The Kwagh-hir Theater by Hagher Iyorwuese;

Author:Hagher, Iyorwuese;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1566847
Publisher: UPA

Song:

Mnder: Ibema kwase zende

Faa faa yar korou ee

Mrumun: Ajikoko, ajikoko

Mnder: Wan ibema kwase zende

Faa faa yar a korou ee

Mrumun: Ajikoko, ajikoko

Nyamkyume va veo

Alom va veo

Wankwase Ajikako

Una korou ee

Translation:

Lead singer: Foolish woman, walk faster.

The deer will attack you.

Chorus: Ajikoko, Ajikoko.

Lead singer: You foolish woman,

Walk faster or the deer will attack you.

Chorus: Ajikoko, Ajikoko,

The wild beast has arrived.

The performance has begun.

Young girl, the deer is attacking you.

A comparison of the performance described above, which took place in 1977, with Peggy Harper’s description of a performance ten years earlier in 1966, seems to reflect few changes in the form of the Kwagh-hir performance. Harper (1978) says:

In April 1966, I was driving towards the southern Tiv town of Aliade when a group of men crossed the road, carrying brightly painted masks and carved figures. As I found no mention of elaborate carvings or masquerades written on Tiv culture, I followed them to the central square of a small farming village in the midst of the savannah, a few miles off the road. In the centre of a circle of round thatched houses, a great fire was being built, as a musician played his horn (kolough) to invite neighbours to a performance. Over the next hour, people arrived in great numbers and settled down in a wide circle, and I was made welcome to what proved an all-night spectacle of amazing artistry and extra-ordinary organization. The fire makers held live coals to the pipes of the men in the audience, while the orpasen kwagh (interpreter) as master of ceremonies dashed about assuring the people that the performance was in place. I felt for him in all too familiar situations, in fact, the organization and general atmosphere were distinctly theatrical.

The orpasen kwagh then walked round the fire calling on the great spirit to dispel wizards from the compound that men might drink their millet beer in peace.He accelerated into running and leaping as he enlarged on the excellence of the beer, much to the delight of the audience. The piercing tones of algeita trumpet – led women dancers moving individually or in couples in the arena to perform the sustained undulation of the tsough dance: ‘warming the earth’ for the entrance of a procession of twenty masquerades accompanied by musicians and singers. The straw covered figures surmounted by variety of face caps mask, paraded formally round the fire, until a man started pushing a heavy wooden object through the entrance. Immediately a masquerade rushed to take it from him and a tussle ensued ending in all the masquerades disappearing with the ndyer: a sacred object that has been taken out of its appropriate setting by a wizard of ill-will in order to upset the performance (Harper, 1978).3

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