Gatherings in Zambia: social dance meetings

Gatherings in Zambia: social dance meetings. The Cila is a gathering in the evening where the young people from a certain small area get together to play and dance the social dances fashionable at that time.1The word Cila can be used for any gathering with music and dance. The youngster’s Cila, however, is the only gathering having no other names. Secondly, the general name of the dances at the youngster’s Cila is icila. Therefore, Cila is used here exclusively for the youngster’s gathering. This type of gathering ‘has always existed’.
Whenever a new dance, dance movement, song or song text has just become popular, the weather and lack of light (no moon) are the only things to stop a Cila from being held. In the past, adults could be present and would start some songs, but most songs were brought by one or two young people who were known as the starters and singers of the solo-line of that social dance. The texts of old social dance songs often contain the name of the starter of that dance.

Photo 82 The Cila

Gatherings in Zambia: social dance meetings - kalindulaGatherings in Zambia: social dance meetings. Since 1980 the dominant form of social dance gathering is the kalindula Cila.

Gatherings in Zambia: social dance meetings. In Song 13, we hear the young asking the elderly to leave the dancing space to them.

A song sung before the hot version of the Cila began as remembered by Mika Mwape Chungwa, 1985.

Text of Song 13 Dancing for the unmarried only

Bamuka bene kabafumepo
Nomba wafika mweyamine

Those married should leave [the dancing space]
Now it is time for embracing

The older Cila dances could involve fondling of breast and buttocks (kusenga). By the 1950s, this had stopped with the coming of the fwandafwanda. The kalindula Cila again could be hot.

The kalindula Cila

Gatherings in Zambia: social dance meetings. With the Cila ca kalindula (kalindula Cila) that started at the beginning of the 1980s, one or two of the band members, typically the chordophone players, are the starters. The number of youngsters present at the kalindula Cila in 1981 around the Ngalande Kalindula band of Godfrey Kabamba could be up to sixty. Smaller numbers are the rule, from fifteen to thirty. In the past, it had been possible to start other types of songs than the one in vogue at that moment at a Cila. However, because the kalindula ensemble is composed of other instruments than the ensemble for all the older social dances, it is difficult to start non-kalindula songs since they can not be accompanied by the ensemble. From the 1980s therefore, the Cila was a youngster’s and kalindula only gathering.

Gatherings in Zambia: social dance meetings. A kalindula song brought by Twesheko, a kalindula band from Mukopa at a kalindula Sandauni, 2004.|
Text of Song 14 That is real music

Waliya waliya bana – Waliya waliya bana
You are gone, children

Kagelo nabwene kanengelo kwimba – Kagelo nabwene kanengelo kwimba
The girl I saw has made me sing

Engome yo!
That is real music

Cikumbe wandesho kunwa – Cikumbe wandesho kunwa
You, brewer(ess), ask me not to drink

Kaluwe walenjebaula – Kaluwe walenjebaula
You Kaluwe you were too much talking about me

Uko ilelila nikwa Mukopa
Uko twikala fwe bene
Kwesu kuno
This is music from Mukopa
Where we live, the owners
This is our place

Mukopa nalelo twabwela – Mukopa nalelo twabwela
Mukopa, and today, we have come back

Cikumbe wanengelo kwimba – Cikumbe wanengelo kwimba
You, brewer(ess), have made me sing

Mabele yantutu yanengelela … – Mabele yantutu yanengelela …
The young budding breasts have caused me to …

Wayumfwe yo iya buLala
Iyo ilelila
Engome yo
Do you hear that, it is from the Lala region!
What you hear
Is real music 

Nakana solola windetelela – Nakana solola windetelela
I have refused you, prostitute, you would make me slide

A Cila at the end of the Ipupo

Gatherings in Zambia: social dance meetings. Icila and Cila represent energy and life. At the Ipupo (when used as the ritual ending of the mourning period, not as a restorative ritual) this characteristic is contrasted with mourning and death. The Ipupo starts with the mourning ritual in the morning and a small number of mediums dancing in the evening. The icila is danced by adults and youngsters as the last part of the Ipupo.
This has become obsolete in the last 40 years because the Ipupo gradually became used more as a restorative ritual. And, most people considered kalindula not appropriate for the Ipupo. As a result, the night of the Ipupo gradually was filled by one or more mediums bringing songs and dancing. The reasons given for the unsuitability of kalindula are the deviating ensemble composition and the fact that kalindula, though also played at Sandauni, is considered to be too much a youngsters only thing.

Footnotes

  • 1
    The word Cila can be used for any gathering with music and dance. The youngster’s Cila, however, is the only gathering having no other names. Secondly, the general name of the dances at the youngster’s Cila is icila. Therefore, Cila is used here exclusively for the youngster’s gathering.

IJzermans, Jan J. (2025) Amalimba. Music and related dance, text & ritual in one African region. https://amalimba.org/gatherings-in-zambia-social-dance-meetings/

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