Cb-9 Hugh Tracey

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TRACEY AFRICAN MUSIC HERITAGE

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THE ARTS IN

Hugh Travers Tracey holds a position unique in Africa’s history of exploration and conservation. Born in the gentle hills of Devonshire in England, the contrast in coming to the vast untamed landscape in the then Southern Rhodesia in 1917 at the age of 17 must have been dramatic but which over the next fifty years saw him exploring every region south of the Sahara and collecting some twenty-five thousand examples of African Music.

This alone marks him as one of the world’s leading art collectors and historians. Whereas many other world cultures have had the advantage of the written word to record their heritage, African history and folklore has mostly been held and transmitted verbally

His quest began on his brother Leonard’s farm where in contrast to a general impression that the songs of the workers were monotonous, he found them fascinating and a means of learning their language,

HistorianThe Tracey collection, now housed in the University of Rhodes in Grahamstown as the International Library of African Music, constitutes not only of the music of Africa, but through the lyrics and his writings an archive of incalculable value to future students of history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics and religion

Concern for environment and endangered species became a matter of public concern in the 20th century having been taken too much for granted, just as endangered cultures of the world have suffered from people not seeing when its historical roots have been threatened by neglect, encroachment, attrition or pollution. In the case of Africa, Tracey foresaw the effect that radio, urbanisation, migration and wars had and would continue to have on indigenous African cultures. So in a lifetime of exploration, lecturing, writing, broadcasting and film-making, his message was a consistent plea for the recognition of the intrinsic and original qualities of African music, and that unless those roots were conserved, a great deal of this heritage could be lost and that Africa and indeed humankind would be that much poorer.

Art CollectorArt collecting can be termed a form of plunder when the mere acquisition of artifacts is made for their own sake and are removed without regard to its social, cultural and natural environment. Tracey’s attitude was the complete opposite in that his collection was to constitute a heritage to be held in trust, to be handed back to the descendents for future generation to appreciate and benefit - for as he often stated :

“There is nothing so dead than a music forgotten”


AN AFRICAN HERITAGE collected by HUGH TRACEY

Aspects of African Music Because of the rich diversity of African music, Tracey found it convenient to classify his collection according to its language source But because of its semantic nature this meant that a word pronounced differently could change its meaning, and that phrasing played an important part in artistic expression, which again could differ with every change of tongue and even dialect. In addition to the influence of language, his collection of musical instruments was necessary for their future identification and performance. There again from a conservation viewpoint, he would make accurate drawings and measurements of their construction and materials and always ensured there were still craftsmen capable of making the instrument he bought. He further found that the type of vegetation in any area could determine the types of instruments and music played. In light bush and riverine regions he would expect to find reed pipes. In great forests there would be drums and xylophones, while in open country, singing would probably be the dominant form of musical expression.

Then just as words without music are a frustration to the musical historian, so the passion of a musical instrument without knowledge of its tuning and how it was played has all the appearance of a body without a soul. Then he would accurately determine the tuning against a set if fifty-four tuning forks that he had specially made for him by the famous Sheffield steel company of William Ragg.

No detail in a recoding session escaped Tracey’s attention. He designed special field cards specifically for noting all aspects of the occasion, including the district, tribe and the names of local players, the composer and the chief of the area. He held that in studying music, we are in fact studying mankind, since people come to know themselves through their culture and in being able to share in each other’s joys and sorrows. Furthermore, by appreciating the differences there exists an opportunity for gaining respect for those of others. In his experience, Tracey found that there was hardly an African man or woman or child who was not deeply stirred by the poetic imagination of a praise singer and their words and music.

