The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
FOR a people who are orally literate naming and names provide an opportunity for a commentary on historical, social, cultural and political matters.
It is for this reason that we have said names are a form of documentation and social and political commentary and critique of society. Parents have the latitude and freedom to comment freely on family, local and national issues.
Within a family, in normal circumstances, there are boys and girls. But this is not always the case and when such occurrences do take place, parents do make an appropriate comment.
We shall consider two names in the TjiKalanga language to demonstrate what we are here referring to. Both names are drawn from the BaPedi section of the BaKalanga.
The BaPedi, who descended from the BaKgatla, are mostly found in South Africa. It is, however, known that they were of Kalanga origins before they became Sothoised.
The same is true of their kinsmen the Babirwa found in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
When Mfecane broke out in KwaZulu-Natal news filtered north where communities resident in those areas felt insecure and sought security by migrating further north with some settling among the BaKalanga and BaLozwi.
This was true of the BaPedi who belonged to three houses or sections: Ngwadi, Malobela and Tjilalu.
The Babirwa, under the leadership of Daueatsoala and Makhura, did the same. Both communities migrated north and in the process, were moving into the Kalanga-speaking areas. They thus recaptured their lost Kalanga identity. It was, however, less so for the Babirwa who migrated in large numbers and managed to retain their cultural identity including their language and cultural practices (see The History and Culture of the Babirwa People of Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe by Pathisa Nyathi).
The BaPedi in present day Zimbabwe and Botswana recaptured their erstwhile language TjiKalanga and the two names that we are citing in this article should be viewed against that backdrop. Both names belong to the Khupes who are the BaPedi who have since re-assumed Kalanga identity.
The first name is Malimbemalimbe. It is a name that is found in Fancistown’s Area W, as the name of a road. It should be realised that the Central District of Botswana is dominated by the BaKalanga and to a lesser extent by the Babirwa in areas such as Mathathane, Tsetsejwi, Molalatau, Mabolwe, Gobajangu, Semolale and Motlabaning.
In relation to our theme on names, Malimbemalimbe is a name that was given to a son who was fifth among the siblings. There were no girls among the five siblings. Giving the name to the fifth son was appropriate in the community’s circumstances for more reasons than one.
The mother missed the company of one like her — a girl to assist her in the household chores that were gender-based such as fetching firewood, drawing water, preparing food, washing dishes and preparing hut floors and walls.
Boys, on the other hand, assisted their father in looking after cattle and goats and belonging to age sets that underwent circumcision and performed military duties. Men worked wood and metal while women worked clay and grass.
A family of all male siblings is an incomplete one. It is one with a weak link. It was incomplete in the sense that it lacked a “female father,” malume (ma-female/mother, lume-lume-male/man).
To the children of the five sons, they missed the person of a female father, aunt in English. She was the approachable father and the conduit and link to the male father. She was the woman that the five sons swear by.
Girls and women were considered a source of wealth to the family. In exogamous families they were married by men from outside the clan who paid lobola (amalobolo) to the daughters’ father. Amalobolo came in the form of cattle which were a source of food, political and economic power.
Daughters could thus ensure, upon marriage, that their fathers gained political influence and could, through that route, become chiefs or even kings.
Daughters brought wealth to the family along with attendant trappings.
On the other hand, male children were not in a similar position. If anything, they depleted a family’s wealth. Grown up boys, upon getting married, paid amalobolo. That was wealth being siphoned out of the family. In order to avoid this siphoning out of wealth, the BaSotho and Babirwa instituted cross cousin marriages to retain wealth within a family.
The second name is that of a better known man who worked for the Zimbabwe African People’s Union(Zapu) in Zambia. He was Desire Khupe who was outside the Zapu offices in Lusaka in 1977 when Jason Ziyapapa Moyo was killed by a letter bomb that exploded when he opened it. He is said to have been just outside the office playing cards with a colleague (Sikhwili Moyo) when the incident took place. His Kalanga name was Tjihubotjemakole, a desire for many years.
The family had girls only for a long time. The desire for the family had been to have a boy, a companion for the father who the girls’ daughters were going to regard as their male mother (malume, ma-mother; lume-male). In essence therefore, and in accordance with African perceptions, he was a mother, albeit a male one.
Among the Ndebele where girls were born in succession the appropriate name was Ntombizodwa, meaning “all girls” and, literally, girls alone. The opposite was where there were boys on their own. In that particular case an appropriate name was Majaheni or Majahawodwa, meaning all boys or boys on their own.
There were instances when families went for long periods without children. Sometimes gynaecological interventions by traditional doctors were sought. When a child was born after the long wait he/she was named, among the BaKalanga, Tjatawana. It was a name referring to what the family had got, a gift as it were.
A scrutiny of names in given families will reveal quite a bit about the family and its environment. Struggles to get children are captured in names. Gynaecological interventions are equally captured in names and, in this particular case, the names of the traditional doctors who intervened to manipulate and effect fertility.
The broad environment, both animate, inanimate, cultural and social, provided names to suit the circumstances surrounding a child’s birth. One does not need to be literate to document what is taking place around them. Memorialisation is taken care of by immortalising names of iconic individuals, events, disasters.
History, traditions, geography and health issues are among the myriad of environmental issues that endure through names.
