The Sculptors of Mapungubwe

by Zakes Mda

  “It is not you we are blaming for the drought,” said an old man of the Council of Elders. “We believe that you were violated. It is the man who violated you who is responsible for the drought.”

  But another elder objected. “It is the man, yes, but she also must bear some responsibility. We heard from Chatambudza’s neighbours that she walks there herself willingly every day. If a woman flaunts herself before a man what do you expect him to do?”

  “But still she was violated,” said Baba-Munene. “Chatambudza is a respected sculptor of the kingdom. He should know better than to bring shame to his respected trade and to all his peers by dragging a foreign beggar into his quarters and doing things that we are ashamed even to mention in this court.”

  “She must tell us what Chatambudza did to her in that house,” said another man.

  “Yes,” said another one. “We want to hear every detail.”

  “Every detail?” asked Zwanga, opening his mouth for the first time since the proceedings started. “What difference is it going to make to the case to hear these things with our ears?”

  “None of us here are children,” said Baba-Munene. “If we find Chatambudza guilty at all it must be because we have all the details of his crime. What did you do with that man in his house, woman?”

  “It is sacred what happens in that house,” said the woman.

  From then on she refused to answer any questions. Even when the men assailed her from all directions with questions, statements and even insults she just stood there and stared unflinchingly and unblinkingly into empty space. Baba-Munene then turned to Chata.

  “What did you give this woman? What did you promise her? What did you do to her?”

  “What makes me different from the other men of Mapungubwe is that I was taught by my mother how to be a man.” That was all Chata would say.

  “What makes you different,” said Baba-Munene who had by now lost all patience both with the woman and with Chata, “is that you are the son of a phuli !Kung woman who didn’t teach you enough manners. You are being ungrateful to the man who took you under his wing and made you a person, our respected elder Zwanga. You are dishonouring even Zwanga’s children who took you as a brother, especially Rendani who is universally respected and beloved as the Royal Sculptor.”

  At this point Rendani stood up and pompously strolled to the front where he stood next to Baba-Munene’s high stool. He looked at Chata with eyes full of love and a smile that spoke of nothing but kindness and understanding.

  “Chata is my father’s ward; that is why we call each other mukomana even though different bloods flow in our bodies,” said Rendani. “He is a good person at heart. That is why this year I chose him to help me with the palisades. Of course, it was before he did these things that we are afraid even to mention. But I want to say that when he goes astray it is not his intention to bring death and destruction to the land. It is just his hot-headedness and lack of direction. We need to show him compassion. If he shows remorse and apologises and promises never to wear silk again, to dispose of all the gold he is hoarding, and to stop the perversion of locking himself in the house with strange women in the daylight when even the innocent eyes of children can see him, let us forgive him. Our ancestors will be happy and rain will fall.”

  The men applauded Rendani’s good heart. He was a true scion of Zwanga, he who came from a long line of master carvers. No wonder the King appointed him Royal Sculptor. A selfless man like him, who even shared the honour of his office by putting the ungrateful Chata in charge of the palisade carving, deserved this important position.

  Everyone waited expectantly for Chata to apologise. He surely would take the lifeline that his mukomana had provided him, the men believed. But he just stood there obdurately staring at Rendani, Baba-Munene and those elders close to them. He avoided Zwanga’s gaze, though, and felt very sad that he had to put the old man who had believed in him through all this. Rendani on the other hand could hardly hide his smirk of satisfaction.

  CHATA SAT UNCOMFORTABLY ASTRIDE a quagga as it trotted on a footpath between fields of millet on the floodplains across the Limpopo River. Following him on foot were his two assistants, young men who were recruited for this special expedition by Ma Chirikure. They were driving a long-horned black ox laden with tanned hide bags of tools: dolerite hammers, iron crowbars, a ceramic crucible, iron chisels and a smaller alloy crucible. A tinier bag contained provisions for the road that Ma Chirikure insisted they take even though Chata told her that when men travelled they survived on the roots that the land provided and the fruits that the forests yielded, and the rabbits and rodents that were abundant in the wild and could easily be trapped or hunted down by agile young men like them. After all, Chata argued, part of the fun of long-distance travel was roasting on an open fire and savouring the little creatures, most of which were bound to be alien to Mapungubweans. But Ma Chirikure prevailed and gave them roasted sorghum that had been ground into fine powder and sun-dried kudu meat – part of the bounty that Chata had brought from hunting expeditions.

  The young men, Batsirai and Chindori, came from families of the old residents of Mapungubwe, those who lived there long before it became a bustling town. Although it was before these young men were born, their grandparents told the story of how Mapungubwe used to be a hill used only for rainmaking rituals. Those days only a few residents lived below the hill. No one lived on top of the hill for that’s where rainmaking ceremonies were performed. And then mass migrations happened, families from the southern settlements, perhaps trying to escape the drought, coming to live in Mapungubwe and establishing the town. The old residents felt marginalised and resentful. They were now a minority and indeed felt overwhelmed by the new residents. The new residents, on the other hand, despised the old residents because they were much poorer and were steeped in the old ways. There was no love lost between the two groups and the suspicion was passed to the next generation and to the present. That was why the only support that Chata got in Mapungubwe was from the old residents led by their doyenne, Ma Chirikure. To many of the old residents the conflict had acquired political overtones. Chata was being punished for being the son of a !Kung woman. They were making him an outsider even though he had been born in Mapungubwe like everyone else. It was nothing but the arrogance of the new residents of whom all the grandees – including every member of the Council of Elders – were composed. It was the same arrogance that consigned the old residents to the margins of society.

