Representation of the findings

All who attempt to represent the music of others, encounter the problem that its details and nuances – often considered the very soul of a long and intensive period of immersion – cannot be sufficiently conveyed through the representational forms common in musicology. 

There is no need to react to this by producing the n^th overview of the ‘crisis of representation in musicology’. This has been adequately addressed by others¹See, for instance, Barz & Cooley (1997)..

The format of this site aims to somewhat reduce the degree of reduction that characterises a book about music. Apart from the fact that a book is not accessible to the people in Chibale and surrounding areas, the words about music require dramatisation in other, often more effective, forms: song texts and other texts, sounds, images, and links. Yes, but what about the linear structure of a book? For the reader who does not wish to be sent into the wilds within a few clicks, linear narratives are offered in the overview articles that can be found in the menus. These narratives are mirrored in many places by music, texts, photos, films, cases, maps, lists, tables, elaborations, and the like.
Feel free to take the other route: simply jump around and see what is available. The snake in the grass, then, is that the text ‘supposes’ that the reader is aware of the overview.

It only remains to be feared that the typical reader will combine an aversion for reductionism with a lack of willingness to read ‘a book’ from the screen;-)

The old and the new, the flexible and the tenacious

The articles on this site focus on the whole research period (1981–2013) and the periods before that which were part of living memory in Chibale during the research period. Firstly, I do not wish to suggest any a priori continuity, or ‘unchangeability’, over these periods. Secondly, writing in the past tense is not meant to suggest that the past periods have “ended” and that much is different in present-day Chibale. No, old and new interlock. As becomes clear in the articles on this site, the flexible and the tenacious are part and parcel of Chibale culture. See, for an example, the relation between the structural and the changeable features of music.

Languages used

The 1977 approved orthography is followed (Zambian Languages: Orthography Approved by the Ministry of Education. Lusaka: NECZAM). The c (ch in names) is pronounced as the ch in ‘child’ before all vowels; ng’ is pronounced as the ng in singer; ng is pronounced as ng’ followed by a g as in garçon. Fusion of the vowels at the end of a word and the beginning of the next word is represented by the resultant vowel, for instance, kukafye cila for kukafya icila.

Most words in ciLala have a long and a short version. These versions are used depending on linguistic and other circumstances. For the ciLala terms on this site, the short form is used. And, for the sake of clarity, ciLala terms are given in their singular form, except when they are used in plural form only.
Referring to persons is done in various ways in Chibale. Especially women are called ‘wife of’ her husband or ‘mother of’ one of her children. BanaMwape means wife of Mwape and mother of Mwape. Bamuka-, meaning ‘spouse of’, can refer to both wife and husband, though the latter is more frequent. Bashi- in names means ‘father of’. If the name of a person is composed in this way, the word concerned is written as a prefix. BanaSibilu (the mother of Sibilu), bamukaNdubeni (the spouse of Ndubeni), and bashiBupe (the father of Bupe).

Quotations from people in Chibale who contributed to the research are in English, though the language used was ciLala. When their ciLala is rich or idiomatic concerning our subject, the ciLala version of quotations or particular concepts is given between brackets or in notes. Central terms and analytical and categorical terms that are hard to represent in English with one or two words are given in ciLala, while a hover is provided that gives the description of that term in English.