Little Suns

by Zakes Mda

  Malangana stared at the drum and thought of its owner. She had been elusive. Sometimes he even suspected she was an illusion. Until he went by the Great House and saw her outside dancing with the diviners or chanting with the shamans and amaxhwele herbalists. It assured him she was real. As real as the woman who had argued with him about the number of suns in the skies. Why, she appeared real even in the dreams where she hid herself among the boulders like Gcazimbane and he had to search for her. As real as the wetness of his wet dreams.

  He remembered one day soon after they had returned from that meeting with the magistrates in Elliot. He was sitting by the kraal with a group of his age-mates listening to Gxumisa and other elders reciting some of the great historical events of the amaMpondomise nation. He decided to test the waters and bring in the issue of Mthwakazi. He seized the opportunity when Gxumisa served each man from his rock-rabbit-skin bag a pinch of icuba-laBathwa, the tobacco of the Bushmen, also known as dagab by the Khoikhoi or dagga by the Trek-Boers. As the men stuffed it in their pipes and lit them Gxumisa said, ‘Though abaThwa are such puny people their tobacco has a gigantic punch.’

  The men laughed as they puffed on and filled the air with the dizzying aroma.

  ‘Talking of abaThwa,’ said Malangana, ‘where did this girl who nurses the queen come from? Who are her people?’

  ‘No one knows,’ said Nzuze, one of Mhlontlo’s younger brothers.

  ‘How is that possible?’ asked Malangana.

  ‘It is true,’ said Gxumisa, blowing a helix of smoke. ‘She is a child of the earth.’

  Malangana discovered for the first time that Mthwakazi was not born of any woman nor begot of any man. She sprang from the earth like a fresh millet plant. It was like that with some of the abaThwa people. They were children of the earth – iinzalwamhlaba.

  ‘So what’s going to happen when someone wants to marry her? With whom are his people going to negotiate lobolo?’

  Mahlangeni broke out laughing. Though he was older than Malangana and was a family man the two men had established a close friendship after Mahlangeni sacrificed his buttocks that were ripped to bits by Hamilton Hope’s salted cat-o’-nine-tails. Malangana once confided in him how he was being haunted by Mthwakazi. Mahlangeni, of course, had pooh-poohed the whole idea. How could a noble Mpondomise man even entertain such thoughts about a low-born woman? Or an autochthon as it had now been revealed?

  Malangana glared at him.

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ said Mahlangeni, giggling like a naughty girl.

  ‘Why, nephew, are you thinking of taking her for a bride?’ asked Gxumisa.

  He was quite perfunctory about the question. He thought he was just teasing his nephew.

  ‘No, no, I am just asking,’ said Malangana.

  He was fidgeting, rolling the bowl of his pipe in his palms.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mahlangeni, laughing.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ asked Malangana. ‘She’s a person too.’

  Everyone stared at Malangana. It hit them for the first time that something was serious here. Nzuze contemplated him sternly.

  ‘You look as shocked as if I said I want to marry a clanswoman,’ said Malangana.

  Marrying a woman from your own clan would, of course, have been a taboo of the first order. amaMpondomise clans took wives from other clans to avoid inbreeding, even though their common ancestor dated back to the 1500s.

  ‘You can’t be serious, younger brother,’ said Nzuze. ‘She is of the abaThwa people.’

  Gxumisa took a long drag from his pipe and ejected one long jet of smoke.

  ‘I thought this was a joke,’ he said. ‘Does Mhlontlo know about this?’

  ‘Nzuze and Mahlangeni are the ones who are making this a serious issue, bawo,’ said Malangana. ‘For me it was just a fleeting thought. The king knows nothing about it.’

  ‘Hayi hayi hayikhona! His reaction tells me that this is serious,’ said Nzuze. ‘Listen to me, little brother. Do not even entertain such thoughts. You are the son of Matiwane. The grandson of Myeki. Look for a wife elsewhere. Although you are from Matiwane’s Iqadi House, he honoured you by naming you after our founding ancestor. You cannot disgrace our nation by marrying a Bushwoman. I am going to oppose that. And I am going to make sure that my brother, the king, does not give his blessing to such a marriage. Marry well like our king. Marry from the amaGcaleka or amaRharhabe or abaThembu or amaMpondo or any other noble nation.’

