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THE KUNAMA FOLKLORE Part1 RKPHA 1999-2000 - Read more
ANNA OR ULEDA PART 2 Read more
HIGNGNI OR HAGNGNI.- Part 3 Read more
The Kunama people celebrate their events, rituals and other observances by
performing appropriate dances.
Such dances have their traditional ties and meanings with the given events or
celebrations.
Though some dances are publically and frequently performed in every event, some
others are strictly reserved for particular occasions and, at times, exclusively
participated and performed by the members of particular groups or kinships.
There is neither formal nor informal invitation to attend the public
dances. On the contrary, the private celebrations or ceremonies determine who
should take part in them.
As the Kunama people have rather strong family and kinship ties, certain events
are exclusively known to and their meanings shared only within the circle of
those ties. The kinds of the dances performed in such occasions too are, often,
considered to be prerogatives or privileges of those family or kinship ties.
In this series of writings on the Kunama pageantry and folklore, we shall
be restricting our research on and description of only the kinds of the Kunama
dances which are generally performed by all the Kunama people and in many
occasions.
Depending on his or her dancing abilities, any participant is free to
take part in or abstain him or herself from all or some of the public dances.
The Kunama, infact, possess such a wide variety of dances and dancing arts that
make it very difficult, even for the Kunama themselves, to be so good as to
taking part in each kinds of dances and dancing arts.
The Kunama dances are, usually, accompanied with the beating of the
drums or just with clapping of hands in concordance with the rhythm of each
dancing art.
The phrase "dancing art" is intended to refer to the beating of the feet of
the dancers, particularly, of those of the male dancers.
The drums are beaten solely by the women. The singing too is usually a women's
prerogative, but during some dances, well-known male singers take over from the
women thus giving and bringing into a dance a particular flavour.
The male or the female singer introduces a lead and reapeats its refrain several
times till the majority of the dancers have memorized it.
The leading singer then develops the song by adding new verses of his or her
own making which, usually, explain an event, recall a particular place, praise
or even ridicule the deed of a person.
The Kunama dancers, at times, could be so much carried away by the rhythm of a
dance that they would not even care much about following or trying to understand
the motifs of a song.
They would only and automatically repeat the refrain of the song in chorus,
adapt their feet-beatings to and enjoy both the rhythm of the dance as well as
of the song.
The various types of the Kunama dances will be alphabetically presented
and described in our future website news.
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