The Sculptors of Mapungubwe

by Zakes Mda

“You melted the Rain Dancer?” She was shocked.

  “I am going to look for the real live Rain Dancer, if you will guide me. I no longer need an image of her.”

  “I’m old. What will I do with all this gold? You are young; you can use it. I don’t need gold to help you find Marubini.”

  “I’m not giving it to you to help me find Marubini. You will help me find her in any case. You will do it for the sake of my mother and the grandchildren you told me she wants.”

  Ma Chirikure was not convinced. She shook her head vigorously and said, “They want her because they want rain. They must leave her alone. The King must make rain and not depend on a little girl to save him. What good is a King who can’t make rain on a regular basis?”

  “The King is weak,” she moaned. “He is not as potent as the ancestors who founded this town. How could he be so weak when he acquired the power of the hill?”

  She told him that before the hill of Mapungubwe became the capital town of the kingdom it was a rainmaking hill.

  “We, the old residents, lived here from the beginning of time. Our parents told us how chiefs from neighbouring and distant towns and villages and rain doctors of all sorts used to gather here to perform rainmaking rituals on top of the hill. Our people never went to the top of the hill because it was a sacred place. And then the new residents came and overwhelmed us old residents. Their King and nobility built their compounds on top of the hill because they themselves were sacred and the King was a living ancestor. The King thought he would acquire the rainmaking power of the hill. And for a while he did. But now it seems his rain doctors are impotent.”

  “Some have left for the north to the fast-growing kingdom of the stone enclosures – the zimbabwes – across the great river.”

  “That is not Marubini’s fault, is it? She cannot bear that burden.”

  “I want her for herself, not for the rain. I’m never ever going back to the top of the hill.”

  Ma Chirikure mulled over the matter for a while.

  “If it is true you want her for herself I’ll help you,” she said finally.

  Marubini had found refuge with Ma Chirikure’s relatives who farmed on the floodplains but were also salt traders during the off-season. They travelled north-westerly for days to the salt pans of Makgadikgadi and returned with bags of salt that they sold in town. Chata had seen the salt traders occasionally in town and had bartered with them, trading some of his carvings or gold ingots for salt. Of course Marubini was never with them. She remained in hiding on the floodplains.

  Chata’s next mission was to find Chenayi. He owed him an explanation. He would not go on his quest in peace if he was being nagged by the fact that Chenayi thought he had abandoned him. He had to make things right between them so that the ancestors could clear his path.

  Chata had no idea where the boy lived. He used to spend the whole day with him but in the evenings he left and Chata never knew where he was going. It became obvious quite early in their relationship that Chenayi did not want him to know where he spent the nights. Chata respected his privacy. He walked all over the town looking for him. Whenever he met people he asked if they had seen Chenayi that day. Those who recognised him quickened their steps away from him. They did not want to be tainted by his mbisili. Only children who were playing their games on the pathways were helpful. They pointed him in the direction they saw Chenayi go. He followed their directions and later that day he found Chenayi sitting on a rock on the outskirts of the town. He was holding his mirror for a beautiful maiden to look at herself. A number of maidens and young men were standing in line waiting for their turn to look at themselves in the mirror. Chata was glad to see that the mirror had made Chenayi quite popular.

  MARUBINI FOLLOWED CHATA WHO followed Chenayi. Chenayi always led the way, skipping about like a rabbit, never getting tired. Marubini admitted to herself that she had lost her head. She allowed herself to be persuaded to return to Mapungubwe by this man and to dance for rain to save a nation; she lost her head over the man. What woman would not lose her head over a man who undertook a journey of many days in foreign lands to search for her? And, of course, when he later confessed that it was not really for rain that he wanted her back but for himself she realised that she had always loved him but had never wanted to admit it to herself.

  She told her hosts at the salt pans that she was going home. She had established a reputation already of having a mind of her own. Men said she was headstrong and stubborn while women saw her as tenacious and assertive, so no one tried to stop her. The older women expressed their unease that she was leaving with a man. One of them made the rest feel better when she observed that the man was with a boy, albeit a slow-headed one. He wouldn’t dare do dirty things to the girl in the presence of a child.

  “This is not some ogre of a man who’s going to eat me on the way,” Marubini assured them. “He’s Ma Chirikure’s son.”

  Those who knew of him from Ma Chirikure agreed.

  She left everything at the salt pans and followed him.

  Chata was not in any hurry to get back to Mapungubwe, so he slowed the boy. He had a mild tingling feeling on his soles which got sharper on his heels. He knew those signs very well. It was mitshimbilo, the disease of the wanderers. It was catching him. He wondered what they would do when they got to the town. Marubini would have to dance for rain at the rainmaking festival for sure, and he would have to return to the solitude of his Muvhaḓi wa Vhavhaḓi title. He would not stand that isolation. He had tasted the wild once more and it had reminded him who he really was. Of where he actually belonged.

