The Percussion of Beans
Hearing ancient stories in the sounds of a harvesting tradition.
By Neema Syovata
Illustration by Tina Tona
Sound is perhaps the most underrated sense when it comes to the consumption of food and, even more so, its processing. We use auditory cues when cooking but seldom explore them, though sound is deeply embedded in the prep and harvesting practices of many cultures. Every sound tells a story, so what meaning can be derived from its contemplation?
In a small village in the town of Masii, about an hour and a half outside Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, an age-old method is used to process a variety of common beans. It’s a practice that takes place several times a year on a multi-generational homestead with women at the helm.
To harvest the beans from their dense, leafy clusters, the pods are broken off at the stem—snap, snap, snap—and gently dropped into burlap sacks, landing with soft, muffled thuds before being laid on tarps to dry. After several days under the hot African sun, the brittle pods are spread into a single layer, the crunch of the leaves and the rustling of the stalks so crisp it can send tingles down one’s spine.
Using a long, thick, weathered stick, the matriarch sets a tempo that others soon follow. It begins with a delicate tap, gradually building to a firm yet gentle strike, a necessary balance that keeps the beans whole while cracking open as many pods as possible. The rhythmic whack! whack! whack! of the group’s alternating strikes transforms the task into something of a musical performance. Music, you see, is inextricably woven into the fabric of African culture, and it elevates this mundane undertaking into a symphony of harmonies.
Once the beans are shelled, the performance continues with percussion produced by shallow, woven winnowing baskets that remove debris and chaff from the beans. As women shake the baskets from side to side, the beans create a shuffling sound—shuh, shuh, shuh—reminiscent of maracas. As the beans rise and fall, they collide with the woven fibers of the baskets, creating hollow rattles and a fitting finale.
Sounds are both practical and culturally significant. Here among the beans, they showcase communal cooperation as villagers come together to carry out the harvest, reinforcing familial bonds and honoring long-standing traditions. By paying closer attention to the noises we so often take for granted, we uncover deeper connections between our sensory experiences and the rituals that shape them, nurturing a greater appreciation of the symphony of sounds that enrich process and culture. Let’s listen.
