This is one of those amazing, and amazingly off-the-wall, tunes you come across on Lovefingers’ blog –

Exuma - Dambala

From 1970, it’s a psychedelic, half-chanted song to Dambala, a voodoo lwa –

There are also certain lwa who are mute, who never speak under any circumstances. One such lwa, in the Rada group, is Dambala. Dambala is a serpent, and as such he does not speak. A person possessed by Dambala immediately falls to the ground and crawls, like a snake. The possessed person may climb trees, or the centerpost of the peristyle, without using their hands, because a snake does not have hands. Like a snake, too, Dambala will eat a raw egg, and sip milk.

Check out these lyrics:

You slavers will know
What it’s like to be a slave
Slave to your mind
Slave to your race
You won’t go to heaven
You won’t go to hell
You remain in your graves
With the stench and the smell
Oh Dambala come Dambala
Oh Dambala come Dambala

Here’s a good write-up on Exuma’s career. Amazingly, Nina Simone covered ‘Dambala’, it seems, on her 1974 LP, ‘It Is Finished’.

I’ve got to get hold of Exuma’s first two albums, I’d say they’re great (if terrifying).

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