‘Nyaudzosingwi’ is Shona for onomatopoeia. It’s root Nyau means to arouse/provoke. The extensive use of onomatopoeiae in Shona and other Bantu languages proposes sound as the acoustic progenitor of knowing. This performance explores the use of onomatopoeiae in liberation war choruses and protest chants in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe and South Africa with a focus on Toyi-toyi and its sonic mutation in various transnational settings. Toyi-toyi is a high-stepping ‘dance’ or knee to chest energetic marching routine associated with the anti-Apartheid protests of the mid-1980s in South Africa. Its origins however can be traced to ZIPRA Liberation fighters in Zimbabwe around 1965, years later it would evolve into a township protest ritual. Attention will also be paid to the sonic dynamics that shaped the Zhii-ii riots of Bulawayo 1960.

This study invokes a methodology of ‘Listening on an Ancestral Continuum’, a positionality of multi-sensorial, poly-locative listening in ancestral continuous tense as practised by Mbira players. Masimba Hwati briefly explores how Guerilla broadcasts and present-day radio cultures in Zimbabwe are located on the ancestral continuum. In conclusion, he introduces the concept of ‘acoustic shadows’, which are areas in Bantu languages where words fail to reach and where clusters of fricatives, explosives and other sounds replace words in various settings such as protest, celebration and civil disobedience.