It's easy to get swept up in the shorthand of "The Banjo came from Africa" and yet...
None of the major banjo researchers claim specifically that the banjo came from Africa. Even Ulf Jagfors and Daniel Jatta, who first championed the Ekonting as the most direct ancestor of the banjo over other African skinned lutes, explain that the banjo itself is an American invention (to include the Caribbean of course) which could not have achieved its now common form without other old-world influences, especially Europe.
So to be clear, the first banjo in Africa was imported there. That's irrefutable.
It's time that the primary credit for invention of the banjo goes to African-Americans, not their generations-removed ancestors in the old world. African Americans no longer even spoke African dialects by the time the first thing called a banjo became known in popular culture, and the stick and gourd instruments of their forefathers were not very unique in the world anyway, even if the playing technique was. There were dozens of instruments the world over that were built very like the heritage West African instruments.
and btw, Jatta never claimed that the instrument he plays, that resembles his father's instrument, was a copy of an instrument from pre-slave trade days. Those didn't survive and every African player modifies and improves his instrument. Jatta's instrument is his modern creation, his idea of what the legacy instruments were.
There were two in history that fostered the shorthand of "The banjo came from Africa." One came quite early and one came much later, and both had tremendous popular appeal and therefore influence. George Washington is quoted as saying the instrument was "brought hither" from Africa, and Pete Seeger mentioned it to counter to the perception that the banjo was a product of white country music. Washington had not actually researched it, and Seeger never intended anything more than short-hand. But unfortunately it became a sort of the politically-correct fact, the proper enlightened way to describe banjo origin and it's stuck. Ironically, African-Americans have been excluded from the discussion.
Here's what noted black banjo researcher Tony Thomas says about it: "...Caribbean Blacks created the banjo in the 17th century and carried it to North America in the 18th century, the banjo has been part of African American heritage. An African New World combination of European and African elements.."
Here's what Jatta has always said about his instrument: "...We [Ulf Jagfors and himself] have also never endorsed that it is the only instrument, but he is on my side to say that the akonting is one of the fathers of the banjo, which we have always been saying, but many of the scholars always misquote us and say we are saying that the akonting is the only father of the banjo, which has never been our theory..."
14 Comments |
 | Marc Nerenberg says:
1/20/2016 10:25:05 PM
This page has never proposed that the banjo, as we know it today, "came from Africa", but rather, that it has roots in Africa. The object of the page is to provide a place to discuss those roots. But while banjo has its roots in Africa, the instrument was clearly developed in the Caribbean, and further developed by African-Americans in the Southern United States. I don't see any disagreement about that.
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 | danl says:
1/21/2016 8:03:30 AM
If what is meant by "roots" is the downstroke form of playing I don't see any disagreement about that.
As far as instruments though, there are many skinned lute instruments (chordophones) of the old world other than West Africa, including those of Egyptian and other Mediterranean, Balkans, and far East provenance that are as close in form and construction to the first banjo as the West African stick-and-gourd instruments. The trade routes that brought Africans to the new world included many of those locations. Indeed the guitar and violin arrived in the New World that way, bringing the construction idioms of a fretboard and fine-tune keys that comprised the invention of the banjo in America. Not even a short string (chanterelle) is unique to West Africa.
Your travel accounts here are fascinating. I'm glad you shared them, thank you.
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| Marc Nerenberg says:
1/21/2016 8:11:42 AM
There are indeed skinned lutes all over the world - but the idea for the skinned lute that eventually became the banjo (after passing through various transitional forms) seems clearly to have come from Africa. I would venture to guess that the skinned lute idea may very well have arisen independently many times in many places - or it may have been disbursed by human migration - whether or not it goes as far back as the first human migrations out of Africa to eventually populate the rest of the world is, of course, entirely unknown, though not entirely impossible. I think it's also difficult to know if those proto-banjo like instruments arose independent in West Africa or came there from elsewhere. What seems clearer is that they arrived in the "new world" specifically from there.
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| danl says:
1/21/2016 9:45:45 AM
I think it's fair to ask what specifically makes it seem clearer that the skinned lutes from West Africa were the most primary root for the banjo in America, especially when it's accepted that's not the only roots of the banjo?
I certainly seems logical because many of the slaves that came to the new world were from West Africa, but without surviving actual instruments or drawings of an actual pre slave trade proto-banjo that existed in Africa it has to remain a supposition based on logic, not quite the same as a slam-dunk fact. The instruments most claimed as pre-banjos exist only as 20th century builds, including Jatta's.
You recall that the prominent researchers all began by looking for proto-banjos from Africa -- rather than by looking for evidence of proto-banjos from anywhere else on the pre slave trade routes. It's no surprise they found what they were looking for.
Even the current consensus is that the heritage instrument traveled to the Americas as an idea, a memory if you will, not an actual instrument or specific pattern. In that sense the American amalgamators that created the banjo seem a far more primary root than the not especially unique stick-and-gourd instruments of West African ancestrals.
