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-hwela is commonly used to refer to the act of sexual intercourse, and gomba-lume is a compound of khomba (girl of marriageable age) and tshilume (young man), which refers to a man and woman joined together in intercourse.
For this song, the tenor drum (thungwa) is turned upside down on to its skin, so that it looks like a dome on the ground. Each dancer in turn must stand astride with one foot on either side of the drum. She then jumps up on to the drum and stands up straight, and then jumps back on to the ground in the astride position . Novices find this very difficult, although the exercise is physically easy: their movements seem to be inhibited by nervous self-consciousness.
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A novice jumps on to the drum from the astride position for the song Gombalume.
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Vho-Netswera happened to be the name of the lady in charge of initiation at one school, and so the second line is inserted as an encouragement, and a warning, to the novice to jump on to the drum nicely.
In different contexts the dome of an upturned tenor drum is given a variety of symbolic meanings. At domba , the drum becomes a girl going to her husband: when a novice jumps on to it, she is in the hut with her husband; when she jumps off again, she and her husband are no longer together, but the drum remains, representing the womb of the girl, who has become pregnant. In the song of tshikanda, the drum is the woman, the standing dancer is the man, and the sequence represents intercourse. |
khevho, hwela!