The Rites to manhood....when was that moment when you knew you were through the barrier and deserved to feel or be treated like an adult? When did you step out of a situation and feel, well, grown up...that you had just learnt and experienced a moment, an incident, that was to change your life? That you had taken another step up the ladder?
This is my moment and it stays with me even till now, some 47 years on.
I hope you can relate and I'd be really interested for you to share your own "moments":
The home of Mabuza
This is my moment and it stays with me even till now, some 47 years on.
I hope you can relate and I'd be really interested for you to share your own "moments":
The home of Mabuza
STICKS AND STONES
My sticks are ready.
I am ready to fight.
Mabuza is not happy. He is angry. I know this because he has been tugging at the grey pebbles of hair on the left side of his head like a dog scratches at a tenacious flea. He avoids my eyes when I look at him, especially when I am busy polishing my “donga”, my dlala ‘nduku, my playing sticks.
There are two sticks. One is longer than the other. The longest I will grip in my left hand to parry the blows and the shorter will be in my right for attacking. Both sticks I have chopped from the Wild Olive tree. I have soaked them in cooking fat that I have stolen from the kitchen. This, and many hours of sunbathing have helped harden the wood.
I am fighting Galpin. He is one of the many sons of the Induna (Chief) that lives across the Matsapa River. There was no throwing down of the gauntlet, no challenge. It is just an accepted ritual. We are both of age. It is our time.
He pointed at me. I pointed at him. We shook hands, and that was it. We will fight behind the General Dealer Store.
I think Galpin will probably go for my knees first. I have seen him fight before. Or he will feint a move to the left as the right stick goes for the side of my head.
I am prepared for this. I have stolen a dishcloth from the kitchen. This I will wrap around my head like a bandana for protection. It is the norm. Galpin, will, of course, wear a traditional bandana of local cloth. It will be embroidered with either a lion or a fleet-footed antelope.
My bandana is embroidered with the word “Sunlight” which is a well known brand of soap.
I have been practising down at the dam, away from the eyes of the brood. My target has been imaginary, or I have taken to beating at the clumps of reeds that grow down there. I parry and thrust, sink low on my haunches, stab and defend. My enemy, in return, showers me with soft seeds that glisten like flakes of gold in the sunlight.
I have consequently made an enemy of the Cape weaver birds that are in the process of nesting amongst the reeds. I try to think of their angry tirade as applause.
“This is the game of children.”
“No. This is the game of warriors!”
“Pah!” Scoffs Mabuza, followed by a lump of phlegm to the ground. “There are better ways to be a warrior.”
“Like what?”
Mabuza taps the side of his head twice.
And with that, Mabuza went back to stabbing the garden fork into a weed infested flower bed and I am suddenly, briefly, wondering what you, Dying Father, would be telling me at this juncture of my life. The moment is fleeting. More of a spasm, then it has gone and shelved itself away amongst the other odds and sods that have briefly, over time, asked for reasons and advice, and then crept away scorned.
I think of decorating my sticks. Perhaps with a few coils of copper wire, like the great warriors of Chaka’s people.
“Are you now a maiden?”
I am rebuked.
I trundle away to the dam in search of applause from the cape Weaver birds.
There are no noises of the night on the night before the fight. There are none only because I do not sleep. My calf muscles are taut as I lie on my bed, cramping with a nervousness that first began as something heavy in my stomach. A squirming something, not unlike that wriggly bastard worm, that is sometimes warm, sometimes cold. I think it is what they call fear.
Hurry dawn’s light.
My sticks are ready.
Watch me, Meneer Gerber.
I am to be a man, Dying Father.
I am The Sunlight Boy.
I pedal away from the house as it sleeps. I have managed to put my two sticks down the back of my shirt. I am a Samurai on a bicycle, off to defend what? This I do not know. It is a tradition. So that must be it. This is my rite.
I take the tar Road to the General Dealer store. The road is void of traffic. There is cow shit on the rise, and I dodge it. The tarmac shimmers like a snake’s skin in the dawn’s light. A slight mist envelops the pineapple fields to the left and right. The plants stand aloof and sharp. It is a hostile plant for reasons only Nature must know.
I ride the road and avoid the potholes.
Mabuza stands at the turn-off to the General Dealer. I see him from a distance, and I ease off on the pedals. He stands where the red dust meets the tarmac, where the old meets the new. His chest is bare. He wears a loincloth, his tin cup attached to a riempie (thong) of leather about his waist. He holds, loosely, a knobkerrie (wooden club) in his hand. As I approach him, he nods once and breaks into his customary trot to cross the road.
We say nothing.
I pedal after him, his warrior gait light, and he barely rustles the red sand beneath his naked feet from its slumber.
The tailor with the milky eye is setting up his sewing machine on the porch of the store. There is not much activity yet. The Store is still closed. A hen with a clutch of chicks works the soil close to the wall where I park the bicycle. The hen fluffs her feathers and the chicks respond like sharks to offal. I remove my sticks from under my shirt and from my trouser pocket I pull out my Sunlight bandana.
I think of the reeds and the angry Weaver birds as I wrap the dish cloth around my head. I fold in the corners. I bounce a stick off my scalp. Numb and dumb.
Mabuza is watching, but he is not.
Behind the General Dealer Store where the grass is well trodden, Galpin stands with a small group of people. I recognise some of them from the kraal. His father, the Induna will referee. That was already decided.
There is only Mabuza behind me, and he is yet to speak to anyone.
Galpin and I square-off. There is no ritual or celebration. It is straightforward. He attacks and I parry; the Wild Olive wood in my hand shuddering on contact and sending electric shivers down my arm.
He feints left and the next second I am on my knees. The pain comes later. It is a quick blow to the area behind my right knee. I stand up.
Thrust. Our sticks meet in the air. There are, indeed, antelope stitched on his bandana. I swing at them. I’m open. Dumb.
Lying on the ground I can smell the rust of the soil. A veil has been tossed over the sun, but that’s because his hit was good and solid. I blink.
Blood trickles from my forehead and over my right eye. I can see a small pebble right in front of me. It is ridiculously white against the earth that my nostrils are inhaling.
I sense Mabuza squat beside me. I can see his bare feet.
He touches my head. His calloused hand is soft to my scalp.
Then I see his hand reach out and collect the pebble. I hear it clank in the hollow of his tin cup before the hands of others help me to my feet.
I pedal home. Mabuza jogs beside.
The road shimmers now in the morning heat, offering pools of disturbed light, of shapes and spaces and, out there, on the horizon, the mountains beckon with a proud gesture.
It is, I now know, just the one road of many still to travel.
