Abstract
Ever since the British missionaries reached in the hinterlands of northern Malawi and made it their evangelical focal point, the local practice of vimbuza has been a multifaceted controversy, and the colonial attempts to destabilise the authority of the “witch-doctors” have proven futile. Due to its enigmatic characteristics, the practice of vimbuza has been labelled as “dance”, “religion”, “music”, “cult”, “spirit-possession”, “therapy”, “demonic” and “sacred”, and the tension between vimbuza and local churches persists. This thesis investigates the meanings and functions of vimbuza of the Tumbuka people in northern Malawi, both through the musicking core of its ritual unit and its position and role as a mechanism of social ordering within society. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted at different vimbuza healing compounds and interviews with established vimbuza healer-diviners and their patients, this study aims to explore how this concept of “music” is perceived and utilised by its practitioners and what functions and purposes vimbuza as a social unit serves today in northern Malawi. The findings of this study show that a shift towards understanding music as human action rather than abstraction and that approaching culture through its own conceptual framework, affords a more adequate avenue for investigating its meanings and functions as it is perceived by its practitioners. In the performance of vimbuza, music and dance become one system of movement parts and the practical application of its effects to serve as psychotherapy and to fulfil social purposes makes it technological by definition. Further, in extension of the wider ngoma discourse, the findings suggest that vimbuza as a social unit is best described as an indigenous institution that functions as an intrinsic part of the local healthcare system, and that the local perceptions of it are more plural and nuances than what has been presented in prior literature on the subject. This study further illuminates vimbuza’s role in times of moral panic and the implications of its moral authority, as well as presenting vimbuza as a rich avenue of further studies and advocating for the virtues of interdisciplinarity in such studies.