Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs And Religious Beliefs - Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa

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argue,

      And flaming aloes bless the smiling breeze

      With heady scent; and where the distant view

      Of scowling mountains ’gainst the silver sky

      With dread and reverence fill the misted eye!

      Where, on the gentle slopes of ancient hills there browse

      The bearded goats, the sheep, the shambling cows;

      And loud above his lowing wives the bull

      With awful bellow, dares the distant foe!

      There I shall sit before Ubabamkulu

      Who shall relate to me the Tales of Yore.

      There I shall kneel before the old Gegulu

      And hear legends of Those-that-lived-Before.

      * * *

      There I shall live, in spirit, once again

      In those great days now gone forever more;

      And see again upon the timeless plain

      The massed impi of so long ago!

      The words of men long dead shall reach my soul

      From the dark depths of all-consuming Time

      Which, like a muti, shall inflame my whole—

      And guide my life’s canoe to shores sublime!

      Clear with the soul’s time-penetrating eye

      I shall see great empires rise, flourish and die.

      I shall see deeds of courage or of shame

      Now carved forever on the Drum of Fame.

      With Shaka’s legions I shall march again—

      A puppet knowing neither joy nor fear;

      Which, trained to kill, heeds neither wound nor pain

      And knows no other love save for its spear.

      I shall feel once again the searing heat

      Of love in hearts that have long ceased to pulse

      And with Mukanda shall captain the fleet

      Of war canoes; and storm Zima-Mbje’s walls.

      Here, in these stories still told by the old,

      I feel the soul and heartbeat of my race,

      Which I cannot, in tales by strangers told—

      For these, within my heart I have no place!

      The tree grows well and strong, Oh children mine,

      That hath its roots deep in the native earth;

      So honour always thy ancestral line

      And traditions of thy land of birth!

      THE SACRED STORY OF THE TREE OF LIFE

      THE SELF-CREATED

      No stars were there – no sun,

      Neither moon nor earth—

      Nothing existed but darkness itself—

      A darkness everywhere.

      Nothing existed but nothingness,

      A Nothingness neither hot nor cold,

      Dead nor alive—

      A Nothingness far worse than nothing

      And frightening in its utter nothingness.

      For how long this Nothingness lasted,

      No one will ever know;

      And why there was nothing but Nothing is something

      We must never try to learn.

      Nothingness had been floating

      For no one knows how long,

      Upon the invisible waters of Time—

      That mighty River with

      Neither source nor mouth,

      Which was—

      Which is

      And ever shall be.

      Then one day—

      Or is it right to say ‘one day’?—

      The River Time desired Nothingness

      Like a flesh-and-blood male beast

      Desires his female partner.

      And as a result of this strangest mating

      Of Time and Nothingness,

      A most tiny nigh invisible spark

      Of living Fire was born.

      This tiny, so tiny spark of Fire could think

      And grew conscious of its lonely state;

      No one nor nothing could hear its cries

      In the lonely depths of Utter Nothingness—

      Like forlorn a babe,

      Lost and in despair,

      In a cold dark forest.

      ‘I exist – I am what I am!’

      Was the living thought that pulsed through the ‘mind’

      Of the tiny spark as it wildly flew through the dark

      Trying to flee from where there was no escape—

      Trying to evade the lifeless,

      Empty, dark and Utter Nothingness.

      It was like a tiny firefly lost

      In a dark cave ’neath a berg

      From where it could never escape.

      ‘I must either grow or end my life,’

      Thought the spark at long, long last;

      ‘If Nothingness wishes to engulf me

      In my present size and state,

      Then I must increase my size

      Till I equal that of Nothingness!’

      There was nothing for the spark to feed upon and grow,

      So it fed upon itself

      And grew in size until at last its mother Nothingness

      Became aware of its unwelcome presence

      And decided to destroy it.

      Nothingness at first had tried

      To smother it in Darkness which is

      The enemy of Light,

      But the spark resisted brighter – and became yet brighter.

      Then Nothingness cast a spell of cold upon the spark;

      Cold – a deadly foe of heat,

      But this induced the spark to grow

      Only hotter and yet more hot.

      * * *

      The Living Spark did grow, and grew until

      At last it equalled Nothingness in size,

      And to sustain itself – proceed with growth,

      It devour’d its mother, Nothingness—

      And digested her

      With the most awful flash of light

      That anyone or anything had ever chanced to see.

      ‘I am what I am,’ it boasted.

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