Vusumuzi Dube
VARIOUS events, phenomena and occurrences taking place among communities fuel and fire up speculation, conjecture and sometimes the wildest of guesses in order to make sense and meaning out of them. Largely, human beings will continue with the search until what they consider an explanation and meaning for their search has been accomplished. The mind seeks to order the world and its events so that they sit well with their known world. As long as the meaning has not been found, the mind will come back to the issue to continue with the ordering process.
Where there is no meaning, there is relentless search for it. Curiosity is a mental trait that sets the mind ablaze to search for meanings and solutions. As the mind does this search and research, it relies on the communities’ understanding and knowledge of the cosmos the terrestrial world and indeed, their spiritual worlds. The communities’ past knowledge, perceptions, cosmology, beliefs and worldview come into the search and interpretation. Communities wear their cultural lenses during the process of thinking to find explanations and meanings to something new that confronts their minds.
Inevitably, different communities have interacted with the cosmic and terrestrial worlds; their minds will wear different cultural lenses. In the process, the same observed events and occurrence will end up with different explanations and interpretations and, therefore, in the end, different understanding.
People think and interpret events in reference to their past and the store of knowledge and information at their disposal. Quite often, they think, as they believe.
All this is quite understandable and in order. The problem comes when some communities believe, strongly for that matter, that their explanations are the correct ones. They are rational and scientific.
The tendency then is to rubbish and trash the knowledge and information generated by other people other than themselves. Arrogance of the highest order! Truth and reality are tenuous concepts that require tolerance, respect and magnanimity beyond some shallow considerations.
This is by way of cautioning the interpretation regarding the crop circles that we referred to in some earlier instalment. We took two detours, the one that embraced Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, the iconic South African isanuse. He has made pronouncements on many issues relating to the human past and the spiritual realm. His well-developed and incisive spiritual acumen has attracted the attention of those who do not necessarily share in his views, opinions, knowledge and information. Sometimes we should acknowledge even those that we may be looking down upon. There could very well be some sense in what they are saying. What they know and believe should not be relegated to the dustbin of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS).
We also featured the creative and spiritual stories of three women from Matobo District. It was a detour calculated to give emphasis to our arguments here. We see the world differently and attach different interpretations on it based sometimes on what we believe. The book sought to establish some connection between spirituality and the arts or creativity. As it turned out, the book, scheduled for release before Christmas, turned out to be some very interesting spiritual and religious aspects of Zionism, in particular the mediated path between African Spirituality and Christianity.
We are back to the phenomenon of crop circles that we introduced three articles back. Now we turn to Mutwa for the Afro-centric interpretations and related practices especially of a spiritual nature. How a phenomenon is understood will inform subsequent behaviour which inevitably will be in accord with the attached meaning. This seems to be the human behaviour everywhere. Africans are no exception and therefore Afro-centric interpretations should not come as a surprise.
Circularity and related ideas render meaning to Africans. The circle is a geometric design or figure that has some aesthetic traits while at the same time carrying important messages. The circle, and its variations, lies at the centre of the multi-verse design. A circle is infused with the meaning and expression of cyclicality, which renders and expresses the concept of continuing life and eternity. There is some perceived link with the celestial bodies that, in African conceptualisation, are closely linked to and with spirituality.
The women who have traditionally embellished their hut walls with geometric patterns may not fully comprehend the spirituality embedded in what they consider as art and no more than that. The homes were being titivated towards Christmas time, a time for peace, celebration, beauty and revelling.
It therefore comes as no wonder when Mutwa explains the crop circles phenomena as revelations of the izishoze the gods. For a people who were intimately tuned in to spirituality, and believed the latter (gods and spirits) revealed themselves to humans; such belief was to be expected. In any case, we need to appreciate that symbols with their attached meanings beyond aesthetics, were embellished on various surfaces of artefacts of everyday utilities. Leather, crops in the fields, egg shells, ivory, gourd/ calabash, clay, grass mats, iron and other metals, and the human skin have always provided media for posting images that carry, not only aesthetics, fundamental meaning.
These days I am intrigued and inspired by the hairdos being executed, particularly in West Africa. I have already zeroed in on a possible title for a book I might be tempted to pen next year: Beyond the Limits of Creativity: African Hairdos. What really attracts my attention in the artistic field is that the hairdos are mimicking the same designs that we find on walls and other media mentioned above. However, do the creators really appreciate what they are doing? Are the messages in the design in a language that we understand?
My own interactions with African symbols and their meanings seems to point to the fact that a design, in conjunction with the material used to execute it are both important considerations. I will give some illustration based on what someone from Bulilima told me.
Africans lived in mortal fear of witches and wizards and rightly so as these spiritual characters possess ritual power and the requisite capacity and knowledge to harness energy and power towards some targeted (by the way, the idea of GPS is not new at all to Ancient African Science, AAS) chosen target whether human or non-human. As the story was told to me, when ancestors are being propitiated, there is a small clay pot containing dedicated and ritual beer intended for the ancestral spirits.
The special pot with special contents was painted with a chevron pattern using white ash. That served as a deterrent to the witches and wizards not to disrupt the ritual processes. The measure to prevent witches and wizards from partaking of what was not presented to them relied on ash as the material used to design the chevron pattern. Perhaps in might be necessary to expand concepts of ash and the chevron pattern before we tackle other matters relating to African Cultural Astronomy.
The designs, regardless of where they were executed, carried messages, usually of what was to follow (precognition). Examples of relayed messages contained in crop circles may include the advent of war, changing weather in response to occurrences in the Sun such as solar flares and expected diseases.
Nature knows and usually announces coming catastrophes. The future is announced in the present. Our challenge is failure or reluctance to learn the language of nature. Nature is not in the habit of springing surprises at us. Climate change announced itself a long time ago. We did not heed the communication until now when we are engaging the panic gear.
The area defined by a crop circle was deemed sacred The spiritual leaders, rulers and other persons sprang to action on the bases i=of their beliefs. God interacted or commiserated with his people through symbolic messages for the good of humanity at the special site. Language in the spiritual realm is not the same as that in the physical world. The community leaders quickly encircled the site with stones that assumed the same design of a crop circle itself. Mutwa is of the view that the positioned circles of stone formed the basis of numerous stone circles all over the world that assumed a spiritual dimension. Nabta Playa, Naboritunga, the Senegambia stone circles, Adam’s Calendar and the Stonehenge, are but some of the stone circles.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter