Gatherings with music in Zambia: other beer parties

Gatherings with music in Zambia: other beer parties. Beer plays a role in private ceremonies and rituals. Some of these may involve singing.

Examples include the Ukulanga mulilo and the Umutebeto.¹See also Long (1995:136,147). While the daughter’s husband stays and works on her parents’ farm, the Ukulanga mulilo (the fire instruction) is held. The daughter is instructed to keep her own fire and prepare samples of all kinds of foodstuffs, including beer, on it, using maize, millet, and cassava meal. These are then presented to the son-in-law and consumed.
At the end of the son-in-law’s stay at his wife’s parents’ farm, the Umutebeto (provision of food) is held. His in-laws thank him for all the work he did while living on their farm. He is provided with large quantities of food and beer, which are shared by family, friends, and neighbours. After the umutebeto, the son-in-law and daughter move to their own farm.

Work beer – Imbile

Gatherings with music in Zambia: other beer parties. The Imbile, also called Bwalwa bwa mbile or Cimbila, is a type of work beer, most often organised for heavy agricultural tasks. In former days, the beer provided was not considered a payment, as mutual obligations existed.²Long (1995:153): “Imbile remains important for the value it has in terms of social co-operation. In addition, these long-established practices remain important for the value they have in accomplishing agricultural work without involving cash, and in the Kamena area are still related to non-commoditised agriculture.” In the 1980s, the Imbile was a form of bartered help, most often organised by people in nkutu. The owner could share the beer during or, more often, after the work. The gathering after work takes the form of one of the beer parties. There might be no music, music from an audio device, or the attendees performing music, varying from cinsengwe to kalindula.

Gatherings with music in Zambia: other beer parties. At a Takeaway beer (Bwalwa bwa cikwakwa, the beer of the scythe), people come and go. The buyers take the beer home in a container. In most cases, they share it there with a few others, such as relatives and friends. The use of music and dance, if any, is rather casual.
This practice emerged in the 1980s when some beer sellers began brewing beer without organising a Sandauni. This allowed people to avoid attending the Sandauni because they were either not sanctioned by the christian cult group they belonged to, or were considered too unruly.

Bar and tarven

Gatherings with music in Zambia: other beer parties. In the 1980s, there were no bars and tarvens in Chibale. The latter were local bar-like establishments selling cheaper, commercial beer (cibuku). Only those venturing outside of Chibale, for instance to Serenje Boma, the district centre, could visit such gatherings with music. The music played on a gramophone or CD player was predominantly national kalindula and Lumba.
During the 1990s, as more money became available locally, bars and tarvens were opened, selling Zambian beer,  which was very expensive by local standards, and waini, a home-brewed, mildly alcoholic preparation of sugar, yeast, water, and tea leaves. The use of music in these establishments varies from none at all to dancing to national kalindula, other national pop music, or lumba.
The emergence of these establishments was met with suspicion, as it led to increased public drunkenness and young people, particularly girls, going astray. Not long after, in the early 2000s, this latter concern became one of the reasons for the reintroduction of the girls’ initiation.