13 Mar 2016

Seatla Sa kgosi from Maunatlala  is a choir whose membership comprises mostly elderly women. When they are called on stage to entertain the audience at social events, one will expect them to sing just like any other choir that people are used to. 

They would come to the stage singing and their musical instruments would be inside their pockets. One would be surprised when they take them out (the musical instruments) and start singing another song, they really become a band in style. Their musical instruments consist of a pair of sections of animal rib bones which are about 15 cm in length.  

The bones from the ribs are played by holding them between fingers and moving one’s wrist in such a way that they knock against each other and produce a ‘clicking’ sound. 

The women place the bones to either side of the middle finger such that approximately two-thirds of their length extends along the palm while the remainder protrudes above the fingers on the backside of the hand. 

Dikeledi Jerimiah (84) says it is important to not try to force the bones to make contact with one another through finger manipulation but rather allow them momentum to do the work on their own.

 Jerimiah said she sometimes enhances the effects of the sounds by the use of two pairs of bones one in each hand.

She said she is the only one in the choir who uses a pair of bones in each hand but others use a single pair in one hand. She said the bones are the oldest musical instruments and for years she has played them. She learnt the skill from her parents.

She said she remembers that when she was still a youth she used to play the bones in the choir but all the members in the choir especially women knew how to play the bones unlike nowadays when the bones are played by only a few.

She said there are about seven choir members out of 40 members who know how to play the bones and all of them are over 80 years now. Jerimiah said when they started Seatla sa Kgosi Choir in 2009, they thought it was going to be an easy thing but the choir members are unable to grab whatever they are teaching them.

Another choir member, Tshadiko Lehelepa (85) said expressed worry that because the technique of playing the bones is now in the hands of ageing individuals is thus at risk of fading away. She said the old skill will die out unless young people made a concerted effort to learn it. “The skill will only survive if it lives in each generation,” she said.

 Botshana Maruapula concurred with Lehelepa saying they are in the choir to sing because they are unable to play the bones. She said they tried several times to learn the technique from the elderly women but it proved extremely difficult.

She said every now and then they try to play the bones but they are unable to do that, adding that they are desperate to know how to play the bones because the technique might die out and disappear once the elderly women pass on. ENDS