The Ceremony

For My Family

It is Friday, and noon is scotching moisture out of slightly drenched soil, little children running backwards in games of cops and robbers.

I wait under a shrubby tree that has grown with me at this place I call home; a van full of sheep will soon drive by on its common errand appropriate for selling animals for weekend.

A blessed prelude is provided by my grand-mother’s arrival, my mother’s aunt Mantombi , a startling split image of Nobuthi, my maternal grandmother.

Then I know she is at the helm of a band of ancestors who sailed the underworld to secure their seats at this feast in their honor with a bride to bind as vessel of their progeny.

The van blasts a horn while we are dazed by nostalgic greetings and moments of recollecting faces after years of an absence, and I lead the congress of elders to select the anointed lamb.

Once the drama of a boy riding this taciturn ewe and scaring small children into midday migraines subsides, the animal is harnessed against a stump of an amputated peach tree behind my shack.

I ask the elderly uncle next door to come help me slaughter, tomorrow marks the much anticipated ceremony of welcoming our bride into a bloodline of griots.

Mother and I say words to calm the frantic creature, ritual custom dictating we speak to ancestors to ask for guidance and blessing.

Seeing not its near future as its blood will spill into a hole dug behind our house, we have appeased its soul to accept a fate that will clear paths of my brother’s matrimony.

We ought to slaughter before souls of other animals slain for funerals go under any blade, mother says; and the rope is loosened around a neck at peace with death.

 At around three in the blazing noon clime auguring rain during the later hours of the day, Malome and I lay the meek sacrifice on its right side, head facing west and he slices through fur, skin and bone in less than half a minute.

Knives claw through skin and chest bones are spread by cracks, and a swift exercise of skinning before flesh cools follows.

Blood soaks the earth and fills the hole, a smell quite alchemic and rejuvenating and in less than ten minutes the animal is naked and hanging from a branch, a wire twisted between severed ligaments.

Elderly women of my street gather in convoys towards our gate, knives sharpened and ready for peeling vegetables while a fire starts under a hanging carcass dripping its last blood into a hole filed with its guts and cud.

This cult of women begin cleaning tripe, intestines and men burn sections of the meat on coals sizzling in a gentle draft that prophesizes rain and tables are laid out with greens and yellows.

Meats diced and marinated, red supple tomatoes and potatoes among other assortments from harvests by machines dance on tabletops among dexterous hands and crazy spices.

Chopping maniacally and in harmony, these ladies who reared me and my siblings hum hymns and chat about old days of binging on Lion Lager, smoking pot and being chased by gangs of mineworkers marauding rocky hills around Leeupoort.

Uncle and I reminisce about my grandfather, his uncle; wondering about their unkempt graves and lamenting losses of other family members to untimely deaths.

Memories born sweetly like a yoke which can be a pillar of strength for those left among the living, and we marvel and laugh, my sisters arriving with my nephew and nice already entranced by township vibes and lust for sunset games.

And soon after chewing smoked meat cut with knives sharpened by experienced men, black pots are set upon coals and stews begin to simmer as darkness falls purpling over a company of loved ones.

There is Makhulu Meisie, a stunningly old and toothless woman who has been our neighbor for well over 25 years. She raised us, mother included with a calm exchange of love even when food was not there.

I recall playing with her daughter, during the madrigals of adolescence, chasing hopes and other gifts of acquaintances.

I watch her with her two grandchildren, born of her deceased daughter, cuddly and thumb sucking with an eye transfixed on the slaughtering ritual like a hypnotized gnome.

There is Ausie Matokelo, her cake and dumpling recopies intact in her soft-spoken heart.

An admirable soul who ventures into all occasions with a stroke of dizzying excitement, always encouraging my mischief with pieces of meats passed between us in secret.

uKhulu is a matriarch twin on a throne adorned by mother, her right-hand confidant and soul mate; a lady who reared us since time immemorial.

More hands arrive to help with preparations that will go on through the night, with guffaws and discharges of gossip melting into dreams of exhausted children lying on my bed.

And as I sit beside dying fire and steamy pots, smoke biting my eyes as I watch the sky darkening, lightning streaks in the east announcing an approaching storm.

And when midnight strikes, even the loudest jests are subdued by weary chests and aching arms of their zealous toil – my sisters and mothers who ordain miracles even to the undeserving.

