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Cultural Heritage, Phathisa Nyathi
IN the month of February each year the Ndebele monarch presided over an important food ritual known as ukuchinsa or dolo qina. The concept ukuchinsa does invoke the idea of first. Indeed, it was the first time that new crops of the season were consumed. The rains would have come the previous year when the New Year commenced. Newness of the year lay in the break within the lunar months. September marked the southern equinox when the sun is overhead the Tropic of Capricorn.
Spring ushered in a new season which marked departure from winter.
The new year was thus determined by the movement of celestial bodies, the sun to be more precise. The rain season was about to commence. Trees began to develop new leaves, sezinunkula from the buds. Temperatures began to rise. It was a time for regeneration and rebirth. The month is uMpandula, the month of climatic change, ukuphendula. It was a time to celebrate, a time of great expectations. Planting crops would soon begin in earnest after the fields had been prepared, ukugubula. In due course crops would grow and mature. In the month of February the first crops began to ripen in the fields. The marrows, amakhomane, were among the first crops to ripen.
When the first rains came children frolicked and made chants regarding the rain, beseeching it as it were, to fall so that the consumed amakhomane.
Zulu zulu woza,
Woza sidl’ amkhomane,
The chant was followed by energetic body gyrations as children defied the downpour and went out to welcome the rains. Food is important for the sustenance of life, hence the reason for frolicking and leaping in a jovial mood.
Of course it was not the children alone who partook of the first crops. Adults alike enjoyed amakhomane and looked forward to the time when they too would sample the sumptuous food from the crop fields. Sweet reeds too were quick to ripen and were counted among the crops that were first to be consumed. However, the great expectations were not to commence before the king had led in the ritual.
Here was a case where food consumption expressed the culture of the Ndebele and indeed, other Nguni people. What the king desired was to be revered and well regarded by his subjects out of whose mouths the royal salute, Bayethe! (Balethe, sibahemule!). The ritual, referred to by Europeans as the First Fruits Ceremony, provided a golden opportunity for the king to exert control, subservience and loyalty from his people. He was the first to partake of the first crops to ripen. The royal traditional doctors collected the first crops which they mixed with requisite herbal concoctions to administer to the king.
It was herbs that would make the king spiritually strong and command respect from his people. This idea should not be seen as an isolated and peculiar case when it comes to cultural expressions that lie behind food in its numerous manifestations.
When Ndebele age mates, ontanga sat down to eat food the oldest among them picked a piece of meat first. The next oldest followed suit till all had picked some meat. In days gone by a huge chunk of meat was passed from one individual to the next.
The process equally observed the same principles. Yes, this was food consumption which expressed some fundamental aspects of Ndebele cosmology, worldview and beliefs.
Status, deriving from age, was strictly rubbed in and inculcated into the minds of the young who were expected to respect the elders, those who saw the sun first, abaphambili ababona ilanga kuqala. An old man seated sees beyond what a boy standing can see, goes the saying of the Akan people of Ghana. There are numerous other instances when this same idea was expressed.
When, for example the royal queens moved, they did so in a single file. They displayed some pecking order of seniority which demanded that the most senior queen walked at the head of the file. Seniority, its recognition and implementation were strictly observed.
When queens sat in a circle to eat food placed in two separate plates, the most senior was the first to pick a piece of meat, ukudobha. The youngest picked last and was expected to continue eating after those older than her had stopped eating. When the queens walked through tall grass beaded with dew, the pecking order of seniority was reversed. This time the youngest queen walked ahead of her superiors so that she cleared the dew. This was particularly so in the month of Zibandlela when foot paths, indlela, singular and izindlela, plural were overgrown with grass-ukuthi ziba, hence the first lunar month, uZibandlela. In the Gregorian calendar which is not equally informed by celestial reality, the month is January.
The king resided on hilltop, the highest ground. As number one citizen, altitude expressed his socio-economic and political status. This reminds me of some oral rendition given me by Khesari Nthoyiwa Tjibumba Sibanda of Dombodema when he said, during an interview not so long ago:
Bohhe bagele dombo,
BoNthoyiwa, bagele dombo,
BoTjibumba, bagele dombo,
Zwilanda zwigele pasi kuBambanalo.
This rendition referred to the position at Mapungubgwe Hill which was the political and commercial seat of southern Africa’s first organised state. Indeed, history makes reference to a lower hill called Bambandyanalo. We do know that Mapungubgwe came into being at the confluence of the Shashe(shaya ishe/haya ihhe) in about 1050 CE. Can you believe stories that we are told about the limited memory of oral traditions? Here is some oral tradition that has defied the mists of time. Last week, in the company of Obert Sibanda and Bulisani Ncube, I was in Polokwane, South Africa, to make a presentation on Mapungubgwe, a Unesco-inscribed World Heritage Site since July 2003.
So it was with the Ndebele monarch. He was the first to consume the ripened food from the royal fields. The idea that he was number one in many respects was expressed through food consumption. Once he had partaken of the first crops (I have not figured out why these were called first fruits) the outlying villages were then free to partake of the first crops. However, it was not just partaking of the crops. Medicines were administered which sought to effect subservience to the king. Traditional doctors in the villages, emaxhibeni, received the medicines from national royal doctors so that they administered same to villagers in their respective domains.
The Roman Catholic Jesuit missionaries at Empandeni have left a vivid account of how the food ritual was conducted by one Nyathi traditional doctor within Impande Village under the leadership of Sindisa Mpofu, a MoKhurutshe from Botswana. The process was carried out in all villages; thus ensuring all of them were linked to the centre. There was to be no more than one centre of power at any given time. The king was the sole centre and commander-in-chief of all men under arms including their regimental commanders.
The pre-eminence and unassailable position of the king was expressed in many ways indeed. One such way was through the consumption of the first crops to ripen. The king led the nation and, through the ritual, sought to spiritually, politically economically and culturally enforce his supremacy.
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