adminPathisa Nyathi
PERCEPTIONS of, and importance attached to death are reflected in accompanying rituals, rites and attendant symbolism and symbology. Life is cyclical in nature, undergoing various stages in its unending drama and manifestations. There are stages that belong in the same realm, notably the material realm which has a different type, nature and level of consciousness. Passages within the same realm are fairly elaborate and differ in accordance with the importance attached to the attained stage.
Within the material/spiritual realm of consciousness, birth is attended with quite elaborate rituals as these prepare the new arrivals on the planet and socio-cultural environment to cope with the dictates of a new world. The new arrivals grow and develop till they attain biological maturity. This is the stage that ensures and facilitates continuity of the human species and drives and powers attainment of eternity. Here the rituals are commensurate with the importance that is attached to the stage. It will later be argued that this stage, as with death, was accompanied by colossal architectural structures to mark attainment of this all-important stage.
The unending cycle depended on the attainment, in particular of puberty, the stage when biological maturity was reached; the stage when an individual was able to participate in the achievement of eternity and continuity for his/her blood line and lineage. So it was with death, the next critical stage in pushing the cycle of life to the next spiritual stage of consciousness, a stage which still retained links with the material realm and its human citizens.
The spiritual realm is the least understood and most complex. We can though, by observing attendant rituals, surmise underlying beliefs.
Burial rituals carried out during the interment of Chief Gampu Sithole on 24 October 1916 help to provide rituals and their underlying beliefs.
Existence of another realm of spiritual life is made clear during the burial procedures. That the next world has its own citizens is equally made clear.
The idea of continuity beyond the grave and, therefore beyond death, is clearly implied. Let us start with the symbolic expression of continuity. The chief was fallen and his position of burial expressed that. He was buried either in a sitting position or lying position. Whichever position it was, it marked the end of material existence.
Chief Gampu Sithole’s earthly life ended but was continued in the same plane of existence through the son who held his spear and staff. The son stood at the head of the deceased chief. What was symbolised as being eternal was the line of Sithole chiefs who all had the Sithole genes that were being perpetuated in their position of leadership of the people. Simultaneously, eternity or continuity at the spiritual level becomes apparent. The Ndebele people, like their fellow Africans, posited dual components for a human being. There was the material component whose eternity has been explained above. The spiritual component was equally eternalised by being assisted into the next life in the spiritual realm.
The Reverend Herbert Carter of the Wesleyan Methodist who documented the burial of Chief Gampu Sithole was not au fait with the complicated cosmology of the Ndebele people. However, his writings do provide the material trappings that we take beyond the material and couch them in the deeper cosmological manifestations that provide the essence of Africans beyond their seemingly narrower and shallower material/physical existence.
The chief’s elder brother appealed to the ancestors, “You have called your son, and now you must look after his people.” What is clear regarding the belief here is that the ancestors do look after their earthly progeny. The chief played a spiritual or sacred role by looking after his people, actually his father’s people. Now that he is gone, the role he played should continue. The elder brother is addressing invisible beings, the dear departed ancestors who now are spirits. Indeed, one important role played by African Spirituality was ensuring the welfare of the progeny, in the form of material human beings.
Chief Gampu Sithole’s burial took place quite early into the colonial period. Some old Ndebele cultural traditions still existed. There are aspects of a colonised people’s traditional cultural practices that do not change rapidly. Those that are of a spiritual nature are one such. Secondly, royalty which was the custodian of a past era, have the tendency of clinging to the past in which they were a privileged class. It should thus not come as a surprise to see certain funerary traditions that were documented by the Methodist missionary as looking strange today.
“The skin of a newly-killed ox was laid at the bottom of the grave and the body wrapped in it. Parts of the ox and parts of newly-killed goat were tied to Gambo’s head (which protruded from the “bundle”) and other parts were buried with him.” What a pity, the Reverend Carter did not specify which parts these were. Chances are that most of us have not experienced this sort of funerary practice. The choice regarding which parts of the ox and goat were attached to his head would have given us some idea of underlying beliefs. In historical books we do see pictures of Ndebele men donning blown bladders on their heads. This was the case when they were still in the Limpopo Province of South Africa.
What we can surmise is that all this was part and parcel of sending off the spirit of the deceased chief to the next world. Some of the parts may have been privy to one of Chief Gampu Sithole’s political and social rank and being a male. What we are able to deduce is that traditional funerary practices have undergone considerable transformation as a result of new ideas from, in particular, whites who conquered the Ndebele people who, in turn, have sought to adopt their ways, including burial practices.
That it was the skin of a bull would have been more appropriate. In addition to the “bundle” that Reverend Carter observed, there were other parts of the two beasts that were buried with him. It is important to note that these parts were interred with his body. There were other paraphernalia that were laid on the grave following covering of the grave with soil and stones as described earlier.
Sometimes we do not read much into cultural practices. One thing that we may be taking for granted is the creation of a mound of earth and stone as the grave. Was this as a result of practical realities or there was a deliberate effort to make a mound of earth and stones? Are we to attach some symbolic meaning to the resulting mountain? For starters, the people could have made the grave flat if they so wished. Indeed, there are some ethnic groups who, after burial, dance on the resulting mound till it is totally flattened out. For them, there should be no evidence of the grave.
What possible reason could there be for deliberately creating some earth and stone mound? Should we not perceive the earthly structure as some sort of mountain? When we seek some explanation for phenomena of African ancients we need to get into their minds in order to unravel underlying beliefs. We should never try to apply our current cultural perceptions as these may not be in congruence with those of our ancestors. So-called civilised people today have a tendency to see the past through their own cultural lenses. In the final analysis, they succeed in seeing themselves and not the people they want to see.
A mountain is an abnormality, a protuberance in an otherwise flat earth terrain. Mountains and graves are thus perceived in similar vein. In the human body, mountains and graves are analogous to the all-important human anatomical part in a female — the womb of a woman. Who gets to our world except via the womb of a woman which Africa has symbolised on a two-plane surface as a chevron motif? Mountains that are regarded as sacred and which are approached for rituals such as rain-making are perceived as wombs.
Need we go very far in order to see this? Njelele Hill is a well known example. Just its shape is symbolic of a womb. Within the hill there is a deep cave. In the cave there is water — a very important symbol of life, which is unthinkable in its absence. Thus it is not just any hill that is chosen for rain-making rituals. It is one that meets certain physical features which, in their totality, symbolise the womb and its intended meaning and role in the exercise of ensuring eternity, endlessness, fertility and immortality.
Oh, how fulfilling it is to get into the minds of these African ancients and put on their cultural contact lenses and unpack their fossilised past which begins to reveal and yield meaning and relevance both to them and us.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter