The Anuak Legacy

After eleven years of public school teaching in Minnesota and Wisconsin, David Osterlund and his family moved to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1969, where he taught for four years (1969-1973). While in Ethiopia, he developed the first indigenous hymn book of the Amhara people. He was also privileged to live among the Anuak people for a full summer to study their music and culture as part of his doctoral studies. Now, fifty years later he is happy to share the cultural and musical findings of his research in this book, which is a slightly revised and corrected version of his 1978 doctoral thesis. In this study, the music idioms of the Anuak were examined stylistically within the socio-cultural setting of the tribe. This book explores the following questions: What are the racial, physical, social, and cultural characteristics of the Anuak tribe? How does music function in the Anuak culture? What provision is made to transmit the musical heritage? And what are the stylistic characteristics of vocal and instrumental music? With the dislocation and resettlement of the Anuak people in the early 2000s, this study takes on new meaning. In this study and accompanying website (anuaklegacy.com), one can find the songs and cultural practices described which were forbidden or no longer practiced. It is of highest value for the Anuak community to remember and retain those aspects of their culture that can have current value, that can connect these people with their long heritage, and can instruct their children in practices and sounds thought to have been lost forever.