Zakes Mda: The Heart of Redness

Twin-Twin’s weals opened up and became wounds. After many months the wounds healed and became scars. But occasionally they itched and reminded him of his flagellation. At the time he did not know that his progeny was destined to carry the burden of the scars.

For a long time he was angry at the injustice of it all. He was not a wizard, and was sure that his wife was not a witch. Yet his own father and twin brother were blaming him for stupidly defending the honor of a woman who had been declared a witch by none other than the great prophet himself. And now both Xikixa and Twin were ostracizing his senior wife.

It did not escape Twin-Twin that this was the second time he had quarreled with his twin brother, and on both occasions the prophet was the cause.

But he continued to defend Mlanjeni. When the British decided to hunt the prophet down — claiming they did not approve of his witch-hunting and witch-curing activities — he was just as furious as the rest of the men of kwaXhosa.

Twin-Twin suppressed the bitterness in his heart and went with Twin, his father, and a group of mounted men to meet the white man who called himself the Great White Chief of the Xhosas, Sir Harry Smith. He watched in humiliation as the Great White Chief commanded the elders and even the chiefs to kiss his staff and his boots. And they did. And so did he.

The Great White Chief was running wild all over the lands of the amaXhosa, doing whatever he liked in the name of Queen Victoria of England. He even deposed Sandile, the king of the amaXhosa-ka-Ngqika. This caused all the chiefs, even those who were Sandile’s rivals, to rally around the deposed king.

The Great White Chief was relentless in his pursuit of Mlanjeni. He suspected that the prophet was plotting something sinister against the Great Queen and her Empire. He instructed his magistrates to summon him to their offices, where disciplinary measures would be taken. When the prophet refused to hand himself over, the Great White Chief felt personally insulted. One of his most zealous magistrates sent a soldier called John Dalton with a detachment of policemen to Kala’s homestead to arrest the Man of the River. But Mlanjeni was nowhere to be found. Queen Victoria’s men did not know that he had buried himself under the sacred waters of the Keiskamma River.

The Great White Chief read conspiracy and uprising in this whole sorry affair. He summoned all the kings and chiefs of the amaKhosa people for the usual boot-kissing ritual. He vowed that he would restore law and order throughout British Kaffraria and Xhosaland. But some of the most important kings and chiefs did not attend the ceremony. A further insult to the Empire.

Twin-Twin observed the ceremony from a distance. He reported to the men of his village how the white man who had styled himself the father of the amaXhosa had ranted and raved and threatened to raze the whole amaXhosa nation to the ground.

The people had had enough of the Great White Chief. Mounted men, led by Xikixa, went to the Keiskamma River to consult with the prophet. Mlanjeni ordered that all dun and yellow cattle be slaughtered, for they were an abomination. He doctored the military men for war so that the guns of the British would shoot hot water instead of bullets. The Great War of Mlanjeni had begun.

It was an ugly and tedious war that lasted for three years, during which the Khoikhoi people of the Kat River Valley abandoned their traditional alliance with the British and fought on the side of the amaXhosa. Both Twin and Twin-Twin fought in the war. And so did Xikixa, who was still strong enough to carry a shield and a spear. The Great White Chief was frustrated. He was heard on many occasions talking of his intention to exterminate all amaXhosa.

“Extermination is now the only word and principle that guides us. I loved these people and considered them my children. But now I say exterminate the savage beasts!” he told his field commanders. Some of them were seen marching to war with the word “Extermination!” emblazoned on their hats.

Twin and Twin-Twin fought under General Maqoma in the Amathole Mountains. It was by and large a guerrilla war. They ambushed the British soldiers when they least expected it. The great size of the mountain range made things very difficult for the Imperial forces, and gave the amaXhosa armies many opportunities to destroy the enemy soldiers.

It was at one such ambush that Twin and Twin-Twin — accompanied by a small band of guerrilla fighters — chanced upon a British camp hidden in a gorge. A small group of British soldiers were cutting off the ears of a dead umXhosa soldier.

“What are they doing that for? Are they wizards?” asked Twin-Twin. “Or is it their way of removing iqungu?”

Iqungu was the vengeful force generated by war medicines. A soldier who died in war could have his iqungu attack the slayer, bloating and swelling up his body until he died. The amaXhosa believed that the British soldiers had their own iqungu. Therefore, they mutilated the bodies of slain British soldiers to render their iqungu powerless. This was considered savagery of the worst kind by the British, whenever they came across their dead comrades with ripped stomachs on the Amathole slopes.

“It is not for iqungu,” explained Twin, who seemed to know more about the ways of the British from listening to fireside gossip. “It is just the witchcraft of the white man. They take those ears to their country. That’s what they call souvenirs.”

The twins saw that the leader of the soldiers was a man they had met before. John Dalton. He had been one of the soldiers accompanying the Great White Chief during the boot-kissing ceremony. He had been introduced then as an important man in the entourage of soldiers. He spoke isiXhosa, so he was the interpreter. It was the same John Dalton who had been sent with a detachment of policemen to hunt down the Man of the River.

Then, to the horror of the men watching, the soldiers cut off the dead man’s head and put it in a pot of boiling water.

“They are cannibals too,” hissed Twin-Twin.

The British soldiers sat around and smoked their pipes and laughed at their own jokes. Occasionally one of the soldiers stirred the boiling pot, and the stench of rotten meat floated up to the twins’ group. The guerrillas could not stand it any longer. With bloodcurdling screams they sprang from their hiding place and attacked the men of Queen Victoria. One British soldier was killed, two were captured, and the rest escaped.

“It is our father!” screamed Twin. “They were going to eat our father!”

It was indeed the headless body of Xikixa.

“We were not going to eat your father,” said John Dalton, prisoner of war, in his perfect isiXhosa. “We are civilized men, we don’t eat people.”

“Liar!” screamed Twin-Twin. “Why would you cook anything that you are not going to eat?”

“To remove the flesh from the skull,” explained Dalton patiently. He did not seem to be afraid. He seemed too sure of himself. “These heads are either going to be souvenirs, or will be used for scientific inquiry.”

Souvenirs. Scientific inquiry. It did not make sense. It was nothing but the witchcraft of the white man.

While they were debating the best method of killing their captives, a painful and merciless method that would at least avenge the decapitated patriarch, the British soldiers returned with reinforcements from a nearby camp. Only Twin and Twin-Twin were able to escape. The rest of their party was killed.

It gnawed the souls of the twins that their father met his end in the boiling cauldrons of the British, and they were never able to give him a decent burial in accordance with the rites and rituals of his people. How would he commune with his fellow ancestors without a head? How would a headless ancestor be able to act as an effective emissary of their pleas to Qamata?