard, at this season, in days we hope never to return. (The Church Chronicle 1881, 58) Both the antiphons23 and the Adeste Fideles24 are included in the Hymnal Noted (1851), a collection strongly associated with the highly influential Ecclesiological Society (also known as the Cambridge Camden Society). John Mason Neale (1818–1866) and Thomas Helmore (1811–1890) were

96  Andrew-John Bethke the editors of this volume. Neale was a leader of the Ecclesiological Society, and Helmore was a choral pedagogue based at St. Mark’s Teacher Training College in London. A generation of ritualists took inspiration from the work of the ecclesiologists when they introduced new innovations to worship services. At least one missionary in South Africa was trained at St. Mark’s under Helmore: William Greenstock (1830–1912). Greenstock was active in the Diocese of Grahamstown for most of his missionary career and would certainly have met with and possibly influenced fellow missionaries and converts. His experience at St. Mark’s may have prompted him to use plainsong on his mission stations. He certainly did chant psalms in the field (Burnett 2020, 125). Translations of Latin Christian hymnody may also have been brought across by Greenstock, although by the 1880s numerous clergy would have had access to the Hymnal Noted and subsequent collections of translated Latin hymns. What is clear, though, is that St. Peter’s was using music probably drawn from the Hymnal Noted, positioning it musically within the ritualist realm. Malgas himself translated 11 hymns of Latin origin, which likely shows that he was familiar with the English translations and their use in worship. By creating Xhosa versions, he was likewise assenting to their broader use in black parishes and to their theological Catholic bias. The sources for Malgas’s translations of Latin hymns will be discussed further later, but suffice it to say, the use of plainsong chanting and ancient hymn texts was a definite sign of ritualist innovation and influence. These influences clearly impacted Malgas enough to inspire him to transfer them to generations of Xhosa Anglicans. In January 1887, Malgas was transferred to the Holy Trinity Mission in Fort Beaufort, after a serious illness in late 1886 (Malgas c.1929, 6–7). While he does not discuss the nature of the illness, it seems that it was partly exacerbated by overwork. Mqhayi (2009, 494) noted that illness plagued Malgas through much of his life, yet this did not curb his enthusiasm for ministry. Having moved to Holy Trinity, he stayed there for the rest of his life, working at the mission, but gradually retreating from active duty as a priest in the last decade of his life. Toward the end of his life, he was made a canon of the Diocese of Grahamstown, honoring his life of hard work in the church.25 He died in March 1936, having served in the diocese for about 60 years. While there are no further sources available at present to suggest that he was influenced further by ritualism after moving to Fort Beaufort, it is likely that his formative years in Port Elizabeth, under the wing of Wirgman, probably had a profound influence on his churchmanship. Malgas’s Hymns Having provided a brief biography of Malgas, let us continue by examining his hymns. Altogether, Malgas contributed 55 hymns to the Xhosa hymnbook of 1919 (the revision of which is still in use), making him among the most prolific of the contributors. Of these, 13 were original hymns, and 42

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 97 were translations, the majority for the church seasons (4 original, 13 translations) and for general occasions (4 original and 13 translations). He also produced hymns for the saints (5 translations), a number for the Eucharist (1 original, 4 translations), several for baptism and confirmation (3 original, 1 translation), and a handful for children (1 original, 4 translations). Of interest is his selection of hymns to translate. The large number of seasonal and general hymns does not align him in any particular church party (following the church seasons was a common Anglican characteristic), but his interest in the saints and authoring or translating saints’ day hymns (St. Mark, St. Michael, St. Stephen, St. Bartholomew, St. Paul, St. Luke, and John the Baptist) may, at the very least, indicate ritualist proclivities. Of interest is his inclusion of 11 hymns of Latin origin. It is unlikely that he translated them directly from the Latin, since English translations of these hymns already existed. Indeed, his short period of formal education would have made the mastering of Latin, to the extent that he could translate the complex metaphorical language, difficult. Of the 11 he translated, 6 can be found in the Hymnal Noted series, while the remaining five were translated by notable clergy who produced collections of Latin Catholic hymns, including John Chandler (Hymns of the Primitive Church 1837) and Edward Caswall (Lyra Catholica 1851). The Hymnal Noted, as has already been shown earlier, was a product of the Ecclesiologists, a number of whom became ritualists. Chandler was a faithful Anglican but was certainly deeply interested in Catholic hymnody. Caswall, originally an Anglican priest, resigned his curacy and converted to Roman Catholicism in the wake of John Henry Newman’s conversion in 1845. In essence, then, a strong Catholic influence is discernible. To date, besides Malgas’s hymns in the Xhosa hymnbook, no other original or translated hymns in manuscript copy appear to have survived. Indeed, it cannot be discerned if he wrote any other poetry besides the hymns he published. Dating the composition of Malgas’s hymns is almost impossible. However, there is a clue which may provide a possible date range for at least one hymn translation. A! Mfeli wokuqala26 (“Ah! The first martyr”) is his translation of the Latin hymn O qui tuo, dux martyrum (“First of the martyrs, thou whose name”)—a hymn celebrating St. Stephen, Christianity’s first martyr. Malgas may have written it for a patronal festival service at his mission church of St. Stephen in Port Elizabeth, which would date this translation sometime between October 1883 and December 1886. It is possible that he wrote a number of his hymns for the St. Stephen’s congregation. What follows is an analysis of several of Malgas’s hymns. The aim in the analysis is to locate ritualist influences, to find characteristic compositional traits, and to what extent he absorbed or adapted the Western hymn models for local use. His work is compared with other contemporary black Xhosa hymn writers and poets who were also members of the Xhosa educated elite residing in the eastern region of the Cape Colony. In this way, it is possible to see to what extent he and his peers influenced and inspired each other. Hymns by James Mata Dwane (1848–1916) and poems by Mqhayi form part of the analysis and comparison.

98  Andrew-John Bethke Some general characteristics are worth noting from the outset. Firstly, Malgas did not use line-end rhymes in any of his hymns. As will be demonstrated later in the chapter, other Xhosa writers successfully used rhyming couplets in their hymns. Secondly, Malgas did not limit himself to a few meters in which he consistently wrote. His published hymns display a wide variety of different meters, which were common in English hymnody at that time. Additionally, when translating hymns into Xhosa, he maintained the meter of the original hymn, meaning, that on occasion the same tune could be used. Thirdly, like many Xhosa poets, Malgas relied on the fact that vowels can be elided in Xhosa, in essence, meaning that the last vowel of a word could be omitted without changing the overall meaning of a phrase. He used this property of Xhosa liberally in his hymns. The first of Malgas’s listed original hymns in the Xhosa hymnbook is Yamkel’ uzuko nembeko (“Receive the Glory and Honour”). It was written for the feast of St. John (December 27). The text and its English translation are given here. The meter of the text is 8.7.8.7.D. Yamkel’ uzuko nembeko, Nkonyan’ omlondekaya: Uli-Tshawe lamatshawe, Wena Nyana ka-Mari. Sikumbul’ inceke yako, Unyana ka-Zebedi, Owancam’ ilizwe ngawe, Wakulandela yena.

Receive Glory and honour, Son of man: You are the King of Kings, You, son of Mary. We remember your servant, The son of Zebedee, Who gave up the world for you, He followed you.

U-Zebedi no-Salome Ubancamile nabo: Walandela Wena, Mtombo Wobomi bapakade. Wati Wena, ngu-Ndudumo, Igam’ ombiza ngalo: Uti yena, ungumfundi Obetandwa ngu-Yesu.

He gave up, Zebedee and Salome: He followed you, The source of eternal life. You gave him the name, The son of thunder: He says, he is the disciple Whom Jesus loved.

Imfundiso yako Wena Wayiyaleza kuye; Wasinika i-Vangeli – Iyeza lompefumlo. Liyapapazela lona Ngamapik’ exalanga, Lisa umpefumlo kuwe, Liwa lamapakade.

You taught him Your teachings. He gave us a Gospel – The remedy of the soul. It soars With the eagles’ wings, Bringing you soul, The rock of eternity.

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 99 Akahlukananga nawe, Kwa-ntlungu zingetiyo: Watutuzel’ u-Nozala, Emsula inyembezi. Isikizi lomnqamlezo Akalibalekanga; Inxeba lako lomkonto Silixelelwa nguye.

He remained in You, The endless pain: He comforted the Mother, Wiping away her tears. From the cruelties of the cross He did not run away; Your spear wound He informs us.

Umondel’ emnqamlezweni Wati, “Nanko unyoko” – Wati, “Nank’ unyana wako” – Ubekisa ku-Mari. Yamkel’ uzuko nembeko, Nkonyan’ omlondekaya: Sibulela i-Vangeli Yonyana ka-Zebedi

While on the cross You said, “There is your mother” – You said, “Here is your son,” Pointing/Referring to Mary. Receive the glory and honour, Son of Man: Thank you for the Gospel Of the son of Zebedee.27 (Iculo Lase-Tshetshi Ne-Ngoma 1919, hymn 66)

A brief analysis of the contents of the text reveals a writer who knows at least some of the extra-biblical traditions of the church. For example, Malgas refers to John’s mother as Salome. Only John’s father is named in the Bible, but traditions surrounding John have existed almost for as long as the biblical stories themselves. Also interesting is his oblique reference in verse 3 to an eagle: “He gave us a Gospel / . . . It soars / With eagles’ wings.” In Christian iconography, John, as evangelist, is associated with the eagle (one of the four living creatures mentioned in Revelation). Western legend held that eagles could look directly into the sun because they had a penetrating gaze, much like John’s theological reflection on the meaning of Jesus’s life in his gospel. By making reference to the soaring of the Gospel, Malgas is showing that he is familiar with this particular Western iconographic symbol.28 Such extrabiblical and symbolic references are typical of hymns which emerged from the Tractarian and Ecclesiological Anglicans and which were readily adopted by ritualists. Interestingly, Malgas holds this Western symbol in tension with a local image which he uses to describe God as King of Kings. In the Xhosa line which has been translated as “You are the King of Kings,” he uses the word “U-Tshawe.” Tshawe is the name for the king of amaXhosa. Xhosa people say “ooTshawe ziiNkosi” (“They are Kings”). Malgas is thus localizing the Old Testament image of King of Kings in this line, by using a local royal title to indicate prestige and power. Notice how often Malgas uses elisions, how closely he adheres to the meter, and that there is no regular rhyme scheme. This hymn provides a good comparison with James Mata Dwane’s hymn Hai utando olongaka (“Oh Such Love”). This text is also in the meter 8.7.8.7.D.

100  Andrew-John Bethke Hai utando olongaka, uYes’ ushiy’ i-Zulu, Ushiy’ ubukulu bake, Watata ubupantsi; Walala esizalweni se-Ntombi u-Mariya, Akazuzanga nendawo Yokuzalelwa kuyo.

Oh such love, Jesus left Heaven, He left his greatness, He chose/took lowliness; He lay in the womb Of the Virgin Mary, He did not find a place For Him to be born.

Wazalwa e-sitalini Sokidlel’ amaqwara, Zonke izilo zasendle zinaz’ indawo zazo; Kodwa u-Nyana ka-Tixo Wadlulwa nazizilo, Akazuzanga nendawo Yokubeka intloko.

He was born in a stable In a manger/rough veld, All the wild beasts they have their places; But the Son of God He was passed over by the beasts, He did not find a place To rest/lay his head.

Yesu, Gxalaba likulu, Twala amahlaz’ etu; Sewawatwal’ e-Golgota Nase-Getesemane. Ntliziyo banzi, selela Zonke intsizi zetu; Waziselel’ e-Golgota Nase-Getesemane

Jesus, Broad Shoulders, Carry our shame; You carried it at Golgotha and in Gethsemane. Deep/wide heart, drink For all our sorrows; You drank for them in Golgotha And in Gethsemane. (Iculo Lase-Tshetshi Ne-Ngoma 1919, hymn 441)

In this particular hymn, Dwane displays the same poetic characteristics as Malgas does. However, while Malgas never uses rhyme in his hymns, Dwane does. Verses 2 and 3 from Dwane’s Namhl’ inyaniso yako (“Today is the Truth”) demonstrate this technique in Xhosa: Namhla zonk’ izono zam Zimi ebusweni bam; Kubi entliz’ yweni yam; Ndixolele, Mkululi. Namhl’ ityala linzima; Ndiyakutshona pina? Uvalo luyabeta; Ndixolele, Mkululi

Today all my sins They stand before me; It is bad in my heart; Forgive me, Redeemer. Today the case is serious; Where can I go/hide? Fear strikes; Forgive me, Redeemer. (Iculo Lase-Tshetshi Ne-Ngoma 1919, hymn 444, verses 2 and 3)

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 101 In the second verse he uses the two letter “-am” at the end of the first three lines. In the third he uses simply the vowel “-a” in a similar fashion. The last line of each verse is a refrain “Ndixolele, Mkululi” which does not adhere to the rhyme scheme. He uses a similar device in Hai utando olongaka. The last two lines of the first two verses are refrain-like; while they are not exactly the same, they have the same basic meaning. Another Western poetic device which Dwane uses is to start each verse with the same word, “Namhla.” These techniques are fairly common in English Victorian hymnody. For example, many Victorian hymns have some kind of rhyme scheme. Some start each verse with the same word; others have a last line which is a refrain. A typical example is “Just as I Am” by Charlotte Elliot (1789–1871). Each verse begins with “just”; the first three lines have a common rhyme scheme, and the last line is a refrain: “O Lamb of God, I Come.” Malgas also uses some of these devices, but quite sparingly. For example, he uses a word as an opening “refrain” in one of his original Pentecost hymns: Camagu!29 Mhlaziyi wetu, Sizale ngokutsha; Ubunyukunyuku betu Mabuhlanjwe nguwe.

Hail/Praise! Our reviver, We are born again; Let our filthiness Be washed away by you.

Camagu! Mhlambi30 wezono Hail/Praise! Cleanser of sins Esizenzileyo; We have committed; Sinik’ ubugcwele bako, Give us your holiness, Tixo Monwabisi O God of happiness/joy. (Iculo Lase-Tshetshi Ne-Ngoma 1919, hymn 154, verses 2 and 3) A slightly more developed use of this technique appears in his original children’s hymn Isiqalo sobulumko (“The Beginning of Wisdom”). In the first four verses, he plays on the phrase Kukoyika Wena, Bawo (“Is the fear of You, Father”). The first line of the next three verses each begin Ukoyika Wena, Bawo (“The fear of you, Father”). Additionally, he occasionally uses the last line of each verse as a refrain, as in his translation of “O God of Love, O King of Peace” (Solutando, Soluxolo). In Henry Baker’s (1821–1877) original, the last line of each verse is “Give peace, O God, give peace again.” Malgas renders this “Sip’ uxolo, Tixo wetu” (“Give us peace, God”) and uses it as the last line of each verse. Another similar example is his translation of the “Litany of the Holy Ghost.” Here the last line is a refrain (as one would expect in a litany): Sive, Moya Ongcwele (“Hear us, Holy Spirit”). Indeed, except for the rhyme scheme, Malgas usually tries to maintain the poetic devices which the original authors used.

102  Andrew-John Bethke The type of poetic conventions which Malgas uses in his hymns is far from the typical Xhosa poetry which he probably grew up with. Praise singing is an indicative example of Xhosa poetry. The Xhosa writer and journalist Samuel Mqhayi was fluent in both Xhosa and Western forms of poetry. Here are short extracts which demonstrate his mastery of both forms. The first is in traditional Xhosa form—a lament for Malgas (1936); the second is in strict Western metrical fashion—a hymn to the Tyhume River (1907). Xhosa Poetic Form Lusapho lwase Mbho! Lusapho lwase Mbho! Yizani silile, sililel’ i Nkanunu! Sililel’ Keswa uNozul’ omhle kunene; Ondlebe ntle zombini, Ninina bakwaziy’ ukulila, Kuba nina nilila nithetha; Nixel’ ingxelo nezigigaba zomfi! Ude wenz’ incwadi no Bishophu Zashukum’ iFada naba Bingeleli; Zaguqulwa ngakumbi nezi Bingelo

Mfengu people! Mfengu people! Come let us weep, weep for Canon, Weep for Nozulu the Keswa, really handsome, With two lovely ears.31 You know how to weep, For you weep while you speak, Recounting the deeds of the dead! He wrote a book with the Bishop, The Fathers and Priests were shaken, The altars completely altered (Mqhayi 2009, 494–95)

Western Poetic Form Akunguy’ omncinanana Pakati kwemilanjana Tyume ndini linomgqumo Tyume ndini linodumo. Watembeka kwizidenge Ezipila zizidende Wazisez amanz’ entaba Namhla ngenqhina yentaka

You’re not the least Of rivulets, Roaring Tyhume, Famous Tyhume. You were trusted by fools Who use plants as cures, Today you used bird tracks To lead them to mountain springs (Mqhayi 2009, 38–39)

In the Xhosa poetic form, regular poetic feet and rhyme schemes are not required (although they can be used). Additionally, Xhosa poems often include rich local imagery and metaphor. Mqhayi allows his lament for Malgas to run freely without reference to any Western strictures. It includes a reference to Malgas’s clan praises (“Nozulu the Keswa, really handsome / With two lovely ears”)—showing his familiarity with and respect for Xhosa traditions. In contrast, his hymn to the Tyhume is in strict poetic feet (long meter, 8.8.8.8.) and includes a regular rhyme scheme (AABB) throughout its epic-length 32 verses. Notice how, when using the Western form, Mqhayi

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 103 offers criticism against Xhosa traditional healers (“You were trusted by fools / Who use plants as cures”). Conclusion What these examples demonstrate is that Malgas’s generation of educated Xhosa converts was deeply influenced by Western poetic forms, especially as they related to church worship. Indeed, they absorbed a number of its conventions, adapting them for the Xhosa language. Their adaptations were so successful that numerous Xhosa hymns are now deeply embedded in Xhosa culture. And yet as shown earlier, these Western poetic forms are far from the local Xhosa traditions of praise singing and lament. Some, like Samuel Mqhayi, were able to traverse a liminal world between both Xhosa and Western culture, forging a hybrid elite culture. Malgas appears to have been one of the elites who could traverse the cultural divides with care and dignity, achieving considerable respect from local white clergy (he was made a canon in the Diocese of Grahamstown toward the end of his life), while being deeply loved by his fellow countrymen. There were also white missionaries who found themselves in a similar space: William Philip (discussed earlier) among them. They, too, found a liminal space between their home culture and the Xhosa traditions which they encountered on a daily basis. The hybrid culture which these black and white people of the Cape Colony imbibed was largely an ecclesiastical space, although it occasionally spilled out into the secular world. It is this same culture which thrives in the Eastern Cape today in numerous church spheres. It is a hybrid culture for which Daniel Malgas was an important contributor.

Malgas’s Published Hymns Hymn Number

First Line

Original Hymns 66 Yamkel’ uzuko nembeko 132 Sango esongena ngalo 154 Camagu! Mdlisi wobomi 157 Mtutuzeli wenyaniso 249 Owakululamelay’ ukufa 257 Sitandazel’ ukupefumlelwa 271 Ubukosi bako, Yesu 309 Zisixenx’ izipo zako 383 Yesu, imfihlelo yako

Meter

Stanzas

Theme

Original Language

Original Author

Tune

8.7.8.7.D.

5

John the Baptist

isiXhosa

Malgas

Bishopgarth

LM

5

Easter

Xhosa

Malgas

Gloucester

8.6.8.6.

5

Pentecost

Xhosa

Malgas

8.7.8.7. 10.10.10.10.

6 6

Pentecost General

Xhosa Xhosa

Malgas Malgas

10.10.10.10.

6

General

Xhosa

Malgas

Memento Mei Domine Clarion Eucharistic Chant St. Agnes

Xhosa Xhosa Xhosa

Malgas Malgas Malgas

Sharon Dimon St. Etheldreda

Xhosa

Malgas

Xhosa Xhosa Xhosa

Malgas Malgas Malgas

Fuleni (Birkett’s Ngoma) Ave Virgo Sharon Monwabisi (Birkett’s Ngoma)

8.7.8.7. 8.6.8.6. 8.6.8.6.

7 6 10

396

Isiqalo sobulumko

LM

7

General General Holy Communion Children

426 427 428

Ndivumele nditete Sihlaziy’ izitembiso Taru! Moya Oyingcwele

7.6.7.6.D. 8.7.8.7. 8.6.8.6.

5 7 7

Confirmation Confirmation Confirmation

104  Andrew-John Bethke

Appendix

LM

6

Morning

Latin

Neale (trans)

Affection

LM

4

Sunday

English

Baker

Woolmer’s

6.6.8.6.

6

Advent

Latin

Chandler (trans)

Franconia

10.10.10. 10.10.10.

6

Christmas

English

Byrom

Yorkshire

7.7.7.7.

6

St. Stephen

Latin

Williams (trans)

Lübeck

CM

5

Epiphany

Latin

Chandler (trans)

Tallis

LM

5

Epiphany

Latin

Sedulius (trans P. D.)

Ely

7.6.7.6.D.

3

Passiontide

German

Baker (trans)

Passion Chorale

7.7.7.7.7.7.

4

Passiontide

English

Ellerton

Redhead

(Continued)

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 105

Translated Hymns 5 Sipakamis’ intliziyo (Jam lucis orto sidere) 34 Solutando, Soluxolo (O God of love, O King of peace) 49 Uyez’ u-Kumkani (Instantis adventum Dei) 57 Ma-Kristu, vukani nibulise (Christians, awake) 65 A! Mfeli wokuqala (O qui tuo, dux martyrum) 75 Umntwan’ e-Zul’ uyakula (Divine, crescebas, Puer) 76 Woyikela nina, Herod (Hostis Herodes impie) 95 (O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden) 109 Uxonyiwe emtini (Throned upon the awful tree)

Hymn Number

First Line

Meter

143

Tixo Somandla, o-Nyana (Almighty God, whose only Son) Msindis’, oxovulel’ umntu (Opus peregisti tuum) Mhla wez’ u-Tixo mandulo (When God came down) U-Krist’ unyukele (Jam Christus astra ascenderat) Yiza, Moya Ongcwele (Veni, Sancte Spiritus) Tixo, Yise no-Nyana (Litany of the Holy Ghost) Eyasenyangweni i-Sabata (O quanta qualia sunt illa sabbata) Kutetw’ izimanga ngawe (Glorious things of thee)

LM

145

155

160 161

165 177

196

Theme

Original Language

Original Author

Tune

7

Easter

English

Baker (trans)

Gloucester

LM

7

Ascension

Latin

Chandler (trans)

Bishop Norfolk

CM

7

Pentecost

English

Keble

Winchester Old

6.6.8.6

9

Pentecost

Latin

Caswall (trans)

St. Michael

7.7.7.7.7.7.

5

Pentecost

Latin

Caswall (trans)

Veni, Sancte Spiritus

17

Pentecost

English

Unknown

Litany (Taru)

7.7.7.7.

Stanzas

10.10.10.10.

7

General

Latin

Neale (trans)

Bampton

8.7.8.7.D.

4

General

English

Newton

Austria

106  Andrew-John Bethke

(Continued)

205 211 224

279

280 281

282

306

Nditi ndakubon’ inceba (When all Thy mercies) U-ngcwele yengcwele (Praise to the holiest) Uqwitela lwavutuza (Fierce raged the tempest) Vuman’ amandla ka-Yesu (All hail the power of Jesus’ name) Wabengezela umbono (Bright the vision that delighted) Yitwesen’ i-Mvana (Crown Him with many crowns)

7.7.7.7.

5

General

English

Kirke White

University College Optatus Votis Ominum

6.6.8.6.

6

General

English

Wesley

6.6.8.6.

4

General

English

Baker

CM

5

General

English

Addison

CM

7

General

English

Newman

Tune not named

8.8.8.3.

7

General

English

Thring

St. Gabriel

CM

7

General

English

Perronet

University

8.7.8.7.

6

General

English

Mant

Redhead, no. 46

6.6.8.6.

5

General

English

Bridges

Old 25th

Utando (Birkett’s Ingoma) Aston Nun Danket All

107

(Continued)

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody

226

Ma-Kristu, kalipani (Oft in danger) Mikosi ka-Kristu (Soldiers of Christ, arise) Ndisebunzulwini (Out of the deep I call)

108

(Continued) First Line

Meter

Stanzas

Theme

Original Language

Original Author

Tune

315

Teta nam, Nkosi, nditete (Lord, speak to me) Umalusi wabetwa (Pastore percusso, minas) A! Mvangeli nenqina (Ah! An Evangelist and warrior) Silibong’ i-Gama lako (For all Thy Saints, a noble throng) Amagama entw’ eninzi (King of Saints, to Whom the number) Makwez’ omso abengezelayo Ufanele, MPriste wetu (What thanks and praise) Kristu, Tixo wetu, yiba nati (O Christ, our God)

LM

7

Assistants and messengers

English

Havergal

Melcombe

7.6.7.6

8

St. Paul

Latin

Pott (trans)

Vulpius

7.6.7.6.D.

4

St. Mark

English

J. W. (Knysna)?

Allerton

CM

6

Jacob

English

Alexander

St. James

8.7.8.7.D.

4

St. Bartholomew

English

Ellerton

Everton

10.10.10.10.

5

St. Michael

Greek

Neale (trans)

Trisagion

LM

9

St. Luke

English

Maclagan

Ely

10.10.

9

Holy Communion

English

Bourne

Coena Domini

324 328

333

334

339 340

372

Andrew-John Bethke

Hymn Number

375 376

387 407

412

415 424

Bawo, odale konke (O Vaterherz) Ngu-Tix’ owenze zonke (All things bright and beautiful) Singabantwana nje tina (We are but little children) U-Kristu obeke (Christ, Who once amongst us) Tixo, Yise no-Nyana (Children’s Litany)

LM

3

Holy Communion

English

Doddridge

Ach! Bleib Bei Uns

C

5

Holy Communion

Latin

Woodford (trans)

7.7.7.7.7.7.

2

Holy Communion

English

Conder

10.6.10.6.8.8.4.

4

Baptism

German

CM

6

Children

English

Winkworth (trans) Alexander

LM

8

Children

English

Alexander

Alstone

6.5.6.5.D.

5

Children

English

Bourne

Pastor Bonus Wharnecliffe

7.7.7.6.

16

Children

English

Unknown

Litany

Bread of Heaven Ratisbon St. Francis All things bright and beautiful

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody

381

Silungil’ isidlo, Tixo (My God, and is Thy table spread) Siyakudumisa Wena, Msindisi (Adoro Te devote) Wena Sonka se-Zulu (Bread of Heaven)

109

110  Andrew-John Bethke Notes 1 Malgas’s birth date seems uncertain, as his parents were not converts when he was born—his birth date was thus probably not recorded. Mqhayi claims that Malgas was 83 when he died—hence, 1853 is a likely possibility. However, since Malgas died in March 1936, if his birthday was in the latter half of the year, he might have been born in 1852. 2 Lent is a season in the Christian calendar stretching 40 days (not including Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter Day. 3 I have dated Malgas’s autobiographical memoir as c.1929 because in it he speaks about his ministry as having spanned at least 50 years. He was ordained as a deacon in 1879, and so a ministry of 50 years would at least date this text to 1929. 4 The sketch is a handwritten manuscript which is kept at the Cory Library in Makhanda (MS 16 678). 5 Readers interested in the revisionist historical background of the amaXhosa and other Nguni tribes in the Eastern part of South Africa can refer to Peires (1981) and the more recent study by Laband (2020). 6 Mqhayi has recently been described as being the greatest Xhosa poet to date (Opland 2017, xx). Opland and Mtuze (2017) have published a critical edition of his occasional poems. 7 Anglican ritualism was a movement which swept across the worldwide Anglican Communion from the 1860s through to the end of the nineteenth century. Its origins are often traced to the Tractarian movement, which was headed by John Keble, John Henry Newman, and Edward Pusey, although numerous hard-line Tractarians rejected the ritualists and their churchmanship. Ritualists were more likely the second generation of Catholic-minded Anglicans who were formed by Tractarian tutors and mentors and were steeped in the Ecclesiological propaganda that John Mason Neale and the Cambridge Camden Society promulgated in the 1840s. Whatever their origin, ritualists tended to be tenacious and persistent in their mission to re-introduce Catholic rituals into mainline Anglican worship. They fought hard legal and social battles throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, eventually influencing large sections of the Anglican Communion, especially regarding vestments, candles, incense, and chanting. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, ritualists were still considered suspect by many mainline church people, mainly because of the English distrust of Roman Catholicism in general. However, as attitudes to Catholicism began to soften in the latter half of the nineteenth century, so too did the Anglican Church’s strong Protestant ethos. Some have noticed ritualism as a product of England’s middle and upper classes (see Pickering 1989, 98). This may well be true, but it is equally true that numerous ritualist clergy worked in slum areas in both England and the British Empire. Indeed, the ritualist Society of St. John the Evangelist sent missionaries to South Africa toward the end of the nineteenth century. At the time of Malgas, ritualism was taboo in South Africa and much of the English-speaking world. For more on ritualism in South African Anglicanism, see Bethke (2020a) and Bethke (2020b). 8 He appears peripherally, for example, in Goedhals (1982, 346). 9 Some important texts relating to English-speaking churches engaged in mission work in South Africa are Wilson (1976), Guy (1983), Cochrane (1987), Dibb (1997), and Elphick (2012). This is not an exhaustive list. Interestingly, studies related to those who were converted (largely “silent” in official histories of mission) are beginning to emerge. For example, Khumalo (2003) and Mokoena (2008). 10 The Order of Ethiopia was a semi-autonomous branch of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. It was established in 1900 and was, at first, headed by James Mata Dwane. Since 1999, it has been known as the Ethiopian Episcopal Church.

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 111 11 John Espin reports that both Malgas and Philip were ready for ordination to the priesthood in his report to the mission conference of 1883. See Goedhals (1982, 346). 12 Peter Masiza was the first black man to be ordained as an Anglican priest in South Africa. For an account of the cultural tensions he faced as a black Xhosa man functioning in a Western white-led church, see Goedhals (1989). 13 St. Luke’s Mission was originally established by Bishop Armstrong (first bishop of Grahamstown) in 1854. It is situated in what is now Nxarhuni. See accessed January 5, 2023, www.stluke.co.za/. 14 The “Institute” has a fuller name which is now considered offensive. 15 Founded in 1816. 16 Founded in 1848. A  number of Anglican missionaries who worked in South Africa trained at St. Augustine’s, Canterbury. A Sin of Omission (2021) is a novel by Marguerite Poland about a young black Anglican clergy man, set at the time of Malgas and his contemporaries. The novel includes characters, both black and white, who attend St. Augustine’s College. For a detailed analysis of the training of English clergy in the Victorian era, see Stirling (1982). For an analysis of the work and impact of St. Augustine’s, see Carey (2011). 17 Henry Callaway did something similar with his candidates for ordination; see Denis (2012, 518). Nathaniel Merriman (Bishop of Grahamstown) was basing his theological tutoring of ordination candidates on a model from Litchfield in England; see Goedhals (1982, 346). 18 His instructor in teacher education was most likely Robert Mullins (1838–1913), the head of the Institute at that time. 19 John Keble (1792–1866) was one of the founding members of the Tractarian movement. He was an ordained Anglican priest, but also professor of poetry at Oxford University. Malgas translated “When God of Old Came Down from Heav’n,” Mhla wez’ u-Tixo mandulo (the poem for Whitsunday in the Christian Year), and Philip translated Keble’s translation of “Hail Gladdening Light,” A! Lukanyis’ oluvela eZulwini, from Keble’s Lyra Apostolica (1836). 20 The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion were formulated in the early part of the English Reformation. They are similar in nature to the church formularies of Lutheranism and the Reformed churches, spelling out what is necessary to be a Christian. Until the late nineteenth century, all graduates of Oxford and Cambridge Universities had to assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles to be granted their degrees. The articles were Protestant enough in character to be a symbol of nonRoman Catholic identity. Thus, when certain ritualists wanted to distance themselves directly from Roman Catholicism, they appealed to the Articles of Religion. 21 Malgas’s ordination is also recorded in a report of the Institute written by Mullins in June 1879 to the SPG. In the report, it states that Malgas and Philip had been prepared for three years by Espin before ordination. Maggs committed suicide a year after Malgas left St. Luke’s (see Grahamstown Journal 1882). This must have been a great blow to Malgas, because he had been educated and mentored by Maggs. 22 A burial society was charged with taking care of its members’ funerals when they died, primarily from a financial perspective. Members would pay a monthly/ annual fee which formed the financial base of the society. 23 The Hymnal Noted (1851, 207–9). 24 The Hymnal Noted (1851, hymn 67). 25 A canon is an honorary title given to clergy, and some laity, in the Anglican Church for faithful service. 26 The orthography of isiXhosa changed officially in 1937. Primarily, the change addressed the representation of aspiration or voicing (see Opland 2017, 361–62). So for example, an “h” was placed after some hard-sounding consonants in the new system (Tembu in the old system, Thembu in the new). The Xhosa hymnbook

112  Andrew-John Bethke was published in 1919 before the change in orthography, and in subsequent printings of the book, it has not been updated. The hymn texts in this chapter retain the original orthography. However, note that in the two examples from Mqhayi that follows, the first is in the new system, while the second is in the old. Even though the first one was written before 1937, Mqhayi started experimenting with the new system as early as 1933—an article written early in 1933 has the old system, while one written later that same year uses the new (see spelling of Xosa and Xhosa in Mqhayi 2009, 455, 463). 27 All translations in this chapter are by the author, with the assistance of Thando Magenuka, unless otherwise stated. 28 Malgas’s use of the soaring eagle image may have resonated with local Xhosa people because there is local literature which references the wings and flight of eagles. For example, Ngangelizwe says: Lukhoz’ olumaphik’ angqangqafolo, / Ndada ndanqwen’ ukunga ndinganamaphiko (“Eagle with mighty wings / Would that I had such wings”). See Godfrey (1941, 32). 29 Camagu can be used in many different ways. It can be used as a salutation to invoke spirituality. Alternatively, it can be used with the meaning “let it be.” As a result, it is sometimes used in place of “Amen.” In this case, it is used in a context of praise. 30 Mhlambi is a herd of cattle/sheep, but in this case, it is used to refer to a person performing ukuhlamba (take a bath) hence mhlambi—the one who washes away our sins. 31 A reference to Malgas’s clan praises.

References Bethke, Andrew-John. 2020a. “Examples of Anglican Ritualism in Victorian South Africa: Towards an Understanding of Local Developments and Practice.” Journal of Anglican Studies 18 (2): 162–79. ———. 2020b. “Fledgling South African Anglicanism and the Roots of Ritualism.” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 46 (3): 1–18. Burnett, Philip. 2020. “Music and Mission: A Case Study of the Anglican-Xhosa Missions of the Eastern Cape, 1854–1880.” PhD thesis, University of Bristol. Carey, Hilary. 2011. God’s Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World, c.1801–1908. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chadwick, Owen. 1954. The Founding of Cuddesdon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The Church Chronicle. 1881. Vol. 3, February. Cochrane, James. 1987. Servants of Power: The Role of English-Speaking Churches in South Africa, 1903–1930. Johannesburg: Raven Press. Denis, Philippe. 2012. “The Beginnings of Anglican Theological Education in South Africa, 1848–1963.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63 (3): 516–33. Dibb, Andrew. 1997. “An Historical Study of the Diocese of St John of the Church of the Province of South Africa, with Special Reference to Bishop Callaway’s Vision of Black Clergy.” MA thesis, University of South Africa. Elphick, Richard. 2012. The Equality of Believers: Protestant Missionaries and the Racial Politics of South Africa. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Godfrey, Robert. 1941. Bird-Lore of Eastern Cape Province. Johannesburg: WITS University Press. Goedhals, Mary Mandeville. 1982. “Nathaniel James Merriman, Archdeacon and Bishop 1849–1882: A Study in Church Life and Government.” PhD thesis, Rhodes University.

Colonialism, Anglican Ritualism, and Xhosa Hymnody 113 ———. 1989. “Ungumpriste: A Study of the Life of Peter Masiza, First Black Priest in the Church of the Province of Southern Africa.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 68: 17–28. Grahamstown Journal. November 9, 1882. Accessed July 7, 2022. www.eggsa.org/ newspapers/index.php/grahamstown-journal/1458-grahamstown-journal-188211-november. Guy, Jeff. 1983. The Heretic: A  Study of the Life of John William Colenso 1814– 1883. Johannesburg: Raven Press. Iculo Lase-Tshetshi Ne-Ngoma. 1919. London: SPG. Isigidimi Samaxosa, October 1, 1883. The Hymnal Noted. 1851. London: Novello. Khumalo, Vukile. 2003. “The Class of 1856 and the Politics of Cultural Production(s) in the Emergence of Ekukhanyeni, 1855–1910.” In The Eye of the Storm: Bishop John William Colenso and the Crisis of Biblical Inspiration, edited by Jonathan Draper. Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications. Laband, John. 2020. The Land Wars: The Dispossession of Khoisan and the AmaXhosa in the Cape Colony. Johannesburg: Random House. Malgas, Daniel. c.1929. My Work in the Diocese During the Past 50  Years. Cory Library Archives, Grahamstown: Handwritten Manuscript, MS 16 678. Matthews, Zachariah. 1981. Freedom for My People, the Autobiography of Z. K. Matthews: Southern Africa 1901–1968. Cape Town: David Philip. Mokoena, Hlonipha. 2008. “The Queen’s Bishop: A Convert’s Memoir of John W. Colenso.” Journal of Religion in Africa 38 (3): 312–42. Mqhayi, Samuel. 2009. Abantu Besizwe: Historical and Biographical Writings, 1902– 1944. Edited and translated by Jeff Opland. Johannesburg: WITS University Press. Mullins, Robert. 1879. Report of the Kafir Institution, Grahamstown, June 30. London: SPG Archives. Odendaal, André. 1993. “Even the White Boys Call Us ‘Boy’: Early Black Organisational Politics in Port Elizabeth.” Kronos: Journal of Cape History 3–16. Opland, Jeff. 2017. Xhosa Poets and Poetry. 2nd ed. Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press. Opland, Jeff, and Peter Mtuze. 2017. S. E. K. Mqhayi, Iziganeko Zesizwe: Occasional Poems (1900–1943). Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press. Peires, Jeffrey. 1981. The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of Their Independence. Johannesburg: Raven Press. Pickering, W. 1989. Anglo-Catholicism: A  Study in Religious Ambiguity. London: SPCK. Poland, Marguerite. 2021. A Sin of Omission. London: Envelope Books. Stirling, Kelsey. 1982. “The Education of the Anglican Clergy, 1830–1914.” PhD thesis, University of Leicester. Wilson, Monica. 1976. “Missionaries: Conquerors or Servants of God?” South African Outlook 1: 40–42.

7 We Become What We Sing Hymnody as Control June Boyce-Tillman

Introduction: The Politics of Aesthetics One of those myths is that music is a universal language. This sounds a warm and comforting thing to say. But in fact, it is a myth, and almost the exact opposite is true. (Scott 2007, 1)

British musician Nate Holder (2020) explores the idea that music is not, after all, a universal language powerfully in his poem titled “If I Were a Racist”: If I were a racist, I’d make sure that violins and pianos Were seen as more important, Than steel pans, tablas and digeridoos. If I were a racist, I’d insist that all music was taught from notation, Removing all the nuances That paper could ever express. If I were a racist, I’d standardise everything – You’re either in tune, Or you’re out. Literally. If I were a racist, I’d call all non-white music ‘World Music’ After all, it’s them and us.

(Holder 2020)

In this chapter, I will analyze Western hymnody (focusing primarily on hymn texts) from a number of perspectives (many set out in the earlier poem) DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-7

We Become What We Sing 115 to explore the cultural results of the hymn’s use in imperial and missionary activities. I shall also include some contemporary texts, including some I  have written, that start from a different theological position. I  shall use Christopher Small’s definition of musicking as social action, seeing its meaning lying in “the relationships that are established between the participants by the performance” (Small 1999, 9). The relationship between musicking and politics has been developed by many authors (Rancière 2004; Shepherd and Wicke 1997, 138–39; Sullivan 1997, 9–10). I  argue that a particular form of global community was and is created by hymnody—a form of community often created in one society and exported to another. Congregational hymnody, especially during the nineteenth-century period of Western Christianity, has been an extremely effective medium for control— arguably far more effective than sermons and prayers. Becca Whitla (2020) affirms this while, at the same time, using  liberationist,  postcolonial, and decolonial methods to show how hymnody can be used as a liberatory praxis providing an entry point for a liberating Holy Spirit. Hymnody has been a very powerful way of promulgating myths—ideas, habits of mind, and collections of symbols (Meland 1976, 113)—which shape our thoughts without necessarily being visible to those receiving the thinking. As Clark argues: “The hymn creates that faith by bringing it into being and therefore it is functioning as a symbol of the singers’ faith. A hymn does not tell of the faith, it tells it, declares it, bodies it forth” (Clark 1994, 6–7). This process of embodiment, including memorization and regular recall, debatably makes hymns more influential than sermons (Tonsing 2017, 1). This, as we shall see in what follows, gives hymns an extrinsic, emotional meaning beyond the understanding of the words. This is reinforced by expensively purchased hard-backed hymnals which may be seen as representing a musical museum (Goehr 1992) of historic theology continually re-embodied by means of singing. An Analytic Phenomenography This phenomenographic model (Marton and Booth 1997) that I have developed from numerous accounts of the musicking experience (Boyce-Tillman 2007, 2016) can enable us to examine the power of music in more detail. The fluidity of this model, with its interacting domains, enables us to interrogate the musical experience in greater detail. These domains are: • • • •

Expression—the feelingful world Values—the context Construction—the organization of the musical ideas Materials—the instruments, including the body

In the process of developing this frame, I used Buber’s (1970) idea of encounter— “self-investment, even self-dispossession, in respect of what is seen or read”

116  June Boyce-Tillman

Figure 7.1 The musical experience. Source: Based on Boyce-Tillman (2016, 129).

