Audience members, further, asked him to explain the narrative and he said that "Even nowadays such things are around here in Malole… Therefore *mukwai*, this is where it ends; it is difficult to predict what is going to happen. I am a farmer." Mr. Soolo's tale focuses on the theme of people trying to take what is not theirs. While the lion is in some respects mimicking or duplicating the farmer's efforts, the man understands that when the crops come the lion will use his physical advantage to take everything for himself.103 By following the proper procedures of consulting a diviner,104 then asking help from the Hornbill, the human is able to drive out his lion competitor and reap the fruits of his own labors. At least part of the imagery portraying the Hornbill relates to similar actions in the traditional context whereby smaller animals use their fearsome voices or forms of trickery to defeat larger, deadly animals.105 Mr. Soolo relates the

103 The question of a potentially deadly lion following or mirroring a human's action is found in several variations in a number of Tabwa stories. In most of them the lion proves to be a well-meaning benefactor (Cancel 1989, pp. 129–160). In a Bwile tale in Chapter VI of this book, the lion turns out to be much more hostile. A wider spectrum of narrative images speculates on the wisdom or folly of trusting animals to assist humans in their tasks or predicaments in tales.

104 Consulting an ant as a diviner is found in a Tabwa narrative about a lion-man husband who keeps devouring the children he has with his human wife (Cancel 1989), as well as in a narrative from the Lamba collection by C.M. Doke, wherein an arrogant chief has all the elders killed then is himself endangered by an ogre who only an elder can outwit. In fact, the character is utilized in the tale about Fipindulule, told by Mr. Kampamba earlier in this chapter.

105 A Bisa narrative in Chapter IV reveals how a small animal scares off a lion threatening a human family using only its voice. This version is told by George Mwampatisha at

narrative to actual situations that he, as a farmer, has witnessed in his home area of Malole. These conflicts could involve land disputes or even simply taking crops from someone else's plot.106

A humorous and rather telling set of audience interactions play out around the narrative and its theme. Initially, as Mr. Soolo was wracked by a coughing spell, his cohort spent time good-naturedly speculating on what was causing the coughs and how he should more properly modulate his voice in order to avoid this reaction. Further, they joked about how his coughs sounded like the calls of first the roan antelope then the bushbuck. Half way through his tale, Mr. Soolo notes how he has begun to lisp because he has no upper teeth. Women in the audience egg him on, saying things like, "Yes, we have grown old, [all] teeth are gone," or "Yes, they have dispersed, they have gone back where they came from…" which seems to allude to the absence of teeth in infants when they are born. As most of the session suggested, audience members were of the same age group and felt comfortable joking with and insulting one another. No longer of an age where sexual tension or socio-economic competition came between them, they exhibited an easy camaraderie that comes with growing old together. This comfort level did not keep one woman from questioning Mr. Soolo about some of his statements regarding women, though, again, the exchange was friendly.

Much of their concern was directed at the younger generation, which did not, in their view, adhere to the wisdom of elders and traditions. While comments on the relationship between old age, the lack of teeth and the ability to speak properly were being exchanged, one audience member injected the somewhat anomalous observation, "Oh dear! This is the problem with the young ones; they do not pay attention to what is being said." Even one of Mr. Soolo's earlier observations regarding praise poetry alluded to the importance of eloquence and paying proper respect to authority when he notes, "If you err in presenting your praise, you are pronounced guilty. If he is listening attentively, the honorable chief, where he is sitting, and is convinced that these people are praising

Nabwalya, while another is told fourteen years later by Kangwa Samson as a way to give a better sense of what he thought the correct version of the narrative *should* have been, in 2005.

106 The latter situation is portrayed in a different and complex manner in a Lunda tale performed by Ms. Emeliya Muleya in Chapter V. The stealing of neighbors' crops, depicted in a humorous vein, is often a subject of trickster tales in many African traditions.

the chief…"107 Words and respect are venerated even to the point of danger if one falters in the quality of how one addresses someone of high status. So, although his narrative was directed at a more common problem of land use and access, Mr. Soolo's performance was framed by these broader concerns of unity, humor, eloquence and correct behavior that permeated the overall session.

Finally, Fele, whose actual name is Stephen Komakoma, discoursed at length on Bemba history and other matters. He was most likely in his mid or late sixties, still strongly though slimly built, with close-cropped grey hair. He wore a loose, light grey, short-sleeved buttoned shirt with a collar and black trousers. Fele rested his left elbow on the table that held the video monitor and kept both his hands on his thighs as he spoke and, mostly, used subtle gestures, barely lifting his hands, to make his points. He seemed comfortable with speaking publicly about matters of cultural significance.

### **Bemba Storytelling 7 by Stephen Komakoma\***

Robert Cancel: Let's begin.

#### Stephen

Komakoma: I am Masaku. My names are Stephen Komakoma. I am the one who has succeeded Fulendiko Kafula here in Malole. I am a councilor and friend of Chief Chitimukulu. I work with the Chief in the highest council or court

at the royal palace. I just want to say a few things about the way of life among the Bemba people, our group, starting from the way we used to live a long time ago [or, in the past].

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.03/Bemba7

107 Interestingly, the problem of improper, inaccurate, or disrespectful praises was raised by Chitimukulu in Chapter I, as he listened to the tape of Ng'ongo Yuba's performance. He felt compelled, even years later, to try to have the bard rectify this problem. Similarly, when Chief Puta watched the video of the performance of his predecessor, he was moved to have his advisors come in to record an addendum or correction to the earlier narrative. In the pan-traditional narrative context there are often chiefs portrayed in various tales who do not exhibit much wisdom in understanding the cases being brought before them. An obvious example is the Kalulu tale performed by Mr. Stanley Kalumba in the previous chapter, where the trickster manipulates the chief/lion into first making the bark cloth garment then pronouncing a rash and unfair judgment on the bushbuck.

 The Bemba people, as you might know and have heard and read from books, [that] the Bemba people are not original inhabitants of this country, Zambia. This people came from a country of…which used to be called Congo, or let's say these days it is called Zaire.108 It is a group that broke away from the Luba people, even these who came here were being referred to as the Luba people. The chiefs who are well known are very many. I will mention their names towards the end. When they arrived in this country they found people of different ethnicities, but they defeated them and drove them out of this land. They gained control of this land and became famous as the Bemba people. I am just summarizing, eh…it is not my intention to say everything about the life of the Bemba people, not at all.

 I just want to pick a few points. The Bemba's way of life, they used to live in ordinary villages and the chiefs' villages. And these villages, just as they look nowadays, after they had built the village they used to live in harmony as a family. However, there were some problems that used to disturb their harmony. There was danger of wild animals, lions and others. These things hindered their development because many times they failed to go out to work [in the fields]. They were afraid of these animals. There were other things which disturbed their stay; these tribal wars. In these wars, they often fought with the groups they found in this land. Therefore, their story was not peaceful. There were other people who came from far away countries, as you have heard of the Ngoni people. They came from the country called…South Africa. They conquered many lands and finally entered the country…of Zambia. Even there they defeated some peoples. However, they often struggled with the Bemba because they were equally strong. The Bemba were aggressive, and the Ngoni were also aggressive.

 Lions and wars were not the only things which made life difficult for the people; not at all. Locusts used to give people a lot of problems. Therefore, whatever people wanted to do in terms of development, these three things I have mentioned frustrated their progress. According to the way they lived, they were ruled by chiefs. The Bemba land was divided into different parts. The biggest part was controlled by Chitimukulu. The other part was under Chief Mwamba, while the other was controlled by Chief Nkula. Other areas were controlled by their sons.109 For example, Makasa's area, Munkonge's chiefdom, Chief Mporokoso's area, and… and…other smaller chiefs who were below their sons. Therefore, all these chiefs ruled people who belonged to one group called "Bemba." In their running of their affairs they worked together; they were not leaving things

108 The name has reverted to (the Democratic Republic of) Congo since this session was taped.

109 "Sons" is used here in a positional manner, since succession of Bemba chiefs is, strictly speaking, through nephews, sons of the chiefs' sisters. Actual succession is obviously more complicated in actuality than this matrilineal model suggests.

in the hands of one chief, so that he could do everything alone, not at all. They used to help each other. They were united just like this that you are nowadays calling "Humanism."110 Even in the past, they had their own humanism.

For example, in the village, as I was narrating, they used to have the *nsaka*, as things are nowadays there are schools or welfare halls where people meet to discuss issues and do certain things. At the *nsaka* people learned a lot or gained a lot of knowledge that they imparted to others who did not have this knowledge. It was also at the *nsaka*, as I heard Mrs. Chitupa say something about bringing about development such as farming, that they used to plan things, saying, "Friends, how shall we work this year? In which area shall we work?" Counseling of certain people who didn't know certain things was done at the *nsaka*; as you can see nowadays that's why some people are ignorant of a number of things [because there are no regular gatherings at the *nsaka*]. Some people cannot even make axe or hoe handles; others cannot even…make a basket; others don't know how to make winnowing baskets. In the past we used to have people at the *nsaka* who knew how to make such things. These were the ones who used to teach their friends such skills. Even nowadays, inhabitants of this place [the Bemba area] want to revive those good old practices because people used to learn a lot of things at the *nsaka*, just as they are learning things from welfare societies or schools or any other place where people gather. That's the same way the *nsaka* used to work. Even organization used to start from *nsaka*. "Friends, you have seen the way we are living here…at this village. Calamities are befalling us every now and then. There are fierce animals—lions and all the other things. What shall we do?"

 Other messages would come. "Ah friends, have you heard the message from the chief's palace? We are being warned thus: 'You people of village so and so, take care. Yes, there are rumors that the Ngoni or enemies will attack us in this land.'" People used to get all this information from the *nsaka*. Therefore, this "Humanism" which has been taught to us by the party and its government, that this is what we should follow but it hasn't worked the way it used to work in the past. In the kind of humanism that was practiced at the *nsaka*, there was mercy—helping those who were not fortunate enough to get their basic needs. Those who were at the *nsaka* consulted and planned how to help such needy persons. Although there were many obstacles that hindered development and generally made people's lives unpleasant, there were certain things that they did very well.

110 Humanism is the term given to the political philosophy originated, espoused and applied by Zambia's first president, Kenneth D. Kaunda. It put forth a program that was ostensibly a combination of western capitalism and African socialism. Over the years, in effect, it took on the trappings of socialism that had evolved in many third world nations.

I can give one example of these things. They had started mining although they were not digging very deep. They were just scooping out soil from the anthills or near the river. This is what they used to call iron ore. It was right there at the *nsaka* where the blacksmiths were also found, let me say, those people who were very skilled workmen. Those very skilled workmen could scoop out soil from an anthill to build a very big smelting furnace. These are the things that are nowadays called "smelters." These are used in smelting … eh, that soil so that it is heated to extract the things they want. When they melt, slag goes this way, that waste matter goes this way. Then the metal, which is called iron ore or the real metal remains. This is what they would take. After doing such things, they used to teach each other at the *nsaka*; that's where blacksmiths, who could process these things, were. These were usually very few [in number]. It was at the *nsaka* that people learned different ways of making garments to wear. Some were wearing hides of sheep, wild animals; others were wearing bark cloths which even today… [Videotape ends here, rest of narrative is recorded on an audiotape of the session.]

Mr. Komakoma began by sketching out the migration of the Bemba from the Congo into what is now Zambia, and describing their militaristic conquest of new lands and peoples. He talks about how lion attacks, ongoing wars, and even locusts regularly plagued the efforts of people to live and work peacefully. These problems were addressed by the cooperation of the numerous Bemba chiefs and their constituents. Here Fele refers to the older practices resembling what was at the time of the performance the national philosophy known as "Humanism," something vaguely akin to but never as celebrated as Julius Nyerere's Tanzanian "Ujamaa." From this contemporary analogy, he moves back to the concept of the *nsaka* and, although he had initially stated he only had a few remarks with which to conclude the session, he produced the longest of the orations, covering many topics. He enumerates and describes the many instances whereby this central meeting space served as a site of educating young people, communicating urgent news, learning various skills and crafts. There is a brief but thorough description of how people use the soil from anthills to construct traditional ovens to smelt iron. Most of his remarks add more details to the viability of that traditional place of wisdom, and he returns more than once to the secular modernity of the younger generation.

One interesting dimension of his performance was that he was rarely interrupted, even by a sound of ascent, such as "Uh huh," or "Yes." In many ways, he was summarizing a lot of what had been said thematically during

the session, as well as asserting his role as village headman, owner of the house we were at, the convener of the session, and the main discussant during each performance. In a sense, Mr. Komakoma speaks as a rural "company man," asserting both the importance of Bemba traditions and church, lauding the powers of Bemba chiefs and the nation's philosophy and practices.

