THE approximately 2,000,000 Shangana-Tsonga are a Bantu-speaking people of Mozambique and the Northern Transvaal, who keep cattle, grow maize, worship ancestor spirits, and practice polygamy. The region of habitation is somewhat arid; nutrition is poor and subtropical diseases are common. Average age at death for males is considerably lower than that for females. A contributing factor to this is the system of migrant labour which, to all intents and purposes, is forced upon males in the rural locations. Men are often coerced (the alternative in Mozambique used to be unpaid road-gang work) into signing up for the Johannesburg goldmines, where work is dangerous and the accident rate high. The Shangana-Tsonga inductees have a reputation for spending longer periods underground than other tribal groups. Other Shangana-Tsonga males seeking cash to pay taxes and to cope with changing economic conditions move to sprawling urban ghettos without government passbook endorsement, where underworld homicide rates are among the highest in the world, and where white men's diseases such as tuberculosis and syphilis abound. In the rural communities, Shangana-Tsonga widows constitute almost a social class. In some areas they form ngoma secret societies and mancomane possession cults, weapons against exploitation by men. Men fear the 'alien' spirits in their midst and must placate them, a prolonged, expensive process. Music provides a particularly useful window for viewing Shangana-Tsonga practices surrounding widowhood: widows utilize a group of traditional songs for their purification and other rites. Widows' songs are considered to have supernatural power in life-cycle crises, transporting women from one social state (wife) to another (widow), and to yet another (remarriage), affirming and validating redefinition of status at each level. Widows may voice complaints in song that would otherwise have to be repressed, for fear of the social conflict and interpersonal hostility they would generate. In song, widows may vociferously deny charges of having brought about their husband's death through witchcraft. The following song-texts were recorded during a two-year stay with the ShanganaTsonga, under a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. The translations and explanations were arrived at during conferences with the singers, in situ, and with the help of university linguists.