Another satiric song from the Kalela Dances of the Zambia Copper mines (see also The Kalela Dance and The Cases). The song is in Bisa and jokes about Mulumba who is the dance leader.
Mulumba should have a job at the abattoir
So that he may steal the heads of slaughtered cattle,
So that the woman who loves the heads of slaughtered cattle
May give him her daughter.
It is nice to work in a butchery;
You may be given a beautiful girl to marry
Because of the love of meat.
There are some who sell their daughters -
What beautiful girls they marry to useless men!
They are in slavery.
He will give them a cow’s head -
The daughter is just in prison.
The one that is suitable for Mulumba,
Take her to the city of Matipa (1)
To be the Sister in the dance of the rattles.
from The Kalela Dance
C. Mitchell,
Manchester University Press (1956)
Footnotes
- Chief Matipa’s village, where the singers are from.
