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Muchongolo Dance Contests: Deep Play in the South African Lowveld Author(s): Isak Niehaus and Jonathan Stadler Source: Ethnology, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 363-380 Published by: University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3774033 Accessed: 05/06/2010 19:05
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MUCHONGOLODANCE CONTESTS: DEEP PLAY IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN LOWVELD1

Isak Niehaus University of Pretoria JonathanStadler University of Pretoria ReproductiveHealth Research Unit, Johannesburg
This article argues that Geertz's concern with cultural performances as "stories people tell themselves about themselves" continues to be a valid focus of anthropological inquiry. Like Balinese cockfights, muchongolo dancing contests in the Bushbuckridge municipality of South Africa offer metacommentary on everyday life and struggles in the form of a competition. Through the juxtaposition of movements and costumes with the actions of spectators outside the dance arena, and through the lyrics of songs, the dancers enact a confrontation between xintu (the past, tradition) and xilungu (the present, ways of whites). This war of images and words stimulates a critical consciousness about political economic processes that cannot be captured by simplistic labels such as acquiescence and resistance. (Dance, tradition, modernity, Shangaan, South Africa)

Few anthropologicalworks are as controversialas Geertz's (1972a) famous study of the Balinese cockfight. Geertz wrote this essay to demonstratethe central postulates of his interpretive approach: that people's actions are signs intended to convey meanings, and that "doing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of 'constructa reading of) a manuscript-foreign, faded, full of ellipses, incoherences, suspicious emendations,andtendentiouscommentaries,butwrittennot in conventionalized graphs of sound but in transient examples of shared behavior" (Geertz 1972a:106). He treatsthe cockfight as an actedtext, as a Balinese reading of Balinese experience, a story they tell themselves about themselves. When men engage in cockfights, Geertz suggests, they lay their own public selves on the line through the medium of their cocks. The men engage in status rivalry, a "deep play" that transcendscalculus of materialloss and gain and is a matterof life and death. Geertz finds the text subversive and disturbing.The fight says that beneaththe skin of every Balinese man is an animal and that the Balinese experience is really less about poise, grace, and charm, than about jealousy, envy, and brutality. The cockfight reveals these hidden values in the context of the terriblemassacresthat occurredin Bali after 1965. Critical commentatorsclaim that Geertz does not really show how to access and interpretthese unspoken Balinese values. Some of his interpretations,such as his comparisons to Macbeth, are clearly those of the metropolitanscholar rather than those of Balinese themselves (Crapanzano 1986). Second, commentatorsalso question the appropriatenessof Geertz's textual metaphor, arguing that it is problematic to collapse data of various sorts (direct observations, interviews, and secondary 363
ETHNOLOGYvol. 43 no. 4, Fall 2004, pp. 363-80. ETHNOLOGY, c/o Departmentof Anthropology,The University of Pittsburgh,PittsburghPA 15260 USA Copyright? 2004 The University of Pittsburgh.All rights reserved.

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accounts) into the status of a single type, a text (Kuper 1999). Third, critics claim that whereas Geertz provides a thick descriptionof the actual cockfight, his analysis of the context to which the event relates is thin. Geertz only pays lip service to the history of the cockfight and to the mannerin which it relates to the changing political economy of Bali. His general theoreticalapproach,it is claimed, privileges meaning over all else and hardly speaks aboutpolitics, violence, and exploitation (Roseberry 1982 and Scholte 1990). While accepting these criticisms, this article warns against throwing out the proverbialbaby with the bath water. Despite the shortcomingsof Geertz's analysis, his concern with local representationsand with allegory continues to be valid. This is especially pertinentin the study of South Africa, where a one-sided emphasis on political economy often eclipses the valuable insights to be derived from the analysis of culturalmeanings (Gordon and Spiegel 1993).2This essay aims to demonstratethe validity of Geertz's concerns with reference to an analysis of muchongolo (lit., traditional) dance contests in Bushbuckridge, a remote magisterial district in the South African lowveld. Contra some of his staunch critics, we aim to show that a focus on genres of cultural performance such as cockfights and dances elucidates ratherthan conceals consciousness about political economic processes. We argue that like cockfights, muchongolodance contests offer metacommentary on everyday life and struggles in the form of a competition. Although the stakes of losing in the deep play of muchongolo are not so high "that it is from a utilitarian standpoint irrationalfor men to engage in it at all" (Geertz 1972a:432), the dance events can also provide an immediateemic grasp of local concerns. During our first visit to Bushbuckridge in 1990, we met three mineworkers at a liquor store in Acornhoek. After we said that we wished to learn about local culture, the men invited us to accompanythem to a dance contest in a nearby village. There we were captivatedby the movements of the half-nakedmale and overdressedfemale dancers; by their colorful costumes, the wildebeest necklaces, goatskin leg coverings; and by their knobkerries,ox-hide shields, and umbrellas.Whatawed us most were the lyrics of one song, as translatedto us by our hosts. The song called on the spirit of Shaka Zulu king) to assist the poverty-strickenvillagers (the powerful nineteenth-century with their problems. Since then, we have often attended muchongolo dance events during our intermittentperiods of fieldwork, and each time the people emphasizethe association of the dance with tradition. Though warmly welcoming, they were genuinely perplexed by the anomalous presence of whites at the dance, and sometimes asked, "Whatare you doing here?" We were never asked similar questions when attending funerals, weddings, or graduation parties. We also learned that, like cockfights, muchongolo dancingdeals with topics such as violence, sexual desires, andwitchcraft that are normally suppressedduring polite and respectful social interactions. This article draws on observationsof sixteen muchongolo events and on twenty interviews with dancers and other participants. We acknowledge that "embodied knowledge" may exist "beyondthe grasp of consciousness" (Bourdieu 1977:94) and

