Don't Upset ooMalume: A Guide to Stepping Up Your Xhosa Game

By Hombakazi Mercy Nqandeka

'Eli linge libaluleke kakhulu kumzi ontsundu olahlekileyo. Xa sivuselela izinto zenkcubeko yethu esalahlekana nazo ngonoquku, mhla kwafika iintlanga zasemzini.' – Dr Loyiso Nqevu
Returning to the family homestead in the Eastern Cape for the holidays, and worried that your city ways and less than perfect knowledge of Xhosa culture will get you a wagging finger in the face from ooMalume – the uncles?
No need to fret. Don't Upset ooMalume! captures the essence of Xhosa heritage and culture, and explores different aspects of village life. It covers a range of topics, from major Xhosa life ceremonies and traditional clothing, to the significance of uronta (the rondavel) and ubuhlanti (the kraal). Not forgetting the importance of traditional food, the author describes popular dishes, edible forage and even medicinal plants.
This book was born from writer and agriculturalist Hombakazki Mercy Nqandeka's concern that aspects of Xhosa heritage will be lost to future generations. By interweaving her guide to Xhosa culture with stories from her daily life at Mqele and Bulungula villages, and lessons taught to her by her mother and her late grandmothers, she hopes to help reconnect Xhosa people to their roots.
Akukho nto imnandi ngathi kukungeqiwa ziindaba xa kuncokolwa ngesiXhosa esintsokothileyo nesineziqhulo. Bathi bezincokolela abantu abadala bexuba nakwintetho yokuhlonipha ube usiva yonke into abayithethayo. Oko kubonisa ukuzingca nokuzingomba isifuba ngolwimi lakho lesiXhosa.
Le ncwadi yenzelwe abantu abasithandayo isiXhosa nabafuna ukufunda nzulu ngolwimi nenkcubeko yesiXhosa. Ungabadanisi ooMalume, lola isiXhosa sakho ngale ncwadi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Ball
• Release date: Jul 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781776192120

Hombakazi Mercy Nqandeka

HOMBAKAZI MERCY NQANDEKA is an agriculturalist and a writer with an unquenchable passion for Xhosa heritage and culture. Mercy has a double Masters degree in Agriculture Climate Change Transition from the National University of Ireland and the University of Montpellier SupAgro in France. She has published two books, The Dissonant Rainbow (2019) and To My Young Self (2020). She currently lives in Bulungula on the Wild Coast, where she works for an NGO to provide rural schools with access to clean water and sanitation. In her spare time, she beads stethoscopes with the help of local women.

Book preview

Motto

This is a very important initiative for the lost Ntu people. We are reviving our heritage, which we lost a long time ago when we were colonized (when people from faraway lands invaded us). – Dr Loyiso Nqevu, expert on Xhosa culture

Imbulelo / Acknowledgements

This book is a fusion of the knowledge of the elders in my village at Mqele and Bulungula where I work. I would never be able to mention every single person who has made it the success it is. My mother played a huge part in its making, and whenever she stumbled on questions I asked her, she would call some relatives to help, so I’m thankful to all of them.

I would like to thank the staff of Bulungula Lodge, each of whom answered my cultural questions with enthusiasm. They would call me to come to take pictures of anything related to our culture, from food to chores such as cleaning the floors with cow dung.

To my social media community, thank you for following the stories that led to this book. You cheered me and encouraged me to write it.

Lastly, to Dr Loyiso Nqevu, our Xhosa guru, thank you for selflessly sharing knowledge about our culture. You made sure that I can access you any time throughout my writing. You shared information without holding back. This book honours your service to the Xhosa nation at large. Enkosi Mpinga, Mawawa, Ntomntwana, Mbala ka Nkqoshe!

Le ncwadi yindibaniselwano yolwazi labantu abadala kwilali yam eMqele naseBulungula apho ndixelenga khona. Andinakubabiza bonke aba­bantu bayenze yayimpumelelo le ncwadi. Ukukhankanya abambalwa, umama wam udlale indima enkulu ekubhaleni le ncwadi. Ebethi xa exakwe yimibuzo atsalele izizalwane umnxeba zincede, ndibulela kuzo zonke.

Ndibulela nabasebenzi baseBulungula Lodge bonke, bebeyiphe­ndula ngochulumanco imibuzo yam. Bebeyi khuthalele into yo­ku­ndibiza ukuba ndizokuthatha imifanekiso yayo nayiphi na into enxulumene nenkcubeko yethu, ukusukela ekutyeni nasekusindeni izindlu.

Kubahlobo bam kumakhasi onxibelelwano, ndiyabulela ngokuba nilandele amabali wam akhokelele kule ncwadi. Nindikhuthazile ukuba ndiyibhale le ncwadi.