(Williams 2012, 17)—or in this case, sung. Self-investment and self-dispossession are also crucial in the exporting of hymns as part of an imperial enterprise. The Domain of Expression In this domain, I  look at the feeling expressed in hymn words. For this I  am using a typology of British colonial hymnody suggested by Tonsing (2017), including the themes of patriotism, militarism, God’s kingship. In the exported British patriotic song type sits William Blake’s “Jerusalem”: And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

We Become What We Sing 117 And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills . . . I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In England’s green & pleasant Land. This poem, first published in 1808, inspired by a legend that Jesus visited England with Joseph of Arimathea in his early life, suggests that England is not yet ready for the vision of the new Jerusalem because of its Satanic Mills. The rousing tune was added by Hubert Parry in 19161 at the request of the poet laureate Robert Bridges for mass singing to strengthen wartime resolve. This changed the questioning sentiments of the original Blake poem into an anthem-type piece, suitable for sports events (such as the 2022 Men’s Football World Cup) (see Roser 2016), and the opening of the London Olympics (Hume and Reynolds 2012). The song now represents England as the new “chosen nation” (Barr 2004)—an effective inspirational anthem in both World Wars—particularly the line “nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.” Parry himself was critical of this usage and preferred its use by the suffrage movement in 1918.2 The sung text of the tune “Rule Britannia” was similarly exported. Although originally it was an eighteenth-century plea to rebuild Britain’s navy, it quickly became an exaltation of empire with a change from the aim in the words “Britannia rule the waves” to “Britannia rules the waves” (Dawkins 1989, 324). It was seen as the most lasting expression of the conception of the British Empire that emerged in the 1730s (Armitage 2000, 73). Geoff Palmer quoted it in his critique of the racism embedded in Enlightenment thought: Our slavery was a dream rape From which there was no escape It was a nightmare come true A world away and chained by you The enlightened and the brave That “never, never will be slaves” . . . So why were we not as good as you? (Palmer 2007, 74) The complexity of the situation is further compounded by the rise of English nationalism in music with composers such as Parry and Vaughan Williams,3 who wrote a great deal of the musical settings for these kinds

118  June Boyce-Tillman of imperialist texts. The musical repertoire of nineteenth-century England (Blake 1997) was created by people concerned to counterbalance the long domination of the English musical scene by German composers. Martin Shaw (1875–1958), editor of the famous hymnal Songs of Praise (1925), expressed his desire for the music of his country to be English in character: I regard music largely from the national point of view; that is I, as an Englishman, wish the music of this country to be English in character. . . . I confess my personal predilections in music tend very much to folk song. . . . The folk songs of this country constitute as fine a treasure house as is to be found in any other country . . . unsurpassed by that of any other country. (Martinshawmusic.com)4 At this time, English folk songs were being collected, and the Folk-Song Society was founded in 1898 (Keel 1948). Vaughan Williams himself critiques Victorian hymnody as manifesting “the sickly harmonies of Spohr, overladen with the operatic sensationalism of Gounod.”5 In their assessment of the English Musical Renaissance, Hughes and state, “[W]e cannot but reflect that Vaughan Williams had more of a mind to put Anglicans in touch with the English Musical Renaissance than with the Almighty” Stradling (Hughes and Stradling 1993/2001).6 This implicit English nationalism was exported, as can be seen in the usage of these English-language hymns in the concentration camp schools of the South African War (1899–1902), where “[p]edagogical approaches to the colonial hymn . . . became a sonic means of responding to, reinforcing and resisting new, racialized forms of mass incarceration” (Johnson-Williams 2023). However, these elements played out differently in the extrinsic patriotic meaning ascribed to much hymnody by emigrants from the United Kingdom, such as those settling in North America. Extrinsic meaning is situated in meanings associated with the music. For those leaving Victorian England, hymns became an important link with the home of their ancestors, as in this novel about early twentieth-century immigrants to Canada: And they all went to the nearest Anglican church on Sunday, even though it was a round trip of nearly two hours by car. The Slaymakers . . . certainly weren’t pious Lutherans [but went] . . . for the reassurance and continuity represented by familiar words and well-known hymns, badly sung with no sturdier accompaniment than a wheezy little harmonium. (Gale 2015, 225) This extrinsic meaning, associated with identity, is often most related with what is sung in childhood (Eskew 1978) and is often ascribed to hymns of

We Become What We Sing 119 whose sentiments we may no longer approve, as in this reminiscence from agnostic Alan Bennett: Up the words come, unbidden. Known but never learned  .  .  . I  have never found it easy to belong. So much repels. Hymns help, they blur. And here among the tombs and tablets and vases of dead flowers and lists of the fallen, it is at least less hard to feel tacked on to church and country. (Bennett 2001) In Alisa Clapp-Itnyre’s (2023) analysis of various hymnbooks, 1800–1900, she claims that hymns did not only empower children but also set out ways to impact the world around them in such activities as missionary work. The third most popular hymn in children’s hymnbooks of the period (and which is still in use in the mid-twentieth century in the UK) was the missionary hymn “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” which was written in 1819 as part of the support for the Eastern operations of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts and was used regularly in services dedicated to this cause. The author, Reginald Heber, became Bishop of Calcutta in 1823. The tune—“Missionary Hymn”—was written by the American music educator Lowell Mason (1792–1872) (Julian 1907). From Greenland’s icy mountains, from India’s coral strand; Where Afric’s sunny fountains roll down their golden sand: From many an ancient river, from many a palmy plain, They call us to deliver their land from error’s chain . . . The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone . . . Salvation! O salvation! The joyful sound proclaim, Till earth’s remotest nation has learned Messiah’s Name . . . (Heber 1819) My own school hymnbook, Songs of Praise (1925), included Basil Mathews’s “Far Round the World,” with verse 4 reading: Still there are lands where none have seen thy face, Children whose hearts have never shared thy joy; Yet thou wouldst pour on these thy radiant grace, Give thy glad strength to every girl and boy. (Mathews in Parker and Richards 1936) Its empowering tune, Woodlands, written in 1916 by William Greatorex—with its strong opening of three dominant notes rising to the tonic for the word “lands.” In the first verse, “world” is now more regularly

120  June Boyce-Tillman used for the Timothy Dudley-Smith paraphrase of the magnificat “Tell Out my Soul” (written in 1962). Such hymns and tunes set out a special image of the UK as a favored nation divinely inspired to lead the world (Tonsing 2017, 6). In this construction, Britain’s rule would benefit both the favored nation and those whom they ruled (Richards 2001, 14). Drawing on Acts 16:9–10, Bosch notes that a favourite text of the 19th-century missionary movement where the “thought was current that the heathen in their helplessness and poverty were calling upon the benevolent help of the Christian nations.” (Bosch 1991, 289) The notion of Enlightenment played into this supposedly God-given calling for Britain to redeem the world by passing on its values: darkness became demonized in a pursuit of light. In his challenging book The Enlightenment Abolished: Citizens of Britishness (2007), Palmer describes the slave owners as wearing “masks of mock enlightenment”: You forced your culture on us in short time But destroying ours was the greater crime This dishonouring was long and brutally done And has made us all what we have become. (Palmer 2007, 71) For surviving the most profitable evil the world has known Put up no stone . . . just repair the damage done, alone. Our right to be black and live here is not for review . . . We paid a bitter price to live like you. (Palmer 2007, 75) Drawing on these ideas, I used Psalm 129:127 when I reworked a well-known Easter hymn: 1. Christ, our companion, gloriously alive, We can share your darkness; we can share your life. In the rocky cavern, dead your body lay, Till the shining angels rolled the stone away. Christ, our companion, gloriously alive, We can share your darkness; we can share your life. (Boyce-Tillman 2006, 16)8 The connection with the masculinity of the heroic journey (addressed later in this chapter) often reinforced the militarism of many Victorian hymns. Baring-Gould’s (1934–1924) text “Onward, Christian Soldiers” was written for a children’s procession at a school festival (Barr 2004, 72). Its success

We Become What We Sing 121 may well be because of its pairing with the rousing tune from 1871, “St. Gertrude,” written by Arthur Sullivan. Countless websites and articles explore the interlocking themes within it of military endeavors and religion— for example, religion and the American Civil War, and the Just War tradition. As Tonsing notes: “It is not popularly seen as simply about spiritual warfare. It was a hymn that was easily assimilated into the imperial project. In spite of increasing criticism of militant language, the hymn has stayed popular” (Tonsing 2017, 6). Henry Francis Lyte’s famous and much-loved “Abide With Me” (1847), by contrast, includes the heroic spiritual journey, but softer verses are often omitted now: Come not in terror, as the King of kings, But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings; Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea. Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me. This mixture of a gentler spirituality with a notion of conquest also fills the extremely popular Ellerton hymn “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord is Ended”: 1. The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended; the darkness falls at thy behest; to thee our morning hymns ascended; thy praise shall hallow now our rest. . . . 3. As o’er each continent and island the dawn leads on another day, the voice of prayer is never silent, nor die the strains of praise away. 4. So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never, like earth’s proud empires, pass away. Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever, till all thy creatures own thy sway. (John Ellerton 1870) The hymn’s internal paradox is in its identity as both/either a prayer of thanksgiving for the expansion of the church around the world and/or an expression of late nineteenth-century British Victorian military and cultural imperialism. This popular hymn is still frequently sung, including during the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. As Hawn notes: While definitely a product of its age, this hymn lives on while so many other hymns, saturated with blatant militant imperialism, have fallen into disuse. Acknowledging that “earth’s proud empires [will] pass

122  June Boyce-Tillman away”, Ellerton’s artistry, metaphorical depth and biblical foundations make this a hymn for any age. (Hawn n.d.) I do not agree and usually omit verse 4; however, I  find myself unable to sing the hymn “Lift High the Cross” (written originally for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1887), which conjures up for me visions of Crusader armies with crosses on their banners—symbols of power and cruel oppression, reinforced by the rousing, sweeping tune “Crucifer” by Sydney Nicholson (1875–1947) (composer in 1916): Refrain: Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim, Till all the world adore His sacred Name. Led on their way by this triumphant sign, The hosts of God in conquering ranks combine . . . Refrain So shall our song of triumph ever be: Praise to the Crucified for victory. (Written by Kitchin in 1887; revised by Newbolt in 1916) The boundaries between images of a spiritual warfare and physical armies were often blurred, leading to a dangerous combination of patriotism and fervent belief (Richards 2001, 59). This can be seen clearly in Bishop W. Walsham How’s (1823–1897) “Soldiers of the Cross, Arise!” (1845), with its requirement that these Christian soldiers be girded with armor bright to face their mighty enemies in a hard battle: . . . in the might of God array’d, scatter sin and unbelief . . . . . . till the kingdoms of the world are the kingdom of the Lord. Such a hymn lends itself easily, both historically and today, to justifying wars in the name of spreading the Kingdom of God. The notion of God’s kingdom rather than kindom has been challenged by contemporary theologians, but the concept of the kingship of God (imagery that is still in regular use in hymnody) generated many of the military images. The uniformity of the imperial dream was often based in universal laws based on British culture: 1. Judge Eternal, throned in splendour, Lord of lords and King of kings, (Written by Holland in 1902)

We Become What We Sing 123 God as King generated a hard view of judgment which played a significant part in Victorian theology. There are some examples of a softening of the notion. From Dorothy Greenwell’s “And Art Thou Come with Us to Dwell” (1869) comes a verse often omitted in contemporary hymnals: 4. Each heart’s deep instinct unconfessed; Each lowly wish, each daring claim, All, all that life has long repressed Unfolds undreading blight or blame. (Greenwell in Boyce-Tillman and Wootton 1993, 10) The Christian socialist movement, moreover, challenged or questioned these monarchical images, such as in Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy’s (1883–1929): 1. When through the whirl of wheels, and engines humming . . . 2. When through the night the furnace fires aflaring . . . 3. When in the depths the patient miner striving . . . 4. Then will He come with meekness for His glory, God in a workman’s jacket as before, Living again th’eternal Gospel story, Sweeping the shavings from His workshop floor. (Written by Kennedy in 1925) Behind much of these texts is a notion of creating world unity by means of conformity to justify the militarism. The church triumphant will mirror the celestial, as in this text set (significantly) to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne” by Amos Sutton (1802–1854): Hail, sweetest, dearest tie, that binds Our glowing hearts in one; Hail, sacred hope, that tunes our minds To harmony divine . . . From Burmah’s shores, from Afric’s strand, From India’s burning plain, From Europe, from Columbia’s land, We hope to meet again . . . Such views on conformity were at odds with the much more pluralistic inclusive approaches of Indigenous African spirituality, which were more able to adapt readily to the advent of incoming faith traditions and include prayers

124  June Boyce-Tillman and practices drawn from them (Olupona 2022). This confusion between unity and conformity was occasionally challenged, as in George Mattheson’s (1842–1906) powerful text: 1. Gather us in, thou Love that fillest all! Gather our rival faiths within thy fold! . . . 3. Each sees one colour of thy rainbow light; Each looks upon one tint and calls it heaven; Thou art the fullness of our partial sight; We are not perfect till we find the seven; Gather us in . . . (Matheson 1890) In my hymn writing, I have attempted the restoration of a role for apophatic theology—a theology which is about the mystery and unknowability of the divine: We gather here together From different ways of faith. Your Myst’ry calls us forward Into the heart of grace. (Boyce-Tillman 2006, 76)9 God of answers God of questions Dwell in our lives We would know you We would not know Dwell in our lives (Boyce-Tillman 2006, 185)10 The alliance of an inspiring tune with text carries the words deep into a person’s consciousness and identity. These immensely powerful melodies often have a rousing character that have a hubristic quality, both personally and nationally. The Domain of Materials Exporting instruments like the church organ, with which the hymn was widely associated, also carried many of the associations of cultural imperialism already explored. Indigenous cultures also encountered in Christian hymnody a set of new musical instruments and ways of singing. Associated with the dominant Western musical style were the musicking materials required for performance. Portable harmoniums reproduced domestic and

We Become What We Sing 125 chapel instruments in England. Later, however, interesting mergers occurred. In Northeast India, for example, [n]ot only were the hymns of an entirely different musical style, but the concept of singing congregationally in spiritual worship and in praise of God was also one that had not featured prominently before. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that the hymns were welcomed in Mizoram as attractive and exotic new compositions. (Heath 2016, 152) There was no place initially in Western settler colonial missions for Indigenous instruments, such as drums, rattles, and bells. As Palmer reflects with regard to the musical colonization of Africa: You derided our music which was “noise” to your ear But it gave us a voice that has lasted for years . . . (Palmer 2007, 72) As Nwadialor further notes: The drum was not heard in most churches, only the harmonium accompanying carefully translated European hymns sung to the tunes of the West. However, African musical instruments and languages have found their way into the churches and are being used to great advantage. The independent churches took the lead in the creation of a modern African Christian hymnology, making use of the traditional patterns of African singing and a variety of instruments. (Nwadialor 2020, 219) Initially, in many situations, these instruments were banned from worshipping situations, particularly those associated with other spiritual traditions, such as the ancestor worship associated with the mbira in sub-Saharan Africa. The building of Western-style churches also changed the acoustics of ritual, replacing what were outdoor rituals. As Schirr notes, the singing styles associated with Western church music were also unfamiliar: “The choral tradition established in the Victorian church colonized voices and religified certain timbres” (Schirr 2018, 48). The Western tradition had also become gendered in very particular and limiting ways, involving the identification of four voice typologies with gender—soprano/treble, alto, tenor, and bass—as required for harmonizing hymn tunes. Schirr describes this as “the systematic ordering of voices according to patriarchal, Eurocentric epistemologies” (ibid., 44). Cathedrals were also built with boys singing treble and dressed in Western choir dress in mind: “Voices are not naturally male or female, Black or Asian, there are no stable fixed identity markers. . . . Voices are cultural training” (ibid., 40–41).

126  June Boyce-Tillman However, the tradition was sometimes reworked by the voices of those of a differing culture. The following account, attributed to Anderson Edwards, enslaved in Texas, illustrates this: We prayed a lot to be free and the Lord done heered us. We didn’t have no song books and the Lord done give us our songs and when we sing them at night it jus’ whispering so nobody hear us. (National Humanities Center 2017) Hymns in other settler colonial contexts were also sometimes reshaped (Walker 1979, 98), often by improvisation by the missionized groups to produce new worship songs, such as in the genre of the North American spiritual (Graham 2017). The Domain of Construction The formal structures of hymnody also meant that the many oral cultures encountered a new way of putting ideas together musically. British missionary activity introduced Western musical forms around the globe and separated Indigenous forms of music and dance. The hymn was also a form that promoted literacy for participation. Ong (1982) sees the imperial enterprise as substituting literacy for orality. Olwage further understands the musical literacy of the tonic sol-fa tradition as a method of imperial control: The white rhetoric of civilizing—disciplining had a particular urgency to it in 1860s Grahamstown. . . . In the most real—and for the white colonist, important—sense, civilizing the black population was a largescale exercise in governmentality, paving the way, went the argument, for Pax Britannica. The Journal summed up the [choral] concert as bearing witness to that Victorian commonplace, the “power of music to ‘calm the savage breast.’ ” But the concert’s “unprecedented success” was attributed to more than just “music.” Specifically, “credit belong[ed] to Mr. Curwen’s tonic sol-fa system of [sic] having thus far brought the savage within the pale of civilization.” (Olwage 2004, 26) Oral traditions reveal different musical structures from those traditionally offered in the four-line standard stanza of the Western hymn. Marelize van Heerden (2021) describes similar phenomena in teaching dance traditions in the Eastern Cape in South Africa at Nelson Mandela University. In African dance, she describes how the repetition of movements is intentional to create space for community members to join in comfortably and participate in the dance. She describes how, in African dances, the external physical appearance of a dance is of lesser importance than the inner emotional journey of the dancer (van Heerden 2021, 263). African dance includes clapping,

We Become What We Sing 127 shouting, making comments, whistling, ululating, which are largely considered inappropriate in Western dancing traditions. In Western notated hymn tunes, moreover, whether in tonic sol-fa or staff notation, accuracy to the printed score was also often considered of prime importance. Notions of value became associated with difficulty and complexity, particularly in the areas of pitching and harmony, rather than intention. In oral traditions, however, accuracy is defined differently: for example, the idea that “[b]ecause much of my material is folk based, I also explain that the music is usually just a guideline or a reminder, not a set of precise instructions—a river rather than a road” (Morgan and Boyce-Tillman 2016, 60). Sometimes hymns were then reshaped within oral traditions, as we saw in “materials” domain, allowing more space for improvisation. These mergers of oral and literate traditions became further integrated within British culture as immigration from the colonies increased. As Cooper notes, “[t]he cultural ‘bag and baggage’ of the migrants had to be accommodated within the reluctant host society” (Cooper 1993, 175). What a joyful news, Miss Mattie; Ah feel like me heart gwine bursJamaica people colonize England in reverse. (Bennett 1983, 106–107) In the area of rhythm, there was a greater sense of circularity rather than linearity both in the cosmological view and the way in which the music was constructed, particularly in the drumming traditions of sub-Saharan Africa. Olu Taiwo (2021) has identified how notated traditions often follow a metric beat rather than the return beat—a curved rhythmic flux—of the Yoruba drumming traditions. In my own experience, this difference in time perception has made it challenging to integrate drumming traditions within the singing of the Western hymn. The variety of pitches produced by such instruments as the marimba (often varying from place to place) was also largely replaced in settler colonial contexts by Western major and minor scales, which fitted the Western notation systems more easily (because these systems had been designed to represent it). The harmonic system on which Western notated systems were based also differed profoundly from the way in which (often improvised) harmony works. Notation systems suitable for Western hymnody were therefore unsuitable, both rhythmically and melodically, for the other musical systems that were encountered as a by-product of colonialism. So in the domain of oral and literate construction, conceptions of rhythm, pitch, and harmony were challenged by the incoming culture of the hymnal. The dominance of the Western hymnal left a lasting legacy, but with interesting potential for adaption and synthesis, which could then be exported back to Britain through such traditions as the gospel choir.

128  June Boyce-Tillman The Domain of Values This area is closely tied up with texts already interrogated in the domain of expression. The incoming hymns set out a particular set of values. The values underpinning the systems of knowledge that were being set out both through rituals and texts included Western power and ideas of white supremacy and colonial hierarchies of knowledge (Giroux 2011). Musical traditions became subjugated (Foucault 1980; Taylor 2011) as Western aesthetic criteria assumed hegemony, devaluing cultural artefacts of diverse cultural communities. Critical race theory, developed in the United States in 1970s, building on the Frankfurt school and Gramsci’s notion of hegemony, emphasized the part race played out in legitimizing oppressive structures, including musical style. It called for a reversal of this hegemony by means of a commitment to social justice and social transformation through privileging the intersectionality of race, gender, and class (Denzin 2018; LadsonBillings 2014). Also underpinning the imperial project was an archetypal myth of Western culture (Boyce-Tillman 2007) and the male heroic journey (Melman 1992; Midgley 1998; Levine 2007). The male heroic narrative is of a young man who asserts his individuality and “finds himself” through undertaking a journey. After this travelling, he allegedly returns home as a mature person. Philippa Levine identifies how “[i]t was the white settler [man] who was the brave, heroic figure of nineteenth-century imperial rhetoric, and it was his needs and prerogatives which frequently shaped the contours of imperial policy” (Levine 2007, 5). As part of this kind of gendered heroic constructions, the English Hymn Book (1879), edited by R. W. Dale, was described as “an essential weapon in the effort to construct a vital English masculinity” (Hall 1993, 226). Sophie Drinker further describes the twilight of the goddess as patriarchy overtook matriarchal cultures, seeing woman as a “a deficit of nature” (Drinker 1948, 127–42). Matilda Joslyn Gage, in her remarkable analysis in Woman, Church and State (1893), also describes how the feminine was deleted from the divinity in Malabar: “Under the missionaries sent by England to introduce her own barbaric ideas of God and man, this beautiful matriarchal civilization soon retrograded and was lost” (Gage 1893/1998, 7). Another shift was in the area of the view of nature in religion and rituals. The Victorian hymn had a complex relationship with the natural world, which was, in England, itself being colonized by the Industrial Revolution (Gomulkiewicz 2015). In many of the societies encountered in the imperialist project, there was a greater sense of the interdependent relationship between the environment and religion: as Tinker notes, “[w]e are supposed to move from animism to some great abstract conception of one god” (Tinker 2004, 125). Olupona further sees Christianity as “denying their unique African worldview that has always viewed . . . everything as unified and connected to the land, the place were one’s clan, lineage, and people were cosmically birthed” (2022, n.p.).

We Become What We Sing 129 In much of Victorian hymnody, nature is also used as metaphor for a world beyond the physical world, with all its problems (Boyce-Tillman 2021). May we, the angel-reaping o’er, stand at the last accepted, Christ’s golden sheaves for evermore to garners bright elected. (W. Chatterton Dix 1861) I adapted this hymn to restore soil within it: 2. We gaze into Your fertile earth And see Your creatures working – Regeneration in the dirt, The Holy Spirit birthing. (Boyce-Tillman 2021)11 Ecotheology is now appearing as a way to embed social justice in contemporary hymnody: We sing a love that sets all people free, That blows in wind, that burns in scorching flame, Enfolds in earth, springs up in water clear. Come, living love, live in our hearts today. (Boyce-Tillman 2006, 83) The use of God as verb is also seeing a more process-based model of the divine: CHORUS And we’ll all go a-godding To bring the world to birth. 1. New life is calling; Help set it free. And we’ll all go a-godding With a song of liberty. CHORUS (Boyce-Tillman 2006, 97)12 In the wider world, new social justice spiritualities are developing with a greater stress on the feminine and ecospirituality (Biddington 2021), where animistic traditions are rehonored. Here, simple, repetitive chants that can be learned orally are becoming popular, some of them allied with movement and usable outdoors in the natural world. So in the domain of “values,” after systematic attempts to destroy the value systems of colonized groups, hymn writers have the opportunity to reassess the values underpinning their creations.

130  June Boyce-Tillman Summary I have explored the ways in which British hymnody has not only expressed but also formed racist strands in Christian missionary/imperialist endeavors, including British nationalism, cultural superiority, militancy, and patriotism. Western instruments, tunings, singing styles, and vocal timbres challenged existing musical traditions. The notated musical structures of hymnody often required (if not imposed) musical and verbal literacy from participants. I have also interrogated the development of patriarchal values in more matriarchal cultures and how this has played out in human relationships with the other-than-human world. I have hinted at the efforts of contemporary hymn writers but highlighted also how the extrinsic meaning embedded in hymns (especially those learned in childhood) has prolonged the life of hymns, which could be regarded as racist and imperialistic. I have suggested both musical and theological ways for enabling a greater respect for diversity which may enrich British religious musicking. Notes 1 The patriotic character is reinforced by the use of a major key and repetitive rhythm and the tune gradually building to a climax on the word Jerusalem. See www. westendatwar.org.uk/page/parrys_jerusalem?path=0p29p; http://culturematters. org.uk/index.php/arts/music/item/2254-jerusalem-a-hymn-to-women-s-suffrage. 2 Millicent Fawcett suggested that it should become the women voters’ hymn. Parry assigned copyright to the Women’s Institute as an anthem in 1924, until the song entered the public domain in 1968. See accessed January 16, 2023, http://culture matters.org.uk/index.php/arts/music/item/2254-jerusalem-a-hymn-to-women-ssuffrage. 3 Accessed January 16, 2023, https://rvwsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ rvw_journal_29.pdf. 4 www.martinshawmusic.com/articles/article.html. Music and I: A series of talks, No7 Martin Shaw. 5 Accessed January 16, 2023, https://rvwsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ rvw_journal_29.pdf. 6 Accessed January 16, 2023, https://rvwsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ rvw_journal_29.pdf. 7 “To you the night shines as bright as day / Darkness and light are the same to you.” 8 Copyright Stainer and Bell. Used with permission. 9 Copyright Stainer and Bell. Used with permission. 10 Copyright Stainer and Bell. Used with permission. 11 This is set to the tune Golden Sheaves, unpublished. 12 Copyright Stainer and Bell. Used with permission.

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We Become What We Sing 131 Bennett, Louise. 1983. Selected Poems. Kingston: Sangster’s Book Stores. Biddington, Terry. 2021. “Doing Dirty Theology: How Ensoiled Humans Participate in the Flourishing of All Earthlings.” Feminist Theology 29 (3): 305–17. Blake, Andrew. 1997. The Land Without Music: Music Culture and Society in Twentieth Century Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bosch, David J. 1991. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Boyce-Tillman, June. 2006. A Rainbow to Heaven. London: Stainer and Bell. ———. 2007. Unconventional Wisdom. London: Equinox. ———. 2016. Experiencing Music—Restoring the Spiritual: Music as Well-Being. Bern: Peter Lang. ———. 2021. “Rebalancing the Tradition—Wisdom Theology in Hymnody.” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 21 (2): 98–119. Boyce-Tillman, June, and Janet Wootton, eds. 1993. Reflecting Praise. London: Stainer and Bell and Women in Theology. Buber, Martin. 1970. I and Thou. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. 2021. “Sounding Childhood.” Accessed January  20, 2023. http://ongcdh.org/education/british-19th-century-childrens-hymns/part-1-childrenshymns. Clark, Linda J. 1994. Music in Churches: Nourishing your Congregation’s Musical Life. New York: The Alban Institute. Cooper, Carolyn. 1993. Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the Vulgar Body of Jamaican Popular Culture. London: Macmillan. Dawkins, Richard. 1989. The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press. Dearmer, Percy, Martin Shaw, and Vaughan Williams. 1925. Songs of Praise. London: Oxford University Press. Denzin, N. K. 2018. Performance Autoethnography: Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture. London: Routledge. Drinker, Sophie. 1948. Music and Women, The Story of Women in their Relation to Music. New York: Coward-McCann. Eskew, Harry. 1978. “Hymns in the Church’s Teaching Ministry.” Accessed February 14, 2023. https://silo.tips/download/hymns-in-the-church-s-teaching-ministry-harry-eskew. Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–77. Edited by Colin Gordon. Brighton: Harvester Press. Gage, Matilda Joslyn. 1893/1998. Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman Through the Christian Ages with Reminiscences of the Matriarchate. Edited by Sally Roesch Wagner. Aberdeen: Sky Carrier Press. Gale, Patrick. 2015. A Place Called Winter. London: Tinder Press. Giroux, Henry A. 2011. On Critical Pedagogy. New York: Continuum. Goehr, Lydia. 1992. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gomulkiewicz, Abigail. 2015. “Singing Science: What Victorian Hymns Reveal About the Natural World.” The Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review 4. http:// doi.org/10.21061/vtuhr.v4i0.32. Graham Nancy L. 2017. They Bear Acquaintance: African American Spirituals and the Camp Meetings. Oxford: Peter Lang. Hall, Catherine. 1993. “ ‘From Greenland’s Icy Mountains . . . to Afric’s Golden Sand’: Ethnicity, Race and Nation in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England.”  Gender  & History 5 (2): 212–30.

132  June Boyce-Tillman Hawn, Michael. n.d. “History of Hymns: ‘The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended’.” Accessed April  10, 2016. www.gbod.org/resources/history-of-hymnsthe-day-thou-gavest-lord-is-ended. Heath, Joanna. 2016 “Khawhar Zai: Voices of Hope in the Bereavement Singing of Mizo Christians in Northeast India.” PhD thesis, Durham University. Holder, Nate. 2020. “If I Were a Racist.” Accessed February 20, 2022. www.nateholdermusic.com/post/if-i-were-a-racist. Hughes, Meirion, and Robert Stradling. 1993/2001. The English Musical Renaissance 1840–1940: Constructing a National Music. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hume, Tim, and Dylan Reynolds. 2012. “Navigating the ‘Isles of Wonder’: A Guide to the Olympic Opening Ceremony.” Accessed March 15, 2016. http://edition.cnn. com/2012/07/27/sport/decoding-olympic-opening-ceremony/. Johnson-Williams, Erin. 2023. “Sounding Colonial Incarceration: Pedagogy, Hymns, Resistance.” Seminar, University of York, January 18. Accessed January 20, 2023. www.york.ac.uk/arts-creative-technologies/about/events/actresearchseminarsounding colonialincarcerationpedagogyhymnsresistance/. Julian, John. 1907. Dictionary of Hymnology. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Keel, Frederick. 1948. “The Folk Song Society 1898–1948.” Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society 5 (3): 111–26. Ladson-Billings, Gloria. 2014. “Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: A.K.A the Remix.” Harvard Educational Review 84 (1): 74–84. Levine, Philippa. 2007.  “Introduction: Why Gender and Empire?” In Gender and Empire, edited by Philippa Levine, 1–13. New York: Oxford University Press. Marton, Ference, and Shirley Booth. 1997. Learning and Awareness. New York: Routledge. Meland, Bernard. 1976. Fallible Forms and Symbols: Discourses on Method in a Theology of Culture. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Melman, Billie. 1992. Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718– 1918: Sexuality, Religion and Work. London: Macmillan. Midgley, Clare, ed. 1998. Gender and Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Morgan, Sarah, and June Boyce-Tillman. 2016. A River Rather Than a Road: The Community Choir as Spiritual Experience. Oxford: Peter Lang. National Humanities Center. 2017. “Slaves’ Resistance on Southern Plantations: Selections from the WPA Slave Narratives.” Accessed October 12, 2023. https:// nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/enslavement/text7/resistancewpa.pdf Nwadialor, Kanayo L. 2020. “An Enduring Covenant: The Past and the Present in Contemporary African Christian Practice.” Journal of Religion in Africa 50: 203–23. Olupona, Jacob. 2022. “The Spirituality of Africa.” Accessed September 30, 2022. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/10/the-spirituality-of-africa/. Olwage, Grant. 2004. “Discipline and Choralism: The Birth of Musical Colonialism.” In Music, Power, and Politics, edited by Annie J. Randall, 24–46. London: Routledge. Ong, Walter. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen. Palmer, Geoff. 2007. The Enlightenment Abolished: Citizens of Britishness 1562– 1807–1834–1838. Penicuik: Henry Press.

We Become What We Sing 133 Parker, Caroline Bird, and G. Darlington Richards. 1936. The Hymnal for Boys and Girls. New York and London: D. Appleton-Century Company. Rancière, Jacques. 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics. Edited by Gabriel Rockhill. London and New York: Continuum. Richards, Jeffrey. 2001.  Imperialism and Music: Britain, 1876–1953. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Roser, Isobel. 2016. “Sport: A Tool of Colonial Control for the British Empire.” BSJ: The Butler Scholarly Journal. Accessed February 14, 2021. https://butlerscholarly journal.com/2016/04/30/sport-a-tool-of-colonial-control-for-the-british-empire/#:~:text= The%20role%20of%20sport%20within,and%20dominance%20within%20the %20Empire. Schirr, Bertram J. 2018. “The Body We Sing: Reclaiming of the Queer Materiality of Vocal Bodies.” In Queering Freedom: Music, Identity and Spirituality—Anthology with Perspectives from Over Ten Countries, edited by Karen Hendricks and June Boyce-Tillman, 35–53. Oxford: Peter Lang. Scott, Joyce. 2007.  Tuning in to a Different Song: Using a Music Bridge to Cross Cultural Differences. Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications. Shepherd, John, and Peter Wicke. 1997. Music and Cultural Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. Small, Christopher. 1999. “Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. A Lecture.” Music Education Research 1 (1): 9–22. Sullivan, Lawrence E., ed. 1997. Enchanting Powers: Music in the World’s Religions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Taiwo, Olugbenga Olusola Elijah. 2021. The Return Beat – Interfacing with Our Interface: A Spiritual Approach to the Golden Triangle. Oxford: Peter Lang. Taylor, Dianna, ed. 2011. Michel Foucault: Key Concepts. Durham: Acumen Publishing Ltd. Tinker, George E. 2004. “The Stones Shall Cry Out: Consciousness, Rocks, and Indians.” Wicazo Sa Review 19 (2): 105–25. Tonsing, Gertrud. 2017. “. . . Earth’s Proud Empires Pass Away . . .’: The Glorification and Critique of Power in Songs and Hymns of Imperial Britain.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 73 (3). https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v73i3.3637. van Heerden, Marelize. 2021. “Dance Education as an Agent of Social Cohesion.” In Ritualised Belonging, edited by June Boyce-Tillman, Liesl Van der Merwe, and Janelize Morelli, 249–68. Oxford: Peter Lang. Walker, Wyatt Tee. 1979. “Somebody’s Calling My Name”: Black Sacred Music and Social Change. Valley Forge: Judson Press. Whitla, Becca. 2020. Liberation, (De)Coloniality, and Liturgical Practices: Flipping the Song Bird. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Williams, Rowan. 2012. Faith in the Public Square. London: Bloomsbury.

8 Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation Liz Gre

In the Pew I walk down the burgundy-colored carpeted aisles with haste behind my mother. We arrive after the service has started, so in a familiar embarrassment, I  focus my attention on my white ruffled socks in my black shoes. Flanking my procession to the second pew from the front are relatively giant churchgoers who move in conversation with the choir and the worship leader. Energy so high the floor vibrates into my body and into my chest. It’s too warm. But the paper fans, donned with faces of our universal beloved egún,1 the spirit of our collective ancestors (Issa 2022), create a draft unlike any that could be produced from a mechanical fan. I finally walk into the pew. Sitting next to my mother, a deaconess, dressed in white with a hat so large I’m not sure how she was able to see enough to walk, let alone see me chewing gum. Over the next 19 years, I would repeat this ritual every Sunday.

In this chapter I  explore the use of sound and the extra-liturgical concept of hymn as a generative and innovative practice that intensifies in the space of the socio-political. Beginning with arts-based research as anthropology— more specifically, (auto)ethnography and sound-arts practice—and situating my work within these interwoven fields, I use an ethnographically informed composition practice to discover sonic boundaries within this cultural field. This practice works toward presenting a re-telling and re-presenting of the historical and present-day experiences that have shaped lives, specifically of Black women experiencing migration, immigration, expatriation, and transnational movement throughout the diaspora. This chapter finds its footing in creative practice as research and centers its focus on how those experiences, when shared through a method of meaning-making derived from the legacies of history, can construct a hymn. I move from the consideration of sound as a verb—one that considers and propels imagination toward a generative or political possibility. Later in this chapter, I consider my co-compositional and collaborative sound and performance work titled “We Invoke the Black. To Rest.” This composition materialized using co-compositional methods that included Black and Indigenous members of the Tate Collective Producers DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-8

Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation 135 group as participants in the compositional process. The performance was formed in collaboration with textile and movement performance artist Enam Gbewonyo in response to works by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Leading the exploration is the core question: How does collective creating and distributed authorship lead to the development of a hymn, developed for an auditory imagination specific to, for, and by people of the global majority? While the call for submissions, which was the departure point for this text, included references to the seminal text by Laura Rademaker Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission (Rademaker 2018), I have no interest, scholarly or otherwise, in centering the experience of missionaries. I am interested, however, in the recognition of the space Indigenous people made and maintained to uphold their cultural ephemera against coaxing from white missionaries. While I will engage critically with Rademaker’s work by exploring how British missionaries to Groote Eylandt (Northern Australia) relied on translation of hymns to further religious indoctrination of the Indigenous people known as Anindilyakwa, I do so only to cull out a tension from which I might (re-)center the experience of the Anindilyakwa. It was the subsequent mistranslations, however, that allowed for the Anindilyakwa to maintain the helm of traditional notions of spirituality through a lived tradition of hymns. According to Rademaker: Missionaries used language both to assure themselves of their own ascendancy and to coax Indigenous people to listen to their teachings. They wielded language—both their English-language literacies and texts as well as Indigenous languages in print—as instruments to reshape Indigenous people into their vision of civilised Christians. Yet the missionaries’ dependence on interpreters, teachers, and informants meant that missionaries’ power was always limited, their message mediated, and their teachings translated. Indigenous people found space for themselves in the ambiguities of translation. (Rademaker 2018, 180) It is imperative to the dialogue I wish to embark upon here to bring the experiences of the Anindilyakwa to the center. I  wish not to replicate the same power imbalances of perspective or the method of gathering experiences that could be a mining or capturing (as they both could surface connotations of hierarchical, colonizing, and traumatic histories of anthropological research).2 Without the means to engage in direct communications with the same Anindilyakwa people that were subjects of Rademaker’s research, this chapter will rely on direct quotes from the Anindilyakwa about their experiences as a departure point to engage with three concerns: sacredness, power, and genealogy. Further to these concerns, I  incorporate ideas from Tavia N’yongo’s seminal work exploring the ways that Black queer performance artists intertwine with opacity and produce holy fabulations. In what

136  Liz Gre Rademaker later calls “mistranslation,” could it be more accurately called a devaluing? What alternatives are there to the devaluing of the Anindilyakwa’s distinct, traditional, spiritually significant, clan-specific songs (emeba)? If sound and listening can create new worlds, as sound studies theorist Salome Voegelin proposes, then “the political possibility of sound can move the imaginary towards real possibilities, transformative and radical” (Voegelin 2019, 19). It could be inferred that the missionaries intended to indoctrinate the Indigenous peoples into their world through singing and writing hymns. To this, I return to the provocations of Voegelin, who argues that sound can be a vehicle for multiplying realities, “reaching a more plural and simultaneous possibilities.” Situating the Work The recollective story I  shared at the outset of this chapter was meant to orient you, the reader, to a beginning. To consider re-evaluating the subject of the hymn, my most intrinsic approach is to invoke memory to recall the subject of hymn in my own personal life. This simple act of autoethnographic reflexivity (see Toliver 2022) serves as a jumping-off point for further diving and divining. Autoethnography, a term first used in the 1970s, is currently considered a “method for using personal experience and reflexivity to examine cultural experiences” (Adams, Ellis, and Jones 2017, 2). Autoethnography, for the study of gender and race, is therefore an act of time travel and world building—creating cohesive ways to “center and [make] claims about particular, but shared, experiences of women of color . . . and critique, theorize, and analyze our lives as we live and reflect on them” (Boylorn 2016, 50). As an autoethnographic practitioner utilizing a multimodal compositional research practice, my practice is guided by the tenet that gathering my own stories and the stories of others while also telling stories is foundational. Both my own stories and the narratives of those who participate in the research as contributors, participants, and co-composers are vital to this compositional qualitative research methodology as practice. This work finds grounding in the ideal that all the narratives shared in exchange are sovereign. They need not be filtered, re-framed, clarified, or altered via any external authority. I also consider the maneuvers and engagements undertaken by the Anindilyakwa in relation to the British Christian missionaries as recounted by Rademaker (2018). I am particularly drawn to the use of and departure from translation as a tactic for indoctrination. Rademaker argues that translation can be a tool that allows for cross-cultural communication, but it can also be a vehicle for resistance. With translation, though, also comes mistranslation, as what emerges is an environment of the opacity of language. To advance the discussion in this chapter, I bring into focus the relationship between hymnsinging (as a missionary tactic) and enduring cultural practices, objects, and rituals. The British missionaries that carried out the Angurugu mission of the 1960s were led by the goal of conversion. To address what they perceived

Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation 137 as the Anindilyakwa’s lack of authenticity in their conversion, missionaries began learning Aboriginal languages and translating hymns from English to Anindilyakwa. Despite the efforts by British missionaries, Anindilyakwa communities remained rooted in historical and traditional spirituality. Further, regardless of the use of translation, the Anindilyakwa reworked the Christian ideas presented as hymns to reflect and respond to their own traditional expressions of spirituality. From this place, questions emerge as an opportunity for egress: How did translation/mistranslation critically alter Anindilyakwa spirituality? Did the act of simple translation devalue spiritual practices or, further, their personhood and body politic? Alongside this discourse of autoethnographic practice is a consideration of egalitarian participatory practice and relational aesthetic. In sound studies, listening and composition through egalitarian practice toward a relational aesthetic requires engaging with sound in and out of its contextual environment. By grounding the compositional process within an autoethnographic practice, we gain valuable context from the composer(s), participants, and listeners. The music, as a work, becomes an almost-tangible thread across previously hierarchical strata. Further, particularly in Western contexts of musical performance, the role of the participant as the observed was therefore made into a subject-made-spectacle. While we can consider hymn composers in Western music history as less voyeuristic than composers of other genres, due to the active nature of congregational singing, I challenge the idea that the relationships between hymn composers, missionaries/evangelists, and the communities of the global majority in sites of religious colonization, were not indeed impacted by the hierarchical positionalities at play. The discussion developed in this chapter posits usurping the hierarchical positions of hymn composer, missionary, and subject, by considering the communities of the global majority as composing participants with agency and power rather than unenlightened peoples who need the authority of hymn-singing in order to civilize. Sound Arts Practice as Interruption First, it was the red-covered hymnal. I remember its texture—like wet pebbles. The New National Baptist Hymnal. We would sing one hymn from this book every Sunday. Always accompanied by the organ. My memory of the songs that came from the red book was that they were old and seemed to just drag. But also, the elder women in my church just loved them. I knew because their “amens,” “sing, babies,” “hallelujahs,” and “mm-hmms” increased. I was in the youth choir, and I was also learning to play the piano. My piano teacher would assign classical music and hymns from the red book. The youth choir would learn two contemporary songs and sing one hymn from the red book. It seemed mandatory. Like a return to someone else’s old way? Then, it was the kente-clothed book. African American Heritage Hymnal. There were some songs that were in both, but for the most part, this book was completely different. There were responsive readings that were meant to teach and inspire—with

138  Liz Gre titles like “Healing” and “Liberation” and readings for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Emancipation Day. For Black mothers and Black martyrs. The songs, even if new to me, were familiar around me. I remember hearing them sung with a cadence and with desire. I liked them more. I felt them. I could call them mine. Even though I don’t go to church now, I still call them mine. Then I returned to a path toward the Orisha in my late 20s. The songs I sing to honor them feel older. Unfamiliar. A bit like the red book, but without the distance. When I am led, called, or asked to venerate my ancestors, I sing to them slowly from the kente-clothed book and the red book. “I come to the garden alone. While the dew is still on the roses; and the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known. “Precious Lord, take my hand. Lead me on. Let me stand. I am tired. I am sick. I am worn. Through the storm. Through the night. Lead me on to the light. Oh, take my hand. Precious Lord, lead me home.”

