Gatherings with music in Zambia: social dance meetings

Gatherings with music in Zambia: social dance meetings. The Cila is an evening gathering where young people from a specific local area come together to play and dance the social dances popular at that time.¹The word Cila refers to any gathering with music and dance. However, the youngster’s Cila is the only such gathering that has no alternative name. Furthermore, the general term for the dances at the youngsters’ Cila is icila. Therefore, Cila is used here exclusively for the youngsters’ gathering. This type of gathering ‘has always existed’.
Whenever a new dance, dance movement, song, or song text becomes popular, only the weather and the absence of moonlight can prevent a Cila from taking place. In the past, adults might attend 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 particular social dance. The texts of old social dance songs often include the name of the dance’s starter.

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

Song 13

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

The kalindula Cila

Gatherings with music in Zambia: social dance meetings. With the Cila ca kalindula (kalindula Cila), which began in the early 1980s, one or two of the band members, typically the chordophone players, act as the starters of songs. The number of youngsters present at the kalindula Cila in 1981, around the Ngalande Kalindula band of Godfrey Kabamba, could reach up to sixty. Smaller numbers, from fifteen to thirty, are more common. In the past, it had been possible to start a song of another type than the one currently in vogue at a Cila. However, because the kalindula ensemble comprises instruments different from those used in all older social dances, it is difficult to start non-kalindula songs as they cannot be accompanied by the ensemble. From the 1980s onwards, therefore, the Cila became a gathering exclusively for youngsters and kalindula music.

Song 14

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 talking too much 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 with music 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. Furthermore, 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.