Mbira Hut Project - Chiriseri, Kagande Kraal village in Bindura Zimbabwe

This item relates to the PhD research of Chartwell Dutiro at Bath Spa University, the Mbira Hut Project.

Kagande village is under Chief Masembura, in the Bindura district in Zimbabwe. This is the village where Chartwell Dutiro was born and where he lived for the first twenty years of his life.

Ndonga Mahwe is a ritual ceremony taking place in the village. The community gathers for three days. There is musicking through mbira music, singing, drumming, dancing, food and drinks. The last day of this ritual ceremony, the community goes to the graves and evokes the spirits to bring the ancestors back home. The ancestors have to be brought back home to be able to inhabit a medium during a bira ritual ceremony. A bira is a ceremony in which mbira music could be played for the whole night.

The people participate in singing, dancing, ululating, clapping to create an atmosphere of trance in order to summon the spirits of the ancestors to come and give protection, daily guidance and healing to the living.