Music and the Formation of Sidi Identity in Western India

Abstract

The longstanding transoceanic migration of people, ideas, things and practices in sailing ships (dhows) resulted in the constitution of plural societies along the Indian coast. This essay considers the sea journey that transformed Africans into Indian Ocean travellers referred to as Sidi. It addresses the ways in which uprooted Africans created a place for themselves in Gujarat through practices of music-making embedded in spirit cosmologies and ‘cults of affliction’ involving ritual practices to ease mental or physical affliction. Fieldwork research conducted in Zanzibar and Gujarat shows that there are links between ritual practices performed by displaced Africans in both sites, and that these practices emerge as important forces in the forging of moral communities. A comparison of the processes of identity formation of former slaves in Zanzibar and Gujarat reveals significant insights into agencies of Africans in the Indian Ocean world, and so contributes to a globalization of Indian Ocean sites from below.

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