Spirit medium unmasks another pre- Great Zimbabwe relic
AT around 4pm, our entourage of cars rattled to a halt by the roadside in some remote place in Matabeleland
South.
Spirit medium Bvumavaranda, using an ephod aptly named Damburanyika, had lead from Musana past Harare to Masvingo and this far.
None of us knew where we were going except the ephod.
The ephod pointed to the foot of two mountains — huge bald borders with a dearth of vegetation on top, but a slight dense bush on the foot.
We jumped back into our cars, made a U-turn and turned immediate right following direction of the ephod into a laid back rustic homestead.
There, we were to leave our vehicles. Inside the yard, the big cars rattled to a halt again and two awestruck elderly women, speaking in isiNdebele, looked visibly shaken.
We had found them sun-drying mopane worms on spread out sacks.
After some language difficulties, a common understanding was created.
The women understood, we wished to get the foot of one of the mountains to excavate and exhume a piece of a pot brought by Rozvi ancestor, Bvumavaranda’s mother from East Africa into Zimbabwe before Great Zimbabwe was built.
That must have been some 900 years ago, plus.
The two elderly women spoke about snakes and we were warned of huge dangerous snakes by the mountain.
One of it, they said, a black mamba was known to chase after people. So we became weary of the creepy-crawlers.
Tinder dry leaves cracked under our feet. Mopane worms criss-crossed the footpath driven by their ancient rhythm of life to survive.
The worms were in abundance, some hung precarious by tree lush green leaves of the stunted Mopane bush shrubbery.
I could tell that an aura of what is gothic, partly mythical, fear and anxiety had gripped the group as many members spoke in shriek voices. Eerie!
From the bush shrubbery the flat land opened to a small valley on the foot of the mountains and there we saw people, four women and two men, preparing a bumper harvest of mopane worms.
Startled by our presence, which they could have initially mistaken for plain clothe policemen, the Mbira played by members in tow must have given them a different idea and they continued working on their harvest. Squish-squash!
As anxiety grew and we walked in single file, the sounds for the Mbira reverberated from the gourds to the mountain and ricocheted back.
The mountain seemed to be singing back. The atmosphere was eerie and profound.
Soon the ephod pointed to the foot of the mountain to the left and we skirted thorny bushes, talk grass and mountain foot stone debris.
As we walked, someone whispered he had heard the cry of a black mamba, but we soldiered on, hoping for protection from the Bvumavaranda.
After scaling a small rock promontory, we came to the foot of a huge bolder and the ephod pointed to the spot.
Birds chirped and somersaulted from one tree branch to another.
Then we started digging carefully. Removing layers of rock and tree routes. We used sticks until two guys went back to the village to ask for better equipment.
For about an hour we dug and removed the debris and roots. Again and again, Bvumavaranda consulted the ephod and after about an hour we found the piece of the clay pot.
But for some clay pot that was buried more than 900 years ago, its form had been badly damaged and was almost turned into soil.
It was another victory for Bvumavaranda, the autochthonous Rozvi ancestor who has been on a spree to solve old mysteries and find historical artefacts of his clan.
The latest sojourn comes a few weeks after Bvumavaranda used the ephod to locate a knobkerrie and grave near the entrance of Great Zimbabwe National Monuments.
The story is that one day, Bvumavaranda and his friend Mbauro, were on a stroll on a swamp on what is today the Great Zimbabwe National Monument.
Bvumavaranda carried with him a special paraphernalia, which included a clay gourd and a small knobkerrie passed on from his grandfather.
The paraphernalia had taboos, with the most important being that no one else should touch them. Mbauro touched the knobkerrie and the clay gourd.
Disappointed, Bvumavaranda sunk into the swamp in a standing position and died. He was never buried the usual way.
Mbauro took the clay gourd to a place in Matabeleland South where he hid it in the mountain. The clay piece is what we got this time around.
So we went to dig out the swamp and retrieve the knobkerrie that is supposed to be a harbinger of good fortune to the Rozvi.
And the last trip was to get the piece of the clay gourd.
On the second night, we found ourselves at a house in a village near Sikato on the outskirts of Great Zimbabwe were we played Mbira and danced until we slept around midnight. We continued fasting. No meat, no women. On day three, we woke up at entrance of Great Zimbabwe National Monuments and the medium used an ephod, like the one used by King David in the Bible, to identify the grave.
Within minutes, the ephod had pointed to a spot, a spitting distance from the entrance.
It was a clean place where no tree grew. Where no one suspected there was a “grave”.
Where the grader that diverted water from the swamp, mysteriously avoided. Two drainage trenches left the “grave” as an Island, for some reason. Spiritual!
Day after day, tourists, archaeologists, traditionalists and little everyone else have entered the Great Zimbabwe National Monument again and again, and, again and again, but it is only last week that it was discovered, through a thoroughbred spirit medium that there was indeed a “grave” of a Rozvi autochthon, who buried himself in a swamp more than nine centuries ago, a spitting distance from the main entrance.
Led by archaeologist Professor Chinyani, we started landscaping and digging and digging.
For three days we dug, in water and mud. Water gushed out of the swamp and we scooped with buckets. We dug and scooped. Dug, dug and dug. We scooped water and scooped. Dug! Scooped.
On the fourth day, material such as what looked like a decayed human hand was found at about 2,5 metres depth.
Then there were beads. Blue beads. Different from those normally found at Great Zimbabwe, suggesting they were from pre-historic Great Zimbabwe.
On the fifth day, a vortex of water and mud gave way to other material that looked like a decayed knobkerrie and was collected by archaeologists for carbon dating and DNA testing.
This shocked many and we now await the results.
The traditional spiritual realm, may eventually prove to be the conservatory of the world.
When the “civilised” nations in consequence of their wonderful material development shall have had their spiritual susceptibilities blunted through the agency of a captivating and absorbing unrealistic materialism, it may be that they have to resort to the village to recover some of the simple and original elements of real life.
Now parts of the knobkerrie and parts of the clay gourd are together and they must trigger more fortune for the clan.
Time, they say, is a great teacher.
‘‘ For about an hour we dug and removed the debris and roots. Again and again, Bvumavaranda consulted the ephod and after about an hour we found the piece of the clay pot. But for some clay pot that was buried more than 900 years ago, its form had been badly damaged and was almost turned into soil . . .