Musical Style and Social Change among the Kujamaat Diola

Abstract

T his study explores the musical aspects of what Kujamaat informants mean when they call certain songs old-fashioned and others new. As we shall demonstrate this distinction applies not only to those song genres that the Kujamaat have adopted recently, as opposed to those that they have possessed for a longer time, but it also applies to regional and individual variants within a particular genre, as well as to changes that informants noticed between earlier (1960) and later (1964-65) recordings. After setting up several series of relatively older and songs or variants on the grounds of informant comment and historical evidence, we found that we could indeed trace a regular trend of stylistic change. Although the stylistic changes in the various series do not take exactly the same form, the kinds of changes are quite similar. They indicate a general trend in organization and style of Kujamaat music towards differentiation and individual virtuosity among the various participants in the song. The newer songs have more parts in the ensemble, more opportunity for individual display, and different kinds of coordination among the participants. What is most revealing about this trend is that it connects changes in musical style, as seen especially in the relationships between participants in a musical event, to other social changes taking place among the Kujamaat.1