Black Bull, Ancestors and Me: My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma
162
Black Bull, Ancestors and Me: My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma
162Paperback(New Edition)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781920196066 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Jacana Media |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2009 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 162 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.75(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde is a sangoma, a tour guide, and a writer.
Read an Excerpt
Black Bull, Ancestors and Me
By Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde
Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd
Copyright © 2008 GALAAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-920196-71-4
CHAPTER 1
Life and Death
Abe sekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abe sengingu Nkunzi Emnyama
(Lo! I am now Black Bull)
Insizwa yakwa Sangweni
(The young man of Sangweni)
Abe sekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abe sengidabuka ngenjabulo
(Lo! I now originate with joy)
Phezukomsebenzi wama khehla
(Upon the work of men)
Abe sekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abe sengithanda ukudumisa uyise wami
(Lo! I now love to glorify my father)
Abesengizalwa ngu Elemina
(Lo! I am now born of Elemina)
Insizwa yakwa muNsipa
(The young man of Nsipa)
Abe sekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abesekuba umkhulu uMahlasela
(Lo! There is now grandfather Mahlasela)
Insizwa Kadumase
(The young man of Dumase)
Abe sekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abesekuba umkhulu Dungamazi
(Lo! There is now grandfather Dungamazi)
Insizwa kaHlatshwayo
(The young man of Hlatshwayo)
Abe sekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abese kuba ngugogo Thumba
(Lo! There is now grandmother, Thumba)
Insizwa kaMcobokazi
(The young man of Mcobokazi)
Abe sekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abesekuba ngugogo Mkhulu Manza
(Lo! There is now great grandmother Manza)
Abese kuba inyoni elimhlophe lihlezi phezu kwamalwandle
(Lo! There is now a white bird sitting upon the oceans)
Abese kuba idada lidabula amanzi ngezimpiko
(Lo! There is now a duck cutting the water with its wings)
Abe sekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abese ngithanda uku nanazela abanikazi bempande
(Lo! I love to applaud the givers of the root)
Bona abangidabula ikhanda
(They who mend my head)
Bangivula isifuba
(They open my chest)
Ngisho impande ka Majoye
(I say the root of Majoye)
Abesekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abese ngithanda ukunanazela abanikazi bempande
(Lo! I now love to applaud the givers of the root)
Bona abangidabula ikhanda
(They who mend my head)
Bangivula isifuba
(They open my chest)
Ngisho impande ka Majoye
(I say the root of Majoye)
Abesekunjalo kakhulu
(Lo! It is now well so)
Abese ngithanda ukunanazela abanikazi bempande
(Lo! I now love to applaud the givers of the root)
THIS IS A PRAISE POEM to my ancestor, Nkunzi. Nkunzi is the ancestor who called me and gave me his name.
My name is Nkunzi. I am a Zulu woman, a lesbian, and a sangoma. This is my story.
I was born in Soweto, six months before the students protested about apartheid education and held the June 16 march in 1976. Soweto was tense in those days. There were police everywhere. Life was stressful and people were fed up. At night there was toyitoying in the street outside the hostel in Meadowlands where my parents stayed. Today that hostel is an ordinary Soweto house but in those days each room was rented out to people who came from KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and other parts of the country to look for jobs.
When my mother was pregnant with me, people said she was definitely going to give birth to a boy. They could tell because her face became so ugly. My parents already had two daughters, my sisters, Thembisile and Thulisiwe, so my father wanted a son to carry forward his name. My mother was expecting a boy. She had no idea she was going to bring twins into the world.
In the Zulu tradition, twins are unlucky. Before the time of Shaka they used to kill one baby if there were twins. It was not the first time for twins in my mother's family. My mom was one of eight children. Four passed away when they were still babies, including twin girls. In my father's family, there were no twins. The Nkabinde clan does not allow twins. They are not accepted. Twins die in the Nkabinde family.
