Little Suns (10 page)

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 decided 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.

‘This is just an excuse. After all, you people have many wives. What’s the big bother? Umhlonhlo has other wives, hasn’t he? Surely he can’t be a crybaby about one wife.’

‘It is the custom, sir,’ said Charles. His speech came in gasps and his hands were shaking. That was his mother that Hope was talking about so dismissively.

‘You, Charles, should know better. You’re a Christian,’ said Hope.

‘My father and his people are not governed by the Christian doctrine, sir.’

‘Now here is my final word on this,’ said Hope. ‘Tell Umhlonhlo that he shall lead the Pondomise against Magwayi. I will be delivering the requested arms and ammunitions and he shall lead his warriors to war. Government is determined to be obeyed. We cannot make exceptions for him. We cannot be seen to be weak. We are not governed by native customs. You are now under Government, you cannot expect Government to come down to your level and adopt your customs. If Umhlonhlo is not willing to listen to Government then he must give way to a chief who will. Umhlonhlo used to be a wise chief who obeyed Government. He must remember what happened to his friend Moorosi of the Baphuthi tribe.’

Sunduza was interpreting all this for the benefit of the increasingly seething Mahlangeni and, as far as he was concerned, Malangana as well.

As the three men were riding home Mahlangeni was yelling at his companions: ‘You people don’t see anything wrong with this? The man insults our king, calling him a liar and even threatening to behead him like they did to Moorosi?’

‘Of course it is wrong,’ said Malangana. ‘But what did you want us to do?’

He did not answer. Obviously he did not know what they should have done.

Charles was visibly shaken. This was his first encounter with Hamilton Hope, the magistrate in action. He had only seen Hamilton Hope the benevolent member of the congregation in church who often visited the school to encourage the missionaries in their good works.

‘We’re powerless,’ said Malangana. ‘They pick and choose who our kings will be. They have done it already to the abaThembu people where they removed King Ngangelizwe and placed a person of their liking. They think they can do it now to amaMpondomise.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Mahlangeni. ‘
You
are powerless.’

He prodded his horse and it bolted away, leaving Malangana and Charles stupefied.

He is Thunderman. That’s what they think. That’s why they are chanting his name in the rain:
Thunderman, Thunderman, come into the house and drink
amasi
fermented milk. Thunderman, come into the house and eat meat
.