FROM CHINAMWALI TO CHILANGIZO:

also be either a Christian or a non-Christian. One informant remarked that nowadays the number of
Christian chiefs is growing. However, if a Christian chief is installed, he cannot go to the next level in
traditional Chewa society unless he gives up his Christian status, because he has to own mzinda (nyau.)
31. I failed to get more information regarding this ritual.
32. To illustrate how even Christians are fearful of the mkangali, during my field work as I was
observing the ceremony, the pastor with whom I was working could not sleep well thinking that anything
bad could happen to me. Similarly, other Chewa Christians thought I had been bewitched when they saw
that I came out with a swollen foot.
33. For a bigger list ofthe animal structures and masked dancers, see Van Breugel (2002:156-166).
34. My informant said that in other places, the women carry the stones on their heads but in a big basket
and drop them at the place where the fire is to be made.
35. I was informed that sometimes the young nyau dancers get drunk before performing. They can
therefore be quite rough and cruel. If any woman is found outside at night during this time, the young
men 'capture' her and send her to the men's initiation place (dambwe) where she is initiated into the
men's rite. Many informants said that if a woman is initiated at the men's rite, she undergoes untold
sexual ordeals.
36. Since people are very suspicious about each other, the friend must really be a very good friend who
cannot harm the girl.
37. Soon after her initiation ceremony, women usually test the new initiate to see if she remembers what
she learnt. She should be able to say anyone or more ofthem.
38. Most of the songs at the tree mention 'animal' to refer to the initiates. I could not get the real
meaning.
39. Here the checking cannot be for chastity because the girl would have been exposed to sexual activity
with a man calledfisi, (hyena) at the end of her first menses. This results in moral laxity in Chewa society
and poses great challenge to Christian moral values as well as to the issue ofHIV/AIDS pandemic.
40. I was informed that if a girl is found to be pregnant, the mother answers a big case (mlandu) before
the chief. The proper procedure would be to report the pregnancy a week before this ceremony, so that the
instructresses instruct her separately concerning the pregnancy before joining the other initiates on this
ceremony. However the ceremony that I attended, the explanation for searching was not for pregnancy,
but to collect the money.
41. No meaning behind the decoration was given, but the white (paste) signifies the purity ofthe initiates.
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