I had been playing back the audio after each person's efforts, so they were quite aware of what I was recording and what they sounded like. It was overall a very hospitable situation. Living in Malole and a few miles from the compound of the Paramount Chief, they'd all had a fair amount of contact with European missionaries, teachers, aid workers and some researchers as well. They did not appear to find my presence all that unusual and seemed to be quite at ease. Comparatively speaking, this particular session both paralleled and differed from others I'd recorded among other Bemba-speaking groups, particularly those involving elders. Perhaps the most dramatic difference was the continual interaction between performers and audience and the ways in which the themes of different oral genres were intertwined: praise poetry, fictional oral narrative, historical descriptions, proverbs, humorous verbal sparring, and outright didactic exposition. The themes of wisdom, respect, piety, power, cooperation, education, sexuality, and generational contestation interwove liberally and produced a dense insight into the ways people gave artistic and verbal form to the things that concerned them. It was particularly instructive for me at that point in the research, because it was a reminder of the broad canvas that an oral tradition occupies, and how generic categories are constantly tested, redefined or completely ignored in favor of the ongoing communicative experience, manipulated in performance, especially by elders.111

Although he initially refused to take payment, I convinced Fele to accept a small amount of money [around \$8] to compensate people for their time. We returned to the secondary school for some lunch then drove out to Chitimukulu's village at around 1:45 PM, arriving around 2:10. I've described this occasion in some detail in the first chapter of this study. We ended our session shortly before sunset, amidst the

111 See Briggs and Bauman 1992 on genre in oral traditions. Their notion of intertextuality and power are apposite for the discussion of how people mix and cross generic boundaries in order to strengthen their arguments or make broader statements or connections in their discourses.

rather chaotic energy of that increasingly spontaneous gathering. After promising to send photos of the event, Daniel and I dropped Mr. Kalunga at his home then drove back to Kasama. While the long recording session at Chitimukulu's was decidedly different from the earlier two, involving as it did a preponderance of music, dance and praise singing, it also exhibited the ways in which performance can be both emergent and transcendent. At the same time that men were putting forward their individual performance personas, women demanded a share of the stage and expressed their own, more communal, selves. This competitive relationship differed markedly from the more relaxed and shared atmosphere at Fele's compound. Gendered elements of performance, of presence and power, will be further considered in the next chapter on Lunda performance.

#### **Postscript**

In late October 2005 I made a brief return to the Malole area and, in particular, to Fele's village. It had been difficult to get there, spending five hours in Kasama waiting for a minibus to fill up before we could leave for the forty minute trip to Malole. Once at the village, I had to ask help from a schoolboy to take me to Fele's village, where I met the successor to Stephen Komakoma. Though polite and hospitable, the new Fele evidenced little interest in my project and less in my intention to find or find out about the people who'd performed stories for me in 1989. With the help of the schoolboy, I tried to track down the family of Dismas Kampamba, but no one was home. In fact, there was a funeral in a distant part of Malole that had drawn most people. In over three decades of rural research, I'd learned that one of the best reasons to spend a good amount of time in any one place was to account for the very common occurrence of funerals and the responsibility felt by local residents to attend these rites. A half-day visit to Malole was clearly not going to be sufficient to locate the performers, or their families, that I was looking for. Eventually, we were able to find the home of Ms. Densa Kangwa, and she was sitting outside on her verandah scraping the husks off of large cassava tubers. Dressed in older working clothes and headscarf, Ms. Kangwa had clearly aged since my first visit, having become noticeably thinner and greyer. After an initial introduction and reminder of when I'd come and of our recording session, Ms. Kangwa smiled and seemed delighted to see me again, even remembering that I'd come that time with my young son.

While her memory was quite good, she could supply only a few details on the performers, most of who had since died. Ms. Kangwa clearly enjoyed seeing the performances again, noting the importance of the themes explored at Fele's session. She had been born in 1938, which made her around fifty-one at our original session and near sixty-seven in 2005. She'd had ten children, and nine were still living. Of the performers we were watching, she could only recall that Elizabeth Chama was in her eighties when she died. Peter Mutale, she said, was also known as Telensa Shula, and had died in 1995. Fele, Stephen Komakoma, was nearly ninety years old when he passed away in 1995. She also recognized the young Elizabeth, who'd told a story after Mr. Kampamba, as Bana Chinondo, mother of Chinondo. While Bana Chinondo was away at that moment, her adolescent son, Chinondo, soon arrived in time to see his mother telling a story while holding and nursing him on her knee. Ms. Kangwa spoke to the two young men sitting on her verandah in order to enlist their help to later on distribute the photos and transcriptions of the tales I'd brought to the appropriate relatives of the performers.

One notable event that occurred as we sat and watched the performances was the arrival of three young women, none of whom seemed older than sixteen years old. Two had babies on their backs or hips and they wandered over in a very proprietary and somewhat aggressive manner, demanding to know who I was and what was going on. Ms. Kangwa explained my presence, at the same time she indicated that she was performing on the video at that particular moment. The young women watched for a while, feigning the kind of disinterest that seems universal for adolescents, taking cassava from Ms. Kangwa's stack, even though she asked them not to, and biting off and chewing the raw pieces. One of the young women kept looking me up and down while she alternately ate cassava and picked her teeth with a piece of straw. They eventually tired of standing there watching us do nothing, laughed at me and then sauntered away. I think I was the only one to notice the irony of the themes of the performances preserved by the DVD video—about how young people no longer paid attention, how girls bore children for their parents to raise, or how the young no longer spent time learning at the *nsaka*—and the current behavior of these young women.

I took some photos of Ms. Kangwa, after she'd gone into her home to change into a newer dress and headscarf, and promised to send them as soon as I could. I also gave her the equivalent of \$5 as compensation for her time. It was nearing 5 PM and I was going to have to find a ride back to Kasama before it got dark or try to secure a place to spend the night at Malole, possibly at St. Francis Secondary School. So I took my leave. This was the last stop in my two-month stay in Northern Province trying to find more contextual information on the sessions and performers from my 1988–89 visits. The researcher in me wanted to spend more time in Malole to track down additional data on the lives of these narrators, while the practical side realized that spending the night would have entailed a lot more work for perhaps meager results. The practical and world-weary side won out, not the first time this happened during my 2005 time in the north. I then walked to the road and waited almost an hour before the first vehicle going west passed by. The car contained four union organizers, returning from a meeting with school teachers in a nearby town. After some interesting conversation on the ride to Kasama, they dropped me near some shops, where I could walk back to the rest house where I was staying.

#### **Ilondola**

My efforts to record stories at or near Chief Nkula's village in 1989 pretty much typified the things that come up in field research. Initially, I'd hoped to find Father Louis Oger at Ilondola mission and secure his cooperation in my recording plans. Originally from France, Fr. Oger had lived and worked in Zambia for many years and had written articles on Bemba language, history and culture.112 He was one of the chief organizers and teachers at the Bemba language school based at Ilondola. Fr. Oger also has authored many of the language study texts published by the White Fathers for use by students in these courses. As my son Michael and I drove out of Chinsali, on the road to Ilondola, we met a Toyota pickup truck going the other way. Inside were two white men who looked like Catholic priests—after a while it really isn't too difficult to identify them, especially knowing that Toyota pickups were often the vehicle of

112 Fr. Oger has written a detailed history of the establishment of the Catholic mission at Ilondola in 1934 (1991)*.* See also Garvey 1994.

choice for the White Fathers in Zambia. We waved them down as we came abreast of their truck and indeed it turned out to be Fr. Oger. He was on his way to Lwitikila Secondary School at Mpika, around 60 or so miles away, to watch Pope John Paul II's visit to Zambia on television. While I was disappointed, he encouraged me to go on to the mission and seek the help of Fr. Michel Genelot, or "Father Mike."

We pushed on, stopping on the way at the village of Chief Nkula. This area of Zambia has an important history in the nationalist struggle. Near Nkula's is the Prostestant mission at Lubwa, where the nation's first president, Kenneth D. Kaunda, was raised by his cleric parents.113 Years after independence, it was also the initial site of the Zambian government's dispute with the charismatic religious leader Alice Lenshina. 114 In any event, we were led to Nkula's by a couple of local men we'd picked up along the road. The chief was out, but several young women explained that he'd return that evening. I left one of my several official letters of introduction and said we'd come by the next day. We drove on to Ilondola and found Father Genelot outside the church. He was most cordial and agreed to show me around the village and introduce us to some potential storytellers.

Father Genelot was soon to leave Zambia for a post in Canada, where one of the White Fathers' headquarters is located. He was interested in our work, and we shared stories of people we knew in common. We first visited the home of a man known as a fine storyteller, but the 87 yearold had left for his gardens and would be spending a few nights at his *mutanda* or temporary bush shelter. We moved on to find Mr. Stephen Chipalo at home. He was a retired schoolteacher who currently worked as a teacher for the mission's language courses. He was very hospitable and spoke Bemba, at least to me, in a very clear and deliberate way. It was apparent that students would benefit from this kind of articulation and enunciation of the language. We made arrangements for me to

113 Much has been written about and by Zambia's first head of state. Several informative works include Hall 1973 and Kaunda 1963.

114 Lenshina's Lumpa Church rose in the mid-1950s as a charismatic movement that was thought to threaten government power in the area. For a discussion of her influence and the complex confrontation between her Lumpa movement and the national government see A. Roberts 1972 and 1973, and a more recent study by van Binsbergen 1981. Only recently, ca. 2006, have a good number of the church's adherents returned to Zambia from exile in the Congo. Gordon 2008, has written the most recent historical evaluation of this seminal period in Zambia.

return in the morning to record some stories. We walked on to another man's house. Mr. Makombe was quite old, one of the oldest converts who actually traveled to Ilondola with the first Catholic missionaries (Oger 1991). I arranged to come for him in the morning and take him to Mr. Chipalo's house for a recording session. By this time it was getting dark, so we returned to the mission to settle in for the night, observing the pleasant rituals of a meal with Father Mike and more conversation about his twenty-two years in Zambia and some of the people we both knew.

At around 7:20 AM, I drove over to pick up Mr. Makombe at his home and we arrived at Mr. Chipalo's at around 7:40. Also attending the session was Mr. Chakobe, the headman of a nearby section of the village. The first story was told by our host, Mr. Chipalo.115

## **Bemba Storytelling 8 by Stephen Chanda Chipalo\***

115 Stephen Chanda Chipalo was born around 1926 and died in July 2001 at the age of 75. His home is less than half a mile from Ilondola mission. I visited his widow, Mrs. Sarafina Chipalo in September 2005. She told me they'd married around 1941 and had fifteen children, eight of whom were still alive. Mr. Chipalo had taught at around five primary schools and retired in 1974. He'd been an elder in the local Catholic church; at different times holding the positions of church council chairman and also the council's bursar.

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.03/Bemba8

the lemur used to play in the tree. One day the lemur fell on a big stone. He fell on the stone and died. All the other animals sat still and said, "What's the matter?!" They began arguing. One animal said, "Me, even if I fell on a stone I could not die at all." The elephant, the buffalo, the roan antelope, the lion, the small antelope [Sharpe's steenbok], the duiker… Then one day the elephant was taking a stroll. It stumbled against something. It fell on...it fell near the stone, it hit its head against the...the stone. It even died. The buffalo and other animals said, "Oh dear! This is beyond comprehension! No, me I can't die at all. Even if I fall onto the stone I can't die."

 Then one day the buffalo also set out, it was taking a stroll, it hit its foot against a stone, hit its head against a stone; it even died.  Then the hippo also took a stroll; it took a stroll. Within a short time it also stumbled, it also hit its head against the stone and died. The duiker said, "Poor fellows! Perhaps these fellows have met this fate because they are heavy." Because the duiker is quick, it hopped about. It hopped about. It also stumbled; it hit against the stone. Then it also died.

 Kalulu [the hare] said, "You hopeless animals, you all lack wisdom!  Even the hippo also crawls, Mr. Duiker was also crawling. How foolish! This is the way I, the hare, do things." It began hopping about, it hopped about, it hopped about. Well! Poor thing, it jumped high and hit against the stone, mpaa! And then the hare's head was what?...was cut off.

> How terrible! All the animals were gripped by fear. However, there were some which were not scared at all. They went round the stone, but they were afraid of hitting against the stone. Some of them said, "We shouldn't be afraid. Let us just hit ourselves against this very stone."

