Gatherings with music in Zambia: modern beer party

The initial period of the Sandauni

Gatherings with music in Zambia: modern beer party. The first Sandauni in Chibale were held around 1970. The organisers erected a fence, creating a large enclosed space. To enter this space, one had to pay an entrance fee, which entitled the payer to a free foretaste. The reason for charging a fee was that a battery gramophone provided the music. The records played were almost exclusively lumba music from Congo.

The bidding Sandauni

Then, a new type of gathering emerged: the ‘bidding Sandauni’. It was a curious expression of the people’s growing realisation that the money economy dictated their lives. There was no foretaste and no entrance fee. The music, played on a battery gramophone, was lumba. An eloquent speaker (baspika) led the gathering. Everything that happened had to go through the speaker. At the start of the Sandauni, he announced a list of prices for the beer, the food, the records, and the dancing. Any order for beer or for a certain record had to be placed through the speaker. He announced it loudly and instructed one of the waitresses (baweteleshi) to bring it to the customer.
One could also purchase behaviour. For instance, one cold pay for the waitress to bring the cup to the buyer’s lips, so he could drink without touching it. Or one could arrange for a specific person to dance to a requested record, possibly together with the person who ordered it. One could bid (kubecela) on anything that happened. For example, the person who was ordered to dance could make a higher bid to pay off the order, or to have the one ordering it dance himself. A bid against the further playing of a certain record could be countered by a higher bid, often from the person who had originally ordered it. A bid ended when the person paid off the order or complied with the request. If they still refused, they had to leave the fenced area.

The patapata Sandauni

Alongside the Sandauni with a gramophone, a Sandauni with live Patapata or Twist music emerged in the 1970s. The band consisted of three flute players, a drummer, a cisekele player, and a guitar and/or banjo player. The three flutes (mutolilo, see Film 14) varied in size. They played the same lines, embellishing the melody in their own way (kwipaila). The music played originated from Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). There was no singing to this music, only pair dancing the Twist.

The kalindula Sandauni

Gatherings with music in Zambia: modern beer party. In 1979, a kalindula band from Muchinka, another chiefdom in Serenje district, visited Chibale and performed at two beer parties. This led to the rapid emergence of many local kalindula bands as well as the revival of the Cila (the kalindula Cila), and the kalindula Sandauni. For a big feast, the owner erected a fence and charged an entrance fee. There was no foretaste and no gramophone music. In cases of smaller feasts, the owners simply held them in the open space of their farm. In both cases, a kalindula band performed the music live, typically playing in sets of three or four songs.
This format did not significantly change after the 1980s.

Before the kalindula Sandauni, young people could buy beer, but their role was minor. At the kalindula Sandauni, the music and dance were theirs, and some of them received payment for performing it. The use of kalindula music at beer parties led to a local commercialisation and professionalisation of adolescent music, producing and reproducing a shift in the balance between age groups.

See List 1 for the differences observed by the general public between Bwalwa and Sandauni in the 1980s.

Organising a kalindula Sandauni

Gatherings with music in Zambia: modern beer party. Attendance at a Sandauni typically ranges between 70 and 150 people. People tend to organise Sandauni more frequently during the beer season. During this period, an individual might attend at least two Sandauni a week within a ten-kilometre radius. In the remaining months, this averaged one or two every two weeks. This pattern held true for 1985-86, but less so for 1987. In that year, the takeaway beer became fashionable. Some people found organising a Sandauni unnecessarily laborious. Later, the number of Sandauni continued to decline as bars and tarvens opened in the area.

There are two primary reasons for organising a Sandauni. By far the most important one is to raise money to purchase essentials.¹Long (1995:184) mentions the purchase of household consumption items (such as clothing) at 47%, repaying agricultural loans at 13%, educational expenses at 11%, and agricultural expenses at 11% as the most frequent reasons for brewing beer. The second reason is to bring together friends and relatives.²See also Long (1992: 157-159). Reasons for visiting a Sandauni include drinking beer, watching the dancing, entertainment, listening to the music, dancing, meeting friends, seeing what was happening, and playing a musical instrument.³Reasons given by the general public, in Survey 1985/86, for visiting a Sandauni were: to drink beer (43%), to watch the dancing (18%), for entertainment (11%), to listen to the music (8.5%), to dance (7%), to meet friends (6.5%), to see what was happening (3%), and to play a musical instrument (3%)