(Fr. République du Tchad).
Central African country. A former French colony, it has been independent since 1960. Its territory extends over 1,284,000 km2, from the Tropic of Cancer in the north to beyond the 10th parallel in the south, i.e. from the desert zone to that of the forest. The population of 7·27 million (2000 estimate) thus lives in areas of great climatic and geographical contrast. Since in addition the inhabitants are descended from different ethnic groups, it is not surprising that their ways of life and socio-religious traditions vary considerably, as do their musical traditions. Knowledge of the music is superficial since there have been few specialized studies. The only information available is dispersed in general ethnological and anthropological studies and in the printed commentaries accompanying musical recordings, so that the discussion below focusses especially on the organological aspect of the traditional musics of Chad. The various peoples north of the 15th parallel are Saharan and mostly semi-nomadic livestock breeders who have been converted to Islam. In contrast, the southern inhabitants are principally sedentary cultivators, largely animist, some of whom have been converted to Christianity or Islam only comparatively recently.
Everywhere, from the north to the south, a common feature is the presence of many drums and a wealth of rhythmic musics that are most often bound to dance. Recordings of the music of Chad are published from the archives of the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, and in the UNESCO, OCORA, CNRS–Musée de l'Homme and Ethnic Folkways collections.
The principal peoples of this area are shown in the map (fig.1). Sometimes the term ‘Tubu’ is applied to the Teda and the Daza, whose languages are related. The music of the other ethnic groups, although not identical, has a certain number of features in common with that of the Teda, notably in the principal types of instrument used and in the distinctions between the music of professionals and non-professionals, and the music of men and women.
Traditional Teda musical instruments (two kinds of chordophone and three kinds of drum) are played only by men. The most common chordophone is the keleli, a plucked lute (fig.2). The resonator is hemispherical and made of gourd, wood or an enamel bowl about 20 cm in diameter with a soundboard of camel skin fixed by lacing. The neck is inserted through a slot in the skin, its lower end reappearing under a circular hole so that the strings can be tied on easily. Strips of skin are used in place of tuning-pegs to fasten the strings to the neck. The strings were traditionally made of animal sinew but are now often made of nylon thread; two or three are used according to the music played. The second kind of chordophone is the kiiki, a one-string bowed fiddle. The body of the instrument is the same as that of the keleli, but the sinew or nylon strings are replaced by a string of horsehair attached to the neck by leather straps. The string passes over a small wooden bridge placed on the skin soundboard. The bow is also made of horsehair fixed to a supple rod, which is strongly arched to secure its tension.
The three kinds of drum differ from one another only in their dimensions. The largest, the nangara, is approximately twice the size of the kwelli, with which it is often paired. The nangara is approximately 50 cm high, and the diameter of the struck skin is between 30 and 42 cm. Both drums – which may be played by any adult male – are quite bulky, and the two skins on each are attached by lacing to the wooden body, which is ovoid in shape. They are struck with straight sticks, by two drummers if only the nangara is used, and by three if both instruments are played as a pair.
The third kind of drum, the kidi, is used only by professional musicians belonging to the group of blacksmiths. This drum also has two laced skins, but the body is tapered and its maximum diameter is only about 20 cm. The body-shell is carved from a light wood since the blacksmith carries the instrument suspended from his neck while he is playing. He strikes the two skins with his hands while singing to accompany recreational dances, an activity for which he is paid. It would be shameful for a young Teda who is not a blacksmith to play the kidi while singing in public; only the girls sing when the two other drums are played, even at dances. In addition, the nangara and the kwelli are used for signalling and may punctuate proclamations, a use forbidden to the blacksmith’s drum.
This use of drums also occurs in Kanem, the province on the borders of Lake Chad, but two large paired drums are used, one ‘male’, the other ‘female’. The Kanembu use some instruments not found among the Teda. Small double-headed laced drums are struck with the hands solely by the descendants of slaves. Professional musicians use two kinds of double-headed laced drums of different sizes, but both with cylindrical wooden bodies. One head is struck with a bent stick, the other with two straight sticks. They also use single-headed drums, some of which are hourglass drums with wooden bodies played in pairs and struck with the hands, while others are made of pottery or wood and struck with large plaits of vegetable fibre (fig.3). All drums used by professionals are fitted with snares. They are generally grouped in pairs, sometimes in threes, together with a shawm or oboe of Arab origin, the Algaita (fig.4).
Small idioglot clarinets made of reed are played solely by young uncircumcised boys. In addition to the instruments listed, everyday objects such as bowls, spoons or bottles are struck or knocked against one another to serve as rhythm instruments. In regions where there are sultanates, as among the Kanembu, the Bulala (Bilala) or the Zaghawa, as well as among people in the Wadai area, the possession of certain musical instruments is linked with traditional authority, e.g. the long metal trumpets in Kanem and the copper kettledrums of the Zaghawa sultans.
