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early. Each morning we greeted her saying, “How did the Buffalo sleep?” And she answered back smiling, “Nyati imhenyu” meaning the buffalo is alive.

One night in July last year, I was sleeping on a bed right next to her. She was quite unwell from complications of diabetes. At midnight her breathing was high and laboured. At 3am, she was breathing softly and peacefully. I relaxed and tried to sleep. But sleep did not come to me. Between 4am and 4:15 am on July 15, 2012, the spirit of my mother had departed.

I know this, because at 4am, she was sleeping, peacefully. But sleep must have sneaked up on me because when I woke up at 4:15 or maybe 4:20, my mother was quiet and the deep breathing I had heard earlier was gone. I felt the pulse on her arm and on her neck. There was nothing. I touched her heart to feel the heart beat. It was gone. I touched her face and felt her cheeks. Then I closed her mouth and her eyes. I knelt down and held her hand. It was warm. I let go and woke up Mildred, my mother’s helper from Chimanimani, who was sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I asked her to go and get me some water from the kitchen. She did. I wanted time alone with my mother.

I held my mother’s hand again and said to her, “Saka ndiko kuenda kwe Nyati here? Is this how the buffalo goes?” I asked her. Then I do not know, if this was a prayer or if I was just talking to her or just thinking aloud. I remember thinking and saying that we needed the strength and energy to take her all the way to the village, kumusha, to the anthill where my father lies. I asked her to guide all who shall hear of her departure and those who shall travel from overseas and everywhere, to mourn her kumusha.

“We have a journey,” I said something like that. Not the exact words because my memory of it all is surreal. But what I know for sure is what I felt. It was the peace, the comfort, the strange relief, the gratefulness, of being there and when my mother at around 84 years of age did not say goodbye. She simply slipped away when I was asleep. Vakandiverera ndakotsira. She left in the early hours of that cold July dawn at my sister  Vongai’s place, when most of Zimbabwe was asleep.

We sent a message carrying the words of mourning or mhere to her people, kwaBako Mandizha, the Buffaloes, vekwaNyati. The mourning message was accompanied by some money. My mother was no longer ours. They, my mother’s people, vanhu vekwaNyati, owned my mother. That is the tradition.
When a woman dies, she no longer belongs to her husband. Her spirit goes back to her people to be their ancestor though she does not forsake her children.

So the elders, vekwaNyati, quickly sent my mother’s niece Mainini Alice, way ahead of them. When she arrived, many people were already there, waiting for my mother’s body to arrive. They did not go inside my mother’s kitchen until the fire stand where my mother cooked, (the symbol of womanhood and motherhood), choto chavo, had been removed, to signify the end. That can only be done by my mother’s sister or niece.

Mainini Alice knelt around my mother’s fireplace. She spoke to the elders and said, “My work here as your wife, as the mother of your children, as your muroora, is done. I must take mapfihwa angu, my fireplace, back to my people. I am no longer your relative.” My mother’s spirit was going back to her maternal home. Over there, she will become an ancestor to her people.

Then many people from my mother’s clan arrived in our village towards sunset. After shedding tears, the senior men, my mother’s brothers, sat on chairs while her nephews sat on the ground under the mango trees.

Among the clan, also sitting on the ground were my mother’s sisters and nieces in their wraparound cloths. Then there were many others I did not know, except that they belonged to the Soko Mbire totem, the monkey. They were my maternal grandmother’s nieces and grandchildren.

Other people of various totems were gathered inside my mother’s kitchen hut. In the corner, at the top end of the coffin was an elderly woman related to my mother. She said she was my mother’s cousin, possibly second or third cousin. But we do not have first, second or third. There are just cousins.

She was my aunt and we learnt that she had visited our village only once as my mother’s bridal companion in 1947. Now my mother’s cousin was back again, for the second and last time. She sat next to my mother, quietly keeping a close eye on her.

Then Sekuru Taurai, my mother’s nephew, took me aside. He talked to me like he was talking to a little girl even though he is several years younger than me. He can talk like that because he is also my mother. Sekuru said, “Muzukuru, the elders want to know, how their daughter, Nyati the buffalo departed. Tiudze nhoroondo dzekuenda kweNyati.” And so, on that day at night, as all the people sat, I presented to the Nyati people, their daughter, my mother, as she lay in the white coffin covered by lace and many bouquet of flowers.

My mother was born a twin in 1928, along the Murove River near Murambinda in Buhera. The other twin was a boy. In those days, they killed twins because a twin was a bad omen. The mother had a choice. “Which one of your children shall we keep?” The midwives asked VaZviyo my mother’s mother.

In that dark little hut, surrounded by the women, VaZviyo looked at her two new born babies. She must have turned away. For how does a mother make such a choice? It was not a choice. My maternal grandmother obeyed custom and she let go of one child, the boy. When I asked my mother how this was done, she said the midwife, Nyamukuta, put ashes in the baby’s mouth and suffocated him. Then she placed him in a big clay pot and took him to the river.

The baby was thrown in the Murove River. The birth of the twin was not mentioned beyond the whispers inside the hut. Why did my mother survive and not her brother? It was her mother’s difficult choice.

My mother grew up in the shadow of the dead twin brother who was not spoken of. While her twin brother’s little body squashed in a clay pot silently sank to the bottom of the river and disappeared, my mother lived for 84 years. She raised 11 children and populated Zimbabwe and the Diaspora with her offspring. Now she was dead. It was mourning, but it was also a celebration of life.

