The hunch ceremony that shook the village

Isdore Guvamombe Saturday Lounge Reflections

Back in the village, in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, elderly men from one clan (Soko Wafawanaka, the primates) sat under a huge Muchakata tree on the fringes of a homestead, partaking beer.

A clay pot sat delicately in the centre, frothing.

They were the very, very important guests (VVIPs).

It is taboo in the village to discuss serious matters on dry throats.

Beer, it is enthusiastically believed, oils the throat, the conversation and the thought process itself. A function without beer is not sacrosanct to the ancestors.

Today, the primates were discussing matters of their clan and procedures of the appeasement ceremony under way.

No one else not from their clan was allowed. It was an inner circle.

The men sat on logs arranged in cow-horn formation while the main officiant sat on the ground by the clay pot in the centre, dishing out the beer with a gourd that circulated orderly from our mouth to another.

One elderly man held the gourd high in both hands tossing his head backwards, drinking deeply, savouring each swallow.

He sighed with contentment and lowered the gourd to the ground, wiping his thick lips and chin with the back of his hand.

He licked his lips with the tongue to make sure the drags were gone. The main officiant picked up the gourd, wiped its bottom off sand with his hand.

Thereafter, he systematically, stirred the beer with the gourd before fetching another scoop for the next man. That was his job. Sharing.

Women on the other hand, sat under the eaves of the kitchen, tired from the dancing and singing of the previous night. They also drank, but in a less coordinated way.

Men from other clans sat dotted in small groups also partaking their allocated beer. Today, they were the lesser people, for, the primates were the officials.

It was mostly time to rest after a night of long knives, waist wriggling, singing and sex provoking dances.

Tonight was the final binge. They were going to finish off the appeasement ceremony.

They were thus bracing for it and were reserving the best for it, albeit in their drunken stupor.

But on an afternoon like this, young boys got the chance to play the drums.

So, the young boys played with the drums unrelentingly, imitating the cross rhythms the adults had been playing all night long, but the youngsters’ beat was clearly immature to the experienced ear. There was discord here and there.

Each of the four drums had a unique vocal stylisation and you hardly get one drummer who can beat each drum with the same dexterity. The boys tried exactly the same, taking turns but amateurs are amateurs, nothing beats experience.

When the drumbeat faltered towards discord, it immediately was taken to the fireplace, where a temperamental bonfire taught it to behave and to retune its chords.

The cow hide on the drum listened fervently to the licking, kissing fire flame and immediately tuned its vocal codes.

The cow hide normally suffered at the hands of a veteran drummer. A veteran drummer’s palms are normally as hard as the foot of an elephant. If you are unfortunate to be slapped with one such hand, you cracked your cheeks and broke your jaws. Your sight dimmed and you could see stars.

So the homestead was alive, each doing what they knew best. Another group of young women cooked food in huge drums, helped by less useful men. Those men normally deemed unfit for serious discourse were thrown to work with women. Others of their ilk were also sent goat skinning.

In the village, appropriate registers apply. Everyone knows how to relate to another.

The trickiest relationship was that of a family friends (sahwira). This one could do virtually anything and say a lot of things that other relatives could not say and still remained safe.

Normally it was the whole families that related. He rarely got into trouble.

On this day, Nathan was the main family friend. Having been sent by his clan to represent them. He was up and about, drunk too. He shouted about everything and anything, denigrating the wrong and promoting the right. The main officiant pampered him with beer to make sure his actions are oiled. By the afternoon he was sloshed bad.

Nathan had one arm amputated in a freak artisanal gold mining blast accident. His hand was amputated just by the wrist. His palm had been severely damaged in the accident and doctors had decided to remove it.

But there were many other sides Nathan. Everything depended on which Nathan appeared that day; a good one, a bad one, a funny one or an extremely quiet one. At times he appeared as a ghostly one, voiceless and scary. He was everything. A buffet of characters rolled in one.

In the village again, the Korekore tradition named each calabash of beer by its names from the first one to the last. When it was the last one for a particular event, they called it a wiper or tissue paper, but in their own language. I am using these two words loosley here in the context of the aftermath of posting a letter; once you wipe it is time to go.

Hence, once the officiant announces that the calabash before them was a wiper or tissue paper, they would all leave after it got finished. That was the beauty of their language.

The Mhofu clan had finished the discussion of the day when the officiant, announced the clay pot he had brought before them was a wiper.

So, each man prepared his throat for four or five final gulps on the last beer of this particular meeting.

As soon as the first gourd from the wiper clay pot was dished out to the oldest clan member, Nathan arrived and joked a bit, while closing in on the frothing pot. In a flash of a moment, he dipped his amputated hand into the calabash and stirred the beer, much to the chagrin of the clan members. “Ooh no!” the exclaimed in unison.

Within moments the relationship was forgotten, almost everyone went after him. A scuffle ensued. They kneed, shoved, clapped him…kneed, kneed, kneed… clapped, clapped, clapped. Kneed! Shoved, shoved and shoved.

They warmed him.

Nathan collapsed and one of the clan members still went after him. By this time everyone was by the scene. Men, women and children. They tried to resuscitate Nathan but he was gone. Dead. The mood changed.

Everything changed!