Yehudi Menuhin, commenting on his interest in traditional music said he found ‘this wonderfully organised library unbelievable fascinating’, adding that Tracey had done for Africa what Bartok did for Hungary and the Balkans. “What he did, given the scattering of the tribes and the destruction of values inherent in their traditions, will become more and more valuable as the years go by”

Alan Lomax as the Director and Founder of the Cantometrics Research Project at Columbia University in New York emphasised the growing evidence of psychic distress experienced by peoples who had been cut off from their cultural roots, particularly music. It was his conviction that one day all Africans will look to their past, as the Greeks do their poets and the ParthenonThe following evaluation by Lomax of Tracey’s work is specially significant as he had been collecting authentic folk music world-wide and was responsible devising the cantometric system of formulating and anthology of music, as well as the editing of the US Library of Congress music collections :

“What I loved about Hugh was that he saw the grandeur of the whole project. He didn’t specialize in the music of any one tribe; he made sure that he surveyed the whole area and that every tradition got a hearing.” He went on to say, “Half of Africa I got through Hugh. I didn’t have to worry about that area. He was the most helpful person in the world, better than any source. I could depend upon it being reliable. Beautiful recordings, the best of their kind ever made. We reveled in that material of his.”

This view was confirmed by Curt Wittig, a recording engineer for the Smithsonian Institute and for many international musicians and such orchestras as the Israel Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein. He joined Hugh to Mozambique in 1970 for the National Geographic magazine. “The technology Tracey developed was phenomenal for the times and the knowledge of recording them. He intuitively knew when a musician was in control of his art.”Wittig also approved of Tracey’s selective technique as being a valuable archival method by focusing on each player, and their relating one to the other and the whole, which was a reflection of the experience of the musicians themselves.


Social and cultural ‘intangibles’A further aspect of African music which Tracey noted was its social usage, what they made of it and how any social occasion was an opportunity for expressing their feelings, ideas and opinions as a communal activity in song in which everyone participated at some level. Tracey felt strongly that many ‘unschooled’ preliterate folk were actually more ‘cultured’ in the true sense of the word than their urbanized and educated relatives who in migrating had either lost or abandoned their capacity for artistic expression.

Ultimately Tracey considered the ‘intangibles’ of African cultures to be of great importance, because they comprise those refinements of thought and spirit that lie deeper than the superficialities and transience of contemporary trends. But in his time, the people were not very inclined to share his enthusiasm or to take African music seriously. It was usually dismissed as something quaintly redolent of the ‘noble savage’ and to be something to be grown out of. Yet he persevered, convinced that the African music was the ‘Royal Route’ into the hearts and minds of the people, by which it is possible to gain a greater respect and understanding of their life styles. He felt It necessary to convince the newly urbanized not to turn their backs on their rich heritage, but that it was the very ‘intangibles’ of their culture which should provide a path of transition from their rural to a Westernised environment.

He therefore saw his role as something akin to ‘Horatius keeping the bridge’ between an oral and a literate future. The challenge he saw was not in changing men’s minds – because he believed that they were going to make up their own in any case – but rather for the hearts of the people. What better way than by this royal route of their musical heritage of which they have every right to be proud.

Tracey the ExplorerThere is an obvious comparison to be made between Tracey’s explorations and discoveries to that renowned Victorian missionary Dr David Livingstone. Both men had the pioneering characteristics of dedication and perseverance in the face of great physical hardships.The journeys of Livingstone were made on foot and by oxcart that were rigorous in the extreme.But Tracey’s were comparably arduous in having to contend with cars and caravans holding bulky yet delicate recording instruments on mostly rough roads. For this careful preplanning was needed as he would be beyond the reach of any technical support in the case of breakdowns.

Both men were ‘loners’ in the sense of their purpose to which everybody and all else had to be subordinated. But whereas Livingstone had a reputation of antagonizing even his closest companions and associates, people spoke of Tracey as having a natural charm, dignity and an infectious enthusiasm for everything he encountered, that included the interests and ambitions of others. This was proved from the many friends he made throughout Africa and the warm reception he always received on revisiting an area. One of the reasons was the way in which he fully involved not as a detached academic observer, but how he engaged himself in the music-making of the people. It may be significant that Livingstone regarded African music as a ‘penance’ compared to a missionary’s predilection for ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern.”

