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The Very First Canela Worship Songs

How a Brazilian tribe learned to sing to God

by Randy Bishop

Sometimes you come across a problem you can't solve, no matter how hard you try. But if you ask a friend to help, the solution becomes clear.

That's what happened to Canadians Jack and Jo Popjes. For nearly 20 years, they tried to learn the music of the Canela people of northeastern Brazil. Serving as Wycliffe Bible Translators since 1968, they had encouraged the people to create their own Christian music, without success. Jack and Jo could not grasp the subtleties of Canela music well enough to write worship music for them, and the Canelas showed little interest in writing any new music for themselves. And no music is a big problem, since music plays such a key role in heart-felt praise of God.

Finally Jack and Jo called an expert, Dr. Tom Avery, a Wycliffe ethnomusicologist based in Belém, Brazil. His specialty was helping different people groups create worship songs using their heart music—the music they grew up singing and hearing.

"Whenever a church is born, music is involved," Tom says. "Using local music puts the Word of God into a form the people already know and use."

That was one thing the Popjeses could affirm: the Canelas certainly did love their music.

"The old men couldn't tell a story or myth without breaking into song," Jack says.

Traditionally, during each dry season, the Canelas celebrate one of their cyclical festivals, each lasting several months and featuring lots of music. The Canelas dance and sing to the sounds of a gourd rattle (se-ven inches in diameter), a four-holed flute, a bamboo horn, and other instruments. They have songs for specific times of the day and night. The central plaza of their wagon wheel-shaped village of about 1,000 people becomes an outdoor classroom. Through traditional ceremonies, the young men and women learn how to be good Canelas.

But despite their love of music, the Canelas sang only ancient songs; they did not compose new music. Everyone was content to sing the old songs about the ghost people and the water monster, just as their ancestors had done. The Canelas emphasized tribal tradition over individual self-expression, a marked difference from Western culture.

It would have been easy for the Popjeses to simply translate hymns (using the Canela language and the original European/American music). But this would have caused problems, Tom says. Hymn translation can perpetuate the false idea that Christianity is a foreign religion. In addition, since music is not a universal language, hymn translation can result in miscommunication.

For instance, if an indigenous culture associates high notes with sadness, then a hymn like "He Lives" would make no sense to them. They will wonder why Jesus' resurrection should grieve his followers.

Taking the music apart
When Tom accepted the Canela challenge, he knew he had a lot of work ahead of him. In September 1986, after doing library research on the tribe, Tom accompanied Jack and Jo to the main Canela village. He recorded Canela music so he could analyze it using a computer program he had written. After making the recordings, Tom returned to Belém where he hoped to discover the intricacies of Canela music.

Learning a music system can be tedious and difficult. Tom listened carefully to the recordings, transcribing the music note by note, aided by computer-generated graphs of the melodies. Every part of the Canela mu-sic system was examined—form, melody, rhythm, scale, and more.

Nearly a year later, Tom presented his findings to the Popjeses. He'd discovered, for instance, that the intervals between notes of the Canela scale differ from the European scale. Therefore, Canela music cannot be played on a piano, because some of the notes would "fall in the cracks."

Jack and Jo were excited that someone had finally figured out the music they had long tried to learn.

Fitting the pieces together
Now came the fun part. Tom Avery and Jack Popjes teamed up to create 23 Canela songs with Christian lyrics, most of which were direct quotations from Scripture.

"It was sort of a Gilbert and Sullivan deal," Jack recalls. "We taught each other." Many of the songs have lyrics that exhort the Canelas to live well—"Let's honor God by being sober," "God's people do not steal, God's people do not fool around sexually." There's even a Christmas song with the words, "Long ago, God's Son came down from the sky to this earth to save us."

Jack and Tom also classified their songs by the three distinct tempos of traditional Canela music—slow, fast, and racing. The Canelas start their ceremonies with the slow walking-style "ihkenpoc" (ee-KEH-dehn-poke) songs, then move to the jogging-speed "kyjkyj" (koo-ee-koo-ee) music, and finish with the fast "ihkenpej" (ee-KEH-dehn-pay) mu-sic. Slow songs promote worship and prayer, jogging-speed songs emphasize righteous living, and the fast-tempo songs enthusiastically focus on evangelism and heaven.

In September 1987, it was time for the test: introducing the new songs to the Ca-nelas. With lyric sheets in hand and a tape-recording of themselves singing the songs, Avery and the Popjeses arrived in the main village. The moment they started playing the tape, the Canelas became very excited. Within minutes, the Canela men started joining in.

"They were abso-lutely turned on," Jack says. Soon the women added a high-pitched harmony part. "When the women chimed in, I just stood there and bawled. It was so perfect," Jack remembers.

The Canelas wanted to know what tribe had taught the North American trio these songs; they couldn't imagine outsiders making them up. Over the next few nights, hundreds of villagers gathered to learn the new songs.

The songs go on
One Canela song leader, especially enamored by the new songs, told the Popjeses, "I never realized we could make up our own songs. I tried once years before, but no one would sing it. What's more, (these new songs) are about God and I want to sing about God."

Another Canela told the Canadian couple, "You have been here all these years and all you gave us was writing. Your friend Tom has only been here a little while, and he taught us how to sing to God."

For the next three years, the Canelas, both Christians and non-believers, enjoyed singing the music that Avery and the Popjes had given them. They added verses and adjusted the melodies. At the 1990 dedication service for the Ram-kokamekra version of the Bible, the Canelas sang many of the songs, which had already become old favorites.

The Popjeses left Brazil later in 1990 after 22 years of service. When they visited their former home in January 1997, they saw growing interest in Christianity among the Canelas. Jack estimates that between 5 and 10 percent of the tribe have now placed their faith in Jesus Christ. New Christians enjoy freedom from the fear of ghosts and evil spirits. They have also found God's power effective in overcoming temptations to abuse alcohol and become involved in disruptive sexual practices.

Looking back on their whole ministry, Jack says providing the songs may have been their most important contribution. While the Bible translation was essential, "the Scripture in those songs did more for them than the Bible translation."

Editor's note: Today, Jack Popjes serves as the chief executive officer of Wycliffe Canada, and Jo works as his administrative assistant.

Dr. Tom Avery is currently the International Ethnomusicology Coordinator for Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). For more information on ethnomusicology, contact him at 972-708-7400, Ext. 2265, or write tom_avery@sil.org via e-mail.

Copyright © 1998 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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