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| Marc Nerenberg says:
1/21/2016 10:04:30 AM
From what I've read - and I can't cite a source - some of the captives were shipped over with there instruments and made to play music on the ships. Of course, if i could remember the source, this would be a more credible response to your argument - which i find rater unpersuasive, since carrying a memory of an instrument, and then fashioning one on the other side of the Atlantic still makes the remembered instrument a root of the reconstructed instrument.
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| Marc Nerenberg says:
1/21/2016 10:05:32 AM
… with *their* instruments ...
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| danl says:
1/21/2016 2:00:51 PM
You're not the only one who can't quite cite that source, it seems to come down to that a lot. For many years I was totally convinced of the African primary source also, until I began to step back and make a neutral assessment of all the research out there. What I find is that it is definitely something that folks want to believe, which has magnified the importance of it.
I believe the research has been accompanied by an unconscious sense of generational guilt for slavery. In pointing out the genius of the West African we somewhat atone for the generations of slavery and disrespect committed by our white ancestors. You will notice that nearly all the initial researchers on this topic were white and grew up in the politically correct 1960s.
The problem is that, once more, the African American is denied the primacy of their contribution to popular music.
White researchers fulfilled a theory about what they considered the most important thing in the development of the banjo. Now with the new century can't we just appreciate the contribution of the West African ancestrals without overplaying it. African Americans rightfully deserve the primary role in the development of the banjo.
The first banjo in Africa was imported there.
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| Marc Nerenberg says:
1/21/2016 2:21:52 PM
This is the second time you've said, "The first banjo in Africa was imported there." What do you mean by that? Do you mean from America? This statement is very ambiguous, and sounds like you may be suggesting from the Mediterranean, or the Baltics or the Far East, which I'm supposing, from other things you've said that you aren't - but you aren't being clear either. Frankly, i don't see your point at all. To suggest that proto-banjos most likely came from Africa, either physically, or in the minds of people, does nothing to diminish the fact that the banjo proper was developed by African Americans. It seems like you're simply setting up a straw man and then knocking him down. I'm somewhat mystified as to what it is you are even trying to say - we seem to be talking in circles.
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| danl says:
1/21/2016 8:52:52 PM
It just means the first banjo to arrive in Africa was brought there, that's all.
Not long after the banjo became popular in America and Britain it spread around the world via traveling minstrel shows, so perhaps one of those performers was the first to bring a banjo to Africa, although a British colonial may have brought one in with personal effects. It could have happened as early as the 1840's but probably for sure by the 1860's.
But I can see I've overstepped the focus of the group. It's titled African Banjo Roots, not Banjo Roots (of which there are several).
Sorry, carry on.
Proto banjos, on the other hand, already existed in Africa but also in Europe and the Middle East, the banjo a combination of all those origins. In none of those areas was it a banjo.
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| danl says:
1/21/2016 9:03:26 PM
I meant to leave that last paragraph off, it's not right.
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| danl says:
1/24/2016 10:12:43 AM
Rather: Proto banjos, meaning any of the old world instruments that would influence the invention of the banjo in America, existed in Africa but also Europe and the Middle East, the banjo being a combination of origins. In none of those areas was it yet a banjo.
One last point, for a discussion of African origins to be fair, is to recognize that were about as many African proto banjo characteristics that were abandoned as there were those adopted by the inventors of the banjo in America. This would be the round stick, the stick-tied strings, the stick on the rim (rather than through) the sound chamber, the very thick bridge etc.
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| Marc Nerenberg says:
1/24/2016 10:41:07 AM
Note, this is called African banjo "Roots", not African banjo "Origins". The roots are from Africa, the banjo is from America.
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| danl says:
1/25/2016 12:01:50 PM
There were other old world sources that were necessary for the invention of the banjo. They certainly also qualify as roots. It's not fair to depict that Africa represents THE roots.
We probably have to agree to disagree about that, both views are valid.
I do agree the African roots are fascinating, and that there's conclusive evidence that the downstroke playing technique was exclusively African.
If only the downstroke style was the whole story. One cannot honestly explain banjo without noting that the first popular music, Minstrel music, was more Euro-American jig and ballad than it ever was African rhythm or syncopation.
Then there's the so-called (at the time) "guitar style" of up-picking which become popular even by the 1850s. Soon evolving from that were certain white and black old-timey up-picking forms in pockets of the Oceanic, Appalachian and Southern parts of the continent. The roots, to use that word, or those styles were American, and in large part African-American. That second group has consistently been glossed over in their contribution to American music, as if the generations between African speaking ancestors and today are mere legacy, not innovation.
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| danl says:
1/25/2016 1:11:35 PM
I want to rewind a bit, getting carried away. Of course this is the African Banjo Roots page, and it's about celebrating that. I've gone off-point, and I haven't even been in Africa. Sorry. I apologize and won't spin this any more. Carry on.
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