I’m not entirely sure why in this retelling the objectness of these hymnbooks is connected so directly to my recollection of the sound, yet I  share these experiences as they arrive in my memory. I reflect on how I was drawn into the kente-clothed book as I developed spiritually. Very early on, it was clear that my entrée into a faith practice that influenced the experience of my own personhood was through the sonic landscape. It was and has always been in the legacy of the cadence, the tonality, the expression, the storytelling done by the soloists as they improvised, recalled, and ministered. One could argue that the legacy of forceful religiosity upon captured and enslaved Africans had damning effects on the psyche of diasporic Black Americans. I simply do not have the adequate capacity to stand in this argument for this particular chapter.3 It is the legacy of “Negro spirituals” as songs sung by the enslaved Africans as a way to reclaim and safeguard both their expressions of joy, sorrow, and inspiration as well as their methods of communication from the prying ears and hands of their abusers that I cling to in this exploration of autoethnographic, reflective, and collaborative compositional methodology. Was it in the unexplainable familiarity that came, perhaps from an epigenetic memory, while singing from the kente-clothed book? There was something in the sonic landscape that was transformative for me and the congregation on those Sunday mornings. The hymns were co-created in the moment. Performed through improvisation and reflexivity. The soloist, the congregation, and the composer all share authorship. Methodologically, I am reminded of work by Tullis Rennie, composer and field recordist, who considers composition in this way as “distributed authorship” (Rennie 2020). These sonic landscapes interrupted

Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation 139 the socio-political landscape outside of the walls of the church. Where the stories and experiences of Black Americans were never near the center outside the church, inside we were re-centered. Rennie (2020) offers a linkage between distributed authorship and the idea of artistic disruption. It is this idea of disruption that is of particular interest to me: the assertion that art— specifically an egalitarian, involved, collaborative art-making processes—can disrupt the hegemony of established power structures. It is enticing to work from the theory that one can disrupt established power structures in our larger societal context while disrupting those same harmful power structures that manifest in the localized context of sound practice. Sound and listening can also be powerful by being generative: they create rather than are passive states in response to an environment. Voegelin (2014, 2019) aims to connect sound and listening to the political act and, in so doing, mapping an auditory imagination. It is here where a transformative act occurs in the experience of Voegelin’s version of listening: “The political possibility of sound does not resemble a trivial fantasy, easily dismissed, but can move from the understanding of norms and normativity, their instigation as actual and real, into real possibilities that are transformative and radical” (Voegelin 2019, 19). Voegelin implies that sound can create a radical world, one built through the “acknowledgement of socio-historical norms, as the conditions and conditioning of actuality.” Does the sound material gathered via non-hierarchical exchange and distributed authorship offer a compositional and/or socio-political context that drives away from hegemony? Does the resulting work derived from this exchange have any impact on those who co-create it? In the discussion that follows, I work from the basis that sound is generative and innovative. As Voegelin reminds us, sound intensifies in the space of the political and can potentially be used as an exploration of politics. Sound is a verb—one that allows for us to experience sound as generative or political possibility. Voegelin so keenly clarifies that this notion is not inconsequential. Rather, generative sound—politically possible sound—emerges from real experiences and transforms real lives, further impacting the real world around us. At the confluence of autoethnography as method, considerations of positionality in discussions of hymn composition and missionary work, and generative sound as a vehicle for radical new worlds, I propose something new. A derivative of endarkened feminist epistemologies (defined later), endarkened storywork, and the consideration of sound as a radical means to make new realities, endarkened co-composition for an endarkened acoustemology is a methodology used here in critical response to the spiritual colonization examined by Rademaker and offered as a beacon for ethnographically informed composers. I situate my work in the pew among a congregation comprised of radical sonic possibilities for a new reality and afro-fabulationist performance. I do so as a means to bring intimate viewers, present listeners, and distant

140  Liz Gre watchers closer to opacity rather than as a means to clarify (or perhaps even devalue via oversimplification). I am routed through autoethnography, and specifically endarkened storywork, a ritual of qualitative research that centers Black and Indigenous storytelling as a foundation of methodological development.4 I undertake this critique as a means for an alternative to the challenge of mistranslation presented by Rademaker. Afro-fabulationist thought, explored in a novel way by Tavia Nyong’o and further defined in the chapter, creates a frame for endarkened storywork through composition to exist (Nyong’o 2019). Through afro-fabulation, Nyong’o offers a method for usurping representationalist considerations of Blackness that contest historical and political sequences marked only through trauma, loss, and eradication. Centering and Decentering: Opacity and Endarkenment Through an exploration of Black queer performance, Tavia Nyong’o (2019) critically surveys Black performance art by Black performers, in what is considered the era of post-Blackness. With this framework in mind, I consider Anindilyakwa’s creative approach to maintain sovereignness while engaging with the Christian missionaries. Afro-fabulation, considered broadly, is both a theory and practice of Black time and temporality. Nyong’o considers the presence and the power of opacity. Afro-fabulation doesn’t bring viewers into a place of clarity but, rather, brings viewers, listeners, and engagers closer to the opacity. While there is “[a] risk of communicating and rendering overly explicit that which ought more tactically remain camouflaged,” N yong’o posits afro-fabulation as a method of queer performance and queer life that serves to both expose and keep safe queer Black life (Nyong’o 2019, 5). I am particularly struck by the evaluation that in this act of bringing two bodies (performer and viewer) closer together, there is an inherent respect and value of the performer’s experience. It is not translated, mistranslated, watered down, or made more consumable for the benefit of the viewer. Historically, Black people have used various methods such as performance, storytelling, fiction, and song to make meaning outside of Eurocentric academia. Endarkened storywork is an act and method of critical remembering. As Toliver defines it, endarkened storywork methodology is “built from the confluence of Endarkened feminist epistemologies, Indigenous storywork (ISW) (Archibald 2008), and Afrofuturism” (Womack 2013; Toliver 2022, xv). Endarkened storywork re-centers the Black epistemologies that have survived generations of trauma, violence, and a legacy of disenfranchisement. Endarkened storywork is presented as a method that not only makes space for Black stories but also assigns value and meaning to Black storytelling as sovereign and not as luxury. Endarkened methodology, together with the brilliance of an honored opacity, provides an alternate version of what might have been possible

Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation 141 with the Anindilyakwa’s spiritual convergence with Christian missionaries. What alternatives are there to the devaluing of the Anindilyakwa’s ememba? Here I look to work by Salome Voegelin. If sound and listening can create new worlds, then “the political possibility of sound can move the imaginary towards real possibilities, transformative and radical” (Voegelin 2019, 19). It could be inferred that the missionaries intended to indoctrinate Indigenous peoples into their world through singing and writing hymns. Voegelin does not directly speak to the work of missionaries; however, I draw from their proposition of sound as a vehicle for multiplying and radicalizing realities and consider hymn composition and singing not solely a method for indoctrination. Epistemological Sacredness As I contemplate the legacy of Black and Indigenous epistemology as framed by Endarkened storywork, I am concerned with the knowledge and meanings that have remained despite pressures of translation (and mistranslation). The Anindilyakwa, in subversion to colonization tactics, maintained their own song-story practices—their emeba—through their rituals and ceremonies. Rademaker explains that there was an acknowledged sacredness to the process of learning, singing, and sharing melodies (akwayekema). The sacredness of it began with the compositional process—one that existed outside the realm of Western understanding, as Anindilyakwa singer Gula Lalara explains: These emeba don’t come running to you! You have to sing the akweyekema [tune], because the words don’t come by themselves. You’ll have to sit thinking about nothing else except the track where it comes from, which country you’ll be passing through and how far you have to go. . . . You think it’s easy don’t you? Your head will ache when you try to work it all out. (Rademaker 2018) In this way, the process of bringing a song to materialization was a communal sacred and opaque process built on the idea of collaboration rather than a top-down composer model. These kinds of sonic materializations would have been foreign to the missionaries’ musical experiences, but that probably brought along with it quite a lot of ambiguity about how effective the evangelization process actually was. Leaving room for ambiguity in this case was useful, as it cut down how successful the missionaries thought they were. This process of representing origin stories, bridging with previous generation’s representations, and surrendering to the moment of ceremony was never too far from the Anindilyakwa’s practice while engaging with the Christian hymns that were taught by the missionaries. While for missionaries hymns found their sacredness in their predominantly unchanged nature, for

142  Liz Gre the Anindilyakwa, the sacredness of the emeba was found in the relationship between singer, song, and time. Flexibility in terms of sacred experience, improvisation, and storytelling was at the core of Anindilyakwa musical practice. Power In their efforts to convert the Indigenous community to Christianity, British missionaries on the Angurugu mission used hymns to convey the power of a Christian God as the supreme being. What could be a complex concept to understand in relation to the tradition of Anindilyakwa spirituality was expressed through simple hymns, with messages conveyed in terms appropriate for simple understanding. The Anindilyakwa, however, held a power in the maintenance of opacity when it came to the meaning of each song and the inability to fully articulate or clarify the tune. As Rademaker notes: Aboriginal songs use special forms of language . . . language that differs from everyday speech. The Anindilyakwa emeba use special language and have obscure, ambiguous meanings. Listeners are not expected to understand every word. Emeba rarely mention the actual name of the Creative Being concerned. The mystery, the opacity, is deliberate. It separates listeners according to their understanding and controls the dissemination of secret and powerful knowledge. (Rademaker 2018, 154) In the mysteries protected by the compositional process and use of sometimes-unrecognizable language emerged a sonic form of power and sacredness. The Anindilyakwa remained guided by an intentionally indescribable yet unshakeable faith practice built through stories and rhythm that remained intact despite by missionary influence. Genealogy Though interrupted by missionary influence, the Anindilyakwa maintained a connection to their epigenetic lineage. Nancy Lalara, an Anindilyakwa Aboriginal elder, speaker, translator, and member of the Church Missionary Society mission on Groote Eylandt, spoke about the genealogical persistence of traditional song ways. She recalls and is quoted by Rademaker as saying: I was already defined by my father’s Songs. I sang them in my head to put me to sleep at night; after I’d said my prayers. I tried to make the prayers mean something, but they weren’t really a part of me. . . . And when I needed real comfort I turned to my father’s Songs not the Bible. (Lalara quoted in Rademaker 2018, 161)

Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation 143 Lalara recognizes that despite attempts of the CMS missionaries to indoctrinate the Anindilyakwa Aborigines through song, the power of their genealogy persisted in the automatic return to the traditional ways to express faith. This was the case even as the Anindilyakwa indeed found meaning in Christian songs. The experience recounted by Lalara brings to the forefront a nuance to be explored. While spiritual formation could be attributed to the influence of the CMS missionaries, there remained a level of faith connection that was inherited from generation to generation and attuned to the specific needs for comfort, as identified by Lalara earlier, and perhaps also attuned to Anindilyakwa comfort, understanding, or joy. A Hymn without the Church In the brief study of Anindilyakwa hymn earlier, I engaged with the experiences of spiritual song developed in a cultural context rather than through religiosity per se. So what is the hymn when outside a Christian evangelical, liturgical, or even religious context? I took this question to the global digital faith community Unfit Christian Congregation via a post on their group Facebook page.5 The following are selected responses: A cadence. A hymn can be a call to war. An elegy, an ode, an epic poem set to music. Tradition. A remembering . . . A synchronized invocation across time. A story, or an account . . . set to music. A soul cry. A spiritual expression/release. An ode to be sung. History, healing, love, they tell a story. How does collective creating and distributed authorship lead to the development of an auditory imagination specific to, for, and by Black women throughout the diaspora? This potentiates a radical departure from a pathway that begins with capturing or recording knowledge and moves through interpretation, to translation, back to interpretation, and lands at mistranslation. This framework also props up the possibility of transformed reality through sound. Considering the precedence of discussion earlier, I consider the hymn a musical output from a co-created auditory imagination. Hymns are songs of praise for the gods of our foremothers—both divine, material, and divine among the material—and for the god of ourselves. Songs of exultation for the way the divine has shown up in our personhood. Songs of movement, migration, and identity. Songs that characterize the beauty in the mundane. And yes, reflections of overcoming. Rather than understating

144  Liz Gre the sacredness, power, and cultural sovereignty of Black women through attempting to translate their narratives, I  attempt to uphold the reality of fellow Black women experiences through an intentional egalitarian process— through co-writing our own hymns in order to disrupt hierarchical hegemony both in music and in the larger socio-political world. Using sound, we work from a place of unbridled, unfiltered, and unromanticized reality to move imagined possibility toward a transformed reality. We Invoke the Black. To Rest. The sonic imaginary is one of the primary facilitators to aid the removal of visual boundaries—boundaries that employ and uphold socio-cultural norms of stratification, bias, oversimplification, and devaluation. And it is this version of reality, this world, that ultimately pushes against hegemonic systems of power. With co-composed autoethnographic composing as a form of record making, the act not only gives value and assigns meaning to elements of one’s cultural context but also opens the realm of existence for meaningful materiality that may not be recorded or archived. But when we listen, capture, investigate, and relate sounds through an auto-ethnographic lens, what is still lost? Recording, reflexively investigating, and even crafting those sounds into music and soundscapes still cannot accurately represent a locality, experience, individual, or culture. I raise this claim not to discourage auto-ethnographic methodology in composition but to suggest that composers relish in the retained mystery. I further suggest that maintaining the possibility, the opacity, even when writing with a highly familiar context, can offer a rich compositional output with both artistic and sociocultural value. In We Invoke the Black. To Rest., producing a hymn was not the original intention. The intent was to make a commissioned response to painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Fly in League With the Night, the first exhibition to celebrate Yiadom-Boakye’s body of work in depth. According to the Tate exhibition guide: The paintings encourage us to wonder what an enigmatic smile could mean or what song the dancers might be moving to. If they are performing, it is not necessarily for us. There is a subtle resistance in the figures’ independence and introspection. (Tate exhibition guide) Yiadom-Boakye has described her compositions as “composites, ciphers, riddles. Of the world but only partially concerned with it. Concerned with the part that gives them life, less bothered by the rest” (Tate Britain, accessed 2023). In collaboration with textile and performance artist Enam Gbewonyo, we made a site-specific yet afro-fabulationist performance framed by a co-composed composition. As Gbewonyo and I began to ruminate on the best way to respond to the works in the exhibition, we concerned ourselves

Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation 145

Figure 8.1 Liz Gre (left) and Enam Gbewonyo (seated, right) in performance of We Invoke the Black. To Rest. in front of works by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Tate Britain.

with the textures and tensions found in the fictionality of each painting. As Tate’s exhibition guide notes: Yiadom-Boakye’s fictitious figures inhabit private worlds. Though they might smile or glance in our direction, they are primarily concerned with their own business. They peer through binoculars at things that we can’t see, reflect on thoughts or have conversations, the subjects of which remain in Yiadom-Boakye’s invented realm. (ibid.) At the outset, my compositional process began with a calling to listen for stories in the paintings. There was a sense of familiarity that accompanied the emerging feeling of opacity due to the anonymity of the subjects in each portrait. Gbewonyo and I were both moved toward action and urged toward rest, as if we were instructed to find rest for ourselves and minister for rest to the wider world. The composition and performance were made within the ebb and flow of government-mandated isolation orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Preliminary conversations about what we could make in response to the works quickly centered on ideas of rest and returning to rituals of lullaby. We ruminated on the possibility that of all that could exist in a world of infinite possibilities, contextualized by Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings, even rest, restfulness, and renewal could exist for Black people (too). We used this visualization as a departure point to craft an improvisational and conversational

146  Liz Gre performance accompanied by a sound composition developed in collaboration with members of the Tate Collective Producers6 (Tate collective). The compositional process began with a group conversation with the Tate collective, who self-identified as Black or as a person of color, around the ideas Gbewonyo and I brought forth. The conversation used the following questions as prompts: • When do you rest? Are there certain conditions required for rest? • What does it mean to invite ourselves to rest? • What is a lullaby? • What lullabies do you remember from your childhood? • Now, what helps put you at rest? Following the discussion, the participants were invited to record themselves, giving permission to rest. These audio letters-to-self were then layered, manipulated, and arranged to form the first movement of the composition. In this movement, I sought not to translate, clarify, or make clear our participants’ recorded lullabies and invitations for rest. Their stories, experiences, and calls existed in sovereignty, hence the invitation to record on their own devices, in their own spaces. Instead of translating, and ultimately mistranslating, organic context into musically realized sound, I  simply allowed the material to exist, as it was. By layering the letters-to-self with little alteration, to the words themselves, the power that each lullaby held for the individual participant was respected. By placing these letters-to-self in a sound world next to each other, the experience of the discussion that fueled the responses was reflected. The last words of the first movement were, “But I think rest is a really difficult thing, it’s really a hard thing to contend with. And I don’t know if I’m ever gonna not feel guilty for resting.” Spurred by that phrase, I responded with vocal improvisation to this provocation. As a performance artist, fully diving into guilt and hesitation, I was concerned with the difficulty of allowing rest. And then, as if by spiritual intervention, the paintings and their recurring scenes of restfulness and relaxation, I was given a directive to speak for more rest. The third movement concluded with this speaking. Improvised, the words came: “Oh child, my child. Peace will come when you close your eyes.” I exclaimed, “Are you really resting?” to Gbewonyo as she moved in response to the calls of the composition, the works, and her own conflicts with rest. All of us, the Tate collective, Gbewonyo, and I co-composed a hymn for liberation, a hymn for rest. Drawing on first-person, reflexive experiences, left unfiltered and minimally altered, we crafted an ode to reclaiming rest within the Black body, in this space and time. Conclusion and Further Considerations This chapter is not a call to erase the history of any positive impact of Western missionaries on the Indigenous communities they encountered. In fact,

Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation 147 this chapter has not addressed any moral categorizations of missionary work. Instead of and apart from discourses about the history of the impact of missionary activities on Indigenous, Aboriginal, and diasporic communities, I seek to propose a valuable method to re-center the voices, stories, and knowledge of Indigenous, Aboriginal, and diasporic communities in building radical new realities that disrupt hierarchical hegemony. But what is the purpose of the hymn outside of a religious context? Can one even argue that the hymn can exist in any other frame? There is a long, rich legacy of meaning-making among the Indigenous, Aboriginal, and (African) diaspora (Toliver 2022, xvi). I posit that the meaning and knowledge of hymns as collaborative experience have suffered from oversimplification and mistranslation. Nyong’o so acutely reminds us that there is power in the opacity of experience and story (Nyong’o 2019, 70). It is the over-clarification and filtration of lived experiences and stories that contribute to contrived indoctrination to hierarchical power structures. But can that power be reclaimed? I am challenged by Rademaker’s account of missionary activities on the Anindilyakwa of Australia, and specifically the effects of hymn, language, and (mis)translation on the spiritual development/re-development of the Anindilyakwa. I am led to ask, What was the hymn for us who legacy across the African diaspora before it was tethered to Christianity as a tool of colonization? Spiritual songs sung as folklore are and were stories, omens, oral histories, and yes, a means of connection to ideas and experiences of the divine. Through a collaborative methodology of co-composition, rooted in endarkened storywork that honors opacity, rather than seeking definitive meaning through over-clarification, I  argue that there emerge hymns. These hymns, their sonic origin stories, and their histories predate those that were used to indoctrinate, yet they are still being written and sung. There exists a legacy of endarkened knowledge-making and world-building by Black and Indigenous communities across the globe through archaic methods that have been considered discounted—as evidenced by the systemic structures of missionary imperialism that attempted to forcefully remove people from their ways of being. In this chapter, I have attempted to reframe the established lens through which I further re-consider the hymn. I have considered the definition, role, and use of the hymn in the context given by the hymn-speaker: the framework is therefore defined by the story-maker/hymn-speaker and experiencehaver. These perspectives exist autonomously, uninterrupted, unclarified, undistilled, or mistranslated by an external force. Within this framework, the co-written hymn has the potential to be something else entirely: it exists to archive and to liberate. Notes 1 Egun refers to the “collective spirit of all the Ancestors in one’s lineage.” See https:// research.auctr.edu/Ifa/Chap5Hermeneutics. This idea and title originate from Ifa, an African traditional religion, and is also used in Ifa-descendant diasporic religions and practices like La Regla De Ocha, Santeria, and Lucumi. Prayers to, references of, and meditations on the Egun are invocations of the power of the ancestors. As

148  Liz Gre Quinones notes, “[t]he invoking of Egun and those deceased allow one to tap into an energy of a spiritual past that can enable one to understand karmic destiny and answer some of the questions of why we behave in certain ways or are drawn to certain energies” (Quinones 2010).” 2 For sonic references, see Mahalia Jackson’s renditions of “In The Garden,” www. youtube.com/watch?v=l65z2AkrAZc and “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” www. youtube.com/watch?v=as1rsZenwNc. 3 For further reading on African American sacred music, see McCreless (2021), Spencer (2008), and Darden (2014). 4 Thus far, most scholarships on hymns, missionary impact, and Indigenous voices have maintained centering the experiences of missionaries rather than those of Indigenous voices. If Indigenous voices are a part of the dialogue, scholarship tends to present those experiences through the lens of the missionary experience. Further, Indigenous experiences are shared with the wider academia in methods that are deemed standard according to Eurocentric methods. Here, despite the publishing of this chapter according to Western standards of academia, I reject this centering as standard. This is work of decolonization. See Robinson (2020). 5 Out of respect for the members of Unfit Christian Congregation, those quoted here will remain anonymous. 6 The full performance of “We Invoke the Black. To Rest.” can be found online here: https://lizgre.com/#/798817030644/. The Tate Collective Producers is a group of people ages 15–25 who plan and deliver activities and events for other young people as well as work on creative projects, events, workshops, and talks in conjunction with exhibitions in the galleries in London, Liverpool, and St. Ives.

References Adams, Tony E., Carolyn Ellis, and Stacy Holman Jones. 2017. “Autoethnography.” In The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods, edited by Jörg Matthes, 1–11. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Archibald, Jo-Ann. 2008. Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Crane Library. Boylorn, Robin M. 2016. “On Being at Home with Myself: Blackgirl Autoethnography as Research Praxis.” International Review of Qualitative Research 9 (1): 44–58. Darden, Robert. 2014. Nothing but Love in God’s Water: Black Sacred Music from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Issa, Nadia Milad. “Ora a Egún.” Last updated January  6, 2022. Accessed October 15, 2022. https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/oro-a-egun/. McCreless, Patrick. 2021. “Richard Allen and the Sacred Music of Black Americans, 1740–1850.” In Theology, Music, and Modernity: Struggles for Freedom, edited by Jeremy Begbie, Daniel K. L. Chua, and Markus Rathey, 201–16. New York: Oxford University Press. Nyong’o, Tavia. 2019. Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life. New York: New York University Press. Quinones, Ayoka Wiles. 2010. I Hear Olofi’s Song: A Collection of Yoruba Spiritual Prayers for Egun and Orisa. Philadelphia, PA: Shun Publishing Company. Rademaker, Laura. 2018. Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Co-Writing a Hymn for Liberation 149 Rennie, Tullis. 2020. “Sociosonic Interventions: Distributed Authorship in Socially Engaged Sound Practices.” Leonardo Music Journal 30 (6): 113–17. Robinson, Dylan. 2020. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Spencer, Jon Michael. 2008. “African American Religious Music from a Theomusicological Perspective.” In Music in American Religious Experience, edited by Philip V. Bohlman, Edith Blumhofer, and Maria Chow, 43–56. New York: Oxford University Press. Toliver, S. R. 2022. Recovering Black Storytelling in Qualitative Research: Endarkened Storywork. Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY: Routledge. Voegelin, Salomé. 2014. Sonic Possible Worlds: Hearing the Continuum of Sound. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. ———. 2019. The Political Possibility of Sound: Fragments of Listening. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Womack, Ytasha. 2013. Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.

9 Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing Perspectives from South Brazil Marcell Silva Steuernagel

The way scholars view music-making in general, and religious musicking in particular, has changed significantly in the past few decades (Mall, Engelhardt, and Ingalls 2021; Hawn 2022; Small 1998). Siloed analyses originating exclusively from theology or musicology are no longer considered adequate to investigate how congregations engage in and with music in worship, and reducing hymns to “dyads of text and tune” is no longer a viable methodological strategy (Silva Steuernagel 2020, 32).1 The chapters in this volume illustrate how scholars from various backgrounds examine congregational repertoires and singing communities in ways that challenge established narratives around ownership, race, theological authority, translation, pedagogies and ethics of musicking, and other topics (Myrick and Porter 2021; MacInnis and Perigo 2023). Religious musicking is a multi-layered performative phenomenon that supplies words for people to talk about faith, populates their theological imaginations, and is instrumental to how participants negotiate the various aspects of their identity. This chapter examines a very particular instance of that performance: the intersection between race, place, and hymns in the context of the South Brazilian Lutheran tradition.2 It contributes to Hymns and Constructions of Race: Agency, Mobility, Coloniality by adding a Latin American nuance to how we understand the complex and troubled networks of power and agency imbricated with the history and performance of Christian musics. Latin America Christianity has crystallized through layer upon layer of colonizing influences: the Tridentine Catholicism of its Iberian colonizers; the religions of its Native inhabitants and African slaves brought to the continent; the Protestantism of European immigrants and North American Protestant missionaries; the currents of liberation theology in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council; and the worship practices of contemporary, transnationalized worship projects of today’s global media markets. The theologies, hymnodies, and liturgies of Brazilian Christianity reflect that history. In fact, argues Elaine Pereira Rocha, there is a tradition of considering Brazil a melting pot of different ethnoracial, religious, and cultural ingredients: a place imbued with an aura of racial tolerance and the absence of racial conflicts—a hospitable place. But argues Rocha, that perspective does DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-9

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 151 not reflect reality (2014, 122).3 Both Brazil and the United States (US) were major stakeholders in the African slave trade, received significant numbers of immigrants, and nearly erased their respective Native Indigenous populations.4 But discourses around race and nationality developed distinctly in each context.5 In order to give English-language readers a glimpse into that reality, this chapter examines how Brazilian Lutherans at the intersection of race and place experience hymns—even those that they share with Christians in the North—as embodied, performative gestures that at times align with ethnoracial and religious narratives while, at others, oppose or complexify them in unique ways. My examination brings together bibliography and ethnographic work at the convergence of ethnoracial identities, slavery, and immigration in the USA and in Brazil. The literature will help readers engage with the positionality of the embodied voices of my interlocutors: people that sing at the intersection of race and place in South Brazilian Lutheranism. I  conducted four qualitative interviews with a particular set of interlocutors, all engaged with hymn-singing and music leadership in one of Brazil’s two largest Lutheran denominations: the Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brazil/IECLB (Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil/ECLCB).6 All interlocutors have a personal connection to the Black and European immigrant experiences in Brazil. My goal is not a full ethnographic case study of that denomination or of hymn-singing within it, but this chapter builds on previous musicological and ethnographic work, as well as my personal experiences.7 I acknowledge that terms such as “race” and “ethnicity,” while social constructs with diffuse meanings, carry weight and consequence (Flannigan et al. 2021, 621).8 My use of the term “ethnoracial” draws from the work of Edward Telles and his collaborators in the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA) who highlight the notion of race as “a social cleave throughout the history of the Americas” (Telles 2014, 21–22).9 They employ the term ethnoracial as an adjective and use “ethnicity and race to refer to the meaningful social boundaries that people create in their social interactions,” whether these be cultural or phenotypical boundaries (Telles 2014, 30). Ethnoraciality thus reflects the ambiguity surrounding uses of both words. Sometimes, for instance, ethnicity can refer to a “soft” social boundary, while race indicates a “hard” one (Telles 2014, 30). In Latin America, uses are also ambiguous: the Black experience is often referred to as racial, while that of the Indigenous populations is ethnic (Telles 2014, 30). According to Thales de Azevedo, Brazilians use more than 300 terms to distinguish variations on the ethnoracial spectrum (Azevedo 1975, 28). To complicate things, Brazilians use a plethora of terms with overlapping meanings that resist translation (Telles 2014, 21). My use of “ethnoracial” acknowledges the fluid nature of these boundaries in popular and scholarly discourses.10 Ultimately, I aim to provide a glimpse of how South Brazilian Lutherans engage with hymn-singing in relation to ethnoracial considerations—in other

152  Marcell Silva Steuernagel words, how they sing race and place in their congregational song journeys. To that effect, I summarize the comparative literature on the topic and highlight the main distinctions between the Brazilian and US experiences of European immigration and African slavery. This comparison provides a unique opportunity not only for readers from these two countries but also for all interested in how ethnoraciality and locality are expressed through hymnsinging. As we shall see, both the commonalities and distinctions of the Black and immigrant experiences under the auspices of colonization in these countries highlight how these various layers of historical experience are enmeshed not only in hymn performance, but also in how worshipers construe their sense of identity in relation to the worship experience. Slavery and Immigration in the United States and Brazil When North American pastor Daniel Kidder visited Brazil in the midnineteenth century, he found the intimacy between African slaves and their descendants with their owners unsettling (Barbosa 2008, 5). That intimacy contrasted with the “systematic separation of the races, whether legally or customarily,” described by Carl Degler in the United States (Degler 1971, 5). The Portuguese men who disembarked in the New World frequently impregnated Native and Afro-descendant women (Osuji 2019, 14). Thus, since its early days, the “colored and slaved” have always constituted the majority of the Brazilian population (Degler 1971, 4–5). By the nineteenth century, Brazil’s ethnoracial perspective was complex, varied, and pluralistic: however, Brazil’s first census, in 1872, only included three racial types: preto (black), pardo (brown), and branco (white) were used as color categories (Paixão and Silva 2014, 184; Skidmore 1974, 39). Brazil abolished slavery only in 1888 rather uneventfully when compared with the US Civil War (Telles 2014, 17). But the Brazilian elite’s negative connotations about Blackness spawned a whitening agenda, resulting in a process of supposed integration that was by no means smooth (Klein and Vinson 2007, 243). During the early twentieth century, elites imagined a modern Brazil in which Native populations, caipiras, sertanejos, Blacks, and mulattos would gain value in artistic, cultural, and literary expressions (Batista 2016, 155). Their aspiration was to portray Brazil as an example of harmonious race relations that contrasted with the horrors and hypocrisy of Jim Crow in the United States, even as the whitening agenda was pursued (Stanley 2018, 725). Gilberto Freyre’s publication of Casa Grande e Senzala and Sobrados e Mucambos reflected these aspirations, crystallizing the myth of a Brazilian “racial democracy” without conflict, prejudice, or color barriers (Batista 2016, 155). For Sharon Stanley, Freyre was responding to shared anxieties about Blackness and racial mixture, and “celebrated mestiçagem for its own sake, not as a temporary way station en route to a white Brazil but as the defining characteristics of the Brazilian nation” (2018, 730). Like a river gathers momentum as it draws in bodies of water, Freyre’s notion of

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 153 racial democracy “became part of the Brazilian national creed” (Osuji 2019, 15). In fact, for Telles, miscegenation still “forms the foundational concept of Brazilian racial ideology,” a “defining metaphor” fundamental to comprehending Brazil’s racial relations on its own terms (2004, 4). In the 1950s, UNESCO sponsored a project to investigate Brazil’s supposed racial integration. The initiative, led by Thales de Azevedo and Florestan Fernandes, instead exposed the stratification and persistent discrimination of Brazilian society (Stanley 2018, 733). In the 1960s, Brazil’s newly installed military dictatorship propagated racial democracy even as they persecuted Black activists, seeking to improve external perceptions of Brazil (Stanley 2018, 732). In response, Afro-Brazilians developed increased notions of identity, awareness, and advocacy throughout the 1970s (Fontaine 1985, 87). This process dovetailed with the end of the military dictatorship in the mid1980s, renewing discussions around ethnoracial discrimination (Paixão and Silva 2014, 173). A  turning point came in 2001, when non-governmental organizations and activists flocked to the United Nations Conference against Racism and Discrimination in Durban, South Africa. In its aftermath, the Brazilian government “began opening itself up to Black demands in the past two decades,” mostly through the implementation of affirmative action strategies in various sectors of society (Paixão and Silva 2014, 173). Freyre’s influence was felt beyond Brazil into the next several decades. Frank Tannenbaum’s Slave and Citizen (1946) is an archetype of the postFreyrian bibliography, which would later be resisted by scholarship uncovering Brazil’s systemic and widespread racism (Telles 2004, 7–8). Other works, such as Charles Degler’s Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (1971), mix first- and second-generation perspectives. His notion of a “mulatto escape hatch” remains “the standard reference” for North American perspectives of race in Brazil (Telles 2004, 8–9). In any case, across these overlapping perspectives, there are significant distinctions between the Black experience in Brazil and in the United States. First, the number of slaves, the extractionist character of Portuguese occupation, and early miscegenation led to a unique ethnoracial makeup in Brazil. The Portuguese “enslaved and imported seven times as many Africans [to Brazil] as their North American counterparts” (Telles 2004, 1). The “settler society” of North America resulted in entire families migrating to a New World in which the “sexually repressed” English culture created further difficulties for interracial couples and their offspring (Degler 1971, 13). US settlers found intermarriage an anathema, while Brazilian society became inevitably multiracial, featuring an ambiguous “middle caste” instead of a rigid bi-racial system (Skidmore 1974, 54–55). Today, Brazil’s population features three times as many people of African ancestry than the United States (Telles 2004, 13–14). Even the ethnoracial taxonomy of Brazil is unique. In the United States, any person with Negro ancestry has been considered a Negro, even if he appeared to be a white. . . . In Brazil, a Negro is a person of African

154  Marcell Silva Steuernagel descent who has no white ancestry at all. If a person has some indefinite amount of white as well as Negro ancestry he is something else. (Degler 1971, 102) That something else can be a moreno, pardo, or mulato, which in Brazil “is not a Negro, whereas in the United States he is” (Degler 171, xii). Telles, decades later, agrees with Degler: in the United States, “the vast majority of persons in the United States with any African origin are categorized as black,” whereas in Brazil, “large numbers of persons who are classified and identify themselves as white have African ancestors.” For both scholars, the Brazilian color spectrum blurs social distinctions (Degler 1971, 195–96). Second, the way the slave economy shaped perception in Brazil is unique. There is overwhelming evidence of the cruelty of Portuguese slave owners in Brazil, but one possible underlying explanation for a longstanding misconception that they were more benign to their slaves that their Northern counterparts is based on economic data (Versiani 2007, 164, 179–80). According to Versiani, the large-scale model of Southern plantations in the United States required that workers operate under intense, disciplined rhythm driven by physical coercion (Versiani 2007, 172). Brazil certainly sustained large-scale extractivism, but Versiani’s work demonstrates how socio-economic conditions shaped relations between settlers and slaves in Brazil, creating a social fluidity in which systemic discrepancies are expressed in “a fundamental inequality of citizens before the law and government” (Reichman 1999, 153). To that effect, Klein and Vinson suggest that in Brazil “the role of prejudice was far more subtle and discrimination far less precise” than in the United States (Klein and Vinson 2007, 244). Violence crossed color lines instead of aligning with them (Degler 1971, 95), in a multi-racial system with a “relative absence of [the] sectionalism” that marked the institutional slavery in the USA (Skidmore 1974, 43). For Brazilians, individually and collectively, these complex tapestries of racism, whitening aspirations, and ideas of racial democracy obscured how racism operated throughout society (Skidmore 1974, 166). A final distinction concerns Afro-Brazilian culture. According to Thales de Azevedo, African culture was never completely erased in Brazil, feeding particularly through Afro-Brazilian religiosity into a unique Afro-Brazilian matrix of cultural expressions (1975, 106). In fact, for Celia de Azevedo, Black Catholicism itself became a precious sanctuary for the African cultural world in Brazil (2003, 121). These expressions became “signs of protest and self-identity,” and later, “for better or worse, symbols of a diverse but integrated national culture” (Klein and Vinson 2007, 244). Overall, “Brazilians and US observers alike recognize that intense racial inequality marks nearly every sphere of Brazilian life,” even if perceptions of how those inequalities express themselves are distinct (Stanley 2018, 726). We now turn to the second experience at the intersection of race and place in South Brazilian Lutheran hymn-singing: European immigration.

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 155 We have seen how family units comprised a significant component of US settlement, whereas Portugal’s colonization of Brazil revolved around military and economic ownership (Fernandes and Patarra 2011, 68–69). As the abolitionist movement grew, the Brazilian government focused on European immigration with the whitening ideal in mind long before 1888 (Andrews 1996, 485). But after abolition, Brazil’s government pushed for an immigration policy that would assure a biological and moral improvement of the nation as a whole, with no regard for the destiny of ex-slaves or other bodies of national workers (Batista 2016, 156). Neither Blacks nor Natives were considered industrious (the Portuguese were not successful in enslaving Native populations for labor), whereas European immigrants were viewed as “honest, industrious, and law-abiding” (Barbosa 2008, 56). Nevertheless, by the 1920s and 1930s, this enchantment with European immigration had waned (Andrews 1996, 486). In the 1930s, restrictive measures and yearly quotas were established toward the entry of new immigrants, leading to regional processes of migration inside Brazil (Fernandes and Patarra 2011, 68–69). The nearly half-million German immigrants that came to Brazil during that long wave of immigration built a relatively isolated society (Luebke 1987, 35). In an almost entirely Luso-Catholic country with a mixed-race majority, German Protestant religious identity and institutions coalesced as defenders of the Deutschtum, or the “ethnocultural heritage of language, custom, and belief” that stood at the core of German immigrant identity in South Brazil (Luebke 1987, 43). The gap was made worse by discourses defending racial separation, such as those of Lutheran pastor Wilhelm Rotermund: “Teuto-Brazilians must remain exclusive and racially pure because miscegenation could only introduce decadence” (Luebke 1987, 72). Brazil’s elite were also concerned about the number and influence of the non-assimilated Germans (Luebke 1987, 71). This isolationist tendency was stifled, and assimilation accelerated during the 1920s and 1930s, as reflected in increased adoption of Portuguese forms of given or first names by TeutoBrazilians (Luebke 1987, 214). Broadly speaking, from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, European immigrants were given opportunities for social and economic integration over and against the Native and freed Black populations, and their workforce dominated the country’s main marketplaces, such as São Paulo, and spread south (Paixão and Silva 2014, 177). Black and mixed people, on the other hand, were pushed out of the workforce and constricted to less socially valued roles, spreading north and northeast, where Europeans were less present (Batista 2016, 160; Klein and Vinson 2007, 241). Even so, the social dynamics that regulated immigrant integration into Brazilian society were quite distinct from the United States, which received almost 70% of immigrants to the New World; Brazil received roughly 12% (Ulyses Balderas and Greenwood 2010, 1302–3). While European immigrants were the majority in the United States, such was never the case in

156  Marcell Silva Steuernagel Brazil. They occupied a mixed place. Having been, on the one hand, welcomed into Brazil, they did not necessarily feel fully assimilated into society. This is the social intersection at which hymns are sung by Brazilian Lutherans that relate both to the Black and the immigrant experience: they sing race and place both as Brazilians and as separate from the Luso-Catholic core of that identity. We now listen to their voices to understand how they negotiate these identities through congregational singing. Interviews: Black and Immigrant Experiences in South Brazilian Lutheranism The Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil (IECLB) is one of two main Lutheran denominations in the country. While the other, Igreja Evangélica Luterana do Brasil, was established by missionaries from the North American Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod in the early twentieth century, the IECLB’s origins are connected to nineteenth-century immigrant settlements to Brazil’s South, where most IECLB churches are located.11 All my four interviewees live in South Brazil and are connected to that tradition. Rosana lives in the Vale do Itajaí region in Santa Catarina (SC). The eldest daughter of an interracial marriage, she was born in Germany to a German father, himself the son of a Prussian and a Paraguayan, and a Black mother from Minas Gerais of Native, Black, and Portuguese ancestry. While baptized Catholic, Rosana attended a Lutheran school upon returning to Brazil when she was 7, where she studied piano and flute and sang in the choir. She received what she describes as a “solid” education in Brazilian popular music (MPB) from her mother, a music teacher, at home.12 While Rosana considers herself brasileiríssima (extremely Brazilian), she does not identify as Black (interview with author, October 3, 2022). Henrique, who identifies as pardo, grew up in a poorer metropolitan area of Curitiba, Paraná (PR). His paternal grandfather is the son of a Portuguese-descended White slave owner from Minas Gerais and a Black slave woman. His paternal grandmother was the daughter of a Black woman born in 1913 that, according to Henrique, “still lived like a slave.” His grandfather’s work took him south, where his Black father was born. Henrique’s mother, a daughter of German immigrants described by Henrique as “crib Lutherans,” moved to Curitiba from the Vale do Itajaí region in SC. The two got married, and Henrique’s father, originally Catholic, became a Lutheran. Henrique has been involved with music and worship in two congregations in the Curitiba metropolitan area for 30 years (interview with author, September 30, 2022). Luiza identifies as mulata and comes from Rio de Janeiro. Her mother is of Italian and Portuguese descent, and her father of Native, Black, and Swiss heritage. Carlos, her White husband, hails from Rio Grande do Sul. His father comes from a German immigrant family, while his mother is from Brazil’s northeast: a nordestina. In Rio, the couple attended a Baptist church

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 157 but have served in music ministry in a Lutheran church since they moved to Curitiba a decade ago (interview with author, October 3, 2022). Paulo is a Black man from Pelotas, in the very south of RS. Paulo’s paternal grandfather came from Portugal as a child and married his grandmother, a woman of Black and Native heritage. Paulo described his father’s family as “a color scale” of skin tone. “When we went out,” he says, “people didn’t believe we all belonged to the same family.” Paulo is married to a White woman of Italian and German heritage. First exposed to Lutheranism as a young adult in Pelotas, Paulo later relocated to Curitiba, where he has attended and played music in a Lutheran church for more than 20 years (interview with author, September 28, 2022). My interviewees share key characteristics at the intersection of race, place, and hymns. They identify from light-skinned moreno/a to Black on the Brazilian color spectrum and connect their stories to the Black and German immigrant experiences. All of them share a connection to Lutheranism, either current or past, and to interracial relationships, either directly or through their partner and/or grandparents. European immigrants are a historically significant demographic of Brazil’s South. Pelotas gathers AfroBrazilian and immigrant cultures in a unique expression of Brazil’s heritage: while certainly heavily populated by European immigrants, the city received significant numbers of Black slaves during the period of the charqueadas.13 Our conversations focused on their experiences as non-White worshipers in a historically German ethnic denomination. We focused on Lutheran hymnody and musicking, and their stories shed light on how they musically perform religious and ethnoracial identity. While most Brazilians acknowledge the reality of racism, many “still take pride in the idea of Brazil as a relatively, if not absolutely, racially egalitarian country” (Stanley 2018, 734). Paixão and Silva describe how their interviewees “were ambiguous in their perception of racial discrimination and unfairness” and “divided in their acknowledgment that race or skin color causes differential treatment in Brazil” (2014, 215). Livio Sansone argues that the ambiguous and varied terminology Brazilians use to indicate skin color “will be hard to erase and is given a new life by each new generation” (2003, 56). Brazilians may, in the same context, affirm the common African racial heritage of all Brazilians while, at the same time, “refusing to share an elevator with a darker-skinned person” (Reichmann 1999, 4). Benedita da Silva, Brazil’s first Black female senator, describes exactly that situation: “I arrived one Monday [at the Parliament], greeted everyone, and entered the elevator to be informed by the new operator that the elevator is ‘only for Parliament members’ ” (Silva 1999, 184). That complex ambiguity surfaced in my conversations with respondents about ethnoracial discrimination in religious experience. Paulo described visiting the Lutheran church and being wrapped up in the community before he could notice he was the only Black person in the room (2022). Luiza said she “feels like everything,” not as a race, but as a person: “As a mulata, yes.

158  Marcell Silva Steuernagel My mother is White, my father is Black. But even my father is not 100% Black; there’s already mixture there. In my head I can be many things; I never saw myself as a specific race” (2022). Henrique said he feels “free from prejudice,” but proceeded to articulated its concreteness, saying, “People still suffer discrimination and it is not far from me. Even if I  don’t notice, it’s not far” (2022). When I  asked Rosana about discrimination in Lutheran religious musicking, she described not experiencing much of it and, because of that, does not identify as Black even if she proudly bears Black and Native blood. Nevertheless, she argued, there is a connection between a concern to preserve German traditions in the Vale do Itajaí and “discrimination, racism, that kind of thing” (2022). Both the scholarship and interviews illustrate how the trope of nonracial ambiguity persists in tension with acknowledgments of racism in Brazil. But ambiguity in Brazil cannot fully cover discrimination. Even as Henrique describes being free from prejudice and hesitant toward affirmative action, he said, “If I am different, it’s in church and not in the larger world. Because outside of church there’s a lot of mixture.” He went on: Pardos, in Brazil, are the majority. I  am a person who empathizes with others, but in terms of race, my example comes from home. [My father] went to school barefoot, struggled, studied, finished two college degrees, bought a house.  .  .  . [T]hat’s the example I  have. For me to understand a Black person that hasn’t made it in life, with my father being poor and Black, lived in misery, to get where he got . . . it’s still a bit difficult to understand. If my father did it, why can’t everyone do it? But today I’m more discerning. My father is the exception; it’s not others that aren’t able. (Henrique 2022) Henrique acknowledges that his father was able to ascend the social ladder, while other Blacks remain impoverished. Paulo also spoke of the difficulties his father experienced, describing spaces where his father had been barred but he was not. Paulo recognizes that he learned how to be Christian in a Eurocentric way, in a Lutheran bubble that made him perceive the world through a Eurocentric lens: “I  was part of the bubble and helped to feed it.” I asked him when that bubble burst, and Paulo mentioned his siblings, who suffered with discrimination. He described how their father taught them to respond when accosted by police on the street—not “if” they were accosted, but “when,” the assumption being that such an occurrence was inevitable for the darker-skinned siblings (Paulo 2022). His Lutheran friends related how they argued with their own families because someone made a discriminating remark toward Paulo. He told a close friend that he had not suffered discrimination, only to them respond with “a list of 50 different times” when they had personally witnessed discrimination against him (Paulo 2022).

