Vimbuza The Healing Dance of Northern Malawi

Boston Soko

Description

The purpose of this book is to show that the possession cult of Vimbuza presents itself as an oral genre which is part and parcel of African Oral Literature. The ethnolinguistic study which we undertake will permit us to catch a glimpse of its whole complexity. The analysis has a bearing on four principal aspects. Historical developments: a certain number of facts concerning the birth of possession among the Tumbuka; possession: the study attempts to show how the cult articulates itself with its beliefs and the use of divination; the social role: analysis of social functions; the style: an analysis of the linguistic procedures which are characteristic of Vimbuza songs. The presence of rhetorical figures would confirm that we are talking about an oral literary genre.

Sujets

• Anthropology

Informations

• Publié par: Mzuni Press
• Date de parution: 12 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9789990802504
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

Vimbuza The Healing Dance

Copyright 2014 Boston Soko

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the publishers.

Published by

Imabili Indigenous Knowledge Publications P.O. Box 1376 Zomba, Malawi Published under the auspices of UNESCO

ISBN 978-99908-0247-4 Imabili Text no. IV

Layout and Cover: Josephine KaweJele Editor: Professor Klaus Fiedler, Mzuzu University

Cover Picture: Kennedy Mvula, Vimbuza Dancer, by Rupert Poeschl

Vimbuza The Healing Dance of Northern Malawi

Boston Soko Imabali Text no. 4

A World Cultural Heritage

Foreword

UNESCO must be commended for recognizing the Vimbuza healing dance of the Tumbuka of Northern Malawi. We would like to thank, in particular, UNESCO Malawi for recommending this to their headquarters in Paris. This decision has ultimately led to the promotion and safe- guarding of the dance as part of the world's cultural heritage. This book is based on the thesis for a PhD degree presented to the University of Paris III La Sorbonne Nouvelle in 1984 and which was published by the Museum of Man (Musée de l’Homme) on microfiche that same year under the title: “Stylistique et Messages dans le Vimbuza” (Style and Message in the Vimbuza). I am happy to acknowledge the funding of the publication by UNESCO and the editorial work by my colleague at Mzuzu University, Professor Klaus Fiedler.

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Contents

Chapter One:

Historical Background

Chapter Two:

Vimbuza as a Possession Cult

Chpater Three:

Vimbuza as a Social Fact

Chapter Four:

Style in Vimbuza Songs

Chapter Five:

Vimbuza Songs

Bibliography 250

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Introduction

Our readings on and actual experience of Vimbuza possession dances stimulated us to peruse researches already undertaken. As this phenomenon was widespread, we thought that an in depth study could produce some interesting scientific results. In fact, there is enough material in Vimbuza for sociological, historical, medical and ethnological investigations. Moreover, through the richness of the texts and their stylistic features, Vimbuza has a firm place in oral literature. In the course of our enquiry, we were able to establish that Malawi is a 2 country rich in oral traditions. With a surface area of 118,484 km and an estimated population of 13 million people (2008), researchers have registered more than seventy different dances. It is not by accident that we have so many dances; these traditional dances have diverse functions which can be subsumed under three categories: Entertainment dances Ritual dances War dances The Vimbuza dance belongs to the second category. The phenomenon of possession is recognized everywhere in Malawi. The phenomenon is also known in seve ral of the African countries, of course under different manifestations and names. Our study relates to the districts of Mzimba and Rumphi. The area Mzimba – Rumphi is a cross- roads of ethnic groups following the upheaval caused by the Mfecane wars in Zululand. The autochthonous Tumbuka live there in osmosis with a host of other ethnic groups brought there by the Ngoni, formerly the Ndwandwe, running away from Shaka Zulu. For a whole century these diverse ethnic groups have lived side by side in the area, each one bringing its own kind of Vimbuza, that’s why the Vimbuza healing dance is a complex phenomenon. The Vimbuza dances are rarely performed during the rainy season, as everybody is busy working in the fields. The situation changes after harvest for the people then find time for leisure. Certain men have the habit of making such items intended for sale such as mats, baskets,

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mortars and pestles. The women, whose routine changes little because of domestic chores, find free time in the evenings, and their distractions are in the form of traditional dances, and particularly Vimbuza which seems to interest them greatly. Thus during the dry season the whole area engages in dancing Vimbuza in the evening. During the past thirty years Vimbuza has attracted many researchers. We are thinking in particular of the following departments in the Universities: English Department (theatre), African Languages Department (oral literature), Religious Studies Department (traditional religions), and Biology Department (Herbarium). We hope that our book will be of some use in all these different fields. In the final analysis, the interest of this book is to show that the possession cult of Vimbuza presents itself as an oral genre which is part and parcel of African Oral Literature. The ethnolinguistic study which we undertake will permit us to catch a glimpse of its whole complexity. The analysis has a bearing on four principal aspects:  historical developments: a certain number of facts concerning the birth of possession among the Tumbuka. possession: the study attempts to show how the cult articulates itself with its beliefs and the use of divination.

