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A YEAR after my father’s death, seven uncles and three nephews lined up to take my mother as a wife. That was before the liberation war arrived here. Up north, the Rhodesian army had put up protected fences to stop people from feeding the guerillas. Gatherings were banned. But down here, it was still safe to hold gatherings like the kurova guva ceremony to welcome my father’s spirit back into the family as an ancestor. No longer will his spirit wander around the bushes, mweya uri musango.

All night, the people sang and played the mbira and drum. In the morning, all my father’s clothes and belongings were distributed. Then my seven uncles lined up to inherit my mother as a wife. The vazukuru, nephews to my father, also sat there waiting for the uncles to try their luck first.

We the children stood against the granary, watching everything and debating who was fit to be our father. There were 11 of us children with Munyengetero being the oldest. She was around 20 and had just completed her teacher training course. My sister Rumbi was the youngest at  the age of  three. My sister Charity, the most outspoken among the younger children, said none of the uncles and nephews qualified to be our father. She was ruthless when it came to character judgment.

I wanted  Babamukuru Mujubheki to be our father, because he had spent many years in Johannesburg working for white people. He left his South African wife back there, bringing his three children with him. He was the oldest brother and seen as a father to everyone including my mother. There was a good chance that he could be the  chosen one.  But, would he move in with his three children? That would make 14 of us. Where would the school fees come from?

My mother stood among the women and nephews, vazukuru vavo from her maiden village. These included her aunts, sisters, nieces and others who had travelled from faraway villages. These were  my mother’s advisers,  vekwa Nyati, and people of the Buffalo totem. They spoke in hushed tones. My mother wore a wide pleated red and white skirt, a cream like blouse and a colourful yellow and red headscarf. Black thread plaited thick plaits of her hair showed  a bit at the back of her head.  She also wore  her usual green apron with big pockets, the one she kept on all the time. My mother hardly looked like a bride.

Barefoot, she  stood up straight carrying a wooden plate full of water. She was going to give the water to the man she wanted as husband. If  the man washed his hands, then he was going to be  her new husband and father to us all. We wondered if she had already  talked to him, because this was not  the place to surprise a man. So far, there had been no rumours  at all about anyone being seen courting our mother. Maybe the secret  had been  kept away from us, which would have been the right thing to do. Zvaamai, ndezvaamai.

With everyone watching her, my mother  took  slow measured steps towards the line of men sitting cross legged  on a mat, right in the middle of the village courtyard. She stopped in front of Babamukuru Mujubheki, looked at him for a while. He smiled and eagerly held out his hands to wash in the wooden dish. There was silence. Then with one swift hand movement, my mother threw away the water, watering the dust. There was uproar of laughter and jeering, with people saying the soft spoken Mujubheki wanted the wild fruit to simply fall into his basket on its own without him travelling hills and forests to collect it. “Hee . . .  Mujubheki, wanga wati dzawira mutswanda, kunongera hadzichanetsi. Wadzva!” Babamukuru looked disappointed but he rose up gracefully and left the competition.

The next one was the very light skinned Babamunini  Jameson. We all knew that there was bad blood between my father and this brother of his.

My mother did not pause to look at him; she just threw away the water and there was much jeering with varoora saying Babamunini Jameson’s wife would never have allowed that to happen. It was a safe decision.

Who, then was going to be our father? Surely not the eccentric Babamunini Josiah who always wore a tie on top of a T shirt. His clothes had patches, zvigamba kwese kwese all the time. He was renowned for disappearing to the white man’s farms, kumapurazi, to harvest tobacco and perform hard manual labour then return home after many months with nothing, having gambled all his earnings.

Then there was Babamunini Rueben, who  always started  fights  at beer parties because at one time when he was in Bulawayo, they said he had become a boxer. Back home, his fists itched so much to fight someone that he often punched anthills and trees. But some people  said his strength had nothing to do with boxing; Babamunini Reuben smoked marijuana and that was where his strength came from. Such strength was not good in a man who wanted to be our father.

When my mother threw away the water in front of Babamunini Reuben, we were the first to cheer.  Then, with speed and swiftness of hands, she stood in front of each uncle and each nephew  ritually  throwing away all the water. People watched with surprise. But nobody said anything.  As yet. Then my mother  filled the wooden bowl again  with more water and walked slowly and steadily to my brother Sidney who had been  sitting cross legged at the very end of the line of men, in his Kutama College school uniform. She offered him the water and Sidney slowly washed his hands. The women from the Buffalo clan and the varoora  shouted and ululated, dancing and shouting that my father had risen.  Sidney  was the man. He was  our father and the head of the whole homestead, even though he was still a student at Kutama in Makwiro.

The male elders got up and my grandfather Sekuru Dickson immediately called for  a meeting away from the people. He was angry.
“The woman has refused to be inherited. Wouraya rudzi? Why do you want to kill the clan seed?  How can there be no more children born of your uterus when you are still so young? What shall we do?”

Everyone was talking; some criticising and others praising. I remember noticing the school headmaster and our teachers, Miss Rwodzi and Mr Muchando talking and looking at us, shaking their heads. How was my mother going to pay our school fees?

