The Sculptors of Mapungubwe

by Zakes Mda

  For two days he worked unceasingly on his sculpture. He kept casting his gaze on the crowd outside, hoping somewhere in its midst he would spy Marubini. She was not there. He couldn’t summon the trance that helped him create. It was all Marubini’s fault, although he admitted to himself that he had never really considered his own feelings towards her. Princess Dova wanted to use him to foil Rendani’s designs on Marubini, but did he really want her for himself? He had never entertained any thoughts of marriage to her or any other woman because he was married to his art. All he wanted in life was to create a chryselephantine sculpture that would be a wonder of wonders. It had been his ambition since he was a boy growing up under Zwanga’s tutelage, perhaps from the very first day Zwanga was mesmerised by the creature of his dreams that he had moulded in clay. He had saved his gold over the years, while teaching himself new dances that would take him into a much deeper trance than usual; a trance that led him to a dimension of living chryselephantine beings that he never even knew existed. He had started his creation a few years earlier and had gradually worked on it until it consumed him and took over his life. He found himself living only for it. Everything else he did was geared towards making the sculpture a success. And now there was Marubini. The Marubini of flesh and blood, and not his Rain Dancer that people claimed was Marubini. He would like to talk to her, to find out if marrying Rendani was really what she wanted. If that was what she wanted, then Princess Dova had better forget it. He would not interfere.

  Because he could not muster the trance and his eye kept on stealing towards the crowd outside he was making an error in his carving. It was not anything an observer would discern. But Chenayi immediately saw that something was wrong.

  “Your carving knife went deeper here,” he said, pointing to the left cheekbone.

  No one had ever heard Chenayi speak. But he spoke when he was with Chata. He was not a chatterbox, but whenever he deemed it necessary he uttered a sentence. Chata took his utterances seriously. Chenayi hovered around as he worked and handed him the specific tool he needed without Chata’s asking for it. He just seemed to know instinctively what was needed at the time. He knew how to stoke the fire in the furnace and how to shovel in the crucible. He knew when the dust or the nuggets had smelted to the appropriate degree. He was also aware of the different levels of trance that his master was able to achieve. When a trance failed, as it did today, he knew that his master would need greater concentration since he was no longer operating under the guidance of the spirit world. He still looked as though he had been rolled in a midden, with his tattered loincloth and all, but to Chata he was some kind of idiot savant.

  Chata corrected the error and then stopped carving. He just stood and stared at the wooden frame that was yet to be covered with gold leaf.

  “I can call her for you,” said Chenayi.

  “Call who for me?”

  “Marubini.”

  Chata stared at him and shook his head in wonderment.

  “Who said I wanted Marubini?”

  “I can call her for you.”

  At this Chenayi took the mirror from the adobe ledge and walked out of the grotto. He worked his way through the crowd.

  Chata danced the dance of his mother’s people – the !Kung – hoping to induce a trance so that he might carve unbothered by thoughts of Marubini. The crowd clapped hands and sang for him. He had danced only a few steps when realised that it was futile to chase after a trance that did not want to come. He stepped outside and sat on a stool in the shade of the veranda and watched members of the Community of Gapers as they turned their attention to his statue and sang to it instead of singing to his dead dance.

  Those Gapers! They seemed to grow stronger by the day. They were gaining more followers, mostly among the common people. Chata had observed that in the beginning the diehards were members of the marginalised old residents of Mapungubwe. But now he could see some of the new residents as well. Indeed, he had seen an army general recently, and a young man who came from a well-known patrician family from the top of the hill. Whereas at first the Gapers seemed to get their thrills from watching Chata work, and as soon as he stopped working they dispersed, lately it was the statue itself that fascinated them. They gathered whether Chata was working on it or not and sang their songs that were either joyful or mournful, depending on their mood. Sometimes he would return from a hunt with a buck on his shoulders and find them outside the grotto doing what they did best. They were always respectful of his space. None of them, not even the unruly children, stepped onto the veranda, let alone walked close to the entrance of the grotto. Only the idiot savant walked in and out of the grotto as he pleased. His association with Chata gave him a new respectability even among the children who used to torment him. His stature was enhanced when Chata gave him his mirror. Chenayi could not believe that Chata was gifting him with his prized possession. When he was reluctant to take it Chata had said, “Take it, it’s yours.” The boy had shaken his head. Chata had pressed it into his hand. The boy had giggled and held the mirror close to his chest. He had danced one of his master’s dances, albeit not with the intention of inducing a trance but of celebrating his new possession. It was the first thing he had ever owned in his life.

