Cultural Heritage with Pathisa Nyathi
IN the last article, we gave one instance when these days bones are carefully gathered during certain occasions and specially disposed of later.
We dealt with death-related instances where bones were meticulously collected and we brought out the fact that there were spiritual considerations that were at play.
Within that spiritual consideration, there was the underlying belief that a human being is composed of material or physical body and the spiritual element.
Now we shall cite another occasion when bones were gathered in order that they did not fall into wrong hands, the hands of people who possess the ritual skills to cause harm.
In another article in a different newspaper, I shall deal with the concept of arresting, ukubopha and seek to unpack the concept and indicate where and how it is applied in different situations among the Ndebele people both in the past and in the present
For one to be a witch/wizard they have to undergo some requisite initiation, a process that builds on the innate potential that one possesses in order to practice as an accomplished and experienced witch/wizard.
The same applies in the case of one who is destined to be a traditional healer.
With regard to the latter, a ceremony marks the end of the process of initiation.
The initiate would have been apprenticed under the guidance of a more mature and accomplished traditional doctor.
There, the initiate undergoes various processes that seek to fortify him/her, enhance communication with the ancestral spirits, and introduce him/her to the use of medicines, and astronomy in addition to ethics, morals and appropriate values.
Ancestral spirits
Usually, the apprenticeship is undertaken during the winter months that mark the time when rites of passage used to be conducted before the onset of the New Year in September.
The one component feature of the curriculum was astronomy.
The movement of celestial bodies was studiously followed and its significance highlighted.
The end of apprenticeship usually coincided with the emergence of the Pleiades constellation, isilimela.
The trainer, if we may call him/her that, took back the initiate, ithwasa, to her/his people.
Those receiving the initiate would want to know if indeed they was properly trained in the new profession.
One aspect would be concealing something that the initiate would be requested to locate.
After the various processes, a beast to welcome the spirits would be slaughtered.
It is the bones of this particular beast that have to be carefully gathered.
In this particular ritual and ceremony, the spirits are particularly and specifically involved.
The spirits have been empowered to perform the various chores that spirits perform through the agency of their host or medium.
That might translate to accumulated riches.
Immediately, that might invoke jealousy and envy in some people of an antagonistic profession.
Some may just gaze and do no more than that.
However, others translate their envy and jealousy to applied principles of witchcraft.
They may seek even to kill the host/medium.
More often they will “arrest,” ukubopha.
That translates to disempowering, immobilising, emasculating and incapacitating the spirits.
The jealousy and envy are not unfounded.
When the spirits are operating at full throttle they oppose the machinations of witches.
This is quite clearly bad news for those plying the dark profession.
It is true that the two professions tap into the same science, the Ancient African Science (AAS) at the level of principles.
However, they differ in what they seek to achieve in the communities and families.
Witches seek to inflict pain or injury, inhibit progress and success, and even cause death.
Traditional doctors on the other hand seek healing, welfare and progress in the affairs of the community and family members.
The two groups of professionals are poles apart, albeit only in terms of end results.
The family of the initiate and other members of the community will derive benefits when the ancestral spirits of the initiate are operational, without hindrance and incapacitation by witches/wizards.
Witches/wizards
That hindrance and incapacitation are engendered and engineered through ritual manipulation of the bones of the beast being slaughtered for the ancestral spirits that are being welcomed.
The bones are thus seen as having a life beyond being mere bones.
They have assumed a spiritual content, or endowment that can easily be nullified or hindered by those who know the forces and energies available in the world.
They will harness or domesticate these ubiquitous forces and come up with ritual formulae that are then targeted at the spirits. All this is done through the bones from a beast that has been slaughtered for the ancestral spirits.
The bones provide that necessary accessing link between the purveyors of witchcraft and the spirits.
There are instances where people who underwent the requisite training or apprenticeship but practice for a very brief moment and after that they can no longer ply their practice anymore.
All that may be a result of the purveyors of the dark mystical powers who do not wish to be disturbed in their nocturnal errands.
They and the witches are fire and ice.
They will not co-exist.
One may have to go under.
Many a time the one who was a traditional doctor ends up joining the Apostolic or Zionist spiritual sects.
There, his spirits may once again manifest and express themselves, albeit in a different way.
They may profess Jesus and even prophesy.
Professing within the context of these spiritual sects is like half a loaf being better than no loaf at all.
Before we put an end to the bone stories let us refer to one bone that was tentatively identified as a dog canine.
The identification was not definitive.
All that we do here is apply our knowledge of Ndebele cultural thought and practices, figure out which bone looks akin to that of a dog, and use that to tentatively surmise what bone it could possibly have been.
What is true is that the Ndebele people did have domesticated dogs.
These were used during hunting of game.
However, when a dog died its carcass was taken outside of human settlement, to some place far away in the bush.
Ndebele dogs were doctored for various reasons.
Powders were blown into their nostrils, ukuvuthela, to improve their detection capabilities or tracking of scent/odour of some animal.
Such a dog will smell the presence of an animal before it even sees it.
Some dogs had their teeth sharpened, not in the literal sense bur figuratively so that their teeth would penetrate the body of the animal they caught.
Yet another trait was developed in dogs.
Hunters knew the behaviour of some predators.
There was one that they knew was a good hunter in that it gave sustained chase.
Some dogs chased for some short moment and abandoned that chase and came back with long tongue hanging out of their sweating mouths gasping for air.
Good for nothing sort of dog.
The one predator that was known to give sustained chase was the wild dog or the painted dog, iganyana.
Its exploits led to its adoption as a spiritual song.
Wild dog
A wild dog is so talented in chasing after an animal and its other Ndebele name is idlelaphezulu.
The belief is that it chases and catches up with the animal, gets a chunk of meat from the running animal and consumes it.
Once done with the removed flesh, it will resume the chase, catch up with the running animal, and eat off some chunk, hence the name, idlelaphezulu.
Essentially, the wild dog gives sustained chase.
It never tires.
In any case, they hunt as a pack.
What the Ndebele hunters sought was to pass a wild dog’s attribute of sustained chase to their own dogs. Symbolic manipulation was brought into play.
A canine from a wild dog was stuck into the feeding bowl, umkoro.
Dogs ate their food from this vessel with a wild dog canine tooth stuck at the base.
It is believed that the dogs that ate from a vessel so doctored would resemble, in terms of sustained chase, the wild dog.
Such a bone could easily have been found within the royal enclosure.
At the same time, we may not discount the possibility that the King, as part of the royal paraphernalia, wore the canine tooth of a wild dog.
The canine may have been targeted at the spirits of the King, that when they defended the King, they would do so without easily giving up. It was expected to be a fight to the end, a sustained encounter in protection of King and State.