CALUZA, REUBEN TOLAKELE

Reuben Tolakele Caluza (circa 1900-1965) was a Zulu musician, composer, and song writer, whose work also appealed to detribalized Zulu who had moved into the cities.

He was born in Edendale, near Pietermaritzburg. Natal. He attended school at Edendale and at the Ohlange Institute, which was modeled on the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, in the United States, founded by Booker T. Washington, the black American educator. Ohlange had been founded in 1901 by Dr. John L. Dube on his return from America.

At the Catholic Teacher Training College at Mariannhill in Natal, Caluza came under the influence of Fr. Bernard Huss who encouraged him to write and rublish his first song, Ixegwana (“Little Old Man”), which appeared in The Native Teachers’ Journal in 1921. In 1928 he published a collection of his songs. Absalom Vilakazi, author of Zulu Transformations, writing in 1962, considered these songs a valid reflection of one of the more unfortunate transformations inflicted upon the Zulu by the pressures of rapid urbanization.

Sponsored by the South African Native Affairs Department, he went to London, England, in 1930 as the leader of a choir composed of five men and five women to make recordings to meet the growing demand for South African indigenous music. The party consisted of a Methodist minister, teachers, students, and clerks. Besides giving many concerts the group recorded some 120 songs many composed by Caluza himself. Most were based on Zulu traditional music for weddings and rituals. Some dealt with patriotic feelings and humorous incidents and were set to European tunes.

In 1931, Caluza moved to the United States, and studied music at the Hampton Institute in Virginia. There he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in music. He wrote at least one article in English briefly explaining the principles and themes of Zulu song and pressed the need to record African music.

After he had returned home to South Africa to teach, he became chairman of the music department at Adams College in 1945. His “Rondo for Orchestra: Reminiscences of Africa,” a composition for a string quartet, is considered one of the best African works in the field of orchestral music. It is his most significant work in Western form.

At a time of cultural and political change among his people, Caluza was the first and most prominent composer of secular songs in the Zulu language, and thus helped to develop a link between traditional songs and modern lyrics. His songs immortalized among the Zulu a new urbanized class of Africans called abaghafi.

 Influenced by portrayals of the American Wild West on the movie screen, members of the abaghafi class followed a flamboyant “tough guy” style that often merged into delinquency. Marks of membership were often the wearing of a cowboy hat, possession of a guitar, concertina, or mouth organ, and the wearing of an open shirt with a black or multi-colored muffler tied into a knot around the neck. With the erosion of customary restraints, the detribalized abaqhafi class were characterized by an absolute lack of respect for old traditions. Caluza’s work offered this new proletariat a new hybrid musical form, suited to the trials of the transitional period through which they were passing.

WANDILE F. KUSE