adminthese issues. By not discussing them, we are pretending we do not have what make us male or female.
This is where our problems begin by refusing to acknowledge who we are. People who understand these issues have fewer problems in life because they are whole beings.
Refusing to understand what defines men and women and even pretending that those “ancestors” do not exist is not going to help us. These “ancestors” are looked at as evil and some people use the ancestors to scold others.
I suppose most of us have heard people telling each other off and in most cases it is the female “ancestor” who is used.
There is an assumption that the mothers, “ancestors” are more sacred than the male ones. Males use their “ancestors” to pee even in public and they are careless if anyone sees them. Denigrating one’s mother’s “ancestors” can raise emotions.
There is a story of a child who went to her mother crying because someone had used her “ancestors” to scold the minor. The mother asked: “Iye aribe? Umfunse kuti iye aribe?” (Ask her whether she does not have one herself?)
The next day the child came back crying again. What was said to her was painful. She told her mother what had transpired.
The scolding word in question she was crying about originated from Zulu/Ndebele.
The mother said, “Chokapo! Mufunse kuti amai ake naathathe ake arikuita chiyani mubadarumu?” (Go away! Ask her what her mother and father do in the main room?)”
What her mother had done is to demystify the way she thought about the words used to scold her.
This shows how these “ancestors” are regarded as evil. How these “ancestors” are stigmatised, instead of being objects of pleasure and not talked about in bad light.
Recently, I met someone I grew up with who belongs to the tribe of the woman who demystified the “ancestors” to her daughter. He wondered why those things are such a big issue.
Wanting to distance ourselves from these “ancestors” is causing a lot of problems for us.
From a young age people do not understand what they are carrying: the “ancestor” is such a mystery, just looking at it, one gets the fits.
This is why in the olden days young people were educated about their sexuality. Sexuality was discussed to appreciated, love and respect it. It was explained to them that the time they would spend as young people was less than what they would in their adult life which is the time they would put their “ancestors” to use.
The “ancestors” would be used for mating, recreation etc. The multi dimension purposes of the “ancestors” were explained in detail, in a no-holds barred environment during initiation ceremonies. These were schools which took care of youngsters to prepare them for adult life.
Today, young people make a lot of blunders regarding the use of their “ancestors”, because they know very little about them.
They do not know how to deal with them.
They remain a mystery on their bodies. These organs are important parts of one’s body.
A friend told me of a story of her nephew who impregnated a girl.
When he was asked whether he was responsible for the pregnancy, he refused and said he had intercourse with the girl once, so it could not be him. The aunt asked where was this once-off encounter and he said it was at his parents’ house.
How could this have happened and yet they are always people present at the house, the aunt wondered. He said he sent the maid to the shops and had his friends man the house to alert him if someone was
coming. The aunt could not believe this. She asked him how long did it took and he said around two minutes. The auntie wanted to know what he derived from a sexual experience of less than two minutes.
“I just wanted to taste what sex is all about. I never thought it would come to this.
“You tasted and ate at the same time. How could you? Tasting is when you taste and eating is eating,” the aunt charged.
“What do you mean auntie?
“Imagine tasting food on the stove and you eat in two minutes, what happens to you?”
He was getting confused and the aunt said she was waiting for an answer; she was not in a pleasant mood at all.
She repeated the question. “What happens when you taste food on the stove and eat the food in two minutes?”
“You get constipation aunt and you get burnt,” he explained.
“Very good! That is what happened to you.”
He impregnated another girl and the aunt asked him, “Were you tasting? For how long are you going to be tasting and eating at the same time?”
He will be eating and tasting for the rest of his life, because this is how he has introduced himself to sex; tasting and eating at the same time. Yes, there are men who are old (vachena imvi), and yet they are still tasting and eating in a shot space of time.
They are always constipated and burnt. The problem with her nephew is that he was not in touch with his “ancestor”; he did not know how to deal with it. He did not also know how to deal with a female “ancestor”.
When he saw it he got confused; he wanted to taste and eat at the same time. He did not have respect for what defined him as a human being, because it was not explained to him how it works – how to appreciate, respect, and value it.
l Joyce Jenje-Makwenda is a researcher, archivist, author, producer and freelance journalist. She can be contacted on: [email protected]
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