  The only two people who had mirrors in Mapungubwe were the King and the idiot savant.

  Normally Chenayi did not carry his mirror around with him. He left it in the grotto even when he went home to sleep at night. Or hid it under his kaross if he thought he would need to visit his image before he slept. In the mornings he walked to Chata’s place grinning at his image. The other kids, his usual tormentors, dared not take the mirror from him for fear of Chata.

  So, on that day after leaving Chata’s grotto he stood on the pathway near Marubini’s home and looked at himself making faces in the mirror. Soon the excited urchins of the neighbourhood surrounded him.

  “Chenayi Chenayi, let me see myself,” said one.

  “Please Chenayi Chenayi, can I see my teeth?” said another.

  “You don’t look like a crab, Chenayi, you don’t have twisted eyes.”

  But Chenayi’s ears were deaf to their pleas. He just stood there grinning at his image, turning his head to look at his profile, and then at his tongue, and at his teeth caked yellow with the food of ages. The urchins looked at his mirror longingly. He took pity on one and let him look at himself while he held the mirror. The boy tittered as if someone was tickling him.

  “Me too, me too!” screeched the other kids, jumping up and down on the spot.

  The racket was sure to bring people out of the nearby houses. One of them was Marubini.

  “Hey, stop tormenting that boy,” she shouted.

  “We didn’t do anything. He won’t let me look at his mirror,” said one tiny voice.

  Chenayi began to walk away guiltily and the children followed him. So did Marubini.

  “Chenayi, who gave you that mirror? You must have stolen Chata’s mirror,” said Marubini.

  “Chenayi Chenayi stole Chata’s mirror,” chanted the children.

  Marubini grabbed the mirror from Chenayi. He let it go without any resistance.

  “We’ll see what Chata will say about this. You’re a bad bad boy who steals from his benefactors.”

  She looked at herself in the mirror and broke into a smile. She grabbed Chenayi by the wrist and unceremoniously dragged him to Chata’s homestead with the urchins following and chanting that Chenayi had stolen Chata’s mirror and he was surely going to get a good hiding from him.

  When they arrived at Chata’s homestead the Community of Gapers was still at it, albeit in a smaller group, and Chata was sitting on the veranda staring at them, having given up all hope of working that day. They were not, however, paying any attention to him. Their gaze was directed at the statue. Marubini dragged the wide-eyed Chenayi right to the veranda.

  “Marubini of the stars, what
has the boy done to be frog-marched like this?” asked Chata.

  “Tell him what you have done,” said Marubini to Chenayi.

  But Chenayi just stood there with bulging eyes. And the urchins just stood there expecting Chata to burst out in anger and give Chenayi a well-deserved smack on the face. The Community of Gapers just stood there gazing at the statue and humming softly as if nothing else was happening. Marubini gave the mirror to Chata.

  “He stole it from you,” she said.

  “No, he didn’t. It’s his.”

  “You gave him your precious mirror, just like that? As if it’s a plaything?”

  Chata was enjoying this.

  “What do I need a mirror for?” he asked. “I don’t need to see myself; I know myself already.”

  The urchins were deflated. Marubini was dumbfounded for a while. And then she said: “It’s a waste, don’t you think? Giving a mirror to the boy?”

  “He is a person too,” said Chata.

