Musical instruments in Zambia: flutes

Musical instruments in Zambia: flutes. In the past, various flutes and horns were used most of them connected to herding or hunting. It is said that long ago cattle were kept in large numbers in the area. The raids and cattle diseases at the end of the 19th century3See the Mapunde historical period. and, later, the decrease in the size of the villages, decimated the herds.
The flutes are treated here. The horns are discussed in another article.

Flute

Musical instruments in Zambia: flutes. The word mutolilo was used for boys’ or herders’ flutes4Blacking (1962: 4) mentions a three-holed transverse flute, tulilo, for the Nsenga region. Doke (1931: 364): “Lamba boys are quite clever at making and playing a species of flute called the ciloli, muloli, or musembe, which is cut from a piece of reed. Apart from the hole for blowing, there are two holes not very far from the end of the instrument. The flute has to be soaked in water before it can be played, and then very pleasing notes are produced on it.” and more generally for all flute-like instruments. A comparable transverse flute was called mutole, see below.

After a period when flutes were hardly used anymore, they came into vogue again in the 1970s for live pata pata and twist music performed at Sandauni.
The band consisted of three flute players, a drummer (kace), a cisekele player and a guitar and/or banjo player. The three mutolilo differed in size and played the same lines each embellishing the melody in their own way (kwipaila). The music played came from Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). There was no singing to this music, only dancing the twist in pairs.

In the beginning of the 1980s, this music had completely disappeared. It was revived around 2000 by Agripa Musonda who made his flute from a copper water pipe. He composed his own songs. First he made the song and then he found the mutolilo part for it. See Film 14 below.
Then a student of Agripa Musonda took the mutolilo outside of Chibale and is now teaching children in Lusaka how to play it.

Photo 205 & Photo 206 Mutolilo

      Musical instruments in Zambia: flutesMusical instruments in Zambia: flutes
A mutolilo, made from a copper water pipe, played by Agripa Musonda, 2004.

Mutolilo playing by Agripa Musonda, 2007.

Film 14 Mutolilo playing at a Beer

Agripa Musonda playing pata pata and twist songs on the mutolilo at a Bwalwa (old beer party) in 2004.

Transverse flute

Musical instruments in Zambia: flutes. The mutole was a transverse flute with the length of an underarm, made of the stalk of the mbono. There was a notch at the end where the blowing hole was and the other end was open. The lips more or less covered the blowing hole. Nearer to the other end, there were three playing holes. The player held it with both hands while only one hand stopped the holes. He moistened the blowing hole before playing.
It was played by herding boys (bakacema) and it was also used for scaring birds.5Blacking (1962: 4) mentions a three-holed transverse flute, tulilo, for the Nsenga region. Doke (1931: 364): “Lamba boys are quite clever at making and playing a species of flute called the ciloli, muloli, or musembe, which is cut from a piece of reed. Apart from the hole for blowing, there are two holes not very far from the end of the instrument. The flute has to be soaked in water before it can be played, and then very pleasing notes are produced on it.” The Kaluwe Song 85 was remembered as having been sung, accompanied by the mutole, by young men coming home from bird scaring: they were now off duty. On the mutole, young men could also imitate language without uttering it, just like on the mankubala.

Pan flute

Musical instruments in Zambia: flutes. Peku are pan flutes made of the mbono stalk, played in sets of three. The instrument is cut when needed and thrown away after use. Peku music can also be performed using bottles as pan flutes. The peku was popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and probably also before that.

Photo 207 Peku

Sitifini Nunda playing the peku, 1981.

A peku song consisted of a mourning text (cinsengwe) accompanied by the words pe and often also tubenge or tubengetu6It is likely that the –tu in the latter represents the peku blowing. So, the player said: tubenge and then blew one tone on the peku.. These words were alternated with tones on the peku while the rest of the text was sung (listen to Song 141). No recording could be reconstructed containing the iyikulu peku though one reference to it was recorded (listen to Music example 75).

