The 'Mapendo' Song: A Fishing Prayer from Women in a Pond Community

16.7 KB of audio data in EAF format documents a single traditional song. The 'Mapendo' song is performed by women while fishing, serving as both encouragement and a prayer for protection from the pond's guardian spirits. Authored by Marie-Annick Moreau and last updated on June 3, 2026, this dataset captures a specific cultural practice.

Use Cases

• Analyze musical structure and vocal patterns based on the recorded song performance.
• Study the intersection of gender, labor, and spirituality based on the description of women singing while fishing.
• Document and preserve intangible cultural heritage based on the recorded oral tradition and prayer.
• Examine linguistic and poetic features of work songs based on the lyrical content described as encouragement and prayer.

Strengths

• Dataset is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0, allowing for non-commercial sharing and adaptation.
• File format is EAF (ELAN Annotation Format), which is a standard for time-aligned annotations, suggesting potential for structured analysis.
• Author attribution is provided (Marie-Annick Moreau), offering a point of provenance.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are unknown, which limits suitability assessment and requires manual inspection after download.
• The dataset is very small at 16.7 KB, indicating a limited scope likely focused on a single recording.
• Description metadata is limited; actual audio quality and content require manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Marie-Annick Moreau.

Collection Method

Likely contains an audio recording and associated annotations, gathered through field documentation.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-03 12:29:57; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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