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that it is extremely difficult to analyze nonverbal events such as body gestures. However, we believe along with Cowan (1990) and Heath (1994) that the performance of dance as a "framedevent," contrastedwith everyday life, promotes critical awareness. In particular, the juxtaposition of dance movements and costumes with songs and with the actions of spectators outside the dance arena enact a deadly serious confrontation between xintu (the past, tradition) and xilungu (the present, ways of the whites). THE HISTORY OF MUCHONGOLO Bushbuckridgeis situated in South Africa's northeast.In the nineteenthcentury, the area was populatedby diverse NorthernSotho-speakinggroups (Bakone, Baroka, and Pulana) and by Tsonga-speaking (Shangaan) refugees from Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique).After King Ngungunyane'sfinal defeat by the Portuguese in the Luzo-Gaza war of 1897, Mpisane, his father's brother, and a large group of followers settled near the present village of Thulamahashe. After them came Banwalungufrom the north, Hlanganuwho settled near Klaserie, and migrantsfrom the Maputo district who crossed the border to work in South Africa's gold mines (Hartman 1978). In this ethnically heterogeneous social landscape, the muchongolo dance was a marker of Shangaan identity. It broadly resembled the Ronga dance (Junod 1966 [1927]:201-07), but diverged insofar as a chongolo (a group of up to sixteen men) danced together as a single unit. Mpisane and his descendents all promoted muchongolo dancing at chiefly rituals. Shangaanmigrantsalso performedthis dance style in South Africa's mineworker hostels (Harries 1994). Here they incorporated elements from Zulu, Swazi, Pondo, and choral (makhaya) dances. A significant addition was the ngadla, a routine in which individualsdanced alone in front of the group to show off new styles and interpretations. In the 1930s, muchongolo were most frequentlyperformedat weddings. At the muchado ritual (held to celebrate the completion of bridewealth payments), the bride's parentsbrewed beer and invited dancingteams from the surroundingvillages to participate.By all accounts, fighting was extremelypervasive at these events. Male dancers from the bride's village were expected to express their anger that she was leaving for the groom's household and had to insult men from his village in the manner of a joking relationship. But these insults frequentlygot out of hand. Rival dancers often started to push and shove each other and entire teams might join in. These fights could result in head injuries, broken limbs, and occasional deaths. Three months later, the bride's kin would visit her and bring gifts to the newlyweds. Muchongolo teams again danced at this ritual, called kulongisa. In line with the South African apartheidpolicies of 1948, Bushbuckridgebecame a Native Reserve, scheduled for exclusive African occupation. Numerous people, displaced by forestation projects and by mechanizationprocesses on white-owned farms, relocatedinto Bushbuckridge.These removals generatedsevere overcrowding

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and led to the virtual destructionof agriculturalself-sufficiency. Village settlement, an epizootic of 1950, and stock limitationsgreatly reducedcattle herds. Bridewealth became a serious burden. Parentscould no longer assist their sons with bridewealth cattle and young men were expected to make their own payments in cash. Most young men paid over a protractedperiod of time and incurred considerable debts (Stadler 1993). Brides simply moved to the husband's homestead, ignoring the muchado and kulongisa rituals. As weddings declined, wealthier households and businessmen began to invite muchongolo teams from different villages to dance at their homes or stores on Sunday afternoons. On these occasions they brewed and sold large quantities of sorghum beer for profit and awarded prize money to the best dance team. These contests were marked by fighting and gave rise to serious intervillage feuding. In 1952, for example, dancers from Acornhoek accused a man from Cottondale of "touchingtheir woman," beat him, and called other men from their villages to fight. This led to a severe feud. Not being allowed in each other's villages, young men from Cottondale became trespassers in Acornhoek. Headmen (tinduna) from these villages regularlymet in an attemptto reach a peace, but failed to bring an end to the fighting. Several men were also wounded when a fight erupted at a dance on the border of Edinburghand Mambumbain 1958, and anothermuchongolo dancer was beaten to death on the outskirts of Green Valley in 1961. Diviners (n'anga) treated the dance teams with herbalpotions (murhi)to enable them to dance well and defeat other teams. There were even rumorsthat some teams kept humanskulls inside their drums for strength. One of our informants was convinced that long ago all muchongolo dance teams kept human skulls inside their drums. In the late 1960s, when bantustanswere established in South Africa, Bushbuckridge was divided into two ethnic zones. Mhala in the east was incorporatedinto Gazankulu(for Shangaans),and Mapulanengin the west became part of Lebowa (for Northern Sotho). Gazankulu'seducatedChristianelite were ambivalentabout using muchongolo dances to mobilize an ethnic constituency. Fighting, feuding, and witchcraft are clearly inadequateas symbols of ethnic nationalistmovements. Their use for these purposes required the recontextualizing and domestication of muchongolo and taming its disorderly elements (Reed 1998:512). In the 1980s, Joseph Mabunda,a lecturerat the Hoxani College of Education in Hazyview, took decisive steps to civilize muchongolodancing. He and other educated Christians shunned the company of those who drank sorghum beer at muchongolo dances. A teetotaler due to a severe stomach ulcer, he usually watched soccer matches after church on Sundays. But after watching a muchongolo dance in Mambomba,he became a regularspectator.Josephsoon became the leader of a local dance team and was joined by some of his colleagues and by his eight-year-oldson. Joseph boasted that they contained more professionals than any other team in Bushbuckridge. Few of them drank beer. At his office, Joseph had a collection of photographsarrangedas a shrine to muchongolo.