A reconstruction of a peku song, played on two bottles by Basil Chisonta (saying tubenge followed by one tone on the bottle) and the author (no words, only one ongoing pulse, orally notated as pe-pe-pe) while Mika Mwape Chungwa sings, 1986.


Text of Song 141 The peku and mourning

Baliya bama (wesu)                – tubenge(tu)
Nakubabwena pi                      – tubenge(tu)
Ku ng’anda batabwela            – tubenge(tu)
Mukubumbwe loba                  – tubenge(tu)

My/our mother has gone                                 – tubenge(tu)
Where will I ever see her                                   – tubenge(tu)
To the house from which they don’t return    – tubenge(tu)
To be moulded [back] into clay                       – tubenge(tu)

The song text revolves around the four lines shown, with minor variations. The last line refers to the fact that the spirit of the deceased mother one day will come back in a newborn.

Oral notations of the three patterns of the peku ensemble with the iyikulu at the end.

The peku was played to commemorate the dead at non-mourning occasions. It was not used at the Cililo. It was also played by young girls, with the same commemorative connotation for those who heard it. In the 1980s, hearing the reconstructed song 141 caused grief among older people, some breaking into tears.

Whistle

Musical instruments in Zambia: flutes. The pintu is a whistle, primarily used by dancers. In the past, it consisted of two small reed flutes glued together with wax. They were tuned approximately a major second apart and played simultaneously.
In the 1980s, it had been replaced by the police whistle, also called pintu.
It is used to play short rhythmic patterns paralleling the dance movements, to cue the drummers and to signal the peak in the dancing of the player, compare the text of Song 142.

The reed stems had the same length and were stopped with wax to obtain different tones. It was played by dancers, often for fwandaula. But other dancers used it as well, including mediums. The pintu follows the dancing, not the music, and signifies the high point in the dancing of the player. It was also used by the son-in-law when there were not many children yet. He couldn’t shout for his wife, who could be at her mother’s house. That would be a disgrace. And he also couldn’t walk up to that house because it was of his mother-in-law. He could talk to his brother-in-law and his wife’s grandparents, not the parents-in-law and their brothers and sisters.
Mika Mwape Chungwa  personal communication, 1986.

Photo 208 Pintu

Drawing of the type of pintu that was used before the police whistle came into use. The two bamboo flutes were tuned approximately a major second apart.

A social dance song mentioning the pintu, as remembered by banaNshimbi and her sister, 1987. [Bad recording]


Text of Song 142 Crying all night

Kamumfwa banaSondashi bwaca umondilile mama lelo
Yo mwaumfwa pintu mufila ni bamama fyala balifuntile

Listen, banaSondashi, I cried until the morning, mama, today
Yo, do you hear the whistle in the dancing; it’s my mother-in-law who acts crazy

A song of sexual allusions, one of which is that the pintu is used at the climax of the dancing.

Footnotes

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
    Blacking (1962: 4) mentions a three-holed transverse flute, tulilo, for the Nsenga region. Doke (1931: 364): “Lamba boys are quite clever at making and playing a species of flute called the ciloli, muloli, or musembe, which is cut from a piece of reed. Apart from the hole for blowing, there are two holes not very far from the end of the instrument. The flute has to be soaked in water before it can be played, and then very pleasing notes are produced on it.”
  • 5
    Blacking (1962: 4) mentions a three-holed transverse flute, tulilo, for the Nsenga region. Doke (1931: 364): “Lamba boys are quite clever at making and playing a species of flute called the ciloli, muloli, or musembe, which is cut from a piece of reed. Apart from the hole for blowing, there are two holes not very far from the end of the instrument. The flute has to be soaked in water before it can be played, and then very pleasing notes are produced on it.”
  • 6
    It is likely that the –tu in the latter represents the peku blowing. So, the player said: tubenge and then blew one tone on the peku.

IJzermans, Jan J. (2025) Amalimba. Music and related dance, text & ritual in one African region. https://amalimba.org/musical-instruments-flutes/

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