Musical instruments in Zambia: rattles

Musical instruments in Zambia: rattles. The term cisekele, or sometimes isebe, refers to a variety of shaken or struck rattles with an open or closed container. Mikoci, minkobele and tusembe are names for iron rattles. In another article, we pay attention to the rattles of specialists.
In the present article, we start with the cisekele and finish with the iron rattles.

Rattles with an open or closed container – cisekele

Musical instruments in Chibale, Zambia: rattles. Often the cisekele is a small gourd or tin can filled with grains, beans or little stones. Sometimes a stick passes through the container. People use it for the accompaniment of songs sung solo or by small groups in the evening, for instance in the family circle or Pa kwisha.

Women play the cisekele more often than men. For instance, a small cisekele, also called nsanshi, see Photo 60, filled with small beans (cinkunkwa) and the seeds of the kantimbwa-pods, it gives a quite high sound. Each woman plays the nearly round instrument by rolling it from one hand to the other for some time and then passes it to her neighbour. The woman playing starts a song or a new stanza of the same song.

Ciwaya or matabe pa mbale

Musical instruments in Chibale, Zambia: rattles. Another kind of cisekele is the enamelled bowl in which grains of millet or maize, or small stones are put.¹Also found in the Kaonde region: “Kisekele. To accompany the mourning songs, a metal plate is used in which a handful of dry maize or beans are tossed up and down” (Bantje 1978: 12). In most cases, this cisekele is called ciwaya²A term also found in the Congo parts of the Lamba and the Lala regions for a handheld shaker (Collard 1920: 72). or mataba pa mbale, literally: maize on a tray.
The player holds the bowl with two hands shaking it back and forth while making a wriggling movement so that the grains either hit the bottom for a more forceful sound or the sides for a lighter sound. The instrument is regularly used to accompany the set of three drums. Its pattern links to that of the cibitiku drum.

The ciwaya is also played in a set of three. In that case the bowls are of different sizes: kakupama, cibitiku and cikulu. The set can be played at funerals³Also in the Kaonde region (Bantje 1978: 12, 18)., when there is no dancing by mediums nor singing by christian choirs. It can also be played together with the set of three conical drums and it was played in the ensembles of the cinsengwe ing’omba.⁴Stefaniszyn (1951: 2) mentions a cisekele for the southern (Ambo) part of the Lala region made of a basket-bag filled with pebbles. It was part of an ing’omba-like ensemble consisting further of minkonkobelo (axe-blades struck against stones) and one-note xylophones (ilimba).

Music example 4

Patterns of the set of three ciwaya (mataba pa mbale). First, the kakupama and the cibitiku that make a pattern of two against three and then the cikulu doing the solo over that.

Iron rattles

Musical instruments in Chibale, Zambia: rattles. In Chibale, people use iron rattles, called mikoci, for signalling. And, occasionally for mourning, for instance, for the accompaniment of cinsengwe at a Cililo. In the past, the instruments were more important. For instance, the relatives and ritual friends of the deceased played cinsengwe with iron rattle accompaniment until the Kufuta makasa. That is the rounding off of the burial period, a few weeks after the burial. When used for this, their name can also be minkobele.
People call the iron rattle tusembe, meaning axes, when it consists of an axe blade lying on the ground and the player strikes it with two axe blades or sticks held in his hands.

Song 106

Musical instruments in Zambia: iron rattles. A cinsengwe connected with mourning (Cililo), sung by Laitani Mupeta and women from Mukopa, accompanied by the iyikulu and the mikoci (played here on a kalindula musekele), 1981.

Text of Song 106 ∵ The clearness that dawn will bring

Ubushiku bwaca
Twabutongamina bwaca pelebele

The night dawns
We sit here and wait for the dawn to clear

The most common iron rattle at the moment is the kalindula musekele.

Rattles used by specialists

Musical instruments in Chibale, Zambia: rattles. The various cisekele link to one or more of the historical modes in Chibale life: hunting, healing and mourning –see for instance the text of Song 40– and the ‘normalisation’ (cilaila) of these in get-togethers of women. The rattles used by specialists connected to these modes have special status. To mark the differences in purpose and status, these instruments are not referred to as cisekele except when that word is used in the abstract sense of ‘all rattle-like instruments’.

Song 40

A cinsengwe brought by chief Chibale and his people, 1981. No recording.

Text of Song 40 ∵  A cinsengwe referring to the ritual importance of the ciwaya

Bene bamfwa kwisa mwikalile
Samwitabe, mwise muposepo bunga pa ciwaya
Muleteko nefyakutaile misebe

Owners of the dead where are you?
Come and respond, come and throw some mealie meal on the ciwaya
Come with something so a ritual gift can be given to the players

Misebe here stands for those playing the musebe or the ciwaya. People put mealy meal on musical instruments at rituals to procure good music and hence a good ritual effect.

Continue to the article about the specialists’ rattles.