Skip to main content

Malala wabila (Malila is crying)

Group of Tonga women
Audio
Malala wabila (Malila is crying)
Valley Tonga women play three drums (gogogo, musunta, and a mpati), which perform as an ensemble for mankuntu dances, in which, in turn, pairs of children, a girl and boy, emerge from the crowd and dance. The song the children sing says that the headman’s wife, Malala, is crying and has run away from her husband, because she has never had a child.