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Isdore Guvamombe
Saturday Lounge Reflections
Day after day, tourists, archaeologists, traditionalists and little everyone else have entered the Great Zimbabwe National Monument again and again, and, again and again, but it is only last week that it was discovered, through a thoroughbred spirit medium that there was indeed a “grave” of a Rozvi autochthon, who buried himself in a swamp more than nine centuries ago, a spitting distance from the main entrance.”
For a week, we had been fasting, abstaining from women and eating meat. We were also supposed to wear all white. These were taboos not to be breached, as per the rules of the spirit.
The mission was a spiritual journey to identify and exhume paraphernalia of a Rozvi autochthon, Bvumavaranda, who lived and sunk into a swamp in anger and disgust, after his trusted friend Mbauro breached longstanding taboos, way before the construction of Great Zimbabwe National Monument.
To call people autochthons, literary means those who came out of the ground and implies that they are thought by themselves and others to have a special intimacy with the territory they occupied because they are thought to be the earliest to grow from the ground and live there.
This villager uses the clumsy word autochthon for want of a clearer term that conveys the partly mythical, partly historical, partly attitudinal references that it contains when handling national matters in Zimbabwe.
Back to Musana the incarnate Bvumavaranda spirit, was to lead the delegation of villagers, technocrats and archaeologists to the secret site at Great Zimbabwe and guide in the disinterment in what turned out to be the first ever spirit-driven archaeological exhumation in Zimbabwe.
The Government approved of the exhumation but everything was to be done under the guidance of Bvumavaranda. The medium would identify the grave that no living person had known or heard off.
At night we gathered in Bvumavaranda’s sacred shrine in Musana, and one by one we removed our shoes and left them outside. The shrine, was a big round grass thatched stone structure.
Men sat on the rid mats to left side while women sat on the opposite. The medium, moseyed in staggering gait to the centre and sat stealthily. Four men sat behind mbira instruments, one sat with his the shakers.
This is not a script for a pre-historic movie, but a real life story.
Soon the twing-twang of the mbira set of, reverberating in the gourds, sending everyone in a frenzy of spirituality. The music was eerie and profound. Then there was clapping, dancing and song as the night slept away. Everyone was in the grove.
By mid-night the binge had reached fever pitch, having increased in tempo and crescendo.
Then the spirit manifested and it was time to greet the autochthonous ancestor. Everyone, men and women, went down on their fours and it was my first time to see such a greetings stunt.
Clap, clap, clap, clap. Silence. “Bvumavaranda!” came the greeting in spiritual intonation followed by ululation. Clap, clap, clap, clap. “Bvumavaranda!” Ululation Silence! Ululation. Silence. Clap, clap, clap. Silence. “Bvumavaranda!” Long ululation. Silence.
The spirit spoke in a soft but authoritative voice.
“The task you face is not going to be easy but it will be done. I will guide and protect you. Finally, we are going to exhume my paraphernalia and bring it home. It is a knobkerrie. Mbauro breached my taboo and I sank into the ground. I will show you the “grave”. Take the knobkerrie but leave my remains there.
“Take just a few of my remains and give the authorities to test (Carbon Dating and DNA), so that they found out which time I lived. Then whole world will know am not fake. I lived way longer than you all think.
“There will be problems here and there along the way but at the end, it will be done,’’ said the spirit before going back to the world yonder.
By 4am, the time elephants usually bathed in the rivers in ancient times, we were up and the convoy took off to Masvingo. Everything went by the spirit’s script. We came across the small problems with police etc as promised but eventually we got there.
The story is that one day, Bvumavaranda and his friend Mbauro, were on a stroll on a swamp on what is today the Great Zimbabwe National Monument. Bvumavaranda carried with him a special paraphernalia, which included a clay gourd and a small knobkerrie passed on from his grandfather.
The paraphernalia had taboos, with the most important being that no one else should touch them. Mbauro touched the knobkerrie and the gourd. Disappointed, Bvumavaranda, sunk into the swamp in a standing position and died. He was never buried the usual way.
So we went to dig out the swamp and retrieve the knobkerrie that is supposed to be a harbinger of good fortune to the Rozvi.
On the second night, we found ourselves at a house in a village near Sikato on the outskirts of Great Zimbabwe were we played Mbira and a danced until we slept around midnight. We continued fasting. No meat no women.
On day three, we woke up at entrance of Great Zimbabwe National Monuments and the medium used an ephod, like the one used by King David in the Bible, to identify the grave. Within minutes the ephod had pointed to a spot, a spitting distance from the entrance.
It was a clean place where no tree grew. Where no one suspected there was a “grave”. Where the grader that diverted water from the swamp, mysteriously avoided. Two drainage trenches left the “grave” as an Island, for some reason. Spiritual!
Day after day, tourists, archaeologists, traditionalists and little everyone else have entered the Great Zimbabwe National Monument again and again, and, again and again, but it is only last week that it was discovered, through a thoroughbred spirit medium that there was indeed a “grave” of a Rozvi autochthon, who buried himself in a swamp more than nine centuries ago, a spitting distance from the main entrance.
Led by archaeologist Professor Chinyani, we started landscaping and digging and digging. For three days we dug, in water and mud. Water gushed out of the swamp and we scooped with buckets. We dug and scooped. Dug, dug and dug. We scooped water and scooped. Dug! Scooped.
On the fourth day, material such as what looked like a decayed human hand was found at about 2,5 metres depth. Then there were beads. Blue beads. Different from those normally found at Great Zimbabwe, suggesting they were from pre-historic Great Zimbabwe.
On the fifth day, a vortex of water and mud gave way to other material that looked like a decayed knobkerrie and was collected by archaeologists for carbon dating and DNA testing. This shocked many and we now await the results.
The traditional spiritual realm, may eventually prove to be the conservatory of the world. When the “civilised” nations in consequence of their wonderful material development shall have had their spiritual susceptibilities blunted through the agency of a captivating and absorbing unrealistic materialism, it may be that they have to resort to the village to recover some of the simple and original elements of real life.
Whatever we do in towns — the jungles of concrete buildings and pavements and junk food — one will always revert to the village to drink and dine from the wealth of our ancestors, from our mothers and fathers who lead the most modest of all lives.
And, when all is said and done, Bvumavaranda is one of the few standing genuine spirit medium and from him the nation of Zimbabwe can benefit in more than one ways. His credentials are there for all and sundry to see. He is a real traditional spirit medium and the Rozvi, have always used the totem Bvumavaranda loosely without knowing how much power they still wield in the spiritual realm and in the governance of this country. Time is a great teacher!.
Online Reporter