  ‘What if I like the Mthwakazi?’ asked Malangana.

  ‘If you really like the Mthwa woman you can have her as your fifth or sixth wife, something to play with when you come home tired from the fields or from battle – not the mother of your heirs,’ explained Nzuze patiently. ‘Make her an Iqadi, not of your Great House, not of your Right-hand House, perhaps of your Left-hand House, which would make her sixth in rank.’

  Malangana and Mahlangeni broke out laughing. In a marriage of a well-off Mpondomise man there were three main wives: the senior wife belonged to the Great House, the second wife to the Right-hand house and the third to the Left-hand House. But he could still marry more wives. For instance he could marry a wife who would act as a helper to the senior wife. She would therefore belong to the Iqadi House to the Great House. The ranking became complicated when he married more and more wives and the Left and Right-hand Houses had their own Iqadi Houses – wives who served as their helpers. What Nzuze was suggesting was therefore strange to the men because it was another way of suggesting the marriage should never happen at all.

  ‘Do you think I am going to be so rich as to marry six wives?’ asked Malangana. ‘Even Mhlontlo doesn’t have six wives.’

  ‘By the time Malangana is able to marry the sixth one he will be an old man and Mthwakazi will be a shrivelled old woman with abaThwa great-grandchildren of her own in some distant caves somewhere.’

  ‘Or she’ll be dead,’ said another man.

  ‘We’ll all be dead,’ said Gxumisa.

  The men burst out laughing again. Icuba-laBathwa was adding to their mirth, for it was known to cause grown men to giggle and guffaw ceaselessly like maidens gossiping and shrieking at the river while washing clothes and beating the leather karosses and skirts against the rocks.

  Malangana shook his head sadly. To these men Mthwakazi was a joke.

  Indeed, she was a joke to everyone else at Sulenkama. For one thing, Mthwakazi did not titivate herself with white and red ochre as amaMpondomise maidens did. Her hair was unbraided and, according to other maidens, looked like iinkobe – by which they meant it was as though black grain had been scattered sparsely on her head. She wore only a tanned ox-hide skirt and anklets of shrivelled roots instead of an isikhakha skirt of calico and the colourful glass beads that were popular with maidens her age throughout the land. What did Malangana see in a girl like that?

  ‘You can whisper it to me, mfondini,’ said Mahlangeni, ‘what is it that you see in this nkazana of abaThwa people?’

  ‘It will not happen,’ Nzuze kept repeating. ‘We’ll not allow it. Just let my brother hear of it.’

  ‘How do you know it will be an issue with him?’ asked Gxumisa. ‘You’re all hypocrites! All of you here of the Majola lineage have the blood of abaThwa flowing in your bodies, and you are not ashamed to include that fact in your praise poetry by calling each other thole loMthwakazi.’ The progeny of a Bushwoman.

  He pulled hard on his pipe and blew a cloud of smoke at Nzuze’s face.

  ‘But when it comes to the real world you think you are too good to share your icantsi mat with a Mthwa woman, rha!’

  The young men confessed that they had never known how they got to be called the ‘calves of a Mthwakazi’. Gxumisa told them about their ancestor Ngcwina in the 1600s, who was the grandson of Mpondomise, the founder of the nation. After marrying women for his Great House, the Right-hand House and the Left-hand House and having children by those houses, and indeed after having a rightful heir called Dosini from the Great House, he d
ecided to take another wife for his Iqadi House.

  ‘This is how it happened,’ said Gxumisa, relishing the prospect of storytelling. ‘King Ngcwina had been having dreams about a strange woman in a cave. He was a famous dreamer.’

  One day the men of the amaMpondomise regiments went on a hunt on the Ngele Mountains. For three days they did not come across any animal. Just when they were about to give up they heard their dogs bark and rushed in their direction. And there in a cave was this strange girl.

  ‘This is the girl that the king has been dreaming about,’ the soldiers said.

  They took the Mthwa girl back to Mvenyane, which was where the kingdom of amaMpondomise had its Great Place in those days, almost two centuries before it moved to Sulenkama. There she was welcomed with much singing and dancing and feasting.