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In 1983, Joseph Mabundabecame the founder, chairman, and secretary of the Mhala TraditionalDance Association. The association acted as an umbrellabody for all muchongolo teams. The association had three circuits, each comprising twelve teams, and oversaw all dance schedules to ensure that rivals never danced against each other. The association also instituted rules to prevent unwanted behavior and appointed policemen to ensure peace at the dances. Any dancer or spectator who misbehaved could be handcuffedand chainedto a tree for the durationof the dance. In addition to civilizing the usual Sunday gatherings, the association organized regular muchongolo dancing contests at the Thulamahashestadium to promote the traditions of Tsonga/Shangaanpeople. They awardedprizes of R1500 for the team neatest in dress, for the best syncopation of the dance (foot-stamping and shieldclashing), and for different styles of solo dancing. Joseph's team frequently won. But even during this era, muchongolo events propagated a popular and more inclusive version of Shangaanidentity than the exclusive tribal paradigmenvisaged by the Bantustanelite. The stadiumdances proved to be unpopular. Our informants complainedthat no unconventionaldance styles were allowed in the stadiumsandthat the crowd was never allowed to joke with the dancers. The usual Sunday gatherings had a far greater appeal. Northern Sotho residents of Bushbuckridgecontinued to attendthese dances as spectatorsand also hosted muchongolo contests at their homes andbusinesses. Moreover, the associationfailed to suppressall fighting and feuding.3 South Africa's first democraticelections of 1994 brought about an end to ethnic Bantustans. Mhala and Mapulaneng once again merged and became a single magisterial district in the newly constituted Limpopo Province. In line with these changes, a more inclusive umbrella body, the Ngungunyane Traditional Dance Association, was established for all of Bushbuckridge.The performanceof tradition (xintu) eclipsed the performanceof ethnicity. Shangaandancersof Minga styles from the north and Northern Sotho dinaka dance teams have joined the circuits, and several NorthernSotho speakers, and even an English-speakingwhite man joined the older muchongolo teams. At the same time, women have begun to play a more prominent role in the Sunday dance events. WAYS OF THE ANCESTORS AND OF WHITES Muchongolo derives its popularity from the manner in which it articulates an opposition between local traditionsand xilungu (modernity, cosmopolitan fashions). In Bushbuckridge, the concepts xintu and xilungu are not associated with specific categories of persons. They are rathertropes through which people conceptualize, experiences. Xintu and xilungu integrate organize, and speak abouttheir fragmentary many concerns and are often evoked to comment on happeningswithin villages.4 Xintu denotes both ancient and contemporarypractices. It frequently invokes a nostalgic image of the past as a bygone era of agriculturalprosperity, order, and social harmony in order to lament present-daystrife. This era was characterizedby the coresident agnatic cluster (munti; lit., village or family) whose members co-

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operatedin cultivatingmaize, sorghum, millet, melons, marrows,sweet potatoes, and groundnuts(peanuts), and in keeping stock by rainmakingand work parties. But the past is also imagined as a harsh time, when people were powerful and cruel and lacked material possessions. Local oral traditions frequently refer to the heroic exploits of nineteenth-century Shangaanwarriorswho defeated the fierce Ndau and in the bravely fought Portuguese the Gaza wars. These warriors are believed to have bewitched their enemies. A middle-agedman remarked,"Not all our traditionswere good." His parentstold him that in the past men placed infirm elders at gates of their kraal so that the cattle could tramplethem to death. They also told him that women secretly strangled the second-bornof twins. In Bushbuckridge, xintu is also invoked to foster the image that contemporary practices are continuouswith culturalforms of the past. This can happenfor esoteric reasons. For example, diviners use tradition as a rhetorical style to assert their identity with the ancestors. They build small, round houses (ndhumba) for the ancestors and decorate them with cowhide drums, flywhisks, and grain baskets. Habitual practices are explained as traditional. When we asked why only women attend certain rituals, informantsoften replied, "This is xintu." That xintu could be of vital strategic importanceis most apparentin the domain of kinship. At the time of fieldwork, the agnatic cluster was no more a jural and corporateunit. But kinship still bore importantmoral obligations, and its images are still celebrated in daily life. Kinship remains the most reliable source of social support. The destitute often appeal to better-off kin for assistance as a strategy for survival, and kinship concerns are literally matters of life and death (Sharp and Spiegel 1994). On the other hand, wage-earnersexperience kinship obligations as a cumbersome drain on their resources. They are, for instance, called upon to finance the funerals of close kin. Men also invoke traditionsof patriarchyand polygamy to legitimize masculine domination and extramaritalliaisons. Residents of Bushbuckridge do not view the constant introduction of new practices and commodities from urbanareas (xilungwini, "places of the whites") as threateningor subversive. Once incorporated,they became part of the mundane.For example, prior to 1960, adult kin buried corpses privately, often late at night. But since then, ostentatious public funerals (involving night vigils, church services, graveyards, and funeral feasts) have become commonplace. Only when pressed for an answer will informantsadmit that these practices are actually xilungu. For some, xilungu may even be a source of prestige. Young professionals often admire "things of the whites" and make considerable investments to purchase fashionable clothes and motorcars. They are also eager to host white weddings, birthdayparties, and graduationcelebrations. Many are more inclined to attendthe services of Pentecostal churches than of the older ZCC (Zion ChristianChurch). But xilungu could also be constructed as something negative and profoundly dangerous. This is particularlyso when the introductionof new commodities and cultural forms undermined well-defined social interests. A common example of xilungu was excessive individualism and the shunning of social obligations.

