By Tumelo E. Phali | Posted: March 01, 2005
Not only is this the first issue of Around The Fire!! but the first ever newsletter I write for since my days at school when I used to dabble in an amateur version of this kind of thing more than a decade ago. So you are witnessing pieces of history in your read!
Around The Fire! will be crying out from within the warm, maternal ‘kangaroo pouch’ of Caribbean Tales, a quarterly online newsletter showcasing Caribbean literature and oral culture.
ATF’s mission from above is to promote and honour the works of Afrikan writers plying their trade in the continent and our brothers and sisters responding to the drum beat from beyond the home seas. This is a wonderful opportunity to expose Afrikan talent to the world out there and, at the same time, uncover to the audience in the motherland the brilliant work of Afrikans in the Diaspora. So, please, come join the party and warm yourself around the fire to celebrate and share your Afrikan stories and be honoured!
Talking about honouring, this thought hit me when I was at home during a family ritual prepared for my mother, “ho hlobola” or "ditlhobolo" – a Basotho (my ethnic group) custom whereby a widow, after completion of a set period, ceremoniously removes "lesela" (a special dress made for her to wear as a sign that she is still mourning the death of her husband and therefore not ready to re-marry.) It is at such ceremonies that one gets to see one’s relatives who live far away -- all gathered together. I realized that age had caught up with most of them and almost a quarter of them needed a few reminders before they recognized a certain offspring from extended families. They would all start by saying, “Whose child are you?”, if they couldn’t recognize you. If getting the parents’ names still would not help, they would then proceed by asking, ‘Who amongst your siblings, (if there are any), comes immediately after you and who was born before?” - and so on and so on. These bits of information links provide a clue for them until they remember exactly who you are. At their age it takes more than mere vision, which would be waning in any case, to recognize people – they rely on family links as a guiding compass towards remembering members within extended families, especially grandchildren. This experience advanced to me the value of family history records and the importance of keeping them. The first interview in this section was inspired by that particular experience.
‘Embalming’ our heritage has, over the last decade, climbed up to a bit of preoccupation status in South Africa; families are encouraged to draft records of their family history and create family trees. A couple of years after democracy, prominent public figures in the country began a feverish process of changing their European names, mostly forced on them by the apartheid system, and reverted back to their original Afrikan titles. Some rushed to family elders to remind them their cultural names - those without such identity would ask the elders to give them one. A process that, in some cultures, entails a customary ritual to inform and ask the Gods to accept the new name.
Back in the days our efforts were about making the world understand our struggle against apartheid and help us destroy it. Now it is about making the world understand who we really are as people. Since 1994 special edition dictionaries have been issued dedicated especially to South Africa and its cultures. More versions are being compiled periodically by local lexicographers to keep abreast of the evolving South African lingo and the most recent one by Collin’s, which incorporates an interactive CD-Rom package, includes local celebrities and freedom fighters among its dynamic entries. So, the world is pretty much having South Africa at its fingertips.
A few months ago a number of South African personalities participated in a televised scientific research involving DNA test used to trace ones ancestors – a few Blacks in the test were shocked to find out that they had more European blood than fellow white participants. Equally surprised were some in the latter group when their blood was traced to mother Afrika.
As I am busy with this editorial, South Africa is undergoing a step-by-step process of paying tribute to some of her prominent political and ‘cultural heroes’ by way of naming streets and public buildings after them as a gesture of honour and to preserve their memory – lest we lose the link.
Back to the ritual - I had my Olympus digital camera, hoping to capture some important moments during the ceremony – but after that thought I decided to get down to it right away – documenting my family chronicles and preserving the records thereof. It is a very awkward, time-consuming task that involves milking family historical accounts from people who can’t even remember when they were actually born. They would first need to remember a historical phenomenon or highlight during their time to help get their elusive memory into the right gear. Then, once they get going they are always tempted to use the opportunity to wander off telling you about their heroics when they were young and active - especially the male ones – requiring you to rein them in every now and then. Their tales often have missing links, which now charges us to search for the fallen pieces and complete the puzzle.
So it is useful to try and seduce some answers from them while they still remember something - the good thing is that their long-term memory is phenomenal! I learnt very interesting facts about my grand-grandparents but often it would be something very sad and much to do with our painful history as blacks in South Africa during and after the height of colonization. My maternal grandfather, for instance, was used in a system elders remember vaguely as “ankort” - a practice whereby at least one child from each indegenous family inhabiting a piece of farmland is forced to work for a white master, without reward, as a way of paying rent on behalf of their families for staying on a farm forcefully taken from them by the same master.
Although these narrations can be depressing, hearing them gives you an opportunity to sympathize posthumously with your ancestors and to let them know you care – wherever they may be!
I’ve overshot my allocated number of words, so I’ll immediately stop. But let me just say this; no matter how painful the revelations might turn out to be, it is critically important that you preserve the accounts - after all you do need to know, don’t you?
We look forward to your responses and ideas on how we can nurture this ‘Afrikan garden’ and make it thrive. Plus we will be carrying more mental nourishment for the Afrikan at heart in our next issue featuring a well-known South African playwright, novelist and film maker, Mtutuzeli Matshoba, talking about the importance of history - don't miss it!
Enjoy your read and know your history, no matter where you are in the universe!
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