Dancing in Native Africa and America

My forefathers danced almost every opportunity they got. They danced to the beat of the drum and to the clap of their hands. They even danced to music played on instruments that included mbira and a guitar like instrument the name of which has just eluded me. (If there is anyone who knows its name, please leave me a comment below, I would much appreciate). They sang on occasions like rain dances, marriages, funerals and harvest celebrations. They also did dance to while away time and during these times, especially when the moon was full, they would hold competitions of both drumming, mbira and guitar playing and while the dancers danced, and the musicians played, singers sang, and the fun's sounds bounced off the walls of the solid mountains in the surrounding vicinity the whole night.

    The Shona people were and are still very good poets too. Their totems are but praises of their tribal sacred animal. They have all the nice words to exult themselves and even when praising their chiefs, they employed the use of rich language. Their lavishness spilled even onto their dress manner, the decorated troops wore plumed headdresses and loin skins of rare animals. The western notion that they wore loin skins makes it today seem like they were rag-tag loins. In actual fact, they were very comfortable clothing items made with great care and expertise. Among the dances they had, the most common was Dinhe, which was a dance to lure ancestral spirits to speak to the people. Then and now, the dancers do a lot of warriors' movements in combat and top it up with leaps and moves of a joyful person. All this is set to a heavy beat of the drum, clapping and singing at the same time. The Shona dances were a central part of their worship and interaction,  they meant a lot.

       Thousands of miles across the Atlantic, the five hundred plus native American tribes have dances for almost the same purposes, if not the exact thing. Apart from the differences in musical instruments, native American tribes dance pretty well and for the same reasons. I recently attended a dance of some of the tribes and was offered an opportunity to peek into their world of spirituality and social interaction. The dance party was led by an energetic middle aged man whose dance skills were a marvel. He said they danced because they simply love to dance. He also said they danced to communicate with their ancestral spirits. In their realm, when a person dances, his/her spirit is let loose and would intermingle with that of the earth, the mother of creation and of those around him/her. He then did a dance and I saw that he was indeed lost in the rhythm, that he forgot all about us and everything else around. His moves came so natural and soon, a lady took to stage and a young man who had never danced until his grandfather passed. He told us of how he felt the sudden urge to honor his grandfather by partaking in the dances of his people and sooner than he began to, he was enjoying himself immensely, of course, he put a great show for us. Then I danced too, being cultural, I did it with ease and sheer enjoyment. That is when I felt the confluence of my culture and the native American culture. We are all the same, despite where we come from, when all has been said and done.