Baka Music & The Technology of Enchantment Pt 4 (of 5) - Who or What are Mé?

Mbendjeli hunters mimic the sound of the blue duiker to call them closer Bayaka all take pride in mimicking the sounds they hear They make these calls to have a successful hunt and when later telling the story of the hunt great attention will be paid to the acoustic features of events Hunter-gatherers see themselves as agents interacting with other natural agents in nature rather than as subjects in a society somehow outside of nature Music, dance and ritual can all be treated as modes of commu

nication on a continuum from non-verbal to verbal which has music and language at opposite ends the Bayaka will choose their mode of communication depending on who they're communicating with villagers, family, animals, spirits If communicating with spirits they will choose Music and Dance This is a "Bé" called "Abale" It was recorded when Su and I arrived at a forest camp in Canya as a welcome to us. Listen to the hocketing here! there were several older women at this camp, definitely initiated

into yeli "Abale" is different from a Bé such as "Mbouamboua" in that it doesn't always manifest "Mé" and if it does the Mé is not called "Abale" but "Kosé" it's often performed just for amusement or as in this case, as a welcome to visitors to a forest camp sometimes a man will dance, but he's not a manifestation of Mé the dancer in the Bùma is similar to Abale in that Mé does not appear but the Mé called Bùma can be present but will only be visible to the initiates the interlocking polyphonie

s and polyrhythms form a ritual system capable of communicating with the forest as a whole the rest of society, and outsiders such as Forest Spirits, farmers. and Europeans the focus on words when discussing language is due to our modern bias to lexical expression if everyone speaks at once it can be confusing but if many people sing together their message is reinforced in speech one body communicates, in music many bodies do let's have a closer look at the rhythm of the Bùma dance the first dru

m sets the tempo playing an eighth-note triplet with a stick just before the beat, played with the hand the second drum plays the beat and an eighth note triplet, just after it occasionally adding quarter-note triplets across the beats usually there are only two drums but in this case a third drum plays a variation on the second part the clapping pattern is really important if you put a clap in on the beat the whole rhythm becomes clearer bring in the first drum and the groove becomes apparent t

he second drum adds some variations and colour to the beat this is augmented by the third drum now bring in the voices and the dancer the dancer is also the solo percussionist the shaker is played with his feet the footsteps and the rhythm interacting with the other drummers the teenage girls have a really important role with their clapping as well as their singing by improvising within certain parameters their syncopation can really change the energy attaining that transcendental moment when th

e singers drummers and dancer are all in the "Kaluli Groove" that feels so good because it achieves that feeling of maximized participation when everyone is in that communion of the moment so what is Mé? Mé is a general term for an existence that is formless but is felt as an aura Mé is usually translated as "spirit" although I feel this has too many connotations from a thousand years of Christianity to be a satisfactory translation here is Pelembir talking about Mé Mé is the name of the devil

The devil is what? The devil lives in the forest there are many kinds of devil that we, the Baka have which we call to come and dance there is Mbouamboua there is Jengi , the most powerful Mé because he doesn't joke he can kill he also has knowledge if you call "Jengi" and hide, a person will pass by and not see you you can see from his language that his words have been influenced by missionaries although this translation of Mé has given the Baka a very different idea as to what a devil is tha

n we have The Baka believe that Mé live in the forest they enjoy dancing and singing, so can be called into camp by a good Bé while they sometimes play tricks on people, and can be dangerous they never use sorcery or witchcraft they sometimes appear in dreams to impart knowledge of medicinal plants, new songs, or dances I see it as that entity you feel at the climax of a great musical performance or a football match, or a play that tangible presence - that's Mé! each Mé will have a guardian to b

ecome a guardian you can buy or inherit the guardianship or you can catch the Mé in the forest or they can come to you in a dream could the Mé also be seen as the Muse? is there a huge difference between being inspired to write a song and learning a new song from a Mé who visited you in a dream? or even catching it in the forest and returning with a new Bé? there have been many times when playing with 2 or 3 other musicians that I've come to the end of a good session the music has stopped, and

suddenly there are only the three or four of us while we were playing it was as if there was another entity present it's not so much that you notice it's there, you're too involved in the moment it's more that you notice its absence when the music stops every musician that I've spoken to about this knows exactly what I mean yet it's very rarely acknowledged or spoken about Could that presence be Mé? But it isn't just during the traditional dances that Mé can appear in this recording made in

2002 during this spontaneous musicking session some "Elili Mé" appeared out of the forest dancing shyly at the edge of the clearing All the Bayaka see this is the whole point of musicking To generate a great vibe to encourage the Mé from the forest A good Bé will be traded widely They are even traded between Baka and Aka this song, "Mangissa", recorded by Louis Sarno in Central African Republic, and played by a group of Aka was originally bought from the Baka across the river Sangha in Cameroon

With their combination of polyphonic singing, polyrhythmic percussion, and a masked dancer, Bayaka are experts at manifesting Mé the energy focuses on the dancer who becomes the personification of the particular Mé each Bé creates its own unique emotions personified in the Mé It's not supernatural to them, as they know it's there there are many creatures in the forest that they hear but never see why should they believe in these any more than in a presence that they have felt but never seen? by

being present at these Spirit Dances all their lives children grow up learning that the purpose of musicking is not about making music but about manifesting Mé in part five we'll look at how the Baka's lives have changed over the last 30 years and how they've adapted their music