The Sculptors of Mapungubwe

by Zakes Mda

  CHATAMBUDZA AND RENDANI WERE brought up as brothers and saw each other in that light. They were born in the same year at the same mining compound a day’s journey south of Mapungubwe. They got to be known as the Zwanga Twins by the miners, even though only Rendani belonged to the Muvhaḓi Makone – the master carver and blacksmith. Chata was the son of Zwanga’s servant, a !Kung woman – and that was all she was ever called; she was of such low caste that no one ever bothered to know her name – who came to the compound some years back with her husband who herded Zwanga’s cattle when Zwanga still owned some herds, and then later became a rain doctor. Some of the !Kung people who had been routed out of their cave-dwelling communities, perhaps by hunger because of the depletion of wild animals and wild berries and roots, became cattle herders for the wealthy Mapungubweans in exchange for food and shelter. This, in effect, meant that they bonded themselves into vhupuli, as slavery was called. The grandees who had cattle posts out there across the Limpopo River relied on the !Kung, the Khwe and other hunter-gatherer people, who were generally called the San by the Khoikhoi, to look after their animals.

  The story is rather vague as to how the !Kung woman was widowed. Only a few months after her husband died she gave birth to Chatambudza. Many people thought she would take the baby back to her people. They had no idea that her people lived in the Kgalagadi desert, a journey of many moons south-west of Mapungubwe. How would a lone woman and a baby manage such a hazardous journey? The !Kung were hardy people and she could easily have survived on the roots of shrubs and eggs of birds and the caterpillars that fed on mopane and mango trees. But her safety could not be guaranteed in the wilderness for all those moons, and indeed even if she reached the Kgalagadi how would she find her kith and kin in that vast desert? The !Kung people moved and followed the migrations of the wild beasts on which they depended for their meat. All these were the !Kung woman’s concerns when she decided to stay at the compound. She found accommodation with Ma Chirikure, a woman who cooked for the miners and was rumoured to service the unmarried ones in ways that were only whispered about.

  Those days Zwanga, who owned the mine, spent most of his time at the compound even though he had a home in town. He found it more convenient to process the gold on site and to create the jewellery and the gold ingots which he bartered for beads and other items that the Swahili traders brought. He also traded with other compounds, mostly across the Limpopo in the north and further south of Mapungubwe, that variously mined iron, tin and copper. From these assorted minerals he forged hoes and spears and knives and bangles. His smithy then was right there at his mining compound and not at his house in the town. His senior wife also spent most of her time at the mining compound while his other wives looked after the houses in the town. That was why her first son, Rendani, was born at the compound.

  Chata and Rendi, as Rendani was then called, soon discovered each other and became playmates. No one knew why Zwanga took a shine to Chata, the son of a phuli or slave. But he did. When he began to train his son in the rudiments of shaping clay and wood into objects of art, and later in identifying the characteristics of various metals, he included Chata in those lessons.

  Chata impressed Zwanga quite early on. He was very curious about metals. He spent hours on end watching Zwanga smelting metal in his crucible and then shaping it into wonderful objects that were in demand by the town-dwellers. Rendi could not understand Chata’s fascination. He would rather shirk his lessons and sneak away to spy on girls as they bathed in the river. Of course, Chata enjoyed that pastime as well, and would therefore be torn between observing Zwanga’s craftsmanship and following Rendi to the river.

  Chata was the smarter one in the ways of the wild. It was an instinct he inherited from his mother’s people. But the !Kung woman did not want the boy to rely only on instinct. She took him to the wilderness and taught him about the herbs and the shrubs and the bushes and their various uses either for healing or for eating. In the woods she taught him the dances of her people – those that sent the dancer into a trance where the dancer communed with the world of the dead and the unborn. She taught him how to alter his consciousness, not only for the purposes of entering the world of the spirits, but to inhabit the bodies of the graceful animals of the wild, such as gazelles and other antelope, so as to be able to run like them and dance with their grace. In Mapungubwe they reduced people to animals when they wanted to demean them. But Chata learnt that in his mother’s world view it was an honour to be compared to an animal; it spoke of one’s elegance and generosity, strength and cunning.

