DIRGES OF BANGWEULU

DIRGES FROM BANGWEULU

In any society, losing a loved one brings about a sense of hopelessness. More so if the departed was the only dependable bread winner of the family. The anguish and humiliation resulting from such a loss is indescribable. Consequently, people in different parts of the world express sadness in a variety of ways.

 Although most of the people of the Bangweulu wetlands game reserves catchment area use English surnames, they call their children by the father’s first name, their way of expressing sorrow at the loss of their beloved ones is interestingly inimitable and far different from that of England. From the Bisa tribe living in the Chiunda Ponde and Kopa chiefdoms to the Unga of the Bwalya Mponda and Nsamba chiefdoms in the wildlife-rich wetlands, every funeral is a phenomenon completely different from the other. A closer look at one will give the reader an in-depth knowledge of why the people who host hundreds of tourists every year are dubbed controversial.

The condition of a bed-ridden sick man who has long been complaining of severe chest and general body pains is getting worse. The family decides to consult a nearby witchfinder, as this is considered an essential primary option, who diagnoses that loss of appetite and anemic appearance of the patient is as a result of his being demon possessed. He therefore needs a special healing dance to cast out demons and the sick will be healed.  

A camp fire is arranged outside the patient’s house and the entire village community comes to witness the casting out of demons. The consultant is specially dressed in spiritual regalia, carrying in his right hand a fly-whisk with other ugly looking paraphernalia around him. He performs various rituals, including drawing a big circle around the evil-spirit- affected house by cassava meal powder. 

Everyone present is put in the spotlight by encircling them within this perceived magical powder. He then instructs drummers to beat their differently toned ngoma drums while he leads the audience in singing special spiritual songs in a traditional choral style. The sick is expected to be stimulated by special spiritual powers, emanating from musical sounds and rhythm, to spit the spirits out.

Unfortunately, the poor frail man fails to respond but just gets irritated by needless noise. The exorcising drama ends in vain and the sorcerer walks away in shame alleging foul play by some heartless witch in the crowd who doesn’t want the victim to heal. The family will have to look for an alternative medicine man before time runs out.

Meanwhile, the patient’s condition is deteriorating and requires emergency action. The family embarks on another consultation from yet another witch-finder whose diagnosis of chest pains is that it is caused by nshima, ordinary staple meal porridge that mysteriously glides down a man’s chest due to infidelity of his wife. Sounds strange? This is a long-standing belief of generations back home! 

People there firmly believe this is the primary cause of many a man’s death, in the same way they conclude that a pregnant woman’s pre-natal complications or death, known as nchila, is caused by spousal adultery. This historical belief positively helps reduce illicit sexual relationships which in turn reduces sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and Aids.  So, people easily agree with the confirmation of the hired sorcerer, who obviously, knows well in advance what his customers expect to hear.

The remedy to nshima and nchila complications is, first, the wrongdoer’s prompt and honest confession of her or his treachery followed by public identification of each and every person one had extra marital sex with. In the case of this patient, the consultant proceeds to apply a concoction of herbal powder, known as muti, on razor-made deep cuts around affected parts of the chest.

 He then sucks out “nshima” through a specially-crafted Lechwe horn suction known as musuku. Even though the woman pleaded her innocence in the whole matter of her beloved husband’s ailment, the sorcerer goes ahead and sucks the little blood from this chronically anemic patient. He points to the mixture of fat and blackish-clotting small chunks of blood and exclaims, “there you are, it’s nshima!”

Finally, after two days of extra inflicted and excruciating pain on the helpless poor patient, he gives up and succumbs to death. The village has to come to terms with the sad news of the demise of this well-respected family man. Women wail uncontrollably while men gather to exchange notes on who they will assign on various routes to inform kindreds living in distant areas of the tragedy. A good number live in different and distant islands, fishing and farming camps depending on the season.

Hunters with either dogs or muzzle-loader guns head to the bush to search for game meat to feed mourners while a number of fishermen take their nets to fish. Women arrive in numbers from surrounding villages to come and mourn with the bereaved family. The entire community comes to a standstill as no economic or social activity of entertainment nature will be carried out for the duration of the funeral. Everyone is affected and automatically gets involved.

While this is happening, the widow is being subjected to different initial traditional purification activities. Her hair is shaved as she is isolated and confined in a house where she will be kept until her husband is buried. She cannot be given any food until the husband’s family prepares a special meal for her, which is often done as and when they feel like. How early or late this will be done will depend on the in- laws’ perception of how generous the widow treated the majority of their kin and how much access she gave them into her home throughout her marriage. 

The widow is not allowed to take a bath until a few days after burial. She is even monitored on how sorrowful she is by observing her individual elegy.  Her relatives may be allowed to sit and mourn with her but they are not allowed to supply her with anything to eat or fresh clothes to wear. In fact, from now on wards, everyone with any kin to the widow is at the mercy of the deceased man’s relatives.