  The quagga broke into a canter and Chata tried to restrain it because his companions would have to run to catch up with it, which would not be good for them and the ox since the road ahead was still very long. To make it to their destination they had to keep to an unhurried pace. Their destination was not a predetermined one, though. They would know it was the destination only when they got there.

  Chata was still trying to learn how to control the animal. He bartered some gold ingots for it with a man to whom he had been introduced by Batsirai, the younger of his two assistants. The man captured quagga foals from the wild and trained them for riding and for carrying burdens. This was something new, really, because the only beasts of burden that were also ridden by men, but especially by boys, were oxen. Quagga were wild animals and people could not believe at first that they could be tamed. But then if Rendani could tame leopards, of all animals, why couldn’t the man tame quaggas? Man was the king of all beasts. The Swahili came with stories that in India men even tamed elephants and rode them as if they were oxen!

  Even as Chata and his companions trekked north he could not get old Zwanga out of his mind. Perhaps he should have gone to the hill to explain himself to the old man. Surely Zwanga would have understood. But it was too late to have any regrets now.

  If only Chata had known that right up to that point Zwanga still hoped he would come and talk to him. After the trial the elder was a broken man, especially when the sentence was
passed by Baba-Munene and the Council of Elders: Chata was ordered to vacate Zwanga’s mine forthwith. The old man had to go along with that. After all, he was as disappointed as everyone else by Chata’s behaviour. He blamed himself for not teaching the young man well. Perhaps he failed to carry out his responsibility of teaching him properly how to be a man. Otherwise why would he credit his mother for the role that should have been played by Zwanga since he had taken it upon himself to bring the boy up under his tutelage? Chata never knew that Zwanga sat outside his house, his frail hands refusing to cooperate even as he tried to carve something as soft as wood since he couldn’t carve ivory any more, waiting for Chata to come and explain himself and ask for his forgiveness. He was ready to forgive him, though he would not allow him back to the mine since that would be flouting the King’s order. He was ready to forgive him because he had a vivid memory of the wonderful creatures that the boy used to mould. They lived in his nightdreams and in his nightmares and in his daydreams and in his daymares. They were a relentless presence that haunted him at all times. How he would have loved to carve creatures like that. How he would have respected Rendani more if he had carved creatures like that. But none of them could because they were creatures of Chata’s trances.

  The second part of the sentence was that Chata should get rid of his stockpile of gold wherever it was hidden and give some to the King both as tribute and as placation to the Royal Ancestors for defying the King’s decrees. The rest he had to barter away. People thought that was the main reason he exchanged some of it for a quagga. But they were surprised that he had not yet taken the tribute to the King even though the sentence had been passed almost two full moons ago. Was he bent on defying the King?

  There was no doubt that his name was dirt. Even the children in the town were singing about him. They said his new name was Ṅame, which meant Miser.

  But Chata’s mind was not on the gossip of Mapungubwe and their unmannerly children as he rode on his quagga. It was not on the Namaqua woman either, even though the woman was regarded as his partner in crime. He did not give the woman a second thought. No one in Mapungubwe seemed to care about her fate and that of her children. She was banished from the town, and the last time anyone saw her and her motley bunch of children they were trudging out of the zimbabwes that enclosed the southern part of the town. She was still wearing Chata’s impala kaross. No, Chata’s mind was not on any of these people. It was on Zwanga.

  After a day’s journey to the north Chata and his companions found accommodation in a small mining village. He was told by the old man who sheltered them under his roof that about forty people or so lived in the village, all of them miners and their families. As was the case in Mapungubwe, some of the miners were women. The old man, for instance, no longer mined because of his advanced age, but his two wives and a daughter who was just at the door of maidenhood did all the mining for the family.

  But not even one member of his family was home that day. They had all gone to cook for a mass funeral that would be held the next day at a neighbouring mining compound. A mine had collapsed while men, women and even teenagers were working underground. Such cave-ins were not uncommon, said the old man, especially in mines with inadequate backfilling.

  “To whom do you pay your tribute?” Chata asked.

  “To the King of Mapungubwe,” said the old man.

  Chata knew that he would have to travel further north to be as far away from the jurisdiction of Mapungubwe as possible, while still maintaining his connection with the town where he had spent all his life. His homestead in the town meant a lot to him and he had no intention of migrating permanently to other places. All he wanted was a mine of his own where he could mine gold and do whatever he pleased with it.