  The !Kung woman taught Chata to guard these secrets with his life, for indeed his life depended on them. She impressed on him that if the people of Mapungubwe knew he had the power to visit the world of the spirits at will they would condemn him as a wizard and would stone him to death. Although there was nothing special about these powers among the !Kung, since any !Kung man or woman could dance himself or herself into a deep trance, the Mapungubweans worshipped a different God called Mwali and were bound to be suspicious of what they didn’t understand. The !Kung woman taught her son to respect animals because there was a time in the timeless past when animals were human beings with human characteristics and behaviours and habits and customs. People were therefore animals and animals were people. All creatures were kindred spirits. The spirit of humanity lived in all animals, especially the great meat animals: the eland, the kudu, the gemsbok, and the giraffe. The !Kung woman taught her son how to feel the pain of animals.

  When the boys were older Zwanga allowed them to roam around the bush as long as they had first performed their chores at the smithy. They spent a lot of time playing with shepherds and herdboys at the basin of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers where they displayed their skill in moulding animals out of clay. These red or black figures, depending on the colour of the clay, were about the size of a man’s hand. Rendi could mould oxen, bulls and cows that were so realistic that their legs had joints and their feet had hooves, whereas the cattle made by the other boys had only pointed stumps for limbs. Chata on the other hand created animals that never existed anywhere except in his imagination. Some of these were three-legged, had horns growing all around their necks, beaks like vultures and wings on their tails. Whereas the boys envied Rendi’s skill to render lifelike images of the cattle and goats that they interacted with in the meadows and at the cattle posts, they laughed at Chata’s inability to reproduce life as they knew it. Rendi joined in the laughter. “Where have you ever seen an animal like this?” he asked.

  “It is because he is of the Vhasarwa,” said one of the herdboys. “The Vhasarwa are lower than animals.”

  Rendi took offence at this.

  “Don’t you insult my mukomana,” he said, adopting a fighting stance.

  Chata took offence for a different reason.

  “Don’t you insult animals,” he said. “Animals are people too.”

  He also adopted a fighting stance. The herdboys stamped on their clay creations that were lying on a granite rock to be dried by the sun. When the boys came for Rendi and Chata and were about to surround them the two boys knew that they would not be a match in a fight and they ran away. The herdboys gave brief chase while hurling further invective at them.

  On the way home Rendi tried to console Chata. “Don’t worry, mukomana. One day you’ll know how to mould beautiful things too. I’ll teach you.”

  He was chuffed by the discovery that at least there was something at which he was much better than Chata.

  The next day Rendi and Chata went hunting for ostrich eggs. When they hadn’t found any by the afternoon they decided to go moulding once again. Those insolent herdboys would not be at the river at that time of the day, they would have driven the cattle to the grazing lands further north. They only took them to the river at midday to drink.

  The boys sat down to knead the clay with water until it was soft and pliable. Rendi tried to demonstrate to Chat
a how he could mould a bull that looked like a bull, but Chata did not seem to be paying much attention. He was bent on moulding his fantastical animals that were weird to look at and made Rendi laugh. But the laughter did not offend Chata at all.

  “My hands won’t allow me to make animals that look like the animals that we see every day out there in the veld. They only want to shape the animals of my dreams.”

  This did not make sense to Rendi. Hands did what you wanted them to do. What good would any carver be if he were to be controlled by his hands? Surely Zwanga would not be the master carver and blacksmith he was, respected in all of Mapungubwe and beyond, if he allowed his hands to go rampant and shape any silly thing they wanted to shape? But Chata’s hands refused to see reason. He tried to reproduce the strange animal that had been destroyed by the herdboys the previous day. But it could not be exactly the same, though it had the three legs, the beak and the wings on the tail. This new one had more horns, even on its flanks. Rendi moulded a raging bull that looked like a raging bull.

