The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
REVEREND Herbert Carter of the Wesleyan Methodist Church took off from Zuzumba in the company of Philip Pile, an evangelist and teacher, on a journey undertaken on mule cart. Zuzumba then was an important Methodist outstation at a time before land alienation saw the people in the area being evicted to Tsholotsho and elsewhere. The outstation was on the western side of the Gwayi River.
The one observation that Reverend Carter noted was the place of burial for the deceased Chief Gampu — in the cattle kraal. Accordingly, we noted that within a homestead there were gendered sites which were important cultural expressions.
For men, the front part was where the cattle kraal was located. This was where men gathered at the men’s indaba, inkundla, where important matters of the household were discussed.
Women were excluded from such discussions. They were not allowed to stand in front of men. This was an expression of Ndebele patriarchy and masculinity.
The cattle byre, isibaya, was an important site where cattle were penned. Cattle were an expression of wealth, ie economic wealth and power. The site was controlled by men. Though women did own cattle, the fact that they were excluded from undertaking military raids limited the sizes of their herds.
They possessed cattle that they received when their daughters got married — inkomo yohlanga. Some charged cattle for medicinal or curative services rendered while others possessed cattle on account of their skills in making crafts. Be that as it may, cattle ear tag, uphawu, was that of the head of household — invariably a man.
Isibaya thus was an important site in a spiritual sense. The importance of pervasive spiritual power was, in those days acknowledged and appreciated. Ancestral spirits were believed to linger on around the cattle byre and women were excluded from this important spiritual site. Ancestral spirits were approached in the cattle byre and informed about pertinent issues.
A bull symbolising spirit-in-nature was considered the abode of ancestors. Thus men came to control both wealth, political and spiritual power. Words to this effect were not orally pronounced, instead, intended meanings were deduced and/or implied through cultural practices which expressed more deep-seated cosmologies.
Demonstration of a cattle byre as being infused with spiritual power took place when a bride was allowed to enter the cattle byre prior to her departure to her groom’s place. Here, her father announced to the ancestors that their daughter was leaving to get married to some named man.
A small gourd, iqobho, containing frothing medicine, isithundu, was stirred, ukuphehla, while her father made the announcement. The process is known as ukuphehlela umakoti isithundu.
Reverend Carter made another observation relating to the timing of burial The observance is still adhered to in rural areas, but has been abandoned in cities, the cemeteries for the killing and burial of African cultural practices and their philosophical support pillars.
By and large, interment at midday, ilanga ligwaze umhlaba, was avoided. This is some remnant of a strongly-held belief which was based on Africa’s intimate knowledge of astronomy.
Movement of both the sun and earth had some bearing on cultural practices. Nature was influenced by solar, planetary and lunar movements and their relative positions in the universe.
Africans are worse off today in terms of acquisition of astronomy, to a point where some will even doubt that their ancestors ever possessed such advanced scientific knowledge. Faint echoes from a distant past bear testimony to the forgotten glorious days.
“The body was wrapped in a sitting position, in blankets and karosses . . .,” observed Reverend Carter. He documented cultural practices he noted during the burial of Chief Gampu Sithole on 24 October 1916.
The burial position was an important position for the Ndebele men. It was not a burial position for women. We should not, armed with current borrowed perceptions rush to make erroneous and misplaced conclusions. Behind every cultural practice there always was some legitimating or supporting worldview.
At the highest level, there was a strong belief that life does not end with death. Instead, death was an important entry stage into the continuing or never ending cycle of life, albeit in different manifestations.
Life beyond the grave was more eternal in comparison to its ephemeral counterpart prior to death. The transition was important and was accompanied, in places such as Egypt, by colossal architectural structures known as pyramids where Pharaohs’ remains were buried. Another important stage in the enduring cycle of life was when puberty was reached.
Puberty was a biological and social stage where eternity, endlessness and continuity were attained. These were very important considerations for African people and used to underpin most of their cultural practices. For humanity to endure, biological maturity was a sine qua non.
Immature individuals were carefully preserved and protected till biological maturity was attained beyond which they too partook in the biological processes that ensured eternity, continuity and endlessness.
That all-important process is sexual reproduction which, in Africa was accompanied by elaborate puberty rituals.
For Africans, it was elevated beyond natural/biological process and reality, to the more lofty realm of the cultural. It was a stage to celebrate the new entrants’ qualification to take part in extending blood lines of humanity — ukwandisa usendo: hence the Ndebele proverb, “ukwanda kwaliwa ngumthakathi!”
While death represented transition to a new realm of existence, attainment of puberty was an important stage, but one taking place within the same realm of existence and consciousness.
It comes as no surprise therefore, that both stages were sometimes accompanied by huge architectural structures befitting these important transitional stages.
The question that might be asked at this juncture is, what are instances when puberty rites were accompanied by monumental physical structures? This column will provide answers to the question in due course.
Africans posited some relationship between life on earth and life beyond the physical/material realm — the spiritual realm. An individual’s soul was accompanied by material possessions that the individual was associated with in the physical realm where he was an entity characterised by dual components: material/physical and spiritual.
As an alert soldier, a Ndebele man had to get up quickly in readiness to fight. As a result, a Ndebele man was buried in a sitting position. It was not a new position associated with death. In life that is how a man used to sit, a position that women were not associated with.
According to Reverend Carter’s account, the body of Chief Gampu Sithole was wrapped in karosses and blankets. Karosses are animal skins. Usually, a beast was slaughtered whose meat, ingovu, was consumed outside a homestead.
In fact, the meat was not cooked but roasted on hot embers, emalahleni. Leftovers, if any, were not brought inside the homestead. Rather, they were left on forks and boughs of trees for late arrivals to help themselves to the meat.
The belief behind this cultural practice was that the cause of death for the deceased was not known. Equally, the vices he committed in life were not all known.
Just in case he had caused death and the dead person’s relatives sought revenge through ingwendela, the spell would find access to the deceased person’s relatives if the meat was taken inside the homestead. It was all about symbolic entry.
Keeping the meat outside the homestead was thus a way of symbolically keeping out the death-inflicting spell.
History tells us that bodies of Egyptian rulers were wrapped in quality linen. So it was with regard to African corpses of the Ndebele people.
Types of materials used for wrapping may have differed. There were no coffins then and skins were used to wrap corpses, ukumanqalaza.
Reverend Carter reported that both karosses and blankets were used to wrap the corpse of Chief Gampu Sithole. This may be a pointer to the fact that in addition to the traditional karosses, amaxaba or izikhumba, Western blankets made from cotton or wool were already in use.
This would have been particularly so considering that Chief Gampu Sithole had once sought refuge in South Africa among Afrikaners after he flirted with King Lobengula kaMzilikazi’s daughter, one Princess Mhlumela who was earmarked for marriage to Gasa King Mzila Nxumalo.