 Therefore, this *mulumbe* means that...I will explain. The king who came from heaven is Christ, Jesus Christ. He came to this earth and taught us, and suffered for us. When he finished his work, as he was about to return to his father, he gathered his workers. Then he said to Simon, "Now you are not Simon at all. Your name is Peter, you are the stone.  Therefore, the name Peter is "the rock." And the one who has taken Peter's place especially at this time is Pope John Paul the Second. Therefore, he, too, has ascended to the place of the Disciples of Christ. Even Pope John Paul is the rock. Therefore, this rock is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church will never break at all. Therefore, every

person should get closer to the rock so that they may find salvation. If we human beings do not draw closer, if we do not hide in the everlasting rock, we will not find salvation. This is the end of this *mulumbe*.

RC: Very good *mukwai*.

Stephen Chipalo was at that time in his mid sixties, though he looked to be much younger. He was slim and held himself quite erect, sitting or standing. He wore a thin black turtle neck sweater and dark trousers, both of which accentuated his thin frame. As he began the performance, he had his arms crossed with his hands rubbing his elbows. He kept his arms crossed for the first part of the story, slowly and subtly rocking back and forth, and using his head to nod and sway in accentuating his words. At the point where the hippo dies in the narrative, he moved his hands between his legs, forearms resting on his thighs. His main gesture, aside from the continued rocking and use of his head to make his points, was to use his hands to imitate the prancing of the duiker, as described by Kalulu, and Kalulu's own prancing over the rock. Then he leaned back and interlaced his fingers over his right knee for most of the remainder of the narrative. Overall, his voice and inflections, along with the rocking of body and head, carried most of the performance's non-verbal techniques, giving form to the words of the narrative. Speaking clearly, almost deliberately, Mr. Chipalo first depicted the tale's events then explained them carefully at the end.

There seems little coincidence that the narrative had a Christian, indeed a Catholic, thematic thrust. Living virtually in the shadow of the venerable mission and church at Ilondola, and engaged as a teacher at the Language Center, Mr. Chipalo emphasized the power of the rock in the story as standing for St. Peter, the first in a line of popes that ended, at that time, in John Paul II, who happened to be visiting Zambia on that same day. It is interesting to note that Kalulu, as was the case in a Bemba narrative performed at Malole by Peter Mutale, plays a relatively small role in this *mulumbe*. While expectations may have been raised when the trickster hare appeared in the narrative, these were quickly channeled to the overall pattern of animals declaring they would overcome the deadly power of the rock, only to immediately fall victim to it. Mr. Chipalo reveals that even the clever Kalulu cannot stand before the power of the church. This tale may easily have been the kind of story told as a homily during Mass, by a priest or a lay lector.

When Mr. Chakobe took his turn at performance, he turned out to be one of the most animated and engaging storytellers I'd recorded in a long time.

### **Bemba Storytelling 9 by Mr. Henry Chakobe\***

Robert

Cancel: All right *mukwai*.

Henry I, the one who will be speaking this Chakobe: time, am Henry Chakobe. My home is right here at Ilondola. In fact, I am the village headman. The cleverness of the roan antelope, its burden is on the back. [proverb]

 A little thing was said. Kalulu and Bushbuck lived in temporary huts [*mitanda*] in the gardens. They liked each other very much. They used to eat together, even sleeping, they used to sleep in the same house. One day they went...Kalulu took a stroll in the bush. He found the *musongwa*116 tree that was heavy with ripe *nsongwa* fruit. However, the *musongwa* tree was very tall. Kalulu could not climb this *musongwa* at all. Then he thought, "What shall I do?" He said, "I will go and get my friend Bushbuck. He himself [Bushbuck] will be able to climb this *musongwa*." He returned home and told Bushbuck. He said, "My friend, where I went I saw a *musongwa* tree that was bearing the fruit very well. However, it is very tall. Since it is night time now, we shall go together tomorrow so that we go and eat the fruit because there is famine in this land." Bushbuck was very happy. And so, they almost failed to fall into deep sleep because of the excitement and anxiety. Very early in the morning they set out. Kalulu led the way to the *musongwa* tree. Then he...they arrived. He said, "See my friend?" As could be expected, Bushbuck was so happy that he started salivating. He enquired, "Who will climb this fruit tree my friend?" Kalulu said, "Well, you are the one who will climb it my friend."

 Bushbuck certainly got hold of the tree and climbed. As he got up into the tree, Kalulu decided to leave. He said, "My friend, I will be

116 The *musongwa* tree bears the *lusongwa* fruit, identified in the dictionary and by local people as the "Cape Gooseberry." While this fruit seems mostly to grow in shrubs rather than trees, the narrative clearly locates the fruit atop a very tall tree.

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.03/Bemba9

back soon, I am going somewhere." He stood and left. As he hid behind some objects, he saw Bushbuck shaking the *nsongwa* fruit. He shook the branches, he shook, he shook; the fruit fell down in big quantities. Finally he saw that they were plenty. Hare took his skin...he removed it from his body. He just remained exposed flesh, red! He set out, he began going [back]. Then he stood under the *musongwa* tree and looked up. He said, "You fellow, who is shaking off my *nsongwa* fruit, who are you?" As Bushbuck was up in the tree, he looked down, he saw the...hare who looked red! And then *mukwai*, he said, "Come down. Who told you to climb this tree?" "Well *mukwai*, it is Kalulu who brought me." He was saying this because he didn't know that he was actually talking to Kalulu. Bushbuck quickly tumbled down from the tree, pulululululu.  Bushbuck cried a lot and ran away.

 Hare remained there and at the *nsongwa* fruit. He ate and ate until he had his fill. He even carried a few *nsongwa*. He started going to the temporary huts. He found his friend Bushbuck and said, "Oh! My friend, when I returned from where I had gone I found you were not there. Where did you go?" Bushbuck said, "Can you see how swollen I am? Something red came, it beat me thoroughly." "Why didn't you call me?" said Kalulu. Bushbuck said, "Certainly my friend, I called for help from you." Kalulu even gave him some of the few *nsongwa* fruit he had carried. Bushbuck ate but he did not eat enough, he didn't have his fill at all.

 The following morning again Kalulu said, "Let's go. Today I will keep an eye on the thing that beat you." Again Bushbuck climbed the tree. Hare said, "Just go up, I am watching." He looked all around; he looked sideways. He said, "My friend, I have a stomach ache, I will be back soon." Again he went to the same place. He did the same thing; he removed his skin exposing his flesh, red! Again he came back. He found Bushbuck in the tree. He said, "You! You have again come back here today after that beating I gave you yesterday?  Even today you have come back here!" "Well *mukwai*, even today it is Kalulu who led me to this place, even today it is Kalulu..." He said, "Come down, today you will take me where Kalulu is." Bushbuck replied, "*Mukwai*, today he went in the same direction." Kalulu answered, "You just come down." Just as Bushbuck was coming down, Kalulu began as he did previously; he began beating him, "Oh dear!" Bushbuck jumped down and ran away very quickly. He reached the huts. He sat down and thought, he said, "Oh no!" His friend Kalulu, there he came, he ate the *nsongwa* fruit. He ate a lot of them; he was satiated. Again he carried a few. "My friend, what demon has entered you, are you mad?" Bushbuck said, "My friend, even today come and see what this thing has done to me. It has beaten me a lot, come and see. Look! I am swollen, even in my eyes, see?" "Oh! I even came with...I...I even have...a knobkerrie [fighting stick].  Then that was all. He said, "Oh, it's all right." Therefore, my friend, let's go there again tomorrow." But Bushbuck began thinking, he said, "How strange. Huhm. Tch. This friend of mine is not a good person at all."

 The following morning, they went back to the *musongwa* again. Let me say they continued going there a number of times like that. Then that morning they went; Bushbuck climbed the *musongwa* tree. Hare said, "Excuse me for a moment." Bushbuck also kept an eye on him as he went and stood somewhere. Hare removed his skin in the same way he used to do it; he removed it and put it somewhere. He came back red, carrying whipping sticks. "Who told you to climb this tree?" "Well my friend, well...!" As his friend was beating him with whips, Bushbuck ran away, but he went straight to the spot where Kalulu had left his skin. And he found the skin Kalulu had left. Bushbuck...ahn [slaps hands]! He snatched it with his mouth; he carried it with his teeth. He quickly ran away. Kalulu saw that and said, "Heh! He's taken away my skin. My friend! My friend!" Bushbuck kept on running. Kalulu followed him, "My friend! My friend! I beseech you!" This was to no avail. Bushbuck just continued running. Now Kalulu became dry, his body became dry, he was dry. Even grass hurt him. And then Kalulu failed to run; he ran briefly... he fell down, mpaa! He even died.

 Therefore, deceit is not good because if you are cunning in dealing with your friend, he, too, will deal cunningly with you. These things are seen even nowadays in this world. This is my *mulumbe mukwai*, this is where I end. [claps and wipes hands].

Mr. Chakobe117 was a heavy-set man, with a friendly and humorous bent in his performance style. His head was balding and round, matched by his stocky body.  His humorous story about the trickster

117 Henry Chakobe was around 67 years old when he performed the tale included in this collection. He was born in 1922 around the village of Chief Nkula. He did his primary schooling at Ilondola and ended his teacher training at the college at Malole. He basically taught in many of the primary schools in the Chinsali area, most of which were parochial schools, and most of these Catholic. He married Sarafina Puta the same year he began his teaching career, 1945. Soon after he retired in 1975, he became the headman of the village sector that is still known by his surname, Chakobe.

hare Kalulu included his acting out of various roles and generally causing his audience to laugh, at times uncontrollably. His technique and energy were notable for successfully engaging the audience. He began the narrative a bit stiffly, with his hands in his lap, like Mr. Chipalo before him, rocking back and forth a bit with his head nodding to emphasize his words. As he warmed to his task, Mr. Chakobe began to gesture, take on different voices and more directly delineate the narrative's actions. His first clear gestures helped him describe the way the bushbuck was shaking the tree so that the *nsongwa* dropped to the ground. Each time he used the ideophone "*Cee*!" to emphasize how red Kalulu had become, he also marked it with his hands, briefly spread apart and dipping down once as if making a parenthesis around the red character. When depicting the conversation between the red Kalulu and the bushbuck in the tree, Mr. Chakobe alternately looked up then down, depending on the point of view of the character who was speaking. The most laughs were elicited from the audience when he mimed the creature whipping the bushbuck mercilessly, a stereotypical gesture of whipping his hand and arm down from way up and behind the head and snapping his fingers at the point of impact. The children especially, but also Mr. Chipalo himself, spent a lot of the performance tittering or laughing out loud.

The narrative has an interesting thematic focus. Whereas Kalulu most often wins out over his adversaries, large and small, friend or foe, there certainly are tales in which he falls victim to his own greed or excess. Mr. Chakobe prefaces the tale with a saying, "The cleverness of the roan antelope, its burden is on its back." [*Ubucenjeshi bwa mpelembe, icifulukutu cili pa numa*]. The "burden" refers to the hump on the roan's back, which is thought to be the site of the antelope's intelligence. The saying is a warning against being "too" clever. This story will thereby bear out the truth of the saying. The proverb also echoes the theme of Peter Mutale's narrative, earlier in this chapter, about the ears of the roan antelope and its warning about not following good advice. While most Kalulu stories are enjoyed for his humorous flaunting of most rules of decency and decorum, as well as exercising his almost unrivaled wit, this tale combines the delight of these traits while at the same time bringing Kalulu to ground for his greediness and cruelty.  Mr. Chakobe ends the performance by saying, "Therefore, deceit is not good because if you are cunning in dealing with your friend, he, too, will deal cunningly with you.

These things are seen even nowadays in this world." The tale becomes a moral or cautionary lesson, and this is congruent with Mr. Chipalo's story that preceded it. There too, Kalulu was an actor that in the end succumbed to the greater power of the Catholic faith. In Mr. Chakobe's tale, trickery and greediness are marked as unworthy traits, in spite of the delightful humor to be enjoyed in the story. Again, in the shadow of Ilondola Mission, the erstwhile headman of a village sector and noted member of the church is trying to focus the story he provides a stranger on what is at least in part a Christian message.

Finally, Mr. Makombe performed several praise songs, *imishikakulo*. After we chatted for a while, I paid the three men around five dollars, took some photos, and arranged to send them through Fr. Oger. We took our leave, also, of Fr. Genelot and headed for Nkula's village. We arrived to find that the Chief had come and gone, leaving word for us to return on Friday or Sunday, possibly utilizing a strategy or ploy chiefs have employed to put off unwanted visitors since the days of the early exploration of Africa by Europe. In any event, we had to push on to Mpika that day, so we left the area without recording at the *musumba*, the chief's home or village.

