AS with most Zimbabwean customs and Africa as a whole, song and dance is crucial to ceremonies.
People from several tribes living along the Zambezi River Valley (Northern Zimbabwe and Southern Zambia) including the BaTonga reincarnate once a year as Gulewamkulu (zvigure) or Makishi dancers to conduct ceremonial rituals.
The BaTonga through their relationships with their Zambian Gwembe Tonga cousins share a lot of cultural activities since they have a common culture that was separated by the Zambezi River.
They also share some common dances with their relatives in Mozambique, Angola and Malawi.
In various parts of Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, the spirits of the ancestors take on bodily form and dance for their living descendants.
Not just to entertain, but also to inform, to chastise and to guide.
The forms they take are varied and spectacular, and the occasion of their portrayal is called the Gule-wamkulu – the great dance.
But there is much more to the gule than mere tourist entertainment. 
The dancers prepare weeks in advance by carving masks and making the outfits in secret.
These are not thought of as costumes, but as actual spirits, each representing a character that fulfils a purpose or delivers a message.
The masks may not be seen by uninitiated people and the dancers must keep their identity secret, compartmentalising their daily lives from their parallel existence as spirit dancers.
The outfits are stored in secret places, and the dancers change far from the village in the forest or graveyard before making their way from the relative wilds to the civilisation of the village.
According to the BaTonga elders, “Gule-wamkulu is a cosmic celebration of life and death.”
It comments on and influences issues affecting society – materialism, dispossession and inequality – and reflects the rich cultural heritage of the Chewa, Bemba and BaTonga people.
The rituals, traditions, taboos and social etiquette portrayed by the gule represent and document mwambo – the moral code laid down by the ancestors.
However, it is important to note that ancestor veneration as practised by many African tribes is not ancestor worship.
The ancestors are respected, remembered and when they have something important to communicate to their descendants – heeded, but not worshipped.
This common misconception may be one cause of the long-standing conflict between Christian missionaries (especially the Roman Catholic Church) and the gule.
The refusal to allow converts to take communion unless they abandon all links to gule being one example.
Other moderate churches have started questioning the Church’s policy of accepting other African traditional practices while demonising the gule.
This questioning led to understanding; and eventually the acceptance of some of the BaTonga Gule-wamkulu into the Christian missionaries.
Elders say the most important superficially; BaTonga gule dancers can take four basic forms.
The oldest and most traditional being a naked man smeared with ash or mud – representing death – and wearing a mask.
As norms changed, a loincloth was added, but the look remained much the same.
More recently the ash or mud has been replaced by a full costume of tatters – long strips of colourful rags that symbolise the clothes of the dead.
And then there are full costumes that consist of a solid structure that may be supported by one person or by two people as with Mkango (chewa) the lion, made up in the familiar form of the pantomime horse.
It is a bit scary, as it rushes around roaring, but it’s also kind of whimsical and strange.
There are literally hundreds of forms or masks that are worn during the dances and they also depend on the occasion or ceremony.
Ceremonies include the burial of a dead member of the community, initiation ceremonies, traditional gatherings and wedding ceremonies.
Some masks are in the shape of animals, some are roughly humanoid, and some are bizarre.
What they have in common is that they are all deeply symbolic and can, in almost no instances, be taken literally.
And new ones appear rapidly in response to changing situations.
The most important dancers are Chadzunda – the father of all the gule characters – and his wife Maliya or Mariya.
Chadzunda’s mask is a fearsome black visage with wrinkles and missing teeth signifying his great age and wisdom.
He limps into the Bwalo, but is revitalised when he starts dancing with his young and lovely wife.
Mariya’s character has clearly been influenced by the missionary history of Malawi.
She is represented as of European origin, and is – strangely considering her Virgin Mary connections – sensual and seductive as she dances with Chadzunda.
While it is true that the gule represents traditional conservatism, it does move with the times.
Mariya’s dancing and devotion to Chadzunda represent both feminine submission and a protest against polygamy.
But possibly the most important, ancient and interesting mask is that of Kasiya maliro – Mariya’s animal counterpart.
The name means, ‘the one who accompanies the corpse to the graveyard’, but it is very much a symbol of life not death.
Kasiya maliro is represented by a stylised antelope, but that’s just there to hide her real nature from the children – and the uninitiated.
The antelope is depicted as the tiniest head and tail on top of a huge inverted uterus and vulva.
Kasiya maliro is the universal feminine, the womb of the world and of the tribe. She is the giver of life, and she is there at every important ritual, including death and the initiation of both boys and girls.
Another dance is that of Kalulu – a cute, but strange hare that symbolises the chief, and represents desirable qualities like boundless energy, the willingness to serve, and the ability to listen as indicated by the large upright ears.
This is in stark contrast to Mbaula – a complex character portrayed by a fiercely-horned, black-faced mask topped by a pot of (real) smoking coals.
Mbaula dances around, giving gifts, and even allows people to make popcorn on his head, but this generosity is a deception to hide his true character.
He is really after power, someone else’s wife, undeserved wealth, or all three.
l To be continued