Praise poetry — The lost language of love

shavaDr Sekai Nzenza on Wednesday
I recalled the lost language of love, when love was close to nature. The songs of ancestors, long before the white man came, when men and women spoke of real love and they did not write or text about it. HE held my hand at sunset and said, “I want to take you around the valleys of the country and its mountains while we eat the sweetness of the honeycombs together,” I looked east to the hills of Murehwa and then west, towards Shamva where the sun was turning into a big red ball.

I imagined him, the man holding my hand, sitting on the river bank and feeding me honey while birds sang to our new found romance. For that brief moment, I thought I could taste the honey.

I recalled the lost language of love, when love was close to nature. The songs of ancestors, long before the white man came, when men and women spoke of real love and they did not write or text about it.

We were in Murehwa, my cousin Piri and I, visiting our aunt, Mainini vangu from my mother’s side, to talk about the forthcoming dry season ancestral ceremonies.

When we arrived in Murehwa, everyone was busy at the nhimbe, the communal gathering of relatives, friends and neighbours to help each other harvest crops from the fields. For a while we also joined in removing the maize cob from its sheath, kufurura. When all the work was done, we sat down to drink some alcoholic and non alcoholic homemade beer.

We sat under a tree next to the village hut.

That is when Mainini knelt down and addressed the village kraal head, Sabhuku by his totem, Soko Murehwa the Monkey.

She then introduced us to him and to everyone saying we were her nieces from across the Save river near the Hwedza mountains.

Sabhuku asked what our totem was and Mainini said we were of the Eland totem, VanaChihera. Sabhuku quickly smiled and said his wife was of the Eland totem too.

This meant we were ‘his wives’. Then he stood up, danced a little and said, “Oh my father, you Tsoko, of the Soko Mbire Clan. Why do you present these women to me in my old age?”

Everyone laughed and said, at more than 70 years of age, what would you give the women? Someone pointed at his grey hair, torn sandals and patches around the elbows of his jacket. But Sabhuku was not going to be discouraged by the jocular banter.

He came over to me, not Piri, pulled me up, and we stood in the middle of the village courtyard.

“Why would I fail to look after her?” He asked the people. “Love is not about money. I will sing to her the praise poetry of the VaHera people day and night.”

Then he broke into this long elaborate praise poetry of the VaHera clan when men used to know how to thank women.

I do not do justice to the praise poetry by translation because the real meaning of it is lost. This language of Shona romantic love and its metaphors is too beautiful to be translated into English. Some people might say, I am massacring the language of our ancestors. That would be true because the real meaning and history buried in it, is lost. But, I shall give it a try in Shona first:

Maita Shava,
Mhofu yomukono, Ziwewera
Vakatekedzana paJanga
Vakapiwa vakadzi munyika yavaNjanja
Hekani Mutekedza, vari uHera Mukonde
Zvaitwa Mhukahuru, vemiswe inochenga miviri
Ziendanetyaka, mutunhu une mago
Chidavarume, vanovhimwa navanonyanga
Vasakamonera vakadzi dzenhema
Vanomonera vakadzi dzamangondi

Thank you Shava
The Great Eland bull, The Runaway
Those who challenged each other at Janga
Those who were given wives in the country of the Njanja people
Thank you Mutekedza, those in uHera Mukonde
Thank you Great Animal,
Those with tails that are so intimate with body
One with sounding feet, the mountain comb of wasps
The one who likes men.
Hunted only by those who do so with great care
Those who do not wrap women with lies
Those who intimately embrace women

Sabhuku let go of my hand and said: “Ndinoda kudya dopiro renyika newe,” he said, repeating his romantic intent to taste the nectar of love with me, walking the hills, the mountains and valleys of Zimbabwe. Dopiro, honey of love. Everyone clapped hands and some women ululated.

Sabhuku sang the praise poetry that my grandmother, Mbuya VaMandirowesa, used to sing, teaching us how to thank men by totem.
She recited effortlessly, the praise poetry, nhetembo dzemadzinza. We could feel the genuine meaning of being appreciated for work well done by us or by my uncles and many others in the village.

In those days, each woman had a certain way to thank her man. Likewise, the men did the same.

As young girls, we hoped that one day, when we married someone from a village nearby would also recite the praise poetry of his totem and of his people. This way, we would remember his history, the same way that he remembered ours.

That was back in the days when we did not write anything. Everything was from memory and orature.

That was the time when expressing love was deep and poetic. In the old days, the woman was not just a woman, you praised her and loved her because she belonged to a whole clan of the Vahera, Soko, and Nyati, Moyo or Gushungo. To say I love you or ndinokuda was not as simple. If a guy was really scared of approaching the woman he loved, he could ask an uncle, an aunt or a friend to pass on the message of love. It required a strategy of approach and plenty of praise poetry.

At school, we learnt how to capture romantic love poetry in writing. I recall one time, when this girl called Chingasiyeni received a letter from a boy called Zivai and she secretly came to ask me to read it to her because she could not read.

We sat on the flat rocks, kuruware, away from prying eyes.

The envelope was nicely addressed like this: “Send me flying to Miss Chingasiyeni Chidhakwa, St Columbus School, Box 48 Enkeldoorn.”
Inside was a folded letter with intricate patterns in various shapes of triangles and hexagons until it became a square.
Chingasiyeni unfolded it slowly and carefully.

She gave me the letter then sat next to me with her legs stretched, her hand on her cheek and listened. From memory, I recall that some of the words were like this:

“The green land of love, P.O The Big Rocks, via Kiss me quick. Mudiwa Chingasiyeni, my flower, my honey, huchi, dapitapi rangu. Your cheeks are the colour of a ripe cucumber and they are as soft as a bun soaked in tea. That gap between your teeth shows God knew what he was doing when he created you. Your eyes are as bright as the moon in the dry season. You are my star so bright it shines during daylight. Whenever I see you, I shiver with love. I dream of sailing away with you on the high seas. Tiri kumasaisai egungwa. Yours who loves you forever and ever, Zivanai Mudoti.”

When I was reading the letter, Chingasiyeni smiled and smiled. Other times she laughed out loud and asked me to read it again. Her favourite lines were the ones to do with a bun soaked in tea and sailing on high seas.

“Have you ever seen the sea?” Chingasiyeni asked, looking romantically beyond the grass huts and the mountains into the horizon.
I said, no, I had never seen the sea but I suspected it looked more like a flooded river full of crocodiles and hippos. She pinched me gently and laughed. Her laughter had the warmth of love and joy.

Over the years, English kept coming and then it was followed by technology. Technology is good for communication. But we have not been able to use it to capture the culture of traditional praise poetry. Now we are continuously losing the traditional old language of love.

Wistfully looking at the dim lights of Harare as we approached the city, Piri said, “If only that Sabhuku was young. I would take him.” Her fantasy was taking her somewhere, as usual.

I looked at her and wished we could still listen, one more time, to the genuine, meaningful words of love that makes you dream of rivers, valleys and honey.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is the CEO of Rio Zim Foundation. She writes in her personal capacity.

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