Once upon a time Harare used to be Africa’s choice destination for conferences and summits. Our competition was Nairobi and Dakar.
In 1996 we hosted the Unesco World Solar Summit.
I didn’t attend but I followed some of the proceedings in the newspaper.
It wasn’t that there was anything exciting but in those ancient times there was one single daily newspaper and you literally read everything from the lead story right down to the classifieds and then did the crossword.
You even watched the seven o’clock evening news on television.
Anyway, one of the stories about the summit that caught my eye was of “Dr” Sibanda of Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (Zinatha or sangoma club) who was having a duel of sorts with some American scientist.
Apparently, Sibanda had declared that he could “manufacture” lightning but the scientist had dismissed this as hogwash.
But the English folk, via the Students’ Companion, taught us that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
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The extraordinary “Dr” Sibanda did the honourable thing and asked the eminent scientist to come outside the then Sheraton Hotel with him. Sibanda would “create” lightning that would hit its target, the learned doubting Thomas.
Interestingly, our scientist refused the bet and, therein, lies my question. How do we validate or invalidate other people’s beliefs?
When I went to high school in Nyanga you did not want to hear saManyika threaten you with the simple statement, “Tingoonana maenza” (we shall meet in the rain season). In a way this played to the stereotype that Zimbabweans have of each other.
For example, if you walk down the streets of Hillbrow in Johannesburg you will come across little adverts stuck on walls with the name of either a supposedly famous healer or prophet from Binga or Chipinge.
Do our best traditional medicine folk come from these places?
The clash between Sibanda and the Western scientist is interesting for the inherent bias that is displayed towards anything that is not part and parcel of the latter’s belief system.
Before Harare’s original nutty professor went nutty, he could put a nice perspective to issues. One time he explained how the Western obsession with probing the galaxy and fantasising on aliens and UFOs was a result of having killed their ancestors.
“The ones who killed their ancestors now look for them in the skies,” sagely added the professor as he taught some students from Syracuse University who were on an exchange programme.
But of course the African wasn’t looking for aliens, she believed that the dead were never dead.
They lived in the living, as Charles Mungoshi put it. So in the African world ancestral spirits, aggrieved spirits, witches and more are not a figment of the imagination.
One of the scariest stories involving witches was told to me by a very close relative. He was involved in a serious bicycle accident and had to be hospitalised.
It was whilst lying in hospital that a witch appeared at one of the windows close to his bed. He froze.
No one else in the hospital seemed to notice this creature by the window. He could not shout. I have heard the story from the same person in the same detail over the years. Now how can I begin to doubt that the person saw what they saw?
To make matters more complex enters the prophet (muporofita).
When I was about nine years old there was the church called Dambuza (it was part of the Zionists — no, not in the same sense as the Jewish Zionists).
They had colourful red and green garments that were only matched by their equally colourful circle dance and ferocious drumming. On some late Saturday afternoons my friend with the delicious name of “Holicious” and 1 would go and watch as maDambuza did their thing.
One day their preacher claimed to have performed two miracles.
The first person to come forward to the preacher was a woman who complained that her children were not eating well at home.
They just had no appetite. Madzibaba the prophet had an answer for that. Rather conveniently, it seemed, the woman had brought a sack of mealie meal.
The sack was placed in the middle of the circle and then madzibaba prayed and poked the mealie pack with his staff. When he opened the sack people gasped.
A smouldering horn (looking suspiciously like that of a goat) was taken out.
“Nyanga iyi ndiyo yanga ichiita kuti vana vasadye,” (this is the horn that was messing up the children’s appetite), pronounced madzibaba.
Next up was someone I knew. A young man called Gift (everyone called him Givhi) came forward. He was slightly mentally challenged and did not attend school. Madzibaba stepped forward, put his hands on Givhi and prayed. Next we saw marbles on the ground.
“Mabhororindo aya ndiwo anga achikanganisa mwana,” (these marbles are the ones that were causing the young man’s mental illness).
But contrary to madzibaba’s claim, Givhi did not get better. Maybe madzibaba had not taken out all the marbles.
Of course for someone of a different culture they would have found it interesting that to be sane one needed to lose their marbles!
The genius of the African is that we are able to straddle a number of worlds: the “scientific” and “other” worlds.
We can write a paper on evolution today, read Genesis on Sunday and on Monday evening visit mbuya vaMonica down the street for assistance with some “auntie/uncle” from the past who is not giving you a break. QED, quite easily done.
The still outstanding question when all is said and done is:
“If we can manufacture lightning and send it to hit someone with the precision of the Naval Seals, how come we could not use this weapon in 1890, 1896 and in 1972”.
Please give me a kenge response on [email protected].
Chris Kabwato is the publisher of www.zimbabweinpictures.com