  They set up camp under marula trees and ate the emaciated fruit. Chenayi went to trap birds and came back with guineafowls which they roasted on the open fire. Chenayi discovered that the mirror had more uses than just for looking at one’s face. He could use it to direct the rays of the sun onto dry grass until it caught fire. When they came across streams the two males went bathing downstream while Marubini took a dive upstream where boulders shielded her from their gaze. They avoided villages because they did not know what their reception would be. Some peoples were known to be hostile to strangers while others welcomed them with open arms, food and drink. But one never knew beforehand, so it was best just to avoid villages altogether.

  Sometimes they came across travellers who shared their provisions of dried meat and sorghum bread with them; at other times they encountered travellers who hurled insults at their foreignness or challenged them to a fight. Chata was armed with his Azande weapons and those who challenged him ran away at just the brandishing of the curved makraka that could decapitate a man with one swoosh or the sight of the makrigga with its backward-facing hooks that could drag out a man’s intestines while he was watching. Chata was still agile despite his heavy body and had lost some of the fat because of the walking and the running after animals for meat.

  When the sun set and the air cooled a bit they hid their possessions under the leaves and frolicked about like little children.

  One day Chenayi went chasing a buck he had successfully shot with a poisoned arrow. Sooner or later it would fall, so he ran after it. It was what he had learnt from Chata during the hunts on their way to the salt pans. Chata had also taught him how to finish off the animal after it had fallen, how to apologise to it, and how to skin it and share some of its parts with the birds of prey and other scavenging animals. Chata knew that the boy would be able to track his way back and that later that day or the next he would return with the carcass that they would roast and feast on. So they might as well make the marula tree their home for a day or two.

  Marubini worried about the boy even though Chata assured her that he would be fine. “You made him into a person,” she said. “When others were treating him like an animal, you showed us all that he is a person.”

  “He’s more of a person than most of us,” said Chata.

  He was a bit embar
rassed by the praise; he wanted to change the subject. He took a green worm from the leaves of the tree and chased Marubini with it. She took off at full speed and Chata went after her. She had the sprint of a hunter and he was having trouble catching up. The terrain was semi-arid but her strides led her to an oasis. It was a pond of stagnant water. It had been a much bigger pool during the rainy days. Perhaps it was a diminishing lake.

  They frolicked around the pond and then she jumped into the water. He followed. Soon their frolics turned into dance. They both danced a cappella in the water for some time, using their feet and hands to splash each other. She followed him in the steps of the Zhun/twasi, her lithe body twisting and turning. Then she recalled the movements she had learnt from Chata that day at the top of the hill, the movements she had refined, and she began to perform them. He jumped out of the pool and watched her become a charging buffalo and a slithering snake and a swooping vulture. He sang for her and clapped his hands, which sent her into a much more frenzied dance.

  Drops of rain began to fall. First a drizzle and then a downpour. He did not stop his song. She did not stop her dance. Even thunder and lightning did not stop the performance. A deep rumble shook the earth. And then a clap that suddenly silenced Chata. Marubini stood in the middle of the pond and screamed and moaned while embracing her own self tightly and then stretching her arms out and stamping her feet in the water, creating splashes that rose up to confront the downpour. Chata did not move. It was obvious to him that if he went into the pool he would be interfering with something bigger than himself. Her screams were not screams of pain but of pleasure. Another clap brought more screams and moans from her. Now she raised her hands as if in supplication. There was a farewell clap. She got out of the pool. She was exhausted.

  The downpour became a drizzle once more as they walked back to the tree where they had set up camp.

  “My body tingles with pleasure when it thunders,” said Marubini.

  She sounded apologetic. She didn’t tell him that she actually got orgastic from thunder.

  That night they sat under the tree on wet leaves and shrubs and fell asleep.

  They were awoken in the morning by Chenayi who had returned with half of the buck’s carcass on his shoulders. That was all he could carry. The rest he left for other meat-eating beasts and birds of the wild.

  Marubini was quiet throughout that day. She was ashamed that Chata had seen what thunder could do to her.

  MANY FULL MOONS HAD passed and Ma Chirikure believed that Chata had got lost in the wild or been eaten by wild animals after being slain by the bad people who were known to waylay travellers. She was therefore surprised when she saw three ragtag people approaching her homestead. She was sitting on the ground removing small stones and other useless fragments from a small hill of cowpeas on a grass mat. She squinted her eyes and immediately identified the man as Chata. The old Chata that she used to know with a muscular body and a bouncy gait. All the flab was gone. The boy was Chenayi. She had not been aware that Chata had travelled with the boy. The woman was of course Marubini. When they got to the clearing in front of the house she realised that Marubini’s body was round and glowing.

  Ma Chirikure almost ululated because the children had returned safely, but she stopped herself. Ululations would call the attention of the neighbours who would come to share her joy at whatever had happened. She didn’t want to be explaining things to Marubini’s parents. Or to be accused of harbouring mbisili. They all went into the house to escape the neighbourhood eyes that would surely be gawking in no time at all.

  “She’s with child,” said Ma Chirikure. “What are we going to do? She’s with child.”

  She was panicking and shaking.

  “Whether it’s a boy or a girl we’ll call the child Mubvumo,” said Marubini unperturbed by Ma Chirikure’s state.

  “Child of Thunder,” added Chenayi.

  “Yes, Child of Thunder,” said Chata.

