adminONCE again, we revisit amalobolo/roora with a view to unraveling the people’s cosmology and the way their societies are organised. We are here looking at cultural practices as products of the mind to access the mind and the society it has created and the justification for that.
It is our view that cultural manifestations, expressions and representations are reflections of cognitive processes. This is to say they are products of cognition.
A cultural landscape, we shall argue is a product of interaction or engagement between the mind and space.
The resulting cultural landscape has two dimensions – tangible and intangible attributes, the former bequeathed upon it by space and the latter emanating from the mind. We are thus able or ought to be able, to get some glimpse of the ordering mind by merely looking at the cultural landscape.
All we need do is suspend the spatial dimension within the cultural landscape and what remains is a product of the mind. We have often argued that everything created bears the signature of the creator.
This is to say there is a bit of the creator in everything created. At a broader level the signature is that of the community to which the individual creator belongs.
The created object will thus carry twin signatures, that of the community and the other of the individual creator who is a member of the community.
It is for this reason that a basket, for example, can be linked to its creator, the basket weaver.
Even where there are several baskets by different weavers each and every basket can be linked to its creator.
This is possible because each basket, in addition to bearing a community signature, also carries the identity of the individual creator.
At community level one can tell Tonga baskets from Ndebele baskets. Within the Tonga baskets one can tell the weaver of each.
These are the two critical hierarchies of identity which are useful in identifying archaeological finds.
It is this line of argument that takes us to a scrutiny of amalobolo/roora. The cultural practice bears the signature of the community.
By closely viewing the signature we learn a lot about the community. This is indirect learning, looking at the community products to understand more about the community.
Today we shall look at what is referred to as inkomo yohlanga/mombe yohumai to move backwards and see what this tells us about the community that charges this particular beast. First we need to explain the concept.
We have argued that our training and education have given undue emphasis to differences between the various African ethnic groups.
Sadly, the groups themselves have fallen for this fallacy hook line and sinker. They failed to see beyond the veneer calculated to engender inter-ethnic hatred and animosity.
It is an old and tried strategy of divide and rule. The Ndebele term of inkomo yohlanga expresses precisely the same idea encapsulated in the Shona expression mombe yohumai.
What this suggests is that the two communities share the same worldview or cosmology. The underlying and fundamental concept is motherhood, humai. Precisely what does that entail?
We then go to the Ndebele conceptual expression for further clarity. Uhlanga refers to the river reed, umhlanga. This type of plant has nodes and is hollow inside. Among the Ndebele the use of medicines introduced through the anus was common. They believed this got rid of what they termed ingubhane – where the rear aperture loosened and released foul air from deep inside the intestines.
To remedy that, they obtained bark from trees such as marula, umganu and crushed it. They added water which they then introduced into the anus using a portion of the hollow reed. The medicine would be in the mouth of the mother. She then blew the mixture into the anus. Alternatively, a grass known as usezi was used. This too was hollow. Horn was also used. The thin end of the horn was cut so that there was a small hole. The same medicines were then introduced into the anus using this horn.
There were instances when ash was used – pushed into the anus, a process known as ukugqiba. The intended result was the same – to get rid of ingubhane. Ash from the lead tree, umtswiri was often used. Invariably, this medical procedure was performed by the women, the mothers. The two languages complement each other to give a fuller rendition of the process and its name.
This medical care extended to both boys and girls is the domain of the mothers, hence reference to it as humai.
At this stage we do not talk about mombe yehumai. It is simply humai, motherhood. If we turn to the SiNdebele language we are informed how the concept of motherhood was expressed.
Here the emphasis is on the mechanical process during which a reed, umhlanga is used. It is from this umhlanga, the reed that the term uhlanga is derived.
Both communities are thus alert to the role played by mothers, humai through ukuphozisa.
In this case it is the medical upbringing of girls that is of relevance here. Both communities, being patriarchal, acknowledge patriarchy. The children, girls included, belong to their father and relatives on the father’s side. Note that we are deducing this by looking at the practice of amalobolo/roora.
Amalobolo/roora belongs to the father of the girl. However, both communities, while allocating all the cattle to the girl’s father, designate a single beast to the daughter’s mother for the very obvious reason that she played an important role in the medical upbringing of this girl during her days of youth until she matured and is now getting married.
The man must express gratitude to his wife. He did not raise the girl about to be married single handedly.
Here lies the adulteration or alteration to the cultural practice. The inkomo yohlanga among the Ndebele was never paid by the son-in-law.
It simply was not his business. His was to deliver the beasts, all of them, to their owner, the girl’s father.
It was then the father, out of gratitude to his wife for the role explained above to then take one cow to give to his wife in recognition of that critical role – using umhlanga to phozisa the little girl afflicted with ingubhane. Not surprisingly the beast was appropriately referred to as inkomo yohlanga. It is that motherly role that is referred to in Shona as humai and hence the beast is called mombe yehumai.
Once again, this is a pointer to our common African-ness which exists at the level of philosophical underpinnings or cosmology. We are Africans not on account of our skin colour but rather on account of our worldview. One could be very dark in complexion and be most un-African.
Each time there is a daughter getting married the mother would be entitled to a beast for her role in the medical upbringing of the daughter.
This was one source of wealth for the women in communities where men monopolised cattle wealth. The inheritance of such beasts was important. They were not inherited on the male side, that is, the father’s side.
This may take us to the Shona understanding of the sense of belonging for the wife. Only her lower part of the body belonged to her husband’s people. The upper part, as explained by Chief Fortune Charumbira, belonged to her own people.
This has many inheritance ramifications particularly pertaining to the sharing of goods upon her death. It is these philosophical underpinnings that help explain many of Africa’s cultural practices. The unschooled are not to prematurely and unfairly judge these communities largely out of ignorance and arrogance.
Bongani Ndlovu