Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Gideon Mandoma moved two tottering steps to a neutral corner, barely able to stand. The final right hand from Peekay to the heart was catching up with him and he was blacking out in flashes. He held desperately onto the ropes, supporting himself, trying to stop his knees from collapsing under him. At the count of ten and as the crowd went wild Gideon tried to raise his glove, but releasing the rope was all it needed and his knees collapsed from under him. He pitched forward, face first onto the canvas. Both men lay unconscious but it was Gideon Mandoma who was the new Welterweight Champion of the World.

  Still today there are white people and black who were present at the fight who argue that Peekay threw the fight, that he wanted Gideon Mandoma to be the next Welterweight Champion of the World. But it wasn't true. The young Zulu chief had just one more punch left in him and Peekay simply hadn't seen it coming.

  The result of the fight should have settled the matter of leadership. Gideon was now champion of the world and the mantle of Onoshobishobi Ingelosi, the mystical leader of the black people, was expected to fall on him. It was what Mr Nguni wanted and had been careful to spread around before the fight. Initially it seemed that the people had accepted the new leader.

  White South Africans love to think of Africans as predictable and simple-minded, though nothing could be further from the truth. The mantle which mystically befell the white boy as a leader of great importance was not lightly given away. A convocation of five of the country's most powerful witchdoctors, one each from all the major tribes, met in Moroka township to discuss the matter. These abaNgoma were not only men of the dead spirits, they were also astute elders of their tribes, and it did not escape them that Gideon Mandoma was a Zulu, the tribe which had successfully conquered all the other tribes excepting the Xhosa.

  In the matter of tribes it, was always the Zulus who differed in opinion or who thrust their point of view to the front. The fact that a white boy had been chosen to lead was so remarkable as to be beyond their doing and even beyond their magic, for none of them would have willingly brought such a thing about. On the other hand, assuming that the leadership was now taken from the white and returned to the black, this was not a decision to be made in haste. Many pots of beer would need to be consumed and much looking into the entrails of freshly slaughtered animals and throwing of bones and reading of the smoke and re-telling and examining of the ancient prophecies and legends must take place first.

  The elders met during the day on a soccer field. It was more a patch of bare earth with two rickety posts at either end, but it was large enough for the people to come and sit as the old men discussed the way of this thing between the white Onoshobishobi IngeJosi and the young Zulu chief, Mandoma.

  Finally, after many days they signalled that they were ready to give the verdict. A feast was prepared for that night and Mr Nguni supplied three oxen to be roasted. Thirty male members of each of the tribes were invited to be present at the feast, to carry the decision back to the people. 'the feast again took place on the dusty soccer field under the stars, although the soft coal the people bum in the townships creates a haze that blots out the sky and cancels the stars nightly. The five old men sat on indaba mats covered with jackal-skin karosses around a fire built in the centre of the field. In a semicircle around them sat the tribal representatives and behind the old men, roasting on three great wooden spits over beds of glowing coals, were the three oxen. The smell of the slowly roasting meat filled the night air.

  One by one the old men rose to speak. They spoke of the beginning of the mystery; of how a small white boy had brought comfort to the prisoners in the country's most notorious prison, how he had made tobacco appear where there had been no tobacco before and how the words of the prisoners. had flown through him to their kraals to bring comfort to their women and children; how on one great night he had brought all the tribes together and blended them by taking their tribal songs and making one great song of the people; and then he had made the stars fall from the sky. Finally they told of how he had fought the amaBhunu, the Boers in the ring, and had never lost to them. Not once. Now he was fighting for the black plan, Tom Majombi, who was dead, but the white one was fighting the Boers for his shadow so that he might rest peacefully with his ancestors' spirits. Is this not the sign of a great mystical leader of great courage? He who will fight to restore the spirit of a dead man to him? These were surely me signs or greatness which cannot be lightly exorcized from the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi.

