The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena

by Elsa Joubert

  Oompie Spannerboy will have to help.

  The bus stopped at a rise where Nomvula and Thandi were waiting.

  Poppie kissed them, the other children took them by the hand. The girls have grown up, Poppie thought. Their dresses were tight across their breasts. When they put the baggage on their heads and walked ahead of her she looked at the grown thighs, the firm buttocks. The dresses were thin from much washing, but clean. In her luggage she had new clothing which would be fitted and given to the children later. But first of all the matter of Bonsile and Madolpen.

  New houses had joined the others in the trust location since she was here a year ago. There was now a double row of houses and a dirt road ran between them. Some people had built square houses of clay and mud bricks next to their huts.

  The old people were still living in their hut. It had been whitewashed a long time ago; the red clay underneath was showing through, and at ground level it was dirty where the red-brown earth had spattered up against it in rainy weather. The kraal was still there, but it was empty. Close by there was a small patch of mealies enclosed with sagging wire.

  The girls took the baggage from their heads and made way for her to enter. She had forgotten how dark it could be inside a hut. As her eyes grew accustomed to the twilight she became aware of the people sitting there on the claysmeared floor. She saw the blankets wrapped around the old men, she saw the high black kopdoeks of the women. There were between twenty and thirty people in the hut, and she caught the smell of many people in a small confined space.

  Molo, my daughter, an old man said.

  Since her previous visit her father-in-law had passed by.

  But to her it seemed as if he was talking to her, or maybe the old men in her dreams.

  The old woman, her mother-in-law, spoke: Molo, Nonkosinathi.

  The name that she had heard so long ago brought her some sense of peace. She forgot mama and buti Plank and buti Mosie. It was as if she felt the presence of tata-ka-Bonsile in the hut and the fear she had felt in her dreams disappeared. She felt the darkness surround her, but she no longer offered it resistance. She found rest in the hut within this darkness. If it must be so, then it is well.

  How was the journey? the old woman asked.

  It was all right, Poppie answered. Is there water to drink?

  She knew that behind the hut, at the cooking place, a fire would be burning and possibly water boiling.

  Make her some tea, the old woman told Thandi.

  Only water, Poppie said. She drank water from a tin mug which Thandi brought; she also gave some to the two young children. Then she told Thandi to take them outside.

  But first Thandi took them to greet their grandmother. They were unwilling and had to be pushed to greet the old woman by hand.

  They too, Poppie thought. Like Thandi and Nomvula they can cross to the other side of the hut because they are of the blood. I have to stay on this side.

  When the children were outside Poppie looked around her at the people in the hut. The sisters of her father-in-law were there, also sisi Constance, all the old women of the ilali, and a few old men. In the villages of the trust lands only old people and children and the sick live.

  Poppie felt better for the water. We must talk about the business of the boys, she said.

  Goats are scarce, one of the old men answered. We are looking for goats for your boys, but so far we have found none. We can find small young goats, but they are very expensive, forty rand each. .

  Then we must take them, Poppie said, we take them so that the work of the ritual can be done. It is a long work and I must return to my own job.

  We are ready, the old men replied.

  Where then is buti Spannerboy? Is he ill?

  He has gone to the other villages to look for goats. And he has gone to consult with the man who cuts the boys.

  We looked everywhere, mama, said Bonsile who was sitting a little distance from the old men. We only found young goats.

  That is all right, Poppie answered. I’ll give you the money. She points at Madolpen. His mama also gave me some money.

  We’ll fetch the goats tomorrow, Bonsile answered.

  Constance said: My sisi, we’ll help you with the other work, but tonight you must first of all rest. Tomorrow we’ll work. Are you satisfied?

  I am satisfied. Tata-ka-Bonsile wanted to take the child to the bush; my father-in-law wanted to take him to the bush for the ritual, but they have all passed by before the work could be done. Now I have only one wish and that is to have the work done.

  Let it be so, the old men answered.

