adminnephews, wives and other relatives.
“Mauya VaNyandoro! Chihoro! Welcome!” the women shouted with joy, embracing me.
Men older than my father took turns to clap their hands together to ask about my health. “Makadii Mhai? Makadii Mbuya?” they addressed me with humility and respect.
The women sat on the floor and did the same, even though most of those who came from Chihota where my great grandmother was born had never seen me before. But they all knew that I was now the oldest remaining female grandchild. Not only that, I was VaNyandoro’s namesake.
I had vague memories of a naming ceremony that had taken place many years ago, when I was still too young to know what was going on. I sat next to Mbuya VaMandirowesa, covered with a black and white cloth and several people danced, sang and called me Nyandoro.
“You are back Nyandoro! Chihoro, Nhari!” they shouted, grabbing my skinny little hand and shaking it with so much vigour. Some old ladies begged me saying, “Give us tobacco like you used to do. Do not hold back. You were a generous person.”
Sometime before Zimbabwe’s independence, I declared that I was not going to be called by VaNyandoro’s name. There were many reasons for rejecting the name. It was an old person’s name. It was Shona and it belonged to a language spoken by tribes’ people. There was nothing English or civilised in the name at all.
Besides, I knew very little about VaNyandoro except that she grew up in Chihota near Salisbury (Harare) before becoming my great grandfather’s second wife. There were no photos of her. People said I was just as dark as she was therefore the name had been appropriately placed.
VaNyandoro had died during a visit to her daughter, VaSara, who lived on Bristol, Lushington or Fair Adventure farms near Hwedza in the 1950’s. The white farmer could not allow VaSara to bring VaNyandoro’s body back to the village in a scotch cart on rough roads. That was not healthy. So VaNyandoro was buried by Malawian migrant farm workers somewhere on one of the farms.
Up to this day, nobody knows where the pile of stones representing my great grandmother’s grave resides.
At the age of 12, I was baptised at St Peters Mutoredzanwa near Sadza. I belonged to the Church of England. My new name was not Sekesai or Nyandoro as they wanted to call me in the village. My name was Irene, Eileen or Myrtle. Any one of those English names was just fine.
If Mbuya VaMandirowesa had heard about my baptism and change of name she pretended not to know. That is what she did with everything that was not formally presented to her. She kept on calling me Sekesai and when she was drunk and I was slow in serving her, she angrily called me Nyandoro.
She said my slow habit to complete easy tasks was genetic because I had taken after VaNyandoro. “Koti kusviba!” she would shout, referring to the darkness of my skin. I quietly waited for the day when I would gather enough courage to tell Mbuya about my change of name and determination to leave her and the primitive and backward village.
One afternoon, I decided it was time to tell Mbuya that I was no longer called Sekesai and will not be called Nyandoro either. Nyandoro was a pagan ancestor spirit. Such a spirit could not dwell in me now or in future because I was a new creature, cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Even though outside I was still black, inside my spirit was whiter than snow.
The sun was setting slowly over the Hwedza mountains when I went inside the hut and sat on the goatskin mat next to Mbuya VaMandirowesa. Mbuya sat cross legged near the door. She was taking snuff from the palm of her hand. The tip of her nose had markings of snuff on it.
Around her head was a piece of fresh bark string. It eased the pain of a frontal headache. Mbuya had the granary key tied on a piece of another bark string hung around her neck like a necklace. She did not trust anyone, not even me, to look after her granary keys.
Golden rays of the sun shone on the stacked polished clay pots. I smelt dried mushrooms boiling in a small clay pot over the smouldering fire, her favourite dish. Although I had seen her around the village compound all day, I knelt down to greet her: “Maswera sei Mbuya?” She ignored me and kept looking at the big red ball of the sun.
Mbuya often behaved like that when she took snuff. She seemed to enter a different world of her own. For a while we both watched the sun. It sat on the big granite rocks over the mountains. It was the dry season. In the silence between us, I heard the song of the cicada telling us rain was near.
The sun gently fell over to the other side of the granite rocks and disappeared. All that was left was a spray of red, yellow and orange clouds. I did not say what I wanted to say straightway. That was not the way you spoke to an elder.