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 159 The connection between class and discrimination also surfaced in my interviews. Henrique grew up in a poor neighborhood of Curitiba’s metropolitan area: [In my neighborhood] there were Blacks, Blues, Yellows. The issue was not White or Black, skin color. The issue was economy. That made a big difference. But not skin color, because it was all mixed. . . . We grew up in the vila . . . it was poverty. To have money or not made all the difference. My family was considered rich, with better conditions. But I studied with kids who were scrap collectors; we all made fun of each other, and everything was fine. (Henrique 2022) For Paulo, poverty and skin color came hand in hand. He grew up in a poor, tight-knit family of dark-skinned pelotenses: You messed with one of us, you messed with all of us. So much so, that everyone identified as Black. My aunts, for instance, never felt comfortable identifying as mulatas. We were all Black, as a gesture of respect to the brothers and to the [economic situation] of the family. (Paulo 2022) Paulo also mentioned that the newfound economic affluence of darkerskinned Brazilians since the early twenty-first century bothers the traditionally White middle class: another link between social and economic status. He pointed to jokes he heard in church about Brazil’s airports becoming “bus stations,” because darker-skinned travelers are now able to afford air travel (Paulo 2022). Furthermore, the question of miscegenation and interracial marriage cracks through the veneer of Brazil’s nonracial myth. Because the USA, according to Sansone, bears an “exaggerated image” in global media, it might be tempting to treat its social norms of ethnicity and cultural diversity as normative when, in fact, “Latin American history runs counter to such monolithic interpretations of race relations” and is a place with a long tradition of intermarriage (Sansone 2003, 7). Rosana’s parents are an interracial couple, as are Henrique’s. Both Paulo and Luiza are in interracial marriages. Luiza described the interracial environment of Rio de Janeiro, where she met and wed her Southern White husband, as archetypal of Brazil’s racial fluidity: her husband mentioned his own White Southern father and Northeastern mother as examples. For them, mixture is the defining characteristic of familiarity: “when you go to a mall [in Rio], everything is mixed. We feel good in this mixed environment” (Luiza 2022). Chinyere Osuji emphasizes that, in contrast to the mythology of racial democracy in Brazil, and despite the large number of interracial relationships in the country (about 30% of the total), they are still widely frowned upon

160  Marcell Silva Steuernagel (2019, 16). On the other hand, she argues that the ambiguity of Brazilian society allows flexibility to redraw ethnoracial boundaries (Osuji 2019, 179). Henrique spoke at length about the reaction of his mother’s family to her relationship with a Black man: “some said she was crazy, that she was going to ‘dirty’ the family.” When the couple got married in the Vale do Itajaí in the late seventies, Henrique says that may have been one of few, or even the earliest, interracial marriages in the area. But now, his father is the favorite son-in-law (Henrique 2022). Paulo speaks with irony about being a young bachelor in the Lutheran context in Pelotas. Even as a youth leader, any hint of romantic interest in White women was quickly condemned. He was “not considered eligible to date other [White parishioners’] daughters.” I  asked if this barrier was explicit or implied. He said it was hard to not notice: I would visit people’s homes, invited by their daughter, and they would receive me with a scowl on their face. They would stop talking to me. In other words: I crossed a line that I should not have crossed. This was the case over and over. (Paulo 2022) Today, he is married to a White woman of European descent. Overall, I argue that ambiguity characterizes how these worshipers interface with the ethnic and musical heritage of the Lutheran church multimodally: socially, religiously, and musically. Socially, because Brazilian society exhibits fluidity toward racial categories and how they affect one’s status. If when they got married Henrique’s father was a Catholic outsider, he has become an accepted member of the majority-White Lutheran community in Curitiba: “My father had a bit of a shield: a blonde, Lutheran woman, who vouched for him. . . . [H]e ended up a Black Lutheran man. It’s someone who is always there; he’s not a visitor” (Henrique 2022). Paulo describes a similar socio-religious fluidity. Originally from a Catholic family “with traces of umbanda,” an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition, he described being quickly incorporated into the majority-White youth group in the Lutheran church, eventually taking on leadership responsibilities, even as he discerned parishioner’s resistances to his interest in their White daughters—another example of fluidity and ambiguity. When I  asked Luiza how she felt as a dark-skinned worshiper arriving in a majority-White Lutheran congregation in Curitiba, she resorts to fluidity to describe the experience. Since childhood, Luiza attended Baptist and Presbyterian congregations in Rio. When she entered the Lutheran church in Curitiba, she looked around and thought to herself: It’s just me? I felt a bit strange. But that’s OK. Let’s go. I didn’t let that affect me. I was not afraid of not being accepted. I thought the church was good, cool, I felt comfortable. It was about feeling welcome. (2022)

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 161 Because she felt welcome, and because her White Southerner husband provided a contextual link, she could draw on socio-religious fluidity and connect to the theological and denominational identity of Southern Lutherans. This fluidity is musical as well. I asked my respondents about the musical taste of their families: What did they remember singing and hearing? I wanted to understand how musical ecologies shaped their senses of identity, and how they connected the broader musical landscapes of Brazil to the hymns they sung in the Lutheran church. Rosana’s upbringing illustrates a gap between musical worlds. The Vale do Itajaí is known for its stalwart preservation of the German cultural heritage. Due to her mother’s influence, she grew up listening to MPB but sang in a choir that performed both secular and Lutheran German repertoire for many years. She finds the association between musical and racial identities troublesome. While she acknowledges the heritage of the Vale do Itajaí, she perceives a closed-doors attitude to other musical genres in part because, in her opinion, “many people are still close-minded; they fear losing their identity.” Her Lutheran school friends had never heard of people like Milton Nascimento, one of Brazil’s preeminent singer-songwriters, and asked, “[W]ho is that? Some Black guy from Minas Gerais?” For Rosana, in Brazilian musical life, one cannot presume any type of purity, musical or racial (2022). While Rosana describes a gap between musical worlds, musical and theological fluidity characterized Luiza’s education. She’s been singing since she was 6, anything from “samba to eighteenth-century French and German music.” Her parents listened to MPB and classical music: [W]e didn’t have this thing with MPB being sinful music. It was MPB, bossa nova, all kinds of classical music. My mother was a piano teacher, my dad always sang, I  danced ballet at the time.  .  .  . [L]ater I  went another way and got to know rock. (Luiza 2022) Paulo’s father listened to Chico Buarque and Michael Jackson. His friends listened to Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden. He described listening to Deep Purple and MPB singer Clara Nunes as a child. But once he entered the Lutheran church, things changed: “I can’t listen to Clara Nunes anymore, because that is orixá music. So, I started separating sacred and profane, according to that definition.” This attitude lasted until he moved to Curitiba, where he encountered a different theological perspective: “if God created everything, if it’s good and beautiful, why can’t I listen to it?” (Paulo 2022). That perspective led him on a path of rediscovery of popular musics. Overall, for my respondents, music seems to offer a liminal space in which one can experiment, flow back and forth between repertoires, genres, styles, and traditions. In fact, for Henrique, singing hymns is an ethnoracially liminal experience: “To be a part of the music ministry . . . you are a musician. You are not Black, you are not White. You are a musician.” Hymn-singing is but one dimension of a multifaceted ecology of music that includes both

162  Marcell Silva Steuernagel historical and contemporary, religious and secular, Brazilian and foreign expressions. In the words of Luiza, it’s like juggling: That’s where I feel at home: “let’s do a bit of this, a bit of that.” What makes me feel at home is whatever sounds good to me. . . . [I]t’s like a kaleidoscope. I feel good when there is a mixture of things. (2022) But Henrique also described the complex layers of discrimination and acceptance that connect the color of his skin to his singing voice. In Brazil, he argued, being Black is advantageous in music and sports: “Sometimes, racism can be non-offensive. Like in a compliment. I would hear: ‘well with that voice . . . it had to be a negão’ ” (Henrique 2022). From that perspective, Henrique was “living up” to the stereotype that all Black people can sing. Considerations: Singing Race and Place through Hymns So what does it mean for South Brazilians connected to the Afro-Brazilian experience to sing Lutheran hymns imbricated with a German immigrant faith tradition? I asked my respondents specifically about the experience of singing hymns in church, being who they are, knowing what they know, and wearing the phenotype they wear on the Brazilian skin color spectrum. Their responses coalesced into four considerations. The first point is that relationships are crucial to how non-Whites negotiate ethnoraciality in the majority-White environment of the Lutheran church, a reality that Paulo’s story illustrates. He attended his first Lutheran youth meeting at 18 and mentioned singing as a main component of that first encounter. Paulo quickly established relationships that protected him from concerns around discrimination and felt integrated. For five years, Paulo did not miss one youth gathering. When he moved to Curitiba and began attending a new Lutheran church, he connected with friends from Pelotas who arrived before him, and these relationships catalyzed his entry into the music ministry there (Paulo 2022). Second, for all my interviewees, musicking played a key role in how they view themselves in church. Henrique began playing in his Lutheran church at 11 and continues today (2022). Luiza and her husband, upon visiting the Lutheran church in Curitiba, quickly became involved in its musical life. Because of this, even if she looked around and didn’t see other dark-skinned people, she felt at home (Luiza 2022). Rosana’s connection to Lutheran music occurred at school, where Lutheran hymns were a part of the repertoire, and in her choral performances. The third consideration refers to how interlocutors dealt with hymns which connected German ethnicity and Lutheran religious identity. An example is “Dá-nos olhos claros” (“Give Us Clear Eyes”), from the denomination’s Hinos do Povo de Deus (1981, no. 166). In the 2017 Lutheran hymnal, this

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 163 line was changed to “Abre nossos olhos” (“Open Our Eyes”) due to the association between light-colored eyes and the phenotype of many German immigrants (Steuernagel et  al. 2017, #564).14 How did my dark-eyed interlocutors feel about asking God for “clear” eyes? Henrique said he thinks more of the music than the lyrics and doesn’t necessarily have a problem with hymns like that (2022). Paulo said he has not historically connected ethnicity and hymn lyrics, because “beautiful poetry is beautiful poetry. . . . [He] didn’t stop to think on this type of ramification of what [he] was singing” (2022). From the perspective of musical style, Luiza sometimes found it difficult to sing in the measured, formal cadence of South Brazilian Lutherans: So, I focused a lot on the lyrics, on what the song had to say. I confess that the rhythm, the cadence, was kind of . . . but I didn’t necessarily have a problem with that. I went with the lyrics, even when I needed to sing in a “square” kind of way. (Luiza 2022) Nevertheless, a tension lies under this apparent generosity toward the Germanic heritages of IECLB hymn repertoires. Henrique, who said he considers himself a Lutheran from birth, said that a “moreno is Black in the middle of a bunch of Whites” (2022). His comment echoes Luiza’s sensation of otherness upon entering a German Lutheran church in Curitiba (2022). Rosana expressed her concern with “an excess in preserving [German cultural and religious] traditions” in the Vale do Itajaí, because “these things are connected in some way to prejudice, and racism” (Rosana 2022). She connected this excess with a suspicion of Brazilian genres, viewed as threats to the preservation of German cultural and religious heritage. Paulo articulated a nuanced response to this dilemma about race and place, saying he feels at home singing “Castelo Forte” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” one of Martin Luther’s most well-known hymns [IECLB 1981, no. 97]). But he also described how, reading Black Liberation theologian James Cone, he rediscovered himself as a Black man in his society: To see myself as a Black man in hostile territory is a new thing. The people who taught me the gospel taught me with a good heart, and taught me as they had themselves learned. But I was . . . an Afro-Germanic, because I myself thought of Afro religions: “That’s all from hell, I won’t even talk to these people.” So, in a way, I segregated because of what I learned was right. And, today, I see all of that in a completely different way. (Paulo 2022) For Paulo, that rediscovery also led to a theological conundrum: “today many people identify with the [Lutheran] church more because of the German heritage than because of Luther. And that scares me.” His expression “Afro-Germanic”

164  Marcell Silva Steuernagel potently suggests how, as a Black man, he replicated the prejudices of his White Lutheran context and resisted it: “I would have fought a lot more if I thought, twenty or thirty years ago, how I think today. And I would probably not have been able to survive in that context” (2022). Henrique mentioned his newfound appreciation of affirmative action, and Luiza indicated current struggles with the Lutheran church, as did Rosana. Broadly speaking, the experience of my respondents reveals the cracks and tensions in the veneer of non-raciality and racial democracy inherent to the Brazilian imaginary. Conclusion In this chapter, I have provided English-language readers with a particular perspective on how networks of power and agency have shaped the dynamics of ethnoraciality in Brazilian Lutheranism. My interviews, paired with scholarly work on the Black and immigrant experiences in Brazil, illuminate how worshipers in that context generate and negotiate senses of identity as they engage in hymn-singing, both individually and collectively, from the pews or in leadership. Their testimonies dialogue with the literature in many ways, sometimes aligning with scholarly arguments, and other times disrupting or nuancing claims about that intersection. As Sansone argues and this chapter demonstrates, “ethnic identity is a social construction that differs from context to context” (2003, 3), using Alejandro Frigerio’s notion of “ethnicization” to emphasize the fluid nature of these processes (Frigerio 2000, 85–98). For Sansone, the very notions of ethnic group, race, and tribe were developed within the context of a “triangular exchange between Europe, the New World, and Africa” and are bound with the colonial experience of these places and the scientificism associated with European expansionist colonialism, which strove, for instance, to constantly categorize, classify, and rank African things and people (2003, 13–14). My interlocutors portray a Brazil that is, if not non-racial, at least multiracial in ways hospitable to their participation in singing, even in the context of a denomination significantly shaped by German immigrant ethnicity. In that sense, simplistic transplantations of ethnoracial rubrics from the North American perspective, be they scholarly or popular, produce skewed understandings of how these Brazilians engage with their own reality. This conclusion aligns Telles’s critique of Bourdieu and Wacquant’s analysis of Brazilian racial inequality (1999): that they have “merely transposed U.S. conceptions of race onto Brazil, despite the empirical realities” (Telles 2004, 10). These scholars, along with others, have proposed vocabulary and concepts to deal with ethnoraciality as considered in different contexts. Stanley’s terminology of never-racial and post-racial narratives, based on the work of Charles Mills (2014), might be one way to label how my respondents consider themselves removed from discrimination. Moreover, Telles identifies a “multicultural turn” through which countries like Brazil are “officially recognizing the identities, dignity, and rights of Afrodescendants and indigenous

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 165 people,” sometimes even declaring themselves multicultural in their constitutions. For him, multiculturalism, as newly construed in Latin America, “recognizes, respects, and endorses the region’s ethnic diversity and its benefits for national society” (Telles 2014, 23–24). Overall, there is some consensus that questions of ethnicity and race “need to be considered from a less U.S.-centric perspective” (Sansone 2003, 9). I agree and hope this chapter contributes to attempts to illuminate how constructions of race, ethnicity, and religion can align, misalign, and realign at different times and in different contexts, as worshipers sing Christian hymns. Notes 1 I use “hymn” to refer broadly to congregational song traditions imbricated with the history of the Christian Euro–North American West, such as the Lutheran repertoire of my Brazilian interlocutors. When indicating repertoires of Christian communities worldwide, I  use “congregational song” or “congregational music(s).” See Silva Steuernagel (2020). 2 I use the word “performance” from the perspective of performance studies. See Silva Steuernagel (2021b). 3 All translations into English from Brazilian Portuguese sources are mine and are treated as paraphrases instead of direct quotations. 4 I use “United States” to acknowledge the unique experiences of other North American countries. 5 Acknowledging Native/Indigenous populations is crucial to understanding the ethnoracial makeup of both countries (the same is true of others, such as Asian immigrants). Here, I  focus on the Black and European immigrant experiences within Lutheran hymn-singing. 6 My interviews revolved around the same set of opening questions, but were openended. I asked about their stories at the intersection of ethnoraciality, immigration, and musicking in the Lutheran church, with a particular focus on hymn-singing. 7 I have personal and professional ties to my interviewees dating back, in some cases, more than two decades. I know their church experiences and have made music with all of them on multiple occasions. See Silva Steuernagel (2016, 2021b). 8 This source guides some of my terminology in this chapter, such as Black and White (including capitalization). I use other terms, such as “Afro-Brazilian” and “African-American,” as required to distinguish between the African heritage in those geographical locations. I respect the terminological treatment of my bibliographical sources in direct quotations but follow these guidelines in interviews. 9 Telles does use other terms, such as “nonwhite” and the Portuguese “negro,” along with “mulatto” and others, to describe how Brazilian self-identify and narrate differences along the color spectrum. 10 That is also the case with terms like negro/negroe, used by North American academics well into the 1970s but unacceptable today. Where that word appears, it is in a quotation. 11 For a history of the denomination, see Silva Steuernagel (2016). 12 I use MPB instead of PBM in accordance with common practice in English. See Silva Steuernagel (2021a). 13 Since the late eighteenth century, the Brazilian government invested in large cattle operations in Rio Grande do Sul (RS) that produced charque, a type of beef jerky. African slaves were sent to RS to work in this market (Vargas 2017). 14 I served on the committee that made this decision (Silva Steuernagel et al. 2017).

166  Marcell Silva Steuernagel References Andrews, George Reid. 1996. “Brazilian Racial Democracy, 1900–90: An American Counterpoint.” Journal of Contemporary History 31 (3): 483–507. Azevedo, Celia Maria Marinho de. 2003. Abolicionismo: Estados Unidos e Brasil, uma história comparada: Século XIX. São Paulo: Annablume. Azevedo, Thales de. 1975. Democracia racial: Ideologia e realidade. Petrópolis, RJ: Editora Vozes. Barbosa, José Carlos. 2008. Slavery and Protestant Missions in Imperial Brazil: “The Black Does Not Enter the Church, He Peeks in from Outside.” Lanham: University Press of America. Batista, Jose Carlos. 2016. “As políticas de igualdade racial nos Estados Unidos e no Brasil: Constituição, diferenças e similaridades.” PhD thesis, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais—Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Loïc Wacquant. 1999. “On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason.” Theory, Culture & Society 6 (1): 41–58. Degler, Carl N. 1971. Neither Black nor White; Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States. New York, NY: Macmillan. Fernandes, Duval, and Neide Lopes Patarra. 2011. “Brasil: País de Imigração?” RILP – Revista Internacional Em Língua Portuguesa 3 (24): 65–96. Flannigan, Annette, Tracy Frey, Stacy L. Christiansen, and AMA Manual of Style Committee. 2021. “Updated Guidance on the Reporting of Race and Ethnicity in Medical and Science Journals.” JAMA 326 (7): 621–27. Fontaine, Pierre-Michel, ed. 1985. Race, Class, and Power in Brazil. CAAS Special Publication Series. Vol. 7. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California. Freyre, Gilberto. 1933. Casa-Grande & Senzala. Rio de Janeiro: Maia & Schmidt. ———. 1936. Sobrados e Mucambos. São Paulo: Nacional. Frigerio, Alejandro. 2000. “Capoeira: De arte negra a esporte branco.” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais 4 (10): 85–98. Hawn, C. Michael. 2022. Sing with Understanding. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: GIA. Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil (IECLB). 1981. Hinos do povo de Deus: Hinário da Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil. São Leopoldo, RS: Editora Sinodal. Klein, Herbert S., and Ben Vinson III. 2007. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean. New York: Oxford University Press. Luebke, Frederick C. 1987. Germans in Brazil: A  Comparative History of Cultural Conflict During World War I. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. MacInnis, John, and Jeremy Perigo. 2023. Language Translation in Localizing Religious Musical Practices. Basel: MDPI. Mall, Andrew, Jeffers Engelhardt, and Monique M. Ingalls, eds. 2021. Studying Congregational Music: Key Issues, Methods, and Theoretical Perspectives. London: Routledge. Mills, Charles W. 2014. “White Time: The Chronic Injustice of Ideal Theory 1.” Du Bois Review 11 (1): 27–42. Myrick, Nathan, and Mark Porter, eds. 2021. Ethics and Christian Musicking. ­London: Routledge.

Performing Race and Place through Congregational Singing 167 Osuji, Chinyere K. 2019. Boundaries of Love: Interracial Marriage and the Meaning of Race. New York: New York University Press. Paixão, Marcelo, and Graziella Moraes Silva. 2014. “Mixed and Unequal: New Perspectives on Brazilian Ethnoracial Relations.” In Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America, edited by Edward Telles, 172–217. Chapel Hill: UNC Press. Reichmann, Rebecca Lynn. 1999. Race in Contemporary Brazil: From Indifference to Inequality. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press. Rocha, Elaine Pereira. 2014. “Adivinhe Quem Vem Para Jantar? O Imigrante Negro na Sociedade Brasileira.” (SYN)THESIS 7 (2): 121–32. Sansone, Livio. 2003. Blackness Without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Silva, Benedita da. 1999. “The Black Movement and Political Parties: A Challenging Alliance.” In Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil, edited by Michael Hanchard. Durham: Duke University Press. Silva Steuernagel, Marcell. 2016. “History and Structure of Hymns of the People of God, Vol. 1.” Vox Scripturae 24 (1): 181–97. ———. 2020. “Towards a New Hymnology: Decolonizing Church Music Studies.” The Hymn: A Journal of Congregational Song 71 (3): 24–32. ———. 2021a. “ ‘Além Do Gospel’: A History of Brazil’s Alternative Christian Music Scene.” In Christian Sacred Music in the Americas, edited by Andrew Shenton and Joanna Smolko. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2021b. Church Music Through the Lens of Performance. Congregational Music Studies Series. New York: Routledge. Steuernagel, Cladis Erzinger, Cláudio Kupka, Cleonir Geandro Zimmerman, Delmar Jorge Dickel, Marcell Silva Steuernagel, Oziel Campos de Oliveira Jr, Soraya Heinrich Eberle, and Werner Ewald, eds. 2017. Livro de Canto Da IECLB. São Leopoldo, RS: Editora Sinodal. Skidmore, Thomas E. 1974. Black into White; Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought. New York: Oxford University Press. Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking the Meanings of Performing and Listening. Hanover: University Press of New England. Stanley, Sharon. 2018. “Alternative Temporalities: US Post-Racialism and Brazilian Racial Democracy.” Theory & Event 21 (3): 725–52. Tannenbaum, Frank. 1946. Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas. New York: Vintage Books. Telles, Edward E. 2004. Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2014. Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America. Chapel Hill: UNC Press. Ulyses Balderas, J., and Michael J. Greenwood. 2010. “From Europe to the Americas: A  Comparative Panel-Data Analysis of Migration to Argentina, Brazil, and the United States, 1870–1910.” Journal of Population Economics 23 (4): 1301–18. Vargas, Jonas Moreira. 2017. “ ‘Os segredos da carne’: O mercado atlântico das carnes secas e salgadas e a influência da matriz irlandesa de fabricação no extremo sul da América Latina (c. 1780 – c. 1820).” Anos 90 24 (45): 153–82. Versiani, Flávio Rabelo. 2007. “Escravidão ‘suave’ no Brasil: Gilberto Freyre tinha razão?” Revista de Economia Política 27 (2): 163–83.

168  Marcell Silva Steuernagel Ethnography (in alphabetical order by pseudonym) Henrique, interview by author, September 30, 2022. Luiza, interview by author, October 3, 2022. Paulo, interview by author, September 28, 2022. Rosana, interview by author, October 3, 2022.

10 Translation and Endurance Cherokee Hymnody and the Acculturation of Christianity T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace

In 1829, the prominent Cherokee figure Elias Boudinot (1802–1839) published The Cherokee Hymnbook in his nation’s recently constructed capital, New Echota (in what is presently the northwest of the state of Georgia, USA). Boudinot achieved national prominence during his time at a EuroAmerican mission school for a conflict over his marriage to a local white woman. It was the first hymnal written entirely in the Cherokee Syllabary, or, indeed, in any Native American writing system and was compiled by Boudinot in collaboration with a white congregational missionary, Samuel Worcester (1798–1859). Worcester was an eighth-generation minister, originally from Vermont. He was raised in an intensively congregationalist home and attended Bowdoin College and then Andover Seminary. Had Boudinot’s life followed his initial plan from the Mission School, the two might have been students together at Andover. After graduating from Andover, Worcester was briefly a pastor in New Hampshire before determining to work with the Cherokee people. He moved with his wife and young daughters to the Cherokee Nation in 1827 and remained there until removal in 1836, when he moved west with the nation (Parins 2013, 41). Of 13 missionaries arrested by the Georgia state militia for breaking the state’s law against helping the Cherokee, all but Worcester and one woman signed documents agreeing not to return to the Cherokee Nation. Worcester, on the other hand, sat in prison for two years, allowing his case to be the basis for a debate over Cherokee sovereignty, both nationally and within the Supreme Court. The two had previously collaborated on other translation projects, including portions of the Christian Bible, sermons, and land tracts (Schneider 2008, 152). However, the hymnal proved to be their most enduring work. It was reprinted multiple times in the Cherokee homeland. When the United States government began forcibly removing the Cherokee from their homelands in 1836, this hymnal moved with the people and was reprinted multiple times in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Hymn-singing among Native Americans has long been documented as a means of survivance, especially among the Muscogee Creek and Ojibwe peoples (McNally 2000, 2). However, despite the well-documented nature of most Cherokee history, little attention has DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-10

170  T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace been paid to the place of hymns within Cherokee culture (ibid.). Despite coming to them via European settlers, many Cherokee had become devout Christians by the time of removal (Lee 1992, 12). This hymnal serves as testament to that fact. However, there was also a strain: Christianity contributed to the displacement and killing of many Cherokee people. Both those supporting Indian removal and the Euro-Americans working against it found themselves led by ministers of different Christian denominations (Saunt 2020, 64–65, 70). Both sides used theological arguments to justify their points. Were a Cherokee identity and a Christian identity at odds with one another? What exactly did it mean to be a Cherokee and a Christian? In this chapter, we hope to begin to answer these questions, drawing on two theoretical tools: acculturation and assimilation. Ultimately, we explore how broadening the theoretical scope of acculturation can assist in making sense of the context in which Boudinot’s Cherokee Hymnbook was translated and published. Additionally, we suggest ways in which this theoretical framework might be extended to other contexts where two apparently contradictory markers of identity coexist within a person or group of people. At first glance, the terms “acculturation” and “assimilation” might appear to be interchangeable, and indeed, both carry significant theoretical baggage. However, Daniel Heath Justice, a literary theorist and Cherokee intellectual, argues that differentiation helps describe the distinctions between shades of Cherokee response to settler colonial encroachment, both geographically and culturally (Justice 2006, xv). For our purposes, borrowing from Justice, “assimilation” will refer to an attempted rejection of Indigenous identity, culture, and experience in favor of a white and/or Eurocentric one. Meanwhile, “acculturation” describes attempts to incorporate particular Euro-American elements into a larger practice and culture of Indigeneity (ibid.). If the category of acculturation is to be meaningful within the study of cultures, it must become a two-way street. It should be noted that the term “acculturation” has often been used by anthropologists and historians to describe an enmeshing of Euro-American and Indigenous identities, but this has nearly always been theorized as essentially monodirectional. In other words, acculturation has only been used by settler scholars to describe how Native Americans accepted certain parts of white culture within their identities. Indigenous peoples were forced to adapt to “progress” by taking in certain elements of Western/Euro-American identity in order to survive. There has generally been little attention paid to the ways in which Indigeneity came to shape Euro-American culture and constructs. While Christianity is not intrinsically a Western construct, the forms of Christianity which the Cherokee encountered were. In the hymnbook, Christianity arguably adapts itself to Cherokee culture rather than the obverse. A particular example of this distinction may prove useful. The aforementioned Elias Boudinot will be pivotal to our understanding of the Cherokee, their hymns, and their methods of resistance to the United States Empire. However, it is immediately striking that he bears such a stereotypically

Translation and Endurance 171 Euro-American name. It was a custom among the Cherokee of the Early Republic that a child would be given a name at birth and then take a second, adult name from a figure they admired—a warrior, holy person, or leader, etc. Boudinot’s birth name was Gallegina Watie (or Uwatie or OoWatie, depending on the source) (Demos 2014, 177; Gaul 2005, 21; Konkle 2004, 50–51). At some point, before being sent to the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, he was given the nickname “Buck,” which seems to have stuck for some time (ibid.). It was only in 1818, as he journeyed to the mission school, that he found and took the name by which he has been remembered by history. On his trip north, he stopped and met several famous figures, including Thomas Jefferson, but the one who left the strongest impression on the young Cherokee man was Elias Boudinot. The elderly Boudinot had been a member of the Continental Congress and a congressman under the new Constitution. In 1818, he was the president of the American Bible Society, which he had recently helped found. The elder Boudinot gave Gallegina permission to use his name, and the freshly minted Elias Boudinot the younger continued on his journey to Connecticut (ibid.). This moment set a tone for Boudinot’s life of acculturation. After being educated at the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions School in Cornwall, Connecticut, he returned to the Cherokee homeland with his Euro-American wife. On his journey, he stopped in every major American city to speak in prominent churches, asking for money to assist the Cherokee people in starting a national newspaper (Perdue 1983, 67ff). He gave statistics on the number of plows and children in schools, but the money he appealed for was destined to serve a different purpose. The Cherokee people were attempting to stave off removal from their homeland by every means except violence. One strategic medium on which they relied heavily was the emerging print culture of the early American republic. The Cherokee had a syllabary, which an estimated 90% of the tribe could read by the 1830s (Chushman 2011, 41). By printing both newspapers and books in their language, the Cherokee hoped that they could prove themselves “civilized” to their white neighbors (ibid., 121–22). The National Council of the Cherokee Nation had deputized Boudinot to raise money from sympathetic whites to fund the purchase of a printing press and the creation of a print form of the syllabary. These were the auspices under which both The Cherokee Hymn Book and Boudinot’s newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, were printed. The Phoenix was not simply for the Cherokee, however. Rather, it had subscribers in both the United Kingdom and Switzerland in addition to every major city in the United States. An integral part of translating the hymnal was a concrete understanding of poetry. Boudinot had already carved out a section of The Phoenix specifically for the literary genre. Alanna Hickey explains that: [T]his poetry also importantly renegotiated the formal dimensions of the Christian hymn to account for distinctly Cherokee understandings of spiritual life, land ownership, and peoplehood. Throughout

172  T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace his translation work and editorial practices, Boudinot transformed the Christian hymn, arguably a vessel of civilizing missions throughout the continent, into a site for the articulation of Cherokee distinction. (Hickey 2019) The poetry column in The Phoenix therefore not only evidences the syllabary’s capacity to both “resist and accommodate the forces of empire,” as Cherokee literacy scholar Ellen Cushman suggests, but also reconfigures important forms of Christian civilization efforts to account for distinctly Cherokee needs and to secure Cherokee cultural continuance (2011, xiii). This project of resistance failed to some extent. But the printed materials created by the Cherokee formed a bedrock for solidarity both on the Cherokees’ forced migration across North America and in their new home in Indian Territory. They came to embody a different resistance because they were the physical manifestations of the Cherokee people acculturating Euro-American technology and ideas for their own needs, both physical and spiritual. While many contemporary Euro-Americans could only imagine Indigenous peoples resisting through bloodthirsty savagery, the hymnbook represented a lasting intellectual and spiritual challenged to United States Empire and cultural genocide attempted against the Cherokee and other Native American peoples. The hymnal, in fact, was published multiple times around the turn of the twentieth century, in both Philadelphia (1896) and Oklahoma (1909). The initial hymnbook was printed in New Echota in 1829 and contained 33 hymns and five doxologies. More hymns were added in subsequent publications. By the 1909 edition, the one printed in Oklahoma, there were 133 hymns, five doxologies, and two temperance songs present in the book (Boudinot and Worcester 1829). Each hymn is numbered, and below the number is an English title. Next to the number is the hymn’s meter. Like many American hymnals from this time period, there is almost no musical notation present. It was much cheaper for publishers to only print text, and since any text can be paired with any tune of the same meter, the lack of printed musical notation was of little consequence to the users of the hymnal. In the context of this hymnal, European American tunes or music passed down via oral tradition would be used to accompany these songs (Heth 1992, 95). In 1846, Worcester collaborated with Lowell Mason (1792–1872) to produce an accompanying book of tunes for the hymnal The Cherokee Singing Book. Mason was a prominent church music director based in Boston and found commercial success, among other things, as a compiler and editor of music. He and his colleague David Greene published a very successful hymnbook, Church Psalmody: A  Collection of Psalms and Hymns, Adapted to Public Worship, in 1831 (Lee 1992, 15). The relationship between Mason and Worcester was largely mediated by Greene. Worcester only had an “amateur’s grasp” of music and lacked the printing tools needed to print both the musical notation and Cherokee text in Oklahoma. As a result, this book was printed in Boston. Like other musical texts at that time, notably Mason’s own

Translation and Endurance 173 Psalm book (published in 1831) and William Walker’s Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion (published in 1835), it contains a musical primer at the beginning that explains how to read musical notation. Worcester ostensibly used Mason’s Psalm book as a starting point but had to make substantial changes when writing in Cherokee using the syllabary. For example, it was impractical to use the note names “A, B, C, D, E, F, G” in a text designed for people not reading Roman characters (ibid., 18). Despite not being able to read the text, Mason criticized Worcester’s choice of tunes and his harmonizations of them. He also complained that Worcester’s musical primer was too complex. As Green wrote to Worcester on Mason’s behalf: Mr. Mason thinks that your introduction and elements, judging, as he of course, must, from the examples, &c which you give, are not sufficiently simple,  & that you undertake to teach too much for such a people. (ibid.) On the matter of the chosen hymn tunes, Mason was also very critical. In another letter to Worcester, Green wrote: Of your tunes [Mason] says that most those you have selected from Northern and Eastern books are pretty good, though as he thinks not the best adapted to the Cherokees. Of about 8 or 10 of those which you have obtained from other sources, he speaks with terrible severity as being bad and incapable of being mended. He says that he cannot consciously touch them or have any agency in bringing them out, &c— certainly not further than to see that the printer follows the copy. (ibid.) Ultimately, this book was not well received. Unlike the hymnal, it was never republished. It is likely that fewer than 1,000 copies were ever printed (ibid., 21). Its impact was not lasting either. To quote the Cherokee scholar Charlotte Heth: “A close check of these tunes [presented in the Cherokee Singing Book] with those used today by the Cherokees in Oklahoma shows no correspondence [between the two]” (Heth 1992, 95). Modern singers rely on their personal preferences and aural tradition to match tunes and texts. Perhaps the most well-known of these pairings is the Cherokee “Amazing Grace.” It is important to distinguish the Cherokee “Amazing Grace” from the famous English-language hymn of the same name, because the text is not at all related to John Newton’s (1725–1807) beloved hymn. Newton’s text is well-known to many around the world today. It was first published in 1779 in collaboration with the poet William Cowper for use in Newton’s parish church in Olney, England (Routley and Richardson 2005, 81). Before becoming a priest in the Church of England, Newton was the master of a ship engaged in the industry of enslaving humans for monetary gain. After

174  T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace becoming involved in the Evangelical movement and being ordained a priest, Newton rebuked his former career, going to far as to publish an encyclical condemning the African slave trade in 1788. Newton’s text, apt for a repentant man, focuses primarily on the profound, undeserved grace that is received by sinners: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, Was blind, but now I see. ’Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear. And Grace, my fears relieved. How precious did that Grace appear The hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come; ’Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far and Grace will lead me home. (Newton 1779, 53) This text was paired with the hymn tune “New Britain” in William Walker’s 1835 book Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion and has since become a mainstay in hymnals across denominations and the world (Fenner 2021). By contrast, the Cherokee text (hymn no. 87 in Figure 10.1) focuses rather on Christ’s death, resurrection, and second coming. A  partial translation reads as follows: God’s Son, He paid for us. Then to heaven He went, After He paid for us. But He spoke When He arose. “I will come again,” He said. (Heth 1992, 97) At some point, this text was paired with the hymn tune NEW BRITAIN (hence the reference to Newton’s text; the two are unrelated but share the same tune), and the words and melody have become inseparable. It has proven to be a source of profound hope for the Cherokee as well as other native peoples. It has also been translated into the Navajo, Kiowa, Muscogee Creek, and Choctaw languages.

Translation and Endurance 175

Figure 10.1 Hymns from the Cherokee Hymn Book (1896 Reprint, via Archive.org). Images of the 1829 edition are available digitally via the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Hymnody itself can be understood as a European import. It wasn’t just the Cherokee people who found it useful. In 2013, Yale Professor Emeritus Willie Ruff—with assistance from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music—released a documentary in which he traced back the history of hymnody within the Black church in the United States. He discovered many stylistic connections between the hymnodies of the Cherokee and Creek nations, African American churches, and rural, Gaelic-speaking Scottish churches. Each of these groups discusses how hymn-singing is, to them, a means of finding hope and strength amidst hard times: whether those hard times be working in coal mines, as enslaved peoples working in the fields, or while being forcibly removed from your homeland (Ruff and Berland 2013). At the time of removal, Elias Boudinot and the Cherokee people existed in a world where Christian ideologies were being used to extort and oppress people often viewed as “uncivilized” or sub-human. But the Cherokee people also found Christianity to be a source of hope and resilience. We argue that this hymnbook essentially represents a conversion of Christianity to Cherokee-ness. When Worcester first came among the Cherokee, the ABCFM was

176  T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace funding a linguist in Boston who had never met a Cherokee person to create an “ideal” system of writing for the Nation (ideal, of course, from the perspective of white, Euro-American condescension). As Cushman notes, “The ABCFM understood that the Cherokees’ move to a font for printing their language represented a practical, financial, and ideological problem” (2011, 105). Fortunately, Worcester was a remarkable man in his time who resisted this imposed writing system. He saw how the Cherokee connected the writing system of syllabary with a sense of national pride and believed this was a pride which the missionaries should succor. White allies of the Cherokee had previously written essays and pamphlets supporting them; however, the Cherokee could now publish in their own language. Thus, the Cherokee not only converted the printing press, a tool used by President Andrew Jackson and his supporters to promote removal, but also—along with white allies—tapped into the spiritual resources of Christianity to strive against the United States Empire. It also helped that, in the case of the Cherokee, most missionaries were on their side regarding removal (Guyatt 2016, 296). There was broad disapproval of the Indian Removal Act (which would eventually pass in 1831) among many white American Christians. Spearheaded by Boudinot’s mentor, Jeremiah Evarts, petitions with over a million signatures were presented to Congress demanding the Cherokee not be removed from their homes (ibid.). Worcester, who would go on to help Boudinot compile the Cherokee Hymnbook, even allowed himself to be arrested by the Georgia State Guard in order to bring a case about Cherokee sovereignty before the United States Supreme Court. Translation is necessarily a complex and messy affair, even more so when the complexities and violences (physical, spiritual, psychic) of settler colonialism are added to the equation. Ever since first contact with Europeans, Indigenous peoples have found themselves forced to rely on the language of the colonizer in order to argue for their own rights. This was the situation Boudinot found himself in as he worked on the Cherokee Hymnbook. In the first printed edition of the Cherokee Phoenix, he had written this about translating the Lord’s Prayer into Cherokee and then back into English: The above is perhaps as literal a translation as can well be given in English of the Lord’s prayer in Cherokee, as it stands at the head of this [sic.] column. As however, the Cherokee cannot be said to be a strictly literal translation from the original, so neither is the English from the Cherokee. The idiom of the one language is so widely different from that of the other, that literal translation appears to be an impossibility. (Boudinot 1828, 4) This idiomatic distinction between the languages is crucial to the resistance exhibited in Boudinot’s literary works. While English speakers would read the columns in English, the Cherokee column might be describing an entirely different sentiment. It may be helpful here to consider the typical translation

Translation and Endurance 177 into English of the Lord’s Prayer and Boudinot’s translation from Greek to Cherokee to English. The King James Version (1769) reads: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. Boudinot’s translation runs as follows: Our Father, who dwellest above, honored be thy name. Let thy empire spring to light. Let thy will be done on earth as it is done above—Our food day by day bestow upon us. Pity us in regard to our having sinned against thee, as we pity those who sin against us. And Lead us not into any place of straying, but, on the other hand, restrain us from sin. For thine is the empire, and the strength, and the honor forever. So let it be. (Boudinot 1828, 4) Here we begin to see how Boudinot, through his translation, worked to counter prevailing colonial theologies. Notably, Boudinot substitutes “empire” for “kingdom” in his version of the prayer. One of the more common cognomen for the United States during the early republic, the “empire of liberty,” had been coined by Thomas Jefferson during the American Revolution. This sobriquet was used to describe the United States’ supposed duty to expand prior to the term “manifest destiny.” While there are several fascinating ways Boudinot pushes back against Euro-American sentiment, we will here focus on how he rejected the empire of liberty. Furthermore, the prayer implores that God’s empire “spring to light” rather than God’s “kingdom come” (ibid.). The latter phrasing could be seen to indicate conquest, like that which the Cherokees feared from the state of Georgia. This seems to imply that while the United States understood itself as an empire “coming” across the American continent, to Cherokee Christians, they were already part of an empire, belonging to God and incompatible with Euro-American conquest. This strategic manipulation of the English language has been and continues to be an important expression of Indigenous resistance. Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and former poet laureate of the United States, has written: When our lands were colonized, the language of the colonizer was forced on us. We had to use it for commerce in the new world, a world that evolved through the use and creation of language. It was when we began to create with this new language that we named it ours, made it usefully tough and beautiful. (Harjo and Bird 1997, 23–24)

178  T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace Boudinot created a form of this “toughness and beauty” through his translation of sacred texts. In defiance of his own fate, these texts have remained as a memorial of his resistance to the United States Empire. Despite his work against forced removal, Boudinot eventually became an advocate of the Cherokee voluntarily removing to Indian Territory. In justifying this course of action, after describing the many evils encountered by the Cherokee, including unpunished murders, he wrote: But whether or not it will be of any advantage to the Cherokees to remove, that they will have to go is a proposition that bears no reasonable dispute, and of which the Cherokees ought long since to have been fully satisfied. But for want of proper information they have not been, and those who have been satisfied, comprising a portion of the intelligence of the Country, have pursued, what I consider to be a very destructive policy, to remain here at all events until they are forced away, as though that would add credit to their character, and disgrace and infamy to their oppressors. This is a mistaken policy. . . . I was fully satisfied that it was the best that could be done for the Cherokees, and that it was far preferable that they should go, however reluctantly, with the advantages of that Treaty, than that they should be driven away degraded and impoverished. (August 1, 1837, letter to David Greene) (From Gaul 2005, 61) For this, he was viewed as a traitor by those who wished to remain in the Cherokee homeland regardless of the consequences. Elias Boudinot was one of the first Cherokee to move west in 1836. Three years later, he was violently assassinated by members of the anti-removal party in front of his house (ibid.; Gabriel 1941, 279). The implied motive was that he had signed treaties giving away tribal land. Despite Boudinot’s supposed treason, his work became a site of cultural continuance for the Cherokee. The Cherokee Phoenix is still published today. The Hymnbook has, as mentioned, become a cultural artifact of the nation and has been republished several times, including in phonetic Cherokee in 2014 (McKie 2014). By the end of the twentieth century, 90% of Cherokee speakers still identified as Christian and still sang many of these same hymns originally translated by Boudinot (Heth 1992, 95). This statistic sits nicely within a larger framework of hymn-singing as resistance, which has been thoroughly documented in Ruff’s “A Conjoining of Ancient Song” (Ruff and Berland 2013). The incorporation of Christianity into a broader Cherokee-ness demonstrates one method by which Indigenous peoples have acculturated particular concepts from Euro-Americans while retaining a broader Indigenous identity. References Boudinot, Elias. 1828. “The Lord’s Prayer.” The Cherokee Phoenix 1 (1): 4. Accessed January 20, 2023. www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/CherokeePhoenix/Vol1/ no01/poetry-page-4-column-1a.html.

