Senior Culture Officer Erastus Kautondokwa has invited schools, museums, and libraries to request the mobile ancestral Nama musical sound exhibition for display at their institutions.

The researcher believes the display enhances, preserves, and promotes the ancestral Nama music, which is under threat.

The tradition of performing ancestral Nama musical sounds, knowledge, and skills is facing rapid extinction.

This is according to the mobile ancestral Nama exhibition, officially launched at Utuseb, near Walvis Bay.

The mobile display reveals that Nama communities and villages are no longer connected by music as they were in the past, and only a few elders possess the necessary knowledge and skills to play traditional instruments.

Pre-recorded music has replaced the performance of traditional music, and this is among the threats cited in the exhibition.

"The younger generation today does not know how to produce the music, but they can dance to the music. And the reason why we endured in this project is for this younger generation at least to know how to play the music and dance to the music, because music can be transferred into all languages, and it touches the soul and the mind of the children. Thus, if they know how to produce it, they will be able to transfer it to the others," said Erastus Kautondokwa, Senior Culture Officer, Khomas National Heritage Directorate.

Ronald Dirkse from Keetmanshoop teaches children how to create traditional Nama music, and he is among the traditional entertainers at the official opening of the exhibition at Utuseb.

"Let us encourage our children to read more and learn more, especially when it comes to music like it was done in the Nama communities in the olden days. Let us teach them how to read the musical notes and encourage them to play instruments. These days, there are people paying teachers to teach children how to play instruments, but as parents, we should make it our own responsibility to invest in equipment like drums, guitars, and other instruments to give our children a chance to learn with the instruments. This will open their minds to compose Nama music."

The exhibition, funded by UNESCO and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund, is available to institutions and can be requested through the Education Regional Offices.

Nama music was inscribed on the UNESCO ‘List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding’ in December 2020.