  After he was kicked out of Zwanga’s mine he had initially decided that he would forget all about gold and focus on a blacksmithing career. After all, thanks to Zwanga he had mastered the art of smelting copper and tin to produce bronze from which he created some of the bracelets, anklets and neck ornaments that were the toast of the town with the patrician women on the hill. For years he had neglected creating such bangles because of his obsession with gold. Like other master smithies in the town he would also produce spears, tools, implements and even the kind of weapons that he brought with him from the land of Azande and never got around to manufacturing. He could still be happy without gold, he tried to convince himself.

  But he was deceiving himself. After a few weeks he was spending sleepless nights rolling on his mat. At first he thought his wanderlust had returned. But no, it was not the wanderlust. It was the yearning for gold. It was like a thirst that could not be quenched. In the daytime he took his spear and his bow and arrows and went hunting. He came back with various meat animals on different days, until Ma Chirikure complained: “You keep on bringing this meat every day, but you can’t eat it all. Neither can I.”

  “Give it to the neighbours.”

  “I already have. But it is too much. I have sun-dried a lot of it and it will carry us through the winter. But some of it rots and has to be thrown away.”

  She didn’t want to tell him that some of the neighbours, especially the new residents, didn’t want to touch what was hunted by him because they feared that his disgrace would transfer bad luck to them.

  “Give it to the Namaqua woman and her children,” said Chata.

  It was the first time he had mentioned the Namaqua woman since the trial. Ma Chirikure wondered why he would even want to talk about a woman who had brought such misfortune to his life and changed his personality from sunny to murky.

  “They left the town. They were cast out.”

  “They left the town,” repeated Chata. How could he have forgotten that?

  After that he never mentioned the Namaqua woman again. He banished her from his thoughts. But he could not banish gold. He continued to roll on his mat at night and even entertained thoughts of climbing the hill and making peace with Rendani who would then influence his father and his father-in-law to forgive him and allow him to resume his work at Zwanga’s mine. He would even be willing to take a smaller share. As long as he got some gold. He needed gold so desperately! He would go insane if he didn’t acquire more and more gold!

  But even before he could go any further with the thought he dismissed it. Not the thought of his searing desire for gold, but of climbing the hill to beg for forgiveness.

  “Something big is eating you,” said Ma Chirikure one morning when she brought him the roasted paste of sorghum and cowpeas that she stamped together with a pestle on her stone mortar block. “And it is going to eat you until you do something about it. Look at you! You are wasting away; you’ll end up becoming nothing but bones. You don’t even eat any more.”

  Yes, he had to do something about it. He had to find a new source of gold. And the only way he could do that was to prospect for it. He would open his own mine. Ma Chirikure agreed to look after his house and she recruited Chindori and Batsirai who had always expressed a wish to go into mining but who, as old residents, didn’t have apprenticeship opportunities or the means to do so on their own. She convinced them that although Chata didn’t have a mine of his own yet, they would learn a lot from him and would acquire the skills of prospecting for gold and starting their own mine from scratch.

  The three men and their two animals had walked for two whole days when Chata began to doubt if their prospecting would yield anything at all, and he expressed his misgivings to his companions.

  “All we’re coming across are abandoned mines.”

  These had been refilled with rubble and chips of ore for reasons of safety. While the men took a rest under a tree eating some of Ma Chirikure’s delights and the animals were grazing, the quagga fell into a mine shaft that had not been properly backfilled. It took the three men a lot of effort and a good portion of the day to rescue it. From then on they had to be very careful where they trod. Chata cou
ld no longer ride the quagga because its hindlegs were injured. Instead he led it with a leather strap tied around its neck.

  The young men were enjoying the adventure, and the freedom from parental impositions, and they hoped Chata would not lose heart and decide to turn back to Mapungubwe.

  “We’ve come all this way already,” said Chindori. “You cannot be discouraged now. We must find gold.”

  “We’re not prepared to go back without finding gold. We do not want to be the laughing stock of the town. Already people were ridiculing us for following you. Did you know that they now call you Name? They said our expedition would come to nothing because it is led by a greedy man who wants wealth for its own sake.” This was Batsirai. Chata was learning that he was the more brutally frank of the two.

  Chindori added, “We told them that it did not matter to us whether you want more gold only to hoard it, as all misers do, or to do whatever else with it. We want to learn from the master and become successful miners. We are not going back without fulfilling that dream.”

  Chata was ashamed that his assistants were showing more determination than he was. He apologised for his lack of faith and began to lead them with a renewed sense of purpose.

  The following morning the expedition crossed a narrow stream running through a terrain of crags and scented shrubs. The clear water was flowing spiritedly over the white rocks. It was a land of wild melons that hung suspended among the rugged rocks.

  The three men knelt on the low bank in unison and started lapping the water. It was as cool as if it came from a spring. Chata suddenly jumped up and started singing and dancing. His companions looked at him in bewilderment; undoubtedly their master was losing it. Perhaps the heat of the sun had taken its toll on him. It couldn’t be the water, otherwise they would all be jumping about, raising their knees up and down, kicking their legs and laughing like a hyena of the wild. When the song became clicky in what the young men identified either as the language of the !Kung or of the Khoikhoi – they didn’t know the difference – they were convinced he was possessed by the spirits of his mother’s people. Or of the Namaqua woman. What would they do with a madman in the middle of nowhere?