Burial practices and language: Expressions of a community’s cosmology
WE recently witnessed the burial of Chief Malaki Nzula Masuku of Matobo District who descended from an illustrious lineage of Masuku chiefs, starting with Chief Mkhokhi who was head of iNyamayendlovu west of Bulawayo. While many chiefly lineages did not make it beyond colonisation, the Masuku lineage did. However, it was not all of them that made it through colonisation into the postindependence era. In this category fall the following among several others: Inzwananzi, uZwangendaba, iZinyanga, aMazizi, aMatshovu, uLulwana, iLanga, iHlali and iMfakuceba, among several others. While currently there are moves by the Ministry of Rural Development Preservation of National Heritage and Culture hardly any of the pre-colonial Ndebele chieftaincies have to date been resuscitated. This will be a matter for another instalment.
Before we delve into the intricacies of qualifications and disqualifications regarding chieftainships let us make a few observations on chiefly burials in contemporary times. When a chief died the term used to refer to that was “isihlahla sesiwile,” literally the tree has fallen. Such language expressions were used to convey a community’s perceptions relating to the position of chief and the cosmological rootedness of the social occurrence. In other words, language conveyed beliefs, philosophies and worldviews of a community.
Isihlahla (a tree), was perceived as a provider of shelter to the community members. The term that was used was umthunzi (a shade). The blazing sun was seen as a scorching celestial body that could lead to death when giving out intense heat over a prolonged period of time. It is the same sun that was seen as giving life and its daily rising was celebrated as it symbolised regeneration and rebirth, ideas that lie at the core of the idea of continuity of humanity. Light and its absence alternate in a rhythmic cyclical pattern which renders life possible. Light without intermittent periodic absence leads to death. Similarly, the absence of light for extended periods without light breaking its linear progression leads to certain death. Duality is the essence of life: life and death are inseparable partners.
The perception of a chief as some shade against the scorching sun is thus pregnant with philosophical meaning and symbolism. Expression of condolences was thus a deep-seated rendition of a people’s worldview. We certainly heard people refer to the late Chief Masuku as the shade ( umthunzi) that was no more. Indeed, one talks of a tree’s shade when the tree stands high above the ground. Once the tree falls down it no longer continues to provide the necessary shade, or protection against the scorching sun.
A chief as pointed out in an earlier instalment led his people on raids motivated by the desire to obtain cattle — regarded as food for sustenance. At the same time, he protected them from physical harm by leading forces against perceived enemies who caused death, just like the scorching sun. These and other roles of a chief led to his perception as being umthunzi, the shade for members of his community. When we think we are preserving language we are in actual fact preserving much more than that. We are also preserving a community’s history and heritage and, most importantly, their worldview which is the basis for cultural behaviour and practices, rituals and ceremonies. Destroying a people’s language is thus tantamount to decoupling them from their past and heritage and thrusting them into an orbit of confusion and a meaningless life devoid of both vision and mission.
So it was with a king only that his demise was referred to as the falling of a mountain ( ukudilika kwentaba). Clearly a mountain is bigger than a tree. Trees, as a matter of fact, do grow on a mountain. The choice of a mountain was not without significance and meaning. The people would do well to excavate the deeper-seated meaning that is brought out by symbolic reference to a mountain. However, for now the focus is on a chief.
The other idea that we may take up by referring to Chief Malaki Nzula Masuku relates to “indlu yakhe,” his hut. This was the term used in a discussion between the Reverend Paul Bayethe Damasane who was representing the minister during the funeral and the late chief ’s son, Nkulumane. The latter was reporting on progress being made by the Ministry of Public Works in constructing a brick wall as a lining for the rectangular grave at Nathisa where the chief ’s remains were to be interred alongside those of his grandfather Chief Nzula Hole Masuku, the son of Chief Hole and Princess Famona Khumalo, daughter of King Lobengula Khumalo.
Our interest here is recourse to the word indlu, a hut in reference to the site where the chief ’s remains were to be interred. In the first instance we note the shape of the grave as a deviation from that of a traditional Ndebele grave which was in sync with the Ndebele people’s worldview at the centre of which was the circular design symbolising the idea of continuity. As we gaze down upon a rectangular grave it should serve as a reminder of how, not only the Ndebele but Africans in general have migrated from a philosophically based cultural practice to one whose basis they have no clue about. Do we as Africans know what a rectangular design stands for? It so happens that God’s creations do not embrace a rectangular design!
What is important to appreciate with regard to the Africans is that in their various cultural practices they sought to bring to the fore their fundamental philosophies and worldviews. No wonder therefore that the circular design or part thereof (curvilinearity) was evident in all the crafts, hut, cattle pen architecture, layout of homesteads and the arrangement of sitting in a traditional court. The circular design pervaded the entire spectrum of an Africans’ spiritual and cultural lives. It was a way of life that inextricably linked them with the cosmos which is similarly structured, organised and functions. African culture is cosmos operationalised. African spirituality and culture mirror the cosmos. One then begins to wonder just how possible it is to understand African spirituality and culture outside the academic disciplines of Astronomy, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Bilogy.
Western influences at the cosmological level become apparent when one looks at the shape of the grave. When Chief Hole Masuku and his compatriots were ultimately defeated they were forcibly persuaded to abandon their worldviews and their expressions on the cultural fronts. The bulding of a brick wall further consolidates the idea of migrating from fundamental beliefs towards embrace of the ways of the colonizer, which practices endure long after he was dislodged. The vital question to ask is was he really dislodged, if his culture lingers on, on many cultural fronts?
A hut ( indlu) is built for a purpose: to keep out the elements. It is where people take a rest during both day and night. The dead continue to live beyond death, an important reality embraced within the concept of indlu as it relates to the dead. No one ever says stones take a rest. No one either ever says trees take a rest. Only the living are said to rest. Whereas the spirit exits its lifelong housing, bones are interred in a structure which brings to the fore the idea of eternal life of the spirit. The two recently divorced aspects of a human being continue to interact at a lower level plane. The spirit seems to be the greater consideration in this regard. Some people will plant trees on a grave expressly to give the spirit some shade and solace from the scorching sun. From time to time the departed spirit returns to commiserate with its former dual counterpart. Egyptian pyramids were a rock solid site for the meeting beyond death of the spirit and its former partner.
What should be glaring from this narrative is the fact that cultural practices including burial rites have migrated away from their cosmological rootedness to encompass new and foreign ideas from former colonizers. It is a sobering reality that political independence is characterised more by continuities than discontinuities. Liberation in the true sense of the word and concept remains a pipedream, a mirage that keeps distancing itself from the grasp of Africans.