The day begins in the belly of a night serenaded by a drizzle, a grandmother snoring tempestuously in her room and mother listening to radio sermons by insomniac preachers who read obituaries at hours of the rising dead.

***

At dawn of a sacred day breathing freshly watered scents as early as four am, mother is mumbling her prayers to some heaven where grandmother is said to have gone.

The house awakens to her sweeping the yard and emptying night pots;  I am soon fixing broken handles of massive pots, chopping wood with an axe made for ogres while buckets of water line the kitchen floors.

Then a new idea is dredged out that the shack outback should be dismantled to make a suitable caterers’ space and I am asked to break down a 25 year old shack in a matter of minutes in the wee hours of a gloriously tiresome day that approaches.

Contagiously charming giggles soar above voices awakening to duties of love and the ding of hammers on rusted steel sheets, bent nails screeching from termite infested poles.

Sauces glisten in black pots standing on gold black blue flames dancing to whizzing logs and candle wax, we are now waiting and preparing for welcoming a bride is an omen for the wedded, the living and the dead similarly.

Hired chairs and tables are unloaded from a wrinkly truck driven by ecstatic teens, tents stand erect on skew poles and décor breaks into song for sight while mother’s nerves strain on edge with anticipation.

Three old men in faded jackets stumble on their slow strides into the yard to kiss the calabash full of mqhombothi, and among the jovial acknowledgements of visits, Zulu waltzes in looking stranded and forlornly abandoned by those who died leaving him behind.

Always in a green overall top, he is ever humbled by any generous reception which still recognizes humanity in him, a plate of food to oil his stomach before he can kneel before the circle of elders met with a faithful hunger.

An anciently elegant ritual takes place as I welcome all to the homestead of Bafokeng, raised by Amaqwathi and in other references we spill a sip for the deceased and continue to drink and be merry as hours draw near to the hour awaited.

Saddest awareness is when I see my great-aunt Mathebula not entering our yard because of a squabble that I am oblivious to, and this leaves a sour taste in my mouth; for these spoils are her victory as well as inheritance of grandchildren to bear her hallowed name.

We share words in the short moments we walk together, and observing how vile secrets harbored by parents can taint the sanctity of life affirming events, I resolve to have my family meet in a resolutionary encounter where souls would be laid bare.

***

Sky stains ashy and darkly in a ferment of her own for this occasion.

Banks of black clouds crowded over our township, and as one would assume, right above our home where women where running amok like deranged ants on a crusade to save reserves for winter.

Storm clouds amassed with a diabolical zeal bordering on mania, its appetite for destruction seeming akin a symptom of witchcraft meant to destroy the joys of to-day.

A drizzle begins to ransack rooftops, and soon pelting hail is assaulting heads and shoulders slouched in toil for a ceremony to document a lady’s sacred arrival at our yard.

As is customary, when the bride’s family takes their time arriving at the homestead of the groom, they have to be penalized.

And that was most hilarious, watching clan share ancient apologies in poetic tapestries of tongues of the two who chose to share a bone.

While rays danced in arches around edges of sulky clouds, my grand-mother Mantombi was rearing a shoe to cast a spell to stop the downpour.

This ritual is ancient as old wives’ tales such as boiling mud in a metal kettle over coals where food is prepared for such a celebration.

And in no time, the clouds had boarded the currents of air that led the stormy clouds of earlier morning, and a wild summer’s warmth spreads over dusty streets, men and women coming into our yard decorated with impeccable taste.

I sit on plank momentarily to tend to queries of old men uncertain about my age, while running errands, moving pots from hearths, and axing bones of stubborn meat that was to fit into fat pots.

The marvel of it all, knowing that such occasion summon introspection; with histories entwined and overlapping in chatter and guffaws, while old grudges are set aside for later dates.

MaDipuo sits among the quest exquisitely clad in her finest; a memory flashes in my mind of her earlier years, a playful soul who enjoyed nothing more than popping my pimples.

New family meets old news and passions among my scintillating sisters who always make their wardrobe a statement for red carpets, and yes the red dust agreed with their color-blocked emboldened images.

Mother, looking divine among noble guests, smiles and cries during moments of a most endearing talk with Makoti, accepting her into this destiny with those who will embrace her destiny as their own.

Laying warning and lessons for life to my brother, I feel humbled to be among these souls in unison of life’s charitable experience.

How sacred matrimony is, I realized, when not only two start a journey, but a throng that vows to walk alongside the couple throughout eternity’s paths.