Okokugqibela, ndivakalisa ongazenzisiyo umbulelo ku Dr Loyiso Nqevu, indwalutho yethu ephume izandla yesiXhosa. Enkosi ngokwa­belana nathi ngesiNtu sethu. Ubuqinisekisa ukuba ndiyakufumana nanini ngethubaa ndibhala le ncwadi. Undabele ulwazi ungabamba­nga gazi. Le ncwadi ihlonipha wena ikubuka ikothulela umnqwazi ngokusebenzela, ngokulondoloza, ezozenzi zincakasane nokupapasha inkcubeko yethu. Enkosi Mpinga, Mawawa, Ntomntwana, Mbala ka Nkqoshe!

Intshayelelo / Introduction

Like many black people in South Africa, I was born and raised in a village – Mqele location in Elliotdale in the Eastern Cape. My rural upbringing has made me who I am today.

Elliotdale is a small town situated in a valley through which the Xhorha River runs and perhaps that is why the town is called Xhorha by Xhosa people. When I was a child, Elliotdale was a one-street town; you could walk up and down in less than an hour and cover the whole town. It has expanded in recent years with more government offices and complexes of shops and banks, places we didn’t have when I grew up. It has a semi-arid climate, which can be dry and dusty in winter and very wet and green in summer.

My mother, Lindiwe, tells me I was an en caul birth, meaning I was born inside an intact amniotic sac. In the Xhosa culture, an en caul birth is seen as something special and it is believed that the child will be blessed with good fortune. She named me Mercy because what she needed most in those years were mercy and peace. My father had been mentally ill for years and it brought so much turmoil and difficulty to our family.

Apparently, I was a peaceful baby who barely cried. Our relative Tat’ Mkwayi attested to that when he visited a few days after I was born. When he got to the hut I was in, he expressed his surprise that I was such a quiet baby, saying ‘lihombakazi lomntwana eli’ – this is a lady baby. That is how I got my second name, Hombakazi, which means a lady, the organised one. Since it is a Xhosa name, it became the first name on my identity card. However, I am more inclined to be called Mercy because it is what my mother calls me, and it has a deeper meaning to me. I am my mother’s mercy and peace.

My mother had to leave her four children in the village at Mqele to find a job in Elliotdale and left us in the care of Mam’Tolo, our paternal grandmother. We called her Makhulu, grandmother in Xhosa. She was in her seventies when I was born and by the time I was a toddler, she was already blind. All my memories of her are of me walking with her to wherever she needed to go. That included taking her to the pay point to get her pension grant at Majola Store some few kilometres from home. She would buy me sweets and Russians (the sausage). Going to the pay point with Makhulu offered an opportunity for us to bond even if I sometimes felt embarrassed about having to guide her. She would have none of it, though, and would get upset and shout at me when I had these childish moments.

Makhulu made me feel like her favourite grandchild. She used to tell me how I will become a medical doctor – a profession she held in high regard – and one day would own a car, something that was very rare among black South Africans in her time. She saw me as someone who would have a lot of riches. As I grew older, it dawned on me that these were blessings that Makhulu showered me with.

Beyond the blessings, she also taught us how to work. Widowed young, she had been forced to work hard to raise her children. Makhulu had worked as a seamstress in a store at Stoney Drift near our village and rode a horse to work every day.

Makhulu was a great cook. She baked cakes and roasted whole chickens in her wood stove for so-called shows. Back then, farmers, cooks, seamstresses and the like would meet up in village halls or on sport fields to show off their wares and compete against each other. Such a gathering was called a show and the person who came first in each category would win a prize. For children, the best thing about the show was when the participants returned home with all their goods after the show.

My grandmother was also a farmer of note who owned a span of oxen with which she ploughed her fields. To this day I like potatoes because I grew up eating the tasty ones from her garden.

She might’ve been a widow but that didn’t make her a pushover. Makhulu was very opinionated and loud, and people in the village respected her. The first ten years of my life that I spent with her made such a huge impact on who I have become. For this reason, Makhulu is my goddess, someone I think about at every major milestone of my life.

My mother got married to my father at a very young age – she must have been 18 or 19. In Xhosa culture a bride goes to live with her parents-in-law. While this rarely happens in the cities these days, it is still customary in rural areas and is called ukuhota or ukukotiza – serving your in-laws. Mama spent most of her young adult life under the guidance of her mother-in-law, Makhulu, so it is not surprising that she has many of Makhulu’s traits. Like Makhulu, Mama lost her husband at a young age. At 33, she was left with four children to raise. The first thing she did after my father died was to look for land to build us a home. She found a piece across the road from Makhulu’s home.

