FROM CHINAMWALI TO CHILANGIZO:

In the evening the initiates perfonn another ritual at which the girls go to nearly every
home in the village kupala moto (to take a hot piece offirewood). With their heads cov­
ered, the girls lie down at the door of the kitchen. The tutors cover the girls completely
with a piece of cloth. They wait while singing until they are given some money. Then
the girls rise, go into the kitchen, pick a hot piece of firewood each and walk away to
another house. Their tutors and the other women help to carry the firewood. I was
infonned that the pieces of firewood are thrown in the toilet for nothing should be care­
lessly disposed off. But in other areas, the firewood is used to make a fire at the seclu­
sion house. The meaning of this ritual is that 'today is the day for the function that you
had contributed your money to.'
After the evening meal, the zirombo dance for a while at the ground, while the initiates
go to sleep in their tsimba. The night's ceremony is the chiefs vigil initiation (mchezo
wa mfumu).45
The third day is called tsiku lotandaza mowa (when beer stays put). It is also called tsiku
la mchezo wa atsikana (the girls' solemn vigil), for the main activity on this day takes
place at night. The zirombo dance in the evening, and after they retreat, the mchezo of
the women with the girls takes place.
The girls' vigil usually begins after midnight in a dimly lit and crowded room,46 with as
many as fifty women and four drummers (one or two of them males who have been
initiated at a previous female rite.) The methods of instruction include much singing,
dancing, demonstration, and even dramatising. One song may take ten to fifteen minutes
and the dancing is done systematically. Sometimes the initiates are required to dance, or
to act. Since sex education seems to be the main ingredient of the vigil, it is done
towards dawn, and the ceremony ends with a swearing in ritual. The girls are instructed
on general good morals, cleanliness, sexual taboos, motherhood, being a faithful wife
and on sexuality through the songs, action, and sometimes with explanation.
The instruction on sex begins by two or three women taking off their own clothes with
and leaving their big pants, while singing:
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