“…As Chitule instructed me in the need for nyau to remain closely guarded and secret, my mphungu held up a live chicken and dispassionately impaled it through the rectum with a long wooden skewer. “If you reveal the gule secrets,” Chitule warned, “this will happen to you too.”

Beginning out of a chance encounter with a fierce masked figure in Zimbabwe, in1995, through to 2007, I made annual, multi-month trips to Malawi during the post harvest dry season, the time of reprieve from the constant demands of subsistence farming, the time of travel, ritual dance and commemoration. As a fully-initiated member of the mask society, I was permitted entrance to the “dambwe” the entranceway to the place of spirits and the World of the Dead.

Gule Wamkulu (The Great Dance) is the traditional spiritual practice of the Chewa people of Malawi, performed as part of significant life passages, including funerals, chief’s initiations, fertility rites and initiations into adulthood.  The spiritual underpinnings of Gule Wamkulu are also illustrated by its alternative name, “Pempero Lalikulu” (the great prayer).

Long-oppressed by British colonial administrators as an exhibition of “obscenity, sensuality and cruelty”, and subsequently by missionaries seeking converts to Christianity,  the public performances of The Great Dance have survived and adapted to retain a hold on the spiritual imagination of the rural Chewa.

The dance is performed by the nyau, a semi-secret association of men whose affiliations with each other, and their connection to the ancestors’ World of the Dead, is concealed through coded language and signing, creating an internal logic that informs the membership, its activities and their relationship to the Chewa cosmography.  Through the vivid and cathartic psychodrama of Gule Wamkulu, the masked spirit entities of the Chewa cosmos dance the mwambo, the core lessons of Chewa morality and identity.   Despite the continual impact of external socio/political powers, the material forms of Gule Wamkulu have continually adapted to change while retaining the core Chewa sensibilities and cosmic view.

A busy outdoor market in an African village with people shopping and selling various goods, including colorful plastic bowls, packaged items, and bicycles, under trees and open sky.
A group of people walking outdoors under umbrellas, with women wearing colorful dresses and children holding small items. The setting appears to be a rural area with trees and a dirt path.
A group of traditional Slavic dolls with red faces and various clothing, displayed outdoors among trees.
A group of people in colorful clothing watching a traditional dance with a masked performer wearing a costume made of feathers and fabric, outdoors on a dirt ground with trees in the background.
A display of various masks made from paper mache, fabric, and other materials, arranged on the ground among fallen leaves and branches in a wooded outdoor setting.
People in traditional clothing gather around a thatched-roof hut in a rural village setting at sunset. Children and adults are actively engaging in various activities on the reddish dirt ground, with smaller structures and trees in the background.
A man in tribal attire, wearing a feathered headdress and decorated with natural materials, performs a dance. He is surrounded by a crowd of women and children watching attentively in an outdoor setting with trees and traditional huts.
A man sitting on a red plastic crate appears to be teaching or demonstrating something to a group of children and a young man, all sitting on the ground in a wooded area. The man is holding a stick and is surrounded by leaves and small branches.
A large painted rock with traditional African art standing next to a busy roadside, with a group of people walking along the road in a rural landscape.
A man dressed in traditional colorful attire and a person with a large mask and costume perform in front of a crowd outside a thatched-roof hut in a rural village, with trees and a cloudy sky in the background.
A tall figure made of fabric and other materials, resembling a human, stands in the center of an outdoor dirt area. Children and people are gathered around, some holding hands and dancing. There are trees, huts, and a bamboo fence in the background,
Three men standing in front of a white car with a red license plate, in a rural area with trees and simple brick houses in the background.
Three men wading through a river with a large decorated animal, possibly a cow or goat, covered with green and white fabric, in a rural landscape with rolling hills and shrubs during sunset.
In the village of Chitule, Dedza district, Malawi, a masked spirit figure of the departed Chief Chitule returns to the home to signify to his wife and relatives that despite his death he is now in transition to the spirit World of the Dead.
A narrow dirt footpath with small wooden planks forming a makeshift bridge over a dry patch, flanked by tall, dry grass and dried banana plants.