This is beginning to bug me. News reports are making this extremely annoying plastic horn out to be some traditional African instrument, adapted from hunting horns. And they’re making people who try to ban them out to be oppressors of a noble and long-lived tradition. I seriously doubt that it is anything of the sort.
It looks precisely like the sort of cheap plastic horn that has been sold around here for decades. They sell a lot of them at First Night (New Year’s Eve) celebrations, and pretty clearly look like a cheap plastic knockoff of a standard brass horn, with the flaring bell – not a “traditional African hunting horn” at all.
According to the Wikipedia page on this, these had been used in Mexican stadium since the 1970s. One South African football fan claims he started building them in 1965 out of aluminum, starting with a bicycle horn
Those both seem a lot more probable.
And now the name. This is the first time I’ve heard “vuvulzela” ( or “lepatata”, or any other name, for that matter) associated with this item. I suspect it’s because it’s the first time anyone has had a need to specify it to a large audience. For many years bungee cords didn’t have a generally identified name, and I recall a newspaper columnist exulting about finally learning the proper name for the things. Then shortly after that Bungee Cord Jumping became a fad, and the name was cemented.
Now, i think, “vuvuzela” is going to be cemented to these things for a long time.
I saw those on TV and remarked that I used to get one of those every year as a child at the annual fair—in the sixties. They were always made of plastic.
I’ve stated (the obvious) elsewhere. No one would have a problem with these things if they weren’t blown “incessantly”. Almost every other form of celebration is either pegged to special acts on the field, like a penalty, free kick, a goal, or, it is transient, like a team song. I’ve never come across anything like this elsewhere.
And of course, since this tradition is from Africa, some will try to paint the dislike as some sort of racism or cultural elitism, when nothing could be further from the truth. If in Germany or England people started shaking noise makers for 90 minutes solid in during a match I’d be just as annoyed. It takes people out of the game, even at home. Exactly what sponsors do not want.
Too bad that FIFA lost their spine and backed off calling for a ban of these things.
They are traditional in the sense that they’ve been widely used in South African football stadia since the 1990s.
Prior to the 1990s, of course, black people weren’t allowed in most South African stadia, and South Africa wasn’t allowed to participate in international competition, including football.
Hence, they are as old a tradition as they could possibly be. You wouldn’t say that the Israeli flag doesn’t have a long and proud history just because it’s only been around for 60 years, presumably.
…and I’m sure you’ll agree that calling this “traditional” paints a false picture of the age and ingrainedness of the practice. It’s like talking about the Tradition of Silly Bandz.
They used to be a Mardi-Gras-parade staple in New Orleans well into the early 80s. Then float-riders gradually quit throwing them. Kinda nostalgic for those horns.
Ominously the British press are reporting that they’re flying off the shelves here in the UK with demand outstripping supply.
My personal feeling is that anything that’s distracting to the players should be banned, and many of the players at the World Cup do say that it interferes with play.
I don’t agree. Calling them “ancient” or somesuch would paint a false picture. However, the age of the practice is in this case irrelevant. You’re talking about a society where the development of such traditions was explicitly prevented.
Look at it this way: the Super Bowl has typically trotted out one big act as the halftime show, since Michael Jackson in 1993. Would you say that is not now a tradition?
A local radio DJ pointed out recently that the vuvuzela has become a better symbol for this world cup than the weird leopardy rat thing that is the official mascot. People that less than a year ago dismissed the vuvuzela as a black thing, something *they *blow at *their *soccer stadiums have embraced it and are allowing themselves to get caught up in the excitement and join in with the rest of South Africa in celebrating football. Does it annoy the rest of the world, at least those people not currently here, yes. Would I ban the vuvuzela in order to placate others and perhaps thereby lose some of the energy that is currently bringing South Africans closer together, never.
For the first time ever South Africa is actually starting to resemble a single unified country, I have seen more South African flags flying in the past few weeks than ever before, the atmosphere here is electric. The vuvuzela has become caught up in all this as something distinctly South African and the more outsiders bitch and moan the more we band together against those who consider themselves to be our betters.
And as for a cut of point for tradition I propose three hundred years, those of us in the colonies will just have to wait a bit before we can have traditions of our own.
People know the Super Bowl isn’t that old – heck, we label them by year. If I say the half-time show is “traditional” people know what I;m talking about.
People whpo are arguing that the use of these horns is “traditional”, while tying them to wild game hunts using actual animal horns are giving the impression of great age. But the evidence is that use of these horns isn’t even as old as the Super Bowl.
If a golf or college basketball tournament can call itself a “Classic” before they even play the first one, then this shouldn’t be a problem either.
Tradition IMHO has nothing to do with antiquity, only with popular embrace over enough of a time period not to be called a fad. A couple of decades is certainly long enough.
BTW, I’ve read that ESPN’s sound engineers have been doing their best to soften the sound of the vuvuzelas. It has to be almost painful inside the stadiums.
I associate those plastic horns with the Carnaval de Québec, which according to wiki began in 1955. I don’t know when the horns showed up, though. There are usually a few at hockey games, local carnivals and school events.
