Songs and dances in Zambia: classification categories

Songs and dances in Zambia: classification categories. To refer to a song, often the one they had just sung or heard, people mention certain characteristics of the song, they refer to the group the song belongs to or they use a name.

Characteristics

When referring to characteristics people mention the occasion(s) at which the song is typically used, to the purpose for which it is used, or to the purport of its text. Of course, this may come down to the same thing. Sometimes people refer to the accompanying instrument(s).

A song can be called a healing song because it is used during healing rituals, because singing it helps in the healing process or its text refers to healing, illness, medicines, or the like.

Examples
A Pa kwisha song: reference to an occasion and possibly a purpose.
A greeting song: reference to the text and a purpose.
A hunting song: reference to an occasion and/or purpose and the text.
A kalimba song: reference to an accompanying instrument, an occasion and possibly a purpose.

Groups of songs

Songs and dances in Zambia: classification categories. Less frequently the classification is based on a division of the repertoire into two or three big groups. These partitions also inform roughly about the occasion at which the songs occur or about their purpose.

Examples
Dance songs: nyimbo sha pa kushana. The category of ‘non-dance songs’ has no general name.
Songs for kupupa: nyimbo sha pa kupupa through mourning (kulila), through healing (kucitila) and through rejoicing (kwilimuna). People can also contrast the kulila and kucitila songs with music for enjoyment: nyimbo sha pa kwangala.
Women’s songs, men’s songs or for all: nyimbo sha banakashi, nyimbo sha baume or nyimbo sha (bantu) bonse.
Subdivisions based on the typical performers of the song, for instance nyimbo sha bacibinda: hunters’ songs and nyimbo sha baciwila: songs of the spirit-possessed.
Also subdivisions related to music technical features can be used for classifying songs, for instance heavy and light songs: nyimbo sha kukule’shiwi and nyimbo shipubile, and songs from the higher land (mulundu) or from the river land (nika).¹This distinction is also made when formulating differences between the spirit possession types.

Names

Songs and dances in Zambia: classification categories. Words (names) that do not refer directly to characteristics or subdivisions, refer to the dance genre that goes with the song or to the composer/origin of the song. In this case too, there is a connection with occasions and purposes. For instance: the name of a social dance is connected with the Cila of that dance, the ilimbalakata with the old beer party and a Kansenkele song with the Ipupo.

Examples
A cinko (old social dance) song: dance, occasion and purpose.
A Cisungu (girls’ initiation) song: purpose, occasion, text and dance.
A Mwami song: purpose, occasion, text, origin, and dance.
A Chitelela (a famous medium) song: medium (‘composer’), occasion and text.

Conclusion

We see that categories in most cases refer to occasion and/or purpose. Purpose and occasion are related because specific occasions can better serve specific purposes. This is not a one-on-one relation since the purposes of individual attendants or groups of attendants may differ. The occasion being the enabler of purpose, we can conclude that the purpose of songs and dances is their main basis for classification.