The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
REVEREND Doctor Robert Moffat had the opportunity to witness King Mzilikazi Khumalo and his people engaged in dance and music. “I walked up to the village in the afternoon, and found Moselekatse dancing lustily with his men and women. In some of their dances they jump as high as ever can, keeping time with music, which has one character, short-sounded with very few words.
“. . . Each one is furnished with a stick in the hand, with which they point in all directions and manoeuvre as if they had lost part of their senses. The women make all kinds of gestures with their bodies, but scarcely ever jump like the men. I could not please his vanity, of which he bears an immense pleasure (Moffat, p95).” Writing in privacy away from the prying eyes of the king, whom he pretended to love, brought out his true inner self.
He saw vanity in the monarch whom he went to describe as follows, “How miserably wretched is the state of the heathen! The standard of their justice rests chiefly in superstitions and the punishment is generally brutally unjust. The fate of thousands depends entirely on the caprice of one man drunk with feathery titles and self esteem (Op cit p 94).’’ These are opinions based on racial arrogance born of perceived superiority. How naïve it would be to think humankind has transcended such primitive notions about people not exactly like them.
Be that as it may, there are observations that he made which are fairly accurate and do illuminate, not only the cultural practices of the Ndebele people, but point to the all embracing Afrocentric cosmologies of Africans. The one thing he observed was that men jumped high, as high as they could. This, he further observed, contrasted sharply with the behaviour of women. The Reverend Paul Bayethe Damasane has eloquently elaborated on the difference between men and women, not just among the traditional Ndebele, but in the Nguni people in general.
Writing some academic section on izibongo, izangelo and izithakazelo in a book titled, “Izibongo Lezangelo ZaMaNdebele KaMzilikazi’’ (Nyathi 2000), he brings out the expected conduct of women including their cherished physical attributes. While beauty and patience may be desired attributes this is not expected of men. Their attributes were to do more with military prowess than meekness associated with women.
This is where totemic renditions bring out these attributes which society cherishes and wants preserved and eulogised. Izangelo thus become a way that artistically preserves and passes down to future generations important societal values, bring out the differences between males and the female counterparts. Wars in the Nguni military were the preserve of men in which women were excluded. Coming back from a successful raid, men performed their exploits before their king, in what was known as ukugiya.
The muchongoyo dance of the Ndau brings out the essence of this ukugiya though somewhat modified to give space to women within the context of the Ndau people (see Nyathi, 2017). The muchongoyo dance runs this year and next year under Jikinya Traditional Dance competitions run by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) and sponsored by Delta Beverages. While men jumped as high as they could, women, in contrast, did not project martial arts associated with men.
Reverend Moffat accurately observed that dancers were equipped with sticks with which they pointed in all directions during the course of their dancing. The stick is not a war weapon, thus both men and women used sticks when they danced. Sometimes women held brooms called indabula. To dance with one’s hands not holding a stick was never done. This was said to be comparable with one who dressed up but failed to have something on the ankle. One was described as, “akagqize qakala.” Pictures of both King Mzilikazi Khumalo and his successor King Lobengula reveal that indeed both men donned some anklets, amaqakala. In the case of the latter, it was an iron anklet. The mode of dress where iqakala was included applied to women too. One visitor to Amagugu International Heritage Centre recently remarked that what the Ndebele people refer to as inqagala is called iqakala by the Zulu.
Reverend Moffat observed as one of the characteristics of Ndebele music repetition. This was not just true of Ndebele people, but indeed Africans in general. This repetition is not an African invention. Africans were taught these cosmic lessons by the greatest teacher of them all — nature. The night sky, for example, is a chalk board where attributes of the universe are posted. Africans observed and sought to repeat on earth what they observed in the heavens: as above, so below. Let thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
The other words for this repetition as found in artistic renditions is rhythm, seasonality, periodicity and predictability. The lunar cycle is repetition.
Day and night is repletion. Walking is repetition. Sleeping and waking is repetition. Blinking is repetition. Occurrence of seasons in repetition. All these are instances where repetition is found in nature. As a result, Africans, desirous to replicate the heavens on earth, introduced repetition in their dances, singing, architecture, sculpture, embellishment of various artefacts and decorative icons such as the chevron — as found at the National Heroes Acre, Khami Monument, Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Bird, baskets, reed mats, leather skirts, headrests and clay pots.
Repetition is in the music and dancing “keeps time” with music as Reverend Moffat described the phenomenon. Music and dance are thus cosmic realities brought down to the cultural level. Artistic expressions are thus cosmic expressions. Culture which is in resonance with nature is culture at peace. It is sustainable culture. In any case, just what choice does man have? Wherever and whenever he goes against nature the repercussions are ominous and disastrous. When culture is in conflict with angered nature, the former is no match. Hell has no fury more furious that Mother Earth scorned.
When the ozone layer is irreversibly perforated the resulting global warming will defy all human wisdom and intervention. It will mark doom, doom that shall, in the final analysis, result in environmental regeneration or rebirth, but sadly minus human beings. Nature has the ability to heal itself, a painful process for humans who think technology is the magic wand that can tame nature. Did the London Missionary Society (LMS) cleric appreciate how the Ndebele people, in their perceived primitivity, sought to live in harmony with nature?
Finally, the Reverend Paul Bayethe Damasane, in the book cited above, observed that Nguni people did not, as a general rule, shake hands as a form of showing warmth and respect. Their hands were clutching sticks, sometimes knobkerrie, spears and shields. There were no free hands. Instead, words that exuded, from their lips, izibongo, izangelo and izithakazelo, did what in other societies was achieved through kissing and handshaking.