Remember, there is no modern mortuary in the village. So, the corpse has to be prepared, wrapped in white, mouth braced by a piece of cloth and placed, face up, on a single bed outside the deceased’s house, where it will “lie in state”. This will enable the preservation of the body while waiting for all relatives and friends to arrive.

As the body is being prepared, relatives of the deceased are scrutinizing the appearance of the body. They are checking, for example, whether he is clean shaven in all parts of the body that need to, especially pubic area. Failure to clean your man constitutes a serious offence and is a major source of ridicule that widows try to avoid at all costs. A man’s clean-shaven body is a sign of good care by a well cultured wife.  In fact, if the opposite is the case, every adult will know about it as it will be quite pronounced in the composition of most dirges.

Among women, details of the illness, family feuds, widows’ behaviour towards her husband and relatives is chronicled through different odes sung by leading family members. Mourners from other villages need not ask the marriage life of the late husband as they will hear it all when relatives take turns in warbling elegies about the man they loved so much. Each one will eloquently chant her perception of the widow and her conduct.

They will sing, for example, about how greedy she was, how her muti (charms) alienated her husband from taking care of members of his maternal or paternal families, how she indulged in promiscuity and so forth. 

Typically, dirges sung at any funeral in the village foretell the treatment the widow will receive during family post burial gathering, either harsh or kind. The widow and her relatives, on the other hand, are lamenting their misfortune and expectations in cautious solemn odes.

These songs of mourning differentiate the people of the wetlands from most tribes of Zambia. They are uniquely composed by individuals one after another but every woman present will know when it is about to end. Without any rehearsal at all, every woman in attendance naturally participates in the concluding chorus. These, indeed, are exceptional dirges of Bangweulu swamps!

In the meantime, there is drama among traditional cousins everywhere around the funeral house. Everybody in Bangweulu identifies with a clan. Some are from the fish, steel, nshima, rain, dog, crocodile or some object clan! It is across these clans that traditional cousinship is practiced.

 For example, members of the fish clan play cousin-ship with members from Nshima or rain clan. This is because traditionally, a complete local meal comprises nshima complemented with fish or other relish. Also, fish lives in water provided by rain. Logically, it therefore follows that the fish clan are cousins to both rain and nshima clans.

 Now that this particular funeral is for a member from the fish clan, all their adult men and women are molested by their cousins from rain and nshima clans. They mock them by way of smearing them with itchy ash, soot, powder or red soil. Molesters may surprisingly pour water and other dirty stuff on victims and let the mourning cousins remain in such a state for as long as they are commanded, in order to be easily identified as relatives of the dead. If one forcibly removes the “mark”, he/she pays a heavy penalty which is liquidated in monetary form and expended at the same funeral.

 The positive part of this arrangement is that traditional cousins play a leading role in organizing the funeral, collecting contributions and feeding mourners. They facilitate burial and other logistical arrangements. Cousins make the burden lighter for the bereaved family and the tradition is respected for uniting the community.

Before going for burial, the widow and her family perform yet another ritual signaling their submission to the family of the late husband called kulamba. They are made to craw a distance of about three to five meters from the funeral house, weeping as they enter the house in a single file, very close to each other. 

A plate is placed by the door in which each one of the crawling member of the group must place a reasonable amount of money for the man’s family. As this is going on, running commentaries are made by some relatives of the deceased against the now tired and miserable widow. She is subjected to all sorts of verbal abuse and she is not expected to answer back. 

Some onlookers are overcome by emotion, breakdown and helplessly yowl in support of the widow until the last woman in the procession has crawled back into the house.  Surprisingly, this tradition only applies to women. I am yet to see widowers go through this!

The day of burial is one of long, winding and controversial speeches. A good number of people from all families are expected to deliver a short eulogy. Some eulogies are no mere tribute but consist accusations and counter accusations. 

Paternal relatives of the dead display special powers at this occasion. While the tribes are basically matrilineal, at death, the father or his family assumes full parental authority. One is never buried without their full permission. They dictate where, who and when the body will be buried.

 At burial site, one of them accompanies the body in the grave, holding the head side of the coffin. He is the last person to come out after performing the last rite of throwing into the grave some soil from opposite sides of the grave. This person is called umunshishi (Burier).

 By the way, the corpse will lie head facing the east and never in any other direction.

 After burial comes the big assembly, known as isambwe lya mfwa, which is dreaded by any widow and her relatives. The meeting comes a day after burial and is predominantly attended by families of the deceased and the widow. 

Others in attendance will merely follow proceedings, unless invited to comment. It is here that the widow is interrogated over her involvement in the death of her husband. She has to explain what secret activities the departed was involved in, such as witchcraft. 

Everything sung in dirges earlier against the widow comes to the fore. Issues of cleansing the widow, by appointing a close relative of her late husband to have sex with her, are discussed and agreed upon. 

Property is shared, of course, according to the dictates of the man’s family. It is a sad ending of a life enjoyed by two lovers that leaves the living emotionally bruised!

The reader may find things a lot better today due to increased civic education.