  Mr Nguni, fortified with half a bottle of brandy, stood up and asked to speak. He was taking a tremendous chance, but his generous gift of the oxen and a constant supply of kaffir beer all week made him feel entitled to talk and gave him the confidence to do so. 'Was it not spoken once that the conquest by Mandoma of the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi was to be the principal sign that the power had passed over? Was it not true that the first time when the sangoma declared they must fight to see if the white one still has the power, they did so in Sophiatown and the Onobshobishobi Ingelosi defeated Mandoma in front of the people and so the greatness was still in him? Now again, they have fought and this time it is Mandoma who has won. This he has done again in front of the people. Does this not mean that the shadows and the spirits have spoken differently this time?' Mr Nguni sat down, satisfied he'd said enough, noting from the nods and 'hayas' emanating from the audience that most of them agreed with him.

  There was a long silence from the old men until at last the great Swazi medicine man and high witchdoctor Somojo, who took his name from a witchdoctor who belonged to the great legend which began across the Zambesi when time was pale grey and not yet black with the age of things, spoke. Among the assembled doctors he was the most powerful. His peppercorn skull was white and the whites of his eyes were tobacco brown, bloodshot at the edges and watered with age. 'Was it not true that the fight was even, as of two well-matched warriors?' he asked. 'Haya! It is true,' the crowd answered.

  'Was it not true that towards the end the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi was beginning to win?'

  'It is as you say!'

  'Was it not true that the Zulu Mandoma unleashed a mighty blow which brought his opponent crashing to the ground where he lay ukungezwa, unable to get up?'

  'Yes! Everything you say, great one, it is so, he was unconscious!'

  'Was it not true that when the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi lay, a count of ten was made?' The old witchdoctor crouched suddenly, his long neck pushed forward like an ancient tortoise as he turned slowly to look at them all, his shrill voice counting to ten on his fingers. Then, shooting both hands above his head, his fingers splayed, he cried, 'Suddenly at the count of ten the Zulu Mandoma was struck by a blow unseen and fell to the ground and lay ukungezwa beside the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi?'

  'Oh, oh, oh!' the crowd moaned their amazement. 'He was struck and he fell forward. It is as you say!'

  The old man looked around him, his rheumy eyes taking them all in and finally coming to rest on Mr Nguni. 'I ask you this then. Who was he that struck the last blow?'

  A gasp of astonishment passed over the crowd. The shadows which guarded over the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi were so powerful that they could strike his opponent to the ground even when he himself was unconscious.

  'The Onoshobishobi Ingelosi, he struck the last blow!' the crowd shouted. 'He is still the one!'

  'It is the rule that at the count of ten the fight is over, he who is standing is the winner!' Mr Nguni shouted angrily, emboldened by the brandy.

  There was a shocked silence as the crowd turned to look at him. Nguni towered over the diminutive witchdoctor. He was also a man of power who had many cattle and was said to have great wealth; he was also a chief, but to speak to the great Somojo in such a manner was inviting disaster. 'This rule? It is a white man's rule,' the old man spat. Mr Nguni knew immediately that he was trapped. He had swallowed the gourd of quick anger and now was being made to vomit its contents up again. 'Yes, it is a white man's
rule,' he said ruefully.

  The old man stabbed his finger accusingly at Mr Nguni. 'Ho! In this black man's heart there rests a white man's rules?'

  There was silence from the crowd as the old man waited for Mr Nguni to speak. Finally the huge Zulu looked up. 'It is not a rule in my heart,' he said slowly.

  The old man raised his fly switch, his voice a shrill warning, 'Who wishes to challenge lithe power" of the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi? Who would have us pass lithe power" on to the Zulu chief, Mandoma?' The old man glared at the crowd, waiting to see if anyone would respond.

  'We have read this in the smoke and in the throwing of the bones. It is also in the entrails as it was told in the great legends.' He looked at Mr Nguni. 'He who would change this will be struck dead by the same unseen hand that struck Zulu Mandoma at the counting of ten.' He directed a toothless grin at Mr Nguni. 'That is the black man's rule!'

