Music and rock art: a Saharan note

Rock Art Research, May, 2006 by Ahmed Achrati

The effect of music and its power to induce in its listeners a mystical influence is well known. This is particularly true of drumming, whose influence on human emotions and behaviour can sometimes culminate in a transcendental experience, or what Bayo Martins spoke of as 'the mysticism of drums' (Martins 1983: 21). In the Niola Doa panel, this aesthetic effect of drumming is magnificently illustrated by the diminished size of the drummers in relation to the enormous bodies that are sated with the polyrhythmic sonority of their instruments.

The number symbolism in these petroglyphs is also strongly associated with music and the musical lore of Africa, especially the number four, which is the number of the main Niola Doa ladies in four out of the five panels. There is in this number an echo of the Yaruba legend from Nigeria, according to which the deity Obatal had four wives, who clapped and sang for him every night. Consequently, he decided to make four drums and named them after his wives: Iya-Agan, Iya-Ilu, Omele-Aboh and Akere (Martins 1983: 29). The symbolism of the four drums is also found in the Ofala Festival of the Igbos, in Nigeria, and their four ceremonial drums (Osi, Idah, Okuye and N'nwoko). Similarly the Ibibio Uta people, also from Nigeria, use four drums: Eka-Utah, Akpan Udoh, Udoh and Etuk-Udoh Utahs (ibid.). A quaternary structure also marks the Gahu dance and drumming of the Ewe people of south-eastern Ghana. In these dances, the dancers 'move counterclockwise in a four count pattern, divided into tow, two counts patterns' (Locke 1987: 6). Interestingly, and perhaps a sign of its deep-rootedness, this quaternary pattern of music is also observed in the Mandan 'O-Kee-Pa' ceremony. In this ceremony, which G. Catlin depicted in Bull Dance, Mandan O-Kee-Pa, and also described it in his letters (see Catlin 1989: 159-60), there are four drummers surrounded by four pairs of dancers, facing the four cardinal points.

Five, the number of the panels, may also be musically significant. Indeed, this quinary pattern could be a reminder of the pentatonic scale (5) that characterises the rhythm of the tendi n-emans or mortar drums, which the Tuareg play on their joyous occasions (Wendt 1980: 585, 546). One of these occasions is the camel-festival at the end of the summer rainy season, which brings the Tuareg of Niger and their camels to the In-Gall region for their seasonal cure salee.

Conclusion

And, as we can see, there is a fantastic richness in the sonority of the Saharan mountains and the artistic beauty and magic they so prodigiously display. Echoes of certain Ancient airs and dances, these poetic images of music in the Sahara are also a silent anticipation of some joyous Pictures at an exhibition, where life and creativity are toasted: 'To art!'

Final MS received 12 December 2005.

REFERENCES

ARSENAULT, D. 2004. From natural settings to spiritual places in the Algonkian sacred landscape: an archaeological, ethnohistorical and ethnographic analysis of Canadian Shield rock art. In C. Chippindale and G. Nash (eds), Pictures in place: the figured landscapes of rock-art, pp. 289-317. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.