The role of Tracey could be said to have had a more ‘spiritual’ basis than that of Livingstone, in building up a people’s self-confidence, than in the promised benefits of a future material commercial world. Livingstone undoubtedly played a singular part in the ending of slavery, but it could be said that his contribution to the knowledge of Africa was more of geological and trading importance to his British sponsors. And in approaching Africa their attitudes were very different. In his haste through the tribal areas, Livingstone would buy his way to a chief by offering gifts, and it is said even with guns.

Tracey however, learned to have a great respect for tribal traditions. He would camp outside a royal kraal and wait to be approached by a member of the household who would ask him the purpose of his visit. The message to be conveyed back would be that he wanted to listen to their music. He would then wait to be invited into the presence of the chief. Then only after spending a period of diplomatic pleasantries, he would demonstrate one of his recordings – at which the whole atmosphere would lighten up and a spirited recording session would begin.


“A River Left for me”This phrase, attributed to Thomas Baines, the famous artist and explorer, impressed Tracey in the circumstances of its origin which bore some relevance to his inner drive for exploration and personally finding something new. While there were no new rivers to map or mountains to climb, and although there were mines to be dug, there was, he was convinced, a greater unrealized treasure in the music of Africa.

He nevertheless found the going extremely demanding. There was to be a period of the first eight years struggling to make a living farming, mining and quarrying, but always with the thought of African music in the back of his mind. Then an opportunity arose for him to take a group of the farm workers from his brother’s farm to make the very first professional recordings of for the Columbia Record Company who recorded forty Rhodesian items that were pressed and distributed

With this experience he approached the Department of Music of the University of the Witwatersrand for advice on the furthering of collection and research into African music. It must have been with some incredulity that his prospects were reviewed when asked “Do you have a university degree ?” – “No” was the reply. “Do you have any musical training ?” – again “No” – “Do happen to have a matric ?” the same answer.

The lack of academic acceptance dwelt heavily upon him and not being able to capitalize on his initial success he returned to England in 1930 where he met the legendary Maud Karpeles, the founder of the International Council for Traditional Music. They became great friends and associates that lasted their lifetime and it was she, on learning of his aspirations, arranged a meeting with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst who as eminent composers were well versed in the values and use of folk music. They listened earnestly to his enthusiastic plans for collecting African music but always with an expressed concern over his academic and other levels of musical competence. Their response was direct. “You just collect the stuff !” he was told “And leave it to the next generation to do the research“. This gave him enough encouragement and assurance to return to Africa, and was indeed prophetic whereby his son Andrew was to head the new department within Rhodes University with distinction.

It was on his return to Africa that Hugh managed to obtain the first Carnegie Grant that enabled him to pursue his vision effectively. A number of other initial supporters were Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, followed by his son Harry, who as Chairman of the Anglo American Corporation took a personal interest in, and became a ‘backstop’ when any special needs had to be met. Indeed, little has been known of the great cultural role that Harry played in the whole vision and purpose of establishing ILAM which in essence constitutes an equivalent of the American Library of Congress as a record of that country’s culture. It was in 1955 that Harry detailed two up-coming managers in Northern Rhodesia to ‘look after Tracey’. These were Gavin Relly and Denis Etheredge who both later took over the reigns of the Corporation in Johannesburg. The latter, in a moving address at the celebration [ not the funeral ] of Hugh, declared that ‘If I was asked who was the most unforgettable person he had ever met” - considering all those he had met in his corporate career –“I would say Hugh Tracey” - to the extent of envying him.

The ILAM was always in need of support which came from the Chamber of Mines, when Gavin Relly negotiated a major grant from the Ford Foundation that enable the library to publish and distribute 250 long-playing records world wide. When in New York, Hugh met Mary Rockefeller who became a faithful friend and supporter and even accompanied him on one of his trips to Mozambique with the eminent Gei Zanzinger to film the unique and now famous xylophone orchestra of Venancio.