When enough silence had passed, I clapped my hands in respect and said, “Mbuya, I am a Christian now.” She said nothing. I took a deep breath. Then I raised my voice and made the announcement: “I was baptised at St Peters and given a new name. I am not Sekesai or Nyandoro anymore. My new Christian name is Irene, Eileen or Myrtle.”
Mbuya did look at me. Instead, she kept on pushing more snuff up her nose. She sneezed the way spirit mediums did. Then Mbuya slowly turned. Her eyes were red. She twisted her mouth to the left, then to the right. She frowned and narrowed her eyes. She roughly pushed a piece of burning wood into the fire. There was more silence.
In slow measured tones, she looked straight at me and said, “The name will not change. VaNyandoro was the mother of your Sekuru Dickson. Her cattle were used as bride price to marry your mother. VaNyandoro agreed to let go of those beasts on the promise that, when your mother gives birth to a girl, the child will be given the name.
“Your mother had many girls, but it was you who cried one day and could not be consoled. The diviner said you were possessed by VaNyandoro who wanted her name to be remembered as promised. We had a naming ceremony and from that day, VaNyandoro’s spirit has been dwelling in you. You are the reincarnation of my mother in law.”
“But Mbuya, a Shona name is unchristian and uncivilised. I do not want to be called by that name any more,” I spoke with the courage and conviction of a new power bestowed upon me by Jesus and all the angels up in heaven.
Then I noticed Mbuya becoming breathless. Her nose was flaring with anger. There was fire in her eyes. Suddenly, Mbuya spat through the door on to the dusty ground outside.
She shouted: “Nyandoro’s cows went to your mother’s village. Danga remombe rese. Your mother called you Sekesai for her own reasons, but we also know, you are Nyandoro, the great female ancestor. Ndipo pane zita rezimbuya renyu. You cannot refuse the name. The name Nyandoro will not go to anyone else.
“The spirit made you cry for it. You do not have a choice. The name will sit on you until the day they bury you. Ndingapike naMakufa akachekwa naMakiwa! I swear by Makufa whose throat was cut by the white people!” Mbuya pounded the hut floor with her fist.
I quickly got up and ran out of the hut as fast as I could. You did not hang around when Mbuya swore by her brother Makufa’s name. The whole village compound knew that when Mbuya swore by Makufa’s name, then her anger had climbed way past the top of the anthill. Nobody argued with her. People fled, even Sekuru Dickson.
For as long as I could remember, the story of my great uncle Makufa was told in bits and pieces. Makufa worked as a “kitchen boy” at Bristol farm in the 1930s.
One day Makufa was involved in a fight and one farm worker died. Makufa and others were arrested but it was Makufa who was charged with murder. He was sentenced to hang in Salisbury. Makufa claimed he was innocent and when Mbuya came to say good bye to him, he told her that the spirit of the dead man knew its killer so there would be no bad spirits or ngozi coming to haunt the village after he was hung.
Mbuya made Makufa promise not to change his name if the prison priest asked to baptise him before his death. My great uncle Makufa may have been hung to death and not cut as Mbuya used to swear.
Back in the village, they mourned Makufa and buried a goat’s head in place of Makufa’s body. But Makufa’s name remained in Mbuya’s memory as a weapon to express the height of her anger and remind us about Makufa’s death.
Many years later, I was back from my Diaspora wanderings and we were gathered to honour the name of VaNyandoro, my great grandmother. Here I was, celebrating the name I once refused to acknowledge and went out full speed in search of the liberation forces of Christianity. Such forces were at one stage reinforced by chants of Western feminism.
I longed for the spiritual freedom from the sins of my fathers and grandmothers. I also wanted the promises of Western type gender equality, which I believed could give me total freedom from a backward traditional African culture.
If it was not for this restlessness, this alienation and this fear of losing my identity, I could have very well stayed in the Diaspora worshipping the Anglican way and fighting for gender rights alongside my white sisters.
There was something wrong in rejecting my great grandmother’s name because within that name, lay the memory and the power of women bestowed on us by grandmothers and all the generations of women whose history we do not know because it was not written.
Even if we wonder faraway and reject the names they gave us and the memory of our past, we shall always carry the colour of our grandmother’s skin with us.
l Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic. She holds a PhD in International Relations and is a consultant and director of The Simukai Development Project.
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