BanaNshimbi

BanaNshimbi of the Ngoma (Drum) clan was born in Chibati village in Chibale chiefdom in 1925. Her father was a hunter. At the end of the 1930s she left with her parents for Kabwe where they became Jehovah’s Witnesses. Later she moved to her brother in chief Nkole’s area near Kapiri Mposhi.
In 1971 she became ill there. She talked without stopping from morning till sleeping and only felt pain when she stopped talking. Talking was about witches, when somebody passed she said whether he was using witchcraft or not. The talking was done by the spirits. She was brought to a big Mwami shing’anga, Mwengu (human name: Losimeli). She tried out everything on her until it turned out she reacted to Mwami medicines. First came Ndubeni, the spirit of a Lima chief. He left her when her first husband died in 1972. Then came Lonika, the spirit of a Lamba chief. When she remarried in 1973 Ndubeni returned. Ndubeni only did Kubuka, no singing and dancing. Lonika sang and danced and helped infertile people who wanted children. Her third spirit was a Ciwila, Chiwilinkita, a lame man who as a spirit could dance through her. During treatment she had dreams of many plates, clothes and money (all signs of wealth). Therefore, she presumed she would become a big shing’anga. Ndubeni appeared to her as a boy with a miner’s helmet saying: “Don’t be worried, you’ll have all those things after some time”. The price of the treatment was two cows, one of which was slaughtered at her Cibombe ca kumwensho mulopa, her initiation as an independent shing’anga. When her first husband died, she went back to her parents in Kabwe but Ndubeni did not agree. He wanted her to go to Chibale to heal. So, he left her. Some time later her parents decided to go back to Chibale.

When she returned to Chibale in 1973, there were no Cibombe being held there. She introduced the Cibombe. Before that many people had died or become mad because nobody knew how to cure their illness. Her coming brought an end to this. The medicines against Mwami illness therefore were called miti ya mishilu, medicines against madness, and the possessed were often jokingly referred to as madmen or spouses of madness (bamukabuluya). In the beginning she was singing all the time and people started informing with her neighbours who she was. They then said: “Oh, she is the Mwami from Nkole”. Then a child became sick and she healed it. This gave her a name. She was well-known within three months as the big shing’anga who could treat Mwami illness. And soon people came from all around, also from Lusaka, Ndola, Kabwe, Chitwe, Chisomo, Muchinda, Kabamba, Selenje. She clearly fulfilled a need.
In the beginning people found her songs strange and it took time before the chorus could take over her songs. Drumming was also a problem. Her (second) husband then convinced an experienced Mwami drummer, Pepa Bulaya, in Ndola to come back to Chibale. He became her iyikulu player. Others who regularly played for her, also learned Mwami drumming in Ndola: Katumpa Bulanga, Ngosa Bulanga and her son Edwin. At the end of 1973 she organised her first Cibombe as a shing’anga with only Mwami patients. Later she started treating other illnesses. She had many patients then, all in her village. More than in the 1980s, after the coming of Chalebaila and others. None of her adepts has become a shing’anga.

From the 1970s onto the 1990s, she was one of the two big shing’anga of Chibale. Her success as a healer was equalled by her dancing power and the dramatic quality of her (healing) behaviour. In the first half of the 1990s, she became ill and from then on only danced once in a while and then went ill again until 2002 when she got into a state of immobility and stupor. After a year her daughter took her into her farm. The possession spirits were still with her and helped her through this period. She died of old age in 2005.