  “I am going to ask my father to bake it in his kiln so that it lasts forever,” said Rendi.

  “I’ll ask him to do mine too,” said Chata.

  Rendi knew that his father would never waste his time baking such an ugly creature. He did not say so, though, because he did not want his friend to feel bad about his lack of talent.

  The boys gave their creations to Zwanga, and Rendi was surprised that his father didn’t break into a paroxysm – be it of laughter or of anger – when he saw Chata’s creation. Instead he stared at it with awe on his face. He took a quick look at Rendi’s bull and said, in what Rendi interpreted to be a dismissive tone, “This is very good, murwa, but I expect no less from you. You are, after all, a descendant of master carvers and blacksmiths who have been honoured by kings from the days of your great-great-grandfather.”

  But his eyes quickly went to Chata’s monster.

  “Chatambudza, where did you see an animal like this?” he asked.

  “In my dreams, Father,” said Chata. His tone was very apologetic.

  “You dream such dreams? Who taught you to dream like that?”

  He could not tell Zwanga that his mother had taught him to dance himself into a trance during which he interacted with spirit worlds where even more fantastical creatures pranced about.

  “I don’t know. It just happened. My hands just shaped it. I am sorry about it.”

  “He won’t do it again,” said Rendi trying to protect his friend. “It is not his fault. It is the fault of his hands.”

  “Stop prattling, boy,” said Zwanga abruptly. “I want to know how this phuli boy got to have such wonderful dreams.”

  Chata was so rattled by the fact that Zwanga called him a slave that he missed the part that declared his creation wonderful. But that did not escape Rendi. Wonderful? How could this monstrous creature be deemed wonderful?

  “What imagination! Your mind is a wonderful place to be,” said Zwanga softly, as if to himself.

  Chata did not want to reveal that it was memory rather than imagination that was responsible for his creation. These were creatures he had seen when he had gone into a trance and had visited the dimension of the dead and the unborn. He had moulded them as he remembered them. In any event who could truly make a clear distinction between imagination and memory?

  Zwanga was lost in thought. He just sat and stared at the fantasy creature. The boys stood there for a while. Rendi was hoping he would have further comments about his bull. When he didn’t Rendi said, “Please, Father, fire my ox in your kiln so that it can last forever.” But the man didn’t stir. It was as if he had not heard his son. His eyes were fixed on the fantasy creature. The boys quietly left the house.

  In the evening when Zwanga’s wife brought food and Rendi brought a gourd of mopane beer the man was still staring at the fantasy animal. Something was wrong with Zwanga, Rendi thought. He was rather irritated that it was not his well-shaped bull that had mesmerised his father but an animal that never existed anywhere in the known world. A tinge of resentment began to grow in him. Resentment against his father. Against Chata. Against all the !Kung people of the world, for who else but the !Kung woman could have taught Chata to bewitch the master carver with a silly-looking animal? This last bit was implanted in Rendi’s mind by his mother, for she and her son did discuss Zwanga’s strange behaviour when they got back to her house. She had a very simple and straightforward answer: witchcraft. The !Kung woman must be responsible for it. Her solution was that Rendi must stop playing with Chata.

  For a number of days after that Chata could not understand why Rendi had changed towards him, and why he avoided playing with him. But that did not last long because Zwanga wanted them back at the workshop at the same time. Whereas at first it was only Rendi who had an obligation to be there and learn from the master as the first-born son who would carry on the tradition of carving and blacksmithing – which included goldsmithing – Zwanga now decided to have Chata also work with him formally as an apprentice. So, the boys once more became inseparable, despite the reservations of Rendi’s mom.

