Mombe yehumai protocols and rituals can help sustain or destroy families, thus despite rapid social changes, this sacred cow should stay

Mombe yehumai protocols and rituals can help sustain or destroy families, thus despite rapid social changes, this sacred cow should stay

Sekai Nzenza On Wednesday

Saturday late afternoon in the dusty heat of Muzarabani, we stood in the middle of a cattle pen surrounded by beautiful cattle of different types.

There were some brown hornless passive Brahmans and other hard Mashona types with horns.

My nephew Eddy, who owns this big herd of cattle, stroked the Brahman heifers and played with them. He even touched their udders and pretended to milk them and they did not move. Back in the village, our hard Mashona type cows could never stand still like this and allow themselves to be stroked like pets. But Eddy said he has trained his cattle so well as to listen to his voice and obey.

I am here with my Tete Winnie, my aunt who lives in Gutu. Today we have a ceremony to close the cattle pen or kuzovhara danga remombe yehumai for my late aunt, Tete Emma.

We are the representatives of Tete Emma who was killed during the liberation war together with her husband and two sons.

They were shot dead one night and thrown into a dark cave. Their bones were retrieved after the war and reburied. After this tragic event, the remaining members of Tete Emma’s family escaped to Epworth in Harare.

Then they later settled in Muzarabani. My uncle John also followed them, bringing along the cows that belonged to Tete Emma, mombe dzeumai. Since then, these cows have grazed in the dry landscape and along the fertile Musengezi River in Muzarabani.

Muzarabani is about 200 kilometres from Harare, situated towards the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border in Mashonaland Central Province. To get there you go to Centenary and make your long climb up the Mavhuradonha Mountains.

Once you get to the top, you will get a view of one of the most scenic places in Zimbabwe. Cecil John Rhodes, the colonialist, named Matopos and Nyanga World’s Views but it seems he missed Mavhuradonha mountain range.

When my relatives came here, we heard that there were severe droughts and floods. The weather in the Muzarabani valleys was very hot with temperatures in summer reaching 40 degrees.

The place was hostile and full of tsetse flies. This was true in the 1980’s.

But tsetse flies were later eradicated. These days my cousins and nephews tell me that the deadly sleeping sickness caused by tsetse flies is gone. Muzarabani is still very hot but a good place to grow cotton, collect baobab fruits and masawu.

My relatives also graze their cattle in the Mavhuradonha National Park where they sometimes confront elephants, lions, cheetahs, buffaloes, elands and kudus. Here they often find good grass and cool water from natural spring water.

The mombe yehumai for the marriage of Erica, Tete Emma’s daughter, was paid in the late 1970s, just before the peak of the liberation war. By that time, Tete Emma had received three cows from the marriage of her daughters. The sacred mother’s cow is mandatory payment by a new son-in-law during lobola ceremony.

This cow is paid in recognition of the mother’s pains in delivering a daughter. It also gives a woman source of wealth because it will give birth to more calves and increase the family herd.

The mother alone has control over the cow. Payment for this cow is never done in cash. Imombe inotsika, a live beast. A few months ago, my niece Apronia and her husband’s family came to our village for the mombe yehumai ceremony. The cow was accompanied by a goat and a chicken.

All elders gathered in Apronia’s mother’s hut and waited for the vakuwasha to announce, through a munyai or go between, that they were ready to fulfil the mandatory obligations of mombe yehumai.

They presented a goat as the introductory offer. Various formal protocols were followed before we were all led to the cattle pen to view the cow. Mai Apronia carried a plate with maize. She stood in the middle of the cattle pen and made some recitals, calling upon her mother, grandmother and other women of her generation.

She told them that her daughter had done what is right by our custom and honoured the role of a mother.

Mai Apronia then threw the maize on the new cow saying, “Honaika mai vangu nemi mbuya vangu Moyo. Ndagashira mombe yehumai hwemwana wangu Apronia!” I have received the sacred cow from my daughter Apronia. We all ululated and clapped hands before forming a single file back to the hut.

There was more clapping and ululations to the ancestors. A goat and a couple of chickens were killed and we celebrated with home brewed beer, and plenty of sweet tea for the Christian non beer drinkers.

The Saruchera family paid the mombe yehumai when they married my cousin Erica in the early 1970s. This original cow gave birth to three calves before the move to Muzarabani. When the cow arrived here it met a Brahman bull and our breed became mixed and stronger. One day a hyena broke into the cattle pen and ate the beautiful mombe yehumai. But, by that time, her offspring were more than five.

As niece to Tete Emma, I am the traditional custodian of the sacred cattle, together with my Tete Winnie, sister to Tete Emma. My brother Sidney was in Muzarabani too because he is the representative of Tete Emma’s parents.

But at this ceremony, he did not deserve any cattle. However, he was key witness to the process, and so was Tete Emma´s 100-year old blind brother in law, Chobenda or Chakaunyana. He sat on a log under the huge Baobab tree and explained the process of mombe yehumai.

Since Tete Winnie is a Mupositori, she continuously sought spiritual guidance to balance these ancestral traditions because they did not easily fit into the Johane Masowe Apostolic Faith.

She sat in the hut wearing her white gown and veil. On her lap were few bottles of water. Tete continuously made signs of the cross, chipiyaniso, and prayed silently in between giving me instructions.

She said, go and see the cattle, count them and tell me how many they are and how healthy. Choose the one for slaughter, the one for Eddy for his services in looking after our cattle. Choose another one that returns to our maiden village as a symbol for having closed the danga or the cattle pen belonging to Tete Emma.

I did as I was told. A fat steer was chosen for slaughter. My brother Sidney made some citations, calling upon Tete Emma’s spirit and that of the ancestors before her to witness this ritual.

The varoora ululated and danced.

Then I temporarily disappeared when the beast was tied to the tree to have its throat slit by the skilful hands of Eddy and our son-in-law Gotora. We have not yet found a merciful and easier way to kill a beast in the absence of a gun.

The meat was cooked and we all sat around a fire under the moonlight, eating and drinking, celebrating the mombe yehumai from our son-in-law Saruchera. Before departure the following morning, I supervised the cutting up of the meat so that it was shared among all relatives present. I got a whole leg, bandauko, and Tete Winnie took another.

We then made arrangements for the rest of the cows to be sold and the money shared between Tete Winnie, myself and other nieces.

The sacred cow, mombe yehumai, given to Tete Emma in the 1970s by the Saruchera family from Nyanga has now given us, the women of my clan, some wealth.

Years later, it is the cow that continues to unite us with the Saruchera family long after our Tete and her daughter Erica are gone. Mombe yehumai, the sacred cow of the mother helps to seal relationships with the son-in-law and his family.

According to one Shona tradition expert, Ivan Murambiwa, “Mombe yehumai seeks to recognise the fertility status of a mother-in-law (ambuya) and her female line in the marriage protocol. It is expected to multiply and be regularly feasted upon in ceremonies led by ambuya’s kinsmen.”

Murambiwa also argues that mombe yeumai signifies paying homage or respect to the founder of the new family source. If a mombe yehumai is not paid as part of lobola, there is general belief that such omission of the customary tradition brings bad luck to the descendants of the man who did not pay it.

We also believe that the most powerful ancestors come from the maternal side of the family. You often hear people saying, “Mudzimu wamai wadambura mbereko” meaning the maternal ancestors have forsaken you. Mombe yehumai protocols and rituals can help sustain or destroy families.

Mombe yehumai helps us to stay connected as families. At the same time, it is a cultural practice to celebrate the meaning of marriage. Despite rapid social changes, mombe yehumai should stay. This cow is sacred.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic.