BASHAYI BENGOMA, Music, Poetics and the Makhoyane Bow of Eswatini

220pp., illus., maps, paperback, African Humanities Series, NISC, Makhanda, 2026

ISBN: 9781991458261

Drawing on extensive work with Swati bow players and grounded in narratives drawn from practitioners' lives and their poetic lyrics, this study of the traditional makhoyane reframes the elderly musicians who play this instrument - often mischaracterised as static practitioners frozen in time - as contemporary artists with unique and dynamic practices, despite their advanced age, rural locations, and traditional lifestyles.

The makhoyane is a traditional single-stringed, braced musical bow featuring a calabash resonator, played by rural Eswatini artisans and tradition-bearers.

"An old-fashioned organological study might not have ventured much beyond the instrument, its social uses and repertoire, but Stacey and Sibandze weave additional layers of context into their account, including the related politics of identity construction in the new nation state (Eswatini) and the histories of reception." Professor V Kofi Agawu, City University of New York

Cara Stacey is a musician and musicologist based in Johannesburg, and a lectures in Creative Music Technologies at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Vusi Sibandze is a visual artist, musician, independent researcher and educator based in Mbabane, where he is currently the music and fine arts teacher at Setsembiso Sebunye Bahali High School.