Gatherings in Zambia: identity and cultural heritage
The introduction of a district-wide cultural heritage festival
Gatherings in Zambia: identity and cultural heritage. Around the year 19931Long (1995:140). the district governments of Serenje and Mkushi district, together with the chiefs of the districts, took the initiative to have an annual festival celebrating their own culture. Its name is Cibwelamushi after the name of the month in which in former days people used to return from their temporary homes (nkutu) near their citemi fields to their houses in the village. This was the first month of the beer season with a lot of celebrations and beer.
The Cibwelamushi festival takes place in Chalata near the border between the districts. All chiefs from both districts are present as well as the district commissioners. Every chief takes along people who can sing and dance certain old or present-day music as well as noteworthy agricultural and cultural material from the chiefdom.
Photo 19, Photo 20 & Photo 21 ∵ Cibwelamushi
The Chibwelamushi on a poster (top entry) in Lusaka. People from Chibale arrive in Chalata. BanaJubili and Chisenga Blantoni prepare the girls to dance cisungu dances there, 2008.
Identity and cultural heritage celebration of Chibale chiefdom
Gatherings in Zambia: identity and cultural heritage. A few years later, chief Chibale started a yearly festival. It celebrates his installation as a chief, connecting chieftainship with cultural heritage and identity. Some people call the festival Kabwelamushi, another name for the same month, with the difference that ci- denotes something big and ka- something smaller, something typical for Chibale.
At this festival, people from all wards of Chibale chiefdom meet at the chief’s place (musumba). Every ward has taken along a drum with beer. In the morning of the festival, the chief enters ceremonially carried on a carrier (macila) and then he sits on a special stool on a triangular podium. People crowd around a very large fenced area while officials sit in a shaded area. In the fenced area, performances and speeches take place. People who perform well at this festival can be invited to perform at the Cibwelamushi.
Gatherings in Zambia: identity and cultural heritage. In the 1980s, the annual agricultural fairs showed some cultural heritage products, but much less and much more informally than in the Ci-/Kabwelamushi. The Kabwelamushi festival with its huge number of attendees, the outfit and entry of the chief and the performance of music and dance as a part of a cultural heritage and cultural identity festival were new for Chibale. The outfit and entry are specially designed for the festival. The festive performance of certain music and dances, such as cisungu and ciwila, is also a new phenomenon that expresses the increased self-awareness and interest in ‘local culture’ that slowly rose in the 1990s.
Film 20 ∵ Ciwila dancing as cultural heritage.
Gatherings in Zambia: identity and cultural heritage. Though the rituals of the possession cults had been marginalised in the previous ten years, Ciwila dancing as a type of chief-related ing’omba dancing is a prominent part of the Kabwelamushi festival in 2004. The ing’omba is Chibale Katumpa, also the singer of Song 180.
Footnotes
- 1Long (1995:140).