  'Haya! Haya!' the crowd exclaimed, shaking their heads in fear and wonderment.

  The old man was a high witch doctor, the highest of the high, who had taken the leopardskin and the jackal kaross of the greatest of them all, the ancient and venerable Inkosi-Inkosikazi. But more than this; on his deathbed the great medicine man had passed the gold coin of ancestry to Somojo the Swazi. The title of high witchdoctor is not a capricious decision, it comes to him who is the most worthy and it is decided by the ancient coin of gold about his neck. Somojo began slowly walking up and down in front of the indaba mats and glaring at the assembled men. 'There is more to this matter than the business of the fight, which is merely an affair between young men of equal valour.' The old man's arthritic, simian claw reached into the leopardskin cloak and withdrew a leather bag which hung about his neck. His hands trembled as he withdrew a small gold coin not much larger than a blazer button. He displayed the ancient, slightly misshapen coin in his open palm. With an excited murmur the crowd surged forward, compulsively drawn to the tiny gold object. The old man's fingers snapped over the coin and the crowd drew back as though rebuked. 'This is the coin of the strange ones from that time; this is the magic coin of the high witchdoctor which speaks only the truth for those who hold its power in their hands. About this coin there is a legend that dips its ancient hands deep into the cornbasket of time, each grain of corn a year, until two thousand grains have run through the dark fingers of time.

  'At this time there came to the land of the Zambesi huge canoes with oars that stuck from their bellies like the skeletons of a great fish and from the centre of these grew large poles, higher than the centrepole of the king's great indaba hut, and from the poles hung great white karosses to catch the wind. From the belly of the great canoe a hundred times the size of even the biggest war canoe came the strange ones. Their skin was pink and their eyes were the colour of the sky and their hair was long and fell to their shoulders, some as pale as flax and others like the gold of ripe corn and yet others with hair as red as the deeper glow of breath on embers. Some wore beards while others were smooth faced, but on their arms and legs grew the same fine thick hair which shone in the sun.

  'Upon their heads they wore close-fitting helmets of metal of a kind unseen before, the tops of which were shaped like the beak of the hornbill, pointing both front and back, with plumes of hair and sometimes feathers. Over their torsos they wore scales of metal rings extending to a metal flap which hung like a small apron over their private parts and which jingled as they walked so that it was always known when they were coming. Under this flap of metal their hips were girded with a skirt of cloth or soft leather and on their feet they wore leggings to their knees, these extending down to form sandals of strong, thick leather. Strapped from a broad leather belt which further protected their intestines hung a sword of a metal never seen before, harder and sharper and stronger than any stone or copper, and sharper than shaved hippo bone or flinted rock. About their wrists they wore bracelets of tooled leather studded with shining metal studs to ward off the blows of knopkieries and each carried a mighty axe of the same metal as the sword, shaped like a slice of a melon with the haft set into two metal shafts set into the concave side of the axe. The blade of this great head-chopping instrument was sharper than a young lion's teeth.

  'These strange pink creatures came with their women and children and they subdued the black tribes and took slaves and some left in their ships and returned again and again, each time taking slaves and bringing others of their kind back with them when they returned, until they made a great empire. With the black people as their slaves they dug deep into the earth for copper and iron,' the old witchdoctor opened his hand to show the coin, 'and the precious yellow metal which they prized above all else.'

  A low moan escaped from the crowd, like the dry crackle of a man's dying breath. They all knew of the white man's greed for gold and the tyranny the precious metal had brought them all.

  Somojo the high witchdoctor stopped pacing and hopped from one leg to another as though the ground beneath his feet was hot and he could only bear to stand for so long on one spot. 'The empire of the strange ones who came and lived as rulers became known as the Ma-iti though it was commonly known that they called themselves the "Children of the Star". They claimed to have descended from a star that fell to earth and took a young woman of the strange ones, mated with her and had many sons of a great fierceness who spread across the earth. The shining blueness of their eyes was the light of the stars burning through a daylight sky and it was this which gave them power over all the dark-eyed people of the world.'

