Raising Our Voice - Indigenous Women in Song

Songs are a mode of communication that is not colonial. While other forms of communications rely so much on formal education and literacy to pass messages, the experience from my community is that Indigenous songs remain an uncolonised space. Songs are composed, sung and passed on through and for festivals, struggles, and celebrations with lead singers making sure to mentor others who will take over after they are not able to continue. Songs are not translated but sung in our own language to maintain the meanings and keep the language. Dances are also associated with specific songs and help in communicating the meaning of the song to those who could not understand the language.

Songs of resistance are more associated with dances and signs of resistance against evictions, discrimination, and forced assimilations. The elderly do this, whether we have our land today or tomorrow, or never again - people will know that from this place to that place is the land of the Sengwer. People will know who the Sengwer are through our songs. They will know where our ancestral land started and where it ended through clear landmarks, carried in song. This hill to this river to that place is stored in our songs. This is how we migrated, these are the clans we have - it is all stored in song. Our identity is so much in our songs. 

Our songs are an essential part of our identity. The dominant society seeks to reduce our songs to cultural festivals where they are only seen as forms of entertainment for guests with dancers and singers being tokened for showcasing. However, despite this, we have often used such events to communicate powerful political and cultural meanings through our songs.

I am now continuing my research on our songs, to revitalise them and return their meaning and power. I am seeking to understand first from communities which songs they sing and their purpose. The results of this research, including the series of these articles, are meant to remain in the communities to help them store their knowledge systems and hopefully pass them on to the younger generations. Inspired by my personal experience and the need to be useful in saving fading Indigenous languages, songs, and other cultural aspects, I am carrying out this research to inspire other Indigenous young people to take part in serving communities by keeping present the interconnected cultural, social and economic aspects of their communities. I hope this restores the identity and the sense of belonging, especially for Indigenous youth who have been pushed away from their communities and cultural ways of life by “modernisation.”

 

***

 

Josephine Haworth-Lee, FPP's Gender Officer 

Listening to Milka’s words on song as identity, it is clear that self-representation is an essential part of self-determination. Too often, Indigenous peoples and women are represented by and for others, rather than for themselves and their communities in ways that are determined and directed by them. There is power in representation. Women and Indigenous peoples - including Milka, the Sengwer Women’s Singing Group, and countless others-  are reclaiming their power over how they represent themselves.  The Forest Peoples Programme’s Gender Programme aims to support this reclamation by highlighting Indigenous women’s voices, stories, and contributions to their collective land rights movements, community governance, and self-determination. 

It is in this spirit that we are co-curating this Article Series alongside Milka Chepkorir from the Sengwer of Cherang’any Hills. Through Milka’s research and through contributions from FPP partners, this series will look at Song as a medium for collective voice. Each article will document songs and the histories behind them as entry points to the land rights movements of Indigenous peoples across Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

Our emphasis in the series is twofold: 

In one beat, we are seeking to amplify song as a political tool for collective voice, mobilisation, inheritance. 

We see song as a mode of communication that can be culturally rooted, accessible, and decolonial. Echoing Milka’s words above: song is a way of communicating outside colonial forms of literacy and mainstream education, media, and information technology. It resounds to the rhythm of a peoples’ voice. And requires nothing more, or less, than our bodies, our voices, a message and the presence of an audience to hear it. Song speaks a language that is relatable, to the majority. It carries oral histories, people’s histories, Indigenous knowledge. Song remembers.

This is why historically, song has been at the forefront of people led movements for social change.

 

“For any spark to make a song it must be transformed by 

pressure. There must be unspeakable need, muscle of 

belief, and wild, unknowable elements. I am singing a 

song that can only be born after losing a country.” 

 

 - Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings 

Each song has a moment, a context. Some songs are performed for rites of initiation, ceremony, marriage, coming of age - others express sorrow, the pain of oppression. 

From missionaries to militants, states, saints, workers, grandmothers - national anthems, freedom songs, hymns, healing incantations, lullabies - song has been used to persuade us. 

Movement songs are songs that call for action. 

Movement songs are born from the lives and everyday experiences of people; they move us, emotionally, physically - they call us to action.

They are a counterforce to misrepresentation. They are often suppressed, but impossible to silence. 

And they are often composed and sung by women.

 

The mother tongue, “is a language always on the verge of silence 

and often on the verge of song.” 

 

- Ursula K. Le Guin, Brun Mawr Commencement Address 

Through these songs women use their voices as tools for social activism. Of protest. Of story. Of affirmation. Through their songs, they speak the voice of their community. 

 

“Oh my people, oh my people

We the Adivasi people, we the Adivasi people,

Listen to our life, listen to our story: 

Nothing is left, but everyday we toil our best

Nothing is left, everyday we toil our best

We go into the forest, 

We cross elephants, 

To gather paasam (moss).

We let our voice ring high, we let our voice ring high,

To move the elephants, 

Even the elephants listen to our voice, and they take other paths.

Oh my people, oh my people,

Listen our story, here listen to our story: 

Empty stomach for an everyday meal,

Empty stomach for an everyday job,

Sappa coffee, our only food daily.

We gather paasam (moss) with paasam (affection)

Oh my people, oh my people,

We the people, we the people!”

 

- a song written by Kalesha, from the Paliyar Adivasi people of the Palani Hills, Tamil Nadu, India 

While songs are made, brought together, and sung by people of all genders, or by people of specific genders, for different reasons, at different times, in the words of Milka: “what women can often not say in front of men, those with power, or in decision-making spaces - they can say through song.” And so, this is where the second emphasis of our series is.

The movement songs of women are at the heart of this article series. 

Here is a space to amplify Indigenous women’s voices and visions for their collective land rights movements and community governance - in rhythm, in song. 

As women, we are often told not to raise our voices- that it is indecent. 

In this series we invite women to raise their voices in song- songs of their people, songs of their ancestors, their land, their identity.

The song depends on each one of us to come into being - singer and listener. 

 

Come gather, sister, brother, friend-  listen with us. 

 

- Josephine Haworth-Lee

Forest Peoples Programme, Gender Project Officer