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Housewives sometimes remark that wage-earning sons who do not support their parents "live a xilungu lifestyle." Otherunacceptableexamples of xilungu are young men who elope with their lovers and the imposition of lenient sentences against criminals by the Magistrate's Court. A particularlythreateningappearanceof xilungu is in discourses of witchcraft. Informantsarguethat unlike in the past, virtually anyone can now practicewitchcraft and purchase deadly witchcraft substances, such as chemical poisons, witch-trains, and familiars such as the snake-like mamlambo,which assumes the form of a white lover, and a snake that gives the witch money. But in return for satisfying the hedonistic desires of the witch, the mamlambowill ensure that the witch is infertile and will demand regular sacrifices of humanblood (Niehaus, Mohlala, and Shokane 2001). Villagers also call certain fatal diseases, such as cancer and HIV/AIDS, "diseases of whites." They see AIDS as originatingfrom cities and associate it with excessive mobility, loose sexual relations, fashion, and slimness (Stadler 2003). THE PAST AS VIRTUAL REALITY In Bushbuckridge, xintu is enacted most explicitly in Sunday dancing contests. These dances are more public than other rituals, such as the initiation of boys and girls during winter months, the plantingof seeds afterthe first summer rains, and the "coming out" of trainee diviners from their period of apprenticeship.Muchongolo contests have broadpopularappealand can draw up to three thousandspectators. The dancersbring the past to bear upon the present as a sort of virtual reality, as a cluster of images removed in time and space from the social contexts in which they were originally produced (Van Binsbergen 2001). Through the dance, villagers come to know things they imagine as things that are real (Geertz 1972b:118). The performance of these dance events on Sundays, the same day as church services, suggests that there is something sacred about them.5 Though as many as twelve teams dance different styles during the course of an afternoon, attentionis focused on the male muchongolo dancers. In Bushbuckridge, Shangaans are perceived as more traditionalthan Basotho, and men are generally more committed to images of the past (cf. Van der Vliet 1991). Through their style of dress, the male dancers project an image of Ngungunyane's powerful warriors. The most central items of their costume are knobkerries(tinhonga) or sticks, carried in the right hand, and cowhide shields, carried in the left. The knobkerrieconveys the image of a warrior willing to defend the honor of the village against foes. The shield conveys the image of the man as protector. Many dancerswear gloves on their left hands so that when they place their shields on the ground this association is not lost. They tie coverings of goat hide (maboko)on their shins and wrap animal hides (tinjovo) around their waists. The male dancers wear white shorts (shoti ya basa), necklaces of wildebeest hair (tinoga), and red and green beads (xirilane). Throughout Africa, the color white is associated with the ancestors (Turner 1967:69-81) and wildebeest hair with mystical power. Diviners (tinyanga) use switches manufactured

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from such hair to detect the problems of their clients. Diviners also believe that it is the hair that makes wildebeest wilder, faster, and stronger than cattle. In addition, the dancerstie bright yellow and blue cloths (duku)aroundtheir waists, and tie bands decorated with small red beads (xikopo) aroundtheir heads. Men's bodies bear other indices of their violent capacity. Many male dancers wear fighting bandscontainingherbalpotions (muhri)aroundtheir upperarms. Their naked torsos also evoke those of warriors, boxers, and witches. (Witches are imagined to be naked when they practice their craft.) One team carved the heads of their knobkerriesto resemble the face of the thokoloshi, a notorious witch familiar (Niehaus, Mohlala, and Shokane 2001:45-62). But in the dance, such violence is controlled. The women's dance section is smaller and plays a subsidiaryrole. Despite their advanced age, the women dancers (vantombi) are identified with the virgins who accompany the bride to the homestead of her in-laws, dance for men at weddings, and are called "maidens of muchongolo" (tintombi ta muchongolo). A dancer explained this anomaly: "It is supposed to be virgins, but we cannot find them nowadays. It is like we [older women] act the part." Women dancers wrap their bodies with a large cloth (tinguva), wear layers of triangularJavaneseprintedscarves around their waists, short-sleeve shirts, and head scarves. In addition, they wear necklaces (ngoda) of red, green, and white beads (mbhokazi).This costume is said to be the traditional wedding dress. Women occasionally tie honey-badger hides around their waists and wear old copper bangles that are usually associated with diviners. A drummerannouncesthe startof the day's performanceby loudly beating a large bass drum that may have been copied from British military models (Johnston (1975:773). A clearing is then formed, constitutingthe center of the dance. The first phase of the dance is called ku winisa (lit., team song). At a signal, the team members, who had been been sitting on the ground in a circle, stand and announce their presence by clapping their shields against their sticks and singing their team song. These songs emphasize the team's power, beauty, and skill, and sometimes likens them to the British army that defeated the Boers in the war of 1898.
Siti eyete ho ya nghena. Englandi ya masocha se Cape Town sayawa hlula majaha. Riti se bambe mjekoya ma bunu se sikanya mteni Uhembe vusiku ekulu kava va a Xikhonsense. Okkernootboom Ya dume enjin e duma nyoni tenkulu ehlula ehlahla ma jahamana Se sikanyambenishozi riti. The team is entering. The team is like the army of England who defeated the boys of Cape Town. Now we are right and ready for the Boers. We heard the noise of the terrible boys from Okkernootboomand Xikhonsense. The team is like a tight engine and like a peacock. It is beautiful and brave.

MUCHONGOLO DANCE CONTESTS

Hoza mthongwe ndima! Sizokushayau phinde unga buyiseli U phinde ubaleke sithi hase tufuse. Hayi donke, I ya ngena, Green Valley, e hlawa maja. I kone nqambe, mphumaMdaseri, Shilambane Mnisi6 Ho siza, ho siza mfana warn. Elanga la Sonto, kwaze kwa ngena mvul.a Ngela langa la Sonto. Gijima o yo nqonqoza England ya masotsha. Kwa duma nyimpi ya masotsha
babayeka Mashangana ndina.

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Come, you bastard! We'll beat you up and you won't revenge. You will be intimidatedand will run away. Hey, donkey, Green Valley is getting in. There is a producer from Klaserie ShilambaneMnisi.6 You help, you help, my boy. One Sunday it rained and rained. Come, the day of Sunday. Run, knock and call the soldiers of England. My soldiers are roaring like those bloodthirsty Shangaans. ShilambaniMnisi is not a toy to play with. He controls his wives.