  Ma Chirikure’s concerns were that the King would not be happy that the Rain Dancer was with child. How would a mother dance for rain? It was for the same reason that he had abrogated Rendani’s dzekiso of her. Not only did Chata and Marubini have to face the wrath of the King. There was the community as well. A girl’s pregnancy was a disgrace. Even a headstrong girl like her would not be able to survive the sharp tongues of the other women in town, especially her peers. Also, her parents would be shunned.

  “I am staying out of their lives,” said Marubini.

  The soil was wet; Mapungubwe had seen some good rains lately. The King was being praised for finally creating the rain. Perhaps his anger against them would abate.

  “Perhaps you should go now while the land is still drenched and throw yourselves on Baba-Munene’s mercy and ask him to plead with the King on your behalf,” said Ma Chirikure.

  “We’ll not be staying in Mapungubwe, Ma Chirikure,” said Chata. “We came only to fetch my things and to ask you to come with us.”

  “This is your home, my children. You have no other home but this town.”

  “I cannot be the Rain Dancer,” said Marubini.

  “And I cannot be the Carver of Carvers,” said Chata.

  “I can always be Chenayi,” said Chenayi.

  They laughed at this, which lightened the mood a bit. Chata and Marubini clapped their hands and chanted “Chenayi Chenayi with twisted eyes, Chenayi Chenayi walks like a crab . . .” and Chenayi performed what could be interpreted as the dance of the crab. Ma Chirikure almost died laughing.

  As they ate the evening meal Ma Chirikure told them of the big scandal that had rocked the top of the hill while they were away. Rendani and his Swahili friends were caught with a number of rhino horns. Chata listened quietly. He didn’t tell them that he had something to do with that. Rendani was stripped of his position as Royal Sculptor and kicked out of the Council of Elders. He and his family were banished from the hill. His whole homestead, including the houses of his wives, was set on fire to cleanse the earth of the abomination, especially because the rhino horns were found in one of the houses. The whole homestead was therefore tainted with the blood of the sacred rhino.

  Chata was saddened by all this. After all, Rendani was his brother.

  “So, what happened to my mukomana?” he asked.

  “He was saved from worse punishment by the fact that he is married to Baba-Munene’s daughter.”

  Rendani freed his leopards and went back to Zwanga’s mine. There he mined gold as his father had done before him and created wonderful works of art and jewellery from ivory, copper and gold while those who worked for him manufactured implements and tools from iron, tin and copper traded from other mines in the vicinity.

  “He was always a talented artist,” said Chata. “It is a shame that power went to his head and he stopped creating.”

  The next morning Chata wore his silk kanga and said goodbye to Ma Chirikure. She was not joining them in their wanderings. She was too old to be a wanderer, she said, and would stay at the place of her ancestors. Chata insisted on leaving her most of the gold. They would take only a few ingots in case they needed to barter for something on the journey. Their needs were few; they had lived in the open wilderness for many moons. His Azande weapons had served them well and would continue to do so.

  Ma Chirikure gave them her blessing.

  As they exited the stone walls of Mapungubwe Marubini, Chenayi and Chata were all seized by mitshimbilo, the disease of the wanderers. Perhaps they would settle for a while at Chata’s mine in the land of the Karanga. Or perhaps they would follow the songs of the insects and the grass to the fabulous new town of the zimbabwes further north.

  One never knew with mitshimbilo.

  Acknowledgements

  The setting – place and period – of this novel is imagined and re-imagined from the various oral traditions of the peoples of the region and from the sterling scholars
hip of Thomas N Huffman, McEdward Murimbika, G Pwiti, A Meyer, C E Cloete, A G Schutte, Maryna Steyn, Duncan Miller, Nirdev Desai, Julia Lee-Thorp, Innocent Pikirayi, Gail Sinton Schoettler, T G O’Connor, G A Kiker, Mark Horton, John Middleton, Edward Eastwood and Cathelijne Eastwood.

  Synopsis

  In the timeless kingdom of Mapungubwe, the royal sculptor has two sons, Chata and Rendanie. As they grow, so grows their rivalry – Rendani mastering the forms of the animals that run in the wild hills and lush valleys of the land, Chata learning to carve fantastic beings from his dreams, creatures never before seen on the Earth.

  From this rivalry between brothers, Zakes Mda crafts an irresistibly rish fable of love and family. What makes the better art – a perfect likeness or creation fulled by inspiration? Who makes a better wife – a princess or a mysterious dancer?

  Ageless and contemporary, deceptive in its simplicity and mythical in its scope, The Sculptors of Mapungubwe encompasses all we know of love, eny and the artist’s primal urge to forge art from nature and nature into art.

  About the Author

  Zakes Mda (full names: Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda) is a South African writer, painter, composer and film maker. A novelist, poet and playwright of more than twenty works, he has won numerous literary awards in South Africa and the United States.

  When he isn’t writing Zakes splits his time between teaching creative writing at Ohio University abd beekeeping in the Eastern Cape. He is a director of the Southern African Multimedia AIDS Trust in Sophiatown and a patron of the Market Theatre, Johannesburg.

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