All night we sang and danced to the drum near my mother’s coffin. They spoke of my mother, danced and sang the songs she loved. Varoora knew all my mother’s names and the names my mother gave herself after a couple of beers. She said her name was Chamahwinya, Mangwingwindo, Mbuya VaShuvai and Nyati Mhenyu. After one or two beers, she often lifted one leg a little, stamped the floor then she said, Zviyo’s daughter was not scared of anything anymore. That was often her mantra, when she was happy. “Ah, Musangano, kutyei, ini mwana waZviyo.”

There were many denominations at my mother’s the funeral that night. Anglicans took their turn and sang my mother’s favourite, MuKristu usanete, Christian do not get tired. We sang many songs including Turura katundu, turura, Mira panzvimbo, Rova ngoma iwe ndinoda kutamba. My cousin Marshall played the drum throughout the night, taking short breaks in between. Piri also played the big and the small drum to relieve the men. We danced for my mother. Even my sister Rumbi and my niece Shuvai whose dancing styles have been altered for years by American rap music in North Carolina, got back into the rhythm very quickly.

Sometime after two am, the jokes, the skits, and dances were soon replaced by slow repetitive Catholic prayers. They were long. My mother would have found them boring, I am sure. I think we can say that about a funeral. We can tell that truth. Many times, we have spoken of the dead as saints, because in Shona we say, once you are dead you are a good person, wafawanaka. But there should be room to say, in truth, with sensitivity and discretion, what the dead used to like and dislike.

I doubt very much that my mother was a Christian. She enjoyed the rituals and respected the Catholic women’s uniform because she always took it off when she was about to enjoy a glass of cold beer. But I do not ever remember my mother gathering us all to pray to God. Each time before we left the village to go far away for education or work, she always gathered us in the kitchen house and spoke to the ancestors, asking them to guide us as we go to the bush, mumatondo. She called upon her people by totem and then our ancestors including Mbuya VaMandirowesa and my great grandmother Nyandoro. “Look after the children in the bush,” she said. “Chengetai vana ava mumatondo.” Then we all clapped hands and she ululated. With the confidence of protection from the ancestors, we left the village and travelled to places where we worshipped God and asked Jesus for blessings. When we came back, my mother was always there. She ululated and made little dances to thank the ancestors for bringing us back safely.

My mother, like many mothers in Zimbabwe had her share of grief. She buried four of her children in the past fifteen years. In 2010, I told her I brought her the news that her first born daughter, Munyengetero was gone. The following year, I brought her the news that my sister Charity Virginia had collapsed and died. Charity was due to go for her fourth diplomatic posting in South Africa at ambassador level, two days before she died.

My mother was sitting on the verandah at Charity’s house. We made sure she had eaten first. Then my aunt, Mainini Grace and I sat next to her and I spoke slowly telling her that Charity has gone on ahead. “Mhayi, Charity, Virgie atungamira.” She said, what do you mean, Virgie has gone on ahead? “Unoreveiko kana uchiti atungamira?” Then I told her that Charity was no longer with us. She was gone. My mother did not reply. Instead, my mother sang a song about the death of her own parents.

‘Mai vangu vakafa kare kare. Baba vangu vakafa kare kare. Ini ndasara ndega.” In translation, she said “My mother died a long time ago. My father died a long time ago. I am left alone.” She sang slowly. It shall remain the saddest song I ever head.

But she did not cry for a long time. My aunt, Mainini Grace and I sat and watched her for some time. Then my mother suddenly shouted at me, asking what I mean by saying Charity has gone on ahead. “Unoreveiko kuti atungamira? Vana vangu vapera. Mwana wangu kani!” My mother cried. It was a cry she had made three times before over the past fifteen years. But this cry, like the last one when Munyengetero died, was full of deep grief and anger, the anger of the meaninglessness of life. Why does an old mother bury four of her children? There is no answer. It is the story in Zimbabwe and in other places too. Children and grandchildren are chosen to go before the old. And the elders gather to bury them.

We celebrated in dance, drum and song remembering our mother, following the rituals as guided by the Nyati people. After the burial, Mainini Alice and Mainini Grace distributed all my mother’s clothes, pots and utensils. Then some members of the Nyati clan went around all the rooms to inspect my mother’s estate. It was not much. There were beds, wardrobes, sofas, clayppots, ploughs, hoes, grain, cows, goats and chickens. They pointed to a few things they wanted, including one goat and one cow. So that is how the buffalo departed, her voice forever silenced. But we still hear it because she gave us the knowledge of our totems and how we are linked to those who came before us.

My mother’s place was the village and it still is. From the anthill where she lies, she watches the homestead, the mango trees, the kraal, the fields, the granary, the houses and her kitchen hut. In that hut she spent many years raising children and educating them. That knowledge of where we came from, kuziva kwatakabva is the foundation of who we are.

The passing away of my mother is the secret I have not told you since July. I had no voice to speak of it. My mother, Nyati the Buffalo departed. Perhaps, I shall see her one day. But I do not know if that is possible because I do not know where we go when we die. Every day, we live with the beauty and the mystery of life.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic. She holds a PhD in International Relations and works as a development consultant.