  Right from the beginning Zwanga observed that Chata was keen to learn the distinguishing properties of the various metals in the smithy. He came to work quite early in the morning, while Rendi was still asleep. Chata was always reluctant to leave at midday when Zwanga thought the boys had had enough of work and training for the day. Though he was a tough taskmaster and overworked the boys as a way of training them, he had to force Chata out of the workshop because he needed time alone to forge implements and weapons without being disturbed by chattering boys. He was also keen that the boys should learn other skills out there in the wild that only peers could teach. He was wise enough to know that boys their age needed to play as well for them to develop into real men.

  Rendi looked forward to those moments. He found the smithy very constraining. He wanted to be free in the bush to trap animals, an art that he had mastered thanks to Chata. He envied his siblings from his father’s junior wives who had no obligation to follow their father into working with wood, ivory and metal. They had instead pursued other interests, mostly in farming and cattle ranching, and were already serving apprenticeships with uncles – both on their mothers’ and father’s sides – who owned herds of cattle and tilled the land in the Shashe-Limpopo basin.

  Sometimes Zwanga tested the boys’ manhood by sending them on a hunt. He would specify the animal he wanted to eat that evening, depending on the cravings of his palate.

  “Vhatukana,” he would call the boys, “go get me an eland. And I want you to be on separate hunts.”

  Invariably Chata would come back with an eland and Rendi would not. Chata had learnt the spoors of various animals from the !Kung woman, and could easily follow eland or gemsbok or other antelope. Later Zwanga sent them on joint hunts, instructing Chata to teach Rendi how to be a good hunter. Unfortunately he did not put it that way. He said, “Teach him how to be a man.” This left Rendi feeling very small and absolutely mortified; he was obviously not a man in his father’s eyes.

  On their first day hunting kudu together Rendi was in awe at how Chata could tell the spoor of that specific animal among all the animals of the wild. They had their throwing spears and bows and arrows at the ready. They marched for a long time, and just when the horizon was pink with the setting sun they spotted a group of kudu grazing near a stream. Chata signalled to Rendi which animal they should aim for and swiftly he shot his arrow while Rendi threw his spear. The wounded kudu jumped up; the rest ran helter-skelter. Even before the kudu landed on the ground Chata had aimed right at its heart with a throwing spear. There was no need to chase a wounded animal for hours on end in the manner of the !Kung until it became weak from loss of blood or from the poisoned arrow and fell to the ground. In this case the animal fell to the ground instantly. Rendi wondered if he would ever attain such expertise.

&nb
sp; Chata performed a small dance around the animal and then knelt next to it and apologised for killing it. They had killed birds and rabbits and hares when they were younger and Rendi had never heard Chata apologising to the animal they had killed. He broke out laughing and said, “You, mukomana, you are full of strange jokes. You are like the swaswi, the court jesters.”

  “It is not a joke, mukomana,” said Chata. “All life is sacred. More so the Great Meat Animals. In the timeless past they were once people. We don’t rejoice in killing them. We do so because it is necessary for us to survive. We are grateful that they give us their meat, but we are sorry that they have to die to do so. We are honoured that they so gracefully allow us to eat them.”

  This did not make sense to Rendi. But he did not argue about it and they silently skinned the kudu. Chata insisted that they leave some of its parts – the head and the innards – on the ground for the birds of prey and the scavenging animals; they too must survive.

  Zwanga was pleased with their work, especially when he heard that Rendi played a major role in killing the animal. He suspected, though, that Chata was exaggerating when he said the hunt would not have been a success without Rendi and his trusty throwing spear.

  The boys often frolicked with the zebras and giraffes. When stupidity got the better of them they provoked elephant bulls into a fury and then ran for their dear lives. But they never got near rhinos; they were respectful of them because they were sacred animals. Chata was nearly killed in one such adventure when a raging bull lifted him up with its trunk. Rendi screamed and hurled stones at the bull until it dropped Chata and went after Rendi. Both boys ran into a deep gully and the bull could not follow them there. It finally gave up and went back to join its herd.

  “You saved my life, mukomana,” said Chata, out of breath.