  We’ll make the mtombo in the drums, the old women said. You can help us strain it.

  Thus my dreams are coming true, Poppie thought. And she felt calm and at peace because she had not listened to her brothers and her mama. My blood and the blood of these people of the land flows together in the bodies of my children. They must not be children who lack something, they must not be half of a whole; I must make them a whole.

  Early the following morning she rose from her sleeping mat, opened the door and went outside. The grey of the dawn was still in the sky and the mist lay over the hills, like white blankets over a body. Up in the sky the morning star was still shining. But she was not the first one to be outside. She saw women coming with bent backs from the low doors of the huts, a row of four or five figures taking the footpath leading to the fields below. She knew that these were the women going to cut the grass to thatch the hut for the two boys. She stared at them into the distance, until they disappeared behind a ridge. That afternoon or evening, they would return after having stored the grass at some distant spot. Before her arrival the old men had selected a place where the hut would be built. The boys had collected the side poles and palings and had hidden them in this secret place. The hut would be built today. She, the mother, would not know where it was. In this whole business of the manmaking of Bonsile she had no part.

  She thought about the huts built among the Port Jackson bush in the sandy flats near Cape Town, of the burning of the huts after the ceremony, or the sale of the huts to a new group when the abakwetha have finished with it. She thought of the women collecting wood who had to turn away their faces as they passed an abakwetha hut, so crowded were things on the Cape flats. Here it was much better. My son has no father or grandfather, but here there are kinsmen who can take their places, she thought.

  When night fell and they had eaten and everybody had come to rest she lay in the darkness listening to the singing of the boys and girls in a hut close to theirs. All night long they sang and drank beer, the boys courted the girls and pranced like proud birds in front of the young girls’ eyes. It was the night of umguyo, the all-night party before the leaving to go to the ritual.

  Buti Spannerboy got hold of a witchdoctor he knew, and he fixed up the hut the previous day, Poppie tells. He fixed it like so that dirty things could not enter it. We paid him twenty rand for his services. As they say, there must be a witchdoctor else the children get sick in the bush. He must place medicines and other strange things, so that sorcerers cannot come near to it. I am a woman, I asked my husband’s brother to do the work for me. So when I arrived in the land I could not say: I don’t want a witchdoctor. ‘My husband died because of a witchdoctor. I did not believe. Now I kept myself to myself, but I was worried like. I didn’t like the witchdoctors. Sometimes a child goes mad in the bush, and if my child became like that they would say it was because I talked against the witchdoctor. I did not know whether I had to talk or keep my mouth shut.

  When morning comes, the umguyo for the boys comes to an end. The men go in the kraal with the boys, who are covered from head to foot with blankets, leaving only space for them to see where they are going. Then all the hair is shaved from their heads and from their bodies. Now the goats are slaughtered, one for each boy. The men start singing inside their kraal with the boys, and outside the women kick up a big noise, and it is a whole big business and everything inside i
s strictly private, no woman is allowed there. Then they all leave for the veld. All the grown men of the location go along with them. I may not greet the child. I last saw him the day before, he is kept away from me.

  My mother-in-law wept when the boys were taken away: All my sons have passed by, my husband has gone, and now the only grandson I have is taken away. Buti Spannerboy has no children.

  On the first day in the bush the boys are cut. They cut the foreskin off their penises. A special man, an incibi, is hired to do it and we paid him three rand and a bottle of brandy. Some children die in the bush, that’s why one is always worried. If the child is sickly, or if the father neglects to do all his duties, he can go out of his mind in the bush. Here in the Cape a child ran naked from the bush and ran to a vegetable farm near Philippi and the white man thought: He’s mad, he wants to murder me, and he shot him dead. But it was the bush madness that got him.

  Or his wound can become infected.

  The bush ceremony is like baptism in the river. He must first confess, everything bad he has done must be told. If he keeps anything back, he’ll get sick in the bush. Even if he has slept with his sister, he must confess. Else his wound won’t heal. If he slept with other girls it’s not so bad, it’s not what the parents would choose, but it’s not against the Xhosa belief. Other sins are worse, that’s why this confessing is strictly private for the men alone. The women never hear what is said.

