The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena

by Elsa Joubert

  The ox is in another kraal, before sunrise he will be brought here.

  Nomvula had gone to the veld with the other young people to gather kindling. She was sixteen years old, she laughed and joked with the young boys on her way to the spring. Poppie was not worried about Nomvula, but fears about Thandi ate at her heart. She knew that Thandi wouldn’t leave the side of her auntie Nozazi that night, she’d come out of the kraal and dance till the others dropped. The spirits would take possession of her.

  My daughters may go into the kraal, thought Poppie, but I may not enter. My mother-in-law may not enter either, women married into the family stay outside. When my daughters go into the kraal, they have left me, I cannot reach them.

  More and more people arrived who must be fed and given beer to drink. The auntie had sent word to many of her kinsmen to come. The more of the clan gathered around her, the stronger would be the forces that are called up. The living kinsmen take the place of those that have died, their strength again gives to the old auntie the strength that she has lost, their life force fills the emptiness left by the dead, by those that have passed by.

  Poppie stayed at the open fire to watch the cooking pots. She heard the noise in the kraal, the screaming when the ox was slaughtered. A special piece of meat is cut out first, they had told her, the piece behind the right flank where life shows longest, and given to the old auntie to eat. Then the meat is cut into pieces and the blood-family in the kraal, my daughters, t9o, eat of the meat and they drink from the pail of beer put in readiness. The kinsmen share the same pail of beer.

  Then the elders speak, the old men who know the words that must be said, the most honoured old man must speak up. He tells the ancestors the reason for the feast, he puts his request to them, he uses the very secret, very deeply hidden witchdoctor’s words.

  At the fire Poppie heard them stamp in the kraal and sing and preach and pray, she heard them all join in the chant, screaming, high pitched and shrill, the holy secret word: Camagu. It’s a good word, it means: Bring to us what is good and beautiful. It is the word the witchdoctors use in their secret songs.

  She saw the milling crowd in the kraal, the dust rising from their feet, dust not yet laid from the last violent trampling of the ox’s hooves, the dust of her dreams, and amidst all this she could see the spot of blue of Thandi’s dress as she joined in the stamping of feet, as she screamed the shrill scream: Camagu.

  Tears ran down her cheeks. Words of the old Afrikaans hymn that ouma Hannie had taught her, mill through her mind.

  Heer waar dan heen, tot Uw alleen,

  Gij zult ons niet verstoten.

  My refuge, Lord, is Thou alone,

  You will not leave me helpless.

  She thought: What will mama, what will buti Mosie think if they hear that Thandi has to wear the beads of a witchdoctor?

  Again ouma Hannie’s words came to her mind: It is a kind of faith, but it is not my faith. It’s like an injection needle, it can cure or it can kill.

  This work too, thought Poppie, is to help the old witchdoctor auntie, the other witchdoctors and the old men, they must know what the meat-eating and the beer-drinking and the word camagu does to the old auntie. But it is not for me to know.

  After the eating and drinking the dancing started. The old woman came from her hut, fully clothed as a witchdoctor, beads round the neck, arms and legs, strings of beads tied round her head, hanging down her forehead. She joined the circle of dancers, started tramping with them, their feet shuffled, their heads bent down, their eyes on their feet. They stamped the ground till the dust rose. At first their hands were raised at shoulder level, palms forward, then they started to clap, slowly and softly, then louder and stronger in time with the beat of the drum. It was the midday hour, there was no movement of air, the heat lay heavy on them like a blanket, heavy with this thing they were breathing in and breathing out, drawing in and groaning while they uttered it. They called to the powers of the ancestors to heal the doctor-woman: The people who have passed by have broken our life force, restore it to us.

  The sun stood quite still in the greyness of the heavens, it had melted into a pool of light to which no one dared raise his eyes. Their heads were bent, their eyes closed, they heard the thump of the stamping feet, smelt the rising dust. Their faces shone with sweat, their breasts heaved. As their hands met the hands of the dancers next to them, the sweat in their palms mingled, they strengthened one another, the life force flowed from one hand to the other.