Communicator and promoter Ideals and objectives, if they are to be attained, have to be communicated and presented effectively. But pioneers and originators are not always the best promoters of their own cause. Tracey however, had a personal charm and command of the English language that was persuasive and impressive. Over the years gave lectures to a variety of audiences from school children to university students in Africa, Europe and the US - although he did not in fact ‘lecture’ anyone, but rather sought to share his enthusiasm and experiences with them.


To gain a necessary extra income, he established a small business that manufactured a version of the Rhodesian Mbira. He also wrote many books and articles for newspapers and magazines, always varying his approach and techniques appropriately. Although most of his writings were directed at urbanized communities to awaken them to the fascination he found in African music, he also had published many papers for the serious academic researcher, giving details of the methodology and techniques of his recordings.

But it was through broadcasting that he found his biggest audience and in 1935 was offered the position of announcer with the African Broadcasting Company founded by I.H. Schlesinger. Within a year he was appointed the position of the first Regional Director in Cape Town of the newly formed South African Broadcasting Corporation [SABC] He was soon transferred to Durban, where for the next eleven years he directed and initiated many new programmes and indeed broadcasting techniques from the smallest beginnings in a cramped corner of the City Hall buildings to the slightly improved studios in Aliwal Street. There he was responsible for introducing the first Zulu and Indian programmes and took every opportunity of furthering interest and research into African music through actuality broadcasts and talks that included and expressive recounting of many African folktales. He also initiated competitions to give encouragement to African composers, singers and instrumentalists.

He remembering those years with great affection of the participation of many who shared in those pioneering days such as H.E [Bertie] Dawes, Yolande d’Hotman, O.J. Horrax, Ray Rich, Rathman Pillay and K.E. Masinga who became honoured and appreciated in his own right as a translator of Shakespeare. But the call to devote himself full time to his quest was too great, and in 1947 he left the SABC and moved to the Johannesburg area. There he founded the Africa Musical Society with Mrs Winifred Hoenlie., the doyenne of South African anthropologists who included Raymond Dart and Dr Phillip Tobias who wholly encouraged Tracey in his quest.

Jan Christiaan Smuts accepted his invitation to be its patron along with a number of prominent individuals including Diplomatic representatives of Angola, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Swaziland, Belgian Congo, Kenya, Mocambique, Southern and Northern Rhodesia, Tanganika and Zanzibar. Eric Gallo, then laying the foundations of a vast record manufacturing company, made premises available to Tracey in Roodepoort and financed a number of recording expeditions who was able to form the International Library of African Music in 1954 to house and promote all its recordings.

A second Ford Grant was gained in 1968 for Tracey’s plans for a codification and textbook project, but thereafter the climate of interest changed politically when Tracey was to experience much disappointment until his death in 1977. Paradoxically, at the point of what seemed to an international breakthrough following a visit to New York n 1970, he began to find his objectives misinterpreted and opposed for all the wrong reasons that were mostly political. The extreme ‘Right Wing’ thought he was promoting Black Consciousness. The Left wing considered him to be supporting the government’s ethnicity policies, while the black ‘intellectuals’ imagined that he wished to push them back into tribalism. And while some clerics accused him of flirting with voodoo, finally, no overseas institution wanted to be seen to be supporting the ‘illegal regime’ of South Africa in any respect.

It was again Harry Oppenheimer who foresaw the importance of both the security of the ILAM if it was to be permanently sustained and developed. He offered to fund the establishment of a special department within a university for the purpose. Curiously, for the second time Wits University turned down the opportunity, but Derek Henderson Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University purposefully accepted the offer and it was placed within the Institute of Social and Economic Research. He appreciated the value of the Tracey collection when was put to him that if lost it would be lost forever – in comparison to all those Western art galleries and institutions whose artifacts are reproduced and distributed world-wide. Such a value is incalculable. And fortunately, ILAM has since been able obtain funding to digitize the Tracey collection which was originally recorded on metal and shellac disks which were liable to degeneration.


