Chronicle Editor
Pathisa Nyathi
“IN the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit . . . Amen!”
This is the time of year when we remember and celebrate women.
From the above excerpt, given above, under a very solemn and prayerful mood, the woman is missing. One would have expected to hear mention and eulogising of mother and daughter.
Just how was the Son born without woman?
However, a woman is not entirely missing.
The priest who utters the prayerful incantation is dressed in a gown very much akin to the dresses donned by the missing woman.
But why? We turn to Africa to see how ancient Africans perceived woman in contrast to the present African who forgets the critical roles played by our grandmothers, mothers, aunts and sisters.
Spirituality is an important source for our critical ideas, culture, worldview and perceptions.
What are we to learn from Africans, prior to the introduction of exotic book religions and colonialism? Where are we to search? If you watch, the video where David Icke interviews Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa you will glean something regarding the power and influence of women.
He cites two nations within which women engineered the deaths of powerful men.
The two nations in question were the Ndebele and the Zulu in which Princess Zinkabi Khumalo, a daughter of King Mzilikazi, and wife of Chief Mbiko kaMadlenya Masuku pushed her husband into a bitter and bloody conflict in the 1872 civil war sparked by the disputed ascent of Prince Lobengula to the Ndebele royal throne in 1870.
The other nation, that of the Zulus, witnessed the assassination of King Tshaka Zulu which was plotted and engineered by two women, Princess Mkabayi okaJama and her sister.
Princes Dingane and Mhlangana, on the instigation of two women, murdered King Tshaka in 1828.
These days I receive calls from various parts of the world where researchers are revisiting the role of Queen Lozikeyi Dlodlo during the period following the King’s escape across the Zambezi River to seek refuge among the Angoni of Chief Mphezeni.
Some even want to shoot a video on the famous Ndebele Queen.
There is a well-known African Queen by the name of Sheba or Saba.
She ruled her people in present day Ethiopia.
Her followers had no qualms being led by women.
That was the time of African matriarchy, when women were political rulers.
Many may know the history of the fall of women from their lofty positions of rulership.
Exotic book religions changed their status and to this day, the women are yet to become priests in some of the religious movements.
This situation contrasts markedly with that obtaining in African spirituality.
Women became clairvoyants, shamans or izangoma/izanuse.
Like men, they went through the processes of spiritual initiation, graduated and became practicing spiritualists, traditional healers, prophets (izanuse) and herbalists.
They were/are not discriminated against within the spiritual arena. Of course, there were times when they did not practice their profession because of their menstrual cycles.
Nearer home, we see come across women in total control of the rain shrines such as Njelele and its subsidiaries where amawosana call the tune.
It is women clad in black and or blue attire who officiate at the rain shrines and constitute a network that used to cover Zimbabwe and beyond.
Where a man was an iwosana, it was because he was a medium/host for a female spirit. In the absence of rain there is no life, there are no flora and fauna.
Women were thus recognised for the critical roles that they played in giving life to the creatures on earth.
Amawosana worked under a rain Goddess, Mwali or Mogale the Virgin Goddess of the World.
The African Madonna is understood in this context.
I have argued that women are more closely connected to nature than men are.
“Mens” is a Latin word for the moon, hence menstruation.
In various communities including those outside of the African continent recognised the link between the menstrual cycle of a woman and that of the moon.
There is no doubt that women played a bigger role when it came to ensuring the continuity of the human species.
A fertilised egg grew and developed within her body. She nourished the growing zygote and foetus.
Her body is adapted to fulfil all the necessary life processes.
Even beyond birth after nine months, it was woman who breast-fed the baby and later, after weaning it off, who continued to fend for the child.
The role of the females is best demonstrated by the female insects, which, after mating, turn around and devour the male partner.
The praying mantis and some species of spiders are examples in this regard.
In matters of fertility, males and females are not equal partners, one is more equal than the other.
We can also turn to the decorative motifs or icons to glean some echoes from the past when women wielded power and influence.
We are here referring to icons such as circles, chevrons, herringbone, dentelle that are informed by woman and her role in fertility.
At the same time, the icons project or express aesthetics while at the same time pointing to the critical roles played by the womenfolk.
The icons at the Great Zimbabwe monument, outside of the Conical Tower (a representation of the male sex organs-phalli) all give credence to women whose influence and roles are immortalised in the symbols from a distant past.
Let me hasten to say power does not have to be displayed in the public arena, the political spaces for it to be recognised as such.
In the case of the Ndebele, women were not allowed to attend court and stand in front of men.
Power may be wielded via the private domain/arena and result in actions engineered by the hidden and imperceptible power brokers.
The Ndebele say, “Umfazi kalankosi.”
A woman has no king.
She knows well how to manipulate men so that they dance to their tune.
If modern women do not know that, then it is their problem.
They possess power, which they can wield outside of public spaces and ensure their agendas are taken on board by the public purveyors of power — with women pulling the strings.
History political language and parlance, orality, spirituality, iconography, African thought are some of the sources that we may turn to in order to glean the statuses of women in ancient times and even in the present.
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