  She was named Manxangashe, and she blossomed as a maiden of beauty and honour. She was the best cook of all the women at the Great Place, and King Ngcwina was partial to her exquisite dishes. She did all her cooking at the Great House, the house of Mangutyana, the king’s senior wife.

  Like all the maidens of amaMpondomise she was supposed to remain pure and unsullied until someone married her. But other women noticed that something was growing in her. When Mangutyana asked what she had been doing and with whom she pointed to the heavens. Mangutyana knew immediately that she had been impregnated by the king. Nothing more could be said about it. She, as the most senior of the wives, had to insist that the king marry Manxangashe for the Iqadi House.

  ‘A delegation was sent to the Ngele Mountains,’ said Gxumisa. ‘She, in fact, led the delegation.’

  His audience laughed at this.

  ‘You never know with the ways of abaThwa. Their women are headstrong and do things the way they want to do them. When they reached the foot of the Ngele Mountains Manxangashe instructed the delegation to remain there and she climbed alone right up to the highest cliffs where the caves were located. She was gone for three days. And what was the delegation doing all that time? Kindling a fire. She had instructed them to do that. If she didn’t see any smoke coming out of a fire she would not return. And of course if she didn’t return they would be in trouble with the king.’

  On her return she said her people wanted two black oxen as lobolo. The king paid this. But apparently it was not enough. She demanded that the delegation should return to the Ngele Mountains and this process was repeated until eight black oxen were paid in all. Only then could she officially become King Ngcwina’s wife of the Iqadi House.

  This Mthwa woman must have wielded a lot of power over the king. After she gave birth to a son, Cirha, Ngcwina made him heir to the throne, though he was of Iqadi House, instead of the rightful heir, Dosini from the Great House. That, of course, caused a lot of bitterness. But his word was final.

  ‘Mhlontlo and all of you here are direct descendants of Cirha, the son of that Bushwoman, and today we recite that with pride in our genealogy and praise poetry. Why should Malangana not marry his Mthwakazi?’

  There was silence.

  Malangana sat like a rock on his bedding and stared at the drum as if to outbrave it. It stared back unflinchingly. It was as stubborn as its owner – the one who had been referred to as ‘his Mthwakazi’ by no less a personage than his uncle Gxumisa, repository of the history and the wisdom of the ages. He would be letting posterity down if he did not make that a reality.

  His stare would not hold back the twilight before the sunrise. It crept under his bamboo door and windows.

  ‘Yirholeni t’anci.’ I greet you, younger father. That was Charles at the door.

  ‘Kuyangenwa,’ Malangana responded. You are allowed to enter.

  Charles Matiwane was sporting a brown jacket with matching riding breeches and a bowler hat. He was Mhlontlo’s son from the Great House, and therefore the heir to the throne. He was one of the amakhumsha people as his father sent him to Shawbury at an early age to receive the white man’s education from the missionaries so that when he took over as king he would be able to understand the thinking of Government and would therefore serve the interests of his people better. He still had a long way to go before his book-learning was done.

  ‘You got umbiko, Jol’inkomo? You must have ridden through the night,’ said Malangana, asking him about the death announcement that was relayed to him, and calling him by their common clan name which was usually used as an endearment.

  ‘Father wants us to ride to Qumbu to report my mother’s death to the magistrate,’ said Charles.

  Malangana did not waste time with ablutions. Within minutes he was with a group of men being addressed by Mhlontlo under the coast coral trees that grew in front of the Great Place.

  ‘I am sending a delegation to tell Hamilton Hope that my uncle Gxumisa will lead the men against Magwayi,’ said Mhlontlo. ‘I will no longer be available to take part in any blood-spilling.’

  He had to mourn his wife. He could not go into battle. The ukuzila custom forbade it. He would have to mourn for many moons since this was his wife of the Great House, and therefore the Queen-Mother of all the wives and children from all the Houses. As part of ukuzila he was forbidden to eat salted meat. Also, he was not allowed to touch a woman or arms of war for a number of full moons. Salt, women and war! This abstinence would continue until umbuyiso, the ritual that happened after the period of mourning and the purpose of which was to bring the spirit of the deceased back home to the land of the ancestors. Everyone looked forward to umbuyiso because it was a festive occasion with a lot of beer and meat to celebrate the fact that the deceased had now become a fully fledged ancestor.