  There’s a big difference between a man who has been cut, and one who has not been cut. In the bush they are taught how to behave themselves as men, to talk like men. Even a mother can’t treat her son like a young boy after he has been cut; I can talk to him, but as to a man, not a child. And his sisters must show him respect, they must call him buti. The man who teaches them, stays with them in the bush.

  The first day they were there, a snake entered their hut. It worried me very much when the girls who took the boys their food, came to tell me about the snake. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about them. I was upset even to see a man approach the house. I’d wonder: And now for what is he coming here, is he bringing me bad news? Whatever he said, I watched his face to see whether he was not hiding something from me.

  The fire in the hut is never allowed to die down. If they fall asleep and kick their blankets off, they can set themselves alight. Or a flying ember can set the roof on fire, and the children be burnt alive. These things eat at you, you never stop worrying.

  While the boys are in the veld, they must smear their bodies and faces with white clay every day. Now they walk in the veld with their naked white bodies, the blanket wrapped round them, kierie in hand. But the day they come home, they first go to the river to wash. Then they are smeared with red clay. Then the hut and the old blankets are burnt down.

  The mother watches for the first sight of the smoke. But we were too far off and could see nothing till the men came along the footpath, the boys with new blankets wrapped round them, everyone carrying kieries and mock-fighting and singing. Ag, but you’re glad to see the boys returning safely.

  Before the big feast, the men go into the kraal and finish the work; they slaughter a sheep and give the boys gifts and the grandpas that could not walk as far as the hut, take their turn to tell the boys what kind of men they must become. And each bakwetha is given a new name which is kept secret from us.

  I could not afford an ox for the feast, but I slaughtered two sheep, and we had enough beer and bread and stamped mealies and ginger beer and Kool-aid, and other cool drinks, our own home-made drinks. They feasted all night long.

  The next morning the boys washed their bodies again and smeared on fresh red clay and put on the new khaki clothes they had brought from home, and small black cloths were bound round their heads. Then they sat down, kierie in hand, on a mat in front of the hut, and their relatives could see them and give them their gifts. But I could not go first, the ouma went first, and all the other old women. One gave matches, another tobacco, the next one money. But the mother must wait. When my turn came, I gave Bonsile my watch, because I had spent all my money on this ritual and had none left to buy a present. Others gave penknives or pipes or anything a boy would like.

  I was glad to see him, he’d got fat.

  The feast lasted a few days and then it was all over. Madolpen was the first to return to Cape Town. I gave him bread and meat and a bottle of Oros to take along and the small gifts he had been given. Two days after he left, Bonsile left for East London. He went to look for a job. He couldn’t go back to school, there was no money left for school, everything was used up. It was too late in any case, it was already March. The other children couldn’t go back to school either, because there was no money.

  The man-making ritual cost me a lot of money, more than a hundred rand, much more, with the two goats at forty rand each and the sheep and the new blankets. And all the new clothes, from head to foot everything new. The old clothes are given to the old men who are needy.

  When Bonsile went back to East London to look for a job, I could see the difference in him. His born manner, his childishness was still there, but he was different. He spoke in a new way, and made his own plans.

  63

  The old auntie Nozazi, the witchdoctor-woman, the youngest sister of Poppie’s father-in-law, called Poppie to her after the boys had left. Come sit here inside with me.

  Poppie thought: Is it now about Thandi that she will speak?

  Because she had seen at Bonsile’s feast how Thandi danced behind the old auntie, copying her ways. She had noticed that Thandi went to the old auntie’s hut and had been sent away.

  Ag, dear Lord, Poppie prayed, don’t let this thing come over Thandi.

  The old auntie seemed to read Poppie’s thoughts. Thandi is thwasa, she said, I saw it when she came here, but as yet I have not said anything to her.