  A man drew closer to the fire carrying fresh logs and a bundle of branch twigs. He moved forward stooped as though trying not to intrude into the ambient circle of witchdoctors. He hurriedly placed fresh logs onto the embers and then threw the armful of branch twigs atop the fire, brought from who knows where, because there are no trees in Moroka township. The fire snapped and crackled as the twigs flared in short fierce blazes of yellow flame, snatching at the smallest twigs at the tributaries of each branch then, as suddenly, dying away, a twist of white smoke where a moment before the flame had been. Beneath the brief pyrotechnics of dry branch and twig the embers licked slow tongues of flame over the surfaces of the new logs, slowly wrapping them into themselves, turning the mute wood into heat and flame and life.

  'Like all things based on murder, oppression and theft the empire of the strange ones fell into corruption. Their great empire was drifting on the canoe of time towards the- rapids of oblivion when a slave was born among the strange ones.

  His eyes were of the bluest hue, like the clean, high winter sky, but his hair was dark and his skin the colour of tanned leather. He was the son of a black slave woman and a male from the strange ones, though he too was a slave, for such was the corruption and decay of the empire that they had made slaves of some of their own people who in the past had questioned their wrong ways. This child, born of the black and the white, was named Lumukanda and it was he who when he was still young rose up and brought the miserable remnants of the people together and destroyed the two empires of the strange ones. A child of the star led the desperate starveling tribes against the strange ones and be conquered them and utterly destroyed them. Then he set fire to their great cities and wiped out the marks of where they had been, like a man's foot wipes out the mark. of an overnight fire in the dust of the new morning.

  The crackle of fire, as the new wood caught and grew the flames, was the only sound to be heard as the people listened to the words of Somojo the great witchdoctor. The flickering light from the fire lit his wizened monkey face as he brought the great tale to a close. 'Then Lumukanda the strange one gathered all the remnants of all the tribes and moved the people from the Zambesi, south to the river of the Limpopoma; and when he reached this and came to a deep gorge which led to a place to cross he called the tribes to himself. Behind him rose a great cliff and he stood with his back to the cliff and he pointed to the land across the river. "Go into these lands where the grass is sweet
and make it your own; multiply and live in peace," he commanded.

  'Then the witch doctor Somojo came to him. "Great one, will you not come with us?" he asked. Lumukanda turned and pointed to the great cliff where a small waterfall fell to its side. "High on this cliff to the right of that waterfall there is a cave. I shall climb to its entrance and dwell there with the great Snake God where my spirit will remain to watch over you. If the strange ones should return with their blue eyes and their hair the colour of ripe corn and they would take you into slavery, I will come down from the cave and return to all the tribes and I will deliver you from their bondage and the tyranny of their greed." Then Lumukanda placed a gold coin into the hand of Somojo. "This is the coin of your ancestry and the sign that I, the child of the star, will come when I am needed," he said.

  The high witchdoctor paused, waiting for the weight of the words of the great legend to be felt upon the bent backs of the hushed crowd seated around the witch doctors on the soccer ground. Then slowly he pointed to the night sky and in a shrill, high voice asked, 'Did not the stars fall from the heavens when the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi brought the tribes together for the singing of the great song of Africa?'

  There was a gasp from the crowd as they finally comprehended what the old man was saying. Many of the men grabbed handfuls of dust and wiped it on their foreheads; others rocked on their haunches at the awesomeness of the prophesy. Somojo the great Swazi witchdoctor folded his spindly legs down slowly to sit on the jackal-skin kaross under a sky where the heavens were shrouded by the smoke of the township fires and the night smelt of roasting meat and the slightly sour odour of fermenting kaffir beer.