ShilamnaniMnisi a hi yeana waku tlanga hi yena U ngwendla vasati va yena

The opening song is often followed by taunts from the other teams. In the past, this was the most dangerous part of the dance. All muchongolo teams are neatly divided by gender and age, the principle axes of social life in the olden days. The ordinarydancers are young men (majaha), who stand together in three rows, five men across. The dilliboy is the chairman who stands in front and leads them on. The team manager(ndoda) is often not dressed to dance, but may wear a smart suit and carry a briefcase. The women mostly stand in a row behind the male dancers, clapping their hands in support of the male songs. Each muchongolo team performs three different dance routines. During dili (digging), the team dances together in a display of solidarity. The emphasis is on unity and synchronizationof footwork and stamping, clashing sticks on shields, and singing. The dancers take fast steps, stampingthe ground in unison, then stand still and sing. During the nghadla (solo), a dancer performs alone in front of the team. The aim is to display a unique interpretation of differentdance styles. The solo dance with staccato dance begins steps, followed by kicking, and ends with the dancer tumbling on the ground. This usually provokes much laughter. Dancers usually practice this style prior to the dance and often reveal it to the rest of the team only during the Sunday dance event. Audiences greatly admirenew dance styles, and solo dances by very young boys receive the most adulation. Members of the audience place coins on their moist foreheads (an old wedding custom), celebrating the continuity of xintu in future generations. During the third dance routine, called ku pepisa (jive), men squat on their haunches in two rows and women jive (bomba) through the middle. The men then stand and march out of the arena in two straight lines, following the pulsating beat of the large bass drum. The men march with military precision, crash sticks and shields, and thrust their sticks into the sky. Meanwhile the women continue to jive on the edges of the arena. Finally, the men return and march aroundthe perimeter,

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circling the women. The dance teams then repeatthe entire routine, and again leave and re-enter the arena. Almost anyone with a stick, branch, umbrella, or beer bottle can join in the parade. In all dance routines, men display physical strength. This is most evident when they stamp their feet on the ground in a vigorous and aggressive manner, making holes and kicking up large amounts of dust. This movement resonates with the mkhukudances of the ZCC. In these dances, men transform their feet, the most vulnerable part of the body, into mighty weapons (Comaroff 1985:244). Like Balinese cockfights, muchongolodances are repletewith sexual symbolism. In Xitsonga, nhonga, the word for knobkerrie,can also be used as a euphemism for the erect penis. The vertical movements of legs and sticks and pulsating drumbeats all resonate with the movements and the rhythms of sexual intercourse. Some male dancers even tie a phallus crafted from cow horn aroundtheir waists and thrust it upwardsduring the dance. The women dancersare seductive and purposefully invite proposals from young men. They sometimes lift up their wraps (tinguva) as if to expose their buttocks, and a woman dancermay indicatewhom she desires by turning her back on a man and by glancing at him over her shoulder. She covers her face with one hand, showing shyness and respect, and smiles at him in a coy fashion. The slow lateralhip movementsdisplays the procreativesexuality of wives ratherthanthe sexual passion of illicit lovers. To summarize, muchongolodancersenact a traditionof powerful and virile male warriors, marriageable female virgins, and of solidarity and social order that contrasts starkly with their everyday lives. SPECTATORSON THE PERIPHERY There is a pervasive contrastbetween the events that transpireinside and outside the dance arena. Outsidethe arena is a peripherywhere spectatorswatch the dances, and further out is an outer-periphery,a backstage area for parking cars and where spectators urinate and congregate when not watching the dances. As James (1997) shows, audiences are an integralparty to culturalperformancesin South Africa. The area between the dancers and spectators is a sort of liminal space (Turner 1967) occupied by anomalousjester-like figures. Some wear latex masks of baboons and shake tails of animal hide to attract the attention of viewers. Others wear frightful Halloween masks. There also are male transvestiteswho join the women dancers. In 1992, a male cross-dresserat a muchongolodance in Rooiboklaagtewore a floral frock and carried a small baboon as his baby. Yet he was extremely aggressive and beat the childrenwho venturedtoo close to the dancerswith a willow stick. This man-womanstood in starkcontrastto the unambiguouslymale and female dancers. The periphery and outer-peripheryare clearly the domains of the present, the everyday, and of xilungu. In contrast to uniformity and order inside the dancing circle, social inequality and disorder prevail among the spectators. The hosts and

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local dignitaries, such as school principals, businessmen, and municipal councilors, are well dressed and sit on chairs in front of the other spectators. The host is usually a businessmanand awards a prize of up to R1000 to the team that he judges to be the best. This is in appreciationof the dancers, who draw customers. There are also young professionals dressed in the latest xilungu fashions; double-mercerizedshirts, Nike sweaters, Levi-Straussjeans, and Reebok sneakers. But the poor are always most numerous. Many desperate men seem to attend muchongolo solely to beg for beer. They capitalize on the celebration of "communitas"(Turner 1969) at these events and on the goodwill of those who are more fortunate. Among the spectators, the divisions of gender and age are blurred. Men and women, young and old, intermingleroughly, sometimesjostling each other to obtain the best views of the dancers. Once local youngsters grabbed quarts of beer from anthropologystudentsand then disappearedaroundthe corner. On anotheroccasion, drunk men pestered a visiting Germananthropologistto an extent that she fled to sit in her car. Unlike the vantombi dancers, many women spectators are neither subservient nor seductive. They drink and smoke and aggressively challenge male spectators. Children are always the clear majority of the audience and generally sit in front. They constantly push into the adults and intrude into the central dancing arena. While adults applaudchildren who dance inside the arena, they treat those in the periphery as a nuisance, and regularly scold, threaten, and even beat them. The most visible indices of xilungu in the outer-peripheryare commercial transactionsand fashionablemotorcars. On any given Sunday, one can encounterup to twenty vendors, licensed by the dance association to sell various goods at inflated prices. They sell beer in 750 ml bottles, nips of brandy, whiskey, and Hunter's Dry cider for young women. (Inside the arenathe dancers usually drink sorghum beer.) There are cigarettes, differentkinds of candy and corn bites for the children, peanuts, boiled eggs, and fried dough cakes (mangwinya). The traders neatly display their goods and keep the liquor in coolers. Although some of the motorcarsparked in the outer-peripheryhave seen better days, others are ostentatious status symbols, such as Audis, BMWs, and the latest utility vans. Young professional men are often least interested in the dance and congregate at the motorcars to smoke, drink, and chat with girlfriends. Some listen to kwaito (township rap music) on the sound systems of their cars. Fights occasionally occur in the outer-periphery.In February 2003, two men attendinga muchongolo dance at Betwell Khosa's bottle store harassedthe spectators and stole their beer. Betwell told the men to leave, and when they did not, he fetched a firearm and shot one of them in the leg. Four months later, two young men quarrelledover a young woman at a muchongolo dance held at a bar in Mambumba. Though neither of them was her boyfriend, both desired her. When one of the men left the dance, the other pulled a gun and shot him twice in the back of the head. The spectators looked on as he died. Some called the police, but an ambulance never arrived. The assailant left the scene and was never seen again.

