Shaka the Great (48 page)

“So
that's
what it is, Nduna,” says Mgobozi, turning to his companion, “and here I was thinking it was the stench of another hyena's asshole.”

There's a shifting behind them. For how can the general speak to a sangoma like that? At the same time, though, word has begun to filter in, from those on the fringes of the crowd, that other armed men have made their appearance. These two are not alone.

“But, speaking of sorcery,” continues the general, “you're not about to conduct a Smelling Out, are you? Not without the King's permission!”

Another ripple. This is an interesting revelation, for many don't know the King's permission is needed.

And, of course, it isn't. Not as far the sangomas are concerned.

“The ancestors do not need—”

“No, but
you
do!” interrupts Mgobozi.

“There is evil here! It must be smelt out!”

“Perhaps. But that is why
we
are here.”

“And again you insult the ancestors!”

Mgobozi raises his spear. “Look up,” he tells Kholisa. “What do you see? The sky! And Shaka is the Father of the Sky, and so long as we are beneath the sky we are in his realm. Let the ancestors tend to their own affairs. Besides, how does the King rule if not with the ancestors' blessing?”

“But if he should insult them …”

“Speak you now of Shaka?”

“No,” says Kholisa hastily, “of any king.”

“Hai! Shaka is not
any
king. And the Great Journey awaits those who think otherwise.”

Later, after he has told the villagers to go about their business, and ordered his Fasimbas to keep the sangomas confined in the same cattle kraal where they were going to herd those they had identified as witches and wizards, Mgobozi summons the headman and his elders. “Know this,” he says softly, “the Bull Elephant does not blame you for allowing this to take place—this invasion, this infestation of lice—for he knows you had no choice.”

“This is so, Shadow of Shaka,” says the headman. “This is so.”

“But you are a Zulu, are you not? And so are your people! And I am here to see that you act like Zulus. There will be no more such cringing before driveling men and incontinent old ladies, understood?”

“Yes, Shadow of Shaka. But …”

“I know. This vanishing, it is strange. Or maybe not. We will see.”

What happened was that Magema was walking along late one afternoon, when he met his friend Sitheku approaching from the opposite direction. After exchanging greetings, they hunkered down in the shade of some bushes, for the setting sun was still strong, and each had a pinch of Magema's snuff. They chatted a while, then said their goodbyes. About a hundred meters on from these bushes, the path rose to join a wider track. When he reached this spot, Magema turned and hailed his friend. Upon hearing him, Sitheku also turned. Raising his arm, he shouted something Magema couldn't make out—and shouted it again when Magema made a show of tugging at his right ear. Then both young men made dismissive, forget-about-it gestures and turned away almost simultaneously.

Then something, he didn't know what, made Magema look back again …

… and Sitheku was gone.

Gone?

Gone.

Magema had already told the story many times, before Mgobozi and the Induna arrived—and would tell it several times more under
the Induna's disconcerting gaze—and this was almost always the response of his listeners.
Gone?
Soon the question didn't even have to be spoken aloud. It was there in Magema's unconscious hesitation—itself a result of having been repeatedly interrupted at this point. It was in the tensing of his listeners: the swallowing and the leaning forward of one about to speak, followed by a second stiffening as one decides it's better to keep quiet. Like the slow shattering of the moon, it was disbelief, it was incredulity, it was denial, the shrinking slivers finally giving way to fear. The fear that was like isifile, the dead moon, and the dark day thereafter.

Gone?

Gone.

In the direction Sitheku had been heading, the path entered a grove of tamboti trees, a parade of spear-straight trunks now thrown askew as the setting sun laid shadows across their massed ranks. Was Magema sure that his friend could not have quickened his pace, started running even, so that, when Magema looked back, Sitheku was already in among the trees, becoming lost amid the zebra stripes of light and dark?

That was a fair question at a time before the search parties had been dispatched. But Magema could only shrug, tilt his head to the side, twist his lips. He'd be relieved if that was what had really happened; it was just that Sitheku had been too far away from the tambotis. Magema didn't think it was possible for anyone to run that fast. Neither, for that matter, did he think his friend could have reached the bushes that lay between them in the brief time it took for him to look away and then look back.

And there was that feeling, he said—which he'd like to forget, but couldn't—that strange feeling, the tug, that had compelled him to look back, even before he realized what he was doing. It had kept him standing there, gaping, while that strange feeling had become a sense of certainty that, although he hadn't actually seen it happen, his friend had vanished off a path running through the middle of the open veld.

“So, this Beetle … aiee, this Beetle sends me a message.
Me!
And he says let us unite. Let us join forces and rule this land together!”