  I do not like your words, said Poppie.

  If it must come, it must come, said the auntie. She can’t pass it by. It’s in the blood. Your husband’s grandma was thwasa, as a child I knew I was thwasa and must do the work. You are thwasa too, said the old woman, but you fight against it.

  Thwasa means to be able to talk to the ancestors, the izinyanya, thwasa is to have ears for words which others cannot hear.

  I am a church-goer, said Poppie. Since childhood I have been in a church. My grandma told me I was born with a caul, and that’s the only reason why I dream so much.

  It’s through dreams that you know you are thwasa, dreams force you to submit until you receive the inkenqe, the supernatural powers that take possession of you.

  If it comes to me, Poppie told the old auntie, then I’ll pray to the Lord to take the powers away from me. My church is more precious to me than to receive inkenqe.

  It’s an expensive affair, said the old auntie, especially for you as a widow. There are the goats to buy and the beads and the fees to study with the witchdoctors.

  The child is young, said Poppie, it will pass.

  I must get away from here, she thought. The work for Bonsile is done, I must go home.

  But the old auntie did not allow it. I don’t wish to speak about Thandi, she said. My brother’s children passed by, and my brother passed by and all these deaths have taken my power. My powers must be returned to me, so that I can continue my doctoring. Beer must be brewed and an ox slaughtered and the hidden words must be said. We must do the ritual of ukulungiswa.

  An ox slaughtered – and we could scarcely buy two little goats and two sheep, Poppie thought. Do you want money from me? she asked, money I do not have to give.

  I sent word to my people to herd an ox from my husband’s kraal over the border. But the ritual must be done here in the kraal of my fathers. I ask you to help with the beer and the food. That is what I ask of you.

  I had to agree, says Poppie. What else could I do? My daughters had no other place to live. In return I had to stay and help these people, only then could I leave.

  She wrote mama a letter to ask for money with
which to buy mtombo and stamped mealies and other food. And she asked mama: Stay on at work, keep my job for me till I return. Mama sent the money, but wrote to her: Poppie, don’t go and forget your people here in the Cape. Remember, you must come back to us.

  The mother-in-law and the aunties were old, they sucked their pipes, backs against the wall, legs stretched out in front of them. Constance had gone home to the ilali close by. Only Poppie and her daughters were left to do the work.

  They made the beer. They fetched water from the cement dam in the centre of the ilali, but then the windpump stopped and the water dried up, and they had to go further away, along the winding footpaths down the slopes of the hill to the donga where the springs still trickled. They scooped up the water and filled the paraffin tins and hoisted them to their heads. The girls grew tired, but Poppie kept on till the drums were filled. She mixed the mealie meal with cold water, added the hot water and covered the dish with sugar bags to keep it close and warm. When the sweet-sourness had been reached, she added hot water once more, and then cold water. She carried water, collected kindling, bought firewood at the shop and stacked it at the fireplace.

  The secret of beer, says Poppie, is the ityuwele, that is, to add the mtombo at the right moment, to close the liquid and start the fermenting. Time and again, in this hot weather, Poppie had to check and boil it up again. Nomvula and Thandi helped her, they dragged the drums nearer and filled them from the paraffin tins boiling on the fire. Poppie’s thoughts went back to oompie Pengi and his beermaking at Upington. As she stirred the beer with a long stick, as she sifted the mtombo, pressed down the bran and added water to the dregs to make the after-beer, she thought: Ag, oompie Pengi, did you ever think your Poppie would be making beer here in Kaffirland?

  She cooked the food-stamped mealies and water bread. They knew they could trust her; when the others were tired and moved off, she stayed at the cooking pots. They called to her: Nonkosinathi, come here, or Nonkosinathi, go there. She worked for her in-laws according to the custom of the Xhosa. Towards evening she saw people coming along the hillside paths. Some carried tins of beer on their heads, some brought loaves of bread, others food. They were her in-laws’ clansmen.