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The sexuality of the dancers also finds resonance among the spectators. At any dance event men regularlypropose love to women, exchangetelephone numbers, and arrange to meet them later. There are also women who engage in survival sex (Wojcichi 2002) and have intercoursewith men in the bushes of the outer-periphery in exchange for beer. Older men recalled how Shirt Shokane, a game ranger, was once beaten when he was found having sex with another man's wife at a dance. These illicit encounters pale in comparisonto the ideals of virility and procreative capacity that men and women display inside the dancing arena. The opposition between the events inside and outside the dance arenais thus one of xintu and xilungu, the ideal and the real, solidarity and individualism, order and chaos, and of suffering and strength. NARRATIVES OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT The muchongolo dancers mediate between the xintu and xilungu through the medium of song. With the exception of team songs, singing representsa "time out" (Goffman 1962) when the dancers, representingthe virtual world of the past, speak about and to the surroundingworld of the present. Being guardedby tradition, their pronouncementsare authoritativeand they can challenge local leaders. The words of the powerful can, it is hoped, change adverse conditions of life. In the muchongolo, male and female dancers usually sing separately. But sometimes there is a dialogue between male and the female singers. For example, in

Hamba hamba!" (Go, go, Rosie! You refuse the elders. You are stubborn. Go, go!) The women then reply, "Wayi phika inkanu." (You refuse, stubbornone.) They tell a reluctant bride to go to her new home. The voices of singers are often inaudible and barely heard. Moreover, the lyrics of the muchongolo songs are sometimes difficult to understand, and some of the junior dancers may not comprehendtheir meaning. The words are a mixture of contemporaryXiTsonga, XiZulu (spoken by the Shangaanancestor, Soshangane),and an obscure Ndzau languagespoken only by diviners. Our research assistants therefore needed a great deal of help from senior dancers to translatethese songs. Despite their ancient linguistic form, all lyrics refer to miserable contemporary conditions. The songs are lamentationsabout strife, immorality, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Only one of the muchongolo songs that we recorded refers explicitly to nationalpolitics. Sung in the early 1990s, it complains aboutpolitical oppressionby De Klerk's white minority government. Witchcraftis a common theme of the lyrics. One song suggests that Samora Machel, the former president of Mozambiquewho died in a plane crash near the South African border, is not really dead. Instead, the song insinuates that the apartheid government changed Machel into a zombie (xidachane) and used him to open and close the border gate (Niehaus, Mohlala, and Shokane 2001:68-79).

the weddingsong, men sing, "Hamba, hamba,Rosie! Wayi phika inkanumadoda.

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Songs also complain about local residents, such as Mathibela, who practice witchcraft. Suspected witches are taken to witch-diviners (mungoma), who indicate their guilt by beating them behind the neck with a switch of wildebeest hair.
I wa rila, I wa rila, lo wa nuna. Mathibela namuntha va n'wube. Tshobo xz, vuma, vuma sangoma Vakuhikumepapilla ri huma mugomeni. He cries, he cries, this man is crying. Today, Mathibelawas bitten by a tail. Hey, agree, agree, diviner we received a letter from the witch-diviner.

In Bushbuckridge,there are perceptionsthatthe practiceof witchcrafthas greatly increased in recent years, that witchcraftconstantlyemerges in the most unexpected places, and that villages are constantly being overrun by newer and deadlier techniques of witchcraft. These fears reached a zenith during 1986 and in the early 1990s, when Comrades (young male political activists) conducted a series of witch hunts to cleanse villages of misfortune and witches. Witchcraft continues to be a dilemma in post-apartheidSouth Africa (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999; Niehaus, Mohlala, and Shokane 2001). Another theme is the inappropriatebehavior of local leaders. Some songs complain about a power-holder in the ANC, a butcher and cattle thief, a headman who is supposed to settle domestic disputes but engages in love affairs with other men's wives, and about priests who are supposed to reveal religious truth but tell people to buy candles because the world will end in the new millennium.
Khazamulaxana leswaku dlayatela tihomu t ta swi tshika rini? Khazamulawa delela (2x). Xana leswi ungo vulavula xilungu u vona onge ungefi? Khazamula Khazamulawa delela (2x). Bala papilla riya ka hosi. Ndhuna Mnisi I vanga vutswaka. Vasati va vanhu seva tlhala miti. Hikombelampfumeleloyaku dlaya vafundisi. Ndzi xave makhandle vandzi hemberile vafundisi. Se ndzi hlahluve tihlolo. Se ndziku hi nwena vaku 2000 ku ta hela misava. Hi kombela mpfumeloka va vufundisi. Vafundisiva hi hemberile hi. Ya xava makhandlele, hin'wina. Hin 'wina we 2000, kuta hela misava. Khazamula,when are you going to stop killing people's cattle? Khazamula,you are so stubborn (2x) Do you think because you speak English you will not die? Khazamula Khazamula,you are so stubborn (2x). Write a letter to the chief. Headman Mnisi causes trouble. People's wives run away from their families. We ask for permission to kill the priests. We bought some candles. The priests lied to us. Then I threw some divining bones. Then I said, it is you who said that in 2000 the earth will end. We ask for permission from the priests. The priests lied to us. We went to buy the candles, oh. Oh, in 2000, the earth will end.