Translation and Endurance 179 Boudinot, Elias, and Samuel A. Worcester. 1829. Cherokee Hymns, Compiled from Several Authors and Revised by E. Boudinott & S. A. Worchester, Printed for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. New Echota: J. F. Wheeler. Accessed January 20, 2023. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/10927107. Cushman, Ellen. 2011. The Cherokee Syllabary: Writing the People's Perseverance. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ———. 2013. Cherokee Syllabary: Writing the People’s Perseverance. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Demos, John. 2014. The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Fenner, Chris. 2021. “Amazing Grace! (How Sweet the Sound).” February  25. Accessed January 20, 2023. www.hymnologyarchive.com/amazing-grace. Gabriel, Ralph Henry. 1941. Elias Boudinot, Cherokee,  & His America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Gaul, Teresa. 2005. To Marry an Indian: The Marriage of Harriet Gold and Elias Boudinot in Letters 1823–1839. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Guyatt, Nicholas. 2016. Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harjo, Joy, and Gloria Bird, eds. 1997. Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Heth, Charlotte. 1992. “Cherokee Hymn Singing in Oklahoma.” Presentation for Smithsonian FolkLife Festival. Accessed January 20, 2023. https://folklife-media. si.edu/docs/festival/program-book-articles/FESTBK1992_41.pdf. Hickey, Alanna. 2019. “The Poetic Record Against Removal.” Presentation at Yale University, New Haven, CT. Justice, Daniel Heath. 2006. Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Konkle, Marie. 2004. Writing Indian Nations: Native Intellectuals and the Politics of Historiography, 1827–1863. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Lee, William R. 1992. “Lowell Mason, The Cherokee Singing Book, and The Missionary Ethic.” The Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning 3 (3): 14–23. Reprinted with permission in Visions of Research in Music Education 16 (3): 14–23. Matthew 6:9–13. 1769/1774. The Holy Bible. Edited by King James. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed January  20, 2023. https://archive.org/details/ kjv-1769-oxford-edition-blayney-1774/page/n5/mode/2up. McKie, Scott. 2014. “Cherokee Hymnbook Released by Museum.” The One Feather, June  14. Accessed January  20, 2023. https://theonefeather.com/2014/06/14/ cherokee-hymnbook-released-by-museum/. McNally, Michael David. 2000. Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion. New York: Oxford University Press. Newton, John, and William Cowper. 1779a. Olney Hymn Book. London: W. Oliver. ———. 1779b. The United Methodist Hymnal (1989), 378. Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House. ———. 1788. Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade. London: Buckland and Johnson. Parins, James W. 2013. Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820– 1906. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Perdue, Theda. 1983. Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. Knoxville: The University Press of Tennessee.

180  T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace Routley, Erik, and Paul Richardson, eds. 2005. A Panorama of Christian Hymnody. Chicago: GIA Publications. Ruff, Willie, and Gretchen Berland, dirs. 2013. A Conjoining of Ancient Song. New Haven, CT: Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Accessed January  20, 2023. https:// vimeo.com/82304757. Saunt, Claudio. 2020. Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Schneider, Bethany. 2008. “Boudinot’s Change: Boudinot, Emerson, and Ross on Cherokee Removal.” ELH 75 (1),151–77. Walker, William. 1835. The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion. New Haven: Nathan Whiting.

11 Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance Becca Whitla

Setting the Context It is the evening of September 8, 2022. I am at the Saskatoon Civic Square beside City Hall with some hundred people who have gathered for a vigil to remember the 11 victims of the stabbing at James Smith Cree Nation and in Weldon, Saskatchewan, along with 18 who were injured (Saskatoon StarPhoenix 2023). This event, along with simultaneous vigils in Regina and Prince Albert, is organized by the First Nations University of Canada. People mill about, greeting each other in hushed tones with hugs and smiles, repeatedly passing the flickering flames from one candle to another, nursing our tapers as the wind plays havoc with us. We are happy to be together even as we are here to mark an unfathomable violence that has rocked the community and the nation. The proceedings begin with some prayers in Nehiyaw (Cree) and are followed by singing. Plains/Woodland Cree (Nehiyaw) singer/songwriter Joseph Naytowhow sings, accompanied by his drum. His plaintive songs offer healing and express hope, voicing resistance against the structures that created the conditions for the tragedy to occur.1 There are several speakers. They all make the connections between the tragic events and the history of colonialism blatantly clear. They talk about broken treaties between the Crown—understood as the British monarch— and Indigenous peoples, the neglect and violence perpetrated by the Canadian government, cultural genocide, the legacy of residential schools, and the intergenerational trauma that resulted from these ongoing and systemic tentacles of colonialism;2 260 kilometers south in Regina at the same time, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Vice Chief Aly Bear (Regina) makes similar connections between the tragic event and colonialism and trauma. “At the end of the day, this is colonialism, and it’s manifested itself into this violence,” she says, “that comes from trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma, without actually dealing with the root of the issue, in healing ourselves together” (Kurz 2022).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-11

182  Becca Whitla The next day, I am preparing to lead the opening service on Zoom for the start of term at the Saskatoon Theological Union, representing the Anglican and United Churches of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. I have included prayers for the 12 people who died (including the man who did the killing) and the 18 who were injured. The worship leaders have gathered, and one of the co-leaders sends me a private message to let me know that Queen Elizabeth II has died. A second co-leader finds appropriate Anglican words to honor the death of the monarch since she is officially our head of state and the supreme governor of the Church of England, also known by the title Defender of the Faith (Fidei Defensatrix). In simple language, we pray for the victims of the stabbing, and then we turn to the ornate language preordained for the death of a monarch. These two moments are seared together in my memory, as they are for many others. After all, Queen Elizabeth II’s last public statement was to express sorrow to the people of James Smith Cree Nation—and the people of Canada—in the wake of the stabbing (Saskatoon StarPhoenix 2022). I feel a growing unease about the ways the events are interwoven, and I begin to reflect on my own relationship to them as a liturgist and song leader for the church. Like many, I pay attention to the rituals and the conversations that surround the death of the United Kingdom’s monarch, wondering how the funeral rite will reflect this complexity I have experienced at the time of her death. Disobedient Listening and Voicing Resistance: An Aural Framework What follows is an interrogation of the funeral for the ways in which it sounded empire and coloniality. Recognizing the Anglican/Church of England tradition as part of my inheritance, I sit with discomfort at the fact that there are no voices in the funeral beyond the realm of British, and mostly English, ethno-culture. I take to listening disobediently to this absent presence.3 Where are the voices of resistance? My disobedient listening also includes a self-examination for the ways I might excuse, justify, and perpetuate a sounding of coloniality in the singing I participate in or lead. Ultimately, I  propose that a stance of epistemic disobedience is necessary in order to begin to open our hearts to learning other ways of singing, making a commitment to a praxis through which voicing resistance becomes liberating action.4 This reflection is built upon my prior work in which I propose principles for liberating liturgy, including the necessity of incorporating a decolonizing stance in such a praxis (Whitla 2020). Since that time, the language of “decolonizing” has caught on like wildfire, but it has become increasingly unclear what people mean by decoloniality, decolonizing, and other cognate terms. I am aware that the chameleon-like structures of coloniality change and shift in sophisticated ways, leaving those who seek to adopt a liberating—and decolonizing—praxis vulnerable to the slippery seduction

Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance 183 of remaining theoretical and abstract. Many people and their institutions talk and write about decolonization but often leave power structures unchallenged.5 The question that I therefore try to keep before me is: How can one dismantle coloniality without reproducing and reinscribing it? Moreover, is it even possible to begin to undo coloniality without following and reproducing its very logic? The question is especially aimed at Euro-descendent people like me. The logic of colonialism is ubiquitous, a virus that infects and corrupts our thinking, including our ability to distinguish colonizing from liberating action, even for those who have made a commitment to dismantle it. So with hesitation, I center the colonial structure once again, with the intention to expose its insidious undercurrent. My explicit intention is to demonstrate the arrogation, by the forces of empire, of coloniality to itself. By exposing its underbelly and ubiquity, I hope to show that a response which includes disobedient listening and voicing resistance can be part of a liberating praxis that seeks transformation. Voicing resistance is a primary concern for Andrea Davis, whose scholarship critiques white supremacy and particularly its manifestations in “racial capitalism, and the hierarchical nuclear family—all of which have been rendered normative and unchallengeable by the state” (Davis 2022, 6). She confronts the exclusion of Black women in Canada from “the construct of idealized family life” which does not value “their flexibility, creativity, and relationality” (ibid., 8). She turns to the voices of Black women performers in Toronto because they “sound new affiliations of community that supersede the narrow patriarchal constructs of the hierarchical nuclear family and the imperialist and capitalist demands of the city and the nation-state” (ibid., 133). She argues that the resulting “feminist soundscape” helps create “new configurations of community and human solidarity, while contesting raced and gendered nationalisms” (ibid.). Davis draws on Christine Bacareza Balance’s notion of disobedient listening, which I  am aware is intended by Davis to encourage a listening by racialized people—for her, especially Black and Indigenous women in the Canadian context—that is resistant, which “allows us to uncover new cultural truths . . . . [and to listen against] the wrongs of settler colonialism, imperialism, and multicultural citizenship” the latter as she and others argue, a catachresis for true diversity in the Canadian context. What does it mean, then, for a dominant culture person like me to listen disobediently with a view to resisting coloniality and fomenting liberation and decolonization particularly in Christian worship practices, especially through singing? Elsewhere I  have argued that acompañamiento/accompaniment can be read as one thing for marginalized people—walking with “each other in a communal action that is concrete, physical, and historical”—and another for dominant culture folks like me (Whitla 2020, 217).6 In my context, then, accompaniment means choosing a stance that listens disobediently to the “clarion call to side and enter into solidarity with the poor, self-consciously and intentionally ‘being with’ and ‘walking with’ the poor . . . [presupposing

184  Becca Whitla a] solidarity in the midst of suffering together with the poor and marginalized (and not for them)” (ibid., 218). Disobedient listening here is an “ethical, social, and political practice” that forces us to “question the hows and whys of established ways of thinking to identify their impact, their doing in the world” (Bacareza Balance 2016, 4). Listening against the grain here means listening for absence, or what Jacques Derrida might call an absent presence, as well as creating enough space for those who are marginalized to voice resistance through congregational singing so that together we can contribute to another way of being and doing (Derrida 1981). Sounding Empire (and Coloniality)—the Funeral of a Queen Some 11 days after her death, on September  19, 2022, millions of people around the world watched the Queen’s funeral. I myself did not get up at the crack of dawn to watch it live, as many other Canadians did—I watched it later. Meanwhile, musical friends on social media posted details about the music, details which are still so easily accessible via the internet. Church leaders and politicians in Canada stuck a balanced tone between revering the person of Elizabeth II and respecting her mourning family on one hand and acknowledging the ongoing impacts of colonialism on the other. From the time of the announcement of her death, I was fascinated by the connection to the events recounted earlier in Saskatchewan. How might the stark evidence of the terrible legacy of imperialism and colonialism be acknowledged?7 The Church of England (Anglican) funeral service at Westminster Abbey was replete with all the pomp and pageantry befitting the death of England’s 96-year-old monarch. There can be no denying that the service to honor Queen Elizabeth II celebrated the sounds of the British Empire, from the choice of music (instrumental, choral, and congregational) to the instrumentation (organ and brass), to the men and boy’s choirs from Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, who sang anthems and led the congregational singing.8 The organ music before the service was like a who’s who of English composers from Orlando Gibbons to Edward Elgar. It did include two nonBritons: Malcolm Williamson—an Australian who was the 19th Master of the Queen’s Music and the first non-Briton to hold the post—and Canadian Healey Willan, who was the first non-English church musician to be awarded the Lambeth Doctorate, Mus. D Cantuar, by the Archbishop of Canterbury.9 Instrumental music was played by the organists of Westminster Abbey, the State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry, the Fanfare Team of the Household Division Bands, and the Queen’s Piper. Choral anthems were similarly of English origin—all but one, by Scottish composer Sir James Macmillan.10 The auspicious pedigree of the musical content and the high social ranking of the musical leaders were a celebration of elite English culture. It was, one could say, an appropriate tribute to honor the longest-reigning British monarch. It was also a sounding and glorification of the British Empire, a

Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance 185 solemn and noble remembrance for a family, a nation, a commonwealth, and a world who had lost a leader who was known for her kindness, her integrity, her humility, her Christian faith—and her devotion to public service. Yet as the world remembered the years of Queen Elizbeth II’s reign, a more complex reading of the global role of the British Empire also came into view. The twentieth century had seen the dissolution of Britain’s empire as it had been, a process that continues to unfold in the twenty-first century with Barbados becoming a republic in 2021, for instance. Nations from the Commonwealth sought—and continue to seek—their independence, and formerly conquered peoples rose up in anti-colonial movements from India to Africa, to Asia, to the Americas. As a result, when people tried to make sense of the Queen’s death, debates swirled about the historical significance of this end-of-an-era moment. There were protests in some places; for example, a couple of days before the funeral, anti-monarchist protesters in Wales called for Welsh independence (Morris and Davies 2022). Elsewhere, political analysts and activists decried the legacy of slavery, the enduring violence of colonialism, and the plundered wealth of the royal family.11 In Canada, for instance, the First Nations Leadership Council called on King Charles III to renounce the Doctrine of Discovery, saying it had “dehumanized non-Europeans while empires waged war and stole lands, resources and wealth that rightfully belonged to Indigenous peoples all over the world” (CBC News 2022). At the same time, many Indigenous leaders and peoples recognized that, despite the conflicted relationship between Indigenous people and the Crown—the treaties that govern relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers were negotiated with the Crown—it was important to take time to honor her as a person and to respect the rituals of mourning (CBC and MacIntosh 2022; Morrisseau 2022). Others, like Caroline Elkins, raised questions about whether or not the virtuous image of the queen was defensible, given the likelihood that she had at least some direct knowledge of “complicity in British colonial crimes, including murder and torture” (Elkins 2022). Offering what she calls a revisionist account of the empire, “describing in detail the centrality of violence to the nation’s colonial project during Queen Elizabeth’s reign,” she notes that “some see [the Queen’s] complicity as more subtle, obscuring through decades of reassuring rituals and acts of omissions the systemic racism and extreme violence upon which Britain’s imperial power, and hers, depended” (ibid.). Everywhere, people were conflicted about how and whether to honor the Queen’s life and legacy.12 In my own context of Canada, the reach of British imperialism was accomplished through settler colonialism. Coming to terms with the violent history of the formation of Canada as a nation means recognizing the violent displacement and erasure of Indigenous peoples, the connection with the transatlantic slave trade, as well as the “complex power-plays beyond the moment of first contact, including in historical conflicts between English- and French-speaking sectors of the country as well as in subsequent

186  Becca Whitla waves of immigration . . . [through which] colonialism meant the domination of the colonized ‘other’ ” (Medina and Whitla 2019, 18–19). The Canadian experience is not unique in the colonial history of the British Empire in the ways Christianity, including its hymnody, was used as a means to conquer, “civilize,” and subjugate colonial subjects. In fact, English-language hymnody from the Victorian era went hand in glove with English coloniality and the rise of the British Empire.13 This hymnody was exploited and imposed throughout the British Empire and beyond, a phenomenon I call musicoloniality (Whitla 2020, 80). Given this complex and contested reality, how does the way we might interpret the sounding of empire shift? For many who have grown up in the Anglican tradition, the hymns seem to reflect a simple and humble faith, embodying the beneficent persona of the Queen projected to the world, especially at the time of her death. Traces of empire in the texts themselves seem fleeting, and the music represents the accessible and singable popular music style of Victorian hymnody. But let us take a closer look. Hymns and Coloniality The theme of empire in hymn texts, especially from Victorian England, has been well documented.14 It was often the case that a Christian theology of Christ the King and the earthly empire of Great Britain are equated, and military language is interwoven with a conviction that Christian—and European—superiority justifies the Christianizing and conquering of other lands. These “other lands”—ethno-racial and cultural groups beyond Europe—are characterized in unflattering and racist language rooted in structures of white supremacy which place Anglo Saxons at the top. For example, to draw on general examples—I return to the hymns used at the funeral shortly—in ­William Williams’s (1717–1791) “O’er the Gloomy Hills of Darkness,” verse 2 reads: “Let the Indian, let the Negro, / Let the rude Barbarian see / That divine and glorious Conquest / Once obtain’d on Calvary; / Let the Gospel, / Loud resound from Pole to Pole” (Richards 2002, 388). As I  have argued elsewhere, this missionary hymn is filled with the evangelistic tone of its era, which paints the picture of “other” kingdoms sitting in darkness only to be freed by the “glorious Light,” presumably of imperial British Christianity. . . . Though it is clearly referring to the spreading of the Gospel and God’s Dominion, it [verse 6] borrows the language of imperial conquest in this realm: “Fly abroad, eternal Gospel, / Win and conquer, never cease; / May thy eternal wide Dominions / Multiply, and still increase; / May thy Scepter, / Sway th’enlight’ned World around.” . . . The spread of the Gospel is to be accomplished through the conquest of the “other:” the Indian, the Negro, and the “rude Barbarian.” (Whitla 2020, 132; Richards 2002, 388)

Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance 187 Other hymns, like Reginald Heber’s “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” similarly promulgate notions like the civilizing mission and European superiority, which together validated sovereignty over conquered lands and peoples (Whitla 2020, 132).15 Yet another example is Jackson Mason’s “Arise O Church of England,” written in 1897, when Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth’s great-great-grand-mother, was celebrating her diamond jubilee. In it, earthly and heavenly empires are conflated as Queen Victoria beneficently gazes on “dark Afric’s shores” and “India’s sons of freedom” (Richards 2002, 405).16 The Funeral Hymns—Celebrating Empire or Sounding Coloniality? The tendency to paint heavenly realms with the brush strokes was a common trope in the Victorian era, though often accomplished more subtly than in the preceding examples. The first hymn at the funeral, “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended” by John Ellerton (1826–93), sung to Clement Scholefield’s (1839–1904) tune St. Clement, is a case in point.17 On the one hand, it promises rest at the end of the day, or at the end of a life, with assurance that God’s realm endures forever. The blatant equating of earthly and heavenly realms does not appear here as it does in the preceding Victorian hymn texts. Yet the resonance of the empire evoked in the last verse cannot be ignored, especially in light of the imperial era of the author, not to mention its use on this occasion: “So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never, like earth’s proud empires, pass away; thy kingdom stands, and grows for ever, till all thy creatures own thy sway.” In this final verse at the funeral, the association between heavenly and earthly empires was intensified musically—with loud organ accompaniment, slowing down the tempo, and adding brass and a descant sung by the boys in the choir. A similar musical choice was made for the 23rd psalm setting by Jessie Seymour Irving (1836–1887). The popular and simple style of the tune Crimond for the associated text by Francis Rous (1579–1659) rang out with a descant in the last verse, fitting the occasion perhaps, but also overwhelming the simplicity of the tune. This hymn, a favorite of the Queen’s and sung at her wedding, is not particularly imperial in and of itself. But the stirring musical setting in this rendition ramped it up to fit with the overarching imperial sonic landscape of the occasion. The final hymn, Charles Wesley’s (1707–88) “Love Divine, all Loves Excelling,” also resounded with brass, organ, and descants in the final verse in the Welsh musical setting Blaenwern by William Rowlands (1860–1937). As with “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended,” the words in the final verse conjure up an image of the divine kingdom in human terms—it is pure and spotless, perfect, and glorious, as the singers imagine themselves casting “our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.” As the sound bounced off the walls of Westminster Abbey, one wonders whether congregants indeed might have been lost in the glories of the present empire, stunned by the wonder of all the pageantry,

188  Becca Whitla with love for the deceased monarch, and praise of the enduring monarchy and its fading empire. There is another crucial consideration in Wesley’s text. Though the language he used is biblical, the phrase “pure and spotless let us be” needs to be problematized in modern parlance. The language of purity and spotlessness has often been equated with whiteness as a virtue to be aspired to. Though one could argue that it is anachronistic to read this phrase in this way, equating whiteness and purity was a common trope then, at the time Wesley wrote the text, as now.18 Here the unspoken Blackness of the Ethiop is equated with guilt and sin and is washed clean by Christ’s light. The phrase in “Love Divine, all loves excelling” about purity and spotlessness, sung at the heart of empire, at the demise of its monarch, echoes with these other meanings and evokes the English history of colonialism which did conquer, in the name of racial superiority, many of the nations whose representatives were present at the funeral.19 I note that all the funeral leadership, with two exceptions— Baroness Scotland, who read a lesson, and Ms. Shermara Fletcher, Principal Officer for Pentecostal and Charismatic Relations, Churches Together in England, who read some of the prayers—were white.20 It must be mentioned that the fourth and final text sung by the congregation was “God Save the King,” which was part of the concluding rites of the service and is an unabashed and direct celebration of the monarchy and the British Empire. All the congregational singing was accompanied by organ, brass, and the men and boys’ choirs. We return to the implications of these musical choices shortly, but first, let us briefly examine the musical settings themselves. It is harder to quantify the ways in which these hymns, and other music, might sound empire and coloniality in their musical composition. What is clear, however, is that musical settings from the Victorian era had a pervasive colonial influence overall, despite the fact that there was an internal musical hierarchy among them. At one end of the internal hierarchy were the musical elements—and composers—judged to be superior, with “serious, rugged, majestic, ‘dignified’ tunes typical of [what were called] serious music composers at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” (Whitla 2020, 110). These tunes tended to be characterized by “perpetual motion in the bass that supports the melody and text . . . [often with a] modulation to the minor third, and triumphant conclusion in which the melody is extended with long held notes” (Whitla 2022, 19). Examples of such tunes include Sine Nomine by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Thornbury by Basil Harwood, and Crucifer by Sydney Nicholson. Interestingly, the three hymns sung at the service were not at the more elite end of the spectrum; they are of the more popular style in Victorian hymnody, a style originally associated with low Anglican and non-conformist settings, though they have now been absorbed into the general canon of Anglican/ English-language hymnody. In this case, the accessibility of this style suits the portrayal and popularity of the Queen as a widely beloved woman of integrity. About this style of hymnody, Ian Bradley writes that those

Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance 189 well-schooled in setting drawing-room ballads also produced good hymn tunes  .  .  .. [since] they [both] require a close attention and sensitivity to the words, and especially to their mood and flow, and the ability to provide a strong and fresh melody which is eminently singable and yet does not grow stale with repeated use. (Bradley 1997, 165) These tunes were often sung in four-part harmony, along the lines of popular part songs and parlor ballad styles. Their critics—those who preferred hymn tunes on the other end of the spectrum—judged these tunes to be vulgar, sentimental, emotional, and effeminate. Though this internal hierarchy of Victorian hymn tunes is still at play today, the hymnic bricolage that encompasses Victorian hymnody as a whole embodies a Victorian ethos and nostalgia for the British Empire. All these tunes remain associated with the Victorian era of their provenance, and they still have a grip on what congregations sing today, especially at occasions like a wedding, or a funeral, especially in this case. Strikingly, the choice of musical arrangement and accompaniment for these three hymn tunes at the funeral amounted to a kind of musical bait and switch. Though the tunes themselves are of the latter, more simple, accessible style referred to earlier, the slower tempi, use of brass and descants, and the choral undergirding by the choirs of men and boys effectively rendered them more in keeping with the majestic aesthetic of the former, associated with more elite middle and upper classes. The choice of hymns suits the promoted image of the Queen as down-to-earth and accessible, but it could also be read as a paternalistic pandering to the people. The European choral tradition of men and boys’ choirs is also particularly noteworthy when it comes to considerations of sounding coloniality in these hymns. Such choirs—the tradition began in the Middle Ages—have been often associated with cathedral traditions and are a source of musical identity and pride for many in the Anglican tradition. Rooted in ecclesial patriarchal practices, educational and status opportunities continue to abound for selected boys, and the tradition is still widely celebrated and defended. Present-day proponents argue that “removing the boys’ and men tradition would be removing something which is unique in the choral sound world and for which this country [England] is revered” (Cooper 2018). Though scientists dispute it, contemporary justifiers of the practice cite the purity of the sound and the ethereal quality of pre-pubescent boys (Moore and Killan 2000–2001; Jones 2003). Political arguments about whether or not girls (and women) should be admitted rage on. According to Michael Cooper, debates include: [G]ender inequality; the value of tradition; the particular vocal timbres of girls and prepubescent boys; the different ways their voices develop as they grow; and the practical difficulties of persuading 21st-century boys to step away from their screens and sports to agree to sing high treble lines in choirs. (Cooper 2018)

190  Becca Whitla Others, like Ria Andriani, argue that it needs to change (Andriani 2018; Doyle 2020). It goes without saying that there was no expectation that girls might be afforded similar opportunities when the practice began. Still, I argue that notions of tradition and “purity of sound” are used to surreptitiously support ongoing exclusion and sexism, as well as the bleaching of sound with a presumed move toward whiteness as the goal. Wherever one finds oneself in these debates, the use of the men and boy’s choirs from Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal to sing anthems and accompany congregational singing upheld this tradition and, in so doing, celebrated the British Empire, resounding coloniality at the funeral, despite the fact that there are now members of these ensembles who are not white. This notion of the purity of sound—also epitomized in Wesley’s phrase “pure and spotless”—is precisely what Grant Olwage critiques when he writes about choralism—the civilizing and disciplining of subjugated peoples through choral music by Britain. He argues that choralism focuses on control over the body, the desired outcome being something like the pure sound of the men and boys’ choices; “soft-singing was a microdisciplinary technique . . . through which the voice was normalized as bourgeois, [and] through which the anachronistic ‘rough voice’ was remade” (Olwage 2005, 33). Olwage writes about how choirs were used in late nineteenth-century South Africa by the British colonizers to control what was known as the “black peril,” just as it was used at home in Britain among the working classes, as what he refers to as internal colonialism, where “practices of colonialism had their testing grounds in the metropolis . . . [where they had] . . . reputed success in averting a revolution of the masses ‘at home’ ” (ibid., 26, 28). Olwage describes the detailed discipline of choralism as follows: For the trained singer, diverse anatomical parts, visible and invisible, from buttocks to tongue, were given very precise instructions of where they should be and what they should be doing. This practiced body was required in the name of, amongst others, “breath control.” Or “breath management,” a prerequisite of tonal beauty, which in turn was best practices by singing softly—and vice versa. (ibid., 33) This discipline of the pure uniform sound aimed to eradicate “any wrong tone—shouting, forcing, [or] penetrating” (ibid., 33). Choralism, like hymns, was exported with the colonial project, including to Canada, where similar techniques were used in Indian residential schools, among other places. Indigenous students were forcibly taken away from their families and stripped of their culture in a systematic state- and church-run initiative to eradicate Indigeneity and “civilize” and discipline Indigenous children (Whitla 2020, 117–21). Recall that the connections between this state-sanctioned cultural genocide and the stabbings at James Smith Cree Nation were made explicit at the vigil where I heard Joseph Naytowhow sing.

Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance 191 It is this erasure of the “other” in the British colonial enterprise that was so starkly revealed at the funeral, in the musical choices, leadership, and ethos, not to mention in the worship and leadership choices in general. The sound­ ing of empire was also a sounding of coloniality—the rich cultural inherit­ ance of the ethno-cultures conquered in the name of the British Empire was entirely absent as the dominance of (white) English culture was reasserted, preserved, and uplifted. For me, this absence resounded in the two minutes of silence between the last post and the reveille near the end of the service, just before the singing of the national anthem, also considered a hymn. As the cameras panned around the room, in a moment meant to honor the deceased, I  found myself listening, instead, for the silenced voices, the marginalized voices, some of whose cultures were embodied in the room by state repre­ sentatives. I heard the silence, instead, as a fissure in the hegemonic structure of empire through which the imagined voices of resistance could sound, by virtue of their absence.21 Disobedient Listening and Transformation In the funeral service, the two-minute absence of sound was a deafening silence. Latin American decolonial thinkers argue that decolonization is about turning colonization on its head so that the illogic of colonial violence and the savagery that claims to be civilized and universal can be exposed (Dussel 1995). In that spirit, I took to imagining absent voices of resistance, solidarity, and action in the silence. The voices that were absent at the funeral service are heard in other spaces, like the ones Andrea Davis documents, or at the vigil in Saskatoon on September 8, and they resound with pronounced critiques of coloniality and colonial Christianity, though to be sure, they don’t get global television coverage like the royal funeral. As I seek to live into my praxis of liberating liturgy and flipping colonization on its head, how can I continue to make space so that the sounding of these voices can lead to transformation? Davis offers a clue, drawing on Bacareza Balance, who articulates the need for strategic acts of “disobedient listening” (Davis 2022, 142). For Davis, disobedient listening refuses the “demand encoded in the hegemonic nation” and offers instead “other ways of knowing and being in relationship to community” (ibid., 142–43). In some Christian contexts, spaces for other ways of knowing, being, and doing have already been carved by communities from the Global South and marginalized communities from the Global North. For example, these communities are voicing resistance and embodying a liberating praxis through other ways of singing.22 Yet these spaces and voices were not present at the Queen’s funeral, except by their conspicuous absence. These spaces and voices are also absent, or only marginally present, in many of the mainline protestant settings in the Cana­ dian context where I find myself. In my work, I argue for and teach about an interrogation of the hegemonic and colonialist hold of Euro-Canadian

192  Becca Whitla hymnody over congregational singing practices as well as for an opening up of space for practices from the Global South and marginalized contexts in the Global North. This interrogation and opening up to other ways is part of my own liberating praxis, which also includes an intermittent and intentional self-silencing, because I am a white cisgendered Canadian settler. I also still struggle with my complicity in the ongoing hegemonic sounding of colonial­ ity embodied and celebrated in the Queen’s funeral and still perpetuated in many contexts. For me, disobedient listening is further enriched and self-consciously enacted through epistemic disobedience. Walter Mignolo describes epistemic disobedience as “acts of resistance which are outside and resistant to ways of understanding ‘modern’ epistemology” that allow the flourishing of “knowing, being, and doing decolonially” (Mignolo 2011, 5). Such acts of resistance in a decolonial key actively confront dehumanization, racism, sexism, the destruction of the earth, and all other forms and colonial structures of discrimination that contravene the divine intention for life. Moreover, a white Euro-Canadian settler like me needs resistance to be accompanied by a stance epistemic humility, which Otto Maduro describes as “a witness of another way of not just knowing, but of knowing justly: knowing in a way that contributes to enhancing life on earth for all” (Maduro 2012, 103). Opposing what Maduro names as epistemologies that are “hierarchical, binary, authoritarian, patriarchal, racist, (and) elitist” in this case means recognizing that the Queen’s funeral unabashedly sounded empire and coloniality (ibid., 88). The service reinscribed the violence of colonialism through the erasure of anything other than British, and mostly English, ethno-culture. As a disobedient listener, I affirm that other kinds of music and other ways of leading are crucial in order to voice resistance and challenge what Maduro names as “the dangerous ideal of a universal, eternal, and singular true knowledge—a delusion that is habitually part of imperial designs of forced unification, subjection, and homogenization of a variety of ways of being human,” all of which were embodied in the sonic landscape of the funeral (ibid., 102–3). Beyond the organ, brass, and men and boys’ choirs, another way of singing beckons, a way that draws the action of voicing resistance into the heart of what we do as people of faith. At the same time, this other way of singing cannot rest only with voicing resistance. It needs to move in the direction of transformative action in how lives are lived. The opportunity to do that, even in a small way, was not taken up at the funeral. Instead, coloniality was sounded as the epitome of Anglican worship and was broadcast throughout the world. Adopting an anti-colonial stance here means picking up the gauntlet and daring to imagine and enact another way of singing and worshipping. To that end, and coming full circle, I conclude with a small proposal and an example. Joseph Naytowhow, the singer from my opening vignette, and Cheryl L’Hirondelle, both Indigenous cultural leaders from Saskatchewan, have created a song, “All One People.” Because Joseph lives in my community,

Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance 193 I have approached him to teach me, to share not only wisdom about this song but also about the style of singing, and the importance of songs as spiritual practices in Indigenous contexts. The song creators have already signaled a generosity of spirit by allowing “All One People” to appear in two hymnal supplements, More Voices from the United Church of Canada and Sing a New Creation from the Anglican Church of Canada. Here, disobedience means to actively eschew the tradition of V ­ ictorian hymnody of my ethno-culture, at least for the moment, to make space for a different kind of song, as well as a different kind of learning and leading. For communities of faith, this kind of musical disobedience can become a way to resist the musicological power matrix of colonial ­Christianity and the British Empire. The song is meant to be sung in a full voice style. V ­ ocables—wordless syllabus—embody the spirit of the song and are bookended with a simple text. Set to a notated drum rhythm, the text expresses a desire for people to come together, recognizing our shared humanity and shared place in creation. The last repetition of the text—“we are all one people, we are all one nation, we are all one colour if we try”— poignantly ends with “if we try” (Naytowhow and L’Hirondelle 2007, 141).23 It evokes an ethical musicological imperative inviting us to become agents of transformation as we follow the steps of a God who transforms, join in the subversive song of Jesus, and breathe in the provocative and liberating breath of the Holy Spirit which empowers our song! This other way of singing, being, and doing affirms the people as a site for divine reve­ lation; the imago dei is reflected in the people who are singing, listening, worshipping, and enacting God’s beloved community and celebrating the sacredness of creation in church on Sunday morning or out on the streets the rest of the week. Notes 1 Joseph Naytowhow is a Nehiyaw (Cree) teacher, storyteller, performer, and knowledge keeper. For more information, see his personal site (https://josephnaytowhow.com/). He is also the knowledge keeper for the University of Saskatchewan Student Union (University of Saskatchewan Student Union). 2 Treaties in Canada were generally negotiated between “the Crown” and its representatives, eventually including the Canadian federal government and provincial governments and Indigenous peoples (Government of Canada). 3 I use the phrase “disobedient listening” following Christine Bacareza Balance (2016). 4 I return to the concept of epistemic disobedience later (Mignolo 2011, 5). 5 For instance, Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang note that “the metaphorization of decolonization makes possible a set of evasions, or ‘settler moves to innocence’, that problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity” (Tuck and Yang 2012, 1). Along similar lines, Adam Gaudry and Danielle Lorenz argue for a careful delineation of language with respect to teaching Indigenous studies in the Canadian context to distinguish between inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization (Gaudry and Lorenz 2018). More broadly, Néstor Medin argues that attention to the historical, social, political, and

194  Becca Whitla economic circumstances that birth ideological stances is crucial in order to avoid superficial engagements (Medina 2020). 6 I am drawing on Roberto Goizueta’s development of acompañamiento (Goizueta 1995). 7 It would be worth exploring the reasons people chose to watch or not to watch the funeral in various parts of the world and from various perspectives. Also of interest would be schedule disruptions, both imposed and incidental, in the wake of the funeral, as well as official state-sanctioned parallel memorials in Canada and elsewhere. These explorations are beyond the scope of this chapter. 8 All details from the service, including authors, composers, and hymn texts, can be found here on the order of service (Chapel of Westminster 2022). The full proceedings can be watched on Youtube (The Telegraph 2022). 9 A notable other exception to the English provenance of the organ music was a postlude by J. S. Bach (Fantasia in C minor BWC 562). 10 Composers included William Croft (1678–1727) and Henry Purcell (1659–95), both of whom had been organists of Westminster Abbey, as well as Hubert Parry (1848–1918) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958).   New anthems were written by Judith Weir (1954–) and Sir James Macmillan (1959–). Both Weir and Macmillan are Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and Weir is the only woman among the illustrious group of English composers, and the only woman to hold the position of Master of the Queen’s Music. 11 Kris Manjapra discusses some of the connections between wealth, colonialism, and the complex relationship of former subjects in the Caribbean and Africa and the Crown (Manjapra 2022; Majapra CBC Interview 2022). 12 In the Province of Ontario in Canada, for instance, there was a conflict about whether schoolchildren, many of whom have suffered because of the ongoing legacy of coloniality, should have been mandated to celebrate and memorialize the Queen (Wong 2022). 13 I define coloniality as the “all-encompassing residual web of colonizing processes, tendencies, and practices” or “along the lines of decolonial scholars as the ubiquitous residue and ongoing manifestations of the modern-colonial capitalist world-system, the superstructure which encompasses the co-constitutive and global forces of colonialism, modernity and capitalism” (Whitla 2020, 29, 7, footnote 13). 14 For an extensive analysis of coloniality in Victoria hymn texts, see Chapter  4, “The Empire Sings” (Whitla 2020, 79–126). See also Richards 2002. 15 See Chapter  5 (Whitla 2020), “Singing Back Against Empire (or the  Subaltern Sings Back)” (Whitla 2020, 127–62), for a fuller discussion of this hymn. 16 The hymn text is reproduced in Richards 2002. The interwoven and complex relationship between hymnody and missiology/evangelism is extensive and contested; evangelism is central in Christian self-understandings, but it is also seen as an abettor of colonialism by many. See Whitla 2019. 17 All texts are taken from the funeral booklet (Chapel of Westminster 2022). Additional information is available at https://hymnary.org/. 18 The no longer sung verse of Wesley’s “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” for instance, with the image of washing the Ethiop white, echoing the popular image from Aesop’s fables, is a case in point: “Wake from guilty nature’s sleep, / Christ shall give you light, / Cast all your sins into the deep, / And wash the Ethiop white.” Here, the unspoken blackness of the Ethiop is equated with guilt and sin and is washed clean by Christ’s light (Wikipedia). The original 18-verse hymn is rife with other verses that would be read as problematic today for their judgmental tone, including the way it refers to people with disabilities (verse 12), and

Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance 195 verses 15 and 16, which call upon “harlots, and publicans, and thieves” (verse 15) and “murderers, and all ye hellish crew” (verse 16) to repent. See Daniel Johnson’s chapter in this volume on this hymn. 19 For an exploration of the issues of race and color in worship, see the interview with Adele Halliday, anti-racism and equity officer for the United Church of Canada (Kidd 2021). 20 Of course, the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle stands in contrast to the funeral with the gospel choir and US Episcopalian Bishop Michael Curry. 21 Erin Johnson-Williams has written about hymns as a form of silencing (JohnsonWilliams 2022). 22 For a fuller discussion of the connection between Latin American decolonial thinkers’ other way of knowing and congregational singing, see “Chapter 5: Singing Back Against Empire (or the Subaltern Sings Back)” (Whitla 2020, 127–62). 23 For examples of how the song sounds, see Naytowhow n.d.

References Andriani, Ria. 2018. “Why Do So Many Choirs Exclude Women? It’s Time for this Outdated Practice to Change.” The Guardian, December  24. Accessed November 25, 2022. www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/24/why-do-so-manychoirs-exclude-women-its-time-for-this-outdated-practice-to-change. Bacareza Balance, Christine. 2016. Tropical Renditions: Making Musical Scenes in Filipino America. Durham: Duke University Press. Bradley, Ian. 1997. Abide with Me: The World of Victorian Hymns. London: SCM Press. CBC News. 2022. “First Nations Leadership Council calls on King Charles to Renounce Doctrine of Discovery as First Act.” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, September  10. Accessed November  20, 2022. www.cbc.ca/news/ canada/british-columbia/indigenous-communities-bc-monarchy-reconciliationqueens-death-1.6578284#:~:text=Queen%20Elizabeth’s%20death%3A%20 an%20Indigenous%20perspective&text=%22The%20Doctrine%20of%20 Discovery%20dehumanized,FNLC%20said%20in%20a%20statement. CBC, and MacIntosh, Cameron. 2022. “Indigenous Groups Share Condolences After Death of Queen Elizabeth, but Colonial Past Leaves Some Conflicted.” CBC Manitoba, September 8. Accessed November 29, 2022. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ manitoba/manitoba-indigenous-groups-queen-elizabeth-deatj-1.6576617. Chapel of Westminster. 2022. “Order of Service for the State Funeral of Her Majesty the Queen.” Accessed November 29, 2022. www.royal.uk/sites/default/files/media/ state_funeral_of_her_majesty_queen_elizabeth.pdf. Cooper, Michael. 2018. “In a Season of Boys’ Choirs, a Question: Why No Girls?” New York Times, December 26. Accessed November 25, 2022. www.nytimes.com/ 2018/12/26/arts/music/boys-choir-vienna-st-thomas-kings-college-cambridge.html. Davis, Andrea A. 2022. Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean & African Women’s Cultural Critique of Nation. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1981.“Plato’s Pharmacy.” In Dissemination, edited by Jacques Derrida, translated by Barbara Johnson, 67–186. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Doyle, Enya. 2020. “Let My Voice Be Heard: Barriers to Gender Diversity and Inclusion in Anglican Cathedral Music.” PhD thesis, Durham University. Dussel, Enrique. 1995. The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of “the Other” and the Myth of Modernity. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company.

196  Becca Whitla Elkins, Caroline. 2022. “Even During Queen Elizabeth II’s Reign Violence Was Central to the Empire.” Time, September  13. Accessed November  25, 2022. https:// time.com/6212824/queen-elizabeth-iis-reign-violence-british-empire/. Gaudry, Adam, and Danielle Lorenz. 2018. “Indigenization as Inclusion, Reconciliation, and Decolonization: Navigating the Different Visions for Indigenizing the Canadian Academy.” AlterNative 14 (3): 218–27. Goizueta, Roberto. 1995. Caminemos con Jesús: Toward a Hispanic/Latino Theology of Accompaniment. New York: Orbis Books. Government of Canada. “About the Crown.” Accessed February  19, 2023. www. canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/crown-canada/about.html. Government of Canada. “Treaties and Agreements.” Accessed February  19, 2023. www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100028574/1529354437231. Hymnary. https://hymnary.org/. Johnson-Williams, Erin. 2022. “Enclosing Archival Sound: Colonial Singing as Discipline and Resistance.” In Intersectional Encounters in the Nineteenth-Century Archive: New Essays on Power and Discourse, edited by Rachel Bryant Davies and Erin Johnson-Williams, 115–36. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Jones, Aled. 2003. “Well, I  Can Hear the Difference.” The Guardian, September 10. Accessed November 25, 2022. www.theguardian.com/music/2003/sep/10/ classicalmusicandopera. Kidd, Joelle. 2021. “Rethinking Darkness and Light.” The Anglican Journal, February 10. Accessed September 15, 2022. www.anglicanjournal.com/rethinking-darkness-and-light/. Kurz, Larissa. 2022. “First Nations University Holds Vigils Across Sask: For James Smith Cree Nation Victims.” The Regina-Leader Post, September  8. Accessed September  18, 2022. https://leaderpost.com/news/first-nations-university-holdsvigils-across-sask-for-james-smith-victims. Maduro, Otto. 2012. “An(Other) Invitation to Epistemological Humility: Notes Towards a Self-Critical Approach to Counter-Knowledges.” In Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy, edited by Ada María Isasi-Díaz and Eduardo Mendieta, 87–106. New York: Fordham University Press. Manjapra, Kris. 2022a. Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation. New York: Scribner. ———. 2022b. “Legacy of Colonialism Makes Grieving Queen Complicated for Some.” Interview, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, September. Accessed November 20, 2022. www.cbc.ca/player/play/2074058819653. Medina, Néstor. 2020. “On the Ethics and Perils of Engaging Critical Theory: Let’s Keep It Real.” Contending Modernities, October 9. Accessed December 26, 2022. https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/decoloniality/ethics-peril-critical-theory/. Medina, Néstor, and Becca Whitla. 2019. “(An)Other Canada Is Possible: Rethinking Canada’s Colonial Legacy.” Horizontes Decoloniales/Decolonial Horizons Vol. 5, Thinking from Other Worlds: Decolonial Proposals and Interrogations/Pensando Desde Otros Mundos: Propuestas e Interrogantes Decoloniales 13–42. Mignolo, Walter. 2011. “Geopolitics of Sensing and Knowing: On (De)Coloniality, Border Thinking, and Epistemic Disobedience.” Accessed July  25, 2018. https:// transversal.at/transversal/0112/mignolo/en. Moore, Randall, and Janice Killan. 2000–2001. “Perceived Gender Differences and Preferences of Solo and Group Treble Singers by American and English Children and Adults.” Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education 147: 138–44. Morris, Steven, and Caroline Davies. 2022. “King Charles Greeted by Supporters and Some Protesters in Wales.” The Guardian, September 16. Accessed November 25,

Sounding Coloniality/Voicing Resistance 197 2022. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/16/king-charles-greeted-by-suppor ters-and-some-protesters-in-wales. Morrisseau, Miles. 2022. “Indigenous People in Canada Conflicted Over Death of Queen Elizabeth II.” Indian Country Today, September 16. Accessed November 29, 2022. https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/indigenous-people-in-canada-conflictedover-death-of-queen-elizabeth-ii. Naytowhow, Joseph. n.d. “All One People.” Accessed November 30, 2022. https:// josephnaytowhow.com/musician/all-one-people-excerpt-audio/. Naytowhow, Jospeh, and Cheryl L’Hirondelle. 2000. “We Are All One People.” #141 in More Voices (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 2007). For examples of how the song sounds see: “All One People.” Accessed November 30, 2022. https:// josephnaytowhow.com/musician/all-one-people-excerpt-audio/. Olwage, Grant. 2005. “Discipline and Choralism: The Birth of Musical Colonialism.” In Music, Power, and Politics, edited by Annie J. Randall. New York: Routledge. Richards, Jeffrey. 2002. Imperialism and Music: Britain, 1876–1953. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Saskatoon StarPhoenix. 2022. “In Last Public Statement, Queen Elizabeth Extended Condolences Following Saskatchewan Stabbing Rampage.” Saskatoon StarPhoenix, September 8. Accessed December 26, 2022. https://thestarphoenix.com/news/ local-news/in-last-public-statement-queen-elizabeth-extended-condolences-following-saskatchewan-stabbing-rampage#:~:text=Royals-,In%20last%20public%20 statement%2C%20Queen%20Elizabeth%20extended%20condolences%20 following%20Saskatchewan,victims%20dead%20and%2018%20injured. ———. 2023. “Thia James, Stories of the Year: Healing in the Wake of the Mass Stabbing Tragedy on James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon.” January 4. Accessed February 19, 2023. https://thestarphoenix.com/news/local-news/stories-of-the-yeartragedy-on-james-smith-cree-nation-and-weldon. The Telegraph. 2022. “In Full: Queen Elizabeth II’s Funeral Procession, Service and Committal.” YouTube, September  19. Accessed December  29, 2022. www.you tube.com/watch?v=pscny8yL_ww. Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. 2012. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization, Indigeneity, Education & Society 1 (1): 1–40. University of Saskatchewan Student Union. 2022. “USSU Path Forward.” Accessed December 6, 2022. https://ussu.ca/path-forward/. Whitla, Becca. 2019. “Hymnody in Missionary Lands: A  Decolonial Critique.” In Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological Introductions. Vol. 2: From Catholic Europe to Protestant Europe, edited by Benjamin K. Forrest, Mark A. Lamport, and Vernon M. Whaley, 285–302. Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press. ———. 2020. (De)Coloniality, and Liturgical Practices: Flipping the Song Bird. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2022. “The Empire Sings Back: The Implications for Theology of Confronting Coloniality in Hymns.” Critical Theology 4 (3): 16–22. Wikipedia. 2022. “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” Accessed November  25, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_for_a_Thousand_Tongues_to_Sing. Wong, Jessica. 2022. “Ontario Education Minister Directs Schools to Celebrate, Memorialize the Queen.” CBC News, September 15. Accessed November 20, 2022. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ontario-schools-queen-1.6584196?__vfz=medium%3Dsh arebar&fbclid=IwAR0nMCG-DAzczEFh9V5D40c3R_zHbgQXfR0Nu4h3-hZn07S ZyvqqUifaO5w.