  Thandi was dancing in the front row. She stayed close to auntie Nozazi. The beat started to take possession of her body, she rubbed the sole of her foot in the soil, then the foot took the weight of her body, the other foot was raised, the movement crawled up her body like a snake, to the thighs, the buttocks, the hips. And then her arms jerked forward. Shrill sounds were pouring from her mouth.

  This was quite different from the singing with Poppie in the house at Jakkalsvlei, the songs they used to sing with Katie and Baby and buti Hoedjie and buti Plank. These were shrill sounds like birds taking flight with the flutter of black wings.

  Poppie did not realise that these sounds came from Thandi, then she saw her hurl herself forward out of the row of dancers. She wanted to rush towards her to break into the dancers, to grab Thandi by the arm, to shake her and say: Thandi, Thandi come back from where you have gone. But she felt the hand of Thandi’s grandma on her arm: Be calm, Nonkosinathi, there is nothing to disturb you. It’s her age. It will pass...

  But if she is thwasa?

  If she is thwasa, she’ll be taken care of. If she really possesses inkenqe, she must accept it. And if she does not, it will pass.

  Thandi’s dance had tired her, she panted, the sweat pouring down her face, her eyes were shut and she seemed to be in a trance.

  Poppie pushed away the hand of her mother-in-law, but before she could go to Thandi, another old woman left the circle of dancers and joined Thandi. She was an old doctor woman with a blanket tied over one shoulder, a kierie in the hand and strings of beads round the ankles. She danced with Thandi, taking the beat from her, and the life force flowed from Thandi to her. Thandi’s dancing slowly subsided till it had become again just the slow shuffling of feet. The grip of the mother-in-law on Poppie’s arm eased.

  Do you see, she said, she is taken care of.

  Thandi had gone back to the row of dancers, her eyes were open, and she was looking at the dancers in front and behind her, to get the beat again. She was once more the Thandi that Poppie knew.

  Poppie was tired. She had been working since early morning. For such a long time her spirit had been fighting. She went to the pots and poured some beer to drink, to revive herself. But she spat it out again and drank from the cool water in the calabash inside the hut. She did not feel like staying in the hut, something forced her to go outside again where the drums still beat, where a single row of women still danced. Thandi was with them, but she was quieter now.

  Like the other women, Poppie was barefoot.

  My refuge Lord, is Thou alone.

  The heat, the dust, the smell of the scorching meat on the coals, the beat of the drum, softer now, but still insistent, affected her. She felt as she felt the first day in the hut, if she could but submit to darkness, all would be well, peace would come to her.

  She joined the older women in the small strip of shade at the side of the hut, her back resting against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of her. Her body, like the bodies of the other women, started to sway gently to the beat of the distant drum, something eased in her mind as she felt her body move, at times she touched the shoulder or buttocks of the woman next to her.

  The children brought them meat and porridge to eat. She sucked the bones clean, putting them aside to be burnt with the rest after the feast. She drank more beer. It quenched a thirst she had never known before. She put down the mug and shifted to the other side of the hut where dancing had started again. The women with her started clapping their hands to
the beat, they urged Poppie: Why don’t you try?

  The dancers are trained, Poppie told them, I can’t just clap anyhow, I’ll spoil their beat. And that dancing, it’s like the quick step or the waltz or slow, how can I dance quick step if it’s a waltz they’re dancing? I can try to clap my hands, ja, if I get the beat, but if it’s a song that I don’t understand I must keep my trap shut.

  The old women did not listen to her, but she kept on talking. She drank beer and she talked. With this thwasa business, she told herself, one must be very careful, ja, you fetch trouble on your back. If I start to dance and to clap hands, ja, man, then before I know, I feel I must join, because I can feel it is getting hold of me. I must not now keep on till I’m right inside the thing, if I feel I must keep out of trouble, and trouble I don’t want, then I must keep away from them.