Family backgroundGiven the contrasting physical and cultural environments of the African bush with those gentle rolling hills of Devonshire, there must have been some important influences to give some indication of the building of Tracey’s character and abilities.

He was born into a family of six boys and five girls, raised by Dr Henry Eugene Tracey and his wife Alice. It occurred to Tracey later that his family all had one thing in common, that in some way they constituted a tribal quality of its own in which certain standards and disciplines had to be maintained, this according to the strict Victorian, even puritan ethics of the time. Each member of the family was assigned particular duties on the estate of some fourteen hectares. Known as ‘The Gables’, it was built under the direction of Dr Tracey along with stables and orchards. When orders were given they had to be obeyed. If not, punishment could be swift and painful. Notwithstanding these and other privations, the Tracey brothers and sisters remembered their youth as being fulfilling and a substantially happy time. Thrown upon their own resources, they all learned to be self-reliant and innovative in their interests and in making their own entertainment.

In their father they had a fine example of character to emulate. He was much loved and respected in the district, not only as a doctor but also for his rumbustious good humour and enthusiasm. He was a very active member of the community, supporting many church, social and sporting activities and he bought the first motor car in the district in 1907, a Peugot 10hp sedan, the experiences of which Hugh was to be amusingly recount in his small book “Father’s First Car’. Undoubtedly Hugh inherited his father’s gift of oratory, his love of sports and skill in using his hands.

It can be said that the Tracey’s were all imbued with a spirit of achievement. Each distinguished themselves in farming, medicine, the colonial service and missionary work. Generally, they were all supportive of each other and took pride in each other’s achievements. Leonard initially took up medicine and got as far as biology but then decided to take up farming in Africa, where from hardened experience he wrote a definitive book on ‘Farming in Rhodesia. Like his father Leonard took in an interest in local and church affairs, taking it upon himself to raise funds for the completion of Durban’s cathedral designed by Si Herbert Baker. Hugh admired Leonard and no doubt this had an influence in accepting the family advice to join him. Although Hugh was the only son not to have matriculated and did not go on to university, this according to the family, was not due to any lesser intelligence on his part but the result of his sporting and hand skills. These attributes and circumstances were to be significant when he took up his African pursuits.

In these times of condemnation of all that ‘colonialism’ which has supposedly impacted negatively on Africa, the distinction has to be made between that which motivated primary commercial interests, and those ‘colonialists’ who accepted the challenge of leaving their cultural ‘comfort zones’ to apply their skills and resources with a commitment and citizenship to the new country of their choice. Also to be recognised was the effect of successive European economic recessions that motivated such emigration. This was certainly the case with Hugh being sent to joining his brother Leonard’s Rhodesian farm.

Socially, the Trace family enjoyed tennis, having their own court. The Campbell family, John and Amy were close friends. Amy herself was intelligent and an accomplished tennis player. Their children were David, Christopher, Ian and Ursula who Hugh only met later on the occasion of his short visit from Rhodesia in 1927 when she was 17 and he 24. Hugh saw in her many of the qualities he admired in her mother who being musically gifted, had encouraged Hugh and gave him a thousand pounds towards his African quest. Ursula took a degree in Social Science at Birmingham University and obtained a grant from the Society of Overseas Settlement of British Women, with the prospect of a job for her with the Child Life Protection Society in Cape Town.

Hugh and Ursula corresponded on his return to Durban with continuous entreaties to join him. His use of poetry to express his deepest thoughts were evident, nowhere more so than in his expression of the need for environmental conservation in his poem “Saronde” – the 34ha. estate that he was to own on the outskirt of Krugersdorp in South Africa [ See page 9 ]


The following poem which he wrote to Ursula expressing his formula for happiness, is a comparable classic :

She eventually joined Hugh and they were married at St Paul’s Church in Durban. Theirs was a happy marriage that began in the Osborne hotel in Musgrave Road. Moving later to a small house in Essenwood Road where Andrew and Paul were born in 1936 and 1937 respectively. But she found that she had to adapt from the gentile country life of England to the roughness of Africa. In an effort to make the adjustment she took a course in Zulu language, that had the amusing effect when she asked their servant to ‘keep’ this, meaning a pot of tea, he thought she said ‘kipha’ meaning ‘get rid of‘ – whereupon he threw it out of the window.

