Songs and dances

From a historical point of view, the cinsengwe is very important. It is related to the old, local cults and to kupupa (kulila and kwilimuna). The name is used in a very large area around Chibale.

The ilimbalakata is the non-possessed performance of the hunting cinsengwe accompanied by drumming. It is danced by hunters dancing out their personal experience while hunting one of the bigger animals.

At the evening of the death, and especially early in the next morning, the close relatives of the deceased lament their musowa wa mfwa at the place where the body lies. Short mournfully spoken lines concerning the deceased are alternated with ‘sung’ mourning lines. Every person has her own way of lamenting the musowa wa mfwa. Only the text differs according to who has died and the circumstances of the dying.

The role of Ciwila songs is to mark the occasion and to connect with other features of Chibale culture.
The dancing is to attract people to listen and learn the song texts through singing while watching. The song texts are expected to be composed at the spot. The songs, drumming and dancing are regarded, also by people from other areas, as typical of the Lala region.

Kaluwe songs are about hunting and adventurous hardships. The dancing by Kaluwe mediums is instructive. It shows what it is like to hunt the different kinds of bigger animals. Regarded as typical for the Lala region, it is recognised that Kaluwe music is shared within a large area.

Mwami songs are about healing, illness or any other subject connected to staining. They are in the language of the area where the the possessing spirit lived, possibly mixed with Lala. Mwami melodies contain more jumps than Ciwila and Kaluwe melodies and have a greater variety in the form of the melody.
The dancing is considered to be Lenje- or Lima-like. The drumming tempo, and so the dancing tempo, is slightly slower than that of Ciwila and Kaluwe.

Mashabe possession was an uncommon, highly valued type of healing, problem solving possession that disappeared in the first half of the 20th century.

Moba possession was common in Chibale from the beginning of the 1910s up to the 1940s. In the 1980s, it had become  rare. It is often characterised as a Ciwila kind of possession, sometimes as a Mwami kind of possession.

In Chibale the icila is any dance for a group of dancers of both sexes, often unmarried people. It can be danced both at recreational occasions and at special occasions: the girls’ initiation and the Ipupo. Icila is the general name for social dance songs and dances and for the occasion at which these are performed.

The oldest remembered social dance in Chibale is cinko. It was a line & pair dance. Cinko texts could be about the Cila, dancing, death, and new or curious things.

In the beginning of the 1930s a new social dance came up, the mbeni. Apart from the name, it bears no resemblances with the Beni wave that swept over East Central Africa in this period. It either underwent a deep lalaification or a few Beni elements were inserted in a variant of the cinko.

The fwandafwanda is a social dance that came up in Chibale, around 1950. It was a circle & group dance. In the 1970s, it went through a revival under the name katambala.

The most recent new type of social dance, already dating back to 1979, is the kalindula. It is a hip dance that is danced by all, individually and in pairs. It is accompanied by an ensemble that is only used for kalindula. Different from most other music in Chibale, it has gone through a process of localisation, obtaining more Chibale characteristics.

Lumba is a comprehensive term used to refer to music from Zambia’s neighbouring countries, notably Congo. Zambian music similar to this music can also be called lumba. Lumba can also refer to all popular music from Zambia and neighbouring countries that one can hear on the radio or in bars. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, Zambian popular music was more often called kalindula. In many cases, the kalindula songs were arrangements of old, by definition rural, songs with adapted or new song texts.

The repertoire of women’s music forms a wealth of old cult songs, girls’ initiation songs, social dance songs, christian songs, songs in stories and games, critical songs, work songs and women’s dance songs. In this article, the types not treated elsewhere are described.

Men’s music consists of songs connected to the old cults and social dance songs.

Christian songs differ from most other songs in Chibale. There are some common traits with another genre from outside: kalindula songs.

In a relatively small area, which most of the inhabitants consider to be a single culture, with many musical occasions, little more than a quarter of all musical genres –still there or still remembered– are generally known.