My father was a truck driver and he was often away. He was not around when my mother's labour pains started. My mother had a friend at the hostel, Mamtshali, who was also pregnant. When Mamtshali heard my mom calling, she ran to assist her. Immediately she saw that my mother was in labour, so she rushed outside to look for transport to the clinic. The police stopped her and asked for her dompas. She told them she didn't have it with her because she was in a hurry to find transport for a pregnant woman inside the hostel. Without listening to what she was saying they shoved Mamtshali into the back of the police van.
A neighbour saw what happened and he drove my mother to the clinic in Zone 4 in Meadowlands. She found Mamtshali already there. The police had pushed her so hard that she was also in labour. It was too soon for Mamtshali's baby to be born so he was dead when he arrived.
My brother was the first born. Like Mamtshali's baby, he was also dead when he came out. I came a few minutes after my twin brother and I survived. I was born just before midnight on 7 December 1975.
The same neighbour who took my mother to the clinic phoned my father's employer and my father raced back to Meadowlands as soon as he heard the news. By the time he arrived at the clinic there had been two deaths in my family: my grandmother from my father's side of the family and my mother's uncle both died on the day that I was born.
My grandmother was living in Piet Retief at the time of her death. She and my grandfather had separated after my grandfather, who was an important person in the Church of Zion in Meadowlands, began to have an affair with a woman from the congregation. My grandmother begged him to leave this woman but he refused. My grandmother died of a heart attack but I can't help thinking that she probably had a broken heart as well.
After hearing about my grandmother's death, my grandfather was so stubborn he refused to collect her body, so her brothers buried her in Piet Retief as if she was a woman who had never married and never had children.
My mother's Uncle Gnevusa from KZN also died. He died on the day I was born. He was a handsome man and a ladies' man like my grandfather. He had seven wives and many girlfriends. The story in the family is that he was poisoned. His throat started to swell after a jealous man gave him some bad fruit. His family took him to the hospital and to traditional healers but nothing helped. The infection spread from his throat to his chest and his skin turned grey. He also died on 7 December 1975, my birthday.
My father named me Beauty, after his mother. My grandmother didn't have a Zulu name. My mom gave me the name Zandile, which means "increase". She said, "I have given birth to a daughter instead of a son and two members of the family have died. The problems in the family have increased." My mother always reminded me that I was born with death all around me. She used to forget the dates when my brothers and sisters were born but she never forgot the date of my birthday because of all the deaths on that day.
When my father drove back to the hostel with my mother and me, a woman who was a prophet from the Church of Zion was waiting for us. My father was a member of the Zion church and he knew this woman. She spoke to my father and said: "Don't take this child to your father's house because if you take her there, she is going to die." My father asked her, "Why?" She said, "In your family, do twins survive?" My father said, "No, they don't survive." I was the first twin to live in my father's family. I think I survived because my ancestors knew I had something to do for them. Maybe when I was still in my mother's womb they knew I had been chosen to be a healer and that is why I lived. When my father heard the prophet's warning, he paid attention because in that moment he knew that it was the ancestors speaking.
My father asked the woman, "What shall I do?" And she said, "You had better take this child to your wife's family's side." That same night my mom and dad drove from Soweto to isigodi sikaKhanyile — the home of the Khanyile clan near Empangeni in KZN.
I grew up without knowing that I was a twin. It was a family secret. Long after my parents died I asked my aunt what happened when I was born. She didn't want to talk about it either. She said, "Nobody wants to open up that wound." She was afraid to reveal my mother's secrets. She said my dead mother could not defend herself in the world of the living so it was not right to interfere in her business, but I had to know the truth so I begged her until she agreed to tell me what happened.
There has always been secrecy and superstition in my family. Even when I was a young child my parents were full of thoughts and emotions that they never expressed. When you don't know what is going on inside people close to you it makes you nervous and you expect the worst to happen.