12 Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility A Case of Re-Location and Altered Musical Aesthetics Kgomotso Moshugi Introduction My early encounters with the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” were in my home in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, where my parents had set strict devotional times each morning and evening. During these sessions, scripture reading would be accompanied by hymn-singing. As I was growing up in a multilingual environment, there were different vernacular hymnals often in use at any given point in time. As good practice, even as a child, I had my own hymnbook, because it was the norm to have one along with a Bible. While at some level it was part of my personal daily orientation, this hymn was also among the commonly selected ones, as it continued to reinforce the kind of reliance on Christ, a teaching that Christian parents sought to impart to their children. Also, at church, it would intermittently be part of congregational singing to center Christ and bring encouragement to members, whatever their circumstances. Later in my life, it has once again resurfaced. It draws my attention and appeals to my capacities as an arranger and scholar in cultural sciences who is interested in the mobility of such ideas as embodied by Euro-American hymns and African contexts. In this chapter, I present a theoretical premise for my ideas on decoloniality and aesthetics, which I frame in dialogue with pertinent assertions from relevant academic literature. I address the issue of missionaries and the colonial effect on local cultures and musical practices as a set of formative influences in singing and arranging hymns among Black South Africans. Considering the national social context of Apartheid as a formalized legal form of oppression and segregation since the 1940s in South Africa, and before that, colonization, and the immediate settings of church communities that deliberately perpetuated this national status quo, the practice of hymns became a means through which race was constructed. For this reason, I attend to the idea of musical mobility in view of the introduction of Western hymns in Africa and the use of agency in formulating local expressions and versions. This leads to an analytical model that has proven useful in understanding hymn mobility and valuing contributions that are conventionally excluded from creative attributions. This model is presented in a chart that traces the hymn “What DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-12

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 199 a Friend We Have in Jesus” and the ongoing development of its altered aesthetics as a decolonial response of Black communities, and how they navigate environments that restrict creative agency. The title of this chapter contains several critical terms, and I begin by clarifying these. Decoloniality and Aesthetics Although not concerned with the study of music, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, in his preoccupation with redressing the problems of nineteenth-century colonialism and imperialism, advocates that while decoloniality has been implied as a political and epistemic initiative in the liberation of those previously colonized, it has also unequivocally affected the thinking, knowing, and doing facets of life. Ndlovu-Gatsheni further maintains that coloniality outlives colonialism and is sustained in a range of areas of life. He identifies the various domains of culture, the mind, language, aesthetics, and religion as affected, which presents the terrain of this chapter. Here, these ideas are explored with reference to the relocation and musical aesthetic of hymns, focusing on one in particular as a case study and an illustration of what is applicable to other hymns. I wish to assert that in the practice of hymns, an aesthetics of decoloniality runs parallel to various colonial legacies from the onset, whether implicitly or explicitly. Ndlovu-Gatsheni subscribes to the view that decoloniality is, in another way, the dismantling of hierarchical conceptions brought about by the coloniality of power, knowledge, and being (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2015). Similarly, Walter Mignolo proposes independence of thought and freedom of a decolonial nature based on privileging and valuing views and approaches that hegemonic paradigms have often silenced (Mignolo 2009). This implies that the colonial oppresses while the decolonial endeavors to liberate. The International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) draws out what I see as a useful working framework in its references or meaning-making for its constituencies and toward its imperatives, concerning the rhetoric of decolonial reflections and approaches. They highlight, for example, the questioning of theories, ideologies, epistemologies, and methodologies that do not center the methods and voices that were silenced or excluded by colonization (ICTM 2022). In essence, decolonization implies the redressing of the ills of colonization that have historically undermined colonial subjects, their value, and their cultures. In the same breath, the idea of decoloniality decenters colonial ideologies and gives recognition to other forms of thinking and knowing. Expounding on this, Ndlovu-Gatsheni posits that decoloniality in its plurality proceeds from a position of problematizing colonization and its colonial implications (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2013). Here I observe the Western hymn with the intention of understanding the local reflections and insertions that further remove it from its original aesthetic qualities. I  will also consider how hymns are not always appreciated for their decolonial posture.

200  Kgomotso Moshugi In this chapter, as alluded to in the title, my intention is to think of the Euro-American hymn as a colonial artefact. The idea of decolonizing the hymn through its mobility is about recognizing that the context of practicing the hymn needs to reflect its locality. Permitting change as it moves to a different location is reflected in how aspects of its original musical qualities such as melody, harmony, rhythm, and language also change to bear the attributes of its new location. Most hymns have been scripted into a musical score, especially those that emanate from the Western hymn practices as accessed through hymnals and hymnbooks. By implication, the score becomes the point of reference and source of instruction with musical information to guide its performance. Some cultures share related musical information through oral rather than scripted means. This is evidenced in the altered musical aesthetics that, I argue, warrant recognition as crucial features of the “decolonial aesthetic.” In agreement with Lewis Gordon on theorizing under-theorized areas of local Black cultural life, the rest of this chapter will illustrate the depth of the intelligence(s) at play in relocating a hymn through recognizing areas of value that have conventionally been considered peripheral (Gordon 2018). Based on this approach, this chapter assumes that what Mignolo refers to as epistemic disobedience is a decolonial step in the privileging of ways of knowing and doing that begin to evolve in empowering ways. Overall, this raises a pertinent recurrence of which we might be cautious, namely, that which could digress into merely new forms of obedience emanating from the very pursuit of disobedience directed against established and dominant conventions. Arnold Cusmariu, a philosopher and artist, suggests that aesthetic beauty is a property entailing characteristics of an object, with meanings or intentions against the conventional views in epistemology that challenge the objectivity of aesthetic judgments (Cusmariu 2016). In this chapter, I argue that Western hymns as religious songs or songs of praise to a supernatural being are fundamentally colonial artifacts. I recognize that, in general, hymns as expressions of devotion to a deity have historically existed in different religions, often bearing a set of words and music, both of which are features of a given culture or cultures. Specifically, the Euro-American hymns that I have broadly examined were written in the English language (with some earlier selections translated from German according to the history of Protestant hymnody) using Western musical notation and conventions. As such, I wish to further argue that, when thoroughly scrutinized, their mobility from their point of origin through missionization to their relocation in South Africa bears explicit qualities that reflect a decolonial appraisal. In the exposition that comes later detailing the actual relocation of hymns, I  utilize a mobility chart that was formulated through my thinking of the entire process of relocation as a system with different integrated components and activities. For instance, the creative systems model identifies the manifestation of creativity as an outcome of interdependent social, cultural, and individual activities and decisions working collectively, more than only a psychological function (Csikszentmihalyi 2015). This way, other elements and

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 201 role-players in the system are not excluded in the observation if they do not make an obvious or typically creative cognitive contribution. Such exclusions have been prevalent in those traditions that honor the genius of the composer as a sole creator. These other role-players include the facilitators of cultural spaces where music, or in this case hymns, are encountered and practiced. These are often church members who lead out in congregational hymns singing and who play a curatorial role, and the congregations and families that use the hymns in their immediate community circles and other social events: the cultural domain. Secondly, for any material or content to be part of a cultural domain, in this instance a faith-based community, there are often official decisions that are undertaken. I do not delve in-depth into the mechanisms of this systems model here in the same way I have previously done in my other work (Moshugi 2015, 2022; Moshugi, Netshivhambe, and Pyper 2022). Instead, here, I deconstruct the hymn through a process that has become a product of those mechanisms around systems thinking, as derived from my previous findings and theorization endeavors. Missionaries and the Colonial Effect Missionization has been referred to by some scholars as the other side of the coin of colonialism (Detterbeck 2002). The teaching of Christianity was accompanied by the teaching and singing of hymns, which is outlined in wideranging historical accounts (Detterbeck 2002; Olwage 2003). In this way, missionaries held the Bible in one hand and the hymnal in the other, given that Christian biblical teachings and hymn-singing moved hand in hand in a complementary manner (Moshugi 2022). In this way, hymns provided an artistic musical reinforcement of the sentiments of the teachings. In the first instance, the British and the descendants of the Dutch settlers (Afrikaners) were at war for the colony of South Africa, where they were laboring to establish themselves, already by the nineteenth century. Consequently, another war for souls had erupted where most of the Christian missions that were established were connected to Western countries: for example, the Anglican Church from England, the Presbyterian Church from Scotland, and the Calvinists from the Netherlands, who formed the Dutch Reformed Church (Detterbeck 2002; Mugovhani 2007). The West was at war not only for colonial rule but also for religious domination in Southern Africa. Colonization through missionization entered a local territory that already had an inherent diverse collection of local communities and sub-cultures (Moshugi 2022). Most of these, while influenced at some point by Western practices, have continued to merge with local cultures and ways of being that have reflected new forms of decoloniality. Although not the primary focus of this chapter, the use of tonic sol-fa notation became the basic tool through which the hymns were initially circulated and transmitted (Lucia 2005). Hymns, in particular, provide a site vividly illustrative of this evolution. Hence, the focus of the rest of this chapter is on the musical aesthetics in the

202  Kgomotso Moshugi South African relocation of what was originally a nineteenth-century Western hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” (Christ in Song 1908). In a comparative observation of the qualities of this hymn throughout its mobility in the process of relocation, I explore its embodied creative values and interventions, from its origin to local settings today. Through audio recordings, musical scores, and hymnal archives, I trace the hymn’s development, which has unfolded across racial and cultural lines as Black music, through its practices in a white-parented church of Seventh-Day Adventists. Here, I illustrate and argue for the hymn as a means of local intelligence and creative agency, resulting in new, decolonial kinds of musical arranging, where the musical originality is compositional, and worth being recognized as such. Knowledge of languages, musical sensibilities, and vocal abilities are at the heart of relocating these hymns. How these forms of knowledge are applied results in the enaction of particular linguistic, vocal, creative, and performative expressions of musical aesthetics that indicate a marked distinction between the hymn’s colonial origin and its local manifestations. This distinction is the musical expression of decoloniality. Musical Mobility Kofi Agawu draws on Western tonality to illustrate how it has been a force for colonization in African music, and that its features are traceable in a variety of musical cultures (Agawu 2009). He premises this on the influence of colonial missionaries and the integration of Christian hymns into African communities. While Agawu’s position is acceptable, I argue that these hymns had a range of other musical features beyond Western tonality, based on their reception, re-imagination, and transformation in creative ways that reflect original thought in multiple scenarios. Observing this creative and original thought is central to my inquiry. Essentially, my position is that the local cultural domain expanded in a variety of ways and created new possibilities arising from the intersection of influences toward decoloniality. The hymn also then became a form of resistance to colonial musical obedience in broad and specific terms. I argue that this process of hymn development occurs organically, and sometimes subliminally. However, it is as a result of the shift from Western cultural settings into the African context that deliberate efforts to integrate local languages and other forms of local interpretation signify more elaborate efforts in hymnic decoloniality. This level of autonomy and creative agency has often evolved within different measures of an oppressive national and church-specific context that has undermined Blacks and the value of their cultural expressions. Juniper Hill identifies several classifications used by musicians to describe themselves (Hill 2019). Among these, she recognizes the importance of “agency” in individuals and communities as the autonomy to be creative and express musical ideas freely. Observing a community in central Africa

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 203 in a study concerning hymn practices, King employs the analogy of birds of a certain area and their unique sounds to assert that people of one specific culture bring their sense of sound and music to the experience of worship in church settings (King 2008). She supports this with a few examples of urban environments where worship is conducted in a building where the singing of Western hymns is fused with local choruses. Her second example is of a rural setting where villagers congregate under a tree, listening to a Bible story told to them through a song in their local cultural genre, language, and identity. Based on these scenarios, King affirms the importance of studying the unique aspects of the musical life of African Christian believers. From Origin to Re-Location Studying the process of creativity as a system of activities rather than acts of individual genius presents what resonates as decolonial affordances in understanding multiple contributions toward hymn relocation. In recognizing these activities and their value, the role of concerned institutions and individuals becomes significant. Hence, it became apparent that observing the qualities of a hymn only at the point of relocation potentially undermines the fundamental merits of what the idea of mobility entails in its entirety—the beginning, middle, and end. A hymn at its point of origin and relocation is an outcome of in-between and contextual events and decisions that are not only musical but also some theological, administrative, cultural, and political. I make and support this assertion based on utilizing a systems approach. Therefore, the illustrated chart is useful for understanding and presenting details of mobility, as it is a product of systems analysis that values social, cultural, and artistic elements. Some of these elements are conventionally seen in isolation from creativity. Here, my main assertion is that elements in the chart have the significant ability to enable or disable the eventual relocation of a hymn.

Figure 12.1 Hymn relocation chart: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

204  Kgomotso Moshugi Drawing from the broader doctoral study of the localization of EuroAmerican hymns in Africa that I  conducted, the mobility chart provides a summarized visual representation of the development of a given hymn at its point of origin and its movement throughout a chain-like sequence, until it reaches a point of relocation (Moshugi 2022). The middle blocks labelled 1 to 6 represent each of the steps that mark this mobility. The interventions that facilitate or enable each of these are identified on the bottom and top rows with arrows pointing inward to the relevant step that they impact. These comprise institutions and individuals or groups of people who carried out particular activities or decisions. The most important part of the chart is a comparative evaluation of the qualities of a given hymn at its point of origin and consequential new location. This chart denotes a larger scale of mobility where several hymns generally studied follow a similar trajectory. However, here, a discussion is delivered in a narrower context, with specific attention given to the movement of the nineteenth-century hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” as a particular instance of localization. The distinction is always at the level of aesthetic qualities when they are compared on the basis of what they are at the point of origin, and what they become at the point of relocation. If they remain unchanged, then the hymn at its relocation carries the same aesthetic attributes as at its origin. If the qualities are different, then the identifiable difference is the representation of a decolonial response. For this reason, this chart not only provides the geographical progression of the hymn and the cultural factors responsible for its shift but also aids the measuring of musical qualities and aesthetics. This way, the variations between the original and local version become clear indicators of the values that shape the renewal of the hymn away from its place of conception and its related initial practices. Tune and Lyrics With the backdrop of the growth of Protestantism and the mass migration of people from Europe to North America and the impact of the colonial evangelical mission era, the practice of hymn writing continued to grow alongside new expressions of Christian faith in South Africa (Moshugi 2022). Hymn writing became reflected in the diverse and expansive personal expressions of faith that served as a means to come to terms with the experience of severance when moving from one place to another. As a result, a growing number of Christians were generating devotional words often informed by their own religious convictions and particular circumstances (Page 2004; Moshugi 2015). Joseph Scriven (1819–1866), who wrote the text to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” was a Christian believer born in Ireland and who lived in Canada after suffering numerous disappointments in his personal life and presumably moving there as part of the general Christian migration to

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 205 colonial contexts. He was often involved in working for poor communities and authored the words of the hymn in 1855. He wrote this text during his attempts to comfort his sick mother, having himself suffered distress due to loss of loved ones and sources of income. He was familiar with the human condition of struggle and pain, from which he drew inspiration; this is evident in the lyrical content of his poem with three verses. Scriven’s text sought to importantly emphasize devotional encouragement and, according to the account given, was not intended for public sharing (Polman 2022). Verse 1

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer! Verse 2

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer! Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer! Verse 3

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Saviour still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer! Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer! In his arms he’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there. Words by Joseph Medlicott Scriven (1855) This text was first anonymously published around 1865 as poetry in Social Hymns, Original and Selected, a compilation of texts edited by Horace Hastings, who was himself a hymn writer (Leask 2023), before they were set to music in 1868 by Charles Converse (1832–1918), who was living in the United States of America. The hymn, as it has been generally scored and sung since then, is a product of the authorship and musical composition of Scriven and Converse, even though there is no indication that they ever met in person, as it has often been the case with the writers of innumerous other hymns. This is the first indication of mobility as it relates to the lyrics of this hymn. Through documentation, publication, and circulation, the text eventually reached Converse, who subsequently added value to a set of words through a tune. Since then, it has been published in no less that 1,627 hymnals across many different denominations (Hymnary.org 2022).

206  Kgomotso Moshugi Christ in Song Hymnal The existence of this hymn and its availability in the broader Christian domain through its adoption by denominations made it widely accessible to different congregants and practitioners. Franklin Belden, a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, had already been involved in compiling a series of published hymnals since the late 1880s. In the same period, he had also begun compiling a new collection of hymns called Christ in Song. It comprised close to a thousand selections and was carefully crafted to inform and enrich and encourage a wholesome, devotional Christian life. Perhaps for its appeal and relatability, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was among the hymns in the collection (and seemingly a favorite, since then it has appeared in a wide range of Christian music repertoires and other hymnals and in recordings from artists) (Hymnary.org 2022). Although Belden included it in his collection in 1901, it was in 1908, through the support of the Review and Herald (RV), a publishing entity of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, that the hymn was widely circulated within this denomination. Through Belden’s creation of the compilation and the publishing prowess and reach of RV, Christ in Song was not only a reality but also became accessible in wideranging localities. In South Africa The 1800s were a period of extensive missionary work. It is in this period that an expansive number of denominations were established outside of their Western origins. This was done through missionary work, including in different parts of South Africa. As mentioned earlier about the war for colonial rule and, parallel to it, the contest for religious domination, many different churches and missions were established in various part of the country (Erlmann 1991; Detterbeck 2002; Olwage 2003; Mugovhani 2007). This establishment was achieved through both the dissemination of the gospel teachings and the circulation of Christian hymns. In the case of Seventh-Day Adventists, the missionaries came to South Africa in the 1880s, not long after the church’s formal establishment in the United States in 1863 (Erlmann 1991; Detterbeck 2002; Olwage 2003; Mugovhani 2007). The first Adventist to set foot in the country was an American, William Hunt (1822–1897), who had interests in mining. This was in 1878, when he settled in Kimberly, a town that was an attraction due to the diamond discoveries in the region. Through his interactions with a wealthy Dutch family, the Wessels, who accepted the Seventh-Day Adventist faith, he became instrumental in supporting the establishment of the church locally and soliciting for missionaries to be formally sent from America (Hachalinga 2020). When the first cohort arrived, they distributed various forms of literature, later including the hymnal Christ in Song, which had already been popular in the United States of

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 207 America (Cunningham 2013). After the church was formally established in South Africa early in the 1910s, and following the patterns of other denominations in their efforts to localize, the Adventist church commissioned translations of the English hymns into local vernacular languages. They compiled a selection of songs out of it into what became the African Christ in Song, with the title itself translated into local languages, for example, “uKrestu Eshlabelelwen” in IsiZulu (Moshugi 2022). While the compilation originated in America, its existence as a published hymnal required the movement of missionaries and the actual formal decisions by the church in order to integrate into local congregations globally. In South Africa, once the selection of hymns translated were compiled into the vernacular hymnal(s), they were published by the local publishing entity of the church, Sentinel. This ensured the availability of physical copies in local languages. A close analysis of the translation of the IsiZulu “Yeka Isihlobo Sethu uJesu” version of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” supports my argument that translation is more than just shifting from one language to another. The IsiZulu hymnal was commissioned for translation by the Southern African Union Conference, which was the highest regional governing body of the church. Elijah Kuboni, who was a Black local pastor and a former teacher, played a leading role in the translation of the IsiZulu hymnal, which was formerly completed and has remained unchanged since 1960 (Moshugi 2022). Translation is a process of enabling cultural interaction and offering insights into the original hymn. It rewrites the hymn from a local lens and inserts aspects of vernacular life into its reading, subsequently influencing how it is read and experienced. To support this position, in Table 12.1 I outline the original English words and generate a direct translation which, regardless of its accurate expression of the original meaning, rarely works for musical patterns. As a result, the original vernacular texts are not direct translations but expressions of the essence intended in the original themes. This is made explicit through a retranslation of vernacular hymn texts back to English, as they do not match the original: indicating that change has occurred. While direct translation is supposedly as close as possible to the originally intended themes, here, I indicate that even at its best it may not work when intended to fit musical patterns. I this sense, translation is more than merely writing from one language to another and should be recognized as an activity of value that provides more than just cultural access. This grid presents it as a complex process firstly at the level of language and secondly at the level of translating to musical text. It has required cultural knowledge, musical and theological understandings. As such, it becomes a collaborative intellectual exercise between the original authorship and re-authoring in the vernacular language, which results in what I see in totality as co-authoring. This latter understanding is underscored by the fact that the local translation is thematically and sentimentally related to the original text.

208  Kgomotso Moshugi Table 12.1 Translation Grid, as drawn and analyzed from Christ in Song (1908), Hymn No. 643, and “uKrestu Eshlabelelweni” (1960), Hymn No. 100, “Yeka Isihlobo Sethu uJesu” Original English lyrics (Christ in Song—Hymnal)

Direct IsiZulu IsiZulu hymnal translation (by text (uKrestu researcher—Moshugi) Eshlabelelweni)

What a friend we Umhlobo na esinaye kuJesu, have in Jesus, zoke izono zethu all our sins and nezinsizi ukuzithgriefs to bear! wala, Ithuba yini What a privilege ukuzi thwalela, to carry everykuNkulunkulu thing to God in ngmkhuleko, prayer! Ukuthula yini O what peace we okusilahlekelayo often forfeit, O kaningi, engadinwhat needless gakali inhlungu pain we bear, siyi thwala, konke All because we do ngoba singanot carry everykuthwalelanga thing to God in kuNkulunkulu prayer! ngomkhuleko! Sinezinhlupho Have we trials nezilingo na, and temptabukhona ubunzima tions? Is ndawoni thizeni, there trouble Akufuneki sidananywhere? gale, kuse eNkosini We should never ngomkhuleko, be discouraged; Siyakwazi yini take it to the ukuthola ishlobo Lord in prayer! esithembekile Can we find a esingaba nathi friend so faithkwizililo zethu, ful who will uJesu ubazi bonke all our sorrows ubuthakathaka share? bethu, kuse eNkoJesus knows our sini ngomkhuleko! every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer! Are we weak and Sibuthakathaka sithwele kanzima yini? heavy laden, cumbered with Sizungezwe yiqwaba yenkathazo? a load of care? Precious Saviour uMsindisi oyigugu useyisiphephelo still our refuge, sethu take it to the Lord in prayer!

Direct re-translation to English (by researcher—Moshugi)

Our Friend Jesus, Yek’ is’hlobo who carries our seth’ uJesu! sins, it’s wonderful Othwal’ izono to take all to Him zethu, through prayer, we Kuhl’ ukusa lose peace when we konke kuYe pay Him no mind, Ngako because we have ukukhuleka. not taken all to Si yalahla Jehovah. ukuthula, Ngokungamnaki kwethu; Ngoba a sikusanga-ke; Konke kuY’ uJehova. We have trials and Si nenhlupo temptations, and nezilingo, Kanye nenkattroubles? Can we hazo na? sit courageously, Si ngahlala taking all to Him, ngesibindi; Where can we find a Konke si kuse friend like Jesus, He kuYe. loves us and bears Sothola ngaph’ with us, when we isihlobo Esinpray to Him. jengo Jesu na? U sithanda esizwela; Nxa si khuleka kuYe.

Si yasindwa yimithwalo Sehlulwa zinhlupho na? uJesu yisiphephelo Nxa sikhuleka kuye

Are we heavy laden with burdens Overcome by suffering Jesus is our refuge When we pray and worship Him

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 209 Original English lyrics (Christ in Song—Hymnal)

Direct IsiZulu IsiZulu hymnal translation (by text (uKrestu researcher—Moshugi) Eshlabelelweni)

Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer! In his arms he’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

Kuse eNkosini ngomthandazo Ingaba izihlobo zakho zikucekela phansi zikushiye? Kuse eNkosini ngomthandazo Ezingalweni zayo iyokuthwala ikuvikele uYo thola khona induduzo

Nom’izhlobo zikudela Khuleka enkosini Yogugon’ ikududuze Ezingalweni zayo

Direct re-translation to English (by researcher—Moshugi) Though your friends denounce you Worship to the Lord He’ll carry and comfort you In His arms

Although some may get into the debates as to the accuracies of translations or its related problems, the position I  assume here is based on the activity of translation as a linguistic and cultural gateway for the hymn to exist in a new location. Given the meaning changes that are almost inevitable in translations, my aim with this earlier grid is to simply provide a sense of the text and its translated versions. In this sense, the skill and knowledge that translators bring to the process are of value. More so, this not only requires linguistic shifts but also has to align to musical rhythms and patterns in a way that retains the integrity of the original structures, a process that depends on and requires types of, often subverted, creativities. For example, the first line, “What a friend we have in Jesus,” is implied locally in vernacular as “Our friend Jesus.” In my view, the original almost presents it as a suggestion, while the local is more affirmative and conclusive. Congregational Practice The use of the hymnal as a standard source of song and singing implied that the hymns were a central part of church and community life among Adventists, as they have since been. This hymn “Yeka Isihlobo Sethu uJesu” (“What a Friend We Have in Jesus”) is no. 100 in uKrestu Eshlabelelweni (IsiZulu translation for Christ in Song) and, with its relatable themes, presents Christ as a friend and one who is connected to human suffering, ready to receive prayers. Having encountered this hymn in my home, and understanding its thematic appeal and familiarity with congregations, I  recognized its importance and sought to add my musical reflections and reimagination to its ongoing and growing circulation.

210  Kgomotso Moshugi Ensemble Practice Euro-American influences are deeply rooted in local Adventist musical practices. The history of imitating American singing groups and drawing on their repertoire for local performances was not only a norm but also went back to before the 1950s, as drawn from interviews documented in my recent study on Adventist ensemble practices (Moshugi 2022). This long-established culture of mimicry was interrupted especially since the 1990s, a period marked by a distinct shift toward self-affirming localized hymn and musical expressions among Adventists and other local communities. In understanding what might have contributed to this shift, the socio-political landscape in the country toward a free South Africa became a phenomenon whose impact on cultural expressions could not be overlooked. In my view, this sense of freedom was extended to artistic expressions even in an Adventist environment that had previously resisted local insertion of African thought and authentically local productions. The concept of “groups” as they are commonly referred to in the church relates to small ensembles often formed out of the larger congregation with the intention to provide special music during the services, through recordings or other types of performances. These groups can be a mix of genders, formulations of two to more than ten singers. Still, the culture of male quartet singing has been among the most popular or framing practices. Following in that trajectory, I became a leader and part of a local male and female ensemble, No Limits, formed in Soweto in 1995. We were an offshoot of a greater organic movement during an era of transition and growing affirmation of local Africanized musical expressions. For decades, there had been a musical culture of imitation that disallowed integration of local musical influences by foreign missionaries initially. Later, those who learned from them continued to perpetuate their mentality. Often, this was seen as the standard of proper Adventist practice even as it privileged the Western orientations of the missionaries at the cost of local ideas. The 1990s became a period of discovery and creative progress. In the early 2000s, after establishing myself as a vocal arranger and musical composer, we became intentional and elaborate in our quest for a distinct African sound. While conceptualizing numerous projects, I referred to the hymnal, as it was common practice to fuse original compositions with reframed hymns. Intentional about it, I worked on different hymns, such as “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” “Glory to His Name,” to accentuate a particular Africanness. Along with others, “Yeka Isihlobo Sethu uJesu” stood out for me in a particular moment of creativity. While reflecting on it and exploring different creative possibilities, I came up with an arrangement that became part of the No Limits recording that was released in 2004, Dare to Dream (No Limits 2004). Point of Origin As mentioned earlier, the original hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” follows the form and musical conventions of Western hymn writing. The

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 211 melody is presented in the context of a four-part-harmony framework writ­ ten out in staff notation for congregational singing—covering soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, as indicated in Figure  12.2. In each of the verses, Scriven identifies a typical condition and provides a type of response to it. In the first verse, sins, griefs, lack of peace, and the presence of pain are the condition to which Jesus as a friend is presented, to whom everything is to be taken in

Figure 12.2 As it appears in “Christ in Song”—“What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

212  Kgomotso Moshugi prayer. In the second verse, he points out the need for prayer in the case of trials, temptations, troubles, and discouragement. Finally, in the third verse, the condition of being weak, heavy-laden, overcome with cares, and forsaken by friends is resolved by a precious savior who is a refuge, shield, and source of comfort. The verses are three and without a chorus, which explains that it was, in the first instance, not written as a song. It also follows a much older pattern of hymn writing where there were only verses, until the influence of the American hymn composer Ira David Sankey (1840–1908), who was at the helm of the transformative inclusion of choruses or repeats. In this particular hymn, Converse offers a melody that sonically or musically creates a verse and a deceptive chorus or repeat. In each verse, the fifth and sixth lines or phrases of the hymn build up to a type of climax or intensity before resolving back to a repeat of the third and fourth phrases. Point of Relocation The hymn now exists in vernacular translations in several languages, for instance, in IsiZulu (uKrestu Eshlabelelweni), IsiXhosa (uKristu Engomeni), and Sesotho (Kreste Pineng). Although some of the translations are not as direct as presented in uKrestu Eshlabelelweni, the theme and essence of the hymn are maintained even as it bears a new linguistic texture and cultural framework. It is set to tonic sol-fa notation, as depicted in Figure  12.3, a common method that became popular and useful in the local transmission of hymns across denomination widely (Olwage 2010). The transcription presents the notes and structures of the hymn as originally composed. At face value, the advancement seems to be only from one language to another, but the sonic nature of the vernacular language has its effect. Observing the characteristics of the hymns, the changing of the language alters how it is encountered, unless the sonic distinctions are of no substance. For example, the IsiZulu language is rhythmic and can sound almost percussive, depending on how it is accented. The words, with their cultural meanings, inspire particular ways of expression that may not be in the original hymn but are a result of the nuances of the vernacular. Also, particular words constitute inherent understandings and emotions that retexture the manner in which the hymn is experienced. This process of relocation is enabled by new forms of knowledge, linguistic and cultural, not initially inherent in the hymn but evolving with the local version and its renewed qualities. The arrangement presented by No Limits is directly drawn from the vernacular hymnal. It relies totally on the IsiZulu language. Because the hymn has three verses and no chorus per se, I opted to reimagine it on the basis of what the words meant to me, the emotions they evoked, and the manner in which I thought it should be re-presented in order to emphasize its meaning and devotional qualities. As such, each of the three verses in the new arrangement is unique, as if to tell a story. Still, at the end of the first and second

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 213

Figure 12.3 As it appears in “uKrestu Esihlabelelweni.”

214  Kgomotso Moshugi verses, I created a musically similar moment of repetition around the seventh phrase to emphasize both the words “ngoba asikusanga” (“because we have not taken”—first verse), “usithanda esizwela” (“He Loves while feeling for us”—second verse), and the melody, ultimately highlighting the lyrics and creating an elusive chorus. This was so that the meaning that I sought to draw out, and that I deemed important in the hymn, was instead accentuated in a way that renewed the experience and awareness of its meaning. To offer a more useful deconstruction, it is also vital to expand on the distinction of the verses, since they collectively signify the uniqueness of this arrangement. The first verse is a melodic derivative of the original, with a slight change in the rhythm of the melody. Originally, the first bar has two beats to the first word, “what,” and in the arrangement, the second beat is not a half note but a quarter note, replacing the pull with a lyric. This pattern continues generally and throughout where note values are altered to match a renewed expression inspired by the vernacular language. Also, there is an association with the African choral sound made famous by the group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which had local popularity since the 1960 before rising to international prominence in the 1980s. They have a wide repertoire in IsiZulu as one of the local South African languages (and it was officially made a South African language in 1994). Their sound became a point of reference that I wanted to insert to distinguish this arrangement and to texture an African sound within it. The closeness to the original melody was also intended to retain a sense of familiarity and to ease the listener into the hymn. The second verse takes a complete melodic turn and is further removed from the original. It creates a sonic expression that seeks to intensify the emotion in line with the words of the verse on having temptations, trials, and troubles, for instance. The section is a rewrite of the melody informed by the IsiZulu expression, almost like a melodic translation following after, or inspired by, the linguistic, where previously translation was only limited to a change of language. The alteration in the melody has also implied an appropriate musical adaptation harmonically. The closing of the second verse uses different words but returns to the musical structure of the closing of the first verse on that pseudo chorus, a section of the arrangement that is not an actual chorus but is repetitive, to give a sense of what would have been an actual chorus in convention of hymn structures that have the verse and recurring chorus. My idea of a pseudo chorus is to illustrate how a section of the song or hymn serves as a chorus where it was not initially written as a chorus or repeating part. The third verse also takes a tangent leading to the climax of the song, with new melodic qualities, different from the previous two verses. On the fifth phrase, there is a repeat of the phrase “no’mizhlobo zikudela, khuleka eNkosini, iyokugon’ikududuze, ezingalweni zayo,” which relates to the last part of the last verse in English. These repeat several times as a way of emphasis and appeal. Although there are other sections, and that repeat in the midst of those creates variations, in the arrangement, this latter part is intended to

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 215 drive the primary idea of a Christ who is close and connected to the suffering of his people. The concluding part is a short repetition of vocables (non-word sounds, like oohs and aahs, in other instances, except here the sounds are heyi heyi heyi heyi heyi), where there could have been a humming or oohs. This is meant to let the musical theme simmer and the intensity to sink. The lead voice accentuates this elaborately. The harmonic structure of the arrangement as a whole follows the fascination of those days with extended harmonies, tension, and suspended notes that do not resolve in most passages (No Limits 2004). Conclusion “Decolonial” rhetoric has captured the interest of scholars in recent years across various disciplines and fields of study. Various scholars accentuate particular orientations and features of its definition. Mostly, this is underscored by an intention to represent contemporary reflections and responses to colonization and its subsequent problems of privileging Western hegemony at the cost of other perspectives, preferences, or ways of life (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2015). Some of the ideas further imply that colonization has undermined the very humanity of those it has subdued (Moshugi 2022). While a wide range of such perspectives that speak to the importance of the decolonial are continuously explored in terms of what they mean in each context, the fact that colonization has affected all areas of life and that its legacies continue even in the post-colonial era gives gravitas to this rhetoric as a necessary postcolonial paradigm that values a people and their culture (Gordon 2018). If the process of colonization is “the doing” that leads to particular outcomes, then the process of decolonization is “the undoing” that aims for a different set of outcomes. In my view, the “decolonial” is crafted on the basis of the ills, limitations, and unjustness of the colonial. The origin of the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and its movement through missions related to colonialism, as well as the general history of hymnody and its impositions on singing traditions according to the hymnal notation, positions it in colonial settings, both geographically and ideologically. In the process of its mobility, the attempts to insert and permit local voices to alter the original hymn with local expressions indicate forms of its rebirth in a new context. Through this hymn, for example, an artifact that was conceptualized and associated with colonial contexts is infused with the local in ways that represent moments of what becomes the decolonial, the unmaking of a Euro-American in the making of its African counterpart. The musical qualities and their aesthetics, although related, are not similar or a mere replica. They assume new forms and reflect various aspects of their new localities in their adapted aesthetic qualities. As indicated here, the actual reception of Euro-American hymns and local voices that proclaim it is significant. As indicated through the hymn mobility chart, the formal and informal process through which it integrates into local

216  Kgomotso Moshugi settings have value. The translation grid confirms that the process is not a mere shift between languages. The change in musical qualities in the local version also indicates that through arranging—for instance, in the No Limits performance—the hymn is transformed into a new extended composition. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” in this case, is no longer just a Western artifact in Africa; it is a product of intersecting cultures and a local decolonial response to a foreign colonial work. Essentially, when a valuable devotional hymn mobilizes and is permitted to mutate, its value is extended through ideas and aesthetics that heighten its perpetual relevance among various audiences across epochs and cultural settings. In this sense, aesthetics are not reified but undergo perpetual alteration and reformulation. In a denomination that has been argued to have progressed along racial lines, the very practice of hymns was itself trapped in this reality. The retitling of the hymnal into Black vernacular languages and the exclusive use of tonic sol-fa were reserved for Black congregations, whereas other hymnals were set to staff notation. As observed, this hymn is practiced in Black communities using Black vernacular signifiers. The relocation of the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” in South Africa represents decoloniality at the level of its circulation and performance by local voices and accents, translation into vernacular languages, re-imagination through the insertion of local cultural nuances, and the alteration of musical elements. References Agawu, Kofi. 2009. “Tonality as a Colonizing Force in African Music.” CIRMMT Distinguished Lectures in the Science and Technology of Music, McGill University, Montréal. Accessed December 5, 2020. www.youtube.com/watch. Belden, Franklin. 1908. Christ in Song. Battle Creek, MI: Belden. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.  2015. The Systems Model of Creativity: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Dordrecht: Springer. Cunningham-Fleming, Jeryl. 2013.  “ ‘We Sang Alleluia, Praise the Lord!’: AfricanAmerican Identity and the Use and Reception of Music within a Seventh-Day Adventist Church in New York City, 1970–2010.” PhD thesis, University of Kentucky. Cusmariu, Arnold. 2016. “Toward an Epistemology of Art.” Symposion 3 (1): 37–64. Detterbeck, Markus. 2002. “South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the Formation of Identity.” PhD thesis, University of KwaZulu Natal. Erlmann, Veit. 1991. African Stars: Studies in Black South African Performance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gordon, Lewis R. 2018. “Black Aesthetics, Black Value.”  Public Culture  30 (1): 19–34. Hachalinga, Passmore. 2020. “Wessels, Pieter Johannes Daniel (1856–1933).” In Encyclopedia of Seventh-Day Adventists. E-Encyclopaedia. Accessed February 16, 2023. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=ACDF. Hill, Juniper. 2019. “Cultural Imperialism and the Assessment of Creative Work.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education, 277. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Decolonizing a Hymn through Its Mobility 217 Hymn No. 643, and “uKrestu Eshlabelelweni.” 1960. Hymn No. 100, “Yeka Isi­ hlobo Sethu uJesu.” Hymnary.org. 2022. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Accessed February 2, 2023. https://hymnary.org/text/what_a_friend_we_have_in_jesus_all_our_s#instances. ICTM. 2022. Accessed June 30, 2021. http://ictmusic.org/dialogues2021. King, Roberta R. 2008. “Beginnings: Music in African Church.” In Music in the Life of the African Church, edited by R. King, J. N. Kidula, J. R. Krabill, and T. A. Oduro, 1–16. Waco: Baylor University Press. Leask, Margaret. 2023. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” In The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Accessed February 10, 2023. www.hymnology.co.uk/w/what-a-friend-we-have-in-jesus. Lucia, Christine, ed. 2005. The World of South African Music: A Reader. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press. Mignolo, Walter D. 2009. “Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom.” Theory, Culture & Society 26 (7–8): 159–81. Moshugi, Kgomotso. 2015. “Between the Church and the Marketplace: How Professional Gospel Musicians Negotiate the Tension Between Sacred and Market Contexts, with Reference to the Case of No Limits, a Vocal Music Group from Soweto.” MA, University of the Witwatersrand. ———. 2022. “Transnationalisation and Indigenisation of Euro-American Hymns in South Africa Through the Creative Agency of Arranging.” PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand. Moshugi, Kgomotso, Evans Netshivhambe, and Brett Pyper. 2022. “Centring Embodied Practice in African Music Studies: Creative Alternatives.” Ethnomusicology Forum 31 (1): 70–100. Mugovhani, Ndwamato George. 2007. “Venda Choral Music: Compositional Styles.” PhD thesis, University of South Africa. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 2013. “Why Decoloniality in the 21st Century.”  The Thinker 48 (10): 5–9. ———. 2015. “Decoloniality as the Future of Africa.”  History Compass  13 (10): 485–96. No Limits. 2004. “Yek’ is’Hlobo.” Accessed February 2, 2023. www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qQezqEaDQK8. Olwage, Grant. 2003. “Music and (Post)Colonialism: The Dialectics of Choral Culture on a South African Frontier.” PhD thesis, Rhodes University. ———. 2010. “Singing in the Victorian World: Tonic Sol-Fa and Discourses of Religion, Science and Empire in the Cape Colony.” Muziki 7 (2): 193–215. Page, Nick. 2004. And Now Let’s Move Into a Time of Nonsense: Why Worship Songs are Failing the Church. Milton Keynes: Authentic Media Inc. Polman, Bert. 2022. “Joseph Medlicott Scriven.” Hymnary.org. Accessed Septem­ ber 30, 2021. https://hymnary.org/person/Scriven_JM.

13 Hymns as Heritage Decolonizing Javanese Music and Culture in Paramaribo, Suriname Jun Kai Pow

Prologue The singing of hymns as a global genre has, with time, come to evince a quality of empowerment, whether belonging to an individual or a community (Clapp-Itnyre 2018; Roberts 2019). Kofi Agawu, writing on the colonizing force of European tonality and hymns, takes a contrary view: “in domesticating hymns . . . the intonational contours prescribed by [German or English] speech tones . . . amounts to musical violence of a very high order” (2016, 336–37). Agawu was referring to the colonization of the African harmonic consciousness (2016, 349) as a debilitating act. A  similar analogy could, however, be applied to the racialization of the African and Indigenous people in many regions of the world through the integration of Western hymns into everyday culture. That the hymn espouses such a categorical potential to discriminate as well as amass people of similar races has become a modern-day phenomenon. Stemming from my research interest in postcolonial religiosity and its musical impact on the Javanese diaspora, the idea was proposed to me that there may be some Christian music being performed on the angklung in Suriname.1 Up until that time, I had not heard of the South American country or studied its history or culture. My instant reaction was to do a word search on the Internet, and the first information that showed up belonged to those of the Duta Watjana Angklung Ensemble. Many of the images and videos showcased groups of women dressed in colorful costumes swaying to soothing songs of praise. The origin of the angklung, a traditional idiophonic bamboo instrument, stems from the rice plantations in West Java, where farmers used the rattles to indicate temporal markers. Today, the instrument can be heard in both popular music settings as well as in international schools to promote cultural diplomacy and physiological pedagogy (Zubillaga-Pow 2014). As a researcher in the history of the angklung, I  was curious as to the repertoire and function that the instrument served for the Javanese diaspora far away from Southeast Asia. I made the initial contact via email using my basic

DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-13

Hymns as Heritage 219

Figure 13.1 A photo of the angklung instrument.

grasp of the Dutch language and found my winter getaway to the Caribbean nation-state of Suriname. The Javanese from the Dutch East Indies arrived as indentured laborers to work on the sugar plantations of Dutch Guiana in 1890. Over 130 years of their presence, some of the Javanese had chosen to remain in the Caribbean, while many of their counterparts moved to the Netherlands or returned to Indonesia when Suriname gained its independence from the Dutch in 1975. Today the Javanese Surinamese stand at a population of about a 100,000, forming a small 15% of the entire population. The lingua franca among the current generation of the Javanese Surinamese is more Sranan Tongo and Dutch than Javanese (Villerius, Moro, and Klamer 2020). In addition, their descendants have retained their gastronomic and other vital cultures, such as medicine and the arts. In the area of music, the gamelan and the four-piece electric combo band are but some of the popular activities prevalent among the Javanese immigrants in Suriname today. Much of their political and cultural activities continue to be supported by the Surinamese and Indonesian governments together. The material and sensual elements of the erstwhile imperial regime have very much become intrinsic to understanding the cultural heritage of the Javanese diaspora in Suriname.