Ngoza, the Mighty Buffalo and paramount chief of the Thembu nation, waits for the laughter of his lieutenants to die down.

“Yes, this is what he says. He invites me to join him. I have many things to say to that, and here is the first of them …” With a
pah!
he spits on to the ground.

They are at the Place of Wisdom, a flat expanse of rock just below the summit of an escarpment. It's the larger of two steps, and able to accommodate Ngoza and his twenty advisers, as well as their servants. To the left, in a niche in the sheltering wall, there's a fireplace where food can be cooked. On the opposite side, there's the trickle of a stream that has its source atop the escarpment. It descends on to the second ledge, and then falls a few hundred meters, becoming a thread of silver that will eventually reach the sea, growing stronger all the way.

A variety of bones—skulls, femurs, ribcages—litters the second ledge. It's here that special executions are held and the bodies then left to the elements, so that the Thembu shades, in the guise of vultures, might feast on these offerings. Every so often the nation's chief shaman and his helpers will grind the bones down, using special stones, and feed the powder to the river, to appease the spirits of the land.

The top step is reached from the escarpment by following the cleft carved by the stream. The second, narrower, ledge is less than two meters below the first. Prisoners are forced to leap down there to reach it, while their guards use a ladder.

Ngoza raises a hand to silence the sneers and sniggers of his men. “And then,” he says moving to the edge, “just to prove to me how sincere he is, the Beetle sends an impi sniffing around my feet!”

He shakes his head and stands for a moment, staring down at the four Zulu emissaries. Their wrists and ankles tied, the men lie at the feet of their captors, one of whom is a monolith bigger than even Njikiza, with hands each as large as a full moon, and thighs that will make any chief's best bull look scrawny.

“Look!” says Ngoza, and his lieutenants crowd forward. “See the Beetle's lions! See the anger in their eyes. See them struggle. See them suffer as their bonds bite back.”

Turning away and moving back to the wooden throne that is carried down to the Place of Wisdom every time there's a meeting, Ngoza waits for his men to gather around him.

“Mark what I say,” he says, keeping his voice low. “Set those men free and they will try to devour us even though we have them at our mercy, and though we are many and they are but four. We must not underestimate the Beetle—or his lions.”

A Qhumbuza takes place at the time of uma inyanga ihlangene, when, much like the blooming of the moon, a child on the cusp of puberty becomes a full member of the family, and thus is expected to play a larger part in the life of the family.

A few days before the ceremony, children of the requisite intanga, or age-set, are summoned to the district head's kraal. They're accompanied by their parents, who bring beer, mealies and livestock for the feast that will follow the ear-piercing.

Until then, however, the children are kept in seclusion to ensure they don't come into contact with anyone who might be unclean, such as menstruating or pregnant women, and those who've been to a burial recently or couples who've just had sexual intercourse. Anyone else may visit the children to offer advice, and the Induna's udibi remembers well how the abafana, the boys in his age-set, were told to be courageous; to love cattle, for one cannot be a man without cattle; and to always sit qoshama, with the knees drawn up—not bazalala, or flat, like women—so you can be ready to rise in an instant.

The piercing itself is performed at the entrance to the cattle kraal. The children are lined up according to the rank of their parents. When the abafana are finished, it's the turn of the amantombazana, the girls. The instrument used is a strip of iron sharpened at one end. After the piercing, the top of a corn stalk is placed in the newly made hole. As the ear heals, larger and larger pieces are inserted. An infection is regarded as scandalous.

The piercings over, the children return to the huts set aside for them, where their seclusion continues for another three days. They're still believed to be vulnerable to the unclean, but this period of
seclusion also enables those in charge of such things to ensure the wounds are kept clean until properly healed.

An induna yesigodi, or district head, whose umuzi was situated near a tributary of the White Umfolozi, Nkululeko KaDingwa had been at Bulawayo when Shaka granted the Induna a furlough and had invited his old comrade-in-arms to be among the honored guests at the Qhumbuza due to be held at his village.

Since this Qhumbuza involved some sixty boys and forty girls, the piercings would be spread out over three mornings. The boy had looked forward to attending the ceremony, as a spectator and as an honored guest's udibi. After all, if the Qhumbuza marked a definite stage in a child's development, and signaled a change in how he or she was treated, being able to watch others undergo the piercing surely meant one had oneself moved even closer to adulthood. But, shortly after midday on the second day, Radebe quietly approached the Induna. The general sent his compliments and …

Needless to say, the boy was bitterly disappointed when he heard he wasn't going to accompany his master, but he knew it was no good arguing.