After hearing the news about my twin brother, I started to think about how my life would be different if he had lived. Maybe I wouldn't even be gay. I wished I could ask my mom, "If you could have made a choice, who would you have chosen?" And I remembered a story she told me when I was growing up about a fight with my father when she was pregnant with me. She told me my father hit her in her stomach. Sometimes when I feel sad and alone, I think that maybe my father didn't want me to live, although I know this is not true because he loved me when I was a baby. My father's problems with my mother were nothing to do with me or my brothers and sisters but he had a way of turning against all of us if he was angry with my mother.
When I was a child growing up I always felt that a part of me was missing. In December near my birthday, I start to become numb. It just happens. I become restless. I can't feel anything because my body becomes so heavy. Now I know that this is because my twin brother is trying to get closer to me. His spirit was awake in me all these years and I never understood that before. I didn't know that I had another part of me that passed away. My brother loves to praise. If my twin brother's spirit is in me, I feel like praising. He is full of joy and energy. When I am dancing, if I am in a ceremony, he has his songs, his praises. When Nkunzi gives other ancestors in me a space, my brother will come and sing his praises.
My mother's family welcomed us in KZN. My father waited three days before driving back to Johannesburg because he wanted to hold me in his arms. Zulu men are not allowed to hold a baby until the umbilical cord has fallen out. My aunt says even when I was a baby I resembled my father and he was very proud.
* * *
I was introduced to my mother's ancestors when I was one year and six months of age. I was nearly a teenager when I was introduced to my father's ancestors.
My mother held me in her arms and my parents and elders from my mother's family took me to the family graveyard. Two chickens — a cock and a hen — were sacrificed for my male and female ancestors from my mother's family. My uncle and an elderly relative spoke to the ancestors, informing them that I was a child of those parts and that my father was from the Nkabinde clan. My uncle called on the ancestors to open up the path in front of me and teach me the ways of my clan. Afterwards, a celebration was held. A goat was slaughtered and a feast was prepared for my family and for neighbours from all around. A bracelet made from the goat's hair — isiphandla — was tied around my left wrist, the side for my mother. Some months later, when the ancestors had settled in me, the bracelet fell off on its own. That was the sign that the ancestors were happy that I had taken my place in the family.
* * *
My grandmother from my mother's side died long before I was born. She was from the MacKenzie clan. Her family members were Khoisan people and they came to Johannesburg from the Cape and her ancestors were with the first people who came to South Africa. My grandmother was named Zalusile and her other name was Gertrude. In those days, most African people had a traditional name and an English or Afrikaans name because white employers needed a name they could pronounce. She was light in complexion and she spoke Afrikaans. She had her own house in Sophiatown. That was the time when African people were allowed to own a house in places like Sophiatown and Newclare. Sophiatown is famous because it was a mixed area where different cultures and languages mixed together. Africans, coloureds, Indians and Chinese all lived together.
My grandmother had the gift of healing and of prophecy. She worked as a domestic worker first and then she became a vendor after she had a vision and God told her she must not work for a white master any more. She sold all kinds of goods: things to eat, household goods, and clothes. She bought and sold whatever she could manage to make a profit. I suppose today she would be called an entrepreneur. She was a single mom most of the time and she found a way to survive. My grandmother was also a prophet and a healer in the community. Because of her work on the streets, everybody knew her and they knew about her healing powers and her passion for everything to do with the Church of Zion. She had that spiritual way about her, the same as me.
When the government started forcing people to move, my grandmother met with other prophets and they prayed night and day. The people were shouting, "Ons dak nie, ons phola hier" (We won't move). But the police came from Meadowlands police station with guns and police vans and they took many, many people to Meadowlands, Lenasia, Western Coloured Township and Noordgesig.
My grandmother ran away to a house at 136 South Avenue in Newclare with her four children, including my mother. The houses in Newclare were small and overcrowded. There were four rooms in Number 136 and in each room a different family was living. Next door to the room where my mother lived there was an Indian family. The room had a single bed which was balanced on top of paint tins because my grandmother was superstitious and wanted to protect herself from the tokoloshe (evil spirit), and there was one wardrobe.