  She talked to herself, the beer had loosened some tight feeling inside her, the beat had taken hold of her, strange humming sounds came through her mouth and nose. She was being drawn towards the dancers and the handclapping, the dust and the drums. From where she sat, she started to crawl on all fours, she tried to come upright, tried to move to the beat. The pull was the same she had felt in her dreams. She had forgotten that she was Poppie, mama-ka-Bonsile, mama-ka-Thandi, mama-ka-Nomvula. She felt: If I can dance, I will throw all my troubles from me, I’ll leave them behind, I’ll be safe, I’ll come to that dark land where I will feel no pain.

  Fezi’s crying brought her back to her senses. He did not get on with the ilali’s children. He pulled her by the arm. Mama, they pushed me, I fell down, my knee is hurt, it’s bleeding. Mama, I looked for you, where were you?

  She wiped her face with her apron, got up, took Fezi by the hand, but it seemed to her that he led the way, not she. They entered the hut and she let him sit in the coolness. She stayed with him, and did not go outside again. She rinsed her mouth to cleanse out the taste of beer.

  Late that night, when the drummers were tired out, when the dancers were overcome by fatigue and sleep, when the fire had died down to ash and the barrels of beer had been drained to the dregs, the feast came to an end. To be resumed from time to time, when a solitary dancer waking, still as if in a trance, felt the beat come into her body once more, and remembering the dance, sang in a low voice; when an old man moving to the fire, poked the ash to raise an ember for his pipe.

  Only towards Monday did the last of the clansmen who had come from far, and slept in the hut with them, leave.

  64

  The old men didn’t all return home. They gathered behind the kraal and spent their time talking. The youngest brother of Poppie’s father-in-law, whom the children call old Koor, sent for her.

  Mama-ka-Bonsile, he said, you have been with us for nearly two months and your daughters have lived with us for close on a year. Our headman has sent word that he wishes to meet you.

  It is right so, kleinpa, said Poppie. I have some business with him too. Before tata-ka-Bonsile passed by, he told me it was his wish that Bonsile be given a plot of land by the headman. And that is what I must ask him now.

  They started off early in the morning. The mist covered the green hills and lay thick in the valleys. At times the mist was all around them and they could hardly see the red footpath ahead. After sunrise it lifted and the mealie lands came into view. She heard birds calling and goats bleating. In a small kloof between the hills the old man put down his kierie at a spring, lay flat and scooped water to drink. She waited till he had walked on before she drank.

  The house of the headman was high in the mountain, above the cultivated lands. They passed the women working the lands who lifted their heads to watch them. Their bodies turned as they gazed at the newcomers passing by. Molo.

  The house of the headman was on a level piece of ground against the slope, four-cornered and built of stone, surrounded by smaller huts. A low wall enclosed the home yard, people were sitting on the wall, waiting. Poppie sat on the ground and her kleinpa on the wall.

  After a while a young man approached them: The headman says he knows the others but this woman’s face is strange to him, he is curious to meet her. You may come.

  She wouldn’t have known him to be the headman, she had expected a tall, strong man, and here he was a lean, puny little man, dressed in ordinary trousers and jacket. Only when kleinpa started speaking to him in the way befitting a headman, did she know it to be him.

  You have come on a busy day, the headman told them, and he pointed to the gathering place under a tree where more people were waiting.

  She has come to ask for a plot of land for her son, kleinpa said. She is the wife of my brother’s child who has passed by. When she is tired of the city, she wishes to build a house on the plot of land.

  It is well, said the headman, but she must be given a letter to take to the chief. My small wife will write the letter for her.

  The headman was a Sotho. In Herschel most of the people were Sothos. This headman couldn’t write, so his small wife did it for him. He had two wives, an older one and a younger one, the younger one was even younger than Poppie. Their house was large, but with no furniture at all, only chairs and a built-in clay cupboard, nicely built, but all of clay. It was a busy place, a coming and going all the time, and they served Xhosa beer to everyone. The wives were very pleasant to Poppie and her kleinpa, they made them tea. The small wife chatted but the older one was quiet and held her peace. The young wife wore ordinary clothes, but the old woman wore a long old-fashioned style of dress.

