The song they call “Nyamaropa” (Meat comes from blood) relates to the mubvamaropa tree that we use to make mbira. Yes, it relates to the mubvamaropa tree. In discussing this, there are multiple meanings. The mubvamaropa fits into “Nyamaropa,” and the concept of meat coming from blood also fits into “Nyamaropa.” Because meat coming from blood, if we are looking for meat coming from blood, we are practicing the hunt. We are seeking out an animal with blood running in its veins, so that we might kill it.
So the elders of long ago didn’t practice the way things are being done today, when if you decide to go hunt animals, you will finish them all off in a single day. No. They used to schedule certain days to go and hunt. They called it charara. When they said, “We are going to charara,” meaning, “We are going to go and sleep over out in the forest.” They would spend a week there, hunting. They would return, and that is it. They would stay for some time without going back again, saying, “Let the animals bear young, and multiply.” Now today, we are saying those animals shouldn’t bear young, they shouldn’t do anything, we simply want to kill them off. Where shall we find any others, after that?