adminPathisa Nyathi
NOT so long ago Mr Morris Dungeni asked me why traditional doctors do not partake of isandlwana. Isandlwana is one of the internal organs in a beast. It is a part of the alimentary canal beyond the stomach. Yes, I was aware that African spiritualists do not eat isandlwana. I had no answer to Mr Dungeni’s question. Mr and Mrs Dungeni, together with a niece and nephew, had visited Amagugu International Heritage Centre alongside Henry Low Primary School.
I mention this here because my response to the question was relevant to the book that I am working on presently, “The Big Five: An African Perspective.” While doing research on the book, it became apparent that body parts of the Big Five are sought-after by traditional doctors and other people on the basis of perceptions and realities regarding the said animals. Through symbolic manipulation, Africans are able to transfer observed traits or characteristics of these animals to the human plane — by producing, like in this particular case, it was transferring some quality in the natural animal plane to another natural but human plane.
Sometimes observed characteristics are transferred from a natural to a cultural plane and vice versa. However, for purposes of today’s article, relevance lies in the fact that the starting point is observed or objective characteristics. Thereafter, on the basis of those observations, relevant cultural behaviour is born. In this particular case, the resulting cultural behaviour is abstinence by traditional doctors from eating isandlwana. When Afro-centric thought is applied, there is some missing knowledge about isandlwana. What are its features and/or characteristics that militate against traditional doctors partaking of isandlwana?
I came to realise this link when I tried to explain and interpret why parts of a lion are used in the manner they are used by traditional doctors. A lion commands fear, respect and dignity. Through symbolic manipulation, these lion characteristics are transferred to a man, in this particular case, an African king who wears, on his neck, claws and teeth of a lion. The king, like a lion, is feared, respected and held in awe and trepidation. Like a lion, like a king. After all, the lion is the king of the jungle. A king rules in the human jungle. Therefore, to adequately answer Mr Dungeni’s question, I should have been au fait with information relating to isandlwana. In the absence of that knowledge, the temptation would have been, “No, traditional doctors do not eat isandlwana because they are superstitious.”
After this philosophical introduction, we revisit the burial of Chief Gampu Sithole. Our interest here is not to give some mechanical rendition of what Reverend Herbert Carter observed and documented. Our interest lies in explaining and interpreting observed behaviour. This is a way of building theory out of observed cultural practices. Theory is best developed when behaviour is observed, studied and generalised. Last week we dealt at length with isincwazi and icholo. What Reverend Carter observed was that hair from the crown of Chief Gampu Sithole’s widows was cut off. He did not say what was done to cut hair.
The top knot, icholo, symbolised some social and spiritual contract between husband and wife, their earthly and spiritual families. This is what I termed, in my book, “Traditional Ceremonies of AMaNdebele,” which was published in 2001 by Mambo Press, tying the knot the Ndebele way. With the demise of Chief Gampu Sithole the contract was nullified.
Whose tuft of hair was it anyway? We may need to go back in history and see how the tuft of hair, icholo, was created. A maiden getting married did not have icholo. After marriage, she stayed for a while at the groom’s place. Later, she, in the company of a bride maid, usonyongwana, she returned to her parental home. The process was known as ukuphinda umkhondo.
The purpose for the return was to burn the numerous empty but blown gall bladders that usonyongwana had around her neck. These were testimony of beasts that had been slaughtered by relatives of the bride. These were mixed with flowers of a plant called impepha, burnt and thrown into a pool of water. The second purpose was to collect gifts that the bride had been given by her relatives: clay pots, baskets, mats, inter alia.
Finally, she went back to her parental home to have the tuft of hair on the crown of her head prepared, a process called ukukhehla. She was now a married woman. The tuft of hair was to remain on her head indefinitely, and only cut when her husband passed. The hair tuft was on her head but it belonged to her husband. At death, there were a lot of deceptive cultural practices aimed at giving solace and comfort to dear the departed spirit. There were practices designed to make the spirit believe it still enjoyed the company it used to enjoy on the earth plane. One way to achieve this was to cut the tuft of hair and bury it with the remains of the late husband. So it was with Chief Gampu Sithole and his six widows.
In a certain culture some widows used their buttocks to bid farewell to their departed husbands. When others used their hands to throw some soil into the grave, they assumed a sitting position and pushed the soil into the grave with their buttocks. Those who are familiar with human anatomy will immediately see that what was meant to push the soil into the grave were not buttocks but some neighbouring anatomical organ that used to keep the late husband sweet company.
We can cite yet another example of deceiving a departed spirit. When one of the twins died, the surviving twin was taken to the grave of its deceased counterpart to wash his/her body on the grave. Bath water flowed down into the grave. That water carried the identity of the surviving twin. That way, the spirit of the departed twin was made to believe it still enjoyed the company of its earthly twin. Humans, their spirits, enjoy company beyond the grave. This was the basis for cutting the hair from the crown of the chief’s widows. Chief Gampu Sithole needed their company in the journey to the word of ancestors.
The other cultural practice that the Reverend Carter observed and recorded was the crushing of a calabash containing water on the stones of the grave.
The broken pieces were left there and the hole covered with thorn branches. In an earlier article we did point out that creation of a burial mound was deliberate. The height of the practice was reached in Egypt though originally started in the south, in Sudan, where the pyramids were smaller. The most grandiose pyramids were built in Egypt, the purpose still being the same — some rendition of the concept of continuity as embodied through solidity of a rock. The pyramids, built from stones thousands of years ago, still stand today. Through rock, eternity is achieved. Rock weathers but slowly.
Bantu graves bear the same idea, albeit on a much smaller-scale. The grave is not soil alone, stones are used to cover the soil, with headstones being the most prominent. Now what was the purpose of pouring water on the grave. The answer may lie in observing a similar cultural practice. Very close to the grave some tree was planted vegetatively. It was believed that once the tree developed, it would provide shade, some cooling shade to the spirit of the dear departed. There are actually two plausible explanations here. The first is provision of a cool shade to the spirit that from time to time visits its divorced earthly counterpart — the remains of the deceased person.
Another possibility is that the living tree symbolises continued life of the spirit and thus, by being planted on the grave, represents the link between the spirit and its former housing. In the burial chamber for the Egyptian Pharaoh, there was pyramid writing, which included an icon known as an ankh which symbolised eternity by structurally embracing male (phallus, shaft) and female (the circle) phenomena. The planted tree and the ankh carry the same message or meaning, that of eternal life.
Water on the grave is thus calculated to provide some cooling effect, just as the shady tree does. It is believed the spirit travels a long distance and, in the process, gets tired and hot — so requires some rest and cooling off. The world of ancient Africans was complex and today, a lot of cultural practices persist but are devoid of meaning and cosmological grounding.
The lazy and arrogant dismiss all this as superstition.
Online Reporter