  This did not make sense to Marubini, just as it had not made sense to Ma Chirikure when she had discovered that Chata had given the mirror to the nondescript boy who was, in the view of the people, retarded to boot. Yes, the boy was a person too. But a mirror was such a sought-after thing that his possession of it had bestowed a lot of prestige upon him.

  “Those who called you a miser – a ṅame – don’t know your generous spirit.”

  “So, don’t tell them about this. You don’t want to spoil my reputation now, do you?”

  Indeed this was a new Chata. Her earlier observation had been accurate. Was it true then that the more beautiful his sculpture was becoming the more humane the artist was getting? He remained seated on the stool while she stood awestruck in front of him. She had always known that Chata was compassionate towards animals because people talked about that and made fun of it. He preferred to hunt alone because fellow hunters laughed at him and ridiculed him when he apologised to the animal for killing it. For the bigger animals he performed elaborate dances in their honour after the kill. He apologised even to those he used as beasts of burden. Now the chryselephantine Rain Dancer had transferred his compassion to humans too.

  The urchins lost interest in the whole thing now that no one was going to be punished. They melted into the crowd. Chenayi sat on the veranda and followed the conversation with his eyes, from one speaker to the other, while holding his mirror close to his chest.

  “What will people say when they see you here?” asked Chata.

  “Your place has become a public place, Chatambudza. People come here to look at your Rain Dancer.”

  “You’re betrothed to Rendani.” He had not wanted it to sound reproving, but it did.

  “I’m not betrothed to him. He is yet to dzekisa,” said Marubini emphasising the dzekisa part, which meant he had not yet paid the bridewealth to make the betrothal official.

  “He’s surely going to dzekisa, as soon as he passes the Princess Dova obstacle. You know that she does not want him to take another wife and she hates you.”

  Marubini laughed. “Hates me? I didn’t do anything to her. Why should she hate me?”

  “Trust me. I’ve spoken with her. You won’t be happy with co-wives who hate you.”

  “The two senior ones don’t hate me. They invited me over to their compound to get acquainted with me. They were very nice to me and I enjoyed their company.”

  “Was Princess Dova there?”

  “She wasn’t.”

  “Exactly. She disapproves of the marriage. And she’s Baba-Munene’s daughter. She’s capable of making life hell for you.”

  “It is not my decision.”

  “You can make it your decision. What will your parents do if you refuse to go along with this marriage? Kill you?”

  “What is it to you, Chatambudza? What does it matter to you?”

  “It matters, Marubini. It matters. Didn’t I once tell you that you are Marubini of the stars and that my wish was to walk with you among them?”

  “You always make such silly jokes, Chatambudza. You truly are an idiot,” she said, and dashed away. He didn’t notice that her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. Nor did he know that as soon as she was away from the crowd she let them fall unrestrained.

  Chata turned to Chenayi who was looking at him with a silly grin and said: “You brought her here. How did you do it, you rascal? How did you think of it?”

  Chenayi waved the mirror as he walked into the grotto. Chata followed him. Somehow Chenayi knew what was expected of him, without any exchange of words. He reached for a small cowhide drum near the kiln and started pounding on it. Chata danced in circles around the Rain Dancer. Chenayi beat a frenzied rhythm until Chata’s head was spinning like madness itself and his surroundings were whirling before his eyes in a topsy-turvy manner. Chenayi suddenly stopped; he knew the master had achieved a trance. Chata started carving the wooden face in earnest.

  Later that evening Ma Chirikure found them sitting on the veranda near the front door. Chata had a distant look in his eyes and Chenayi was grinning at the mirror. She had brought them chunks of kudu meat swimming in gravy and sorghum meal cooked with pumpkin. Chenayi, ever a hungry boy, dived into the bowl without ceremony, and soon gravy was running in rivers down his pale arms to his elbows and down his chin.

  “I saw Marubini running from your house in tears. What did you do to her?” asked Ma Chirikure.

  “Nothing. I merely told her I wanted to walk among the stars with her.”

  Ma Chirikure chortled.

