Skip to content
TRACEKEEPERS
Menu
English

Choose language

Your Tracekeepers account

← Back to the collection

17 · Treasure · sound archive

Two songs, missing names

Benimana and Igiterane

The archive preserved voices and claps, but not the names of those who sang.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

AI RECREATED ARCHIVE · missing names, audio not included

Two 1952 field fiches with waveforms and empty spaces where names are missing
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

AI RECREATED ARCHIVE · missing names, audio not included

History and context

Two field recordings from Cyangugu capture Batwa women’s voices, praise song and clapping on 15 July 1952.

The absence of names does not authorise inventing them: it obliges investigation of authorship, permission, restitution and benefit.

Evidence and interpretation

ILAM/SAMAP, field fiches F3V1 and F3V11.

Catalogue facts

Narrative date
15 July 1952
Location
Shangugu/Cyangugu, Rwanda; archive in South Africa
Material
sound recording and field fiche
Context
Portal for research/non-commercial; do not reproduce without licence.
Curatorial reading
The documented fact and its interpretation appear separately in the evidence block.
Dossier axis
treasures
Research record
BATWA · treasure-benimana-igiterane-recordings
Documentary coverage
1 museum source, heritage, primary corpus or research for this stop.

A SHARED TOPIC, DIFFERENT MOMENTS

Objects connected through time

Follow a topic across the collections. A shared tag is a way to compare objects, not proof that one culture influenced another.

The order uses the midpoint of each approximate date range; ranges can overlap. Spacing does not represent elapsed time. Swipe, scroll or use the arrows. With the sequence focused, use ← / →, Home or End.

Sound recordings2 dated objects

1 / 2In the centre: Two songs, missing names

Also connected, without a comparable date (3)

These objects are not placed after the others: an unknown date does not mean a more recent object.

  • Clicks and contactBantu-speaking worlds · precolonial contacts with varying chronologies and subsequent continuity
  • Healing danceSan histories · Recordings 1968–1972
  • Musical bowsSan histories · Twentieth-century ethnomusicological documentation

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

A recording’s second life in publication

The editing of SWP Records At the Court of the Mwami: Rwanda 1952 places Benimana on track twelve and Igiterane on track fourteen. The album brings together twenty-five tracks, with a total duration of 59 minutes and 8 seconds, and includes a sixteen-page booklet; it begins with a spoken intervention by Hugh Tracey. This selection turns field materials into a later editorial sequence. The listening order of the disc is a publishing decision, not necessarily the succession of the original performances nor the full programme of a ceremony.

Where it is held

South African Music Archive Project · University of KwaZulu-Natal

Item or group in the record · Library or archive

University archive of the identified recordings; the relation is sonic and documentary, not the custody of an archaeological object.

The holding institution is documented; public display may change. Check its official record before visiting.

Sources and references

Expand this information and consult its sources

Did you enjoy this exhibit?

Your opinion helps us improve the museum. You can change it whenever you like.

Loading your rating…