[1] On mpumina see Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954: 547 (“name given to the Great Spirit of Lake Upemba”) and note 130 to the Vocabulaire.

[2] The Standard Dictionary has kichania from –chana, slit, separate, part, comb.

[3] Kabinda seems to tell Kasongo not to get involved with this question.

[4] This is the literal sense I make of his cryptic statement. Perhaps Kabinda meant that the paintings were made to support the story.

[5] Kasongo says beliona instead of baliona. Both he and especially Kabinda seem to follow a principle of vowel harmony (a before i becomes e or i). Other prominent, though never completely consistent, “deviations” in Kabinda’s speech are shi for si, zhi or ji for zi. My rule has always been to follow a practical, “common sense” phonology in transcribing and to ignore alternate pronunciation (common sense means inspired by conventions of grass roots literacy in Katanga Swahili). Only when I felt that alternate pronunciation had communicative significance did I show it in the transcript, usually with an explanatory note. In this text the alternates are so frequent that I decided to represent them as often as it seemed practical without resorting to phonetic transcription. For an exact analysis of Kabinda’s (and other speakers’) idiolects or sociolects linguists would have to go back to the sound recordings. In my view, the results will always defy generalization, even if the threshold of “deviation” (i.e. using alternative phonations) is set very low.

[6] I leave muzungu untranslated. In most contexts it means European or White but it is not unequivocally expressive of color or race. An African American will be called muzungu like other Non-Africans. However not all Non-Africans are bazungu: “mediterraneans,” such as Greek, Italians, Portuguese, and Jews will be referred to by their ethnic labels.

[7] Masikio usually is the plural of sikio, ears: here in the sense of “things one wears in ears.”

[8] My guess that (ki)komo is derived from English comb. In the next sentence Kasongo speaks of a kichnanuo, “a large comb, often of wood, with long coarse teeth,” according to the Standard Dictionary. Perhaps the contrast is between a mass-produced and a taditional, crafted comb.

[9] Kasongo says peignoir, bath robe, but it clear that he means peigne, comb.

[10] I don’t find a term with that meaning in my Swahili and Luba dictionaries. Achille Mutombo confirms that bikoma is current in Katanga Swahili for bracelets.

[11] This paragraph may belong to the preceding exchange – (Mamba Muntu paintings may be classed as landscapes – but here it stands somewhat apart as a separate topic: landscapes in Mamba Muntu paintings.

[12] Kasongo struggles with three terms for this large body of water. First he calls it mutoni, river, then he oscillates between kisiwa, pond or lake, and bahari, sea, ocean. In the final statement the referent is not clear: Does he want to say that Lake Tanganyika flows into the ocean or that Mamba Muntu enters the lake? I opt for the latter.

[13] Both say cosses, pods, rather than feuilles de bananier, banana leaves, which I remember as the more current expression.

[14] Kigoma is a town on the Tanzania shore of Lake Tanganyika.

[15] The preceding is an example of passages where the conversation just seems to coast rather than move forward. Although the turns are short – single words or short phrases – frequent overlaps make this kind of exchanges very difficult to transcribe and translate.

[16] “Before,” zamani, refers to the time before Mobutu’s regime ordered all Zaireans to assume “authentic” names.

[17] Kabinda corrects himself – in his mind Mutshatsha (a rail stop Katanga, near the borders with Zambia and Angola) is the place he comes from though he was born in Kinda (West-Kasai).

[18] Another sentence whose general meaning seems clear while a literal translation is impossible: Are the muzee and baba yangu one or two (or more) persons? Was Desfossés the “old man” who approached Kabinda’s father? Nor is the verb form bafunda clear.

[19] Though this was where he started out Kabinda was not know as a “member” of the Desfossés school. I found no trace of Kabinda when I searched Desfossés on Google (more than 17000 hits).

[20] The prefix ki- Kabinda uses with masomo, school could have a pejorative, deprecatory connotation or express something like “the official school system.”

[21] For a recent exposition of the painters who worked at the “Hangar” (as the Desfossés school was called) see: http://sanza.skynetblogs.be/tag/1/mwenze and another one of “popular painting:” http://sanza.skynetblogs.be/post/5122554/mawazo--la-peinture-populaire .

[22] Cité, as opposed to ville, town, and camp (miners’ settlement) was the former CEC (centre extra-coutumier). At the time of our conversation it was official called Zone Manika.

[23] Laurent Moonens (1911-1991) counts as the founder of the Académie de Beaux Arts of Elisabethville/Lubumbashi (for a short biography see http://balat.kikirpa.be/DPB/FR/FMPro?-db=Dictionnaire.fp5&-lay=web&-format=Detail_notice.htm&ID_dpb=3983&-find). Marcel Pire (1913-1981, see http://books.google.de/books?id=RofWROYpSPgC&pg=PA328&lpg=PA328&dq=Marcel+Pire+Elisabethville&source=bl&ots=t12qUuWDBU&sig=W_6G5QaIjV7Pz4UOYtdN4am5tP4&hl=de&ei=wvwTSpXcHImL_Qbj06imDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3. I have note been able to identify the name I transcribe here as “Demat.”

[24] This was Marcel Pille, a Belgian painter and teacher at the Lubumbashi Académie de Beaux Art, who also taught Kanyemba (see Text One, notes 14 and 15).

