ZAMBIA LETTERS, 7

Mask by Irpa Uhlbors, inspired by Zambian masks

Mr Victor Makashi has a spacious and well-kept garden in front of his house with an outdoor studio, under a thatched roof. I tell him that we have similar traditional roofs in Skåne, and he expresses some surprise at that. We settle down in comfortable chairs while he chases away his dogs with a long stick.

Mr Makashi is retired and thus able to return to being a full-time artist, but during his professional life he has also had a series of influential positions in administration and management. Among other things, he has a background as the “Director of the National Arts Council of Zambia” and with the Ministry of Arts and Culture. In 1979 he co-founded the “Association for visual Arts”. He also has a background as an art teacher, which has given him the opportunity to argue for his field towards the government. Today he advises the government on issues of art and culture.

We visit him with the hope of learning more about the traditional use of masks in Zambia and this is what he has to tell us.

There are two regions in Zambia where masks are an important part of the local culture. These are the Eastern and the North-Western regions. Victor at LuCAC is from the Eastern region. Our host, Victor Makashi, has dealt with both cultures and he has observed great similarities between them. Firstly, it is always men who wear the masks, even when the mask represents a woman. In both cases, the masks are linked to societies and if you are not initiated, you will be outside their mysteries. He calls these societies “secret societies”. Furthermore, the use of masks is linked to the connection between the living and the dead.

“The initiates will never tell you who they are. It is secret. I have no idea if I have ever met anyone who practices the tradition. They would not tell me. So I have no insight into the details of their mysteries”.

He says that, like many others, he has seen the rituals, but that it does not give him any deeper knowledge. The secret societies have their rules and if you are on the inside of them you are not allowed to reveal it’s traditions. If you do, you can die. Those who participate in the societies believe that they can be afflicted with terrible diseases if they break the group’s taboos.

“You have your own mask. They create them. There are spirits in there. You cannot share it with somebody. If you leave the mask somewhere, no one will touch it.”

The mask is therefore a spirit being and therefore the mask-wearer also disappears at the moment when he dons the mask. “I am here. I disappear. In a mask”.

Once he was traveling with a group of people who were in possession of such masks. They were going to South Africa. When they arrived at customs, the customs officer wanted to open their bags and examine the contents. They explained that it was impossible and that the bag contained masks. The customs officer insisted and a big argument broke out. The whole thing ended with a senior officer being summoned and he gave them the go-ahead to continue without having to open their bags. ”They have similar traditions in South Africa”, Makashi explains, ”so they are also reluctant to break the taboo”.

“There are masks for show,” he continues, “at museums and in shops. But they are not real masks. They are not alive. They are copies, without spirit. They would never leave their real masks to institutions. That which they put into the masks, in traditional ceremonies, is not there. The entertainment ones are simple. They do not carry the same secrets as the ones in the ceremonies.”

During his travels, he has been allowed to photograph masks. It has also been the case that people have passed on masks that are no longer in use, that have been de-spirited. They will also make replicas to sell. These look the same but have no life. He uses that word: life, and he means it in the sense of “the bond between the owner and the mask.” That is the essence of life in this context. ”But the exact details I know nothing about”, he repeats. ”We can see that it is wood, but no one tells us, for example, which wood they use”.

In northwestern Zambia there are four cultures. For them, the mask and the costume are links between the spirit world and the living. The masks come to life in the ritual. In the eastern parts of the country they have a festival, Kulumba, which takes place in August. Those who participate in it do not refer to the mask wearers as people but as beings who emerge from the bush and then disappear. They are not people. This points to a worldview where phenomena can arise out of nowhere.

In the northwestern provinces, along the Zambezi River, the burial grounds are located on one side of the bank, while people live on the other. Two days before the ritual, the masks are carried to the burial ground and left there. They then become animated and after that they visit the people. They come by boat to the living, and through the bodies of those who are connected to the dead; through the bodies of the descendants.

Among the Chewa people, who practice the Kulumba ritual, it is said that life arose through a “supreme being” (both this people and those in the northwestern province believe in a supreme God) who used lightning and rain to create life. He used to live together with the people and the animals and at that time everything was in harmony. Through our adventures, human beings conquered fire and with it we caused great destruction and this angered the being, who subsequently left this world. Today, people must from time to time go to him or to other beings and ask for things, such as rain and the like. In the mask rituals, the connection between the spiritual plane and the people is reestablished. This means that in effect, during the ritual, paradise on earth is reestablished. With that in mind, it is easy to see why these traditions are difficult to tolerate by Christianity.

Behind these beliefs lies the conviction that good people become benign spirit beings when they die, while bad people become malevolent spirits. Bad events and misfortunes are attributed to such malevolent spirits.

