Songs and dances in Zambia: cinko

Songs and dances in Zambia: cinko. Cinko is the oldest social dance that people in Chibale still remember. The name occurs in a large area in South Central Africa for a particular social dance or for social dances in general. Until the last paragraph of this article we will treat it as a particular social dance. At the end of this article we will reflect on another possibility.

Cinko in Chibale

In the memory of those who still remembered cinko in the 1980s, it was a line & pair dance. A line of women and a line of men faced each other. One of the men came to the fore. He either chose a woman or one of the women came to the fore too. During the dance the partners danced close to each other and at intervals held each other while the man caressed the breast and buttocks of the woman. In the moderate version, they kept dancing at a distance. Sometimes two pairs performed at the same time. After a while they returned to their respective lines after which a new pair started to dance. The text of cinko songs were topical and could be about the Cila, dancing, death, and new or curious things.

Song 24

Cinko verses as remembered by banaNshimbi, 1987.

Text of Song 24 ∵Praising and dying

Ne mwine nalishanine cinko yaya
Twalumba ba Chipandwa abafyele yo yo oo
Balifwele ba Kalwani ica Maluba
Twalumba ba Chilonga abafyala yo
Balifwele ba Chipata milonga yaya
Twalumba ba Chitandwa abafyala
Eyo balifyele ba Kalwani icamfiba

I, myself, danced cinko yaya
We praise Chipandwa, the father yo yo oo
Dead is Kalwani because of Maluba
We praise Chilonga, my cousin yo
Dead is Chipata because of the rivers yaya
We praise Chitandwa, the father of the newborn
Dead is Kalwani because of elephantiasis

A second example of a cinko, with a link to Ciwila

Song 25

Cinko verses as remembered by Mika Mwape Chungwa, 1986.

Text of Song 25 ∵ Sing well, Masaiti

Yalila ee yalila
Yalila ingoma kaili ya mukwanu ukulilo bwino
Waiya ee waiya ee oo mama kamwimbeni ba Masaiti ee

Yalila ee yalila
Ino ngoma yalumbule mpuleti pa Lunsemfwa batini
Waiya ee waiya ee oo mama kamwimbeni ba Masaiti ee

Waiya ee waiya
Kuli malongomalongo ekobashile utumpe ba Lesa
Waiya ee waiya ee oo mama kamwimbeni ba Masaiti ee

The session is on, the session is on
This session has sounded for your relative to sound well
Waiya ee waiya ee oo mama, sing well, Masaiti

The session is on, the session is on
This session has mentioned a plate at Lunsemfwa [mine], sure
Waiya ee waiya ee oo mama, sing well, Masaiti

Waiya ee waiya
In the clay pots to ward off locusts Lesa has left gifts
Waiya ee waiya ee oo mama, sing well, Masaiti

Before I was born, Mulenga [a major spirit], a Ciwila possessed, sang the last verse to ward off red locusts. She danced there. Malongomalongo were small clay pots used for kupupa while doing a ritual to ward of red locusts (kushilika). Three pots were for the three chiefs (bamfumu batatu [the three major spirits]). The rest formed a line as a barrier against the locusts. It is a Ciwila song. She performed the kupupa after the news had reached the village of a locust plague somewhere in an adjoining area.
BanaNshimbi ∵ personal communication, 1987.

Daughters of cinko

Songs and dances in Zambia: cinko. Daughters of cinko were cimbilingoma and ngobele. They became popular around 1925 and at the end of the 1920s. In the cimbilingoma dance the men made a shuffle while moving around in a circle, putting their right foot before the left rather fast, while the women shook their breasts. A few still remembered the oral notation of the cimbilingoma drums.

Song 26

A cimbilingoma as remembered by Mika Mwape Chungwa, 1986.

Text of Song 26 ∵ The Cimbili of holding each other

Cilibelwile na menso mu cimbilingoma
Ba Kamela fyenkefyo – Cimbili bangobele
Oo oo wele oo – Cimbili bangobele
Ba Kamela fyenkefyo ba Kamela
Ba Kamela – ciKoni Cimbili bangobele
Oo oo wele oo – Cimbili bangobele

Looking out of the corner of your eyes because of the Cimbilingoma
Ba Kamela, just like that, it’s good – the Cimbili of holding each other
Oo oo wele oo – the Cimbili of holding each other
Ba Kamela, just like that, it’s good, ba Kamela
Ba Kamela – the Koni Cimbili of holding each other
Oo oo wele oo – the Cimbili of holding each other

Kamela was said to have received this daughter of cinko fya kubuka, that is through abduction by spirits. The word cimbili is used separately in this song and presumably is the same as the ‘cibili’ mentioned by Lambo¹Lambo (1946: 331). as one of the dances on a list of dances that were forbidden by christian mission.

Music example 2

Oral notation of the drum patterns of the cimbilingoma as remembered by Mika Mwape Chungwa, 1986.

Other daughters of cinko were the ntenka and the sota. The starter of the first was Kasubika Chinguwa and of the second Sota Kaluba.

