The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
NAMES it would seem cover virtually all aspects of human life. They range from the natural (both terrestrial and cosmic) to the cultural worlds. In all respects, African humankind expresses her ideas, beliefs and values through names. Even God is appropriated, named and given characteristics that the particular community expresses. In the case of the Jews, we see them naming their God Yahweh and giving Him the attributes they expected. Then there were covenants between them and their God: through Abraham, Jacob and Moses. In all these covenants, possession of land was central.
In this instalment we are not interrogating how black Africa has fared in similar or comparable situations. Africa has always had a God, a God given names from languages spoken by those African communities. The characteristics have been those that were bestowed on Him by the very same communities. What sort of God would fail to express Himself through the promise of land? As already pointed out, we are not here interrogating the issue.
Today we want to take a look at names that adults acquire when they reach maturity. At birth, babies as we have always been pointing out, got names from their parents, and from grandparents or other relatives. The names, as a form of documentation, capture contemporary events within the family, community and larger society and beyond to embrace cosmic events. As the heavens continue to frown upon us, we expect that babies being born will be given names that express the weather patterns that we are experiencing at the present moment.
This is how Africa has always been handling the issue relating to names. Fanalaye is a name that I have come across several times. The name is given where the father, for some reason or other, is denying paternity. When those who see the physical features of the newly-born baby observe the well-known features, such a name may be given. Indeed, the baby looks like its father. This and several other names were in the first line of names that were given — not picked up from a common basket. Theoretically, what this translates to is that the register of names continued to expand to cater for new experiences.
At the same time there were names that shared common meanings and these would continue to be given. Fulatha or Nyovane are names that would be repeated. KoBulawayo was repeated both in Matabeleland and in KwaZulu-Natal. One KoBulawayo belonged to King Tshaka Zulu while the other belonged to King Lobengula Khumalo. Circumstances dictated the names that were given and in both instances these were the seats of power.
Enter the colonial project! Babies began to get dual names, home names and school names. The first or home names used to enjoy contextual relevance. Names in those days rendered in the language of the community. Christianity included formal educational and health institutions. Babies were baptised and given Christian names. The exotic Christian names took precedence over indigenous names. When registration of births was introduced, both names found their way into the birth certificates. However, more often than not, only the Christian names survived into the birth certificates. Teachers used those names, especially in situations where the teachers did not know the African traditional names as was the case at boarding schools.
Quite many of the acquired European, Christian or Judaic names were those of missionaries who arrived in a particular area: Possent (Catholic), Jessie (Brethren-In-Christ Church (BICC), Stikoti (BICC), Claydon (Salvation Army), Herbert (Wesleyan Methodist) etecetera. Of course there were names that were traceable to western Europe and bore no relationship to Christianity. Some were Ndebelised names of the founding missionaries such as Stikoti, from Stegwald of the BICC. What is important though is the fact that given names expressed new or acquired faith and the process and reality of Christian evangelisation and conversion lived through given names. Individuals who got the exotic names cherished these more than their African traditional names rendered in their mother tongues.
Double-barrelled names are not a phenomenon of the colonial period. Grown up men and women got names that were less revered than their birth names. These were derived, in the main, from their behaviour. My father’s paternal grandmother was named, at her tender age, Ndoshema. She was a Dube, BaTjizhubane. The story goes that she used to utter the one-word sentence, meaning “Ngiyenyanya”. I presume the lady, of the Jahunda tribe in Gwanda, was smart and disliked dirty people, in the literal but probably also in the figurative sense. The name has lived to this day whereas we no longer know her parental name.
There was another lady who was advanced in age who was Tjinjika’s mother-in-law. Her name was Ndaluza. Unfortunately, I never got to know the meaning behind her name, clearly a Kalanga one. Her daughter, Misiyapinda Dube— was Tjinjika’s youngest wife, indlu yokugulela. As per Kalanga and Birwa traditions, when Tjinjika passed on in 1927, one of his sons, actually Ndoshema’s son who was younger than my own paternal grandfather, one Masole (meaning soldiers and that tells when he was born) also known as Mabende, inherited widow Misiyapinda Dube. As per tradition, the offspring is regarded as Tjinjika’s progeny and not Masole’s, who curiously has brothers and sisters that he begets.
The man we are calling Tjinjika today and popularised through my Skyz Metro FM’s programme titled Amafa Ethu hosted by Luke Mkandla (LMK) was named Muli at birth. However, he acquired a new name in his old age. The name, like the many I have already alluded to, was rendered in TjiKalanga. It is found in ChiShona too. When I went to attend the Salvation Army’s Mazowe Secondary School in the 60s, I got to know that a cross was known as muchinjikwa in ChiShona. We learnt ChiShona from Form 1 to Form 4 and I passed with flying colours, given my flair in the languages.
Muchinjikwa, the cross, is apparently an African symbol or icon comprising four chevron units with the two pairs diagonally opposite each other. It represents eternity, continuity, endlessness and fertility as attained through sexual reproduction. It is the “crossing” that led to my father’s grandfather getting that name. We are told he was an eloquent orator who when he stood up to speak at court (enkundleni), he would speak at cross purposes to those that had already spoken ahead of him. He would, in the process, be “crossing” them and manage, effortlessly, to sway opinion in a different direction.
I have already mentioned Masole whose name captures the commencement of the colonial project. He was born when the so-called Pioneer Column entered what today is known as Zimbabwe. The white invaders were armed, they were seen as soldiers. Mabende is thus a name that was bestowed on Masole at his tender age, long after he had lost most of his teeth. Once again, the name seems to be of Kalanga origin. In iSiNdebele he would have been referred to as uZikhewu.
Then there was my mother’s uncle whose nickname was Manyenyeza, the whisperer. He was softly spoken, speaking as if whispering into people’s ears. His exotic name was Jonas. I never got to know his parental name. His elder sister, Tjililo, was my maternal grandmother whose old age name was Mashada as she was a woman of temper tantrums and would yell, “Ndoshataka!”. uZikhewu had several sons, some of whom are still alive today. The names are rather curiously interesting and will constitute the next instalment in this column.