  “I knew it. You love her. And yet you want to let that good-for-nothing mukomana of yours take her right before your sleepy eyes.”

  “Everybody tells me I love her; maybe I do love her after all.”

  “Who’s everybody?”

  “You, Princess Dova, I suspect even Chenayi.”

  Chenayi was too busy battling to tear tough meat from a bone with his teeth to care that he had become the subject of the discussion.

  “What does Chenayi know about love?”

  “He’s human. Even the beasts of the wild know about love.”

  “But first you need to walk the ground with her,” said Ma Chirikure, leaving them to their meal. “You can’t float to the stars without first learning how to walk on land with her. Do send Chenayi with my bowls when you’ve had your fill.”

  ALTHOUGH MAPUNGUBWE ALWAYS HAD two kinds of diviners there was never a clash between them. There were those who depended on the divining bowl to predict the future, and the others whose forte was in the casting of clay tablets. It was not the medium of divination that mattered but the consistent accuracy of the predictions. The King always had both kinds at his palace, because they complemented each other. Some famous prophets actually employed both types of divination. A prophet would, for instance, use the divining bowl to begin with and then turn to the tablets to confirm the truth of the prediction. The two methods were never in conflict with each other until the prophets of the Community of Gapers adopted the tablets as their method of choice and started bad-mouthing the bowl prophets. They uttered heresies against bowl divination that left the ears of the listeners itching with shame.

  It all started when a prophet, an old woman called Anotida, emerged among the Community of Gapers and started seeing signs and symbols in the chryselephantine sculpture that she interpreted to the rest of the crowd. What was unusual about her was not that she was a woman. Many diviners were women. Through the generations some of the most famous rain doctors were female. Even at the Royal Court the King, through the agency of Baba-Munene, depended on the wise counsel of female diviners and spirit mediums to determine the political, judicial and economic direction of the kingdom. What distinguished Anotida from the rest of the diviners was that she was not descended from any line of diviners; her pedigree was not a distinguished one. She was a poor widow from the community of
the old residents – those who were despised by the majority of Mapungubweans whose fathers and grandfathers had migrated with the current ruling dynasty to the hill of the jackal from the southern settlements. All these years no one ever imagined she had the gift of divination, or even the inclination to be a diviner. She had never served as an acolyte for any diviner, and therefore had not undergone the years of training which was the case with other diviners, prophets and shamans of the land. She started to frequent the grotto to gaze at the Rain Dancer and soon she became the most regular of all the Gapers and whenever they gathered she was always at the front. Her voice became the loudest when it came to the singing of mournful and joyful hymns.

  Then one day, at the very time the rays of the sun shone into the grotto and reflected a glint from the gold of the Rain Dancer, Anotida began to talk in the language of the spirits. It took a long time for the crowds to fathom what the gurgling and groaning and grunting and roaring and belching were all about. It became clear that she was reading meaning from the reflections on the contours of the Rain Dancer, and was interpreting it for the spectators in ways that gave them great exhilaration, though no one could put what she was saying in the language that all Mapungubweans spoke and understood. It was not the language of the Karanga either, or of any known people in the world that Mapungubweans were familiar with. It was not even the clicky language of the Zhun/twasi or of the Khoikhoi. Nevertheless whatever Anotida’s message was it left them giddy with joy. The Gapers couldn’t get enough of her prophecies, and whatever good fortune came their way, they attributed to them. When misfortune struck it was simply attributed to people’s failure to heed Anotida’s presages.

  Chata observed the developments outside his house with detached amusement. He came and went as he pleased and continued to work painstakingly on the head of the Rain Dancer. When he cast his eye on the crowd he occasionally saw Marubini and knew that Rendani had not yet performed the dzekiso rituals, otherwise she would not be wandering about freely. He wondered if she had also become a member of the Community of Gapers and a believer in the vague prophecies of Anotida. He so much wanted to talk to her but didn’t know how to do it without arousing the suspicions of the crowd. So, he just went on with his work and pretended she was not there.