A city boy walks the road to manhood
In a Gauteng township, a businessman honours the heritage his family has kept alive in ’exile’ for 185 years
HIS family would not get involved in his lobola negotiations because he was not circumcised, so 26-year-old townshipborn and -raised businessman Vuyani Nosenga underwent the dreaded “cut”.
Vuyani, by all accounts your typical urban township outie, had thought his former Model C education and the fact that he had his own business would be enough to convince his uncles that he was ready for marriage.
Not so, said uncle and family spokesman Xoli Nosenga. So off Vuyani went to undergo the traditional Xhosa rite of passage.
This was not because the family were being backwards or draconian, but rather because of the value they place on the rite.
“This young man understands our rituals and knows that once you reach the stage where you have to take a wife, you have to be considered a man. In our family there is no boy who can be the head of a household — no matter how much money he has,” said the elder Nosenga.
Last weekend Vuyani was welcomed home by his family in Sebokeng’s Zone 7 after spending the past three months in isolation. A young bull was slaughtered in celebration, and his three year-old son, Thandolwethu, and fiancée, Busisiwe Hlongwane, were there to welcome him.
More importantly for the family, who are spread throughout the Free State and southern Gauteng, was that it was another milestone in 185 years of performing the rite in these “foreign” lands.
Budding historian and author Nosenga said the family had made it a point to keep their roots amid the cultural onslaught of the melting pot that is Gauteng. “Central to that is ulwaluko [the rite] itself and the pride of knowing who we are,” he said.
“What made us pleasantly surprised is that he is your typical boy from around these parts and attended multiracial schools, but that did not influence him. He did it of his own volition, and gave us proper reasons for wanting to go through this,” said Nosenga.
The significance of the rite is not lost on Vuyani.
“I am thankful kooXhamela, ooNokwindla, uMabuy’eypheth’inyam yenyamankazi ngobutsolo bentonga,” he said, citing his clan names.
“I have now walked the road and seen . . . And now I know about isiko [the rite]. I have learnt many things in seclusion, such as ubuntu, my responsibility to protect my home at all times, and knowing where I come from, who I am, and where I’m going.
“I have seen many men in my family undertake this journey, and for me part of why I did it is so that this house of Xhamela can keep this rite for generations to come.
“My own son must follow in my footsteps like I did with my father, who was shown the way by his own father.”
The circumcision rite though is not without its controversies. INITIATE: Vuyani Nosenga underwent the traditional Xhosa rite of passage known as ’ulwaluko’ at the age of 26 in a forest just off the N1 in Sebokeng in the Vaal Triangle
Negligence, profiteering, incompetence and abuse have led to death, injury and penile amputation in areas where the rite is practised, including the rural RITE OF PASSAGE: A young bull is tethered in the yard to be slaughtered after the ritual, above, and an elder incinerates the hut Vuyani Nosenga stayed in during his initiation, below hinterlands.
In the past 20 years the ritual has claimed more than 500 lives, while thousands more young men have been maimed for life.
The townships are also notorious for unscrupulous traditional surgeons and their assistants who kidnap boys to undergo the rite. This has resulted in many deaths and makes the urban parents of young boys fearful.
“One does get scared, especially when you don’t know what the process entails, but I believe that one should never let fear of the unknown rule you,” said Vuyani. “I also had living examples in the older males in my family.”
Nosenga said the family had always insisted that those who oversee the rite, from the surgeon to the assistants who look after the initiates, were well trained, experienced and known to the family. “In our family, at [one time] we had three traditional surgeons who did all the work,” he said.
“Even now we have one man, called Mvulane, who does this work for all the boys in our area. He has his counterpart in Parys, who was also carefully selected . . . Both of them make sure that they do not take on more than six boys in a season to make sure there are enough people to look after these boys properly.”
He said the family had resisted changes to the rite to accommodate a Western redefinition of when to go and what constitutes manhood. Nowadays many boys go into seclusion for four weeks in June or December to accommodate the country’s longest school holidays, as generally the initiates are 18-yearolds and in their matric year.
In earlier times, the rite was performed in the dead of winter and boys would stay for up to three months. Going at a later stage in his life and being his own boss allowed Vuyani to follow this to the letter.
Yesterday, South Africa marked Heritage Day, a public holiday that is a celebration of the country’s diversity of beliefs and traditions, intended to foster nation building. In recent times there has been intense debate over the commercialisation of the important holiday — one that some quarters choose to celebrate as Braai Day.
These tensions between tradition and modern ways have always existed for black South Africans in urban areas.
The migration of Africans from rural kraals to towns in significant numbers can be traced to before the birth of the Union of South Africa in 1910, with its roots in the gold and diamond rushes of the middle and late 1800s.
This is about the same time that Matshanda, the Nosenga family patriarch, was moving with English farmers from the Eastern Cape town of Lady Frere — in what is now Chris Hani District — to the Free State, where they settled.
Over time the family drifted further north to the Vaal Triangle, which would later be urbanised by the heavy industry that boomed in the 20th century thanks to the demand for iron and steel after World War 2.
“Because they [the Nosenga forebears] could not go home, they prioritised passing their lineage and their story to their children so that they would always know who they were. They told them that they lived on top of the river Cacadu and were part of the amaGcina clan of the Xhosas in the Eastern Cape,” said Nosenga. MAN AND BOY: Thandolwethu, 3, welcomes his dad home
Industrialisation and changing times increasingly drew Africans to urban spaces. The government of the day restricted them to labour reserves on the outskirts of cities — townships that would be home to people who came from all over Southern Africa.
Besides their determination to preserve the rite, the family recognise another legacy of the struggle to survive in “foreign lands”: the entrepreneurial spirit that still drives them, 11 generations later.
In the early 1900s, Nosenga related, his great-grandparents banded together to start a home-building and painting business. The rationale was to empower themselves so that their culture would not be influenced by external forces with greater resources.
“Being beholden to someone else means there are other factors that affect your ability to be who you are,” said Nosenga. “You will constantly be asking someone else for permission to practise your own rituals.
“My forefathers worked in such a way that they would take their children and wives to work to ensure that everyone understood the family business. Until today, those who choose to go into business, even if it’s not the family trade, get support from the entire family,” he said.
Townships were not always peaceful places and Sebokeng, like many others, was racked by tensions that escalated to violence many times during apartheid. But cultural ceremonies often fostered peace between the different ethnic groupings.
“I was called iqosa, or ikhawuza, or igoduka [belittling nicknames for Xhosa people]. This was because of the political
No boy can be the head of a household — no matter how much money he has One does get scared, but I . . . had living examples in the older males in my family Because they could not go home, they prioritised passing their story to their children
project to segregate us,” Nosenga said.
“But in all our differences, there was a sense of unity around our rich cultures. Whichever home had a traditional ceremony, you get visitors from all different ethnicities.
“These ceremonies brought us together as a community, and I wish South Africans could see how appreciation of culture can bring warring parties together.
“Everyone’s lips kiss the same calabash.”