FROM CHINAMWALI TO CHILANGIZO:

Generally, rituals
Help people remember who they are, recreate a world order, give people a sense of
identity and belonging, relate them to the transcendent, and indoctrinate insiders and
outsiders alike to the true values and perceived realities ofa society.
(Hiebert, Shaw, Tienou 1999:300)
We have shown that chinamwali is central in Chewa society, for it serves both socio­
cultural and religious functions. The ritual is a festival of remembering and reliving the
miyambo (ancestral customs) of the Chewa people. It is a transition rite through which
girls die to the old childish life and are re-born to the new adult life. Girls are trans­
formed and turned into responsible women ready to bear children and participate in
their roles as part of the community. Chinamwali is a sacred period during which initi­
ates are enabled to experience and relate directly to the mizimu, and receive their
mwambo. Thus chinamwali links the girls with their past, giving them a sense ofhistory
and identity. As a religious institution, the presence of nyau during chinamwali repre­
sents prayer on behalf of the girls for fertility for the continuation of the community;
hence the rite is crucially important as far as incorporation into community is con­
cerned. Chinamwali is a ceremony that involves significant preparation and protection
beforehand and the ceremony takes five days with a follow-up afterwards. There is even
a public acknowledgement ofthe transition by the majority ofvillage leadership (chiefs,
anamkungwi, nyau), and the ordinary people. The content of the ritual is aimed at
equipping the initiates for their new roles as adults with sex education as the focal point.
Condensing the chinamwali ritual that reveals 'imaginative and artistic thought forms,
colourful and glowing pictures and actions and symbolic language' into a 'logical and
systematized' set ofinstructions is an inadequate response (Jim Slack 1991:10). A ritual
is performed like drama on a stage, while in the case of chilangizo, a text is read, hence
it cannot convey all that a ritual contains and accomplishes. Although chilangizo is sup­
posed to be a Christian ritual, the content of the booklet does not contain biblical
teaching that adequately interacts with the traditional teaching. While the booklet
attempts to give biblical teaching and claims to interpret 'puberty' within God's plan of
human development, it gives only a few scriptural verses as proof-text. The inadequacy
of the content of the booklet and its inability to answer the Chewa needs can be illus-
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