THE NANGA BARDS OF TANZANIA: ARE THEY EPIC ARTISTS?

The article informs about the social and cultural life of people of East Africa and in particular Tanzania. It reports on the Nanga bards of Tanzania. Enanga or nanga is a seven-stringed trough zither that the Bahaya and other interlacustrine peoples of East Africa play as they recite, sing, or chant songs, ballads, panegyrics, and epics. Enanga epic poetry developed around the Hima-Bito royalty, serving both political and aesthetic ends. It was the poetry of the ruling class and largely extolled their heroes and their kings unlike the ballads and ebizina, which were mainly lower-class genres.