| ID | 180326 |
| Title Proper | Numbers |
| Other Title Information | Encountering Casualties in the Era of Covid-19 |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Dudziak, Mary L |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | It was hard to shake off the dread in the summer of 2020 as Covid-19 ravaged the United States. My husband and I focused on keeping family members safe, which was something that, at the time, seemed manageable. Widening the gaze to the country and the world left me drowning in tragedy. Then one morning a story in my Twitter feed stopped me in my tracks. Someone I had never heard of had died in Zimbabwe of Covid-19. Cosmas Magaya was a mbira master.1 I had to Google “mbira” to know what that was: a wooden board with metal tines, and “a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe.”2 Ethnomusicologist Paul F. Berliner, Magaya’s co-author, friend, and collaborator, wrote in a University of Chicago Press tribute that Magaya was “one of the world’s great musicians, mentors, and cultural ambassadors,” and “was universally loved by his following.” He was a farmer, a village headman, and a preserver of Shona culture. Magaya had a global reach, and, with his ensemble, performed at New York’s Washington Square Church two weeks after 9/11. This was “profoundly healing,” Berliner remembered.3 The essay moved me to tears. |
| `In' analytical Note | Diplomatic History Vol. 45, No.3; Jun 2021: p.489–497 |
| Journal Source | Diplomatic History Vol: 45 No 3 |
| Key Words | COVID-19 |