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Dancing Story: Author | Albertina | Rosalina | Valentina

Lives of Girls (Albertina Tiwana)
Dancing Story

24 June 1995, Facazisse

A:

Mmm. When I think of [my girlhood], I'll think of playing! Those things! [laughs] We finish cooking, well, we tell each other, we girls, this place, we'll come and play here, at this muti [homestead] on this day. We play xingombela, we play xipenda, 1 we go home. Oh! I think of these things, I know that we dance! Indeed me, I surpassed them in dancing! Eeh! [laughs] And I dance muchongolo. 2 It was I, I make my body quiver 3 there, with the others who are dancing. When I wasn't there, they aren't happy! . . . Yee! [laughs] It's many days [i.e., long ago]! We said, "Yeh, yeh yeh yeh!" [A claps, R joins in] "Hiheleketa ka Pareji!" We dance! Pareji, he was, mm, he was a secretary or something, a mulatto. It's this one, we sing for him. And he, he'll come, he'll dance. This mulatto. [A resumes singing, R joins her:] Yeh, yeh yeh yeh!    Yeh, yeh yeh yeh! Hiheleketa ka Pareji!    We're accompanying [the beer] to Pareji'splace! Yeh, yeh yeh yeh!    Yeh, yeh yeh yeh! Hiheleketa ka Pareji!    We're accompanying [the beer] to Pareji's place! Yeh, yeh yeh yeh!    Yeh, yeh yeh yeh! (A) Hi wa swigeje! 4    (A) The one with the fur kilt! Heleketa ka Pareji!    We're accompanying [the beer] to Pareji's place! (A) Hi wa swigeje!    (A) The one with the fur kilt! Yeh, yeh yeh yeh!    Yeh, yeh yeh yeh! (A) Hi wa swigeje!    (A) The one with the fur kilt! Heleketa ka Pareji!    We're accompanying [the beer] to Pareji's place! 5

Dancing Story: Author | Albertina | Rosalina | Valentina

Note 1: Xingombela and xipenda are dances.  Back.

Note 2: Muchongola: another kind of dance.  Back.

Note 3: Kuchachula: to dance with rhythmic quivering of the body.  Back.

Note 4: Swigeje: a man's kilt consisting of several strips of skin, in layers.  Back.

Note 5:As she subsequently explained, Albertina is recalling how as a girl she watched her mother and other adult women carry pots of vukanyi to the chief's place for the official opening of vukanyi season. Once all of the households in his jurisdiction had delivered their contribution of vukanyi, the chief would sample from the pots, select some to keep for himself and his people to drink, and set aside a portion of it to be carried (again, by the women) to the Portuguese administrator and other officials such as Pareji.  Back.