All five of us worked so hard to build our very first rondavel. We started by making mud bricks, fetching thatching grass and mud plastering it. For years, we lived in that one hut that had many rooms in one. To this day I do not know how so many people, including a few cousins, managed to live in that small space.

Mama also started a garden, something that changed our lives, because it freed us from hunger and extreme poverty. As children we loved to work in our garden and tended to it with great care and dedication. This exposure to the land from an early age must be the reason I chose agriculture as a subject in high school and decided to study it at university. Makhulu and Mama had a big influence on the direction my life has taken.

My education journey began at Mqele Junior Secondary School in our village. For high school I attended boarding school at Nyanga Senior Secondary, which was more than 150 km from home. Mama sent me away because she believes in the importance of education. Although I had gone to a typical village school, I did not have gaps in my education, because Mama ensured that we had plenty of books at home. I have always been fascinated by books and I believe being surrounded by them as a child is why I started writing at a young age.

At 19 I enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in crop and soil science at the University of Fort Hare in Alice. I continued with my studies up to the point where I started on a master’s degree in soil science but I left the programme when I received a scholarship from the French government to study a double master’s degree in agriculture, climate change and transitions at the National University of Ireland’s Galway campus and at Montpellier SupAgro in France.

Going to study abroad was the first time I’d left the country – the village girl was out and about in the world.

When I arrived in Ireland, it was difficult to wrap my mind around my new life and trying to figure out who I would become as I adjusted to living in the so-called developed world. Something inside me channelled me towards appreciating Xhosa culture more and digging deeper into my roots. In thinking about presenting myself to the new world, I figured that being authentic and grounded was the best thing to do. I decided to wear my colourful beads frequently as I created an identity away from home.

I found that people were drawn to me for proudly representing my country and culture. Until not very long ago, after being Christianised, Xhosa people had to choose between their traditions and culture and following their new religious path. Being Christianised and westernised was associated with leaving behind one’s indigenous identity. However, I realised that it is possible to be grounded and unique in your own culture while appreciating diversity. Knowing this helped me throughout the two and a half years I spent abroad and I found that I could easily balance the world I came from and the one I lived in at the time.

At the end of 2018, I returned to South Africa from Ireland, France and Uganda with my master’s degree in my pocket. I spent the whole of 2019 looking for a job, but when I had no luck decided to go and live with my mother in our village home. I was very anxious and sad because I had no idea how I would make a living.

At home in Mqele, I was welcomed by the many gifts of nature. It was harvest time, so I was enjoying fresh traditional dishes that came from my mother’s gardens, which brought back many fond childhood memories. I also had many meaningful conversations and learnt more about Xhosa culture from my mother and people from our village.

This being the era of social media, I started taking photos of nature scenes, the food I ate, traditional Xhosa clothing, the animals in the village and people performing traditional house chores. I shared these photos on my social media platforms and wrote down childhood stories that related to each photo. I found great fulfilment and meaning in immersing myself in village life and Xhosa culture, and I wanted to share it with the world.

Sadly, indigenous knowledge is becoming extinct faster than we would like and many children who grow up in cities and townships barely know about village life. I find it very sad that they are missing out on learning about our precious Xhosa culture. My rural upbringing in the Eastern Cape has given me the advantage of being exposed to Xhosa heritage and culture on a daily basis, and absorbing knowledge from my elders. I felt it was important to document the cultural practices and traditions I had grown up with and learnt more about as an adult.

Every morning, I would plan the content for the day and share it on social media. I was surprised by the positive response I got to my posts from people across South Africa. There was so much positivity and excitement in the comments I received from people from different cultures, races and walks of life. Friends thanked me for taking them back to their childhood and many commented how it reminded them of their grandmothers (a favourite response). Many people told me that they looked forward to my latest post every morning. Xhosa people, especially those who grew up in urban areas, were intrigued by aspects of our culture they did not know about. I got the sense that both urban and rural Xhosa people could relate to the content and wanted me to document and share more.

Those posts are the genesis of this book.

The book is also my response to the many questions I have been asked by friends and relatives about my culture. During my studies in Ireland, France and Uganda, I met many people who were interested in learning about Xhosa culture. They would ask me for books they could read on the topic, but I could not think of any that were recent and easy to read.

While I cannot claim to be an academic expert on the topic of Xhosa heritage and culture, it is part of my being and my daily lived experience, and I am a proud ambassador for it. This book is based on the knowledge I have gained from my elders and its sole intention is to offer readers an accessible introduction to Xhosa heritage and culture. It is by no means the final word on, or the definitive guide to, Xhosa culture.

