The Sunday News
Cultural Heritage
FROM a rock overhang on Malitikwe Mountain near Dombodema there precariously hangs the enigmatic Njenjema. Njenjema is in charge of a small rain shrine (daka) known as Zondani not far from Tokwana School in Bulilima District. Zondani rain shrine later relocated to Manyangwa at the time when Njenjema was still spiritually operational.
Njenjema features prominently during the 1896 Imfazo I. During the campaign that some people refer to as uMvukela, the Ndebele rose against white rule. Many whites were killed in the process, particularly those living in the remote rural districts. Others managed to construct defensive forts within which the beleaguered whites sought protection.
There were however some blacks who went out of their way to save the lives of some whites from certain demise. It was mostly the missionaries who were saved in this manner. Soluswe Ndlovu saved the Seventh Day Adventist Church whites at Solusi Mission during the same military campaign by the Ndebele.
At Dombodema there was the London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary Reverend George Harvey Cullen Reed who was saved by Njenjema, the man who subscribed to a religious belief diametrically opposed to that of Reverend Reed’s. Njenjema concealed Reverend Reed within the Luswingo ruins near Malitikwe Mountain, just west of Tokwana Primary School.
Njenjema was a powerful wosana, the son of a Venda woman, one BaSabhaswi. We tell his story because he was chosen by Mwali (wakasungwa naMwali) to be a wosana who had powers to induce rain to fall. His choice by Mwali manifested itself when Njenjema lived as a refugee at Dokonobe at the confluence of the Gwayi and Khami rivers.
Their refugee status came about following the advent of Zwangendaba’s Swazi people (maswimbolume) people. Prior to the arrival of the Swazi, a decade before King Mzilikazi’s people arrived Njenjema and his relatives lived between Tegwane River (Netru) and Zwenshambe River in Botswana. Going further north was in order to escape the raiding Swazi warriors.
After the arrival of the Ndebele the BaKalanga people who had deserted their original homes in fear of the Swazi were asked to go back to their original homes. Njenjema and his relatives returned, after two years of absence, to live where today there is the Dombodema Resettlement Scheme. At the new place he continued to get into spiritual trances during which he performed the spiritual acrobatics such as hanging from a rock boulder and climbing up tree trunks.
His childhood name was Mbengwa Tjabulula Nleya. His mother BaSabhaswi was linked to the Malaba people, more specifically the Lubimbi section of the Malabas who are associated with the rain shrines (madaka). This is the house that is associated with Mwali as opposed to Hobodo, the section of the Malabas that has a medicinal role.
Njenjema was possessed by a rain spirit from his maternal uncles. The term “sungwa” is applied because when the medium is possessed he/she folds up his/her body. The medium will fold his/her legs while the hands are clasped around the folded legs. In that form the medium may roll on the ground or go up a tree.
The campaign against the leaders of Imfazo I saw seven Bango and Malaba men being shot at Njelele. The whites believed the Njelele shrine instigated and, through its network of wosana, coordinated the war effort. The seven men were shot in cold blood. The two scouts Armstrong and Burnham were responsible for the heinous act.
Njenjema on his part was arrested and detained in Plumtree. The colonial authorities had meanwhile organised a group of three or four persons to go and rescue Reverend Reed. The men took with them a spare horse which was meant for use by Reverend Reed who was accordingly brought to safety in Bulawayo.
Out of gratitude Reverend Reed pleaded with the whites to release Njenjema. “He is a man of God,” pleaded the Reverend. Indeed, the colonial authorities heeded Reverend Reed’s pleas. Njenjema’s son Tabona was Bulawayo’s first executive mayor Abel Tabona Siwela’s father. The man who had become a powerful wosana said, “Ndoswika ndinjenjemela banhu kanyi (Interview with Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu 3rd May 2014 Bulawayo).”
The name of these rain mediums is worth considering more closely. Their name is akin to wosana in the Biblical world of the Jews. Further, Mwali is approached from a mountain, again something that was the case with the Jewish God.
Besides causing rain to fall, Mwali had other functions. A story is told of a Dube man who is thought to be actually a Masuku who fled the war on Zwangendaba in the Ndebele civil war of 1871/72. The man sought refuge among the BaKalanga and was later to revert to his true Masuku identity when the security situation had normalised after occupation.
Dube-Masuku was worried that all his three or four children were female. “Who is going to look after me in my advanced age?” he asked. He then approached Mwali for assistance. Indeed, after Mwali’s spiritual intervention the next child to be born was a boy. The boy was appropriately named Malebeswa, the truth. It was true that Mwali had positively intervened.
This installation has introduced the wosana spirit mediums who performed dances that were associated with rain. Next week we turn to the song and dance of wosana.
