Behind the names

Names carry memories, stories, identity and the history of a place. Sometimes when we are not able to speak of certain anger, a disappointment or even love, we transmit the feelings through the processes of naming a child.
Back in 1924, my grandmother Mbuya VaMandi-rowesa declared to my grandfather Sekuru Dickson that she would only allow him to take a second wife when she was ready. Even if he was to beg her with one or two cows, she would still not allow him to take another wife until such time that she needed help with wifely duties.
Because she was the first wife, a second wife would only come with her permission. That is how polygamy worked and Sekuru should have known that.
But Sekuru went ahead and married a second wife. He did not stop there. When Isaya (the lazy man with beautiful daughters) offered Sekuru one of his daughters as second wife in exchange for several bags of sorghum and some cattle, Sekuru took the offer.
Sekuru called the young woman Gwayana, the lamb because she was soft, gentle and beautiful.
Again, he simply brought Gwayana into the village compound without asking for Mbuya’s permission.
Mbuya took offence and said she was not ready for the two women because she was still of child-bearing age and quite capable of providing for Sekuru’s needs. 
In 1934, Mbuya had a baby girl and named her Muchademba meaning, “you shall regret”.
This was a message to Sekuru’s wives, warning them of the perils they were going to endure under Mbuya’s reign as senior wife. Sadly, Muchademba died when she was about 15-years-old.
Many years later, everyone in the village was told of Muchademba’s painful death from poisoned food.
They said one of Sekuru’s wives killed Muchademba out of jealous and spite.
There is no known grave or picture of Muchademba. In the end, the death of Muchademba caused regret and pain to everyone in the village and perhaps, a sense of relief to the witch. Up to this day, we still remember the name Muchademba and the events that led to her death. 
Mbuya was not alone in giving her daughter a name with messages and meaning. In our compound alone, there were names like Chandisaita, meaning what did I not do for you? Muchaneta, you will tire of what you are doing, Tichapondwa, we shall be murdered, Ndakaziva, I wish I had known. Chaipachii, what is the matter now? 
Each name had a story to tell. When Mazhanga finished his job as a District Native Assistant, they gave him a pension. That year his daughter was born and he called her Pension.
Meanwhile, at the boarding schools, missionaries all over Rhodesia were fighting the battle to change the African Shona names into good English Christian ones.
They said the Shona names were not only primitive; they were linked to ungodly ancestors. The missionaries eagerly waited for some of us who left the village and came to their Methodist boarding schools in search of education, civilisation and English.
When I entered the Methodist boarding school, the name Sekesayi did not come with me. It stayed back there in the village. I was called Sekesayi, meaning laugh or mock as much as you like.
This was in reference to my mother’s inability to provide me with a proper baby blanket when I was born. I was child number six and all the hand-me-down baby clothes were worn out. She improvised by cutting pieces of cream cloths from her petticoat, mudhongi and sewed them together with sackcloth. People laughed. But my mother, said you can laugh as much as you like, sekesayi.
My name was linked to a period of poverty. How could such a name enter a civilised place like the Methodist mission? To avoid embarrassment, I was not going to tell that story to anyone at school. Already, I carried the stigma of having grown up in a big village compound while some of the girls at the school were daughters of business men, hospital orderlies and fathers who worked in Salisbury.
These girls from Salisbury carried nice names like Pretty, Joyce, Marvellous Jacqueline, Immaculate, Cresenzia, Plaxedes, Beauty, Gemma, Priscilla, Mercy, Agnes, Patience, Locardia, Viola, Beatrice, Gaudencia, Evernice and many others. Most of the girls came from Salisbury, the big city where I had never been but and hoped to go one day. The girls with nice names also attracted boys with names like Simon, Robert, Peter, Paul, James, Noah, Zachariah, Sydney, Charles, Elijah, Paget, Anderson, Shelton, Hosiah and others.
I was Christened Irene and that seemed to fit in well with others on this road to “civilisation”.
When the liberation war came, it brought along with it the glorification of African names. We slowly started to accept the Shona names. The liberation fighters, macomrades, had war names that inspired them to fight the Rhodesian military forces.
I recall that in December 1978, a liberation fighter called Edzai Hondo translated, Try the War, arrived one night with a younger guy called Ken. They moved in clandestinely as guerrillas did but sometimes they stayed in my sister’s house at Chisangano School.
In those days, my sister Munyengetero was a teacher and my other younger sister and I lived with her. The war was at its peak all around the country including Hwedza, Chikomba and all the way to Buhera.
Edzai was a very tall and light-skinned man with small black freckles. He spoke with a Manyika accent, meaning he was from somewhere in the Eastern Highlands. One morning, he stood on top of the rock that was just behind my sister’s house. His bags, guns and some pamphlets were all stored under my sister’s bed.
Standing tall, with his back to us, Edzai pointed to the Hwedza mountain ranges and said they reminded him of his home village in Nyanga, “Zimbabwe is beautiful,” he said. Edzai wore a big hat written, “Kufa kana kurarama, tinofira Zimbabwe, to live or to die, we die for Zimbabwe.” Edzai then turned to me and my older sister and asked us if we had ever been to Nyanga.