  Poppie’s mother-in-law wasn’t satisfied that she had asked for a plot of land.

  This child of yours, Bonsile, is a man now, Nonkosinathi, the mother-in-law said. Bonsile must inherit our yard and the cultivated lands in the valley. He does not need other land.

  Poppie remembered the dream she had in East London before she received the telegram telling of the illness of tata-ka-Bonsile. She dreamed about a lean dark woman who mocked her and said: Bonsile will never be an heir. .. Fear had touched her heart.

  I don’t want to cause trouble in the family, she said. Others must inherit the land, not Bonsile.

  But the mother-in-law said: There is no one else but him.

  Buti Spannerboy had no children, the eldest sister-in-law in Johannesburg only had a daughter, the other brothers who had died, had been separated from their wives and their children had been lost track of. Only Lindiwe, the little sister-in-law whom she liked so much when she first came to the land, had a son.

  I am not taking away the inheritance from Lindiwe’s son, Poppie said.

  Then the old woman explained it to her: It is because Lindiwe did not marry the father of her son. The headman wants a man to own the land. It must be put in Bonsile’s name and Bonsile will take care of her, as he’ll take care of his mother and his sisters.

  The ancestors told me in my dreams not to take Lindiwe’s inheritance from her, Poppie told the old woman. She showed her the letter from the headman. I’ll apply for a plot of land, and that will be the inheritance of Bonsile.

  Even against the wishes of your parents-in-law? they asked.

  A great heaviness came over Poppie. Her own people were against her. Now the in-laws had turned against her too.

  But she did not give in.

  Tell me where to go, she asked old Koor. Tomorrow I will see the big chief.

  She went alone. It was far and the way was hilly. She left before sunrise, in the dark, borrowing the torch Nomvula used when she had to fetch water at the spring in times of drought. The tiny beam lit up the footpath ahead of her; she had become used to the hilly paths, and walked fast. When the sun rose, she had covered a long way. Small boys were herding cattle, stick in hand, and she asked them: Where is the homeyard of the chief?

  They pointed: Over there, in those hills.

  She had brought some porridge along and ate on the road, and in the coolness of the small valleys she scooped up water to drink, and soaked her feet to refresh herself. She passed a trust village,
and another small village and came to a store where she asked: Where is the homeyard of the chief?

  You can’t miss it, they said, you’ll see the hall and office at once.

  She had some money tied in her kopdoek and bought a bottle of cool drink at the shop.

  Do you have bread, white bread? she asked. In the shop she saw the shelves filled with familiar city goods and the sight filled her with homesickness like a pain in the belly. But they had no bread, so she bought a home-made griddle cake to eat.

  It is not far now to the office in the chief’s homeyard.

  From far off she could see cars arriving, and people waiting at the gate. She was sent to an office run by a black girl wearing a wig. She spoke Afrikaans and some English. Sit down, she said to Poppie. She read the letter. Actually, I must give this letter to the clerk who collects the tax, but he isn’t here today, his car broke down.

  Must I come again? Poppie asked. The way is long, there are no buses. I knew nothing of a tax. What tax?

  You pay a rand, it’s a kind of tax, the girl explained, then when they divide up the land one day, you have claim to a plot.

  Poppie was suspicious. Whose land will be divided? Nobody’s land, said the girl. The camps where the cattle and sheep graze will be made smaller, then they divide up the land and the tax is kind of your deposit.

  The black girl was helpful.

  Tomorrow morning I’m going to Sterkspruit, she said, I’ll pay your rand; leave your pass book and the money with me. You can stand at the gate of your ilali and as I pass I’ll give you back your pass book with the stamp inside. You can trust me. I’ll write out your receipt right now. This is an office, this, it’s not a bribery-place.

  And the rand is all I pay? Poppie asked.

  Next year another rand and the next year as well, then you can claim the land.