When we were growing up, our elders told us that there is utokoloshe, who goes around stealing children. They would tell us that if utokoloshe comes, we should go and hide under the bed. For them, to lift up the bed was to make space for us kids to hide.
But that is not the truth. The truth is that it was a space to put our sponge when we woke up in the morning; there wasn't enough space in the house.
Life was very hard in Newclare. Everyone was poor. People were not friendly to one another like they were in Sophiatown. There was fighting between street gangs and there was a lot of crime. Women brewed beer to make enough money to survive so there were always drunk people in the streets and always police arresting people for no reason. It was a dangerous place to live.
My grandmother gave birth to eight children but four died, including twin girls. My mother's name was Sibongile. She was also called Olga. She was born after the twins girls who died and before her sister, Notsokolo, who also died. She was born with death around her, like me. The youngest living child in the family was my aunt, Ntombi. My mother and my Aunt Ntombi had the same father. My grandfather on my mother's side was from Newcastle in KZN. My grandmother never married him but he accepted my mother and my Aunt Ntombi as his children. When I was 14, my mom took us to meet my grandfather. He welcomed us and there was a ceremony at the family cemetery to introduce us to the elders who were buried there. I have always felt connected to those ancestors.
After some time, my mom and her family were moved to Meadowlands. Today there are a few trees in Meadowlands and the roads are tarred but in those days it was a dry, dusty place with no trees. They moved into a long, thin, Meadowlands hostel which is now the house where my Aunt Zodwa still lives today.
My grandmother was bitten by a dog and the wound went poisonous. Because she was a prophet, she knew about her death before it happened. One day she told the members of her church that she had a vision of a large congregation with people from all different churches gathering together on the 25 of September to pay their respects to somebody who had died. The 25 September was the day of her own funeral and it was exactly as she described it.
Zodwa was already working when my grandmother died in 1969 so she became the one to support the younger children in the family, including my mother. When my mother was 21 she married my father and got pregnant with my sister, Ntombi. My mom and dad met at the Mzimvubu School in Meadowlands, where my sisters and I also went to school. Zodwa says my father was so neat and good looking but the family was not sure about him because he was so dark skinned. They said he looked like a man from another country in Africa but my mother loved him and she didn't care about his dark complexion.
* * *
The Nkabinde family came from the Piet Retief area near the border of Swaziland in Mpumalanga but my father was born in Meadowlands and he grew up there. There were eight children in my father's family as well. My father's name was Mathew and he was the oldest son. All my uncles except the youngest one, my uncle Ray, have died. One uncle died of cancer; one was murdered in Mfolo; one disappeared; and one died of AIDS. My father's two sisters, my aunts Gabisele and Thabisile are still living. My grandfather is also still alive. He is a very old man now and he lives in the same house in Meadowlands where my father grew up. This house was also a home to me when I was growing up.
When I think about my life, I realize that I felt the presence of my ancestors at a young age. They were always with me. I have been told that twins have special powers for communicating with Amadlozi and with each other. Now I understand that my twin brother died because otherwise I was going to die. Something happened in my mother's womb so that only one of us could survive and my ancestors saw that it had to be me because of the work I am supposed to do to bring healing to the family and to the community. It is a mystery that I will only understand completely when I cross over to the other side. My brother is still communicating with me in my spirit. The relatives who died on the day I was born also gave me their spirits when they died. They gave me spiritual power to become a healer.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Black Bull, Ancestors and Me by Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde. Copyright © 2008 GALA. Excerpted by permission of Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Praise,Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Acknowledgements,
CHAPTER ONE - Life and Death,
CHAPTER TWO - A Child in Two Worlds,
CHAPTER THREE - Out and About,
CHAPTER FOUR - Following the Light,
CHAPTER FIVE - Remembering the Ancient Paths,
CHAPTER SIX - Finding the Balance,
CHAPTER SEVEN - In Search of Community,
CHAPTER EIGHT - The Ancestors Don't Mind,
CHAPTER NINE - Doing Things Differently,
CHAPTER 10 - Hate Crimes,
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Making Connections,
GLOSSARY,
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