The moutya is the most popular form of Seychellois song and dance originating from Africa, a legacy of the slaves who were brought to work on the plantations during the early settlement and colonization of the island.[1] Bollée’s etymological dictionary of Indian Ocean creoles categorizes the word mutya as of Bantu origins, and relates it specifically to a dance of the Makua ethnic group.[2] In fact, the moutya is a genre of music and dance that the Creole population of Seychelles shares with neighbouring islands, though it is called the sega in Mauritius and the maloya in La Réunion (in the latter two countries, its origins are also attributed to Madagascar). Historian Sudel Fuma, though asserting that plantation slaves created the maloya dance in Reunion, acknowledges that the term itself originally came from Madagascar, where it meant the expression of melancholy and sadness.[3] As for the Mauritian sega, though Boswell regards its origins as being hazy, she does refer to a research by Arago (1822: Vol. I, 223-24 in Alpers and Teelock) that describes similar dances in Mozambique and Brazil, and the work of Gäetan Benoit who suggests that the sega was brought to Mauritius by the Malagasy (Benoit, 1985). The fact that all three Indian Ocean Creole societies have had more or less the same population mix and origins supports the idea that the sega, moutya and maloya are varieties of the same dance that evolved separately within the same kind of socio-historical environment, something that is corroborated by Boswell.[4]
In this paper, the different aspects of the moutya genre will be explored, beginning with its description in terms of history, composition, form, themes and performance. This description also gives a general idea of the creolization process of Seychellois culture through the analysis of the moutya form and lyrics. The second part of the paper explores the expression of trauma and lingering prejudices and mentalities, left over from the slavery period.
[1] Danielle d’Offay and Guy Lionnet, Diksyonner kreol-franse, (Bamberg: Kreolisch Bibliotek, 1982), p. 273.
[2] Annegret Bollée, Dictionnaire étymologique des créoles français de l’Océan Indien (Bamberg : Buske Verlag, 1993), p. 333.
[3] ‘Naissance du Maloya,’ Album de La Réunion (2012), [accessed 16 October 2014].
[4] R. Boswell, Le Malaise Créole: Ethnic Identity in Mauritius, (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006), pp. 61-62.