#### **Poscript:**

I spent most of September of 2005 living at Ilondola mission, doing some advanced Bemba study at the Language Center. The mission was still run by White Fathers, whose order is officially known as Missionaries of Africa. I lived in a small room in the complex, along with two other students who were in the midst of taking the standard three-month beginning course. It was overall a very positive experience, with a lot of time spent speaking Bemba with the priests and mission staff as well as taking long walks through the village with one of my fellow students. Moreover, my Bemba tutor, Evans Bwalya, and I had a chance to watch all of my DVD recordings of the performances that are the focus of this study, and discuss obscure or fine points of both content and storyteller styles. During this period, I was able to arrange to visit with the families of two of the men who'd performed narratives for me in 1989, Mr. Chipalo and Mr. Chakobe. Most of the biographical information I've included in footnotes here was gathered at that time. How I gathered the information is worth noting.

Apparently, my arrival at Ilondola had already been known by local residents, as the priest who ran the program had spoken to a few elders about my possibly wanting to record some traditional material. Further,

after we began working together, Evans Bwalya, had let the relevant families know that I was hoping to augment my knowledge of the two performers' lives. So it was Evans who arranged for me to visit the home of Stephen Chanda Chipalo's widow and her children. There were actually a few small houses in a compound that housed not only Mrs. Chipalo but also her daughters' families. I was received in her home and, having just changed into a better quality dress and *citenge*, Mrs. Chipalo sat on a bamboo mat (*butanda*) and chatted with me for a while, noting she'd been having problems with her eyes and that her legs were also troubling her. I promised to bring some simple eye drops I had in my room to see if they'd be helpful. I handed them a photo of a freeze frame of Mr. Chipalo's performance and a printed transcription of the story in its original Bemba-language form. After the usual polite but not entirely convincing compliments about the quality of my Bemba, I played both Mr. Chipalo's performance and that of Mr. Chakobe for the family. Almost all of them took to reacting to the performances as if they were in the audience; predicting lines before they were spoken, responding to what was being said, and laughing aloud at Mr. Chakobe's story. Then I asked some questions concerning Mr. Chipalo's background and recorded their answers on audiocassette.118 I promised to return in a couple of days to take some photos then called it a day.

One interesting dimension that emerged was that Stephen Chipalo was thoroughly involved in the local Catholic Church. He held leadership positions in the church council and was an extremely devout and regular church-goer. His wife was, similarly, very active in the local women's league and other religious organizations. The sense I got from some of the priests who'd been at Ilondola for at least a decade was that Mr. Chipalo was very enthusiastic in his piety, in the sense that he was rather dogmatic in his approach to others and his interpretations of scripture. Similarly, Evans Bwalya, though very respectful of Mr. Chipalo's memory, felt that perhaps the tale he told was not as well-formed and focused as it might have been, and that the final explanation was somewhat forced and did not necessarily follow from the narrative's preceding details. While this does not detract from his original hospitable and cooperative response to my

118 Besides gathering relevant biographical information, I was left, in retrospect, with some conflicting information on Mr. Chipalo's age. While his family put his date of birth at 1926, they also said he died in 2001 at the age of 87. One or the other date/age does not add up, so for the purposes of this study I've set his birth date as the starting point and have marked his age at death in 2001 as 75.

request for a story, it is simply another dimension of his character and how it might have shaped that particular performance that is worth adding to other observations and interpretations of his efforts.

Mr. Chakobe's nephew, Mr. Jones Chibesa, the District Commissioner of Chinsali, lived in Chakobe village but had his office in town, some thirty or forty kilometers from Ilondola. After several near misses, I was able to briefly visit with Mr. Chibesa at his office in Chinsali. I gave him a photo of Mr. Chakobe and the text of his narrative and then he provided me with details of his uncle's life and accomplishments. As was the case with Stephen Chipalo's family, the focus was on simple information such as birth date, schooling and employment history, and date of death. Mr. Chibesa also spoke briefly about one of Mr. Chakobe's daughters, who'd married and moved to Botswana but, sadly, died of AIDS there. It seems her children had been adopted by a European missionary family, and the Zambian relatives were hoping to regain custody of them. He gave no indication of how this would eventually be resolved. After about twenty minutes, my companion, who had provided my ride to Chinsali, and I took our leave of Mr. Chibesa.

It is significant to note that Stephen Chanda Chipalo and Henry Chakobe were both school teachers and active in their churches. Both roles demand effective public speaking, often framed by traditional discourse in the form of proverbs or storytelling. This also meant that they had good proficiency in English as well as a good deal of higher education. The fact that neither ever chose to employ English in our interactions suggests their comfort with interacting with certain white visitors in the Bemba language and, thereby, maintaining a kind of easy distance or even control when it came to asking or answering questions. The stranger would have to be quite skilled in language in order to go much further than soliciting the stories, asking a few questions about the tales, offering basic greetings and conversation and, having little more to say, leaving.

Recording sessions among the Bemba, though in some ways different in each instance, had a number of common characteristics. All performers save one were elders, at least fifty some odd years old, and they were recorded in areas that were strongly influenced by the Catholic Church. Counting the performances at Chitimukulu's village, three of the four sessions included the singing of praise poetry, mostly *imishikakulo* and some *ngoma* forms. Elder practitioners of these genres included women as well as men. The knowledge of and ability to perform praise poetry seems, even in these small samples, rather widespread. One assertion I'd make here is

that, compared to the four other groups I recorded, Bemba elders tended to more commonly learn and utilize these rather esoteric forms.119 This is partly due to the fact that the areas where I recorded were near the *misumba* of major chiefs, Chitimukulu and Nkula. It also seems that historically, the praise forms were adapted and applied to various dimensions of Christian worship, even employed in parts of the Catholic Mass. At Ilondola, in particular, influences of the coming of Catholic missionaries in the early Twentieth Century seemed to be an ongoing and powerful local presence. The two narratives I collected there were at least partially shaped by Christian concerns, particularly the tale told by Mr. Chipalo, who quite literally tied it to Catholic theology and history by focusing on "the rock" that was the center of the story and an allegorical representation of the faith.

The most obvious assertion of gender politics took place in the session described in Chapter I, wherein women literally appropriated an event that began under male control. Some few hundred yards from the *musumba* of Chitimukulu, first one, then several women insinuated themselves into the performance of *ng'oma*, eventually pushing out all the men who'd been the focus of the recording session and asserting themselves in the form of drumming, song and dance, evoking imagery from several areas of their lives, including initiation [*cisungu*] songs. In a more understated, and perhaps more subversive, manner, the young mother Elizabeth examined the potential drawbacks of the polygamous marriage gone wrong. While not specifically identified as the youngest wife, Mweo is isolated, persecuted and eventually starved to death by her two co-wives. The taunts they threw at her, basically charging her with being lazy and worthless, are commonly directed at most junior wives, who are perceived as being the favorite and most pampered by the husband. The performer, clearly very young, with a newborn, nursing child, could easily be pointing to concerns that are familiar to her, even if she is not actually in a polygamous household. The other session involving women and men was the gathering at Fele's compound, where the competitive, sometimes tense, relationships between the sexes had been muted by age. The good natured taunting and sharing of wisdom and concerns for the

119 The only other praise poetry I encountered in the performances collected for this study was at the home of the Lunda elder and bard "Mano." Here, in an unusual example of access, the performer actually read praises from a notebook and interpreted them for me. Even when he moved to a set of praises that he simply presented orally from memory, he did not sing them as he would in a more formal occasion. This performance is detailed in Chapter V.

younger generation seemed not at all to be marked by gender as much as camaraderie. These shifting levels of gender interaction provide a spectrum of concerns that emerged in only a few performance sessions. They are nonetheless revealing in the social relationships they connote.

Overall, my recording sessions among the Bemba were marked by an unusual level of good-natured cooperation and engagement. The group of elders at Fele's village was particularly interested in sharing their thoughts and views of their immediate world, fashioning a set of overlapping observations that reinforced their views about age, wisdom, religion and their place in the order of things. While in many ways performing "their selves," this close-knit group was just as concerned to present a broader, more social snapshot of their beliefs and culture. At least for this small amount of time, a harmonious front was presented to the foreign visitor and, by extension of the video record, to the wider world.

# IV. Bisa Storytelling: The Politics of Hunting, Beer-Drinks, and Elvis

Then **three**, a constant visitor is very often the one who turns against you, your friend…

…the one you like is the one who arrests you. Then **four**, a woman does not keep any secrets. You may have killed an animal in the bush, if a woman had seen it then she will reveal that secret. She will say, "He killed an animal." (Kabuswe C. Nabwalya, explaining a brief *mulumbe,* at Nabwalya)

In the 1988–89 academic year at the University of Zambia, I made two trips to Nabwalya in the Luangwa Valley. This region remains one of the largest wildlife preserves in Africa. The people who inhabit the center of the area, between the two parks, are Bisa, and they speak a language that is related to Bemba, though there are some fairly consistent sound shifts and many differences in usage. To accurately describe the conditions surrounding the recording of stories and my reception by the local residents, I need to very briefly explain the position of the Bisa in relation to Zambia's policies on game management and tourism.

The Bisa120 have lived in this area, referred to as the Munyamadzi Corridor and situated basically between what are today the Luangwa North and Luangwa South game parks, for nearly two centuries. They have always hunted game for food and profit, and they also cultivate some

120 Most researchers refer to this group as the Valley Bisa in order to distinguish them from the larger group of Bisa living in the area south of Lake Bangweulu, in Northern Province. For the sake of brevity, I will simply designate the group living in the Munyamadzi Corridor as Bisa.

subsistence crops, in particular sorghum. From the time of colonial rule throughout the independence era, officials have tried to preserve wildlife and manage the lands people shared with animals by employing varying policies. In the period immediately following Zambian independence, one commission recommended "relocating" the Bisa in order to insure the preservation of animals that had great economic potential for tourism and safari hunting.121 This relocation was never carried out but it suggests the colonial government's prioritizing of animals over people at that time. The Bisa live in an area that is very difficult to reach by road, especially during the rainy season, and this isolation has in great part restricted the growth of their communication and transportation infrastructure. This has led to problems in the adequate development of local schools, clinics, retail shops, and postal services. In fact, this relative isolation has kept the Bisa somewhat out of the loop in terms of general socio-economic participation in Zambia's development.

While the problems of animals living near human habitats are not unique to the Bisa, they are perhaps one of the most obvious targets of government management and conservation programs. To simplify what are a number of competing policy visions, there are two basic schools of thought regarding the regulation of people and animals in such areas. The first harks back to colonial policies, which set out to preserve game and habitats under the structure of "indirect rule," requiring local chiefs to enforce anti-hunting laws and manage game areas, essentially criminalizing the taking of game that had been a practice long before the arrival of European rule. The other more recent, not entirely dissimilar, school of thought is the empowering of local people to preserve the flora and fauna in their areas by sharing in the profits to be had in the tourist and safari hunting industries. The reasoning behind this approach is that once they are made aware of the potential profits and gains in personal and communal spheres, local people would see the logic in giving up illegal hunting, cooperating with enforcement personnel, and turning to less destructive economic pursuits, such as farming and, perhaps, crafts manufacturing.

The problem of preserving animal populations is widespread in large game parks and preserves in east and southern Africa. There is a great deal of money to be made in tourism and licensed hunting, and the questions about what to do when people and animals compete for the same land are

121 See Marks 2005: introduction, also Marks and Gibson 1995.

long-standing ones. Due to several international economic developments, particularly the oil boom of the 1970s and 80s, the demand for elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns was fueled by the ability of potential buyers to pay lucrative prices, especially in parts of Asia. The dramatic drop in the numbers of these large mammals in east and central Africa was a major cause of concern for local governments and international conservationists. In the case of the Bisa, just before and after 1988–89, several initiatives were employed to try to control what the government defined as rampant illegal poaching. There ensued a complex set of political struggles at local, national and international levels. Two separately empowered groups were trying to install their own policies and procedures in the situation in the Munyamadzi Corridor. Each was backed by different agencies or entities, with funding for both initiatives coming from a combination of local and international sources.122 While this is not the place to detail the complex of actors and issues pertaining to these conservation efforts, it is relevant to observe that the Bisa were directly in the middle of these initiatives and would find themselves having to mediate, fend off, or cooperate with official representatives and their policies in order to go about their daily lives.

For a long time before this period of dueling programs, government had established and maintained a steady presence in the Bisa area for the purpose of managing wildlife. Game scouts and guards circa 1988–89, more than earlier, kept up a high profile in order to curtail poaching. Less than several hours drive from Nabwalya, across the Luangwa River, are numerous game lodges that cater to a mainly foreign clientele. The revenue generated by tourism in the South Luangwa Park is substantial and the government sees the protection of wildlife, especially the endangered elephant and rhinoceros populations, as vital in the drive to increase this income. Safari hunters pay substantial license fees to be able to come to the area and shoot various types of big and smaller game. The situation is complicated not only by the historical hunting practices of the Bisa, but also by inconsistencies of enforcement policies, the shifts in approaches by the government, the fact that high-priced animals are often poached by well-equipped outsiders—in some cases, rumors and some actual instances suggest, by government officials—and the overall emotional responses to notions of game preservation and the needs of human beings.

122 See Gibson and Marks 1995; Gibson 1999; Marks 1999 and 2001.

Over time, there have simply not been enough sensible and logical incentives and rewards to keep Bisa hunters from plying their trade around Nabwalya. The reasons for this reside in great part in Bisa culture and traditions themselves. Hunting is more than an economic activity that provides meat and/or profit to individuals. It is a practice that is inextricably woven into the way Bisa society defines itself. Again simplifying a more complex set of relationships and dynamics, young Bisa men are linked matrilineally to older men, often uncles or "fathers", who help them to gain social status and even to carry out courtship and marital activities. These older men often teach others to hunt, supply them with hard to find guns—up until recently, of the muzzle-loading variety—and identify or set up the networks through which game meat is distributed within the lineage. As young hunters become successful and gain prestige and wealth, in the form of wives, land and admiration for their hunting prowess, they eventually become men of status and might even come to head up a section of a village or move out to establish their own small villages. These relationships are complicated by the role and status of the chief, in this case Chief Nabwalya, who on a larger scale warrants gifts of tribute and allegiance, which he then parcels out to others to enforce or initiate relationships of patronage and loyalty.123 Moreover, for some decades in the 1960s to early 1980s, a good number of Bisa men established themselves in the society by migrating to other areas, often the copper mines, for wage labor and returning with financial resources to build a home and support themselves and their families. The declining economy of the 1970s, due in most part to the dramatic fall in international copper prices, meant that this avenue to success was less traveled, spurring recourse to local practices of hunting and strengthening lineage relationships.

When game management policies encountered Bisa life, even more complicated relationships ensued. During the days of colonial rule and the early independence period, when strict enforcement of game laws were in effect, Nabwalya remained so far off the beaten path that the occasional arrest and fining or imprisonment of local hunters had a minimal effect on what most people were doing. When, in the early 1980s, funding was increased for the two competing management schemes, with a concomitant infusion of larger numbers of game guards and scouts, the stakes were

123 Stuart Marks's *Large Mammals and a Brave People* details Bisa social structure and practice effectively and with a high degree of empathy for the complexities of the society and its relationship to governmental concerns of conservation and management of wildlife. See also Morris 1998 for another description of the complex relationship between humans, animals, farming and hunting in a neighboring society.

dramatically raised for Bisa hunters to pursue their activities. Where in the past, local game enforcement personnel had found paths of coexistence with villagers by only occasionally arresting offenders, sharing meat they legally cropped, and getting to know the locals, the new policies were more aggressive and provided clearer rewards for strict enforcement. In a culture where, from the colonial days on, a rather low key humanistic understanding of looking the other way and mediating things with a view towards peaceful coexistence was common, the harsher methods of enforcement would bring greater uncertainty to the lives of local people. One specific development around 1988 was the new policy of hiring local young men as wildlife scouts. These scouts, who knew and were known by resident Bisa, entailed a new kind of class who were empowered and emboldened to assert their influence in local affairs and at times challenge or subvert traditional sources of social order, such as elder men.

Needless to say, many Bisa are rather suspicious of strangers and tend to keep their distance even from the government officials they do know. Nabwalya is the largest of the Bisa villages in the area, and it is composed of small houses clustered in groups of four to ten and separated from neighboring compounds by at least two to three hundred feet. I first visited Nabwalya in October 1988, at the end of the dry season. At that time people were cutting tall grass and dried sorghum stalks before burning them in preparation for the coming rains. We arrived at the village, after a rather long, somewhat muddy (the first rain of the season had fallen the night before we came), drive over barren and difficult terrain. I was traveling with Stuart Marks, who had just returned to Zambia on a Fulbright award and who at that time had been conducting research in Nabwalya off and on for over twenty years. In our vehicle were two residents of Nabwalya, one a Rural Council postman and the other a judge at the local government court—whom we'd encountered at the game control barrier before descending the escarpment into the Luangwa Valley—and a young anthropologist on her first trip to Zambia. Our group was welcomed on the basis of our Bisa co-travelers and Stuart Marks, who was a well-known and clearly respected presence among the village leaders.

We spent the afternoon moving Stuart's gear into a newly finished government house, meant for an agricultural officer who had not yet appeared.124 We set screens into the glass-less metal windowpanes, set up

124 Given its isolated location and paucity of amenities, it is not surprising that the government often had difficulties in filling positions in Nabwalya. It is also easy to see that strangers appearing in the area were commonly seen as seeking to exploit game or people.

a mosquito net in a bedroom, and basically organized the four rooms into a household/office. While this was going on, a young boy came to summon us to a meeting Chief Nabwalya and a village development committee were having with representatives of the provincial government. It is important to note that the government of President Kenneth David Kaunda was about to hold elections. At that time, Zambia was a one-party state (the United National Independence Party, or UNIP) with serious economic and political problems. Part of the reason for this visit was to remind people of the elections and their importance, especially the importance of voting for the president, who was running unopposed. Nabwalya had a year earlier made the international news for requiring emergency aid to stave off famine after overly heavy rains following a drought had combined to wipe out much of their staple sorghum crop. Government officials were sensitive to the negative national and international image perpetuated by such situations and were trying to work with local people to ensure a better harvest and more stable economic conditions. In fact, since the people of Nabwalya had not seen much progress and development under the current government, they certainly were ripe for feelings of disaffection and alienation. The person leading the government group was the Province's Member of the Central Committee, Mr. L.M. Ng'andu, who was also the Paramount Chief Chitimukulu of the Bemba people. After our presence was explained and we showed our identification, we were allowed to sit through the meeting. One issue that immediately came up was the language in which the talks were to be carried out. Though the Bisa constituents asked that Bemba be spoken, the government representatives insisted that the official language of the country, English, be the medium of discussion. This had the immediate effect of excluding some members of the committee from the conversation.

The village committee had many issues to raise with the provincial representatives. These included the problem that a new school building, to be constructed by local self-help labor, had received glass for its windows that was the wrong size, no recent graduates of the school had been accepted into secondary school, and there was concern over the quality of skills of local teachers. Further, the village had been granted a new vehicle by the World Wildlife Fund to assist with development projects, but this had basically been commandeered by the local game warden. A grinding mill, meant, again, for local self-help in pounding grains such as sorghum into flour, had been promised but never delivered. The list of issues presented by the Ward Chairman was mostly dismissed as district rather than provincial or national concerns. Very little attention was, therefore, given to these matters at the brief gathering.

After the meeting, one which left the Nabwalya committee frustrated and dispirited, feeling that they were having little input into the policies and decisions that affected their lives, we returned to Stuart's house to finish the move. Refusing the offer of hospitality of the local committee, the government group left before sunset to spend the night in the relative comfort of the quasi-legal game camp of a European working for a government development agency. The group had licenses to kill numerous types of game and was probably anxious to do just that in the evening or morning hours. That evening we were treated to some rice and buffalo meat supplied by local people, visited with the man who was then "Acting" Chief Nabwalya, then turned in by around 9 PM. The next day, after only a bit of commiserating with Stuart's friends and neighbors, and some time spent in the central part of the village, near the school and government offices, I left with our graduate student colleague and made the long drive out of the valley, up the Muchinga Escarpment, through Mpika and to Kasama, the capital of Northern Province.

I recorded stories during my next visit to Nabwalya, in mid-May of 1989. I traveled with my eight-year-old son Daniel and a woman friend whose husband worked for a Canadian Aid organization at Mpika. The rains had recently abated and the road to Nabwalya had not yet been used enough to mark a trail through the tall grass. It was a very difficult trip, taking us nearly sixteen hours, including at least one rather ill-fated wrong turn, to cover less than seventy miles. We arrived at Nabwalya after 10 PM and pitched our tent under the *nsaka* next to Stuart Marks's house. Stuart showed the signs of having been in the field for a long time without a break. He was thin, rather harried, and very sensitive to any discussions about his work or hunting. The pressure of living in the rather charged environment of mercurial government game guards and local friends and colleagues was clearly stressful. In Nabwalya, there were many levels of contestation, both internally and externally, regarding the livelihood of the Bisa, and it was plain to see how Stuart could find himself set in the middle of these conflicts, at least as an observer if not an outright advisor or participant.125

125 As noted in the first chapter of this study, the question of "capture" by the people with whom the researcher lives and works is an ongoing subtext of these interpersonal relationships. I will return to this concern in a broader discussion in the concluding chapter.

#### *130 Storytelling in Northern Zambia*

In some respects, this made my own efforts easier, since people seemed to find the recording of storytelling a rather innocuous pursuit compared to the more dramatic economic and cultural struggles involving hunting and game management. The morning after our arrival, Stuart and I spoke to a few of his friends and neighbors to arrange some recording opportunities. As we sat in Stuart's *nsaka*, a young man and an older man came to visit. The older man, Mr. Laudon Ndalazi, on hearing what it was I did, asked to tell a story. I was more than happy to comply and set up my recording equipment inside the *nsaka*. When he sat down, the camera framed him back-lit by the bright morning light, seeping over and between the unevenly-spaced sticks tied together to make a wall of the *nsaka*.

Mr. Ndalazi looked to be in his early sixties, with close-cut graying hair. He was average height and slim, with an engaging smile and knowing look that was reminiscent of the American Rock 'n' Roll pioneer Chuck Berry. The resemblance was enhanced by the short sleeved, collared knit shirt he was wearing. He wore dark brown trousers and on his left forearm he had a thin ivory bracelet with a carved braided pattern. Mr.

### **Bisa Storytelling 1 by Laudon Ndalazi\***

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.04/Bisa1

126 While the term "*kakote*" is not gender-marked, meaning literally "a little old person," my colleague D.C. Nkosha, who worked with me on this story's translation, felt that most hunchbacks in these kinds of stories were seen as women, so we went with this contextual choice.

127 I thought he was saying *nongo*, a clay pot. As the story went on, I finally understood what he was referring to, a *ng'ongo*, which was a "hump," as would be the case with a person who has a "hunchback."

128 Mr. Ndalazi enjoyed using a performance technique whereby he leaves a sentence unfinished for a moment, in an interrogative tone, as if expecting his audience to supply the end of the sentence or the proper word, then goes on to provide the information himself. I've marked this construction in the text by using a question mark followed by an ellipsis. If someone actually supplied the term, I include that as well, as in the more common question where a finger or fingers are held up to enumerate something at the same time the storyteller asks "How many?" (See Cancel 1989, pp. 66–67)

it?" He said, "No, it's a green mamba. Hurry up, let's return, it might bite us." And then they went back?…backwards.

Kangwa Samson: **Ah that, I can't solve it, eh?**

129 Looking at Mr. Ndalazi motioning to his back again, I'm assuming the "pot" is being placed onto someone's back. In fact, he's simply pointing backwards.

130 When the storyteller uses an English word in an otherwise Bisa language performance, I mark it in bold typeface.

131 The final words in this sentence are not clear, but he seems to refer to *icuma*, or wealth.

give it to the child, perhaps it is an illness,' but I have heard what you've said about it, it is true to say it's wealth. No, friends, give (it to) me." But this person also refused, he said, "No, I cannot give you this hump. We, we are going to sell it." Then the little old woman also said, "No, **please** friends, **please**. Let's, therefore, come and reason together. Me, I am bringing the hump, I will bring it right there, we go and sell it, we go and share even the money." She then took what? That little old woman, the hump on the back there, she got hold of it and put it on her back.