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One song about poverty in everyday life complains that people are driven from In this song, Russia (a powerful Bushbuckridgeto seek employmentin Johannesburg. for the is a stomach (a powerful organ). country) metaphor
Xibaleka ndlala xi ya tshama Joni. Ya bhonga Russia. Ami talanga vavanuna hi lo tala. Kusaseka i ya bhonga Russia. He runs away from hunger to Johannesburg. Russia is roaring. You are few men many men. BeautifulRussia is roaring.

These lyrics declare that for most households in the former Bantustanareas, political liberation has not meant economic security. On the contrary, severe job losses have occurred as a result of deindustrialization. Between 1993 and 1999, the number of workers employed in South Africangold mining decreasedfrom 428,003 to 195,681; in coal mining from 51,267 to 21,155; in manufacturing from 1,409,977 to 1,286,694; and in constructionfrom 355,114 to 219,797 (SAIRR 2001:336-38). Working-classmen are now more likely to be unemployedand unable to support their wives and children. During 1990-91, we conducteda survey of 80 households in one village of Bushbuckridge.There were 156 men of working age of whom 113 (72 per cent) were employed and 101 (65 per cent) married. During 2003-04 we revisited all previously surveyed households. There were 202 men of working age of whom 91 (45 per cent) were employed and only 97 (48 per cent) were married. In this context, the lyrics of muchongolo songs speak about strife-filled love affairs. They refer to young men who are too timid to propose to girls of their village, men who fail to control their women, and the high cost of courtship.
He Khulumanimadoda! Siyaba oqsha bafazi. Hina xirilo xa majaha yale Rolle U nga byeliteli van 'wana va famba A vasati va Sidney a va twanani. Haku nene a va twanani. (2x) Hambi Egnes a va twanani, haku nene a va twanani. Ha mbi Florence a va twanani, Haku nene a va twanani Ndzi ta ku xavela pepe mzala A magwinya ava xavi mzala Speak up, men! We will chase women. We complain about the boys from Rolle Don't tell other people to go. Sidney's wives don't like each other. Really, they don't like each other. Even Egnes does not like. Really, they don't like each other. Even Florence does not like. Really, they don't like each other. I will buy you Pepe jeans, cousin. We do not buy doughnuts, cousin.

The song suggests that men have to buy their lovers expensive Pepe jeans, "else she will think you are her maternaluncle" (malume). Another recent theme is the devastation of AIDS. The lyrics of these songs criticize people's inappropriate behavior in the face of the pandemic. They complain of men who cheat on their wives, and daughterswho leave their children with their mothers to be prostitutes in the urbanareas.

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I wa rila muyakhelanihi timkahata AIDS. Hitimhakata AIDS hiyo yinga heta vanhu. Nwananga ndzi kombela u vuya ekaya u ta vona mina mhani wa wena na vana lava u'nga nazi siyela vona.
Hambi swi ri tani twela vusiwana loko

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My neighbor cries about AIDS Because of AIDS many people are dying. My child, I ask you to come home to see me, your mother, and the children the children you left with me. Even if it is like this, you do not see pity when you see me suffering in this way. People are dying from AIDS, my child I never thought it could be you. If you take too long you will find me dead. Your children will show you my grave. Do you remember the promises I made and the instructionsI taught you! Your children don't know their father the way she is behaving. Do you want your children to become a joke to people on earth when I am dead? My child, I ask, come home to see your children and me while I live. Shame! They will kill you, my son Women stop confusing men Women can kill Can't we see that we are getting finished with the disease called HIV/AIDS out there? Come home before you meet the virus. Will contract the new disease called AIDS.

undzi vona ndzi xanisaka hi ndlela loyi. Vanhu va fa hi AIDS nwananga ndzi hleketanga leswaku karhi wu nwana. Loko wo teka karhi uta kuma se ndzifile. Vana va wena hi vona vanga ta ku komba sirha ra mina. Waha tsundzukaswitshembisoni dynondzo leyi ndzi nga ku dyondzo yona naa! Vana va wena ava tivi na va bava wa vona hi ndlela leyi unga ti khomisaxi swona. U lava vana va wena va sala va hundzuka swihlekisi eka vanhu va misava loko ndzi file naa ? Nwananga ndzi kombela u vuya ekaya uta vona vana na mina ndza ha hanya. Xemu! Vata ku dlaya nwa 'ananga Tshikaniku yenga vavanuna vavansati va dlaya Ami swi voni leswaku se ma hela hi Vuvabyibya HIV/AIDS la ha handle naa? Vuyaniamakaya mi nga si hlangana na. Xifu xa masiku lawa lexi vango I AIDS.