Throughout his life, Hugh was fortunate in the partners and people who came into his life when they did, each in their own way contributing consciously or unconsciously to his quest. Ursula initially accompanied him on a number of trips in their mutual fascination of discovering multiple cultures in music and the folk stories. But dedication exacts a price, as Hugh was to discover. For as his journeys became longer, more distant and difficult, the contrast between her former life in England became evident and to where she eventually returned.

In common with many other pioneers and visionaries Hugh found that while the path may be exhilarating, it can also be lonely in finding themselves isolated both physically and intellectually, even in the company of those closest to them. While he enjoyed the companionship of his helpers and the people he met with, he knew he had lost a married partner with whom he could share the fullness of the experiences of life. But it was then that Peggy came into his life who found Hugh’s unbiased mind, his powers of observation and deduction a constant delight in that he did not look at the people and their music with academic detachment but participated and felt with the players their joy and capacity for ‘making the music run’ as they put it. She was an intelligent woman, extremely well read in English and French. Her conversations with Hugh sparked off spirited exchanges of ideas with verbal parries that were punctuated with quotations from many sources.

A man of deep loyalties to family and the Spartan and stoical attitude of life he absorbed in his youth in Devonshire he could not fully reconcile himself with the loss of Ursula, and was caught in a ‘no man’s land’ of two relationships. But eventually a divorce was agreed and eventually and Hugh and Peggy were married in 1948 and new phase of his aspirations began. Her role, she saw, was to follow in Hugh’s wake performing the many domestic and the technical duties of the recording journeys. She moreover relished the ‘rough life’ and helping to document all the details of each session and the need for translations to be made. If ‘genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains’ observed Peggy, then Hugh had genius. His energy could wear down his friends and colleagues all his life and his patience was almost inexhaustible, except with those who chose to misreads him or his interests.

In his closing years, after a small heart attack in 1972, the woman who extraordinarily came back into his life was Hyacinth, who in the days of the Durban studios was a 17-year-old admirer who was now able to provide the comfort, happiness and encouragement he


To Ursula,

All I need – is to be wound up daily with love

Regulated occasionally with thought

Looked at always with trust

Then our time will ever be a good time

Hugh

needed when he had began to question his life in the face of all the loss of political and institutional support.


The Future.Andrew Tracey retired as Director of ILAM in 2008 having steered its course since its inception 25 years previously. As a graduate from Oxford University, Andrew has established a reputation in his own right with a unique ability to play and teach African music, thereby contributing to his father’s achievements both academically and as a performer - as predicted by Vaughan Williams. He and his brother Paul also made a separate name themselves in compiling the show “Wait and Minim”, originally suggested by Hugh as a fill-in piece for o local theatre made up of African music items and contemporary satire. It ran internationally for 7 years with runs of 656 performances in London and 457 on Broadway, before going on to Australia and New Zealand.

The ILAM, has since 1952 published the scholarly journal ‘African Music’ holding the proceedings of symposia on Ethnomusicology. Its flagship publication ‘Sound of Africa’ series of 230 recording is the largest single single-publisher series of African music in existence. As a response to criticism that he and the ILAM were musical ‘purists’, Andrew has pointed to his establishment of a Steel Band, made up of local students, which has been in demand for many years at music festivals. African derived music has now reached new levels of appreciation with many groups receiving performances and recordings, these included ‘Jaluka’ and the ‘Amapondo groups and notably Ladysmith Black Mambazo which has gained many Golden Globe awards, especially since Paul Simon sought them out and performed a ‘cross-over’ recording with them. The composer and conductor Peter Louis van Dyjk has also written works with the San culture. Literally, Peter Girth one time musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra had stated “They have a cultural gold mine at their feet”

