Zakes Mda: The Heart of Redness

The twins were circumcised together with the son of the chief, and therefore became men of standing in their community. They became men of wealth too, for Xikixa did not want them to wait for his death before they could inherit his fields, cattle, and overflowing silos. He divided the bulk of his wealth between them.

Twin-Twin, the first-born twin who was younger than the second-born, loved women, and was the first to marry. And then he married again. And again. Long before Twin could know the warmth of the night. Yet the brothers remained close friends.

Then the news of Mlanjeni reached the homestead of Twin-Twin. And that of Xikixa, which was also the home of Twin. It reached the ears of every homestead in the land.

Mlanjeni, the Man of the River. He was only eighteen. Yet his head was not full of beautiful maidens. It did not throb with stick fights and umtshotsho dances. Instead he brooded over the evil that pervaded the world, that lurked even in the house of his own father, Kala. As a result he refused to eat his mother’s cooking, for he said it was poisoned. He decided to fast because food enervated him. Women had an enfeebling power on him. So he kept himself celibate.

In order to stay clean he eschewed the company of other human beings, and spent his time immersed to the neck in a pool on the Keiskamma River. There he lived on the eggs of ants and on water grass.

“That son of Kala has something to him,” said Xikixa to his twins. “He is a child, but he already talks of big things.”

“I have heard his father talking with him about his behavior,” said Twin-Twin. “Yet he will not listen.”

“Kala is right,” said the patriarch. “What does a boy who has not even been to circumcision school know about witchcraft and disease?”

When the time came, Mlanjeni went to the circumcision school. Both Twin and Twin-Twin were among the amakhankatha —the men who taught the initiates how to be men. Xikixa was the ingcibi —the doctor who cut the foreskin. They saw that Mlanjeni was very thin and weak. They did not think he would survive the rigors of the mountain. But he did, and went on to become the new prophet of the amaXhosa people.

And the amaXhosa people believed in him, for it was clear that he had contact with the spirit world and was charged by the ancestors with the task of saving humankind from itself.

As his teachings unfolded, people knew that indeed he was the next great prophet after Nxele, the man who had revealed the truths of the world thirty years before. And both of them spoke against ubuthi , the evil charms that were poisoning the nation, and against witchcraft.

Whereas Nxele had preached about Mdalidephu, the god of the black man; Thixo, the god of the white man; and Thixo’s son, Tayi, who was killed by the white people, Mlanjeni worshipped the sun.

Nxele used to talk of the great day that was coming, when the dead would arise and witches would be cast into damnation in the belly of the earth. But his career was stopped short by the British, who locked him up on Robben Island. Before he surrendered he promised that he would come back again. Alas, he drowned trying to escape from the island.

“Can it be that Mlanjeni is the reincarnation of Nxele?” Twin wondered. “After all, the amaXhosa nation is still awaiting the return of Nxele.”

As Mlanjeni was praying to the sun, it scorched the earth. There was famine in the land. Cattle were dying. And those that still lived, you could count their ribs. As the Man of the River was waning away from his fasting, men and women of the land were waning away from starvation. And he told them that it was because of ubuthi.

“Leave ubuthi alone,” he preached. “As long as there is witchcraft among you, there will be disease. People and animals will die. Cast away ubuthi! You do not need ubuthi to invite good fortune or to protect yourselves! Cast it away, and all come to me to be cleansed!”

“This sickly boy is Nxele himself. Nxele has returned as he promised he would,” said Twin.

“No, he is not Nxele,” responded Twin-Twin. “Mlanjeni is a prophet in his own right.”

This difference of opinion developed into a serious disagreement between the twins, to the extent that they took up sticks to fight each other. Women screamed and called the patriarch. When Xikixa arrived, he was happy. His sons had never disagreed on anything before, let alone fought each other. Now, for the very first time, they were not seeing things with the same eye. A spat over prophets.

“I was becoming worried about you two,” he said, taking the sticks away from them. “Now you are becoming human beings.”

People came to the homestead of Mlanjeni’s father to be cleansed by the wonder child. They came from all over kwaXhosa, even from beyond the borders of the lands that had been conquered by the British. Those who had poisonous roots and evil charms disposed of them and were cleansed. But still, some people held tight to their ubuthi, and lied that they had got rid of it.

Mlanjeni set up two antiwitchcraft poles outside his father’s house. Those suspected of witchcraft were required to walk between them. The innocent walked through. Terrible things happened to those who had ubuthi even as they approached the sacred poles.

From early dawn, hundreds of people gathered outside the house. Among them were Xikixa, his wives, his other children from the junior houses, Twin-Twin and his wives and children, and Twin. People had come because word had spread up to the foothills of the Maluti Mountains that Mlanjeni cured the sick, and made the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, and the blind to see.

He was a man of great power. He lit his pipe on the sun, and when he danced drops of sweat from his body caused the rain to fall.

The Man of the River appeared at the door of his hut, and after one word from him people saw the star of the morning coming down from the sky and placing itself on his forehead. Another word from him and the earth shook and the mountains trembled. He disappeared into the hut again. And people began to sing a thunderous song that echoed in the faraway hills. They sang until the sun rose from behind the mountains and moved to the center of the sky.

Mlanjeni emerged again, raised his spear to the heavens, and touched the sun. The sun came down to touch his head, and went through his body until it was bright like the sun itself. People prostrated themselves, shouting, “Mlanjeni! Mlanjeni is our true Lord! The Man of the River is the conqueror of death!”

One by one they began to walk between the poles. The clean were unscathed. The unclean were struck by weakness and fear as they approached the poles. Then they writhed on the spot, unable to move. The people shouted, “Out! Get out, witchcraft!” until the victims staggered through the poles to Mlanjeni, who gave them some twigs that would protect them from further evil and keep them pure.

Twin-Twin’s wife from the senior house stood up and slowly walked towards the poles. It was as though she was in a trance. As she moved between the poles she froze. She was paralyzed. Mlanjeni began to dance a frenzied dance around the poles, and the crowd chanted, “She is fixed! She is fixed! She is a witch!”

Twin-Twin rushed to his wife, who was writhing on the ground in agony. He was shouting, “No! No! My wife is not a witch! There must be a mistake!”

A group of zealots grabbed him and dragged him to the donga below Kala’s homestead. There they flogged him with whips. They beat him until he was almost unconscious. Then they went back to the Man of the River expecting his praise.

“Twin-Twin is a wizard. That is why he was defending his wife who was clearly identified as a witch by the poles,” said Mlanjeni feebly. “But you had no right to beat him up. I have said it before, no person should ever be harmed for being a witch. Witchcraft is not in the nature of men and women. They are not born with it. It is an affliction that I can cure.”