Masks are also associated with initiation rites. Among the northwestern peoples, there is a tradition of establishing a camp, Mukanda, which is a camp where boys become men. The boys are brought there by the masks and must stay there for up to six months. During that period, they are circumcised and they are also taught skills that can help them in the performance of their duties. Among this knowledge, there is important information that has to do with how to avoid poisonous snakes and what to do if you are bitten by one. The boys also learn how to hunt effectively and what to eat out in the bush. When they exit the camp, they are perceived as equals to other men. The importance that this ritual has for these peoples is so great that they think that people from other peoples know nothing at all.

During their time in the camp, they begin to construct their masks, which ilas signals the point where they are initiated into the secret societies. Different groups of adults are responsible for different knowledge and for passing it on. Some groups are responsible for traditional medicine. Others for hunting. Makashi explains that “teachers bring fear for different things and calmers explain what is happening”.

Today, it is a big problem that modern school education requires children not to be absent for months. This has the effect not only of tradition being lost, but also of knowledge disappearing. Among those who have moved to Lusaka, the question suddenly arises: where do we set up this camp? It has been solved by them shortening the period that the boys have to be in the camp and by spreading the training over several occasions. For example, the circumcision itself may now be carried out in a hospital. Traditionalists still send their children to lengthy camps, though.

“Our children today may not survive out in the bush. They do not know what to eat and so on.”

In response to such challenges, Makashi has organized festivals in Lusaka that aim to allow people from the provinces to meet and share traditional food with each other.

But even if traditions are facing challenges, the encounter with modernity has also meant a boost for masks. “Since the 1920´s there are more masks. They are not static in their number. They (people) innovate and incorporate images based on changes they perceive.”

During the war between Angola and Congo, it was common to see helicopters flying in the air. These helicopters were terrifying. They were incorporated into the masks and continue to live on in them today. Other examples are telephone masts, which have been built into some masks, and portable speakers. Other masks are for animals, pigs, birds and so on. There are also masks that portray white people.

“Helicopters and birds? How can they fly? They must have a lot of power” Makashi comments.

He recommends that we visit the exhibition “The cultural image of Lusaka”. It apparently has many examples of masks.

Among the Chewa people, there are 214 chiefs. Most of them live in Malawi but the headquarters for all of them is in Zambia. This is where Kalonga Gaia Undi holds court. The title means “the one who installs chiefs”. He is the Chief of chiefs, so to speak; “The paramount chief of the Chewas”. ”If there are so many chiefs”, Makashi asks rhetorically, ”then how many masks are there”?

All the other chiefs come to him in connection with the Kulumba ritual in order to inform him about their problems and any concerns in their tribes. Everyone brings food to this meeting but it is not for him, the food is distributed between all the chiefs so that crop failures and famine can be counteracted. The exact time for this ritual is the last Saturday in August.

Unfortunately, we will not be here in Zambia by then, but when we ask him about the possibility of seeing a ritual with masks, he assures us that it will not be a problem at all. “Yes, there are many rituals”. He suggests that we travel to the North-Western Province at the end of July. The Apula Province will have rituals during that time. “The 26th, I believe”. It's only a couple of days before we return home again, but we should be able to go there before it is time for us to leave.

Finally, he comments on gender roles and their function in connection with masks. He says that it has been the strong position of women in these cultures that has led men to start using masks. ”Women bring life to the earth”, he says. ”They are the ones who cultivate, gather and preserve the food. Their role is great. Men have felt helpless in comparison and the masks have been a way for them to regain a certain influence, something of their own that is greater than what women have. A men's club”.

I can't help but being a bit amused by this explanation and I ask him what these people themselves would think if they heard him explain their mysteries this way. "They are the ones who told me!,” he exclaims. "This is according to themselves!" At the wedding, the woman used to be given a mortal. The man would receive an axe or a spear. So the roles were clearly given. Everything that had to do with food, except for wild animals, was the woman's activity. According to legend, it was a man, "The Great Elephant Hunter" who invented the masks.

But in both of these groups there are also ceremonies for the initiation of women who are coming into menstruation, where they learn how to be good wives. When the men saw that the women had these rituals, they also felt that they needed rituals and that is how these traditions came to be. I ask Mr Makashi if they don't experience it as a contradiction, having both a profane explanation and a spiritual explanation?

"It is not certain that this explanation is true”, Mr Makashi answers, ”or even that they think so themselves. It may also be that everyone has asked them, over and over again, where these traditions come from and that they have felt they must give some kind of answer, one that others can accept".

At the end of our conversation, he lets us browse through his private photo albums. One contains pictures taken from the southern provinces and one contains pictures from the northwestern province. They show many examples of the masks he described. They also include pictures of the boats that transport the masks across the Zambezi River, of snake charmers wearing masks, and of acrobatic displays performed by masked dancers.