Vimbuza The Healing Dance of Northern Malawi

1. Historical Background

   ϴ Chapter 1: Historical Background Introduction The history of the Vimbuza healing dance goes back in time to the beginning of Scottish missionary work and the colonial era. It came into the limelight especially when the Nyasaland colonial government banned it in the 1920s following articles presented almost exclusively by missionaries and their local converts of Livingstonia Free Church of Scotland in Northern Malawi. These articles display a systematic prejudice against Vimbuza.1 After reading these articles, the image one gets of the healing dance seems greatly flawed. Hence the need to retrace the history of Vimbuza with a view to providing an alternative perspective, and particularly elucidating the reasons why the colonial administration decided to prohibit the dance, a move which was doomed to failure, in order to finally arrive at a study of the Vimbuza phenomenon among the Ngoni-Tumbuka ethnic groups. The historical account will essentially revolve round important events concerning Vimbuza which happened between 1900 and 1963.2 In this connection, we used two sources of information; the writings of the missionaries and of local converts and the oral sources of our research.3 The Arrival of the Scottish Missionaries in Central Africa It was David Livingstone who, after having visited the shores of Lake Malawi in 1859,4 had had the idea, on his return to Scotland, of asking the Church authorities to send to those far away lands (Malawi) missionaries and merchants in order to Christianize and “civilize” the local popula-  1 Available at the National Archives, Zomba. 2 This period covers more or less the colonial era. 3 Field research for doctoral thesis, 1978–1981. 4 David Livingstone named the lake as Lake Nyasa. The British Protectorate later adopted the name Nyasaland.    ϵ tions. It was precisely in this part of the African continent that the slave trade was rampant.5 In response to this appeal, Dr Robert Laws saw himself being entrusted by the Free Church of Scotland with the task of leading the first mission in Nyasaland. After having tried to establish this mission at Cape Maclear and later at Bandawe, along Lake Malawi, he settled definitely on Khondowe Mountain. The mission was later called Livingstonia Mission; with its satellite stations of Njuyu, Ekwendeni and Loudon, it is right in the middle of Vimbuza territory. The missionaries’ first task was to “impose order” in the region through their evangelization. The Ngoni, a break-away group of the Nguni of South Africa, controlled most of this territory, from Dwangwa in the South up to Mwenerondo in Karonga in the North, and up to the Luangwa River (Malambo) in the West. The Ngoni had the habit of living on war booty. During that era, all the neighbouring tribes such as the Chewa, Tonga, Senga, Tumbuka and Ngonde, were subject to frequent raids by the Ngoni in search of food and cattle.6 That William Koyi, a South African Livingstonia missionary, had Xhosa as his mother tongue and was therefore easily understood by the Ngoni, facilitated the pacification of the Ngoni.7 Moreover, the Ngoni accepted the principle that the missionaries be established in their country, known as Mombera kingdom. Many citizens got converted to the new religion and quite a few others benefited from the school education that had been offered to them. Nyasaland acceded to the status of a British Protectorate in 1891, but the Mombera Kingdom was left out until 1904, when in a special agreement Chimtunga, the Ngoni Paramount Chief, agreed to enter the  5 J.G. Pike and G.T. Rimmington, Malawi. A Geographical Study, London: Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 125. Up to about 1900 Arab slave traders had continued to ferry men to the island of Zanzibar, the “depot of human merchandise." 6 Donald Fraser, Winning a Primitive People, London: Seeley Service, 1914, p. 215. 7 For William Koyi and his fellow missionaries from South Africa see: T. Jack Thompson, "Xhosa Missionaries in Late Nineteenth Century Malawi: Strangers or Fellow Countrymen?" Religion in Malawi 1998, pp. 8-16.    ϭϬ colonial state.8 The first colonial administration arrived in the kingdom in 1904. It was thanks to the advice given to them by the missionaries that the colonial administrators were later able to govern the region without too many difficulties. During this period we learn notably about the abolition of the mwavi ordeal, which the society would use in order to identify evil-doers in matters relating to sorcery...