Circumcision season at Ndivisi
The August cycle in full — the bird hunt, the age-set naming, the elders’ instruction.
The Archive
Recorded before it is lost. The elders who carry the origin accounts, the clan histories and the language as it was spoken are in their eighties and nineties.
How the archive works
Everything is recorded with the speaker’s consent, on a form they keep a copy of. Each item receives a permanent accession number — TA-YYYY-NNNN — so it can be cited by a researcher, a school, or a grandchild, a century from now. Recordings are transcribed in Olutachoni and translated.
Rights remain with the speaker and their family. The Trust holds and maintains; it does not own.
Where accounts differ
On origins they often do. The archive holds all of them, each attributed to the person who gave it. We are keeping a record, not settling an argument — and a record that flattens disagreement is not a record.
In the archive so far
Songs of the initiates
Recorded at Bokoli, transcribed in Olutachoni with translation held alongside.
On the Chetambe siege
Family testimony carried down from 1895. Where it differs from others, both are kept.
How we came to Chetambe
A migration account from Matulo. One of four differing versions the archive holds.
Naming of the Abangachi
Clan origin as told at Bokoli, with the disputed portions left in.
Planting songs
Work songs in Olutachoni, with translation. The first accession.
Recordings are not yet published to this site. Each needs its consent form filed and its transcript checked before it goes public. The catalogue is listed here so you can see what exists and ask for it.