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the social role: analysis of social functions. the style: an analysis of the linguistic procedures which are characteristic of Vimbuza songs. The presence of rhetorical figures would confirm that we are talking about an oral literary genre.

It is our hope that the book will present an adequate representation of the Vimbuza phenomenon.

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Chapter 1: Historical Background

Introduction

The history of the Vimbuza healing dance goes back in time to the beginning of Scottish missionary work and the colonial era. It came into the limelight especially when the Nyasaland colonial government banned it in the 1920s following articles presented almost exclusively by missionaries and their local converts of Livingstonia Free Church of Scotland in Northern Malawi. These articles display a systematic 1 prejudice against Vimbuza. After reading these articles, the image one gets of the healing dance seems greatly flawed. Hence the need to retrace the history of Vimbuza with a view to providing an alternative perspective, and particularly elucidating the reasons why the colonial administration decided to prohibit the dance, a move which was doomed to failure, in order to finally arrive at a study of the Vimbuza phenomenon among the Ngoni-Tumbuka ethnic groups. The historical account will essentially revolve round important events 2 concerning Vimbuza which happened between 1900 and 1963. In this connection, we used two sources of information; the writings of the 3 missionaries and of local converts and the oral sources of our research.

The Arrival of the Scottish Missionaries in Central Africa

It was David Livingstone who, after having visited the shores of Lake 4 Malawi in 1859, had had the idea, on his return to Scotland, of asking the Church authorities to send to those far away lands (Malawi) missionaries and merchants in order to Christianize and “civilize” the local popula- 1  Available at the National Archives, Zomba. 2  This period covers more or less the colonial era. 3  Field research for doctoral thesis, 1978–1981. 4 David Livingstone named the lake as Lake Nyasa. The British Protectorate later adopted the name Nyasaland.

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tions. It was precisely in this part of the African continent that the slave 5 trade was rampant. In response to this appeal, Dr Robert Laws saw himself being entrusted by the Free Church of Scotland with the task of leading the first mission in Nyasaland. After having tried to establish this mission at Cape Maclear and later at Bandawe, along Lake Malawi, he settled definitely on Khondowe Mountain. The mission was later called Livingstonia Mission; with its satellite stations of Njuyu, Ekwendeni and Loudon, it is right in the middle of Vimbuza territory. The missionaries’ first task was to “impose order” in the region through their evangelization. The Ngoni, a break-away group of the Nguni of South Africa, controlled most of this territory, from Dwangwa in the South up to Mwenerondo in Karonga in the North, and up to the Luangwa River (Malambo) in the West. The Ngoni had the habit of living on war booty. During that era, all the neighbouring tribes such as the Chewa, Tonga, Senga, Tumbuka and Ngonde, were subject to frequent raids by 6 the Ngoni in search of food and cattle. That William Koyi, a South African Livingstonia missionary, had Xhosa as his mother tongue and was therefore easily understood by the 7 Ngoni, facilitated the pacification of the Ngoni. Moreover, the Ngoni accepted the principle that the missionaries be established in their country, known as Mombera kingdom. Many citizens got converted to the new religion and quite a few others benefited from the school education that had been offered to them. Nyasaland acceded to the status of a British Protectorate in 1891, but the Mombera Kingdom was left out until 1904, when in a special agreement Chimtunga, the Ngoni Paramount Chief, agreed to enter the 5 J.G. Pike and G.T. Rimmington,Malawi. A Geographical Study, London: Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 125. Up to about 1900 Arab slave traders had continued to ferry men to the island of Zanzibar, the “depot of human merchandise." 6  Donald Fraser,Winning a Primitive People, London: Seeley Service, 1914, p. 215. 7  For William Koyi and his fellow missionaries from South Africa see: T. Jack Thompson, "Xhosa Missionaries in Late Nineteenth Century Malawi: Strangers or Fellow Countrymen?"Religion in Malawi 1998, pp. 8-16.

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