There is a music ritual in Malawi, included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It is said to cure illnesses and chase away demons through dance and drum music. In Poland, there is a small record label producing documentary and experimental records. Piotr Cichocki, an ethnographer and the director of the 1000Hz record label, told Jan Błaszczak more about the Vimbuza ceremony and the work on this unusual album.
You can listen to the Umoya Wa Muthempire (Live In the Temple) album here.
Jan Błaszczak: The Umoyo Wa Muthempire (Live In the Temple) album is a documentation of the Malawian band Tonga Boys’ excursion to a temple where the Vimbuza ceremony is held: a dance during which performers are possessed by the ancestors’ spirits. It’s a ritual and medical practice that UNESCO considers part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. On the other hand, though, local authorities and the Christian Church are critical of it. So let’s start with the basics: what is the status of Vimbuza in Malawi?
Piotr Cichocki: It’s complicated. On the one hand, it was the Malawian authorities who submitted the required documents to the UNESCO committee to register Vimbuza as part of the country’s immaterial heritage. The museum in Mzuzu, the region’s capital, created an exhibition on Vimbuza to celebrate the occasion. Efforts were made to present it as part of the local culture and to encourage its promotion as a tourist attraction. On the other hand, most Malawians view Vimbuza dance as directly connected to their ancestors’ spirits and the fight against witchcraft. To many Africans, witchcraft is simply a social fact.
What do you mean when you say Vimbuza fights witchcraft?
Vimbuza emerged in the early twentieth century as a possession cult, somewhat as a force opposing the Christian churches gaining popularity in Malawi at the time. The people who dance Vimbuza are said to be possessed by ancestral spirits. In that state of mind, dancers can predict the illnesses of people who come to them for advice and explain their causes. Experienced Vimbuza dancers can also get the spirits to share advice on the best healing herbs to find in the bush. Sometimes, the possessed can point out people who are trading in witchcraft, meaning those who kill others with magic and cast evil spells. Such people are then searched to see whether they own any magic substances. Unfortunately, it’s hard to ignore the element of violence in the ritual, as it sometimes leads to beatings and chasing people out of the village.
When participating in the ritual, were you not afraid that someone might suddenly point at you?
During my research on Vimbuza, I had to enter a world that accepts the existence of witchcraft. Thus, I had to decide that since I am not a witch, I have nothing to fear.
How did the local band Tonga Boys react to your proposal to make an excursion to the temple together?
Tonga Boys also come from a village, like most Malawians. They moved to Mzuzu as young boys and lived in horrible conditions on the streets. But they mentioned that as children, they would sometimes go to the temple where they watched the rituals and participated in them by, for example, clapping their hands to the beat along with others who were present. Apart from everything else, Vimbuza is also a form of entertainment for those who live in rural parts of the country and are thus deprived of access to concerts, television, and other musical events. Nowadays, Tonga Boys have become city kids who, while not wealthy, like to dress well and participate in what they consider to be city life. Still, they are aware of Vimbuza. One of them, Albert, was once attacked through witchcraft—he found help in a Vimbuza temple, and the priestess saved his life. It was Albert who helped me develop this idea. But when we presented it to the rest of the band, we saw various reactions. Interactions with spirits are always scary, and on top of that, some people in Malawi perceive the alleged links between Vimbuza and witchcraft differently than others. Eventually, though, we managed to convince everyone. When we walked to the temple together, marching a long way across the mountains, I don’t know who was more sensational to the people we met on our journey: me or those extravagantly dressed city boys. It was not a regular meeting between a white person and African culture. The whole situation was more complex and multi-layered. That was why I decided I must edit the recordings and have them published.
What does the Vimbuza ritual look like from a strictly musical perspective?
Three drummers play music that, structurally, could bring to mind both jazz and techno while, of course, remaining an African drum orchestra. One of the drummers constantly improvises based on the changing and open rhythmic figures. The other two make for a constant pulsating beat. I imagined it could sound good: the music of Tonga Boys, with its very raw Afro-pop vibe, and the three drummers led by the Vimbuza-practicing Doctor Kanuska, who is famous across Malawi.
When we explained our plans to the people in the temple, they agreed to work with us on the condition that we respect the rules of this place. And so we went through the entire ceremonial cycle. It requires a lot of time and patience, but by doing it I also had the chance to set up the recording gear in the temple. I did not intervene: there was no production in the traditional meaning of the word, I did not interfere with the space and the behaviour of the performers. Religious rituals are always performative, but in this situation, we also had to deal with layers of simultaneous artificiality and authenticity.
How did you find Doctor Kanuska?
A Mzuzu museum worker who specialized in Vimbuza recommended her to me. Many legends surround her, some say that she even helps local priests perform exorcisms. Such an arrangement would be extraordinary, especially since Christian priests view ancestral spirits as demons, while Kanuska holds those spirits in great esteem. She is certainly respected, but—like other Vimbuza doctors—she is sometimes regarded with apprehension by those who don’t understand the rules of the cult. It stems from decades of demonizing spirituality outside of the church, also connected to medicine and herbalism. From a broader perspective, we must understand that in many African countries, supernatural beings used to be a regular part of social life. Recently, they have started being considered manifestations of evil powers.
