Njemani has withstood the test of time

ilala/murara/palm tree flourishes along the Limpopo River’s floodplain.
Njemani is also regarded as an energy drink, which is soft enough for younger drinkers provided it is taken within two hours of harvesting. Thereafter it gets more potent.
“It’s a kind of family drink,” said Mr Promise Chirefu, a teacher at Gwaivhi Primary School, 160km east of Beitbridge.
“Shangaan children drink it because it gives energy. It’s as sweet as orange crush so young people can have it without any problems if taken early after harvesting. Adults take it as a beer, so they wait for it to ferment on its own for a few hours.”
Harvesting it demands a lot of knowledge, patience and skill, attributes that have been handed down through Shangaan generations.
To get it, villagers first identify a tree, normally a shorter one aged between three and five years. Using a machete, they cut down the soft trunk some 50cm above the ground to get a level finish on the stump. They make it finer using a sharp knife. Then they apply a thin layer of fine soil on top of the stub and leave it for about half-an-hour. If the soil on top gets wet, it means that the stump is good enough draining. If it doesn’t, the stub is dry of njemani.
The collector then creates an angled groove at the top so that the liquid can flow slowly into a receptacle tied against the stub. He needs a great deal of patience as the drink collects into the container in about three drops per minute. It takes almost the whole day for one stump to fill a litre.
When Mr Chirefu started working at Gwaivhi Primary School in 2002, he had no idea why njemani was so popular. He tried it later on and soon acquired a taste for it. Now he is a regular at a temporary camp in Lisenga Village, one of the many njemani collectors set along the Limpopo to gather the wine.
He said:
“This place is so isolated you cannot get a scud (opaque beer) or Castle within a 20km radius. So this is how we while up time.”
Freshly gathered njemani smells tenderly, but gets as strong and dry as the more common finger millet-based traditional brew within two to three hours.
The ilala palm tree (Hyphenae petersiana) is among the most important natural resources in Sengwe area because of its social and economic value. It mostly grows in drier areas like the south-east lowveld or deserts around oases.
Apart from generating njemani, Shangaan, Shona and Ndebele people in Chiredzi South make hats, brooms and baskets out of its leaves.
At Mr Chirefu’s favourite bush drinking spot, Mrs Makanani Chauke (32) tends to her two children, Patience (three) and Ela (one). A network of footpaths, barely visible amid one-and-a-half metre tall grass, leads to the camp from various directions.
She acts as a receptionist while her husband, Albert, is in the grassy area taping njemani. They collect around 20 litres of the drink daily and sell it to locals and in border villages in Mozambique, just five kilometres to the east. It is their only source of income. A litre costs R5, but because there is a general shortage of rand coins in the area, a dollar buys two litres, enough to get two regular drinkers singing and dancing. When demand is high or if he goes out in the villages selling it, he earns up to R100 daily.
By the time the Chronicle news crew arrived at the camp at around 3pm, Mr Chauke (36) was collecting the beer from about 60 stubs hidden in the undergrowth.
He said:
“You forget or miss some collection points sometimes because there is too much vegetation here. When I get my 20 litres or 30 litres if I start in the morning, I leave. Sometimes we move around the villages selling, but many people come to buy here.”
Mr Chauke, who has never worked anywhere else, started collecting njemani in 2007.
“At that time (2007) things were tight so I decided to join other collectors. This is my job now. At least we have an undertaking that gives us a little money as a family,” he said.
Whereas njemani is sweet and soft within two hours of collection, it becomes highly intoxicating thereafter. But after a day of no refrigeration it weakens. If it is refrigerated, it remains stable for up to four days.
Because the wine is sweet, bees are attracted to the tree stubs, some falling into the receptacles. This spoils the beer. But Mr Chauke applies a powder made from the root of the dolika tree on top of the stump. The powder has a strong smell which bees do not like, but keeps the beer tasty for human consumption.
He shields the stumps from the hot Limpopo Valley sun by covering them with palm leaves. Direct sunlight hardens the tips and stops the flow, so he renews all of them at 30-minute intervals to keep the wine flowing.
Hunters who come from all over the world in search of trophy at Sengwe One and Sengwe Two safari hunting areas are some of the most generous buyers of njemani, said Mr Wisdom Matongo (33) of Gwaivhi Village.
Mr Matongo believes this is an indication that njemani might have a greater commercial potential than the subsistence value people have been deriving from it for generations.
“The problem is that it is a very perishable product. Otherwise many of the hunters would want to carry it back home,” he said. If it is given modern treatment, I think njemani can be as big as amarula, a wine which is derived from marula fruits. It is an area that our experts can research on and determine its broader potential.”
In March last year, the University of Zimbabwe’s Centre for Applied Social Sciences conducted workshops in three wards in Chiredzi district – Pahlela, Sengwe and Malipati – to assess the livelihood of the people. The palm tree and njemani came up for discussion.
It was noted that the tree was useful in basketry and production of the wine, which tourists find interesting as they seek to taste local culture.
But there are environmental consequences arising from the exploitation of ilala palm. Apart from its tall, lush grass, much of the Limpopo floodplain in Chief Sengwe’s area is dominated by ilala palm tree stubs, some of which are dry and lifeless. Many still have ropes tied around them and containers dangling on the sides, an indication that njemani harvesters simply forgot to collect it and left the tree suffocating. Villagers exploit the tree all-year round unless the Limpopo is in flood as it last did in 2000.
An earlier report by the UZ Centre for Applied Social Sciences, Exploring Future Ecosystems Services: A Scenario Planning Approach to Uncertainty in the South East Lowveld of Zimbabwe compiled in August 2009 observes, “Though in some way destructive to the plants, the product (njemani) is highly valued both culturally and economically.”
Mr Chauke does not accept the criticism.
“The tree is plenty here and grows very fast. It regenerates within months. In any case, we don’t cut it to the root, so after we collect njemani, the forest can always replenish itself.”