Laudon Ndalazi was a confident and animated performer, without being bombastic in any way.132 His movements were fluid and economical. He had a kind of central point in his physical style, wherein he clasped his hands or held the wrist of one hand with the other in front of him, as he rested his elbows on his knees, when not using descriptive gestures. He often pointed with one hand or the other to spaces where action was taking place or to indicate areas where characters were planning to go or that they were describing. He kept referring to the hump by touching one or both hands to the rear of his shoulders, particularly when he demonstrated how the old woman removed it from her back and placed it onto the young boy. Then later he acted out her reaching over to the boy and taking the hump and returning it to her own back. One interesting set

132 Laudon Ndalazi had worked in Lusaka for over ten years as a cleaner for the Public Works Department, including time as a cleaner at State House. He was able to save enough money to build a house in Lusaka and, when he retired and moved back to the Nabwalya area, he rented it out. He was never known as an accomplished hunter but in 1962 had the misfortune of being caught using someone else's gun to kill what the Bisa term a "small" animal, an impala. He was arrested by game warden Phil Berry and did a bit of time in jail.  This represented the snake's head, and he showed how it followed and struck at the hunter's dog to kill it. When both the old woman and the hunter were thinking about what course of action to follow next, Mr. Ndalazi would put a hand to his chin or the side of his jaw to indicate someone deep in thought.

When the point of the story reached the dilemma of how to cure the boy's condition, Mr. Ndalazi stopped and asked first me then, Stuart's friend and associate Kangwa Sampson, how the hunter should proceed. He sat forward in the chair, forearms on knees, and looked expectantly at one of us then the other, while smiling as if he held secret knowledge. When neither of us could offer a course of action, Mr. Ndalazi went on with the story, answering my request for an explanation by saying, "Yes, as it is difficult for you like that. That person thought about it also." When he ended the story, he leaned back contentedly, and received our praise for a story well told and cleverly explained.

Years after this session, Stuart Marks mentioned two things that emphasized the importance of performance context in any storytelling event. First, denying meat to the old woman was a powerful social statement of disconnection or estrangement, since the sharing of game meat is a crucial act of solidarity between relatives and allies. The fact that the hunter passed her place regularly on his way to and from the bush without offering her meat suggested an obvious and intentional slight. Second, and here is a good example of how knowing the area and people where you record narratives can be crucial, there apparently actually was an old woman in the village who was a relative of the chief and who was quite unpopular for having a combative disposition, never sharing and demanding things from her neighbors. She also happened to have a hunched back. Mr. Ndalazi was pretty clearly injecting this local dimension into his tale, something that can be a common practice in intimate or even public events.

After I replayed the audiocassette of this performance, Mr. Ndalazi wanted to tell another story, so I set up and began to tape again. He began slowly, saying he had a small *mulumbe* to impart, and held his left hand, elbow on knee, to the side of his forehead as he thought about what he wanted to say.

## **Bisa Storytelling 2 by Laudon Ndalazi\***

Robert

Cancel: Let's begin *mukwai*.

Laudon Here is a little *mulumbe,* friend, this little one, Bwana.133

Stuart

133 The term "Bwana" is most commonly employed by people old enough to have lived through the colonial era. Borrowed from Swahili, it was an honorific term used to address white authorities. The simplest gloss would be "Mr." or "Sir." Long after colonial rule, it remained in use by some elders in their interactions with white men.

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.04/Bisa2

Audience: Good job.

As in the previous tale, Mr. Ndalazi is interested in testing his audience's perspicacity when it comes to solving dilemmas or conundrums. When he first sets out the situation for me, he speaks slowly and enumerates the various numbers of "children" on the fingers of his left hand, touching them with the fingers of his right as he describes each set. As is the case in riddles or metaphors, Mr. Ndalazi does not refer to the actual animal or its body parts but instead builds up a description, this wasn't really a "story," of what each individual or set of children did: two soldiers, four others who followed them, and "a sweeper." He acts out the four walking along as well as the sweeper, cleaning up behind the four. This last mime was enacted with his right hand reaching behind him and swatting back and forth behind his seated buttocks. As in the earlier performance, he leaned forward to ask me the answer and, when I said I did not know, he pointed to Stuart, who was nearby, and insisted I call him over to see if he could solve the conundrum. He then went through similar gestures to set out the problem again and, when neither of us even ventured a guess, he used his hands to set out the answer in the way he described the various parts of

the buffalo's body. He framed the question of the puzzle in an awkward way, asking initially, "Now of these things, what was it Bwana?" Then he asked Stuart, "Which of these children would you choose as the truthful child? A trustworthy child?" The first question was most relevant to the conundrum's structure, though in the end, the answer he provided clarified what he was looking for from his audience. The question of choosing one of the three groupings over the other, ascertaining who was the most "trustworthy," seems not to belong directly to the question actually being posed. It served more as a kind of generic entry into the necessity to sort out the data and choose. In actuality, the question was linked to discerning the metaphorical—perhaps metonymical is the more appropriate trope sum of the parts that added up to being a buffalo. The reference to children might have been an allusion to the way young people often entertain themselves with riddle competitions or stories. Again, Mr. Ndalazi seemed delighted with himself and sat back in his chair, saying "Thank you," in English. A young boy who sat next to me said to him, "Good job."

The overweening sense of this session was Mr. Ndalazi's desire to both show off and impart his knowledge. He performed *mulumbe* tales that set forth two different kinds of conundrums. The first was a rather involved narrative that focused on the clever ruse employed by the hunter to rid his child of the unsightly hump given him by the magical old woman. Asking his listeners for a solution to the problem was, unless they were familiar with that particular tale, pretty much rhetorical. It would have been almost impossible to "guess" the answer. The second performance was much less a narrative than an extended riddle, a bit like the classic posed by the Sphinx to Oedipus: what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three at night? In this case, the figuration involved a buffalo and some of its body parts. It may have been possible for a local audience to figure out the answer or to simply recognize the riddle as something that had been posed on other occasions. Stuart and I had not heard this one before and were impelled to ask Mr. Ndalazi to supply the answer. He clearly enjoyed his role as a teacher, or maybe just someone who had the chance to showcase his cleverness in a context he could control. It was also evident that the context of his two *milumbe* was embedded in the local environment of hunting, social/familial relationships, especially those involved in sharing game meat, and the knowledge of animals and their characteristics.

We sat a bit longer, chatting, and eventually I set out for the primary school, where some of the students had been recruited to tell stories by one of their teachers, Mr. Elvis Kampamba. Elvis had ended up in our vehicle

the evening before, volunteering to guide us to Nabwalya after encountering us while passing in another Land Rover owned by the Integrated Rural Development Project office at Mpika. Having someone who actually knew the road made the last six or seven miles of our trip much easier. We also had the opportunity to get to know a bit about Mr. Kampamba and his work as a schoolteacher in this rural, isolated venue. We walked to the somewhat dilapidated school building, which was scheduled for replacement by the proposed new structure discussed at the meeting I attended back in October, and set up a camera and a chair for the performers just outside the classroom. I recorded five young storytellers and then we were interrupted by rain. The rainfall was heavy enough to cause us to seek shelter in a section of the schoolhouse that did not leak, which turned out to be a bit of a challenge.

When the rain let up, we returned to Stuart's place. Stuart's colleague, Kangwa Samson, told me that he'd arranged something for the next day on the other side of the village. In the morning Kangwa guided me, my son Daniel, and our friend Marie to our destination. We walked along the Munyamadzi River and paused for a while to take some video of the crocodiles sunning themselves in the sand on the opposite bank and of the sizeable group of hippos entering and settling into the river. We eventually reached the section called "Chibale's Village," where Kangwa's mother lived and where a large group of men and some women, numbering around fifty, had gathered at a house to drink beer. The occasion was actually supposed to conclude the cooperative harvesting of a resident's sorghum farm, but the rains from the day before had made it impossible to properly gather the harvest. Since the beer drink had been arranged as payment for labor, and the beer had already been brewed, the group came together to consume its compensation before actually carrying out the work. When we arrived, a man was going around writing down the names of those who were there so that they could later be recalled to carry out the harvest. The groups gathered within and around a small *nsaka*, talking, laughing and drinking beer from at least one large clay pot. The beer was a kind of *katubi*, in this instance, a sorghum-based brew that was heated over a fire and, because of thick sediment that floats at the top, must be drunk through a straw poked down below the surface in order to sip the warm fluid underneath.

Kangwa did most of the talking when we arrived, and I set up my camera and gear in front of a house next to where the drinking was going on. A low, flat wooden stool served as the performers' perch, with open land forming the background of the camera's frame. A few men came by to talk to me, and I also contributed some money to keep the beer flowing at the party. Eventually, I got a volunteer to tell the first story, in front of an audience that seemed to be dividing its time between observing the performances and going next door for more beer.

George Mwampatisha134 was in his mid thirties, he wore a heavy dark brown sweater, with the sleeves pushed up at the forearms. His trousers were dark gray with light tan square patches sewn over each knee. This informal dress style suggested that he, like most of the men at this gathering, had come dressed to work in the fields. Sitting on the low stool, with his knees just above waist level, Mr. Mwampatisha was not an overly demonstrative performer, taking on a rather serious mien and mostly employing subtle gestures as he began his story.

### **Bisa Storytelling 3 by George Mwampatisha\***

GM: George Mwampatisha

Robert

Cancel: Begin.

GM: There was a little thing. People lived… Listen thoroughly, children? Uhm hrghm. I am George Mwampatisha, listen attentively. People started off on a journey into the bush. A man and

a woman. Then they walked into the bush to hunt animals.135 They walked, they walked, they walked, they walked. They found nothing, there were no animals in sight. Aah! Right there, when they walked like that, when they passed through the bush, they walked, they walked. They were tired. And heavy rain came…very, very heavy rain. It rained heavily on them.136 They were terribly soaked by the rain,

134 In this instance, Mr. Mwampatisha used a nickname. His real name is George Kalikeka. He has lived all his life in the Nabwalya area and had been the headman of Mukupa Village for ten years until around 2005. Mostly earning his living as a farmer, Mr. Kalikeka was never known as a hunter. Kangwa Samson estimated his age now as in his early sixties, which suggests he was in his mid forties when I recorded his performance.

135 The idea of a man and a woman hunting together in the bush can be mostly seen as a fabricated situation, since hunting is among the most strongly gender-marked activities in Bisa, and numerous other, Zambian societies.

136 In the repertoire of motifs and situations in Bemba-language tales, characters often find themselves driven by rain to seek some kind of shelter while traveling in the bush. Several Tabwa stories use this basic motif, while developing different plots. (Cancel 1989, pp. 125–128, 142–147)

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.04/Bisa3

now they felt very cold. They even became very tired.137 Yaah! Then they saw a plume of smoke in the bush: futu, futu, futu, futu, futu… yaah! "What's that?" "Let's go there." When they arrived there they found people were seated. "Hello there *mukwai*!" "Come in. Who are you?" They said, "Hello, it's us." "What is the matter?" They said, "No *mukwai*, we went into the bush (to hunt) but animals are nowhere to be seen. Now we are feeling very cold, we are very tired.138 Now we wanted to go to people in the village." Then they found lions seated in the bush.139

137 Combines Bisa and English to express extreme fatigue: "*Baanaka na* **over**."

138 Again, "*Twanaka na* **over**."

139 This development is not clearly explained, but it seems that the two hunters must have been speaking to "people" who were either obscured by all the smoke or somehow hidden by the small structure, since the residents are shown to actually be a family of lions.

George Mwampatisha began the performance with his hands clasped in front of him and his forearms on his knees. As he began he told the children in front and to his right to listen closely to the story. He might have initially been a bit nervous, as he gave his name a second time and told the children again to listen to him. When he began the narrative, he enumerated things on his left fingers, indicating them with his right, "People started off on a journey…a man and a woman…" He told a lot of the story using his left hand to indicate actions or resting his left hand on the side of his face as he described something. He'd also return to clasping his hands in front of him for relatively long sections of the narrative. Early on, when he uses an ideophone to describe the smoke rising from the shelter in the bush, he holds his left hand over his mouth to slightly distort the sound of "futu, futu…" Then he returns his forearms to his knees and grasps his right wrist with his left hand for a fairly long descriptive section, until the couple gets to the part of their explanation when they said "…we are very tired." He briefly spreads his hands to say "Then they found lions seated in the bush." Then there's another long period of speaking with his hands clasped. As each lion cub wanders away, Mr. Mwampatisha sweeps his right palm over his left to indicate movement and finality. After doing this several times, he narrates the final part of the story where in the confusion the humans rise up, ululating, turning in a circle and making their escape. He also walks off himself, saying, "That's how they went, those people. Yes *mukwai*, yes." The audience was clearly delighted by this last piece of dramaturgy and laughed and applauded the performance.