The dance teams therefore do not merely compete against each other. Muchongolo competitions are marked by a war of images and words in which the different teams battle contemporary hardship. The past actively confronts the present and vice versa. Like the famous Balinese masked dance in which the endearing monster Barong fights the terrible witch Rangda (Geertz 1972b), the battles of muchongolo are always indecisive. By aggressively stamping their feet and shouting, "Hoes! hoes!" (imitating toyi toyi dancing by Comrades during their successful anti-apartheid struggle), the warriors assert that they will prevail. At other times the warriors signal defeat. As they march from the circle in a straight line, they limp, stumble, and fall. But they always make a heroic return. CONCLUSIONS Cultural performances, as exemplified by Geertz's (1972a) work on Balinese cockfights, do not necessarily lead to the seduction of anthropology away from concerns with social structure and political economy into a world of esoteric

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meanings. It is true that the muchongolo dancers enact the past as a virtual reality, removed in time and space from the contexts in which the dance was originally produced (Van Binsbergen 2001), and that the central dance arena can be described as a phantasmagoric space, a "volatile space of structuration"where different constructions of reality are fashioned. It exists apartfrom everyday life and outside of reason, does not represent external realities, and has its own emergent logic (Kapferer2002:22-23). But to understandthe meanings of the muchongolo requires viewing the performancein its totality. Beyond observing the dancers, one needs to understandthe songs and to view members of the audience as actors. Whereas the movements and the costumes of the dancersrepresentonly historical memories, the lyrics of their songs and the actions of the audiencerepresentcontemporarypolitical events, economic conditions, and everyday life in Bushbuckridge. The genius of muchongolo resides not only in revealing hidden meanings, but also in collating meanings that are usually dispersed. The dancers do not merely representthe contemporaryworld of xilungu: they confront it. Nobody who attendsany muchongolo dance event can fail to notice the opposition between the heroic dancers inside the arenaand the desperate, sometimes patheticdrunks surroundingthem. It is in this war of images and words that the deep play of muchongolo presides. The dance suggests that attributesof the past, courage, solidarity, and strength, are still relevant to the contemporaryworld, that these attributes are still accessible to villagers and can enable them to meet today's challenges and hardships. Villagers can survive if they have faith in their abilities, show endurance, support one another, and rely on the ways of their ancestors. In certain respects, the muchongolo dancers of Bushbuckridgeconvey a more optimistic message thanthe fighting cocks of Bali. They do not suggest, like Balinese men, that only narcissism, jealousy, envy, and brutalitylurk beneathevery person's skin. Yet there is also something disturbing about muchongolo dance events. By portraying the past as more desirable than the present, muchongolo subverts the concept of lineal time contained in the narrative of political liberation in South Africa. In blatant contradictionto the billboards alongside the main tarred roads of Bushbuckridge that celebrate ten years of freedom, the dancers, singers, and audiences at muchongolo dances construct time as regression ratherthan progress. The present is portrayed as a time of motorcars and fashions, but also as one of chaos, disorder, misery, and discontent at the failure of promises of prosperity in South Africa (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999). Bushbuckridgestill displays many of the stereotypical features of a Native Reserve, such as high unemployment,conjugal breakdown,crime, suicide, sexual promiscuity, violence, and witchcraftaccusations (see Kahn et al. 1999 and Niehaus, Mohlala, and Shokane 2001). The analysis of contests such as cockfights and muchongolo dances is important for understandingthe ambiguities and complexities of political consciousness that cannot be read from voting behavior and from simplistic labels such as acquiescence and resistance. Ordinary villagers may vote for the ruling ANC government, on

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whom they depend for housing, pensions, and welfare, but allow muchongolo dancers to voice their discontent.
NOTES 1. We thank the Mellon Mentorship Program for generous research funding. Thanks also to David Coplan, Gunvor Jonsson, Conny Mathebula, Freddy Mathabela, Eliazaar Mohlala, Graeme Rodgers, Kally Shokane, Eric Thobela, Robert Thornton,and Charles van Onselen for their kind assistance. All personal names in the text are pseudonyms and all indigenous terms are in XiTsonga. 2. Importantexceptions are Coplan (1991, 1994), Erlmann(1999), and James (1999), who examine music, oral poetry, and dance as genres of culturalperformance. 3. These intervillageconflicts came to a head when the South African Departmentof Arts and Culture organized a visit by South African dancers to Germany. The organizers decided to select a team comprising the best dancers of all muchongolo teams of Bushbuckridge.But the older dancers refused to dance against, let alone with, their old rivals, and conflict over the selection of the team was so severe that the offer had to be withdrawn. 4. Comaroff and Comaroff (1992) argue that in the former Bophuthatswana Bantustan,the rhetorical contrast between setswana and sekgoa is rooted in the colonial encounter, and carries a "fan of associations in the collective consciousness of the dominated"(1992:156). They suggest thatthese tropes are used to express the collective identity of the dominatedvis-a-vis the colonial order and to critique colonial situations. While such uses were sometimes apparent in Bushbuckridge, we should not exaggerate the significance of cultural resistance. For example, unlike in Bophuthatswana,people of Bushbuckridge did not contrast tiro (constructive work associated with agriculture and the home) to bereka (labor for whites that is sterile and depletes the body). 5. Drinking and smoking do not detractfrom sacredness, and are sometimes even necessary in rituals that invoke the ancestors. The ZCC did not prohibittheir members from attendingmuchongolo dances. 6. Shilambani Mnisi is Green Valley's team leader. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge. Comaroff, J. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Cultureand History of a South African People. Chicago. Comaroff, J., and J. L. Comaroff. 1992. The Madman and the Migrant: Work and Labour in the Historical Consciousness of a South African People. Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, eds. J. Comaroff and J. L. Comaroff, pp. 155-78. Boulder. 1999. Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction. American Ethnologist 26(2):279303. Coplan, D. 1991. Fictions that Save: Migrants' Performanceand Basotho National Culture. Cultural Anthropology 6(2):169-92. 1994. In the Time of Cannibals: The Word Music of South Africa's Basotho Migrants. Chicago. Cowan, J. 1990. Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece. Princeton. Crapanzano, V. 1986. Hermes' Dilemma: The Masking of Subversion in EthnographicDescription. Writing Culture:The Poetics and the Politics of Ethnography,eds. J. Clifford and G. Marcus, pp. 68-76. Berkeley. Erlmann, V. 1999. Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa. Chicago. of Cultures, ed. C. Geertz, C. 1972a. Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. The Interpretation Geertz, pp. 412-54. New York. 1972b. Religion as a CulturalSystem. The Interpretation of Cultures, ed. C. Geertz, pp. 87125. New York.

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