BUILDING THE BANZA: TRANSATLANTIC ADAPTATIONS OF MUSICAL MEMORIES TO MEET THE NEEDS AND RESTRICTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD

Abstract

ABSTRACT

My MA thesis explores the journey of spiked lutes from their genesis in West Africa, throughout the Middle Passage, and finally, to destinations in Jamaica. This thesis not only examines the physical evolution of what would become to be known as the Jamaican banza; it also evaluates what it meant to retain knowledge of and play the banza in colonial Jamaica. The Jamaican banza was a new world iteration of an ancient West African folk instrument—passed down a patriarchal line to among specific families and areas. While constructed of similar materials, the instrument physically evolved during its Trans-Atlantic journey—adding western technologies and implements. The functions of the instrument were also reinterpreted in the New World. Drumming was the most common type of music-making among enslaved west Africans; it was the closest thing to a common language unifying culturally disparate kinship groups. Because of colonial fears associated with enslaved rebellions, drumming was outlawed and further restrictions were enacted so enslaved musicians could not gather in large numbers for fear of communicating insurrections. Many enslaved individuals sought to appease these colonial mandates while also drawing from personal or inherited memories of African folk instruments. West African instruments like the akonting, which evolved into the banza in Jamaica, designated for specific musicians and specified purposes evolved into instruments of personal expression, accessible to anyone willing to play the banza within larger colonial society. Playing the banza in colonial Jamaica was an active decision and it carried varied consequences subjective to the performer, performance, and intention of the music. Studying the evolution of the banza from a historian’s point of view answers significant ethnomusicological questions concerning the journey of the American banjo from its conception in West Africa in the fourteenth century; to its gestation in the colonial Caribbean throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries; to its eventual presence in the American Colonies.