There seemed to be no great thematic point made in this tale. The man and woman who'd wandered in the bush only to find themselves among lions did not seem particularly resourceful and there seemed no other themes being played out in the encounter. Mr. Mwampatisha did not provide a lot of details to contextualize the narrative's plot development.140 The couple, who are stranded in the bush and come upon a "village" of lions, seemed doomed until a voice begins to inform them that "They eat you but I also eat them." The voice is threatening enough to cause the lion

140 There is a more thoroughly detailed variant of this narrative told by a Bemba storyteller, Mr. Katongo Soolo, at Malole. (see Chapter III) In this one, a lion has been shadowing a man's actions in preparing a garden and, by implication, threatening to take over his farm and maybe even eat him. A Hornbill arrives to threaten the lion family, a boast which is clearly taken seriously, and the lions disappear in a manner similar to the one in Mr. Mwampatisha's story. On hearing this narrative, Kangwa Samson provided an alternate version, in English. See Postscript in this chapter.

adults to direct their cubs and, indeed, themselves, to surreptitiously but quickly leave the scene. At the point where the adult lions seemed poised to also disappear into the bush, the humans were able to jump up, making noise and dancing, and escape from the situation. The denouement of the narrative was rather vague, though Mr. Mwampatisha's dramatic flourish at the end was very pleasing to his audience. If a theme is to be identified, it is probably that the lions were frightened off by a terrible, boasting voice that confidently predicted it would devour them. In other versions of this tale, part of the point is to indicate that the voice frightening the lions belongs to a much smaller animal. The point seems to be that the lions were too easily intimidated by words alone. The overall context of encountering animals in the bush, as well as being unnecessarily put off simply by verbal threats, was an example of using everyday concerns as the backdrop to a narrative performance. Dangerous wild animals are much less common in other parts of rural Zambia than they are in the Luangwa Valley, and most likely lose their immediate connotations in the former environments.141

The next performer was a guitar player, identifying himself as "Johnny Walker,"142 or, rather, some audience members supplied that name and he concurred with them. Mr. "Walker" was a relatively young man, probably in his mid twenties, who was dressed in a gray long sleeved collared knit shirt, with black and white horizontal stripes. He wore dark gray trousers with the cuffs rolled half way up his calves, again suggesting his readiness to help in the labor of harvesting sorghum. His guitar was most likely locally made, with a weathered rough-hewn neck and fret board, metal strings and an acoustic body with the top painted flat green. Mr. "Walker" played a rather long introduction, which inspired a man tending a fire just to his right and rear, to stand up and begin dancing in time to the music. An audience member encouraged the musician to sing. Instead, he stopped playing and gave the introductory formula to begin a story, "*Patile akantu, ine* …" [There was a little thing, I…] but after five or six words he stopped and went back to playing. The man behind him continued dancing while someone behind me in the audience began to sing softly to the music.

141 In the concluding Chapter I will discuss the "realistic" contexts of narratives and how images and characters take on a wider, sometimes mythical, somewhat stock or fixed quality over time and distance.

142 Johnny Walker's actual name is John Kampatika, born around 1957. He was a farmer and, apparently, a good fisherman.

Another man in the audience told him not to sing. Soon thereafter, Johnny Walker stopped playing, stood and walked away.

At this point I was feeling particularly awkward, wondering if performers were simply going to put in a token effort then persist in cutting me off as they walked away from the camera. Eventually I would realize that the performers simply thought they were supposed to end their efforts, by getting up and walking away. Nevertheless, people were neither overly friendly nor particularly interested in talking to me about who I was and what it was I did. While not openly hostile, the reception was certainly ranging from lukewarm to indifferent. Eventually, the man who'd been recording everyone's names in a large notebook sat down to tell a story.

Lenox Paimolo143 was still holding the pen in his hand as he told the narrative, having placed the notebook down on the ground.

#### **Bisa Storytelling 4 by Lenox Paimolo\***

Lenox There was a person. There were how Paimolo: many people? There were three. Of the three people, one was a grower of food, one was a hunter, one was one [who had] money. Three people. A **boyi** with money, a **boyi** [who was a] farmer, a **boyi** [who was a] hunter. These all set out to marry. When they went to marry, when they got

there, then **number one** they asked if there were those who could be married. This was the farmer, with a hoe on his shoulder. When they got there they told them, "No, we have refused." Then the one with money, the one with money they accepted, [and] he married. The hunter, they refused him. Further on, they received the hunter of animals, and he married. The one with the hoe remained with his hoe. He just went, and went and went and went. He arrived here, they refused him. He arrived here, they refused him. He went elsewhere and that is where he married a woman. That woman he married, she lived very well. The hunter, where he was there, he

143 Lennox Paimolo still lives at Mukupa Village and was for a time a village headman. He had been working with a now-defunct company called "Leopard Ridge Safaris" as a "skinner." While he was never known as a hunter, he is an accomplished farmer.  And the one with money also used to wear very nice *citenge* cloth, suits [*masuti*], and very nice jackets [*majaketi*], but there was no profit [*polofeti*]. [Pauses for a moment to hand someone, mostly out of frame, the notebook and pen—probably to list more names for the future harvest work] But when you found the one with the hoe, who was farming [mimes drawing a hoe across the ground], he was hard working in cultivating food. Food in heaps, and heaps, and heaps; plenty.

 Then there was famine in the country, a great famine. That hunger, the hunter had no food, no. The farmer…[pauses to remember correct character] that one with money, had no food. Food was with the one with the hoe, the cultivator, [again mimes hoeing] he is the only one who had food. From there, the hunter said, "**No**, meat is no longer appetizing, friends, we must go to the one with food, the one with the hoe." The one with money said, "We don't have food, what shall we do? Let's go and look for food." All these people headed to that one with food, the one with the hoe [again mimes hoeing]. Now the one who is superior is the farmer, the one with money [or] the hunter, is who? The one who is greatest is the one with the hoe, the one who farms [mimes hoeing]. Farming is the most important. If a person is cultivating he is honorable. He is a master. A person, if he spends time killing animals in the bush, he is doing nothing. A person, even if he has money in his pockets there, he is doing nothing. So, unless he holds a hoe to cultivate, to cultivate [mimes hoeing]…this is a superior person. He is the one we fear [respect]. These are the words we have in Mukupa at our place…[that]you are listening to.

Lenox Paimolo looked to be a man in his mid to late thirties, stockily built and with thin, trimmed mustache and goatee. He wore a short-sleeved grey, collared shirt, with the sleeves rolled up a bit over his biceps, and olive-colored trousers, rolled up to just below his knees, again, as with some of the other performers, indicating he had come dressed to work. He held a pen in his right hand as he told the story, and wore a baseball cap with a red brim, blue mesh top, and a white front piece that had the name "Randy" printed on it. On his left wrist, he had a metal-band watch.

Mr. Paimolo was a confident and animated performer. He had a strong voice and moved the story along quickly. One of his most common gestures was enumerating the three main characters, counting the fingers on his left hand with his right. He did this each time he compared the characters or asked the audience to decide which the most important figure of the three was. He mimed shooting a rifle, cutting up meat, and, particularly, hoeing. He kept his focus despite a steady din from the place where beer was being consumed and even among the people watching his efforts. Behind him, several boys walked into and out of the frame, trying to strike poses for the camera. Another man, smoking a cigarette and mostly following the story, left the frame to find a light for his cigarette, then returned to mime reactions to the tale's events and even applauded Mr. Paimolo at the end of the narrative.

His *mulumbe* struck an interesting chord in the context of Nabwalya's economic life. While cultivation is a constant of the village, hunting is its more glamorous and prestigious activity. Directly comparing farming with hunting and simply having money in your pocket is to get to a core concern, how to best maintain a level of food security in difficult times the difficulties stemming from both natural impediments to growing crops and official impediments to hunting game. The farming emphasis also seemed relevant to the purpose of the gathering, and perhaps undergirded the obligation the beer drinking participants were being held to when it came time to bring in the delayed harvest. Overall, the sense of farming as a stable practice is the *mulumbe*'s main theme, a reminder that diversification was a crucial alternative to relying only on hunting for sustenance. Mr. Paimolo's theme might be somewhat contrived, since farming in the mid-Luangwa valley has always been difficult to carry out with any kind of regularity. Most good soil is found near the rivers, but these are subject to the twin plagues of flooding and drought. Further, the many animals in the area, often moving in the direction of the river for water, are always a threat to graze in people's gardens. As is the case with many narratives, links to actual practices or conditions may or may not be relevant to any particular tale, with symbolic or allegorical themes often taking precedence.

After a brief interlude that allowed me to videotape a bit of the beer drink and sample some for myself, the next performer, Mr. George Iyambe144, who looked to be in his mid or late twenties, told a fairly long story, with a song in it and a good deal of audience participation. Mr. Iyambe sat on

144 While I initially recorded this performer's name as George Iyapa, Kangwa Samson specified that his name is George Iyambe, born in the Nabwalya area in 1957. In his youth he made a name for himself as a very good hunter. When the management/enforcement program known as ADMADE came to the area, he was hired as first a builder then promoted to the rank of a game scout. At the time of my conversation with Kangwa, Mr. Iyambe was a chief scout at a game camp.

a long log, with two colleagues on either side of him.  He also wore a pink "groundskeeper" cap. Mr. Iyambe wore a tan long sleeved collared knit shirt, with horizontal stripes, over another collared green cotton shirt. His trousers were dark green and someone handed him a baseball cap to wear during his performance. He fooled with the plastic fastener at the back of the cap while I was waiting for him to give his name before beginning. He placed the cap on his head as he started the story, but the fastener did not hold and the cap remained rather large and loose during his performance. This, along with the fact that he was missing his right upper front tooth, gave him a comical visage as he narrated the tale.

## **Bisa Storytelling 5 by George Iyambe**

George

Iyapa: My name is George Iyapa.

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.04/Bisa5

Audience: The child.

GI: "Because with my wife, if I don't get the lion's skin as a sling, my marriage will end." They set out on a journey. They spent three days in the bush. On the fourth day they found a lion which was in the shrub. His nephew said, "Uncle, there's the lion, in the shrub." His uncle stared and said, "Ah…we must go back home, we've been away from home for too long. Now we must kill this lion." His uncle even started stalking it. He said, "But the lion had also seen them already."

Audience: That was the real problem.

GI: And you know he was even panicking, thinking to himself, "We should return home." He missed. Yes! Kulubulubulubulubulubu! He missed; the shot flew over the lion. The lion protested and said, "You want to demonstrate your shooting skills on me. I will outsmart you!" It devoured (him), bwa! It devoured (him), bwa! It even cut him into pieces. Only his little nephew remained. He was a very little boy of six years, he was quite small. He said, "Well, my uncle is dead. But the village we came from is very far away. What shall I do?" He got bits and pieces of his uncle's body, arranged them properly, and put the body somewhere.

He said, "Well, you know, I…now my in-law what has happened to my uncle. He is dead. The lion has killed him." He sang as if he was celebrating something. Now it was a celebration, that's what he sang. He sang a celebration now, a celebration. His nephew said,

The Bisa women, yes. See what's happened. See what's happened. The Bisa women, yes. See what's happened. See what's happened. A different sling. See what's happened. See what's happened. One ends in the cruel jaws. See what's happened. See what's happened. Today uncle will not be seen. See what's happened. See what's happened. Today uncle will not be seen. See what's happened. See what's happened.

 The young boy set out on his journey. He said, "This is the direction my uncle and I came from. I saw how I traveled with my uncle." He followed the traces, he struggled. Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bambam. He slept, since they had traveled for three days. The boy slept in a big tree. The following day he set out.

The Bisa women, yes. See what's happened. See what's happened. The Bisa women, yes. See what's happened. See what's happened. A different sling. See what's happened. See what's happened. One ends in the cruel jaws. See what's happened. See what's happened. Today uncle will not be seen. See what's happened. See what's happened.

#### Audience: Carry on!

GI: Then he reached the outskirts of the village. People heard and said, "Listen…there comes a court poet (bard)! There they come, those who had gone in the bush to look for a sling, the nephew is the one singing." That's what the people in the village said. "Aahg! Bwalya." He said, "There, listen, the child is weeping."

The Bisa women, yes. See what's happened. See what's happened. The Bisa women, yes. See what's happened. See what's happened. A different sling. See what's happened. See what's happened. One ends in the cruel jaws. See what's happened. See what's happened. Today uncle will not be seen. See what's happened. See what's happened.

