American Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

My first and most enduring lessons on per formative events came from the maulidi festival of the Lamu archipelago, Kenya. Bands of Swahili passed year after year before my eyes during this festival to mark the anniversary of the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. In 2014, I came to Korea and in November of the same year, I managed to attend the Pyeongtaek nongak(also known as pungmul), a widely-transmitted traditional performance format blending music, dance and theatre. This paper was initiated to compare the performance of the hamziyyah during the maulidi festival in the Lamu archipelago, Kenya and the nongak, a traditional Korean music performed by farmers in the Republic of Korea. I give particular attention to the role they play during the festivals and as a medium which is employed to reinforce values of the Swahili people of the Lamu archipelago and that of Korean people respectively. This paper illustrates how the hamziyyah and the nongak are performed during the Lamu maulidi festival and at Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul and their subsequent transmission. The performance includes the musical ensemble, the dances, the performers and the latent functions that the hamziyyah and the nongak provide.