Cape Town - In the spirit of advocating the decolonisation of South African education, the Stellenbosch University musicology department has included black theology and African indigenous music alongside Western classical music in its musicology curriculum.
On Sunday, the musicology students performed the eloquent Great Hymn of Ntsikana at the St George’s Cathedral service.
Music lecturer Ncebakazi Mnukwana said this was in celebration of tblack theology’s contribution in South Africa.
Mnukwana said the musicology students studied Ntsikana ka Gaba, who moved from African traditional religion to Christianity (1780-1821) in Gcalekaland, Eastern Cape.
She said the importance of studying Ntsikana was to critically reflect on the settler communities, missionary education and the converting of the “red ochre people”.
“We are doing music that came when other people came in contact with Africans, Christianity is one of them and we talk about black theology because that was the beginning of black intellect,” she said.
One of the musicology students, Marina Pienaar, 21 said she grew up in East London near where Ntsikana worked, and came across the hymn several times before she was taught about Ntsikana in her studies. “It was incredible because I had heard it when I visited the Transkei.”