220  Jun Kai Pow What is lesser known, however, both within and without the country, is the sacred practice of the angklung ensemble as part of the local church services. This chapter in particular aims to unravel decolonial meanings from the present-day religious uses of the angklung in Suriname. While some Javanese have chosen Islam as their religion, many Surinamese of Javanese descent have converted to the Christian faith and its customs. All the church services in the capital, Paramaribo, take place at 09:00 every Sunday. The rigid habitus of the Christian congregation becomes a salient point in the organization of everyday life, so much so that the familiarity and familiarization of relations and rituals create a community of practice that a participant—whether as a postcolonial or decolonial subject—would find difficulty in deviating from its structure. This chapter revolves around the question and reasons that why the impetus to decolonize, musically or otherwise, has yet to be taken up by a distinct community of people previously colonized by the Dutch in Suriname (Hira 2015; Moore 2000). In deliberately wanting the experiences of the interlocutors to be presented unmediated, my first section provides an exposition of their traditional lifestyle, while the middle exegesis clarifies the intellectual call for decolonial practice by different international proponents. My closing reflection pits the two discourses against each other to reveal the circumstances in which the Javanese Surinamese, albeit living today in a time when descendants of colonized subjects have been enacting the laws and rites of decolonization around the world, have continued to subscribe to the colonial status quo in adhering to much of Dutch and Surinamese vernacular culture, to the extent of framing these activities as a part of their heritage. This academic investigation is thereby set on the contradictory premise whereby the decolonial critique is perceived from an exogenous orientation. Such a positioning is, in itself, predicated on the subjects’ own cultural autonomy and forecloses any agency of change or external continuity. An additional note on methodology: this chapter is part of a larger research project looking at the changing practices of the angklung through multiple cartographical and cultural points of contact. These networks of patronage appear sporadically in Southeast Asia, western Europe, and the Caribbean. For various geographical and administrative reasons, the methods used in obtaining information have differed from site to site. While surveys and structured interviews have been implemented previously, which exposed some linguistic and socio-cultural differences that posed methodological limits in my procurement of more accurate data at this stage in my research, I have utilized a calibrated way of participation and observation to apprehend the cultural and musical practices for the Surinamese case study. One reason the intimate experiences of the auricular are a powerful subject of study here is that the standard resources of a document-based historical study, such as letters, newspapers, or manuscripts, were either not privy to me or few and far between. As opposed to researching the soundscape of a highly connected global city (cf. Cohen and Kronenburg 2018; Ho and Zubillaga-Pow 2014),

Hymns as Heritage 221 I could also not rely on any archives, libraries, or concert halls in conducting a musicological investigation of a church community in a developing country. Instead, I had to gather substantial information from the leaders of the musical groups as well as from online recordings.2 An Ethnography I flew into Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, from Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where I was working as a research fellow in Asian heritages. Outside the arrivals hall, travelers were treated to a welcome ceremony by an entourage of Indigenous people from Suriname. There was drumming, dancing, and hocketing to entertain visitors flying in from the Netherlands and the USA. I got onto my pre-booked airport–hotel transfer without a hiccup and was picked up in the evening by a local community musician, Budiman, for a visit to the Sana Budaya Cultural Centre.3 Budiman had arranged an arumba rehearsal with five of his group mates at the center for Javanese arts and heritage. Four of the Surinamese men of Javanese descent were playing on the angklung racks and kulintang xylophones. Including the drummer and a singer, the middle-aged men were dressed casually in polo shirts, shorts, and slippers. To my surprise, their repertoire was American reggae and kaseko, a vernacular form of popular music (Bilby 1999). After the rehearsal, I was invited to dinner at a nearby restaurant serving traditional Indonesian cuisine. The activities over the next few days of fieldwork turned out to fall into two distinct categories of the musical and the commercial. I met members of the Duta Watjana Angklung Ensemble in Paramaribo three times during my week in the capital.4 The Duta Watjana Angklung Ensemble is considered one of three organizations in the world that is heard in a Christian environment. Instead of conventional staff notation, they rely on a numerical solfeggio system aligned with the Indonesian standard practice. The performers are always decked out in colorful costumes, whether in church or in social media videos. The first meeting was a group rehearsal for the church service on the following Sunday. The practice room was a simple space behind the church compound, where 30 people, mostly girls and ladies, were seated on white plastic chairs in four neat rows. They held bamboo rattles in their left hand and shook them with their right. The Duta Watjana Angklung Ensemble could itself be divided into three sections. The music director establishes the tempo and harmony on the synthesizer, the angklung players provide the instrumental interlude, and the lead vocalists deliver the lyrical melodies. I could often sense the passionate voices of one or two lady crooners singing through a microphone at the front of the room. Their purpose is to invoke a spiritual atmosphere through their interpretation of various hymns. Some of the praise songs I heard that evening include “Geef Mij Zelf Aan U” (“Give Myself to You”), “One Day at a Time,” and “Gusti Kurwoso” (“Good Lord”) in Dutch, English, and Javanese, respectively.

222  Jun Kai Pow My second visit was to the church service itself. As mentioned previously, most, if not all, church services in Paramaribo commence at 09:00 every Sunday, which in itself appears to be a form of socio-communal regulation for a nation with Christians making up half of its population. It appears to be a formal and important event of the week, with everyone dressed up for the ceremony and sermon. There was a lot of fervent singing, accompanied by a combo band, while the Duta Watjana Angklung Ensemble entertained the congregation with a trio of vernacular hymns, including “Kom en Prijs” (“Come and Praise”) and “You Raise Me Up.” The musical ensemble was dressed uniformly in the traditional batik dresses and shirts and was placed to the left of the pulpit, opposite the live band, as if they were representatives of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. The church served under the Moravian denomination, and its service was unusual for comprising a program of more than ten praise songs for about an hour and a half. The songs were also sung in English, Javanese, Sranan Tongo, and Dutch, such as the case of the following hymn, titled “We’re Together Again”: (We’re together again, just praising the Lord We’re together again, in one accord) 2× Something good is going to happen Something good is in store We’re together again, just praising the Lord Kumpulan menèh, memuji Gusti Kumpulan menèh, bebarengan) 2× Sing betyik bakal teka Sing betyik bakal ngétok Kumpulan menèh, memuji Gusti (Wi dé kon makandra, fu prijse Masra Wi dé kom makandra, in wan hati) 2× Wan bun sani é go pesa Wan bun sani de fu kom Wi dé kon makandra, fu prijse Masra Lit.: Onze hulp is in de naam des Heren, Gem.: die hemel en aarde gemaakt heft. Lit.: Die rouwe houdt tot in eeuwigheid, Gem.: en niet laat varen het wek Zijner handen. Lit.: Genade zij u van God onze Vader en van Jezus Christus in gemeenschap met de Heilige Geest. Allen: Amen! Taken in tandem, the repertoire seems to indicate a stagnation in the musical taste of the church congregation. I observed that the devotees in attendance

Hymns as Heritage 223 were more enthusiastic when the hymns were performed by a pop band than the angklung ensemble.5 The lack of stylistic and linguistic unity between the pop band and the angklung thus poses a challenge in attracting and sustaining the spirituality of the congregation. Despite the spirited passion and energy of the angklung players, the age span of the musicians ranges from 40 to 60 years, which indicates a barrier to the regeneration and sustainability of the artform.6 My third visit to the church building was on the occasion of my public presentation on the angklung activities that were held in the Netherlands and Singapore.7 The audiences were made up of the musicians as well as other members of the church who were enthusiastic about learning the different evolution of the musical form in Asia and Europe, where students and older adults play the instrument for secular and other purposes. As far as I  am aware, this information is not readily available to the Surinamese, whether of Javanese or other origins.8 Many keen questions, such as the background of the musicians and type of repertoire, were fielded after the presentation and also during dinnertime. The other kind of encounters I had during my fieldwork showcased the commercial aspects of Javanese Surinamese heritage. These commercial and semi-commercial activities, such as those at the Rum museum, the Javanese Sunday market, and the Indonesian embassy, appear to contrast in utility to the weekly musical practices and performances mentioned previously. Instead of amelioration and altruism, the traditional sports, food, and drinks have turned into economic capital for the local Javanese to promote and monetize. These other components of the Javanese’s patrimonial culture, unlike the voluntary and spiritual musical participation, have become marketed as consumables. At the Rum House, I was given a tour of the history of rum-making and storage, followed by a lesson in cocktail mixing. I learned about the Javanese past contributions to the manual practices of harvesting, transporting, and storing the sugarcane and rum in locally made clay bottles. I was also taught some steps in creating a cocktail that was inspired by the colors of the Surinamese flag. I also visited the Javanese Sunday market, called Saoenah. There one can find the common Indonesian and Javanese cuisines and snacks, such as turmeric rice with fried chicken, fried bananas, tapioca crisps, grilled tofu with peanut sauce, multi-colored rice cakes, and many more. This is the place where the Javanese Surinamese visit to enjoy delicious food as a part of their gastronomic heritage as well as purchase raw ingredients to prepare meals at home for the rest of the week. There were also some popular music records, clothes, and other everyday items on sale at the market. The third locale I  went to was the Indonesian embassy in Paramaribo. I  spent some time speaking with the cultural attaché, who, donning the national batik shirt, shared that they conduct enrichment classes in the Indonesian language, as well as classes in dance and silat martial arts. Resources for the angklung were, however, scarce. Given the prevailing unwillingness

224  Jun Kai Pow

Figure 13.2 The Rum House.

Figure 13.3 The Indonesian embassy.

Hymns as Heritage 225 of the Javanese Surinamese to be repatriated to Indonesia, the effort of the Indonesian government is dedicated to promoting their culture and heritage to Surinamese of all ethnicities (Meel 2017). While I waited for my transport back to the hotel, a group of middle-aged Javanese ladies had gathered at the courtyard for their weekly line dance session. They were decked out in red polo shirts, track pants, and sports shoes and started moving along to the electronic beats of the dangdut pop tunes. Apart from Indonesian popular music, Surinamese and American pop songs were also very much audible from the bars in town and off the radio airwaves. From the cultural and musical activities partaken by the Javanese Surinamese in Paramaribo, I experienced and witnessed multiple contact points with different Javanese cultural forms throughout my stay. Notwithstanding the tendency to intra-marry within their ethnicity and religion, the desire to maintain cultural affinity with their ancestral heritage has remained strong. They are, however, denied the opportunity to be immersed within an authentic Javanese milieu, one that is surrounded by the senses and experiences of living on the island itself. Their consciousness of Javanese culture is very much accumulated in a rather-modular fashion throughout their lifetimes. In the ethnography I have attempted to construct in this section, such compartmentalized means of knowledge acquisition is similarly observed. I will proceed to set out some theoretical background pertaining to the decolonial critique and argue that the decolonial impetus could probably be a supplement to the everyday life of the Javanese in Suriname. A Decolonial Supplement Over the past two decades or so, numerous scholars have pondered over the idea of decolonization and decoloniality (cf. Grosfoguel 2007; Hira 2015; Lugones 2010; Smith 2021). While the scope of this chapter does not allow me to provide a comprehensive literature review of the extent to which some of these theoretical positions have developed, I hope to discuss a handful of research forays that are more pertinent to my case study of the Surinamese musicians.9 Walter Mignolo and his Latin American collective have coined the triad of “modernity/coloniality/decoloniality” as a discursive concept to understand the epistemology behind the amassed knowledge concerning decolonization (Mignolo and Walsh 2018). They argued that, while modernism and colonization were the main agenda of the European forces, inhabitants of the excolonies had to grapple with the phenomena of modernity, coloniality, and decoloniality simultaneously after the respective independence of each political entity. These temporal markers are not restricted to the legal or economic domains, but also to areas of social, linguistic, and cultural consciousness. For example, some of the ex-colonies, such as Brazil and Mauritius, still retain the lingua franca of Portuguese and French and adhere to the Catholic and Christian faiths. The process of decoloniality, for Mignolo, lies in the

226  Jun Kai Pow ability to grasp the causes and effects of modernity and coloniality, past or present. This interdependent fixed triad, as opposed to a dynamic triangulation, is crucial for the process and action of decolonization. Without the awareness of one’s predicament as a colonized and modernized subject, the impetus of decoloniality is foreclosed to the subjects themselves. That is, they would be disavowed of their decolonial agency. Such an epistemic maneuver, according to Mignolo and Walsh (2018, x), can only be one of many options, aesthetic or otherwise, among other alternatives. In the same vein, an “episteme of colonial modernity” has been identified by Sujata Patel to refer to the knowledge field which has been dominated and organized around colonial relations of power, whether stemming from the past or the present (Patel 2017). Her arguments are based on the designs of social sciences curriculum in present-day India, which maintained the hierarchies of Western configurations of knowledge acquisition and formation. Patel critiques proponents of local pedagogies who followed a parochial form of methodological nationalism that restricted the microscopic worldview of the students within an institutional boundary. She highlights nationalism, Westernization, and the reification of the caste-based system that prevailed throughout Indian sociological establishments in the 1950s and 1960s (Patel 2021). Back in the UK, Avtar Brah used the action and activism of the Southall Black Sisters as an example of decolonial feminism. She suggested that the activists and many others that followed have been advocating for the rights and justice for women of African, Caribbean, and South Asian heritage since the 1980s (Brah 2022, 77–78). The London-based organization has campaigned against racist harassment and sexist discrimination on legal, political, and intercultural bases. The creative media of film, music, dance, and theater have also been harnessed by these women of color as interactive tools for community engagement and exchange. While such intra-communal practices of care made up the decolonial praxis of British women, other women in Europe have not espoused similar political values. With the rise of the conservative right-wing politicians in France and Italy since the 2010s, the phrase “civilisational feminism” was coined by Françoise Vergès to refer to the imposition of a certain feminist ideology that perpetuates the superiority of class, gender, and race (Vergès 2021, 4–5). Such a dominant version of feminism has persisted within the European imagination to the extent that the agency and subjectivity of minority women have been discriminated and ignored. Vergès cited the burgeoning popularity of far-right elected women such as Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni against the plight of the African and Asian women custodians of the Parisian public transport (who in 2017 organized a 45-day strike over unfair wages and sexual harassment) (Vergès 2021, 4–5). Such representations of Eurocentric feminism are aligned with the belief that the historical significance of global events is derived from endogenous developments “within the cultural-geographical

Hymns as Heritage 227 sphere of Europe” (Bhambra 2007, 5). An appropriate decolonial response might be Gurminder Bhambra’s approach to deconstruct [modernity’s] claims to universalism through a recognition of its own particularity as well as the particularity of others, and then to reconstruct a framework of understanding on the basis of “connected histories.” (Bhambra 2007, 146) Learning about the positions and strategies of some leading thinkers of decolonial studies, I  understand the critical terrains within which colonial subjects—those who have been implicated by coloniality—have been navigating over the centuries. Whether one is living on colonized land or the land of the colonizers, the conjunctions and intersections of other biological categories such as race, class, gender, and sexuality are concurrently entangled in what has been known, for decolonial sociologist Aníbal Quijano, as the “colonial matrix of power.” To a certain extent, one may or may not have the option to revive the integrity of a precolonial state, but the yield toward the conservative direction appears to gain global consensus. By extrapolating from, say, the tug-of-war between the decolonial and civilizational feminists, the acknowledgment and recognition of our origins and heritages become imperative. Adopting a decolonial approach fortifies us with the necessary knowledge of every aspect of life, feminist, colonial, or otherwise, and serves as a reminder of and rejoinder to our shared past or “connected histories.” Through these coeval supplements, categorical outsiders gain a sense of familiarity and empathy with the insiders, permitting conversations and conversions to happen.10 These theoretical positions form the contextual circumstances from which I have borrowed in engaging with the women musicians of Javanese descent in Suriname. A Critical Reflection At the time of writing this chapter, I was reunited with one of the Surinamese musicians in Singapore. She was part of an entourage of Surinamese tourists on a month-long vacation to Indonesia and Malaysia, visiting the islands of Bali, Java, Sumatra, and the Malay peninsula. Such a seasonal return to the “motherland” would be the closest one gets to repatriation, albeit in the guise of cultural patronage. Her itinerary, arranged by the travel agency, included both capital cities and small villages, probably for Javanese descendants to visit their ancestral homelands. Visitations of a temporary nature have been the lived experiences of many a white American, Australian, and Canadian touring their respective European nation-states, and this journey on the Javanese Surinamese’s life course is no different. If the forced migration of a group of indentured laborers from one location to another had been part of the

228  Jun Kai Pow colonial project, then the return of the diaspora to their land of origin, this time as emancipated consumers of heritage and culture, could be the decolonial counteraction. However, this was and had not been the case for many Javanese Surinamese. Recent scholarship has examined some of the push-and-pull factor in Javanese Surinamese desires to migrate to Indonesia or the Netherlands (cf. Meel 2017). Despite a political and economic situation that appears to be less than ideal, the wish to settle down in Suriname itself has persisted. Javanese cuisine and cultural practices are largely available in and around the capital, while the assimilation into the Surinamese way of life and daily habits has been progressive, despite living under an erstwhile dictatorship. That said, growing up in a developing country with a slower pace of globalization and industrialization, and limited exposure to Indonesian and Javanese culture, can become a major obstacle to the sustainability of Javanese cultural heritage in Suriname. Musically, the way in which harmonies and rhythms are now being perceived is more pronounced than ever. Based on the Surinamese case study on angklung music, the adopted hymns are diatonic, monophonic, and made up of regular phrases. These parameters constantly instill and inform a modernized musical consciousness of the church service. Like other devotees around the world, musicians and listeners experience as well as develop a similar sense of psychological internalization and recognition (cf. Cha 2016). If the Christian faith, and correspondingly the hymnody, had been imposed by the missionaries and colonizers for over more than a century, then the migrants’ assumption of authority over the composition of the songs has arguably become an act of enculturation and supplement. Hymns, which originated in Europe, continue to be written around the world today. The creation and interpretation of traditional and contemporary hymns follow a similar reception history as much of Western classical music in that the hymns belong to all who worship and praise God (cf. van Dyken 2017; Watson 1997; Yende 2021). The decolonial movement of hymns in an independent Suriname therefore imbues the historical material with a universality whereby the songs become transformed into objects of performance and proclamation that transcend their erstwhile religious and cultural contexts. The motivation to decolonize oneself and one’s culture, musical or otherwise, could then be to reinvent and co-mingle characteristics of social and/ or geographical elements. While Suriname is surrounded by Latin American countries, there remains a lack of the machismo or rhythmic aesthetics that is stereotypical of Latin American culture. The country is also situated so far away from Asia that the authoritarian, economic, and technological fervent cannot be compared equally. And so the question of causation reverts to the influence of the Dutch education system on Surinamese culture, in the form of Christianity, heterogeneity, and governmental bureaucracy, underpinning the musical practices within the Caribbean nation. However, given Suriname’s multi-racial and multi-religious demographics, the playing and

Hymns as Heritage 229 singing of hymns as a personal commitment to Christ does not seem to be affiliated to one’s racial or religious nationalism (cf. Soper and Fetzer 2018). The simplicity of the lyrics and music, which are directed to the harmony and rhythm, becomes essential to the preaching of the good news to the believers. The musical presentation, including colorful costumes and physical move­ ments—all performative parameters—could have been more effective than the regurgitation of biblical verses or the didactic sermon of the priest for some congregants. The idea of hymns “as heritage” thereby problematizes the feminist decolonial discourse of searching for roots and routes. For feminists to claim an object or any territory is always a complicated matter. Traditionally, one has to be related by familiarity or kinship in order to stake any claim on a property or possession. However, the rise of colonial and neoliberal capitalism in recent centuries has greatly altered the dynamics of heritage proprietorship and circulation. Different contemporaneous camps have argued over the practices and ethics behind museumization versus restitution (cf. Cuno 2014; La Follette 2017). Yet voices of colonized peoples and their forebearers are often inaudible and invisible within many of these debates. The reclamation of heritage becomes always already an unequal playing field, given the multiple barriers of accessibility on economic, legal, linguistic, and other levels. These series of events most likely give rise to a way of framing heritage as a “subjective political negotiation of identity, place and memory,” but from a certain decolonial perspective, we may be putting the cart before the horse (cf. Smith 2006). There appears a need to deconstruct the preliminary definition of heritage upon which many of these Western thinkers have come to formulate their theses. In paraphrasing the Oxford English Dictionary, the archaeologist Rodney Harrison defines heritage as “something that can be passed from one genera­ tion to the next, something that can be conserved or inherited, and some­ thing that has historic or cultural value” (Harrison 2009, 9). On the other hand, Laurajane Smith coined the concept “authorized heritage discourse” to refer to a dominant Western and Eurocentric discourse that reifies the nature and meaning of heritage. Such heritage is “aesthetically pleasing material objects, sites, places, and/or landscapes that are non-renewable [and] that current generations must care for, protect and venerate these things so that they may be inherited by the future” (Smith 2012). As a feminist decolonial tactic, we will, however, have to distance ourselves from the intervention of the “authorized heritage discourse” or the corresponding “inclusive heritage discourse” in the deliberation of our problem at hand (Kisić 2016). For one, these ideas were conceptualized in reaction to a self-serving imperial norma­ tive agenda which usurps the power and control to determine the value and vicissitude of places and things in the world. For another, any of such selfproclaimed “goodwill” stops short of recognizing and acknowledging the judicial processes of crime, punishment, and apology. Juxtaposing what I have shown earlier to be a supplementary form of heritage formation with the feminist decolonial agenda of deconstruction and

230  Jun Kai Pow connection thus antagonizes the process of decolonization. For the group of Javanese women musicians I encountered, whose gamelan and wayang music consist primarily of pentatonic modes and heterophonic textures, the internalization of European hymnody in strophic form further perpetuates a sense of servitude to the musical other. The voices and instruments are adjusted to the diatonic scales and phrasal repetitions, resulting in a cognitive shift in auditory perception. Another interpretation in the manner of a supplementary aesthetics might also be applied via a more magnanimous reading, that is, the Javanese musicians are forced into a mode of bicultural adaptation whereby Occidental musical elements are distinguished from Oriental ones. The harmony and structures of the hymns, among other features of the church music, become associated and correlative to the ethnicity and religiosity of the musicians themselves. In addition, using the angklung to perform the hymns further challenges the heritage discourse. Despite the Indonesian bamboo instrument having been granted the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status in 2010, its repertoire has not been standardized. Would these multilingual hymns then become a part of the Javanese Surinamese patrimony in the near future? Further questions concern the issue of broader circulation of newly composed songs of praise. When some of the Surinamese offspring migrate to, say, the United States or the Netherlands, how would these hymns serve as the connections or constellations of local musical practices and products in an increasingly globalized world? This curatorial process also begs the question of whether globalization stands in antagonistic stance to decolonization. Given the distinct and symbiotic hybridity of Dutch and Javanese heritages, a plausible deduction would perhaps be that the local Javanese diaspora adheres closer to the principle of additive supplementation rather than the overhaul of modernist ideology from within the Eurocentric decolonial agenda. Conclusion After the Dutch abolished slavery in 1890, groups of Asian indentured laborers were shipped across the Atlantic to the Caribbean by British and Dutch colonial forces to toil on the sugar plantations. The descendants of these manual workers having since ventured beyond the plantations are now naturalized citizens of Suriname, an independent nation-state. Known locally as Javanese Surinamese, the diaspora has retained their gastronomic and other heritage cultures, such as medicine and fashion. The gamelan ensemble and the silat martial arts are but some of the popular activities still in practice among the Javanese descendants in Suriname. In comparison to the pop and rock bands, the instrumental genre of the angklung remains rare in the region and has made its presence felt in one of the local churches. The musical director taps on the melodic character of the traditional bamboo idiophone and uses it to accompany hymns sung in Dutch, Javanese, and English. The

Hymns as Heritage 231 songs that are specifically arranged for the ensemble serve as a supplementary arbitrator of Javanese heritage for the congregation, one characterized by a mixture of ethnic and ecclesiastical constituents. Analyzing the cultural practice of a displaced people in an erstwhile European colony has been and remains a discursively challenging task. The ethnographic methodology in itself is always already an exogenous representation. Even the decolonial perspective surveyed in this chapter comes with its biases and limitations. Decades of subaltern and decolonial studies have cautioned present-day scholars about the tentative factuality of the testimonies and experiences from both the colonizer and the colonized. The idea that I  have proposed herein—that of hymns as heritage—is acutely dependent on the specific ethnicity and genre that I, the researcher, have chosen as my empirical focus. While the critique of genre as a delimiting factor within musicological scholarship has received occasional attention, the association of genre—in this case, the hymn—with other socio-cultural and geopolitical identities remains the original starting point for tracing the complexity and development of the Surinamese musicians’ life experience (cf. Holt 2007; Morcom 2022). Precisely because I was able to form both generic and cultural links between the Surinamese and Indonesian musics, I hope that my decolonial critique has offered a certain categorical effectiveness. The feminist decolonial method has, in one way or another, thwarted the ontology of hymnody as conservative and exclusive (van Dyken 2017; Sanders 2012; Watson 1997, 302). In the guise of a cultural supplement, the hymn has today become incorporated into the heritage of another diasporic community. Notes 1 I would like to thank Prof. Bart Barendregt for the suggestion. 2 Some of the musical recordings by the Duta Watjana Angklung Ensemble could be found on YouTube channels hosted by Nadya Putanto and Duta Watjana Kerk, including Welk een Vriend is onze Jezus (www.youtube.com/ watch?v=SjiwW8P4dU0) and Medley Nderek Gusti (www.youtube.com/ watch?v=W4_um8BVjK8). 3 A pseudonym is used here. 4 I have refrained from naming the individual musicians as the membership of the singers and angklung players changes overtime, whereas the ensemble itself is managed by a board of directors in alliance with the main church. 5 This reception also applies to the Pentecostal church service I observed in South Holland back in the Netherlands. 6 This is nonetheless a shared phenomenon across the angklung groups I  have worked with in the Netherlands and Singapore. 7 In addition to research work in progress, I  also shared some relevant contents from one of my previous articles (Zubillaga-Pow 2014). 8 In seeking more information on Javanese music in Suriname, I emailed the acting head of cultural studies, Judith Victoriashoop, who referred me back to the Vereniging Herdenking Javaanse Immigratie (Memorial Association of Javanese Immigration). Email correspondence dated January 30, 2020.

232  Jun Kai Pow 9 There is a recent surge in the study of music and decolonization, such as the article by Tamara Levitz (2017) and the special issue edited by Shzr Ee Tan (2021), among others. 10 There are to be sure people who straddle both insider and outsider spheres, except that on a theoretical level, the opposition remains where the current state of the art in academic discourse is vis-à-vis decolonial studies. That is, an assumed binary of the colonized and the decolonized persists. Further discussion covering the more nuanced differentiation will require additional critical space to be eked out properly.

References Agawu, Kofi. 2016. “Tonality as a Colonizing Force in Africa.” In Audible Empire: Music, Global Politics, Critique, edited by Ronald Radano and Tejumola Olaniyan, 334–55. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Bhambra, Gurminder. 2007. Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bilby, Kenneth. 1999. “ ‘Roots Explosion’: Indigenization and Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Surinamese Popular Music.” Ethnomusicology 43 (2): 256–96. Brah, Avtar. 2022. Decolonial Imaginings: Intersectional Conversations and Contestations. Cambridge: MIT Press. Cha, Jee-Weon. 2016. “Lack of Musicality? Explaining Anomalies in Some Senior Korean Christians’ Hymn Singing.” Cogent Arts and Humanities 3 (1): 1–16. Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. 2018. “Children’s Hymn Singing in Victorian Culture and Scholarship.” Literature Compass 15 (3). https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12442. Cohen, Sarah, and Robert Kronenburg. 2018. Liverpool’s Musical Landscapes. Swindon: Historic England. Cuno, James. 2014. “Culture War: The Case Against Repatriating Museum Artifacts.” Foreign Affairs 93 (6): 119–29. Grosfoguel, Ramón. 2007. Unsettling Postcoloniality: Coloniality, Transmodernity and Border Thinking. Durham: Duke University Press. Harrison, Rodney. 2009. “What Is Heritage.” In Understanding the Politics of Heritage, edited by Rodney Harrison, 5–42. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hira, Sandew. 2015. “A Theoretical Framework to Decolonize the Educational System: The Case of Suriname and Holland.” In Decolonizing the Mind: An Alternative Theoretical Framework for Scientific Colonialism, edited by Sandew Hira, 1–18. Den Haag: Amrit Publishers. Ho, Chee Kong, and Jun Zubillaga-Pow, eds. 2014. Singapore Soundscape: Musical Renaissance of a Global City. Singapore: National Library Board. Holt, Fabian. 2007. Genre in Popular Music. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kisić, Višnja. 2016. Governing Heritage Dissonance: Promises and Realities of Selected Cultural Policies. Amsterdam: European Cultural Foundation. La Follette, Laetitia. 2017. “Looted Antiquities, Art Museums and Restitution in the United States Since 1970.” Journal of Contemporary History 52 (3): 669–87. Levitz, Tamara. 2017. “Decolonizing the Society for American Music.” The Bulletin of the Society for American Music 43 (3): 1–13. Lugones, María. 2010. “Toward a Decolonial Feminism.” Hypatia 25 (4): 742–59.

Hymns as Heritage 233 Meel, Peter. 2017. “Jakarta and Paramaribo Calling: Return Migration Challenges for the Surinamese Javanese Diaspora?” New West Indian Guide 91 (3–4): 223–59. Mignolo, Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Moore, Bob. 2000. “Decolonization by Default: Suriname and the Dutch Retreat from Empire.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 28 (3): 228–50. Morcom, Anna. 2022. “Following the People, Refracting Hindustani Music, and Critiquing Genre-Based Research.” Ethnomusicology 66 (3): 470–96. Patel, Sujata. 2017. “Colonial Modernity and Methodological Nationalism: The Structuring of Sociological Traditions of India.” Sociological Bulletin 66 (2): 125–44. ———. 2021. “The Nationalist-Indigenous and Colonial Modernity: An Assessment of Two Sociologists in India.” The Journal of Chinese Sociology 8 (2). https://doi. org/10.1186/s40711-020-00140-9. Roberts, Mikie. 2019. “ ‘Fashioning a People: Caribbean Hymnody as an Identity Performative.” Black Theology: An International Journal 17 (3): 195–222. Sanders, Mike. 2012. “ ‘God Is Our Guide! Our Cause Is Just!’ The National Chartist Hymn Book and Victorian Hymnody.” Victorian Studies 54 (4): 679–705. Smith, Laurajane. 2006. Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. ———. 2012. “Discourse of Heritage: Implications for Archaeological Community Practice.” Nueva Mundo. Accessed October 16, 2022. https://journals.openedition. org/nuevomundo/64148. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 2021. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 3rd ed. Sydney: Bloomsbury. Soper, J. Christopher, and Joel S. Fetzer. 2018. Religion and Nationalism in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tan, Shzr Ee. 2021. “Special Issue: Decolonising Music and Music Studies.” Ethnomusicology Forum 30 (1): 4–8. van Dyken, Tamara J. 2017. “Worship Wars, Gospel Hymns, and Cultural Engagement in American Evangelicalism, 1890–1940.” Religion and American Culture 27 (2): 191–217. Vergès, Françoise. 2021. A Decolonial Feminism. London: Pluto Press. Villerius, Sophie, Francesca Moro, and Marian Klamer. 2020. “Encoding Transfer Events in Surinamese Javanese.” Journal of Language Contact 12 (3): 784–822. Watson, J. R. 1997. The English Hymn: A  Critical and Historical Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yende, Sakhiseni J. 2021. “The Importance of Understanding and Making Sense of Zulu Traditional Hymns as a Symbol of Expressing Worship: Cognitive Hermeneutics and Hermeneutics of Hymnody Theories.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 77 (4): 1–8. Zubillaga-Pow, Jun. 2014. “The Dialectics of Capitalist Reclamation, or Traditional Malay Music at the Fin de Siècle Singapore.”  South East Asia Research  22 (1): 123–40.

14 Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership The Nigerian Christian Songs Project as Cultural Archive, Pedagogical Tool, and Decolonial Resource Monique M. Ingalls, Ayobami A. Ayanyinka, and Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri Introduction The authors of Transformative Digital Humanities (2020) argue that digital humanities (DH) not only carry the potential to revolutionize research methods but also to promote the causes of self-representation and social justice through the “reexamination and reconstitution of existing [cultural] canons” (Balkun and Deyrup 2020, 1). This chapter describes the genesis of the DH project Nigerian Christian Songs (est. 2021), a public humanities research project produced through a collaboration between Christian doctoral programs based in Protestant (Baptist) universities in Nigeria and the USA.1 During the 2020–2021 academic year, Nigerian doctoral students employed hybrid ethnography and various DH methods to construct a new Christian musical “canon” that showcases the diversity of songs and styles sung in their churches. The three co-authors (Chesirri, from Cameroon; Ayanyinka, from Nigeria; and Ingalls, from the USA) were each heavily involved in this project: Ayanyinka and Chesirri were two of the six doctoral students who created and curated materials for the first version of the website, and Ingalls served as their guest lecturer and website coordinator. In this chapter, we (the co-authors) aim to show how the project works on vastly different cultural fronts, serving as a decolonial resource to challenge and remake Christian musical canons. This chapter is structured as an interlacing of our three voices. We will begin by sketching the problems observed in our differing contexts. Though they are distinct, many of these problems can be traced back to the imbalance of power and resources perpetuated by Western colonialism and neocolonialism. In the Nigerian Protestant context, Ayanyinka and Chesirri write about practical problems Nigerian church music leaders face in leading markedly diverse congregations, as well as the cultural losses that result from a lack of documentation of church music traditions. In the context of North American Protestant churches and seminaries, Ingalls describes a cluster of problems relating to representation. It is widely known that North American Christian DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-14

Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership 235 institutions have long been complicit in exporting a colonial model of worship that centers Western musical styles and modes of composition (Hawn 2003; Jagessar and Burns 2011; Steuernagel 2020). However, beginning in the late twentieth century, many of these institutions, through a well-intentioned effort to build cross-cultural understanding, began to perpetuate a musical canon of non-Western Christian music that was characterized by “Christian Otherness.”2 In full view of these problems, we then ask: How might Christian institutions in different areas of the world partner together to create accessible archives for preservation and documentation of music-making and other religio-cultural practices, while encouraging nuanced cross-cultural understanding of congregational musicking? How might students, religious leaders, and churchgoers be engaged in knowledge creation, thus ensuring greater local control of cultural representation? In the latter sections of this chapter, the authors address these questions by providing three perspectives on a concrete model: the interactive, multimedia website project Nigerian Christian Songs. The project shows how digital tools can be used for musical documentation, preservation, and revitalization. It also highlights the transformative potential of digital humanities to aid in decolonization efforts by amplifying previously unheard voices within the discourse and practice of congregational music-making. Defining the Problems: Three Perspectives Negotiating the Colonial Heritage and Cultural Difference: A Cameroonian Perspective on Problems within Nigerian Church Music Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri

Church music in Africa generally is an area of music-making highly influenced by missionary activities and colonization. Nigeria is not an exception to this. Church music-making in Nigeria is an area that scholars are beginning to explore,3 and it is still a field of study with several challenges yet to be addressed. From my perspective as a Cameroonian immigrant to southwest Nigeria, there are three main challenges faced within the Nigerian Protestant church contexts. First are cross-cultural differences. This is a problem that cuts across denominations in Nigeria. With a population of over 200 million, Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa. But Nigeria is far from a cultural monolith, with about 285 ethnic groups with different languages and customs (Nigeria Population 2022). In an average Nigerian Protestant church, it is common for congregants of three or more different ethnic groups to worship together. How to meet the needs of these cultures in terms of music style, language, and musical instruments is a severe challenge in the art of musicking in Nigerian churches.

236  Monique M. Ingalls et al. A second set of challenges relates to cross-generational membership. In most Nigerian churches, both the old and the young worship together. There are styles of music that are preferred by youths and other types of music that are selected by the more senior members. Trying to get songs that can meet the needs of the different generations in one worship service poses a challenge to music ministers in Nigeria. Thirdly, many churches are experiencing a dying hymn-singing tradition. Hymn-singing has been one of the significant ways Christians in Nigerian churches sing in worship. But in recent times, it is observed that in some congregations, this tradition is gradually fading out as congregations choose praise and worship or gospel songs instead. This poses a challenge when the hymn heritage is valued as an important repertoire of songs used in worship. Endangered Christian Hymn Traditions: A Nigerian (Yoruba) Perspective Ayobami A. Ayanyinka

Hymnic practice, psalmody, and spiritual songs are all means of individual and  communal musical expressions in the Nigerian church context, theo­ logical institutions, mission schools, and other para-church organizations. However, as a Nigerian (Yoruba) music minister and scholar, I have observed several challenges in documenting and passing down the songs used in wor­ ship. Many Nigerian congregations do not have formally trained musicians as  compared with the Western church, and much church music is passed down through oral tradition. However, some congregations that are musi­ cally literate make use of music of the written traditions, including hymns, psalms, Western and native anthems, cantatas, art songs, and orchestral music. Where hymnals are found and used in such churches, the hymns are translated into Indigenous languages. Some denominations also provide hymnals with tonic sol-fa notations4 for their worship services. The Western hymnals inherited from the Western missionaries are still used in many Protestant churches with their set tunes and lyrics sung in English. Meanwhile, as Chesirri notes earlier, Nigeria is noteworthy in its diversity of ethnic groups, languages, and cultures; though English is an official language of Nigeria, not all Christian worshippers understand it. In an attempt to solve the English language problem in which Western hymnals were written, efforts were made to translate hymns into different languages, such as Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Edo, etc. A  classic example is the Hymnaro Bilingual compiled by Aroyehun, a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Ilorin, Kwara State, titled Iwe Orin fun Gbogbo Ijo ni Afrika (Hymn Book for all Churches in Africa), in both the Yoruba and English languages (Aroyehun 2013). Some hymn translations in Nigerian worship are not notated and hence have been passed down orally. Among the oral traditions, another challenge

Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership 237 is that some original, Indigenous compositions are being lost or mishandled, since the congregations are not music professionals, except for churches that engage professional music ministers trained in theological institutions or secular institutions helping their churches in this regard. Ethnographic interviews and the Nigerian Christian Songs Survey reveal that several lyric airs (also called Indigenous choruses) and choral anthems sung in worship were orally arranged, and performance practice varies from place to place. The findings reveal that most of the lyric airs and anthems documented on the website have little scholarly work in terms of music notation or analysis.5 Hence, two common music-making practices in Nigerian churches are spontaneous music compositions, with composers usually tagged as anonymous and singing from memory with unique harmonic structures. There are many implications that come with this idea of unscored musical pieces (Nigerian Christian Songs 2021). According to Ayanyinka, unscored music (a) has a limited scope of operation, (b) entails a tendency to forget the original composition and texts, (c) can be lost in transit, and (d) may be alien to the new generations or lack meaning outside the geographical location of the composers (Ayanyinka 2021). When musical compositions are not properly documented, authenticating the composer’s identity becomes controversial. However, I must commend the efforts of some past and present Nigerian musicologists who have helped reduce some of these challenges. In the past, some notable Nigerian Christian musicians and scholars, such as T. K. E. Phillips, Fela Sowande, Ayo Bankole, Harcourt Whyte, Laz Ekwueme, Dayo Dedeke, Akin Euba, Debo Akinwumi, etc., considerably worked on their musical pieces and helped score some other musical compositions. Currently, the efforts of the Faculty of Church Music of the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, the Life Music School of the Foursquare Gospel Church in Ikorodu, and other secular institutions with music departments in training music experts are noteworthy. Among the notable Nigerian musicologists whose musical compositions are documented in scholarship are ‘Femi Adedeji (University of Ife), Ademola Oyeniyi, Timothy Amao (NBTS, Ogbomoso), and Dayo Oyedun (a church organist and arranger).6 Challenging “Global Song”: A Perspective from a North American Christian Educator Monique M. Ingalls

Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri and Ayobami A. Ayanyinka have discussed numerous practical and scholarly challenges facing Nigerian Protestant Christians related to the selection, preservation, and documentation of their church music. Coming from a North American perspective, my engagement in this project was driven by a desire to critically intervene in a particu­ lar North American Christian musical canon. The canon being discussed is a body of non-Western Christian hymns known as “global song” to their

238  Monique M. Ingalls et al. North American Christian practitioners. From my perspective as an ethnomusicologist and professor within a North American church music program, there are a cluster of challenges within North American sacred music pedagogy related to global repertoires. Many North American Christians sing global song in an attempt to identify with co-religionists across geographical and cultural differences. Scholars taking a more critical approach have noted, however, that the “global song” congregational music repertoire as it is practiced by North American Christians reproduces problematic power relationships and often reinforces harmful cultural stereotypes. In Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives (2011), theologians Michael Jagessar and Stephen Burns note that North American churches’ appropriation of songs of Christian Others can be interpreted as “another form of exploitation or a new kind of colonialism” (Jagessar and Burns 2011, 52). They write that “the issue of representation in hymns becomes a critical one. Who is representing whom, what is being represented and how do these representations reinforce system of inequalities and subordination and the sustaining of colonial and neo-colonial projects?” (Jagessar and Burns 2011, 57). Church and sacred music programs in North America often include the “global songs” of Christians from elsewhere in the world in their classrooms and congregational music performances. Despite gestures that are generally well-intentioned, the use of global song within these Christian institutions is often plagued by several common types of misrepresentations and inaccuracies, which I term “global problems.” I will lay out three of these interrelated problems, drawing extensively from Marissa Moore’s and Lim Swee Hong’s illuminating work on “global song” in North American churches and ecumenical gatherings (Lim 2016, 2018, 2019; Moore 2017, 2018a, 2018b), supplemented by my own observations from the past eight years teaching in a North American evangelical Protestant church music program. First, we must further define “global song” within the North American context. When US and Canadian universities and sacred music programs teach or perform congregational music from outside the Euro-American canon, it is highly likely that they are drawing from the repertoire known as “global song.” While global song’s proponents understand global song to be a “culturally and denominationally varied” body of “ecumenical Christian songs from around the world” (Moore 2018a, 38), a critical examination of the repertoire by scholars has revealed that it is much more limited than this. Through a close examination of seminal songbooks, Moore defines “global song” as “a Western construction that makes use of specific non-Western musical expressions, often controlled by Euro-American publishers and institutions” (Moore 2018a, 41). There are numerous representational injustices that occur when North American Christian institutions rely on this selective repertoire. The first problem with global song is its top-down curation and the personal agendas that come with these processes. Moore examines the contents of numerous “global song” songbooks to show that a handful of influential

Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership 239 curators have a disproportionate influence in representing “global” music and in curating what gets seen or heard. Some of these elite cultural representatives reside in the places they claim to represent, while others live in the diaspora. Many of them have preservationist agendas—in other words, a pre-commitment to “traditional music” (as they define it) and a strong suspicion of mass-mediated religious popular music or hybrid forms of church music. While North American Christian institutions have used this genre in an attempt to promote anti-racist or decolonial perspectives, they have often simultaneously been complicit in the selective canon creation of Christian Otherness, reproducing its norms in the classroom and in religious worship services. But uncritical reliance on the canon of “global song” can cover over the complexity and the dynamism that characterize music of Christian communities around the world. The second problem with the global song repertoire is that, within published and recorded collections, selections often conform to Western stereotypes of their geographical or cultural places of origin. Lim notes that “not all non-Western congregational songs make their cut as global songs” (2018, 8). Parallel to expectations that ethnomusicologists have long documented within the “world music” market,7 what Western Christian audiences seem to want and expect in their global song is difference. No matter how widespread or well-loved songs may be in their places of origin, they will be left out of global song collections if they sound too “Western.” (This can mean that they sound too much like Euro-American hymns, or pop-rock worship music, or African American gospel music [Lim 2018; Moore 2018b].) Some global song collectors are very concerned to pass down specific details about songs when they share them at churches or conferences.8 But without a framework of general knowledge or pedagogical resources to support it, I have seen this “oral tradition” of global song stories end up like a bad game of telephone. In this game of song story telephone, songs—and the church cultures from which they come—are boiled down to their basest and most stereotype-confirming elements. These first two problems are caused and exacerbated in part by the third problem: a lack of interpretive resources to help educate North American church leaders and musicians. Though academic research on Christian congregational music in a global perspective has exploded in the past decade and a half,9 pedagogical material for the classroom has yet to catch up. In other words, scholars of congregational music-making in a global perspective may be spoiled for choice, but teachers of this area are left wanting. As of the time of this writing, rich and nuanced pedagogical resources on church music outside North America and Europe that are accessible to undergraduates and beginning seminarians are next to none. The resources that do exist in the vein of global song publications, moreover, may unfortunately reinforce old stereotypes rather than open new pathways to understanding. Many North American music ministers that I have spoken with assume that because a song outside the Euro-American canon

240  Monique M. Ingalls et al. has been singled out for inclusion in a global song book or in their denomination’s hymnal, the song must be popular in its place of origin, or it must somehow be “representative” of a given people’s music. Given the curatorship problem discussed earlier, a song’s inclusion in a “global song” songbook often means no such thing. Its presence is all too often a product of convenience, connections, and adherence to expectations rooted in North Americans’ lack of global contextual awareness. Enacting Solutions through the Nigerian Christian Songs Website A Decolonial Experiment in Church Music Pedagogy Monique M. Ingalls

I had been stewing over the pedagogical problems with “global song” for several years. But in the year 2020, a golden opportunity arose—during a global pandemic, of all times—to do something concrete about these problems by marshalling digital methods and decolonial pedagogy. In his Ethnomusicology Forum article on decolonial pedagogy, Jeff Roy writes that decolonial music pedagogies must “move through the ideological realm of critique towards an urgent and vibrant practice of creative resurgence” (2022, 3) and further characterizes this creative process as one that “prioritises students’ lived experiences, corporeal knowledges . . . ancestries, and relationalities to unsettle the study of music” (2022, 4). For our purposes, we wanted decolonial pedagogy to unsettle the canon of global song. The project was initiated by the church music program at the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary (NBTS), located in Ogbomosho, Oyo State, Nigeria. Through a series of Baptist networks, NBTS, the Baptist flagship theological school not only in Nigeria but also in West Africa more generally, reached out to several colleagues who teach sacred music at Baptist universities in the USA. Since the COVID-19 pandemic had forced all their in-person seminary courses to move online, they reached out to invite church music professors located elsewhere in the world to teach online courses in their newly formed church music doctoral program. One of these courses was called “Cultural Reflections on Christian Worship.” The course was very similar to a course in Baylor’s church music doctoral program, and so I and my colleagues enthusiastically accepted NBTS’s invitation to teach the online course. In consultation with the Nigerian students, the possibility of a digital songbook presented itself. The digital format was perfect for enabling local control of representation and amplifying voices beyond elite intermediaries. Figure 14.1 shows the landing page of the first iteration of the website Nigerian Christian Songs: An Interactive, Multimedia Songbook, created between February and May 2021 (Nigerian Christian Songs 2021).

Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership 241

Figure 14.1 Nigerian Christian Songs landing page.

During this period, six doctoral students at the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, including Ayanyinka and Chesirri, invested a great amount of time and energy generating written and audiovisual material for this website, aided by several members of the Baylor church music doctoral cohort. In order to poll churchgoers on their favorite songs and examine the role of church music in their lives, Ingalls and the NBTS students administered a detailed online survey that garnered over 400 responses. The Nigerian doctoral cohort conducted a total of 12 Zoom interviews with Nigerian music leaders and musicians. They created and curated images and videos of musicmaking within several Nigerian churches and church conventions. While the Nigerian students were the key producers of the content for this site, the Baylor doctoral students provided the technological support and were conversation partners throughout the process. As the instructor, I served as project manager and provided instruction in hybrid ethnographic methods

242  Monique M. Ingalls et al. (Przybylski 2021). The site is organized according to ethnomusicologist Jeff Todd Titon’s music–culture component model, applied specifically to Nigerian church music (Titon et al. 2009). The Nigerian Christian Songs project is an interactive songbook and music–culture companion built around the perspectives of Nigerian church musicians and churchgoers. It must be noted at the outset that the website’s newly created “canon” represents a very specific subset of Nigerian churchgoers, one that is heavily Yoruba by ethnicity and Baptist by denominational affiliation.10 Table 14.1 shows the 26 songs chosen by the students to feature on the website and around which to build the other interpretive elements of the site. Table 14.1 List of songs from Nigerian Christian Songs website, v. 1.0 (May 2021) Song name

Language

Origin Genre (of lyrics and tune)

AFOPE F’OLORUN (“NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD”) AKA JEHOVA (THE ARM OF THE LORD) ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS’ NAME ALL THE WAY MY SAVIOUR LEADS ME ALL TO JESUS, I SURRENDER AMAZING GRACE BECAUSE HE LIVES BLESSED ASSURANCE GRACE ALONE GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS HE HAS PROMISED HE WILL NEVER FAIL HELPING HANDS

Yoruba

Germany, UK, Nigeria

Hymn

Igbo

Nigeria

Gospel

English

UK, USA

Hymn

English

USA

Hymn

English

USA

Hymn

English English English English English

UK, USA USA USA Nigeria USA

Hymn Hymn Hymn Gospel Gospel

English

Nigeria

English

Nigeria

English

Nigeria?

English

Nigeria?

Urhobo and English English Yoruba and English English

Nigeria

Praise and worship Praise and worship Praise and worship Praise and worship Gospel

I LOVE THE MAN OF CALVARY I’LL BLESS THE LORD AT ALL TIMES IGBUNU IN CHRIST ALONE IWO NIKAN L’OGO YE LORD, MAKE US AN INSTRUMENT OF YOUR PEACE

UK Nigeria USA

Modern hymn Praise and worship Praise and worship

Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership 243 Song name

Language

Origin Genre (of lyrics and tune)

OLORUN TOTOBI, OLORUN BABA AGBA OPE LOYE O, BABA OLORE SUNAR YESU

Yoruba

Nigeria

Gospel

Yoruba

Nigeria

Hausa

Nigeria UK, USA, Nigeria

Indigenous chorus Praise and worship Hymn

UK, USA

Hymn

USA, Nigeria

Hymn

Nigeria

Praise and worship Gospel

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY English and Yoruba ‘TIS SO SWEET TO TRUST English IN JESUS TRUST AND OBEY English, Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo WAY MAKER English YAHWEH, YOUR NAME IS English YAHWEH

Nigeria

Table 14.2 Characteristics of 26 songs from Nigerian Christian Songs site Language English Yoruba Multiple Hausa Igbo Urhobo

Genre 17 6 4 1 1 1

Hymn Praise and worship Nigerian gospel Indigenous chorus

Origin of lyrics and tune 11 8 6 1

Nigeria USA UK Germany

16 11 6 1

Many, if not most, of the 26 songs on this list would not fall into the “global song” category, as defined by Moore in an earlier section as “a Western construction that makes use of specific non-Western musical expressions, often controlled by Euro-American publishers and institutions” (Moore 2018a, 41). These songs defy many of the neat categories that North American Christian publishers might impose upon Nigerian church songs as a precondition for inclusion in a “global” songbook. It is also more linguistically and stylistically diverse, including songs in five languages and four musical genres. Table 14.2 shows the linguistic content, musical genre, and geographical origins of the 26 songs on the Nigerian Christian Songs site (version 1.0). The Nigerian doctoral students drew from three sources in selecting these songs: (1) a list of favorite songs compiled from the survey of over 400 Nigerian churchgoers, (2) the ethnographic interviews they conducted, and (3) their own personal experience as churchgoers and leaders. In the survey, the congregational song mentioned more times than any other

244  Monique M. Ingalls et al. as a favorite (a total of 26 times) was the American hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” so the students selected this one for inclusion.11 Though the Nigerian praise-and-worship song “Way Maker” was only mentioned by three survey respondents, the students felt it necessary to include because they were aware of the song’s international reach (see Loepp Thiessen 2020). According to Table 14.1, hymns with texts and tunes originating in North America comprise nearly half of the selected repertoire. By musical genre, nearly two-thirds of the songs fall into one of two categories: (1) hymns, characterized by four-part harmony and adhering to Western classical and nineteenth-century popular music conventions, and (2) praise and worship songs, the current Protestant Christian “musical lingua franca” (Ingalls and Yong 2015, 8; Ingalls 2018, 2) modelled on late twentieth- and early twentyfirst-century pop and rock. The remaining one-third comprise six Nigerian gospel songs and one Indigenous chorus. Each of the other four main categories of the website (“Repertoires,” “Ideas,” “Activities,” and “Materials”) features content that the Nigerian doctoral students produced or gathered, including several extended reflections as well. In the “Ideas” section, visitors can read from a Yoruba music minister and a Cameroonian Christian critiques of the missionary influence that is still present in their Nigerian churches (Adeyinka 2021; Chesirri 2021). They can read an account from a Nigerian Yoruba student how strongly the generational divide influences music at her church (Ayanyinka 2021). In the “Materials” section, students provide visual examples of the material culture shaping and enabling church music: from digital media to instruments, to hymnbooks. From these and other student reflections, viewers can see the unfolding of the ongoing results of colonial encounter and the complex interaction of local agency and translocal structure in the processes of decolonization, as the student authors narrate what they see as good and bad, ugly and beautiful in their own complex church music history. Encouraging Localization, Crossing Generational and Ethnic Divides Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri

Through the Nigerian Christian Songs project, students worked to address many of the problems described earlier. While researching the different songs people prefer to sing in worship through ethnographic interviews and the Nigerian Christian Songs Survey, it was discovered that some songs and musical styles are common across ethnicities and generations. Therefore, the website will help by providing various pieces that can be used in churches that face these challenges. Also, it will model a way to solve challenges of the appropriate language for songs and compositions by providing several songs translated into different languages. The lyrics of these translated songs can be

Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership 245 projected onscreen during worship so that all the worshippers will be carried along simultaneously. Those who do not understand the music’s Indigenous language can then see the song’s English translation. I learned from this project that Nigerian worshippers long to understand what they sing and do in worship. They desire to hear God in their languages, praise God with their style of music, use their musical instruments, and above all, worship in familiar forms. Therefore, this project shows that the localization of music in Nigerian churches is essential both to reaching the nonChristians and ministering to practicing Christians. Also, some past songs or styles that are no longer “popular” may yet be relevant, just as some newer things Christians do in worship are not bad or should be put away. There are past things important to the history and identity of local churches that cannot just be parted with. Again, developing the music culture of individual churches will solve some seemingly intractable problems in worship. Knowing the church’s idea about music, the activities preferred/upheld, material culture, and the repertoires available to express these will be very helpful in congregational music-making. Uses of the Nigerian Christian Songs Website for Documentation, Revitalization, and Instruction Ayobami A. Ayanyinka

The Nigerian Christian Songs website has addressed problems associated with  poor documentation of some Nigerian church songs. Several of the songs and musical practices used in Nigerian churches that have been lost or thought to be out of existence were retrieved and globally documented on social media, where these practices may gain global notice and encour­ age renewed use. Two examples of such songs are “I Love the Man of Cal­ vary” and “I’ll Bless the Lord at All Times” (Nigerian Christian Songs 2021). Notably, the website includes not only the songs but also a number of other features, including areas for song classifications, repertories, ideas, activities, materials, methods, and contributors. Some of the interviews and interac­ tions conducted in the research were video recordings, worship, and music performances which were uploaded on the website. Each of these allows practitioners and researchers to explore various genres of music within the Nigerian Christian context and obtain a fuller understanding of the context. The digital format of the songbook also allows people across the globe to connect and log in to the website through Facebook, Google, and other web­ sites. Consequently, the new generations can visit the website to learn various music genres and songs that Nigerian Christians sang in the past, helping them feel a sense of belonging and fulfilment as Nigerians and familiarize themselves with unfamiliar parts of their own music culture. The website will also be helpful to church and music leaders to select new hymns, choruses, and spiritual songs for use in worship.

246  Monique M. Ingalls et al. On the other hand, theological institutions and other secular institutions across the globe will find the website useful in their course designs and teachings. For instance, since the website was launched, I have included the website as part of the materials for all my related courses’ outline designs at Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, and I am encouraging colleagues elsewhere in Nigeria to do the same. The website will be helpful to other nations to understand music practices in Nigerian worship. Ingalls and her colleagues at Baylor University now use the website in many of their church music courses. They have talked with many other North American colleagues who are planning to use the site in their courses, not only in church music, but in ethnomusicology and religion departments also. The site can also be used for research purposes, particularly for giving student researchers a starting place for their explorations. Concluding Thoughts Monique M. Ingalls, Ayobami A. Ayanyinka, and Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri

The work of the Nigerian Christian Songs site cannot hope to document all the diverse musical traditions of Nigerian churches, nor will it solve all of North American sacred music’s “global problems.” Indeed, some might rightly note that there are power relations embedded within the heart of the project that invoke (neo-)colonialism: a North American authority (Ingalls) served as lecturer and project manager, while Nigerian students were, by virtue of the teacher–student relationship, in a subordinate position. Hierarchical power relations are not absent from the process of curatorship either, with the Nigerian doctoral students often representing local elites in terms of socioeconomic status and level of education. These complications notwithstanding, it is the authors’ hope that this project, created through ingenuity, diligence, and a generative partnership, can still point the way forward for church music and sacred music pedagogy. We hope this project provides to Nigerian and West African educational institutions a model for documenting and preserving cultural traditions through archives created using digital tools. And we hope this project suggests a way forward in how North American Christian institutions can come alongside our global partners, not primarily as instructors, but as learners, facilitators, and equippers. As Jeff Roy notes: To work towards decolonial pedagogies of world music begins with concerted divestment from such modern concepts as “world music,” the universalising abstractions of music itself, and the exoticising scrutiny of non-European or North American societies  .  .  . [and entails] the centring of research and pedagogical practices of early career and

Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership 247 young scholars, Indigenous scholars, Black scholars, and scholars of colour. (Roy 2022, 2) The Nigerian Christian Songs project demonstrates how a combination of digital humanities methods and decolonial pedagogies can amplify the voices of marginalized communities in representing and interpreting their own musical traditions, break down harmful stereotypes, and provide a useful resource for church musicians, researchers, teachers, and students. Notes 1 The Nigerian Christian Songs website is available at https://sites.baylor.edu/ nigerianchristiansongs/. 2 By using the phrase “Christian Other,” we are invoking a definition of otherness based on Western Christian cultural expectations, which are still presumed as normative in many parts of the world. According to Miller, “Otherness is the condition or quality of being different or other,” particularly if the differences in question are strange, bizarre, or exotic (2008, 588). 3 For instance, see Adedeji (2009), Sadoh (2009), Samuel (2013), Brennan (2018), Ozah and Bolaji (2020). 4 For a discussion of the spread of tonic sol-fa within Christian missions, see Chapter  3 of McGuire (2009). For illustrations of Yoruba-language hymns in tonic sol-fa notation, see “Hymnbooks” in Nigerian Christian Songs (2021). 5 Nigerian Christian Songs (2021). 6 In addition, some songs on the Nigerian Christian Songs website are Indigenous compositions of several notable Nigerian composers. Moreover, the literature and documents used in the research are materials of Nigerian scholars such as ‘Femi Adedeji, among others (see Adedeji 1999). 7 See, for instance, Taylor (1997), Frith (2000), Hagedorn (2006). 8 For a detailed discussion of this oral storytelling practice among North American global song practitioners, see Moore (2018). 9 For discussions of the shape of the emerging field of congregational music studies, see Porter (2014, 2020) and Mall, Engelhardt, and Ingalls (2021). 10 For a more detailed discussion of survey demographics, see Nigerian Christian Songs, https://sites.baylor.edu/nigerianchristiansongs/methods/survey-demographics/. For the backgrounds of Nigerian doctoral student contributors, see Nigerian Christian Songs, https://sites.baylor.edu/nigerianchristiansongs/about-us/. 11 For a full list of songs mentioned by survey respondents, see the list at Nigerian Christian Songs, https://sites.baylor.edu/nigerianchristiansongs/survey-songs-list/.

References Adedeji, ‘Femi. 1999. The Making of a Gospel Musician: Theological and Pragmatic Perspectives. Ile-Ife: Bolakay Colour Prints Publishers. ———. 2009. “Nigerian Gospel Music in a Globalized Context.” Journal of the Association of Nigerian Musicologists 3 (1): 60–71. Adeyinka, Victoria Ayankemi. 2021. “Reflection on Missionary Activities in Nigeria.” In Nigerian Christian Songs: A Digital Interactive Songbook, edited by M. Abioye,

248  Monique M. Ingalls et al. V. Adeyinka, M. Amuro, A. Ayanyinka, T. Chesirri, G. Okoronkwo, M. Ingalls, B. McGough, S. Baker, and S. Tandei. Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies and the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary. Waco and Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://sites.baylor.edu/nigerianchristiansongs/ hymnbooks/. Aroyehun, D. O. 2013. Hymnaro Billingual, Iwe Orin fun Gbogbo Ijo Ni Afrika, Yoruba and English with Halleluyah Chorus in Hausa and Yoruba. Ilorin: Kayus Commercial Press. Ayanyinka, Ayobami A. 2021. “Musical Changes.” In Nigerian Christian Songs: A Digital Interactive Songbook, edited by M. Abioye, V. Adeyinka, M. Amuro, A. Ayanyinka, T. Chesirri, G. Okoronkwo, M. Ingalls, B. McGough, S. Baker, and S. Tandei. Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies and the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary. Waco and Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Accessed January  18, 2023. https://sites.baylor.edu/nigerianchristiansongs/hymnbooks/. Balkun, Mary McAleer, and Marta Mestrovic Deyrup, eds. 2020. Transformative Digital Humanities: Challenges and Opportunities. Digital Research in Arts and Humanities. New York: Routledge. Brennan, Vicki L. 2018. Singing Yoruba Christianity: Music, Media, and Morality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Chesirri, Mouma Emmanuella. 2021. “The Effects of Missionaries on Christian Worship and Music in My Congregation.” In Nigerian Christian Songs: A Digital Interactive Songbook, edited by M. Abioye, V. Adeyinka, M. Amuro, A. Ayanyinka, T. Chesirri, G. Okoronkwo, M. Ingalls, B. McGough, S. Baker, and S. Tandei. Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies and the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary. Waco and Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://sites. baylor.edu/nigerianchristiansongs/hymnbooks/. Frith, Simon. 2000. “The Discourse of World Music.” In Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, edited by Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh, 305–22. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hagedorn, Katherine. 2006. “ ‘From This One Song Alone, I Consider Him to Be a Holy Man’: Ecstatic Religion, Musical Affect, and the Global Consumer.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45 (4): 489–96. Hawn, C. Michael. 2003. Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally. Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies Series. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Ingalls, Monique M. 2018. Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community. New York: Oxford University Press. Ingalls, Monique M., and Amos Yong, eds. 2015. The Spirit of Praise: Music and Worship in Global Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Jagessar, Michael N., and Stephen Burns. 2011. Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives. Cross Cultural Theologies. Sheffield and Oakville: Equinox. Lim, Swee Hong. 2016. “World Christianity and World Church Music: Singing the Lord’s Song in a World Church.” In World Christianity: Perspective and Insights, edited by Jonathan Y. Tan and Anh Q. Tran, 338–53. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. ———. 2018. “ ‘Where Is Our Song Going?’ Vis a Vis ‘Where Should Our Song Be Going?’ The Trajectory of Global Song in North America.” The Hymn 69 (2): 8–11. https://thehymnsociety.org/resources/lim-article-summer-2018/. ———. 2019. “We’re All ‘Bananas and Coconuts’: Congregational Song in the Global South.” International Journal of Practical Theology 23 (1): 136–56.

Reconstructing Hymn Canons through International Partnership 249 Loepp Thiessen, Anneli. 2020. “The Overlooked Authorship of Way Maker by Sinach.” Sing! The Center for Congregational Song (blog), June 15. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://congregationalsong.org/the-overlooked-authorship-of-way-maker/. Mall, Andrew, Jeffers Engelhardt, and Monique M. Ingalls, eds. 2021. Studying Congregational Music: Key Issues, Methods, and Theoretical Perspectives. London: Routledge. McGuire, Charles Edward. 2009. Music and Victorian Philanthropy: The Tonic SolFa Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miller, J. 2008. “Otherness.” In The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods, edited by Lisa M. Given, 588–91. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Moore, Marissa Glynias. 2017. “Treating the ‘Other’ as a ‘Thou’: Recontextualization and the Search for Origins in Global Song Transmission.” The Hymn 68 (1): 9–15. ———. 2018a. “Voicing the World: Global Song in American Christian Worship.” PhD thesis, Yale University. ———. 2018b. “Appropriation or Activism? Reflections on ‘Global Song’.” Sing! The Center for Congregational Song (blog), January 22. Accessed November 14, 2022. https://congregationalsong.org/appropriation-activism-reflections-global-song/. “Nigeria Population 2022.” 2022. World Population Review. Accessed November 14, 2022. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/nigeria-population. Nigerian Christian Songs: A Digital Interactive Songbook. 2021. Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies and the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary. Waco and Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://sites.baylor.edu/ nigerianchristiansongs/hymnbooks/. Ozah, Marie Agatha, and David Bolaji. 2020. “Towards an Authentic Nigeria Hymnody: The Study of Yoruba Hymnody.” East African Journal of Arts and Social Sciences 2 (1): 67–72. Porter, Mark. 2014. “The Developing Field of Christian Congregational Music Studies.” Ecclesial Practices 1 (2): 149–66. ———. 2020. “(Almost) a Decade of Congregational Music Studies.” The Hymn 71 (3): 11–17. Przybylski, Liz. 2021. Hybrid Ethnography: Online, Offline, and in Between. Los Angeles: Sage. Roy, Jeff. 2022. “Towards Decolonial Pedagogies of World Music.” Ethnomusicology Forum 31 (1): 50–69. Sadoh, Godwin. 2009. Thomas Ekundayo Phillips: The Doyen of Nigerian Church Music. Lagos: iUniverse. Samuel, Kayode M. 2013. “Church Music in Nigeria: A  Historical Trend.” Abuja Journal of Philosophy and Religions 2 (1): 32–45. Steuernagel, Marcell Silva. 2020. “Towards a New Hymnology: Decolonizing Church Music Studies.” The Hymn 71 (3): 24–32. Taylor, Timothy Dean. 1997. Global Pop: World Music, World Markets. New York: Routledge. Titon, Jeff Todd, Timothy J. Cooley, David Locke, Anne K. Rasmussen, John Mendell Schechter, Jonathan P. J. Stock, David P. McAllester, and David Benedict Reck, eds. 2009. Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World’s Peoples. Shorter version, 3rd ed. Belmont: Schirmer/Cengage Learning.

Afterword Singing Down the Dividing Walls C. Michael Hawn

But now in Christ Jesus, you who once  were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. (Ephesians 2:13–14, NIV)

Origins I have my doubts that I  am the best person to provide a response to the breadth of contributors and the wealth of perspectives offered in this volume. I am a white, cisgender, septuagenarian male—a post–World War II baby boomer—reared in the “heartland” of Iowa in the United States, an environment that amplified many of the assumptions of mid-twentiethcentury white privilege and majority-culture values. Though racial slurs were not a part of my home environment, disparaging comments about various ethnic groups were common in school. Like most white Midwesterners in the 1950s, I had no idea of the effects of systemic racism affecting those who did not look like me. Iowa is often called the “heartland” in part due to geography and its largely agricultural economy. The small agrarian communities throughout the state reflected the values of hardworking families who lived close to the natural cycles of the environment and reaped the benefits of the deep, rich black topsoil of the region that produced some of the tallest and most abundant corn on the face of the earth. The largely Germanic immigrants brought their strong Lutheran and Catholic faith traditions with them. “Ethnic diversity” in Iowa was the result of European immigration with pockets of Czech, Slovak, Irish, Norwegian, and Danish settlers scattered throughout the state. Given the ethnicities of the settlers in Iowa, the accordion, now the butt of many jokes, was a formative instrument in my musical education and ubiquitous throughout the region. Upon reflection, I  now realize that I  was embedded in a culture that assumed whiteness to be what feminist educator bell hooks (1952– 2021) called a “norm ethnicity” (hooks 1994, 41). As hooks points out, DOI: 10.4324/9781003356677-15

Afterword 251 we Iowans thought ourselves to be so “normal” that we were without an ethnicity—“raceless”—a construct with an underlying assumption of superiority—a companion to “racist.” Though many of the cities and landmarks were named for Native American tribal communities, their presence was rarely, if ever, acknowledged. I  do not recall studying Native American culture except as a caricature when Thanksgiving approached. Migrant workers, documented or undocumented, were invisible to me. Because I was raised in the capital city of Des Moines, I knew that African Americans lived on the east side of town, because my high school played East High in sports. Otherwise, Black people’s presence was rare in the state. The solitary African American in my high school was popular as an athlete and a good student. Assumptions Naming racism has become a dominant theme in the United States and beyond. However, the nuances of racism vary from one social location to another as those with economic and political power construct systemic patterns of subjugation tailored to the history and constituents of local contexts (see Silva Steuernagel for a Brazilian perspective). These systemic patterns oppress and suppress others who lack the political influence, economic means, media access, or approved ethnic pedigree to exert agency in vital decisions that affect their well-being and ability to thrive as human beings. Regretfully, the Christian Church, in its myriad manifestations, has often perpetuated and propagated political, economic, and ethnic racist transgressions evident in society at large. When this happens, the weight of such transgressions increases exponentially because injustice appears to be “sanctified” by those who call themselves Christ-followers. This unholy sanctification exerts additional control when ritualized weekly in the historical liturgical structures and emerging worship patterns that congregations share. These weekly gatherings embody the visible representation of each tradition’s identity, enact the priorities of the community, articulate its response to issues in broader society, and embed their values in the psyches and souls of the faithful. Like Russian nesting dolls, the narrower purview of Christianity is nestled within the broader spectrum of worldwide political systems, cultural plurality, and ethnic diversity. Within the gamut of Christianity’s sacred traditions exists the more selective role of gathered rituals. Within Christian rituals exists the heartbeat of our liturgies—the people’s song reflected in countless structures and styles. With few historical exceptions, singing together is embedded in the DNA of gathered Christian worship. Each song represents an individual or communal witness to faith—how a particular community experiences the presence of the Triune God working in their lives or the world at a specific time and place in history. Some of these sung witnesses speak broadly to the universal church; some witnesses are more parochial,

252  C. Michael Hawn finding a voice only within a specific tradition or losing their efficacy after a short time; some sung witnesses reflect a personal encounter with a person of the Trinity that, while valid, is not shared by others; some are judged by a given Christian tradition to be inconsistent with the theological norms of that tradition; and some, even ones that may be loved by many, prove upon closer examination to be false witnesses. This collection of essays engages the conversation at the juncture of ethics and congregational singing. The authors offer a road sign at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century that summarizes methodologies and perspectives on the people’s song, giving voice to educators and practitioners from six continents. This volume is not the first word in a discussion that began to take shape in earnest in the wake of World War II with independence movements spawned in the Americas, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, South and Central Asia, and especially subSaharan Africa—quests for political, ethnic, and economic autonomy that realigned the world map for the remainder of the twentieth century. Neither will it be the final word. The concept of race and racism has become deeply entrenched in the human psyche as a normative cultural construct for so many centuries and magnified in societal and political structures that it will take many more conversations to expose the systemic underbelly of hate, oppression, and privilege that continues to feed this beast. Drawing on the biblical citation beginning this chapter from the epistle to the church at Ephesus, each author in this book is loosening a brick in the “dividing wall of hostility”—letting a ray of hope shine through. Ephesus was a place of learning and commerce in the early Christian world, a seaport connecting southern Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa. This city was no stranger to ethnic division and religious plurality. How would the emerging Christian community respond to such a diverse confluence of cultures and faiths? The strategy offered by the epistle writer was not to ignore cultural differences between Jews and Gentiles but to recognize that there are no barriers between the Jews and those deemed foreigners. All have access to God by one Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). All “are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by God’s Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). The authors loosen a brick in hostility’s dividing wall when they name the historical effects of racism, give voice to those who have been silenced, reframe the discussion with fresh methodological approaches, and replace hierarchical patterns of subjugation with models of shared agency. In doing so, this volume provides a forum for scholarship that offers a critique of efforts made in this arena during the last half of the twentieth century and points toward areas for further exploration as we move more deeply into the twenty-first century, a crucial time when global climate change and the resulting increases in patterns of migration and diminishing natural resources further exacerbate the economic wall dividing the Global North and South. Rather than songs of hope and unity, taunting chants continue to champion well-worn systems of injustice that privilege the few at the expense of the

Afterword 253 many and repeat centuries-old racist tropes of hate. In counterpoint to these taunts, the authors propose the music of justice, hope, and joy. Race and Singing Why should this volume on congregational song engage the topic of race? Is singing all the Christian community has to offer in the face of racist tropes? What we sing and the music we make in Christian rituals are formative sonic expressions of congregational identity. As several authors point out, missionaries used hymns to inculcate faith, shape belief, and wittingly or unwittingly, transmit cultural hegemony worldwide (see Lincoln-Hyde for a case study in China). In addition to the message of the texts, the importation of musical styles from the Global North often left an impression that, even if not explicitly stated, Indigenous musical traditions in the Global South were inferior. The heyday of colonial missions in the latter half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries frequently resulted in hymnody based on an imperialistic interpretation of the Great Commission (Matt 28:16–20)—the Global North was fulfilling a calling to share the Gospel from the West to save the rest. Styles of music that resonated in grand cathedrals or stirred young people to action through militant martial cadences led many to Christian service while perpetuating stereotypes of other cultures that were demeaning and racist. Because colonial mission organizations depended mainly on translations of existing congregational song repertoire, images of empire remained embedded in many of the translated texts and tunes. This has been ably documented throughout this volume by Johnson, BoyceTillman, Gre, Whitla, and others. Singing is a strategic methodology for responding to each topic in the subtitle of this book: mobility, agency, and de/coloniality. Though specific chapters are assigned to each area, they are not separate themes but a polyphony of understandings, methodologies, and constructs that shed light on a practice that may have been taken for granted in our liturgies. As noted in the Introduction by the editors, John Julian’s A Dictionary of Hymnology (1892, 1907) includes a fascinating chronicle of missionary efforts to incorporate hymnody in their work in an entry by Baptist hymnologist W. R. Stevenson (1823–1889). The “Missions, Foreign” entry provides an extensive account (22 pages!) mirroring colonial mission efforts at the turn of the twentieth century. A  rare example of an Indigenous contributor to congregational song included in Stevenson’s account was the Xhosa prophet Ntsikana (c. 1780–1821) in South Africa. By the end of the twentieth century, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Assemblies produced collections that gave agency to voices in the Global South, especially those prepared for gatherings held in India (1961), Kenya (1975), Zimbabwe (1998), and Brazil (2006). The Vancouver Assembly (1983) offered a forum for animateurs1 from the Global South to shape the singing voice of assemblies, providing agency for those voices who were

254  C. Michael Hawn heretofore less heard. Orthodox traditions were also represented in the leadership, liturgies, and music of the WCC. Though not an official part of the WCC, Catholics were present. Christian traditions initiated beyond the colonial missions began to take root, especially African-initiated churches (AICs). Various denominational bodies followed with collections and leadership from around the world in their respective gatherings, including the Baptist World Alliance, Lambeth Conference (Anglican), Lutheran World Federation, Mennonite World Conference, Methodist World Council, and World Reformed Fellowship. From the mid-1980s, denominational hymnals in North America increasingly incorporated voices from the Global South into their collections. At the turn of the twenty-first century, The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada offered seminars and funding in global theological education. As unlikely as it might seem, especially given my ethnic and cultural origins, I  have been the product of this era and a student of some of the most prominent voices from my generation that sought to stem the tide of the “West to the rest,” encouraging the singing of songs from the Global South in Christian communities of the Global North. While these initiatives have been fruitful and well-intentioned, some of these efforts were naïve and simplistic when placed in the context of mobility, agency, coloniality, and decoloniality. Concerning mobility, Hua and Zhang’s ethnographic research provides insight into how singing establishes identity and song variants develop, even among similar groups. Unity in spirit does not require uniformity in song. Variations are signs of the Spirit’s creative presence. Many trained in Euro–North American styles continue to assume the preeminence of written traditions over those transmitted by aural means. Older forms of ethnomusicology focused on traditional indigenous expressions at the expense of the creative confluence of musical styles that is possible when oral cultures engage Western styles (see Stevens; Boyce-Tillman; Moshugi; Pow; Ingalls, Ayanyinka, and Chesirri). Closely related are discussions of tonic sol-fa notation and the mixed effects its use has had on the transmission of songs (see Stevens; Boyce-Tillman). Traditional Western pedagogy often depends on the ability to transmit music experience through written/ notated means rather than through aural/oral communication techniques. Hymnology still focuses on the printed page as the primary artifact rather than including the performance or embodiment of the song in the body of Christ (see Silva Steuernagel). Mobility not only extends to the migration of peoples but is also evident in the transmission of ideas and artifacts using Internet technologies (YouTube, Skype, Zoom, website development) that decentralize the role of the Global North and create a more level platform for worldwide dissemination (Ingalls, Ayanyinka, and Chesirri). Agency is acknowledged in several ways: naming images that either deny or demean the personhood of a group (Johnson, Whitla); giving a face to and recognizing those whose voices were silenced or muted throughout history

Afterword 255 (Bethke; Reynolds and Wallace); exposing musical structures that subjugate the many and elevate the few (Boyce-Tillman); exploring co-compositional approaches (Gre) and collaborative research (Ingalls, Ayanyinka, and Chesirri) that allow songs, contexts, and ideas to flow freely. Coloniality and its companion, decoloniality, though permeating discussions of mobility and agency, are fore-fronted for the last section of the book. They work together to shape a new reality. Though naming the practices of empire is essential (coloniality), suggesting strategies that offer a fresh vision is the source of liberation (decoloniality). The psalmist’s “new song” (Psalms 96:1; 98:1) may not be a song composed by individuals in isolation but works developed in communal settings such as South African Freedom Songs or recreated songs with roots both in the Global North and branches in the Global South (Moshugi; Pow). So What? I return to two earlier questions: Why should this volume on congregational song engage the topic of race? How does singing strengthen the Christian community to overcome deep-seated racist tropes? The authors in this collection of essays provide evidence and anti-racist strategies that my generation may have sensed intuitively but did not always have the methodology to express. Hegemony remains pervasive and durable. While the broader inclusion of songs from the Global South and co-cultures within North America in hymnals is a sign of awareness, their inclusion in mainline collections may feel like tokenism—grafting them on the trunks of colonial hierarchies—rather than integrating the repertoire into a transformative ethical witness. As Whitla notes: The question that I  therefore try to keep before me is: How can one dismantle coloniality without reproducing and reinscribing it? Moreover, is it even possible to begin to undo coloniality without following and reproducing its very logic? The question is especially aimed at Euro-descendent people like me. Relatively few practitioners of congregational song in my generation framed the discussion in this way. It is difficult for those with privilege to comprehend our addiction to hegemonic ways of thinking and being unless we risk vulnerability. A  decolonial pedagogy encounters new sounds, sung in new ways, in new languages, in places beyond the security of those designated for worship, and with new people. Decolonial pedagogy does not pre-select musical expectations based on ethnicity. Though daunting, decolonial pedagogy digs deeper than non-Western musical stereotypes and explores “the complexity and dynamism that characterizes music of Christian communities around the world” (Ingalls, Ayanyinka, and Chesirri).

256  C. Michael Hawn Singing with Christians worldwide is not about developing broader aesthetic tastes or mastering “ethnic” musical performance practices. Singing with Christians worldwide cultivates a vocabulary that nurtures the people’s voices as an ethical act of solidarity. In doing so, we articulate our faith, shape an assembly as the body of Christ, and clarify a community’s defiance to systemic structures of racism and injustice. Who shares their song counts: enliveners of the people’s song embody the witness they proclaim. Who participates in musicking counts: this is not the song of the specialist but a song that finds beauty in the expressions of all cultures and walks of life. Our song must give voice to the youngest and the oldest among us. The sonorities of our song must be broad, ranging from lament and longing to justice and joy. Our song must engage musical structures that create a sonic bridge between our sanctuaries and the streets. Our song must provide clarion glimpses of God’s realm (see, for example, Isaiah 11:1–9; Luke 4:18– 19) amidst the miasma of current events. Thank you to these authors who represent the insights and strategies of the next generation of teachers and practitioners of musicking in the church. They reflect the increased understanding of musics and complexity of racist constructs that eluded my early upbringing. May their students hone their research and methodologies into even more effective witnesses against the ever-strident racist voices and increasingly intricate systemic structures that prop up the edifice of hate and oppression. Note 1 Animateur is a term used by the World Council of Churches (WCC) for those that enliven the people’s song in its assemblies. The Vancouver Assembly established a practice that sought parity between songs from the Global South and those from Euro–North American Christian contexts in the worship of the assembly. The primary animateurs were Loh I-to (b. 1936) from Taiwan, Patrick Matsikenyiri (1937–2021) from Zimbabwe, and Pablo Sosa (1933–2020) from Argentina. The music leadership of the Vancouver Assembly helped instill in the WCC a sense that the ecumenical movement was more than a meeting of denominational entities; it is a gathering of Christians worldwide whose cultures and ethnicities embodied the true meaning of ecumenism—oikoumene—the whole inhabited earth.

Reference hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge. 

Index

acculturation 170 – 1 Afro-fabulation 139 – 40 Afrofuturism 140 agency 2, 7, 28, 198, 202, 220, 227, 244, 251, 254 A-Hmao 阿卯 34 – 6 Amazing Grace 242; translations in Cherokee 173 – 4; translations in Chinese 44 Angklung 218 – 30 Anglican Church and Anglicanism: hymnody 118, 182, 186; missions 15, 92 – 3, 201 Anindilyakwa 135 – 6 archives 202, 235, 246 assimilation 155, 170 Bangladesh 22 Baptist Missionary Society 12, 21 Birkett, Christopher (proponent of tonic sol-fa) 15 – 16, 104 Black Lives Matter 1 Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine (hymn) 38, 242 Bokwe, John Knox 5, 17 Boudinot, Elias 168, 170 – 1 Brazil 151 – 7; European immigration to 155 Bunyan, John 76 Cherokee 169 – 70, 178; The Cherokee Hymnbook 169, 170, 172; hymns 174 – 5 children and hymnody 21 – 2, 27, 40, 56, 97, 101, 109, 119, 190, 198 China: Christian missions and missionaries in 53, 55, 59; Foreign agents in China 57 China Inland Mission 35, 57 choirs 12, 15, 21, 24, 27, 43, 161, 184, 189 – 90

Christianity 115, 147, 186, 228; in China 34, 42, 54; Evangelical movement 73; and identity 15; and Indigenous groups 128, 142, 170, 175; in Latin America 150; in South Africa 93, 97, 201, 204 Church Missionary Society (CMS) 12, 21, 142 co-composition, and hymns 134, 139, 147 colonialism/coloniality 234, 255 Congregational Music Studies 238 Congregational Song and Singing 3 – 6, 137, 152n1, 184, 198, 211, 238, 243, 255 Curwen, John 11 – 14 The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended 187 decoloniality 202, 215, 225, 255; and Feminism 226; theory and method 182, 192, 198 – 9 decolonization 225 Dictionary of Hymnology see Julian, John Digital humanities 234 – 5; and hymn scholarship 247 disobedient listening 182 – 4, 191 – 2 ethnoracial 151 – 2 Fiji 25 Folk Song 44, 48; collecting of 59, 118; and hymns 60 Global Song 238 – 40 Glover, Sarah Anna 11 Guizhou Province (China) 34 – 5 ‘Hallelujah’ choris (Messiah) 16, 44, 48 Hativka (Hebrew/Jewish melody) 60 – 2 Hughes, Katie (1899–1963) 23 – 4

258 Index The Hymnal (China) 62 hymnals and hymnbooks 28, 87, 115, 123, 172, 174, 198, 200, 236; A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780) 73; Primitive Methodist Hymnal 87; Sacred Songs for the Lord 36; Scripture Words (國韻經歌 Guoyun jingge) 53 – 5 hymns: and colonialism/coloniality 186 – 7, 200; and decoloniality 231; in Edo 236; and empire 186; at Funerals 184 – 5; in Hausa 236; in Igbo 236; and imperialism 2, 121, 124, 147, 183, 185, 199; in isiXhosa 16–18, 96–102, 104–109, 212; and liberation 146, 150, 183, 199, 255; in Yoruba 236; in isiZulu 212 International Council for Traditional Music 199 Javanese diaspora 218 ‘Jerusalem’ (William Blake) 116 – 17 Julian, John (A Dictionary of Hymnology) 5, 119, 253 Ladysmith Black Mambazo 214 London Missionary Society 12, 25 – 6 Lovedale Missionary Institution (South Africa) 16 – 18 Lutheranism: in Brazil 151 – 2; Igreja Evangélica de Confi ssão Luterana no Brasil (IECLB) 156 Makhanda (Grahamstown) 91, 93, 126 Messiah (G.F. Handel): in China 44, 48; in South Africa 16 Methodist Church 22, 25; in Britain 73; in China 36; in Fiji 27; in South Africa 18 Miao 34 – 6, 40 Mignolo, Walter 192, 200, 225 mission and missionaries 1, 201 – 2, 253; in China 36; in India 21–2, 226, 253; and music 55 – 7; in South Africa 92, 206 missions and colonialism 135, 201 Mizoram 22 – 5 mobility 202, 230

Mqhayi, Samuel E.K. (1875–1945) 91 – 3, 96, 102 musical experience 116 musical instruments and hymns 22, 45 – 6, 115, 124 – 5, 127, 188, 230, 235 Native Americans 170, 172, 251; and hymns 169 Nigeria 234, 235 Nigerian Christian Songs Project 235, 241 Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika 17 – 18 notation 237 organs 17, 124, 137, 184, 187–8 phenomenography, and hymns 115 Pollard, Samuel (1863–1915) and ‘Pollard Script’ 35 – 6 Queen Elizabeth II, funeral of 184 – 91 queer theory/queering 53 – 4 race and Christianity 253; definitions of the term 151; and identity 156–8 racism 251 Second Vatican Council 150 slave trade 73, 75, 77, 81, 82, 83, 120, 151; in Brazil 152 Sontonga, Enoch Mankayi see Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika South Africa 14, 153, 190, 198, 201, 206 Suriname 218, 219, 227 Tonga 25 tonic sol-fa 11; in Britain 11 – 12; in China 54 – 5; in Fiji 25; in India 21 – 4; in Nigeria 236; in South Africa 14, 126, 213; in Tonga 25; in Wales 22 Tractarians, hymnody of 11n7 translation of hymns 171 – 2, 176, 202, 207, 253 tunes 67, 98, 117, 120, 188 Victorian hymns and hymnwriters 120, 128, 186, 188 Watts, Isaac 80, 81 Wesley, Charles 82, 85, 86; Love Divine, all Loves Excelling 187 – 8 What a Friend We Have in Jesus/ Yeka Isihlobo Sethu uJesu 204, 207, 209