Page 40 - 2020 SoM Journal Vol 73 No 1 FINAL_Neat

32 The Society of Malawi Journal

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The asilikali of the 1 and 2 KAR - from the then Nyasaland - were not only
eager to join in the effort of creating a battalion-wide tradition, but also literally
made the lyrics their own during the First World War, by emphatically adopting
this trope in singing specifically of themselves:

The Nyasas are the lions, eh!
The Nyasas are the lions,
The lions, the lions,
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Of the Europeans.

Thus, they expropriated the symbolic power of the king of beasts, incorporating
mkango - as he is known in Chichewa - into their lyrical pantheon and expediting
transference of the lion into Chewa nyau dance repertoire as well, where one of
the frequent masked characters was none other than mkango himself.
As such, it is unsurprising the same image morphed into parts of the
increasingly confrontational rhetoric surrounding Malawian nationalist
aspirations. And once a clear leader in that new fight emerged - Dr Hastings
Kamuzu Banda - the image of mkango was applied to him in new praise songs,
however simple:

Kamuzu is a lion! Eh!
He is a lion.
Kamuzu is a lion!
He is a lion, he is a lion. Eh! Eh! Eh!

By this transposition, the valour of the warrior class was projected on the new
political leader, with the expectation that he would live up to their achievements.
But as Banda’s regime began attacking not only enemies of the new state, but
increasingly making war on its own people instead, a revised verse emerged,
fuelling an ever more contentious political landscape:

The one you said was a lion,
The one you said is a lion,
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Now is a hyena!

In this fashion Banda’s government came to a symbolic end, with the failure of
the new mkango to affirm the asilikali tradition which his singing supporters had
tried to claim for him.

and Phoya, “Malawi at 50,” 45.
39 Sydney Chituta Nkanda, interview I-21 conducted 28 August 1972 by Yusuf
Juwayeyi at Chief Nkanda’s home, Chambe Court, Mulanje.
40 Both songs recorded by Wiseman C. Chirwa, “Dancing Toward Dictatorship,”
8.