Distinguished friends, that's how he arrived at the village, abruptly! In narrating, he told people, "Well, my uncle has been killed by a lion." Then they asked people to gather. "What's the matter?" They said, "Let's go to the spot where your uncle died." They found that the lion had killed him. Then they said, "No, your in-law [the uncle's wife], although you are singing her this song, your in-law is not wise at all. She, too, will die right here." They took this woman, the transgressor of the law, and said, "If a man has no wealth, you insist that you want riches. That's bad!" They took that woman and killed her right there. This is the end of my **story**.

George Iyambe began the narrative with his elbows resting on his knees and arms crossed holding his biceps. He spoke in a loud voice, partly because the audience was a bit restive and rowdy, and emphasized his words by periodically jutting his head and shoulders forward. Early in the narrative he explained how in times past people carried babies around in slings made from animal hides, gesturing with both hands to emphasize how the skins were made and put onto mothers' backs. He also leaned forward when voicing the husband's argument against having to kill a lion to make a sling for the baby. In part, his performance posture was due to the long bill of the cap covering his eyes, so Mr. Iyambe had to lean forward and tilt his head up in order to make eye contact with the camera and his audience. Before the husband sets out on the hunt, Mr. Iyambe acts out loading the gun with ball and shot and tamping it down with a metal rod, using his left hand to hold the imaginary barrel and his right to repeatedly push down the load. He also used the formula of asking how many bullets and holding up two fingers, as I answered two. He then acted out a lot of the activity of going into the bush, spotting the lion, staring at it and aiming the gun. Within these activities, he touches the arm of "Johnny Walker," to his right, as if he were the hunter grabbing the young nephew's arm to say, "Ah…we must go back home…" When he acts out the lion disdainfully taunting the hunter before he kills him, he draws some laughter from the audience. He also combines a verb and ideophone ("Bwa!") to describe the lion killing the hunter, and acts this

out by twice slapping the side of his left fist with his right palm, making as if to throw down the victim each time. He gestured emphatically to show the young boy escaping the lion and returning to recover what was left of his uncle. Then Mr. Iyambe crossed his arms over his thighs and leaned forward to sing the song. There was loud and enthusiastic singing of the chorus by the audience members and his two colleagues seated on either side of him. Near the end of the first rendition, a man and woman came behind them and danced to the song. He gesticulated broadly to describe the boy's movement over three days towards his village, then began to sing again, with the same level of response from his audience and the two dancing behind him. Before the next and final rendition of the song, George Iyambe broadly acted out the movement of the boy, pointing to the places he was going and portraying the reaction of people hearing his song in the village. During the singing of the song, he kept his forearms on his thighs and hands crossed at the wrists between his knees. He leaned so far forward that his hands were near his face, with knees up to his chin. He also moved his head and body rhythmically to the singing. The story's ending was spoken in an even louder voice and he jumped up and walked away at its conclusion, drawing loud applause and appreciative remarks from the audience.

Thematically, this performance clearly focuses on marital relationships and how these can be damaged by unreasonable expectations. The inclusion of a song marks the tale as a *lushimi*, one with a thematic explanation at the end. Mr. Iyambe takes time to detail the practice of making slings from animal hides to carry infants. He contextualizes this practice by reminding his audience that these days cloth is used for the same function. As in Mr. Mwampatisha's earlier story, a lion is encountered in the bush and, this time, the lion kills the human who has intruded in his realm. While the theme of an arrogant and unreasonable wife is at the forefront of the story's development, there is another important familial relationship developed here as well. The young nephew, who'd accompanied the hunter on the journey, would play a major role in moving the narrative to its just resolution. He returns to gather his uncle's remains, then finds his way back to the village while singing the incriminating song that alludes to what had transpired. Further, he is welcomed back by the people of the village, who then become the arbiters of justice when accounting for the hunter's death and his wife's part in it. The narrative role played by both the hunter and

his nephew serves to move the story along to its conclusion but also, on a more realistic level, parallels actual matrilineal relationships between accomplished older hunters and their younger protegees, who are often maternal nephews.145 This familial relationship in the end trumps the marital bond, with a clear misogynistic caution about women's unreasonable demands.

Mr. Paul Chandalube followed, with a story featuring Kalulu, the trickster hare.

### **Bisa Storytelling 6 by Paul Chandalube\***

Robert Wait…we can begin. Give me Cancel: your name.

145 A similar situation plays out in the tale performed by Mr. Fermit Indita among the Bwile people, in Chapter VI. Here, the main character is aided by his nephew, a half-snake/ half-human offspring of his sister's sexual relationship with a magical serpent. In this case, the nephew saves his uncle from his evil mother and also guides him to a new and prosperous village.

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.04/Bisa6

 They went and stripped bark-rope and made a very long rope. He [Hare] said, "My Lord!" His honor the Elephant said, "Yes?" "Can you defeat me in a tug-of-war contest?" Elephant said, "Argh! You, Kalulu, you are so tiny." Kalulu said, "Let's go and try." He took the rope that was properly made, made a loop and fastened it around Elephant's neck. He pulled slightly and said, "Stand right here. I will come back again. I am also going to fasten the rope around my neck so that we can begin pulling." He went to Hippopotamus and said, "Hippopotamus!" "Yes?" Kalulu said, "Giant Hippo146, can you defeat me in a tug-of-war contest?" Hippopotamus said, "Nnaah!  Kalulu said, "O.K. Come here."

 Then he [hippopotamus] came out [of the water]. Hare thought, "Let me do what, now?" He made another loop and fastened it around the hippopotamus' neck. He said, "O.K. I am also going to that side. Right when I pull, both of us should begin to pull." Then he went to a shrub somewhere there, got a big stick and hit the rope. Nku, nku. Yah! Elephant at the other end of the rope said, "**Damn it!** It's now time to pull each other." At the other end of the rope, where Hippopotamus was at the river, he said, "Kalulu said, 'Let's pull each other.' Mmpph!" "You have begun to pull each other *mukwai*." Kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwekwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwe-kwekwe.

 Elephant on the other side pulled hard. He pulled hard again. He said, "Well. Ahrgh! Auurgh!" Hippopotamus on the other side of the rope also pulled. "Ubruu urruuru!" They met at the center-line. Then Kalulu said, "You are the ones who said, 'We are the greatest.' I am the greatest of all the other animals." That's what Kalulu…that's what Kalulu said, "I am the greatest of all the other animals *mukwai*. All of you…you are very small. Have you seen the way you have treated each other?"

That's it *mukwai*. This is where I end. It is a short one [story].

Mr. Chandalube147 was in his late early forties, wearing a white short sleeved collared shirt with thin gray lines in a grid pattern. He also

146 He uses a combination of Bisa and English, saying "Ci-Hippo."

147 Paul Chandalube was also known to people as "Mabale." He was born around 1945 and passed away in 2000. His death was attributed by some people to witchcraft, wielded by a specific young man. The suspected culprit was found guilty by a "witchfinder" (*mucapi*) of killing not only Mr. Chandalube but also other people. He was sentenced, not surprisingly, to work the farm of the witchfinder and pay a large sum of money. Chandalube was mostly a farmer in the area, as well as an occasional fisherman. He'd

wore light brown trousers. His clothes seemed newer and perhaps more expensive than those of the other performers. It's likely that he had not come to help with the harvesting of the crop. He had a rather deep voice and a serious, no-nonsense style of speaking. He began his narrative sitting straight up with his elbows on his thighs and left hand holding his right wrist. As he briefly identified animals that might vie for the title of the greatest or most powerful, he enumerated them on his left hand, using his right to touch each finger as he named them. He then bent low and touched the ground next to him with his right hand to indicate where Kalulu ranked in this hierarchy. He returned to holding his wrist as he spoke, until he acted out the initial interaction and challenge Kalulu makes to the larger animals. There's a bit of pointing at each other as they speak, then he used his left hand to act out Elephant and Hippo feigning grabbing Kalulu and tossing him to the side. He then mimes the making of a rope, and playing out the thick rope along the ground. Mr. Chandalube acts out the looping of the rope around the Elephant's neck by using his hands to indicate the shape of the noose and then moving them up to and behind his own head. Acting as Kalulu, he tells the Elephant to wait and gestures to how he's going to grab the end of the rope, which is out of sight. When he depicts the Hippo engaging the noose, he actually shapes it in front of him then acts out looping it around its neck while holding his hands out in front, as if he was placing it over the animal's head. Describing how Kalulu goes to a mid point between the competitors and bangs on the thick rope with a large stick, Mr. Chandalube points in front of him to show where the Elephant took up the challenge and began to pull, then points behind him to show where the Hippo was similarly engaged. Instead of acting out animals tugging on a rope, his description of the contest actually focused more on the long and loud ideophone, "Kwe-kwe-kwe..." whereby, elbow and forearm parallel to the ground, he rapidly moved his left hand, palm down, and forearm back and forth to indicate how the animals struggled to gain the advantage. When he ended by saying Kalulu had won, he again touches the ground with his right hand to emphasize the trickster's small stature. Paul Chandalube spoke more loudly and rapidly as he ended the performance, standing up and walking away as the others had done.

worked in Zimbabwe when he was a young man. From the time he came to Nabwalya he remained a farmer, supporting two wives.

This is a rather well known trickster narrative. I recorded a version that was very similar to this one when I visited the Lunda area later in the year.148 Like many trickster stories, the plot revolves around using cleverness to defeat sheer size or strength. This particular performance, however, is at least partly shaped by the context of the narratives that came before it, so that the theme of animals and the bush again underlies the tale's machinations. The trickster hare, in this case, is like the hunter who must overcome large and dangerous animals. He is very similar to the clever hunter, in the session the day before, who had to find a way to get the evil but dangerous old woman to somehow remove the disfiguring hump from his son's body. He is like the clever nephew who chose to sing a falsely festive song to allude to the evil done his uncle by the wife. A central concern of this and other narratives I recorded treats the problems of greed and recklessness in a hostile environment. Mostly, animals are the danger here, but there is also the sense of potential danger from other, sometimes human and usually female, forces as well.

At this point, people were increasingly boisterous and obviously having a good time, but pretty much disinterested in the prospects of more performances. I thanked a few people nearby and let Kangwa know I was done. We said our good byes and walked back to Stuart's through another section of the village. Kangwa wanted me to see various things, like a house being built and sorghum drying on bamboo mats, etc. I photographed or shot video of some of these objects or practices as we paused at each location. We reached Stuart's place in time for some lunch.

Later that afternoon, I recorded three more stories at Stuart's *nsaka*: two from Kabuswe C. Nabwalya, the man who was working on a building project for Stuart and who had comprised part of the audience for Laudon Ndalazi's performances the day before, and a third from a young boy named Peter Chisanga Tembo, who was acting as a game-counter and assistant for Stuart.

I want to focus on only one of those stories, a brief *mulumbe*, told by Mr. Nabwalya.

148 See the performance by Mr. Moffat Mulenga, in the village of Kashiba, in the Lunda chapter of this study.

## **Bisa Storytelling 7 by Kabuswe C. Nabwalya\***

Robert Cancel: O.K.

Kabuswe C.

Nabwalya: My name is Kabuswe C. Nabwalya. I will present a small *mulumbe*. A person begat one child, and his wife died. The mother died. The child remained with its father.

Now as they lived, the father used to teach his child. He used to say, "My child, I am going to leave you on this earth but the world is very difficult.

**One**: You should marry a woman whose heart is as good as your mother's.

**Four**: A woman does not keep any secrets. This is how it was. Now [as for] what it meant…

RC: Uh hmm.

\* To watch a video of this story follow this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0033.04/Bisa7

Mr. Nabwalya149 was in his late twenties or early thirties, sitting back on a lounge chair slung with an animal hide to comfortably support his weight. He wore a green or khaki long sleeved cotton shirt, rolled up to his elbows and fastened with only one button below his chest, with the shirt tails knotted at his waist and a pair of light brown trousers. He'd been working on Stuart's *nsaka* both days we were in the village.  The labor on the *nsaka* and some other chores around the place were his way of repaying the money. He told this brief narrative with minimal gestures, mostly resting his wrists or hands on his upper thighs. When he enumerated the four points of the *mulumbe*, he marked the first two by lifting his left index finger to signal first "one," then "two" of the points, but did not use his hands to signify the other two ideas. While explaining the answer, he alternated between subtly lifting one hand and the other to emphasize the father's commentary.

Looking over this very brief, allusive rather than specific *mulumbe*, it is notable that the social concerns set out by Mr. Nabwalya resonate with