Encounter With Gule Wamkulu

Last week, my brothers-in-law, my sisters and I travelled together in one vehicle to Nambuma, north west of Lilongwe city, to attend the funeral of a close relative. We took the earth road from Kamuzu International Airport, heading westwards.

After we had covered a distance of about 5 kilometres from the airport, we came across a team of men and women in the company of zirombo (beasts). There were two "beasts" called kasiyamaliro and following close behind was a huge njobvu (elephant). Dotted around were six or seven smaller, masked characters.

We knew that we had to stop as a mark of respect to the on-coming "entourage". One gentleman dashed forward from the group to where we had parked and demanded that all the women in the car should hide their faces with pieces of cloth. All my sisters obliged, and consequently we had a safe "passage".

My first encounter with Gulewamkulu (The big dance) was at Kongwe mission back in the 1960s. I was four years old then. I heard strange noises outside our home, and as I got out to find out who was making these noises, I met almost face to face with one strange character. Petrified with fright, I ran back into the house. On enquiry I was told the charater I had come face to face with was a kapoli.

Another close encounter was in the late 1970s. My late brother and I went to our mother's village in Dowa district during school holiday time. One day, as we were chatting with relations close to a nkhokwe (granary), two characters came by, asking for maize cob covers to roll tobacco into (a way of improvising cigarettes). For the first time I heard gulewamkulu characters speak in an intelligible language. My brother and I did not move an inch. The characters realised that there were strangers around.

The following day, two more characters came by, brandishing panga knives. We hid ourselves in our cousin's house, but they came right in, pointing to us with the pangas. Another cousin of ours came along and pleaded with the characters to leave, saying "Tulukani chonde okang'wing'wi" (Please get out Mr Kang'wing'wi). They relented, and vanished. We were saved. We learnt that it was Chimalizeni and a collegue from a neighbouring village that had disguised themselves as akang'wing'wi to intimidate us.

Gule Wamkulu is an old age institution of the Chewa people of Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. Because of its association with black magic and the use of profane language by itse adherents, it is incompatible with the Christian faith. It is, therefore, impossible to be a Christian and a practioner of Gulewamkulu at the same time.

That is as far as the negative aspects of Gulewamkulu go. On a positive note, one needs to mention that Gulewamkulu has been adopted by UNESCO as world heritage for oral tradition. The stylish dancing of its characters is hard to match, even by the likes of late Michael Jackson.