When all the commotion had died down, my mother came back   stood in the middle of the village courtyard, surrounded by the huge gathering. First, she  addressed  my father’s people, vekwa Mhofu, the Eland, my grandmother’s people vekwa Kwenda, VaNjanja,  her people, vekwa Nyati, the Buffalo,  the headmen, kraal heads and all. In my memory, it  seemed like she talked  for a very long time. But what I remember very vividly is seeing her standing in the one spot,  her voice often rising and falling. Moving her hands constantly, my mother spoke, sometimes with emotion and sometimes without.

My mother said  she was not going to take a husband because that would  jeopardise the  plans she had for the education of her children. She had pottery to make and sell, beer to brew and sell, cows and farm produce to care for and raise money for school fees. Besides, she  was too old to be inherited by anyone. Already, she had given the clan many sons and daughters. As far as getting pregnant, she was done with that. “Kutakura mwedzi mipfumbamwe ndakapedza,” she said.

She was going to remain the senior mother and  maiguru  to all the uncles and she would respect them as fathers and husbands.
In closing, I remember her smiling  saying, “With so many children, where would I get the time to be romantic  again with a new man?”
Everyone laughed and we did too. Then she paused for a little while and suddenly, she put on this serious voice, speaking slowly but loudly she said she was not going to leave the village, ever. This was her home until the day comes when she would be  buried on the anthill next to her husband.   “Handibvi pano,” she declared and  proudly walked away to  join her people.

Most people, including the teachers and the people  vekwa Nyati, men and women clapped hands and ululated, saying the words were well spoken. Even all the grandmothers related to Mbuya VaMandirowesa clapped hands too and said my mother had acted with wisdom because inheriting a husband was fraught with conflicts.  My grandfather, Sekuru Dickson,  shook his head vigorously.

He  grabbed his brown jacket, his walking stick and colonial pith helmet  then briskly  left without saying good bye. My mother is gone now. She lies on the anthill next to my father. Sidney is still the head of the family, with financial help from us.  We are keeping the village going, even though most of us have moved to the cities and the Diaspora to chat our own paths and speak in various spaces.

“I have told and retold the story of your mother and how she rejected inheritance  at various conferences. I am so glad I met your mother and so sad that I did not meet Mbuya VaMandirowesa. Those women were simply incredible. They belong to the history books,” my friend Alison says.

She is an old friend from my university days in Australia.  My cousin Piri and I are going to the village as usual. This time we are taking Alison.  Piri sits in front, quietly drinking her beer.   Alison is visiting Zimbabwe on her way to Zambia where she is doing research on women, democracy and empowerment.  She could have done the research here but most people in Western countries feared that there would be violence and all kinds of atrocities during and after the elections on July 31st.

Alison gave Zambia priority as a field trip and not Zimbabwe. Now that she is here, she regrets not putting Zimbabwe as first priority. The elections were orderly and the country is still peaceful. No ‘natives’ wielding spears, no savagery, no blood. Along the way, Alison freely, and without fear, stops to take pictures and videos.  She is fascinated by mazhanje, the yellow round fruit with big seeds and sweet orange coloured juice. We grew up eating them. This year, the trees are burdened with so much of the fruit. Akabereka zvinoshura gore rino.
Piri looks at me to ask for translation of what Alison was saying earlier about my mother and Mbuya VaMandirowesa. Piri’s English is not great. When pressed, she will give hesitant incomplete sentences.  With practice, I think Piri will be able to speak English perfectly in no time.  She is not dumb.

Alison then asks Piri if she wants to do an English course.  And Piri smiles back at Alison, saying nothing, then she  secretly turns to me frowning, “What for?” she asks. I tell her that it would help her to speak with more confidence in places where language would be a limitation. “And where would that be?” she asks.

“You know, like workshops for human rights, health, empowerment, that sort of thing. This means you will have more spaces to speak and to be heard,” I explain.

As usual Piri has an answer, “A person does not speak everywhere. Kungowawata pese. There are places where I have to speak and other places where I do not have to,” she says.

“What was that?” Alison asks.
I put on my academic voice and say something about spaces and the assumed silence of African women.  Then I keep on driving, not talking. I am wondering whether we are really silent, or do we speak too much English and claim rights in wrong places and from the wrong people?
Piri speaks when she wants to be heard. My mother never exchanged a full conversation or  spoke to white people or to missionaries. And yet, like Mbuya VaMandirowesa and all the other women in the village, they were not silent. They knew when to speak.

In rejecting wife inheritance my mother spoke and acted within the traditional culture. Many years before, she had staged a bopoto, the angry woman’s shout, when she stood on top of the anthill and lifted her skirts above the knees, showing  her bare legs as protest against Sekuru Dickson  for taking her ground nut field. Fearing the shame of seeing more of the nakedness of her daughter in law,  Sekuru accepted the  rules, apologised with a goat and chickens and my mother got her land back.

My grandmothers and my mother occupied various roles  of power deeply rooted in our culture. We are losing that power slowly as we become more and more removed from our  family roles as tete or aunt, muroora, babamunini, babamukuru, sekuru, mainini, muzukuru, mukoma, mukuwasha, munin’ina and many others.

These identities  do not translate well into English because each one of them, when named in English, looses the strength of blood kinship.  In the past, our relationships were governed by respect, hunhu,  and loyalty to the ancient traditions that were here long before the white man and the Bible came.  Today, there are spaces remaining in the strong family ties still existing within our  culture. We just need to know who we are first  and the spaces to stand and speak. Tomira  panzvimbo.

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