COMOROS • MUSIC OF ANJOUAN ISLAND

In Anjouan, island of the Comoros archipelago, festivals, whether religious or social, provide the main opportunities for dancing and making music. However, while male musical activity takes place in public, that of the women on the contrary is restricted to within their own homes. Men perform the gabusi, a song accompanied by the lute gabus which recalls the sawt sung in the Arabian Gulf and the fan sana'a sung in Yemen, the chigoma, a polyphonic wedding song believed to be Tanzanian in origin, the ndzedze, originally a Malagasy song accompanied by the zither ndzedze, in addition to sung wedding dances tari or religious song-dances kandza, also performed by women but in places sheltered from public view. Women only perform solo songs and songdances such as  deba or kandza, accompanied on several types of drums: dori, tar, dof, mbiu and handclapping.