We said no, but we had heard about the place because our cousin Erica was married to a certain Teacher Saruchera somewhere near a mission called St Mary’s. 
We had also heard that over there, in this far away place called Nyanga there was a chief Tangwena who was giving the Rhodesian government a lot of grief by refusing to move from his ancestral land. Edzai then told us that Nyanga was so beautiful. “White people call it the Scotland of Rhodesia,” Edzai said.
I remember that he then spent the day sleeping inside the house and late at night, he took all his bags and guns then left, accompanied by Ken.
Three days later, we saw Rhodesian soldiers’ helicopters flying over the Homa Mountains, near the village where General Solomon Mujuru came from. There was an ambush and news came later that Edzai had died there. Ken was captured and they brought him to Chisangano tied up in a sack.
He was presented to us as the “terrorist” they had captured. The white soldier asked us if we knew him. We all looked at each other and all the 200 or so children said, no, we had never seen this guy before.
Yet we all knew that his name was Ken. Then the soldiers showed us Edzai’s hat. A bullet had gone through the words, “kufa kana kurarama tinofira Zimbabwe”.
There were tears in my sister’s eyes. They took the headmaster and sabhuku away. We heard that Ken was killed later on and the headmaster released.
If you go to Chinyamungororo Heroes’s Acre today, the people from Nyemba, Bhunga and Bhunu villages will tell you how Edzai Hondo died there. We never knew his real name but his name has remained in our memory, as the guy who tried the war and died for the country. Edzai Hondo.
Those who stayed in the village and did not go to war or boarding school, also wanted English names that meant something. Out came more names like Beauty, Happy, and Gladness, Clever, Tears, Polite and others.  
My best village friend Beatrice called her children: Marian, Evelyn, Carryon, Purity, Patience, Courage and Motion. You can always tell that the child was born when the couple was very much in love or perhaps, when they longed to be in love because there are love names like Kissmore, Lovejoy, Lovegod and Lovemore.
For those betrayed by lovers, they send a message to the former lover by calling the child No Matter, Never, Punishment, Mistake or Tragedy. As a way of self-encouragement, a child could also be called Painfree or Standwell, meaning you are perfectly alright to weather the storm and stand well.
At the farms, the white farmer was not worried about making the names Christian. All he wanted were simple names to pronounce. If, for example, your name was Muzvondiwa, you soon became Sixpence or Tickey. A name like Banda became Banderson, just to make it longer. Jack was Jackson. There were some first names ending with “son” or “well”, like Fackson, Facewell, Yellowson, Hopewell and Forbsen.
Today the names on farms have not changed much.
Some of the names had their origins in the white master’s kitchen when utensils were adopted as surnames.
These include Sizasi, for scissors, Sipunu for spoon, Forogo, for fork, Dezeti for desert, and even Tiki for tickey, Penzura for pencil, Retisi for lettuce. 
Recently, I was at a farm outside Chegutu and the farm workers were all lined up for their monthly payment.
Some of them have been at this farm for generations.  
The list was long and each name had a history to tell.
In line were Jimitira Mutendere, Tawana Cement, Jane Ford, Tinaye Morestaff, Tapiwa Round, Jackson Mabhurukwa, London Phiri, Jupiter Eclipse, Driver Mistake, Limited Sikala, Boniface Saizi, Hapanyengwi Sitima, Mistake Zulu, Roadsign Chivake, Driver Simpson, and Gasfill Gonyeti.
Some of the names at the farms came from events within the county or internationally. Around the country, there are names like Elections, often pronounced with an “r” because we do not have “l” in the Shona language.
Others include Run-off, Candidate, Senator, Independent, Commission, Foreign Observer, Saddack (for Sadc), Saddam, Gaddafi, Necktoneck, Heavyweight, Percentage, Major, Kennel, Meticulous, Eclipse, Commonwealth, Bulger, Protein, Jazeera and many others.
Gone are the names with strong messages of spite or anger like Muchademba, Marwei, Muzvondiwa or Muchaneta. After independence, we captured the joy of freedom and named our children positive names like Tatenda meaning we are grateful, Tafadzwa, we are pleased and Mufaro, happiness. There are many like Tapiwa, Tarumbidzwa, Tanyaradzwa, Tadiwa, Mudiwa, Tasimba and others. We have also included the religious Shona names and added Rutendo, Grace and Blessing.
Christianisation and colonisation took away some of that village sense of cultural pride when we readily adopted English names. At one time, some of us tried hard to forget that our names are interwoven with our belief systems and cultural ritual practices.
Although some of the names, when translated into English, can be funny and humorous, they still help us to remember unusual circumstances in the family or in the whole community. Indeed, personal names have cultural, spiritual, political or historical meanings.
Our names tell stories about where we have been and perhaps, what we hope to be. 
A name has a role in giving us a sense of cultural pride and identity while placing us back to the history and experiences of our ancestors.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic. She holds a PhD in International Relations and is a consultant and director of The Simukai Development Project.