Sukuma labor songs from Western Tanzania : : we never sleep, we dream of farming / / by Frank Gunderson.

• Superior document: African sources for African history, v. 11
• Author: Gunderson, Frank D.
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: African sources for African history ; v. 11.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (567 p.)
• Notes: Texts of labor songs with translation into English, musical transcriptions, and commentary.

This volume is an interpretive analysis of a collection of 335 song texts treated as primary historical sources. The collection highlights the cultural practices that link music with labor in Sukuma communities in northwestern Tanzania. These linkages are evident in the music of the elephant, snake, and porcupine hunting associations that flourished in the precolonial epoch, in the nineteenth-century regional and long-distance porter associations, and in the farmer associations that have proliferated since the beginning of the twentieth century. Acting primarily as an interpretive editor, the author collaborated with several Tanzanian scholars and translators towards fine-tuning the translation of these texts into English, and gathered testimonies in order to create succinct interpretive statements about the songs. The African Music Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology is pleased to announce that the 2012 Kwabena Nketia Book Prize has been awarded to Frank Gunderson for his book, Sukuma Labor Songs from Western Tanzania: \'We Never Sleep, We Dream of Farming , published by Brill in 2010. Grounded in nearly twenty years of ethnographic research, we congratulate Professor Gunderson for this excellent publication in African music studies

Table of Contents

Songs of the Bayeye (snake hunters) and the Banuunguli (porcupine hunters) -- Songs of the Bayege (elephant hunters) -- Songs of the Baja Nyalaja (Lake Eyasi salt caravaners) -- Songs of the Bapagati (long-distance porters) -- Songs of the Balugu (warriors) and Barugaruga (mercenaries) -- Songs of Askaris (conscripted soldiers) -- Songs of reciprocal village labor -- Songs of the Bagobogobo ("skin wearers") and Bakomyaluume ("dew steppers") competitive farming associations -- Songs of the Bagobogobo in praise of the hoe -- Songs of the Balimi (farmers) concerning disease, drought, and famine -- Songs of nationalist praise for TANU, Julius Nyerere, and Uhuru -- Songs of political discourse during the Ujamaa Epoch (1967-1985) -- Songs concerning the war against Idi Amin -- Songs of praise for the CCM since Julius Nyerere's presidency (1985-1995) -- Songs of the Basungusungu (village vigilante associations).