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yekwaRwizi. Touring extensively throughout Zimbabwe, they played
every weekend in a different area, from Chinhoyi and Guruve in the
north to Masvingo in the south and Mutoko in the east. Invites came
from the rural areas and from towns and cities alike, for biras, rain-
making ceremonies and for the crowning of chiefs.
I
t was at this time that they caught the attention of a young
ethnomusicologist from the USA, Paul Berliner, whose deep
interest in the mbira had brought him to Zimbabwe to con-
duct extensive research into the music and culture of the
Shona people. Paul’s desire to learn more took him from
Mubayiwa Bandambira and Ephat Mujuru to the homestead of
Mr Mude. There, the great mbira master assigned to him both
Cosmas and, another young mbira great, Luken Pasipamire, as
teachers and research assistants. Even now Cosmas cannot mask
the delight in his voice at having been described by the legendary
Mude as his ‘young brother’. And he proudly tells of the great
friendship he forged with Paul, accompanying and instructing
him, in the ways of mbira and Shona culture, over the following
four years. As Paul concluded his research, the liberation war
broke out in Zimbabwe. Cosmas went back to his work in Bul-
awayo and Paul returned to the US.
Their next meeting came after the release of Paul’s celebrated
book The Soul Of Mbira. Its 1978 launch in the US and Britain
(reaching Zimbabwe in 1981) served to place Shona music and cul-
ture firmly on the map, providing excellent publicity for leading
Shona musical figures and paving the way for Mhuri yekwaRwizi’s
post-Independence European Tour of 1983. “That’s when every-
body was proud, everything came to life and we were very
pleased.” Surfing the wave of positivity, the band took mbira music
to Britain. At the time, it was still a widely held notion that there
was very little else in Africa other than drums. With concerts and
workshops, the group presented something new to their audience,
people who maybe did not know what mbira was or who certainly
had not seen or heard it live.
I asked Cosmas how he felt, to be bringing Shona music from
Zimbabwe into the heart of the former colonial power. “Well I just
felt like, ‘Why can’t we play Taireva (We Told You So)?’ One day,
things will come together and you’ll understand our situation and
our position. So to me, to us, it was really great and it was an eye-
opener to the British side. I really wanted to put across the idea
that there is also a very good instrument called the mbira, which is
very important and sacred to the Shona people of Zimbabwe,
which represents their culture.”
Organised by Paul, Annie Hand and Lucy Duran, the publicity
generated by the first tour opened the door for further, wider-
reaching tours, all the way into the 1990s. The seeds of new mbira
communities were sown all over Britain and Europe.
But, as the 1990s were drawing to a close, the reality of
HIV/AIDS and the less than ideal political situation was beginning
to be felt in Zimbabwe. With the loss of several teachers and some
members of his band, to AIDS and other illnesses, Cosmas was over-
whelmed by the feeling that “If I don’t do something, I will also die
[and] the knowledge, which I have attained, will also be lost”.
So he talked again to Paul and they decided to work on writ-
ing down and preserving the music for the benefit of future gen-
erations.
At this significant time too, Cosmas received a visit that was to
open further possibilities for his work. Marilyn Kolodziejczyk of
the Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center in Eugene, Oregon, had read
about Cosmas in Paul’s book, inspiring her to travel to his home-
stead and meet him. She invited Cosmas to spend six months as
Artist-in-Residence at the Cultural Center, set up with yet another
mbira master, Dumisani Maraire, as part of a cultural exchange
between the two communities.
One of Cosmas’s students was Jaiaen Beck, founder of Ancient
Ways, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of
the culture and tradition of indigenous people around the world.
From their first conversation, Cosmas felt instantly that her vision
was synonymous with his own desire to preserve Zimbabwean cul-
ture and give something back to his community. Jaiaen was
touched by his dream and in 1999 when Cyclone Eline destroyed
homes and infrastructure she asked, “What can I do?”
In the next two years, they firmed up their ideas and together
created Nhimbe For Progress, a project aimed at supporting the
health and education of local children in Cosmas’s area of Mhon-
doro. Nhimbe means ‘working party’ and is about a community
getting together to help one another achieve the same goal. For
the past 10 years this community project, supported by Ancient
Ways and the Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center, has paid school fees
for hundreds of children without means, set up a first aid unit with
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