In this book, I share stories from my life in the village, childhood memories and general teachings about Xhosa culture alongside photos of traditional clothing, food, ceremonies, handicrafts, and many other things. I hope the photos will help readers to visualise the things I describe in the book. Most of the photos were taken at Mqele when I lived with my mother, who has supplied so much of the information shared here. Without her, this book would not have been possible.

My wish is that this book will connect and anchor Xhosa people who did not grow up in the villages. These days, many people are born in the cities and spend most of their lives there, and might have limited exposure to their Xhosa heritage. However, come December, they often find themselves back at their family’s homestead and having to face the uncles – the oomalume of this book’s title – standing by the kraal. In many respects, these uncles are the custodians of Xhosa culture. Oomalume are not pleased by what they perceive as the snobbishness of abatshana – nieces and nephews who visit their village home with their city vibes. They upset oomalume by speaking broken Xhosa and a lot of English, by being disgusted by cow dung and running from chickens. Oomalume would give them reprimanding looks and call them out.

My hope is that this book will help you to step up your Xhosa game and impress the uncles next time you head for the village. It also encourages unity in South Africa and the world. It seeks to integrate people of different backgrounds, races and cultures from different parts of the world.

In August 2019 I moved to Bulungula, about 28 km from Mqele, where several of the photos in this book were taken. At that point, I did small jobs, such as translating documents for Bulungula Incubator, a non-governmental organisation founded by Réjane Woodroffe and her husband Dave Martin.

The organisation does important work in the areas of health, education and agriculture. It runs a local clinic that services the villages around Xhorha Mouth with 20 community health workers who visit every household weekly. Bulungula Incubator also has an online maths and literacy project that it runs in five preschools and a high school. Furthermore, it has a nursery that produces vegetable seedlings, fertiliser and other farming aid for surrounding villages, while the Bulu­ngula Community Radio station reaches 75 villages.

From doing small jobs with Bulungula Incubator, I proceeded to volunteer for three months at Bulungula Lodge, founded by Dave and Réjane in the early 2000s. Bulungula is one of the most beautiful villages on the Wild Coast. It is an authentic Xhosa village that still conserves Xhosa culture. Here, you’ll find people still cleaning their huts with cow dung and big families living together and growing their own food. Xhosa rituals and ceremonies are common here and I also got some of the information for this book from the mamas and tatas who work there.

Bulungula is where I met my current employer, Ajay Paul, co-founder of Viva con Agua South Africa. Ajay and his team were guests at the lodge when they met with representatives from Bulungula Incubator. Viva con Agua is an organisation that has its roots in Germany and focuses on bringing water and sanitation services to those who need them the most. It has offices in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Uganda and South Africa, and it funds projects in India, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.

One night, while I was chatting to Ajay before dinner, he noticed my sweater from Montpellier SupAgro and asked me about it. I told him about my studies in France and elsewhere. There and then he asked for my CV and the rest, as they say, is history. Since October 2020 I have been working with Viva con Agua to provide water and sanitation services and hygiene education in the village schools and community facilities in Elliotdale.

There is nothing as satisfying as visiting schools in my villages and having development conversations with principals and teachers I used to look up to as a child. The spark in their eyes fills me with a sense of purpose. Coming back home to work in the villages where I grew up had always been my dream, and now I am living it.

Nje ngabantu abaninzi abantsundu eMzantsi Afrika, ndazalwa ndakhu­lela ezilalini. Ndibunjwe yilali yaseMqele, eXhorha eMpuma Kapa. iXhorha yidolophana yamaBomvane ephezu komlambo iXhorha.

Ngoko ndandisakhula le dolophu yayinesitalato esinye. Wawuyigqiba yonke idolophu ngeyure nje enye kuphela. Ikhulile ke noko ngoku, kukho ii-ofisi zikarhulumente ezongezelelweyo, iivenkile kunye neebhanki, iindawo ezazingekho ndisakhula.

Umama wam uLindiwe uyandixelela ukuba ndazalwa ndisesingxo­tyeni, into echaza ithamsanqa nokukhetheka kwinkcubeko yethu. Wandithiya ngokuba ndinguMercy, oko kuthetha inceba into awaye­yidinga kakhulu ngaloominyaka. Utata wam wayegula ngokuphazami­seka engqondweni iminyaka eminizi nto leyo yayinzima kakhulu kusapho lwam. Yayilixesha lomlo neengxwaba-ngxwaba.

Umama ke uthi ndandingumntwana ozolileyo owayengafane akhale. Utat’ uMkwayi, isihlobo sasekhaya sakungqina oku mhla sasisindwe­ndwele sizokubona usana. Wakhangela endlwini endandikuyo esothuswa kukuba engeva ngasikhalo sosana. Waye wathi ke ‘lihombakazi lomntwana eli’. Ndalifumana kanjalo