Songs and dances in Zambia: kaluwe

Songs and dances in Zambia: kaluwe. Kaluwe songs are about hunting and adventurous hardships. The dancing by Kaluwe mediums is instructive. It shows what it is like to hunt the different kinds of bigger animals.
People consider Kaluwe music typical of the Lala region. They are aware, however, that Kaluwe music exists in many regions.

This all holds for the Kaluwe possession that functioned within the local, central cults. The peripheral Kaluwe possession usually refers to hunting only and the dance is not always instructive.

Song 85

A Kaluwe song sung by Mika Mwape Chungwa after having heard the text in Doke (1931: 311, see below), 1986. It is a song for the Cilili ca nama that could be brought by a Kaluwe medium or, as an ilimbalakata, by a hunter.

Text of Song 85 ∵ To lie with tails of game

Muushana cinselawila ne kutali mfumine
Umwaka wakufwa ne ng’anga nkalale na micila
Muushana cinselawila ne kutali mfumine
Umwaka wakufwa ne ng’anga nkalale na micila ya nama

Don’t dance moving your hips up and down since I come from far
In the year of my dying, I, the shing’anga, will lie with tails
Don’t dance moving your hips up and down since I come from far
In the year of my dying, I the shing’anga will lie with tails of game

“The first line is a word of caution to the other dancers: let’s have this session in a good way, without too much competition. You have to realise that at these Cilili there were many boisterous hunters. The song is in secret language (sha mulwankama). Those who understood would abide to what the owner wanted.”
BanaNshimbi ∵ personal communication, 1987.

Songs and dances in Zambia: kaluwe. The second line says the singer will remain a big hunter for the rest of his life. Cinselawila derives from kuselaula which means to move the hips up and down during intercourse or dancing.

A similar song text in the Lamba region

In the Lamba region a century ago a similar song text was sung during witchcraft diagnosis by a doctor after he had revealed the witch.¹Doke (1931: 311). The footnotes are his. This seems to be a kucitila version of the song, in which the tails of game are replaced by the horns of medicines.

Mushana-cinselawila, nikwilala mfumine,
Ili afwile banangwa, nkalala nensengo!

[I] the dancer of the dance of abandonment^a, it is from the Lala country I have come^b
When [I] the great doctor die, I shall lie with the horns [in my hands]^c!

a. The people are so relieved that their fear is removed that they can now dance in abandonment.
b. ‘I have come from far – a prophet from another country.’
c. ‘People will bury me with my powerful medicines.’