  ‘But of course we are ahead of ourselves,’ said Gxumisa. ‘As of now we are faced with the more urgent problems of the burial. Nations will be gathering to mourn with us. The queen was not just an ordinary queen. She was the daughter of King Sarhili.’

  Long before umbuyiso the Great Place needed to slaughter cattle to accompany the dead on the long road to the land of the ancestors. Nothing less than a span of fatted black oxen led by a nursing cow famed for its abundant milk would be fitting homage to the queen and to the palates of the mourners. But where would fatted beasts come from when there was so much drought in the land of amaMpondomise? As the elders raised these questions everyone knew that the answers lay with the ukuphekisa traditions, where neighbouring kingdoms who were on a friendly footing with amaMpondomise would contribute beasts and corn for the event, in the same way that amaMpondomise families themselves would each contribute clay pots of beer and other cooked items on the day of the event.

  After all these plans had been outlined Mhlontlo instructed the delegation to Hamilton Hope to repair to Qumbu forthwith.

  ‘Only the three young bloods will comprise the delegation, Mahlangeni, Malangana and Charles,’ said Mhlontlo. ‘I need the rest of you here at the Great Place to perform various tasks in preparation for the burial.’

  As the three men rode out of Sulenkama they saw a puny maiden in a cowhide skirt running on a footpath in their direction and yelling: ‘Malangana weee, Malangana!’

  It was Mthwakazi.

  ‘Hayibo! What does this thing of yours want now?’ asked Mahlangeni.

  Malangana stopped. The other two men rode on. Charles, however, slacked off a bit and kept on looking back. Mahlangeni trotted on with nary a backward glance.

  ‘I want my drum back, Malangana,’ said Mthwakazi as soon as she caught up to him.

  ‘You look very beautiful when you are angry,’ said Malangana, chuckling. ‘Kodwa ke isimilo siyephi? Kuyabuliswa k’qala.’ But where have your manners gone? Custom demands that you greet first.

  ‘You stole my drum, Malangana,’ said Mthwakazi.

  He was smiling. She must be joking. She was not smiling. She stood defiantly in front of the horse, arms akimbo.

  ‘Stole? Me steal from you?’

  ‘I want my sacred drum.’

  ‘I am on an important mission for our king and you stop me to accuse me of theft?�
�

  He gave the horse a nudge with his knee and it began to move.

  ‘I am going to report you, wena Malangana,’ said Mthwakazi. ‘I am going to lodge a case of theft at inkundla against you.’

  Malangana laughed out loud and said, ‘You’re being dramatic. When I come back we’ll talk about it. Meet me by the river and we’ll talk about the theft of your drum under the stars.’

  He galloped away. The two men were halfway to Qumbu when he caught up with them. Not a word passed among them until they reached the magistrate’s office.

  ‘The natives must learn that they cannot just see the magistrate on a whim without an appointment,’ said Henman. ‘He is preparing to go to court.’

  ‘They say it’s an emergency,’ said Sunduza. ‘It’s about the war against Magwayi.’

  Thanks to Sunduza’s negotiations Hamilton Hope finally agreed to see Mhlontlo’s emissaries, but only for ten minutes. They were ushered into his office.

  ‘Charles, you’re back with your father,’ said Hope. ‘I thought you’d be at school.’

  ‘My mother left us,’ said Charles.

  ‘She did? Where did she go? Back to the kraal of Kreli?’

  ‘She passed away, sir,’ said Charles trying very hard to keep his voice firm.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, old chap. What can I do for you?’

  ‘The king cannot lead the men to war because he is mourning,’ said Malangana.

  ‘So Umhlonhlo is now reneging, is he? Using his wife’s death as an excuse?’

  Malangana explained that amaMpondomise were not pulling out of the war. Only Mhlontlo would not be participating because ukuzila customs forbade him to touch weapons of war or to spill blood. He had appointed his uncle Gxumisa, a tried-and-tested general, to lead the forces.

  ‘I do not accept that,’ said Hope. ‘Umhlonhlo is a liar!’

  ‘This man is insulting our king,’ said Mahlangeni.

  ‘Calm down,’ whispered Malangana.