The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi Cultural Heritage
This week we shall deal with more milk-based traditional dishes of the Ndebele people. In an earlier article we did make reference to milk-related prohibitions and taboos, concerning in particular the womenfolk. Milk was one of the key food products from cattle. More than meat, it was used in the preparation of several dishes.Even as we narrate the story of the milk-based food dishes, we see the same taboos and prohibitions that we came across in an earlier article. Let us start with a dish called umthubi. The word thuba (verb) does carry the overtones of ‘blunting’ ‘diminishing’ ‘weakening’ and ‘sapping’. Inevitably, this will have implications on observances that come into play as the Ndebele sought to minimise or even avoid food that had the effect of minimising their ‘life force’ or potency.
When a cow has calved, its milk is never taken into the homestead. The cow, at this vulnerable stage, is called indlezane, the word similar to that used in reference to a woman, umdlezane who has just delivered a baby. It is worth noting that the two, cow and woman, are perceived in the same light and both have taboos and restrictions built around them during their ubudlezana.
Milk from indlezane cow is described as uchago olumzucwana. When the milk is boiled it curdles without sorghum meal or uphoko meal being added. When maize was introduced, mealie-meal became an alternative. That meal too was not added to umthubi. Later when ubudlezane neared the end the milk no longer produced curdles — amahlaka. At this stage it is relatively ritually pure.
We have time and again pointed out that cultural practices had some philosophical underpinnings. In other words, for each cultural action, practice or ritual there was some rationale. Keeping milk from indlezane cow away from the homestead was meant to protect the calf, so believed the Ndebele. At home the milk was likely to come into contact with menstruating women whose condition was regarded as spiritually injurious to the health of the calf. In fact, it was believed the cow would even die when milk from its mother was defiled through contact with a menstruating woman in the homestead.
This compared favourably with the seclusion of women who had just given birth. They remained in seclusion until the remaining bit of the umbilical cord fell off, ukuwa kwenkaba. The new arrival would be shown the new moon in the western sky and told, nanguya umnakwenu; there is your age mate. The age of the baby was thus intricately linked to a celestial body, the moon. Men in particular were not allowed to get into the hut of seclusion. Once again, the measure was resorted to in order to protect the newly born baby from spiritually injurious circumstances (See Nyathi 2014: The History and Culture of the Babirwa of Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe in relation to this practice among the BaKwena of Botswana).
When a cow is no longer an indlezane and its milk pure, the dish that is prepared from such milk is no longer umthubi but isathiyane. Milk from which isathiyane is prepared will not curdle even when the milk is brought to a boil. To prepare isathiyane, milk is brought to a boil, uchago seluphuphuma, sorghum meal or mealie-meal is added slowly and the mixture stirred gently with uphehlo. Low heat should be maintained to avoid the mixture being overheated with the result that the milk may have some unpleasant burning smell. Isathiyane was eaten using a wooden spoon.
Between umthubi and isathiyane there was some intermediate stage. That was the stage of a dish referred to as isathubi. The milk that goes to make isathubi is taken from indlezane cow whose milk still produces curdles when boiled — albeit fewer than in the case of indlezane proper. Because the milk does not curdle sufficiently, mealie-meal or sorghum meal is added to assist effective thickening.
The dish is consumed by the children only. The same applied to umthubi; it was a dish solely for children who consumed it at the cattle byre/pen, esibayeni. Even the clay pots and spoons used were never taken home. Like amathunga, the milk pails, these were kept on the byre palisade, embelweni.
Sometimes the lightly curdled milk was added to umcaba from boiled sorghum grain. The boiled grain was lightly crushed, ukuhadlaza, on a grinding stone, ilitshe lokucholela lembokodo. Umcaba may be added instead of sorghum meal. The mixture should not be too thick. The mixture is stirred, ukubonda. The mixture is eaten in the fashion of inhlama.
Milk was used in the preparation of certain medicines particularly during a royal ritual called umthontiso. Here it must be understood that milk used must be ritually clean. Such milk is not taken from indlezane cows. Such milk was taken from cows with old calves. Such izinkomo zethunga had to be specially monitored and looked after to ensure the milk retained its ritual purity prior and during shipment to the royal capital.
During the heyday of the Ndebele state such exclusive cows were in the custody of Sikhobokhobo Nxumalo who lived north of the royal capital of Bulawayo. Bringing the milk to the royal capital was a secretive affair as the milk was not to get into contact with people along the way. Among them there could have been women, some of whom might be menstruating. When that happened, the ritual purity of the milk was compromised.
This observance is in line with the injunction that unripened food, ukudla okuligobongo was not to be consumed. As a result, food was not consumed until it was declared suitable for human consumption. To initiate the consumption of the first fruits, the king was the first to partake of these following some ritual known as ukuchinsa which was presided over by the royal traditional doctor.
After that the rituals were repeated in all the villages where local doctors presided over the rituals. The common denominator here was that food had to be mature before it was consumed. This was true of milk and food crops from the fields. Unripened food was considered as umphunzo whose status was; so they believed, transferred to the consumer. The Ndebele of yesteryear would shudder to see people consuming six-week old chickens! They would have considered these as ‘unripened’ and not ready for consumption. Equally, genetically modified food would not have been welcome.
Let us turn to some isitshwala that was prepared from uphoko, finger millet. The Ndebele strongly believed in numerous defiling social and biological conditions. Cows that have just calved are included in this category, as do women who have just delivered abadlezane. Death was one such condition which was regarded as defiling. Those who somehow came close to the corpse or were related to the deceased were ritually purified.
A beast was slaughtered during a funeral. Usually, the skin from the beast was used to wrap the corpse of the deceased before interment. The meat, known as ingovu, was consumed outside the homestead. All the meat roasted and none of it was taken inside the home. In those days death was caused by numerous agents. Soldiers would have, in their lifetime, killed many people and it was believed the relatives of the deceased could take revenge and visit death on the relatives of the perpetrator — a condition called uzimu or ingwendela. Taking the meat into the home would symbolise the entry of retributive ritual measures with disastrous consequences.
Any meat left unconsumed was hung on trees outside the home to be consumed by relatives arriving after the burial to express their condolences. They too would partake of the meat outside the homestead. All the bones from the consumed meat were gathered together. They were later burned and ashes thrown into a river with flowing water. Remains of a beast that was used in rituals were carefully disposed of in line with the cosmology of the Ndebele and indeed, other African societies.
Our common African-ness is exhibited more at the levels of cosmology and worldview rather than at the level of cultural practices.
