Khanya

Appropriately, as the last song in a book that was the first of its kind to be published in southern Africa, the deeply religious Mohapeloa wrote ‘Khanya’ as a doxology; it could even be seen as a thanksgiving for this publication. There was nothing unusual about this in African choral practice, where prayers are still often said or sung at the beginning or end of rehearsals, and where many practitioners are Christians. ‘Khanya’ is only 16 bars long and homophonic in style, the shortest and simplest song in Mohapeloa’s 1935 publication, Meloli le Lithallera tsa Afrika ; yet its wide-ranging melodic lines gives it more reach than many hymns have, and it might easily be sung outside church as a concert song.