[25] Kabinda says asitenir. The negative prefix asi- is considered typical of mining-company Swahili, one of the traces left from the South-African work language that preceded Swahili in Katanga, Kikabanga/ Fanagalo.

[26] On TRABEKA (Société d'entreprise de travaux de béton du Katanga) see note 27 to the Vocabulaire.

[27] Father Pascal Ceuterick, a Franciscan missionary and at that time pastor of the main parish in Kolwezi, had begun his career in Kapanga, among the Lunda where he had close ties to the ruling clan. In Kolwezi he was an important informal advisor to the local authorities (and the mining company). I had met him first in the US in 1965 when he invited me to do my PhD field research on the Jamaa movement in Kolwezi. There he was a generous host (and frequent interlocutor) during the second part of my stay (I had started out in the nearby mining camp of Musonoi).

[28] A school for girls run by the “Chanoinesses régulières de Saint-Augustin de la Congrégation Notre-Dame.”

[29] Kabinda wanted to return to his story but I was still intrigued. Though I had lived in or near Kolwezi for a year and a half in 1966-67 and was staying there again in 1973 when this conversation was recorded I had never heard about a museum in Kolwezi.

[30] Kabinda says minafunda, I learn, but, unless I assume that he meant “I teach” I cannot make any sense of this sentence.

[31] On Sartenaer see note 85 the Vocabulaire

[32] See a recent memorial to him (died “10 mars 2007, à l’âge de 93“)

[33] On Mwenze 1925-1995 see http://www.congonline.com/Peinture/mwenze.htm

[34] Unlike the others mentioned, Kabinda has left no trace on the Internet. While it is probably true that he was one of the “many” who were attracted by Desfossés’ atelier, his having been part of that school of painting may be imagined.

[35] This is a guess. Part of the sentence I cannot transcribe and I don’t know what he meant by kuamisha.

[36] This seem to resolve some of the confusion about the “Aron” mentioned above in par. 14. He was a relative of the Aron who was part of the Desfossés school.

[37] “He” refers to Kasongo who, I now realize, must have left us without giving a sign (at the end of par.11.

[38] Kabinda says ataulisha, in the third person singular, but he means “they,” the Europeans he talked about.

[39] I could not find the meaning of papier pistole.

[40] Kabinda says kasa, which I take to be his pronunciation of the verb –kaza, to make an effort.

[41] Here I bungled, saying alimufunza instead of alimifundisha but Kabinda’s response shows that he got my meaning.

[42] A kind of tool shed, hence the name “Hangar” by which Desfossés’ school became known.

[43] I seem to remember that this Lumuna was one of the upper-level Congolese employees (of, or around, the mining company) I met during my stay in Kolwezi.

[44] Kabinda pronounces this somewhat like pilibee.

[45] I think I have heard expression iko peupe, lit. a place that is white, clear, also used in the sense, “that’s clear,” or “of course.”

[46] I used the term sujet, subject or theme (of a painting), in contrast to what Kabinda calls the fond, ground or background. Notice that he uses mambo, matter(s), as a Swahili gloss for sujet.

[47] Though I make an attempt, much of the preceding is impossible to translate, in part because on the recording much of what Kabinda says remains incomprehensible and could not be transcribed. Many phrases may have made sense at the time because we had the painting he uses an illustration of his style before us. Furthermore, I don’t understand what exactly he means by kuach(i)a, to leave (something for someone);  I translated it as “I no longer do.”

[48] Here I try “disregard” for kuachia – what one has to subtract, as it were, from one style to make it the same as another: Kabinda’s is like Kanyemba’s style minus the lines that Kanyemba uses for decorating the background.

[49] What Kabinda doesn’t mind is that by training students he trains his competitors.

[50] By mistake I use the passive form, ulizaliwa, you were born.

[51] “This one” would imply that his second son was present when we talked but I have no memory of that.

[52] Kabinda says kuuza, to buy but this must be a mistake, given the context (a mistake that is made frequently, much like confusing funda and funza/fundisha, learn and teach).

[53] The French term peinture should be translated as painting, the object or the activity, but the following shows that Kabinda speaks of paint, the material.

[54]About mukanda, which is a Luba term, see the long article in Van Avemaet and Mbuya 1954:227-8.

[55] Another translation that is informed by guess work (informed by ethnography). Also, it is clear by now that mukanda means four things, at least: The institution of boys’ initiation, the rituals that go with it (such as the round-up of candidates), circumcision itself, and the hut away from the village where the boys were in seclusion.

[56] As Kabinda pronounces it (with the variations shimba, nsimba, simba), the term is the current word in Katanga Swahili for civet-cat (a loan from Luba, see Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:611), but here it means the furnace used for smelting metals, constructed in the effigy of a simba, lion (see below).

[57] Kabinda says mu kinywa, into the mouth, but that must be a slip of the tongue.

[58] I heard kimu instead of kyuma.

[59] The dictionaries translate both shoka and the French hache as axe or adze, but in current use it usually refers to hoes used in the fields.

[60] Referring to Ilona Szombati (“I. S.” below) who had joined us at this point.

[61] Phrase probably in Luba, going on the intonation.

[62] Part of this is incomprehensible on the recording and I don’t understand what tulikuyaka, lit. we used to come, means in this context. It is possible that he meant what he says in the following: kuitulya, lit. to eat from us.

[63] Throughout, nyama, can mean animal(s) or game in general as well as antelope specifically. In this context, the latter seems appropriate.