Gatherings in Zambia: other beer parties

16 March 2022 | Last update: 20 November 2024

Work beer – Imbile

Gatherings in Zambia: other beer parties. The Imbile, also called Bwalwa bwa mbile or Cimbila, is part of a work beer, most often directed to the accomplishment of heavy agricultural tasks. In former days, the beer given was not considered a payment since mutual obligations existed.¹ 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 has the form of one of the beer parties. There can be no music, music on an audio device, or performed music varying from cinsengwe to kalindula.

During the 1980s, people sometimes organised Imbile in which the beer was a sort of payment in kind that was taken home, like with the Takeaway beer. Paying in kind could also be in soap, salt, sugar or even normal food like maize.

According to Long² the imbile is an important use context that crosses the divide between beer as a commodity and beer fulfilling a non-commodity social function. “Imbile practices are closely associated with organisational strategies within agricultural production and reflect the importance of networks of cooperation. Events involving beer are obviously important arenas of social action wherein beer becomes both the focus of various social exchanges, while remaining important as the means through which collective labour can be organised.”

Takeaway beer

Gatherings in Zambia: other beer parties. At a Takeaway beer (Bwalwa bwa cikwakwa, the beer of the scythe), people come and go. The buyer takes the beer home in a container. In most cases he shares it there with a few others like relatives and friends. Use of music and dance, if any, is rather casual.
It came up in the 1980s when some beer sellers started to brew beer without organising a Sandauni. This allowed people to avoid attending the Sandauni that either was not sanctioned by the christian cult group they belonged to or was considered to be too rude.

Photo 274 ∵ A tarven

People taking a drink at a tarven in Chibale village. The music played is lumba music.

Bar and tarven

Gatherings in Zambia: other beer parties. In the 1980s, there were no bars and tarvens in Chibale. The latter were local bar-like establishments with cheaper, commercial beer (cibuku). Only the ones going outside of Chibale, for instance to Serenje Boma, the district centre, could visit this type of gathering with music. The music was national kalindula and Lumba played on a gramophone or CD player.
During the 1990s, when more money became available locally, bars and tarvens were opened, selling the by local standards extremely expensive Zambian beer respectively waini, a home-brewed mildly alcoholic preparation of sugar, yeast, water and tea leaves. The use of music varies from no music to dancing to national kalindula, other national pop music or lumba.
The appearance of these establishments met with suspicion, as it led to more public drunkenness and young people, especially girls, going astray. Not much later, in the early 2000s, the latter was one of the reasons for the reintroduction of the girls’ initiation.

Footnotes

1
Long (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.”
2
Long (1995:137).