Before you started releasing African music, you were a researcher. You traveled to Africa for years as an ethnographer.
Those endeavours are closely connected. Releasing music is a way of participating in and co-creating knowledge. It’s more than just a form of telling people about Malawi and its culture, it is also an activity I consider action research, and therefore part of my academic work. Of course, sometimes those two paths collide—until September 2020, my label 1000Hz couldn’t release any music because I was busy writing an academic book to summarize my research.
What was the initial subject of your research?
I visited Malawi for the first time in 2016. I wanted to examine how the new instruments with steady electronic beats influence the ways African dancers and musicians perform with their bodies.
Why did you choose Malawi?
First of all, because Malawi is known, and deservedly so, for its lack of dramatic social splits and explicit violence. For example, there have been no large armed conflicts in Malawi. It is also a country where English is commonly spoken. This was also an important factor since, for obvious reasons, I could only start learning local languages once I came there.
Finally, I had already encountered some fascinating 1950s recordings made by Hugh Tracey in northern and central Malawi: drums, voices, lamellophones. So several reasons helped me choose it. Eventually, I started working with Mzuzu University. This was the final push towards Malawi rather than Zimbabwe or Zambia.
Considering the development of music made with electronic instruments, what is the current state of traditional Malawian music?
Compared to the narratives created by Nyege Nyege or the Ghanian Akwaaba Music, electronic music is a simple and obvious continuation of the traditional ways of dancing and making music. My view on the situation in Malawi or small Tanzanian towns is completely different. First of all, we cannot say that electronic ways of making music and production are ubiquitous. In Malawi, electronic instruments are hard to obtain and very expensive. They are usually bought by churches with funds collected from followers. For the most part, the country has no access to electricity. This, in turn, forces those churches to spend significant amounts of money on power generators and gasoline.
Second, Malawi is now going through a conflict with tradition, including the traditional drums and dance. It is led by the Pentecostal churches, which are very popular all over Africa. Those churches present visions of economic and social growth as ways of breaking off from the sinful and poverty-stricken past. In church communities, traditional customs are not favoured. Since the most popular style of music in Malawi and other countries in the region is now gospel music, there is a decrease in drum recordings. Music that directly refers to tradition is often produced with Western markets in mind. Drum music is still commonplace in many unelectrified villages in Malawi. However, nobody there gets a chance to record their music, not to mention using electric or electronic instruments.
Are the albums released by 1000Hz available on the Malawian market at all?
In Malawi—as it is in many other African countries, I suppose—the music market follows completely different rules than in Europe. The tastes are different, and so are the formats listeners tend to choose. Vinyl records are practically obsolete in Malawi, but there are plenty of MP3 stalls; people also exchange them on WhatsApp, the most common way of circulating music there. It is not easy to establish one way of creating music that could reach both Africans and Europeans. My way of doing it is giving the recordings to the artists so that they can use them in their local market per its rules. Some try selling their music, while others give it away for free. I see my work as a way of mediation. It means making music that exists somewhere in-between.
You are well aware of the distortions brought in by a producer’s interference. You strive to include artists and local creators in the publishing process. Were your research and ethnographic background helpful in establishing a non-colonial approach and maintaining distance—for lack of a better word—towards the culture you are presenting?
Thinking about what I’m doing as a promotion of ‘Malawian culture’ or ‘Vimbuza culture’ can also be objectifying. It might somewhat deny the singularity and uniqueness of every situation in which I got to participate. My experience is an ethnographic one, in the sense that I don’t consider the people I recorded to be representatives of culture, but individual characters with their ideas, styles and visions of music. I view culture as a way of working and performing by every unobjectified individual who engages in a dialogue with others. I try to make all my recordings with such an approach in mind. Do I need to be an ethnographer to do so? I guess it’s not the only path that could lead me to such conclusions. However, I certainly found what I did by following this path. Criticism of the colonial relationship is an important element of contemporary ethnography. When we research audiovisual culture, films and music, we use our tools—both intellectual and technical—critically. This also applies to the role of music producer and my efforts to undertake actions that would not be exploitative.
In this aspect, ethnography merges with contemporary art. Both of these domains pay attention to what can be said of another human being and on what basis. One such example could be the ‘world music’ style, both in its older and newer form, encouraged by and aimed at Western audiences. It’s a set of practices I would like to help dissolve through my records and actions. Ethnography understood as a tool of critical analysis can certainly be helpful. After all, it’s not about anecdotes from faraway trips, nor is it a handful of advice on how to behave in extreme situations.
Since your presence doesn’t have to, and perhaps shouldn’t even be, transparent, could you tell me whether you feel that your research and publishing activity in Africa has changed you as a person?
I think so. It also happened because of music production. Working with people in the African context taught me to be more generous with other people. How 1000Hz operates is, in a way, a consequence of this change. For example, the music we sell goes back to the artists. I never intended 1000Hz to be a money-making project. I wanted it to become a way of generating profits for the people who, due to external conditions, cannot use their talent to make a living. Everyday life in Africa and my music publishing experience taught me to step away from an egocentric approach and towards sharing the capital I produce. The art I record and publish is not made to serve me as much as the artists and listeners. That’s one of the things I have learned.
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