The settled life of the people in the south has led to the development of local characteristics, although exchanges and reciprocal influences have led to the formation of larger cultural areas embracing several different ethnic groups. Thus the Sara have influenced the institutions of several of their neighbours with corresponding effects on their music. The Sara and related groups use a variety of instruments frequently organized in ensembles. The xylophone, unknown in the north, is used widely. There are several types, which differ in the number of keys (13, 14 or 15) and in the gourd resonators with which they are fitted. These resonators may be straight or curved, and may have a hole covered by a membrane of fish bladder or bat’s wing that serves as a mirliton and modifies the sonority of the instrument. Drums, including kettledrums, are of different shapes and sizes with one or two skins. Bow harps, with a varying number of strings, are generally used to accompany singing.
The Masa (Masana) and their neighbours, the Moundang (Mundang), Toupouri (Tupuri), Kim and Gor, form another important cultural group distributed throughout the south-west of the country. They have numerous wind instruments, including end-blown flutes and various end-blown or side-blown trumpets, with or without a mirliton, and made of gourd, wood or horn, or of a combination of these three materials. Thus, a wooden trumpet may have a bell made of animal horn or gourd. Whistles and flutes are used in highly elaborate music. Some of them have finger-holes. They are made of horn, wood or clay (dried or baked) and have a variety of shapes. The Mului (Mulwi) use an ensemble of 18 carefully tuned globular whistles of unbaked clay. Their playing technique consists of alternating the sounds of the whistles with that of the musicians’ voices to produce effects similar to yodelling. Other ensembles of whistles occur particularly among the Kera, the Moussey (Musey), the Tumak and the Gula Iro. The Gula Iro use instruments made of baked clay with double bulbs and several finger-holes. The Masa and the Barma (Bagirmi) use drums with one or two skins, and five-string bow harps that are played horizontally on the ground as shown in fig.5, in contrast to the Sara and many other peoples who hold them vertically against the body. Gourd percussion tubes that are struck against the thigh are used exclusively by women. All these instruments are generally fitted with metal jingles or are accompanied by wickerwork rattles or rattles made from large fruit-stones containing various small grains. Some instruments are used principally for rituals, such as the bullroarer and the water-drum. The water-drum is made from a hemispherical gourd inverted in a large container of water and struck like a drum. It is indispensable in ceremonies devoted to the spirits, especially among the Barma, the Kotoko and the Gula Iro.
The musics of the different cultural areas of the country differ in some major characteristic features. In the regions of the Sahara and the Sahel, the music is always monophonic. The melodic part (vocal or instrumental) develops five or six conjoined pitches, but the ambitus does not approach the octave typically reached in the music of the Tuareg of Niger. In the southern region bordering Sudan, it is the opposite: polyphony dominates. Nearly everywhere the melodies follow a pentatonic system and the musicians may have several octaves at their disposal due to the use of instrumental ensembles (xylophones, arched harps and flutes). The musicians also create complex sonorities using various accessories: resonators, noise-makers, cow-bells and buzzing resonators.
C. le Coeur: Dictionnaire ethnographique Teda (Paris, 1950)
J.-P. Lebeuf and A.Masson Detourbet: La civilisation du Tchad (Paris, 1950)
P. Fuchs: Die Völker der Südost-Sahara (Vienna, 1961)
M.-J. Tubiana: Survivances préislamiques en pays Zaghawa (Paris, 1964)
C. Pairault: Bourn le grand village d’Iro (Paris, 1966)
M. Brandily: ‘Un exorcisme musical chez les Kotoko’, La musique dans la vie, ed. T. Nikiprowetzky, i (Paris, 1967), 33–75
M. Brandily: Instruments de musique et musiciens instrumentistes chez les Teda du Tibesti, (Tervuren, 1974)
M. Brandily: ‘Un chant du Tibesti (Tchad)’, Journal des Africanistes, xlvi/1–2 (1976), 127–92 [incl. disc]
M. Brandily: ‘La musique traditionnelle du Tchad’, Tchad, Musique traditionnelle de l'Afrique Noire, ed. C. Nourrit and W. Pruitt, (Paris, 1980), 1–22
M. Brandily: ‘Le son ininterrompu: remarques sur quelques exemples africains’, Africa Tervuren, xxvi/3 (1980), 73–8 [incl. disc]
M. Brandily: ‘Songs to Birds among the Teda of Chad’, EthM, xxvi (1982), 371–90
M. Brandily: ‘Honte ou prestige: improvisation et statut social’, ‘Les lieux de l'improvisation’, L'improvisation dans les musiques de tradition orale, ed. B. Lortat-Jacob (Paris, 1987), 25–7, 73–8 [incl. disc]
Chad: Music from Tibesti, coll. M. Brandily, rec 1969–79, Le Chant du Monde LDX 274 722 (1990) [incl. disc notes]
M. Brandily: ‘Tambours et pouvoirs au Tibesti (Tchad)’, Musique et pouvoirs: cahiers de musiques traditionnelles, no.3 (1990), 151–60
M. Brandily: ‘L'acte de musique comme marqueur identitaire: l'exemple du Tibesti’,L'identité tchadienne: l'héritage des peuples et les apports extérieurs: N'Djamena 1991, ed. J. Tubiana, C. Arditi and C. Pairault (Paris, 1994), 211–28
MONIQUE BRANDILY