Songs and dances in Zambia: mapping the major genres

Songs and dances in Zambia: mapping the major genres. With the aid of the information presented in the articles about song and dance genres¹See the menus Repertoires > Songs and dances > Songs and dances guided tour and Repertoires > Songs and dances > Songs and dances in detail., it is possible to map the major older song genres in Chibale in a field together with other features important for music.

Figure H: The relations between the major older song genres.

Songs and dances in Zambia: mapping the major genres. Figure H is based on the material presented on this site, especially the series of articles on song and dance repertoires including song classification. It represents the relationships between the major older genres and a number of aspects of the older, local cults in Chibale.
The major older song and dance genres are represented in black. The three possession types and the icila in blue. And in red, the purposes of the contact of the village with nature (mpanga) for which these main repertoires were basically used: the giving to the mpanga of corpses and of liveliness and energy, and the prevention as well as the resolution of ishamo. The forms of this contact, three forms of kupupa and kwangala, are represented in green.

The two main repertoires are at the top and the left: the cinsengwe, and at the right and the bottom: the cimbwasa and the cinko.
Major polarities in Chibale music: male-female and mulundu–nika, play between the two main repertoires while light-heavy plays both within and between them.

Songs and dances in Zambia: mapping the major genres. It is not unlikely that historically there were two ‘systems of music’. The cinsengwe system and the system for which no single name was used. It is not unreasonable to call it ‘the cimbwasa system’ since the two systems are related to the complementary systems of the art of hunting and the art of giving birth, or, more generally, complementary systems of production and of reproduction that are present in one form or the other in the various areas in South Central Africa.²See, for instance, Filip de Boeck, 1991, From knots to web: Fertility, life-transmission, health and well-being among the Aluund of southwest Zaire, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Catholic University of Louvain.

The prevention and resolution of ishamo

Songs and dances in Zambia: mapping the major genres. Figure H is used to illustrate the existence in the past of two ‘systems of music’. It gives an overview and therefore lacks finesse. One of the things is that prevention of ishamo is not only done by kwilimuna. It can also be done by kulila and, in former days, presumably also by kwangala.
Furthermore, kulila can also be used to resolve ishamo. Kulila seems to be ‘more versatile’ than kwilimuna. Therefore, it is not easy to place it in the figure. It is not unthinkable that in the past kucitila was even closer to kulila. Or that there were two forms of kucitila for both systems. As the statement below of Alube Mika points out, the system before the coming of Mwami lacked proper kucitila.

A change in the resolving of ishamo

When nika spirits heal, it has to be done in a mushitu [near the source of a stream] while the mulundu spirits heal in the mulundu with medicines from the mulundu.
Mwami and Moba belong to the nika and Ciwila and Kaluwe to the mulundu. In former days the shing’anga were less powerfull since they could only work from the mulundu. When Mwami came in, this was a great progress since they could do kubuka. Kubuka can not be done by mulundu spirits. Before that people afflicted by nika illnesses died.
Alube Mika ∵ personal communication, 2004.

Songs and dances in Zambia: mapping the major genres. The exogenous kalindula, partly Chibalised as it is, can fulfil a part of the ‘life’ and kwangala functions of the icila. A part because kalindula has never been used at Ipupo or at the coming out of the cisungu.
The exogenous music of the christian cults has some overlap, see for instance the music theory of the Catholics, but is mostly what it is: from outside.

More research is needed in more regions of the Kaonde-Lamba-Lenje-Lala area to improve on the figure.

The cycling of music between the village and the mpanga

Cimbilingoma was a daughter of cinko, the sister of cinsengwe, together the ancestresses of all dances³Cimbilingoma ali umwana mwanakashi waku cinko, mukwabo pali bunkashi na cinsengwe, bonse pamo bali fikolwe fya masha onse.; it had two musango.
BanaNshimbi ∵ personal communication, 1987.

Cinko is the ancestress of all dances. After it, came Ciwila dancing, then Kaluwe, then Mashabe and then Moba. Cinsengwe and the like are sisters of cinko.⁴Cinko ecikolwe ca yonse amasha. Ukukonkapo, kwaishile amasha yaba ciwila, kukonkapo kaluwe, elo mashabe naba moba. Cinsengwe na bambi niba nkashi baku cinko. […] Possessed do not dance cinko, but they can dance cinsengwe and cimbwasa.
Mika Mwape Chungwa ∵ personal communication, 1986.

Songs and dances in Zambia: mapping the major genres. Presumably banaNshimbi takes the whole ‘cimbwasa system’ together into one term, cinko, in her statement on the ancestry of Chibale music. In a comparable statement, Mika Mwape Chungwa separates the music of the possessed and of the common people in the ‘cimbwasa system’.

Both statements may refer to something else as well. Music repertoire cycles between the mpanga and the village (mushi). Old repertoire is brought by the spirits (mpanga) via possessed mediums and is then icilaila-ed back to the village. The icilaila-ed repertoire will become old repertoire after some time and then will be brought by the spirits etc. As, in the last 100, 150 years, due to the dominant position of male music, cilaila-ing has been done much more by women than by men, a gradual shift of music brought by mediums to women’s repertoire would be expected. The latter seems to be the case.
In the past, this cycling may have occurred in both systems.