From the time of Muhammad Ali’s conquest of the Sudan in 1820, and of Said and Ismail after him, large numbers of Sudanese joined the Egyptian army. Similarly, with the expansion of cotton cultivation and trade in the middle of the nineteenth century, the slave trade also flourished, and caravans coming from Ethiopia and the east coast of Africa, as well as from northern and southern Sudan, found their way to the slave markets of Egypt.
With the abolition of the slave trade towards the end of the 19th century, large numbers of people of dark complexion had congregated in Egypt, seeking wherever possible to live together in the same neighborhood.
Today they are to be found in ‘Arayshiyyit el-‘Abid (“the Slave Stockades”) in Ismailiyya, for example, and in the Imam el-Shafi’i area of Cairo. In these neighborhoods they practiced their various arts. From Ethiopia and southern Sudan came the stringed instrument called the tanbura (a large lyre), used to accompany the zar (an exorcism and healing ritual). Also from southern Sudan came the Rango (a type of xylophone), with its regular rhythm, and the stringed gandooh Of course, the simsimiyya (a small lyre) also quickly found its place amongst this musical throng, even though it had existed in Egypt since 2000 BC, in the Pharaonic period. Despite the relative retreat of the zar ritual in Egypt, certain of the “beats” of the Tanbura still have their followers. The gandooh, however, has disappeared completely, to be replaced by the Rango, only for this to disappear sometime in the mid-1970’s.
At the beginning of 1996, Hasan Bargamoon, who had abandoned the Rango—which he had played as a boy and young man, when the old masters were still alive—was able , with help and encouragement from Zakaria Ibrahim, to collect three Rangos, which allowed El Mastaba to bring back the art of the Rango. This art depends primarily on dance to play its part in the weddings of “the people of color” in Cairo and Ismailiyya and call them to dance to its seductive rhythms.
Now the “people of color” can once again now gather around the Rango in Egypt and dance and sing on their wedding nights to its distinctive music.
More about Rango Upcoming Rango Concerts
With the abolition of the slave trade towards the end of the 19th century, large numbers of people of dark complexion had congregated in Egypt, seeking wherever possible to live together in the same neighborhood.
Today they are to be found in ‘Arayshiyyit el-‘Abid (“the Slave Stockades”) in Ismailiyya, for example, and in the Imam el-Shafi’i area of Cairo. In these neighborhoods they practiced their various arts. From Ethiopia and southern Sudan came the stringed instrument called the tanbura (a large lyre), used to accompany the zar (an exorcism and healing ritual). Also from southern Sudan came the Rango (a type of xylophone), with its regular rhythm, and the stringed gandooh Of course, the simsimiyya (a small lyre) also quickly found its place amongst this musical throng, even though it had existed in Egypt since 2000 BC, in the Pharaonic period. Despite the relative retreat of the zar ritual in Egypt, certain of the “beats” of the Tanbura still have their followers. The gandooh, however, has disappeared completely, to be replaced by the Rango, only for this to disappear sometime in the mid-1970’s.
At the beginning of 1996, Hasan Bargamoon, who had abandoned the Rango—which he had played as a boy and young man, when the old masters were still alive—was able , with help and encouragement from Zakaria Ibrahim, to collect three Rangos, which allowed El Mastaba to bring back the art of the Rango. This art depends primarily on dance to play its part in the weddings of “the people of color” in Cairo and Ismailiyya and call them to dance to its seductive rhythms.
Now the “people of color” can once again now gather around the Rango in Egypt and dance and sing on their wedding nights to its distinctive music.
More about Rango Upcoming Rango Concerts