However, the question and definition of the word ‘culture’ has come under considerable attention from many sources. A Canadian Commission offered to establish a ‘working definition of culture’ for UNESCO which in the process needed to differentiate between large, universal ‘C’ cultures that includes that such as science and economics, with the endangered small ‘c’ cultures of the minorities of which Africa has so many. Indeed, a major philosophical imperative by Jerzy Wojciechowski of Ottawa University has formulated the concept of an ‘Ecology of Knowledge’ which examines the relationship between Man and knowledge, because we are, he says, at a crucial point in the process of humanization as a species in which the very foundations of our belief in, and our relationship to knowledge and our institutions are being challenged. It is paradoxical, to say the least, he says that in a time of unparalleled technical advance in living standards, the world's problems are increasing in proportion to the development of knowledge - and even creating more.

In contrast to the Large C culture of ‘democracy’, Wojciechowski has called for a reappraisal of the so-called ‘primitive cultures and their traditional structures for their heritage of indigenous wisdom for the potential in them for solutions to the management of human actions - even as the new biologists are searching for wild and non-hybridised varieties of crops for their resistance to stress and diseases, brought on by industrial methods of agriculture.

Surely, there is no one more deserving of a massive monument than Hugh Travers Tracy. Indeed, one exists in the Saronde estate that has now been handed on to Hugh’s grandson Geoffrey with a special mission ‘to create a working model centre drawing on the Tracey rich cultural heritage to promote and preserve indigenous knowledge systems in the fields of musical and cultural heritage and to bring education, training to local communities for sustainable development’. This estate is not only a testament to his conservation of African culture from the entire region south of the Sahara, but also, in this time of political demands for land, a great environmental ethic as enunciated in the Saronde poem, plus the preservation of the natural beauty of the site, being a part of the geological heritage of the Witwatersrand Ridge corridor.

For 93 years the Tracey collection has been supported as a charity by such as the Oppenheimers. The future of this heritage must now be the responsibility of all those who have reached positions of influence in countries that since attaining independence are claiming special identification which can begun by meeting Hugh’s ultimate objective of giving them back their heritage, Contemporary digital technology will make this more accessible, more affordable and indeed now profitable to those who can draw inspiration from Hugh in realizing the potential of African music for future healthy relations, mutual benefit and co-operation between currently opposing cultures and ideologies.


SARONDEHugh. T. Tracey

“The idea of owning a piece of land is preposterous in many ways

How can I. so mortal, be the ‘owner of a small part of the world that is immortal

Is it not the other way around ?

Saronde, my valley – my loan from the infinite is in trust to me

not to just keep it as it was – for how was it ten thousand years ago ?

No, to keep it as far as I can a corner of peacefulness

a place where my part and the world story can be seen in perspective,

a small voice in a thunder of voices heard, lost and forgotten,

- except for the fragment of truth it may convey

if well interpreted by my contemporaries

or contemplated by some thoughtful mind beyond my time

The feet, sometimes the hands that must lift us

and convey us into the solitude of wild flowers,

the hidden succulents or the nodding flower heads and grasses

that started as seed, felt the rain, the sun, the cold, the wind

and have unfolded without my presence or recognition.

Fellow creatures none the less, living here on the land I own until I die

We are alike the grass heads, the bushes of ancient lineage

which are indigenous to the place

- except that I am now an intruder from another surface

to which I was indigenous and am now transplanted

Will this place, this patch of surface – for no one is likely to penetrate far beneath

become the love of people, men, women and children living here,

loving, attaching themselves with tears of nostalgia to its shape and position

like the weeds and the grasses which belong to nature without thought

save the cycle of birth, life and death

and the resurrection in continuity in future years

May they love this valley as I love this valley

My part of peace – my loan from the Infinite.”


Cb-9 Hugh Tracey

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