The Passing African

Like many other Swazi born man, I grew up a strong supporter of the traditional structures that govern many an African rural people who still can actually experience the joy( or is it the horror ) of living under such structures.

It is true; much of what is an African today is not what yester-year’s African was. We are for the most part African because we still go and fetch fire wood from the bushes to light up and enjoy our at times cold scary nights. Our mothers are still the trucks we use to fetch the woods-to my horror they are proud of it-and our boys are still very keen for a good hunt and need no excuse for doing it. Most of the town folks African-ness however, is long gone.

All we have left is simply our poor skin color-all black and never present.

Most would find the above sentence offensive but I do think if you would invite an eighteenth century Anthropologist into today’s Africa and ask him to study us; he would most likely find it difficult to reconcile today’s African-ness with that of yesterday.  I believe the poor white bearded, baldy fellah would, for the most part class us white because most of who we are now is who white men were fifty if not a hundred and fifty years ago.

If I had the mean to do so, I would buy you a plane ticket and invite you to come live with me at Ntumbane in KwaZulu-Natal, south-east of Africa. I am sorry but the very first thing you would see when you leave that plane is one very world classy airport called King Shaka International Airport. It is modern in all things modern and lacks nothing but a proper English name. On your way to my place you would be tempted into the comforts of many a western styled homes and hovels. My hovel is also one of the many other poor-and at times excellent excuses for a proper Zulu tribe man’s home. It is a one housed homestead with a large spacious yard, a tap for water and a banana tree for shelter. At its center is one very ugly looking seven roomed excuse for a Zulu man’s house western hovel. In short, we no longer sleep on reed mattresses spread on cow dung smeared floors, dear me, we now own proper soft beds that would render and westerner speechless in beauty and heartless in covetousness.

Sure we still have our umhlanga-reed dance ceremony, Incwala-ritual of the first fruit and many more other African rituals but even they are tainted with western elements. Incwala and Umhlanga are very good examples of this. Incwala’s wakeup call used to be made using lipondvo lenkhonkhoni (the eland’s horn); today we use the Tuba instead. The virgins who attend umhlanga  used wear attire woven in grass; today’s attire though not drastically deviating from the traditional design, is made from full color western cloth. The women regiment-lutsango- of yesterday wore goat hide skirts adorned in red beaded belts with cow hide beautifully overlapping the skirts. Our mothers now have fashioned nets for the head and skirts made of black towel like material as an excuse for the tidvwaba (skirts).

Swazi man wear shirts above their emajobo (loin skins) and the Zulu wear trousers right to the heart of their Kings Incwala and with no shame on them, those who wear truly olden day’s attire wear undies as well. A very big no, no to us.

It is obvious that times have changed. And because of this we as a part of the human species need to move on with the times. My main concern here is that we African Swazi, Zulu or whatsoever you call yourself are moving rather too fast. We are shedding the skin so quickly I am afraid we will end up killing ourselves in the process. The west changed but was their change this drastic?

I do not know the answer but I hope we do not end up fading into legend as did the Celts and Teutonic of old.

Good luck African.