Chronicle Editor
OVER several decades, I have written about numerous cultural practices. Emphasis was on the practices and I did not see beyond these. However, over time I began to see beyond cultural practices and sought to identify underpinning and informing beliefs, worldview, cosmology, perceptions and philosophy. I arrived at the conclusion that people act or behave, as they believe.
Cultural practices are underpinned by something more fundamental and essential.
It was then that I began to appreciate African cultural practices beyond the material, the physical and the tangible. It dawned on me that to fully appreciate and understand African cultural practices one had to do some excavation into the underpinning worldview, cosmology and beliefs. To deal and end with cultural practices is to miss the point, the essence and the quintessence and spirit of a manifestation.
Cultural practices are but expressions, manifestations and embodiments of the essential and the vital. The material, the visual and tangible are less than their counterparts, the intangible, the non-material and non-physical. I experienced even more perceptual enlightenment when I came to the realisation that the essence relates to energy more than the material and the physical.
My definition of development took a different thrust. The physical is not the end in themselves. They are a means to an end. That end is about perceptions and normative values. In the end, development will embrace ideas, non-material ideas and values such as satisfaction, happiness, fulfilment and convenience, among others.
In this article, we are seeking to demonstrate how we may unearth perceptions and mythologies relating to the planet that we inhabit, the Earth. The tendency is to see and perceive the Earth as not belonging to the cosmos. In our perceptions, we place it at the centre and in all its species of life, man places himself at the centre. Life revolves around man. The centre of the universe is the earth. Even the gods and divinities are there to serve humanity’s interests.
Such perceptions have a tendency of not pushing the agenda of planetary conservation. Ubuntu is not an ideology that is embraced for the good of the environment and all its inhabitants. The connectedness underpinned by the philosophy of Ubuntu is not valued nor respected. As a result, resource extraction is guided by selfishness and mindless instincts.
The question now is how are we to arrive at ideas, beliefs and perceptions regarding the earth? What we see of the earth is underpinned and informed by formulated and underpinning essential beliefs, worldview and cosmology. We should come from cultural practices and deduce underlying beliefs and perceptions. If cultural practices are indeed expressions and manifestations of the more fundamental beliefs and cosmology, we should be in a position to move in either direction, from cultural practices to informing beliefs.
Let us give an example from architecture, the built environment. A built environment essentially is material or physical and tangible. The design of dwellings and other utility structures is informed by intangible ideas, beliefs and perceptions. The houses are circular in design because of copied cosmic ideas, such as eternity and aesthetics. The huts are arranged within space in line with certain considerations.
Assuming I got to such a built environment, I should, after careful observation, figure out ideas, cosmology and worldview that informed the organization of space and the designs embraced in both hut structure and positioning of same within available spaces. For example, granaries, actually grass grain bins, izilulu were positioned in the rear of the homestead. The kitchen huts, imikulu, were located in the same area. Division of labour was applied, as women were the ones that processed food and cooked it in the kitchen huts that were their domain. No structure was positioned without careful consideration and legitimating ideas.
My argument is that from observed cultural practices, be they pertaining to the visual arts, architecture, performances, literature or orature, graphic design, painting and drawing, these will lead us to some understanding of the beliefs at work, the worldview that informed the art form or the cultural practices.
In fact, the art forms are an expressive form of culture. There is something that the arts express, symbolise and manifest. The arts are thus better poised and positioned to more readily pin down the underlying beliefs and thought. Essentially, therefore, what we are positing is that behind cultural practices, sometimes tangible and visible, there are fundamental beliefs and sometimes mythologies that inform those cultural practices.
What we have so far been seeking to demonstrate is the link and mutual influences between worldview, (cosmology, beliefs,) and cultural practices. Further, we sought to show that one could move from one area, for example cultural practices, and arrive at the hidden, underpinning and informing worldview. Cultural practices infer informing philosophies and cosmologies. I want to believe we have laid the requisite foundation that we are going to use to unpack the perceptions, ideas and beliefs that lie above, explain, and condition the more visible and tangible cultural practices.