Sota, the “icila old style”

Songs and dances in Zambia: cinko. In 1952, Jones & Kombe described and transcribed a social dance song in the Lala region. They refer to it as “icila old style”. It was old-style because at the time of recording the mbeni or fwandafwanda will have been the prominent social dance. In the 1980s, this song was recognised as a sota, a daughter of cinko. This name refers to the name of the person, Sota Kaluba, mentioned in the new text. He presumably was the one who led a short, local revival of cinko.
It turns out that the text of the Jones & Kombe sota borrows from an older cinko song, Song 25 shown above. A cinko song that even earlier had been sung by a Ciwila medium to ward off red locusts. You can see that the second line of the third verse is almost the same as that of the icila “old style” of Jones & Kombe. Therefore, it would seem that Sota Kaluba reused older cinko texts for, at least, the second line of the sota verses.

Song 27

Two versions of sota, a daughter or revival of cinko. First, the text of the “icila old style” from Jones & Kombe (1952) and then the text of Song 27: two verses of the sota still remembered in Chibale by banaNshimbi and her sister, 1987.

Text of the “icila old style” ∵ The session is on, Sota Kaluba

Yalila ba Sota, yalile ngoma
Muli Malongomalongo emo bashiile utumpe ba Lesa

It has sounded, Mr. Sota! The drum has sounded!
In Malongo-malongo that is where God has left startling wonders!

Compare the translation of this text with that of the third verse of Song 25.

Text of Song 27 ∵ The session is on, Sota Kaluba

Yalila ba Sota Kaluba
Ulwimbo nayimba icimbeyimbe naluba kwawa ba Calunduma
Iyiya iye mama owe alala ba Masaiti ee

Yalila ba Sota Kaluba
Yo yalilalila ba Mashiki ba Ngosa bamukaTembo
Iyiya iye mama owe alala ba Masaiti ee

The session is on, Sota Kaluba
I have sung the song, just singing and singing … I forgot how it became evening, Calunduma
Iyiya iye mama owe alala, Masaiti, ee

The session is on, Sota Kaluba,
Oh it really is on, Mashiki Ngosa, the wife of Tembo
Iyiya iye mama owe alala, Masaiti, ee

Cinko in adjacent areas

Songs and dances in Zambia: cinko. Just like the name cinsengwe and the names of the cimbwasa type dances, the name cinko, or mucinko, was used in a large area (south Congo and central and north-west Zambia) for an old social dance, that could also be danced at funerals and at the girls’ initiation, or for a women’s dance.
Though old, cinko is one of the better documented dances.²Information about cinko, mucinko, mukinko, mukinka and mukinku can be found in: Bouche (1921: 745-747) for the Luba region (Congo), Anley (1926: 84) for the Kaonde region, Doke (1931: 359), Marchal (1933: 84-86, 126 and 1935: 128) and Brelsford (1948: 12) for the Lamba region, Roland (1934: np) for the Sanga region (Congo) and Jones (1949: 16) for the Tonga region. According to Doke a variant of the mucinko was the cipelu information about which can be found in: Doke (1931: 359) for the Lamba region, Brelsford (1935: 214) for the Sala region and Njungu (1959) for the Lozi region. Marchal (1933) gives ten mukinko song texts (in French translation only).

Cinko represents life force

Songs and dances in Zambia: cinko. There are many references in older literature, to the erotic, immoral, jealousy rousing, or lewd nature of cinko and other icila-like dances. Brelsford (1948: 10) speaking for the whole of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) reports: “(The fertility and erotic) dances still form the most important types in native life”. For the Ila region, Smith and Dale (1920: 269) give a list of occasions at which ‘lewd songs’ – according to Ila standards – were essential: at sowing time, at Lwando fishing, when taking a canoe to the river for launching, when smelting iron, at the girls’ initiation, and at funerals. For the Lamba area, Doke (1923: 41) says that contrary to the normal situation “at times of mourning (certain) obscene language becomes the vogue”. Marchal (1933: 84) reports that when the mukinka [cinko] was danced at death rituals the chief forbade the husbands to express their jealousy.
Cinko represented life force. On some serious occasions, adults also danced the hot version of the dance.

Cinko and icila

Songs and dances in Zambia: cinko. The name cinko was used in a large area, including the Lala region, in, at least, the first half of the previous century.
The name icila is only used in the Lala region. It is recognised by people from other regions as typical for the Lala region.
The other regions also have or had social dance gatherings and the use of social dancing at serious occasions.

It is not clear whether cinko was one of a sequence of social dance song types or that it was a general name for social dance songs.
It is certainly not impossible that up to the 1920s cinko was the (mother) name for a number of social dances and their revivals that represented life, life force, life flow. These dances were danced at gatherings, called Icila, the purpose of which was the expression of this life force. In the course of time the following two developments may have influenced the naming. The coming of the mbeni, a social dance from outside, temporarily stopped the flow of cinko variants; after this cinko may have been regarded a genre of social dance instead of the general word for social dance. The decline in social dancing in the Fetulo period made the name cinko be forgotten; the name icila, first only used for the occasion, was then used as a general name.

Also read icila as icilaila of other genres.