The Role of Dreams and Spirit Possession in the Mbira Dza Vadzimu Music of Zimbabwe

Abstract

Among the Shona speaking people of Zimbabwe/Rhodesia, the music of the twentyone note Mbira Dza Vadzimu combined with singing and dancing create a necessary context for communication with the spirits of the ancestors.Communication is established through a chief medium for the community and possession only occurs after long periods of music and dancing.The music used for these ceremonies is drawn from the style of the widespread panpipe ensemble, Ngrorombe, and shares important formal and melodic traits with all other forms of Shona music.The omission in the Mbira Dza Vadzimu music of potentially disruptive elements common in other Shona music such as drumming and call and response singing patterns, suggests a conscious effort to maintain in this music an atmosphere conducive to spiritual possession.A second and important link in this music to the realm of the ancestors is in the manner in which the repertoire itself is enlarged.New compositions are frequently learned by the musicians of the community through dreams in which the dreaming musician is taught to play a new composition by an old man.The old man who appears in such dreams is acknowledged to be the spirit of one of the old musicians who provided music for these ceremonies in former ages.The compositions learned through dreams are accepted as those same compositions which were used in those ceremonies of many generations past.