Now we turn to those cultural practices that point to the critical beliefs. We shall of course select cultural practices that we have referred to in the past. We are here referring to the cultural practices that lead to the identification of underlying beliefs, worldview and cosmology.
We start with sellout cultural practices that reveal the Earth’s gender. When tempestuous winds and sometimes accompanied by rain, one is asked to take a spear and thrust it into the ground and leave it there. The person thrusting the spear is a man. In the Ndebele military context, men are associated with spears and other military weapons.
However, it is also acknowledged that it is women who at the spiritual level fight wars. In Zimbabwe for several millennia, it has always been the Ncube/Shoko, humba female ancestral spirits who called the tune. They collaborated with the shrines such as Njelele to dictate and give direction to the politics of the country.
Now we need to link the cultural practice and the underlying belief. The Earth is perceived as female, as Mother Earth. When she is sexually starved, hell breaks loose. When a married woman got up to a song when she swept the homestead, it was regarded as an expression of sexual satisfaction. However, when she is denied her conjugal rights, innocent children are on the receiving end.
In fact, the non-performing husband is being chastised. The children suffer for the sins of omission of their father. In order to rectify the situation of a tempestuous weather, the female Earth must be subjected to the pacifying sexual act. The spear is symbolic of a man’s sex organ, the penis, the pacifier, the satisfier. Sex, it is believed, has a pacifying effect.
What is done to a woman to satisfy and pacify her, men extend and apply the same principle to Mother Earth. The tempestuous weather is symbolic of sexual starvation. The man thinks and believe they possess the remedy, their symbolic spears that they thrust into the ground and leave there for the Number One Woman, the Earth, to indulge in and derive satisfaction whose result is a pacified weather, or temperament.
From the cultural practice, we surmise that the Ndebele perceived of the Earth as female. From their knowledge of husband and wife relations, they expect the Earth, being a female, to be pacified in the same manner. Sometimes an axe was used in place of a spear. It too was thrust into the ground to pacify the storm. Hell hath no fury than a woman sexually starved, it would seem. Apparently, both gadgets are sharp at their ends.
Let us refer to the same idea in a different way. The same tempestuous storm may be pacified through the use of a small (the last) finger. This is applied in particular when some vicious whirlwind advances fiercely towards a homestead. Hut roofs may have their grass cover blown away. A man, usually a first-born son, stepped forward, used his finger, ucikilicane, and pointed at the advancing whirlwind.
Once again, the whirlwind was symbolic of a woman in a state as explained above. The female earth’s anger is expressed by or through the vicious wind. The answer is to pacify Mother Earth. The finger, given its cylindrical shape, is symbolic of the pacifier, the magical wand that men project into the storm that immediately changes course or even subsides.
But, why a finger? It is, as already explained, a spear of sorts, a botanical component of men’s pacifying anatomy. Mother Earth is pacified in the same manner as human mothers are. This is the view of men. I am merely interpreting what some may see as masculine prejudices.
In both cases, the practices illuminate beliefs, clearly symbolic, that the earth is female. Given the Ndebele people’s understanding of sexual behaviour, there is some Man high up above who engages the Woman below in a sexual and fertilizing manner. Man above, woman below! When that happens, the results are the children. The children are the various life forms all of which are the numerous life species. Women are the producers of children. Human mothers feed on the children of the Super Mother, the Earth.
Children belong to their mother. All life species on earth belong to Mother Earth. The man above contributes less towards procreation. Life is associated with Mother Earth. Food production is associated with Mother Earth. In the absence of Mother Earth, there would be no life. Sexuality is important in the process. In the next article, we shall continue with the sexual images, metaphors and symbolism. When the Male above and the Female below engage in sex, what are the associated cultural practices?
I hope that we are beginning to see how we get to deduce worldview, cosmology, beliefs and perceptions from cultural practices. All that is requisite is a perceptive mind that will unlock the nut in a hard kernel.
Online Reporter