The Sunday News
Cultural Heritage with Pathisa Nyath
CHARITY begins at home. Before I venture to unpack African communities’ ideas and mythologies concerning the sun, it is only right to begin the search at home. I will pose several questions so that my search is directed and comparative. When that is done with regard to my own people, I am in a position to compare with other communities on the African continent.
What I am saying in essence is that there is need to focus the spotlight on the Ndebele society and investigate their perceptions, ideas, knowledge and mythologies, if any, that have a bearing on the sun. What cultural fields do I visit to search for the requisite information? Is it history, language, myths, proverbs, wise sayings or even the tangible as aspects such as architecture and sculpture?
In the Ndebele language, the sun is referred to as ilanga. In some article, we did introduce preliminary ideas about the sun from a Ndebele perspective. We continue with some more ideas and thought as it will be apparent, language is an important repository of relevant ideas. We have raised this issue before.
Language communicates ideas and concets. Historical events are indelibly etched on language. At the same time, language is a repository or archive for ideas, knowledge, concepts and information from the past. Future generations rely for direction and conceptual clarification on the archive, the language archive.
Ilanga, as referring to time is an indicator of the duration between sunrise and sunset. How long has he been gone? The answer may be given in terms of “how any suns.” Emphasis is on the length of time, in units, when the sun shone. The answer could be, for example, “ulamalanga amane ehambile.” He has been gone for four days.
In the Ndebele language, some people will thus refer to length of time by referring to the units of time when the sun was visible in the sky. This is not the only way of answering the question. Ubusuku, on the other hand, carries two concets rolled in one. Some people may choose to answer the same question in time units when the sun did not shine. When the sun does not shine there is darkness, ubusuku. However, we need to differentiate between ubusuku and umnyama.
“Kumnyama khaca. Kumnyama bhuqe.” Both expressions refer to colour when the sun has set or has not risen. So used, the two refer to the absence of the sun. However, the terms may be used to where they have nothing to do with the presence or absence of the sun. They may describe tangible objects. “Inja emnyama,” a black dog. “Inkomo emnyama,” a black cow.
Some people will give the response to the question as ‘Ulensuku ezine ehambile.” He has been away four days. The Law of Opposites is being applied. Usuku is the opposite of ilanga. Both are solar conditions but differ in reference. Insuku ezine and amalanga amane express the same duration. What matters though is that the sun is the reference point as presence or absence. People make a choice between the two.
The absence or of the sun has a wide scope in human activities and animals too. There are animals, predators in particular, that hunt at night and they are provided with special eyes that see at night when there is limited or suppressed light to enable full vision. There are other animals, the Homo sapiens included, that have limited vision in the absence of light from the sun. Such animals and their human counterparts go to sleep at night. Their activities take place during daylight. Of course, now there are artificial lights that allow humans to work at night. However, their bodies require rest. The much-needed rest is premised on the presence and absence of the sun.
Witchy human beings wake up and travel at night. The question we may pose is, “Are they provided with a different visual gift to see at night?” How do they navigate their flight, for example from Mufakose Township in Harare to Mount Darwin? Surely, we need to come up with research so that it provides the much-needed answers to such a critical area. Technologies have their positive and negative sides.
To some people it may seem as if I am condoning witchcraft. The journey that I have travelled so has persuades me to differentiate between the science and craft in witchcraft, (the Ancient African Science, AAS) as a neutral field of study. The science and craft differ from the dual practices of witchcraft and the work of traditional doctors. Both professions draw from the same Laws and Principles resident in AAS. The two professions are applied AAS. This is the challenge that I will be facing when, hopefully next year, I seek to unpack the AAS.
We got this far in an effort to unpack ideas, beliefs and myths that pertain to the sun. The witches that we are referring to, travel or rather fly at night. When the sun sets, it facilitates their airborne mobility. The stories that emerge from the sun are many and varied. In the Ndebele language, one may be described as being beautiful like the sun. This perceived beauty relates to the position of the sun in the firmament. In the morning when it rises, it greets human beings with beauty and loveliness.
In the evening, it gives them the good-bye kisses and is at best in terms of beauty. Perhaps it seeks us to desire and cherish its company the following morning. “Muhle njengelanga.” She is as beautiful as the sun. Actually, it is the setting sun. Beauty is more associated with the womenfolk than their male counterparts are. A he-goat smells foul, that is natural. Men are generally the same. Let us remember that it was women before colonization who knew what plants to use in the process known as ukuqhola, getting rid of foul ordours, uhlofu. The three most commonly used plants that women used were ubande, imadlana and inkiza. The plants, in powdered form, were used as talc.
What is actually happening is that the sun is least hot during the two times of the day. The different times and the levels of heat render appropriate language and description. Beauty is associated with both sunrise and near sunset. The sun is not that hot. It is toned down and its perfect circularity is readily observable. Our African eyes as Africans were conditioned to perceive beauty in a circular design. A rounded woman is to the Ndebele men beautiful, well formed, igcwalaguma (big, rounded and filling up a big forecourt) with a rounded waist.
Cosmic design is our design of choice. It is the design that our ancestors envied for what it expressed eternity, perpetuity, continuity and endlessness. A circle, in one respect has no end and no beginning. That translates to eternity. Besides, the sun has been around long before the advent of humans as residents on Mother Earth. That common adage, “As above, so below,” applied when Africans envied and sought to acquire for themselves the eternity that they see in the sun, indeed in other cosmic bodies. The cosmos is beautifully enchanting. Its component parts move around and do so with regularity and predictability.
No wonder therefore, ancient Africans sought to replicate the cosmic traits on the earth’s cultural plane. What they managed was to adopt the circular design in particular and its variations such as the chevron, the dentelle, the spiral and the whorl. Their embellishments assumed these beautiful designs on beautiful designs. African artifacts and other objects already exhibited circularity, meaning they were already beautiful. A clay pot is beautiful even without embellishment. When it is decorated, this is beauty on beauty. On them circular designs were posted. It was reiteration and replication of the same ideas pertaining to aesthetics. The sun was captured and painted, drawn, etched and then given some pride of place on the cultural artifacts that ancient Africans fashioned.
Their architecture equally reflected and represented the sun, as did their performances. Where they did not succeed was in replicating themselves in ways other than through sexuality. Even on that front, the cosmos was emulated. The evolution of pregnancy was perceived as tied to the waxing of the moon. The cosmos is everywhere in us and around us.
The beauty of the sun started earlier than when it was setting. Language demonstrates that. “Selibantu bahle,” is an expression used when humans take on some rare beauty when the sun is progressing towards sunset. At that time, people look beautiful. That could be because of less intensity of the sun, allowing people to see more clearly in the absence of glare. Body surfaces are themselves clearer.
African sculptures, whether on stone or wood, were finely polished to produce a smooth surface. That was one component in African elements of aesthetics. For example, a maid about to get married had egg white applied on her face so that when her face was embellished, ukulotshwa, hence umlobokazi, the designs would stand out and reflect light uniformly. This is not possible where the surface is uneven as light is reflected irregularly.
Once again, we are conditioned to the beauty of cosmic bodies. When African art was contrasted with European art, it was observed to be geometric. That characteristic was informed by cosmic design. At the cultural level, we encounter several examples of the heavenly design: curviliarity, circularity, the dentelle, spiral, whorl, and the triangle and chevron pattern.
Around us, on the cultural plane, and in us, in the natural plane, we see the cosmos, from performances to artifacts and from our cylindrical bones (cylindrical is circular) to our circular eyeballs. That is the power of the cosmos that has underpinned and informed our ideas regarding beauty, aesthetics and eternity.
