Names and naming: Pathisa, a ‘messed-up’ name reflecting desperation after several miscarriages

SOMETIMES we underestimate the amount of knowledge, information, belief systems and opinions that are embedded in the names that we are given.

The tradition is of course undergoing transformation as a result of westernisation which, from its own culture, brought along names whose origins we are not very certain about. Sometimes the names are traceable to Judaism, albeit without obvious meanings.

Christianity preceded colonisation and the first exotic names to be known were of missionaries such as the Reverend Dr Robert Moffat, who the Ndebele referred to as uMtshede. It does seem the name came to the Ndebele via the SeTswana language, with the vowel being an addition from IsiNdebele. There were other names that were available to the Ndebele. However, what we do observe was the process of Ndebelisation of those exotic names.

Examples abound that we may cite. Reverend William Sykes of the London Missionary Society (LMS) now known as the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA) had his name altered to uSikithi. Of course, then, IsiNdebele orthography would not have had –thi, but –ti which was pronounced according to the context. Amatitiyane was pronounced as determined contextually. On the other hand, ithikili had its -thi spelt differently.

The meaning of the word informed its pronunciation. The process of rationalisation, that is of using spellings in order to differentiate between words, ensued and went on over a long period of time.

Our language committee which was allowed to meet with a natural death had begun identifying words needful of rationalisation. Ukutsheka is spelt as pronounced, even today, depending on context. The word may mean to have a running stomach or not being straight. Such confusion is not necessary where there are people who care about their language. We thus seem not to care at all.

Many years ago such discrepancies abounded. Over the years those in charge of our language worked tirelessly on the orthography in order to avoid contextual pronunciation. When we ought to have progressed, we actually seem to have stagnated or retrogressed.

On the door of the church building at Hope Fountain Mission not so long ago I saw this word, “Ugutula.” When the orthography was attended to, the same word today is “Ukuthula.” The “G” consonant was open to three possible pronunciations: as a “G” sound as in “igula,” the calabash; “ikhuba,” the hoe and “ukulima,” to plough. This is the confusion that led to the school in Bulilima being called Tegwane. Gundwane was a name well known in the history of the Ndebele. Its confusion started when there was its oral rendition alongside the literary rendition.

The Ndebele who never saw the name spelt knew it was Khondwane, King Mzilikazi Khumalo’s maternal uncle. It was this close relative of his that the king entrusted to lead one group following his strategic splitting of his nation into two sections at the time they faced attack from the Afrikaners led by Andries, Hendriek Potgieter (uNdaleka in 1837). It is some people within the AmaNgwe ethnic group who know what is referred to as Gundwane ought to be Khondwane.

Even as I was interviewing Chief Khayisa Ndiweni many years ago, he too referred to Gundwane. Literacy sometimes plays havoc on our names.

My own name is no exception. In 1966 I went to the native commissioner’s office at Kezi, itself a corruption of Kgetsi which is Sebirwa for a bag. Apparently, the Babirwa under Chief Kgoatalala had settled in the area and that fact lives in some names in the locality such as Kgetsi, Lingwe (leopard), Moekeji (corrupted to Mahetshe) and the name of a mountain west of Maphisa. Back to my name which was misspelt in 1966.

From that year when we were doing Standard 6, it became imperative that we produced birth certificates when we sat for the external Standard 6 examinations. Accordingly, I was put on a Pelandaba Bus going to Bulawayo. I dropped at Kezi and walked to the native commissioner’s offices. The road leading to the offices was named Noel Robertson, one time a native commissioner at a number of districts in Matabeleland. He was better known as uNkomiyahlaba, the beast that gores.

I am not sure what exactly the argument was all about. I do remember though that I was thrown out of the office for being argumentative. I was some kind of mini Nkomiyahlaba. I was sent back without a birth certificate.

That meant wasting my father’s money on a second trip to the same offices. If I had not, you would not be reading these stories and the scores of books that I have been churning out for decades now.

On the second trip, my name was messed up big time. Then the orthography demanded that my name be spelt and pronounced Phathisa.

We had been the class which was taught to differentiate between “pha” and “pa.” I remember very well how our hardworking teacher Nelson Ncube from Tshelanyemba (who we nicknamed Bhlaki on account of his skin complexion) got us pronouncing the implosive and explosive syllables against out palms. Pha was explosive and therefore to be spelt with an “h.” “Pa” was implosive and therefore without an “h.”

I was good, in fact too good, at naming people though I can’t remember naming our fine teacher. Even today I name the world around me including my cattle when names are deserved. Perhaps that is for another day. The birth certificate to this day spells my name as Pathisa. Those who know the meaning of the word, not name, know how to defy the birth certificate and pronounce correctly. A few here and there misspell the name. They know it ought to be Phathisa and not Pathisa.

When I started writing this article my intention was to give readers some glimpse into my name, and not orthographical calamities. I am not the first born of my mother, nor of my father. My mother had a child before getting married to my father, as the junior wife. My mother experienced several miscarriages. I am not sure how many times, but many times. Then I was on my way . . . finally.

My father had already been to the Njelele fertility shrine in Matobo. He used to tell us about his experiences as some kind of doubting Thomas. He at one point, while in the cave, looked up where the voice was coming from. What came down was something he had not bargained for — a rock hurled from above that moved from one wall of the cave to the other. Then came the voice, “Who are you to look at me? Even your ancestors never saw me!” I do not remember what father said he had gone to consult about. I may be excused for thinking he was asking for a special gift — me.

Given their previous experiences, my parents were not sure if the pregnancy was going to sustain. Gynaecological interventions, I am told, were solicited from one Galela Nyathi, of the Makhweni section of the Nyathis. To ask which intervention worked, is neither here nor there.

The important thing is that I am there, I am here. Accordingly, to appropriately capture the uncertainty surrounding my birth, the name Phathisa (excuse the correct but unofficial spelling), “Siphathisa abanye,” my parents said.

We are just trying out what others are doing — bringing people to this world successfully. To their pleasant surprise, I was successfully delivered in a kitchen hut, in the process becoming the last child to be delivered in a kitchen hut by a traditional midwife, Mene, BaTjinyoka wakaNcube, my mother’s younger mother. Besides, I was the only one in a family of fifteen siblings to be given a Ndebele name.

Stupid me was later to write a winning essay in a national competition in 1969 when I was at Mazowe Secondary School, a Salvation Army institution.

The title of the essay was, “No God in the Cave,” and it was to become my first successful literary endeavour.

Being born where many had failed has, in our culture, its own significance and meaning which I shall not bother you with.