Case file · Folklore / legend
Gule Wamkulu, the great dance
Masked dancers of the Chewa Nyau society in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia embody ancestral spirits and animals at funerals and initiations; UNESCO recognised the dance in 2005.
2005 CE · -14.28, 34.52 · status: official
The account
Members are said to become the spirits they portray, and outsiders were long forbidden to know who danced. Missionaries and colonial officials tried to suppress it.