African-Language Literatures. Innocentia Jabulisile Mhlambi
of the proverb as a title in Impi, and its extension to encompass social development issues, race relations, gender relations, class politics and rural and urban dialectics allows him to comment on evolving trends within the life experiences of contemporary South Africans, while attributing the tensions and conflicts characteristic of these life experiences to the inequality and social injustices that prevent access to basic human needs. There is a sense that Africans in South Africa are simultaneously engulfed by the traps of modern life and reeling from colonial and apartheid legacies. By considering post-apartheid as the third epoch (colonialism and apartheid being the first and second) Buthelezi is able to suggest the direction in which Africa should develop. Buthelezi seems to suggest that true development would stem from past values.8
The first example that demonstrates Buthelezi’s manipulation of the plot relates to the customary practice of adopting nephews and nieces begotten out of wedlock which has been a valued practice in African society. It is viewed as a familial responsibility underpinned by the philosophy of ubuntu (African humanism). Through this philosophy Buthelezi has been able to satirise and critique modern lifestyles that have denuded urbanised, elitist Africans of their sense of nationhood. The juxtapositioning of rural and urban dialectics seems to suggest that vestiges of ubuntu can still be found in the rural areas.
The traditional world not only controlled the sexuality of youths through the system of amaqhikiza (regimentation of girls) and ukubuthwa kwezinsizwa (regimentation of young men), but the problem of children begotten out of wedlock was normally solved by assigning a widower to the ‘fallen’ girl. A classic example of this practice in Zulu history is the marrying off of Nandi, Shaka’s mother, to Gendeyana. With the imposition of colonialism and industrialisation, the age-old practice gradually changed to be replaced by the adoption of these children by their uncles. It is believed that in modern times it is ubuntu not to burden a new husband with the children of another man. There seems to be an underlying understanding that uncles assume responsibility for the girl’s failure to control her sexual desires (Buthelezi: 25). That failure should be contained within the family and thus male members of the family are assigned to raise these children and of course they rely on the material benefits accrued by the family. Also implied in this custom is that the wives of these patriarchs, as they are foreigners in the home themselves, are not consulted on matters related to the adoption of the children and are expected to raise these children as their own (Buthelezi: 22–23). They are called umalumekazi9 (female gendered uncle).
The wives become the extension of their husbands in all motherly duties. They have married into the family knowing that it is ‘ubuntu nobuzwe bethu’ (African humanism and nationality) that the uncle ‘uyozibutha zonke izingane zikadadewenu. Uyozibutha noma zingaba yishumi noma amashumi amathathu’ (will collect and raise all the children of his sisters. He will collect and raise them all even if they are ten or thirty) (Buthelezi: 65) because it is their right to be raised under their uncle’s law (Buthelezi: 26). Cele, the character representative of the traditional position in Impi, fails to understand John’s refusal to add these children to his family. What comes into sharp focus is the Eurocentric and the Afrocentric conceptions of what constitutes a family, and how these conceptions affect an urbanised, educated African financially. In this text the clash of cultures, which was dominant in the writings of the first generation of isiZulu writers, is propelled beyond pitting Western and African values against each other, in the course of which the superiority of the Western values is emphasised. In this novel traditional African notions that kept the society intact are revisited and used to question accepted and normalised Western notions.
Buthelezi retrieves and re-concretises African values by activating numerous proverbs which are strategically distributed throughout the narrative. The proverbs work in tandem with axioms derived as moral lessons in the narrative. For example, the narrative’s conflict is based on the violation of a fast declining social code, the adoption of children out of wedlock, which is captured in the quotation ‘kwakuyothenga ilala’ (it is dead). However, the subsequent structuring of the events indicates that throwing away good social practices is tantamount to throwing away one’s identity and humanity and this act only contributes to the state of poverty and underdevelopment witnessed in the country. The axiom that captures the loss of identity and nationhood becomes the basis for the exploration of the general state of affairs within the African nation.
That Buthelezi’s narrative depicts the multi-layered intricacies besetting urban African lifestyles is captured in the proverb, ‘insumansumane imali yamakhanda’10 (an anomaly, the head tax issue) (Buthelezi: 3, 6). This proverb not only captures a sense of loss but emphasises the absurdity of urban lifestyles. Cele, who was once a migrant, is not averse to change but his fundamental criticism of urban life stems from his realisation of the lack of foresight, from urbanising and modernising Africans, regarding the nature of this change and the indifference with which valued customs are treated in the urban areas. The fact that in the cities life is different and people lead their lives differently to those in the rural areas is captured in ‘seligaya ngomunye umhlathi’ (it chews on another side) (Buthelezi: 7). This proverb sets the tone of the narrative, establishing the moral depravity, materialism, hedonism and decadence of city life which illustrate the change from traditional life to an urban Westernised and elitist lifestyle. This proverb channels the reading to a conclusion, ‘lafa elihle kakhulu’ (the beautiful (land) is dead) (Buthelezi: 14), which is a lament for the good past that will never be retrieved.
By comparing the lifestyles of blood relatives in the rural and the urban areas, Buthelezi is able to direct readers to a conclusion regarding the causes of the evils that beset African urban dwellers and their lifestyles. Life in the urban centres is at all times bound by monetary considerations. As a result, city dwellers are seen to have sold their humanity because they are now known as people ‘abangabekelwa nja’ (those for whom one does not keep a dog) and their homes have turned into ‘kukwanja yotha umlilo’ (it is the house of a dog sitting near the hearth). This implies that they are stingy and inhospitable, the treatment received by Cele when he paid an unscheduled visit to John, his nephew.
Given this cluster of proverbs it is expected that John will not accede to Cele’s request to adopt Uzithelile and Hlanganisani. John gives different reasons for declining this request, one of which is the very old adage, ‘intandane enhle ngumakhothwa ngunina’ (the beautiful orphan is the one licked by its mother), implying that the children will be well raised if their mother takes care of them. Because he violates the custom by discriminating among his own children, for his sister’s children are his own, Cele points out that John’s mother ‘akazalanga ubole amathumbu’ (she did not bear offspring, but her intestines were rotten). The proverb and particularly the emphasis on the metaphor connoted by the words ithumbu (singular) and amathumbu (plural) operate in the same way as in the proverb ‘impi yomndeni isesendeni’ because both allude to the feuds in the family. In the narrative John is the metaphoric rotten and selfish offspring of the Ngubane family. John’s Eurocentric conception of a family is interrogated and shown to be based solely on selfishness without compassion. This materialistic selfishness makes him reject his own children. John’s parents died when he and his sister were very young and his uncle, Cele, because of the customary duties expected of him, raised them (John and his sister) as his own children (Buthelezi: 26). When he adopted John and Lenolo, Cele’s material position bordered on poverty whilst John’s current affluent status puts him in a position where he can afford anything.
The second example through which Buthelezi directs the plot to preferred readings involves class politics and how the peasant and working class is predestined to observe culture while the values harboured by the educated are a barrier to cultural observances. Some of these values relate to the position of women in educated families from which they abuse the powers accorded to them by their educated husbands, as is the case with Popi, John’s wife. Popi’s role in this family is depicted as having a negative impact because she neglects the African values that should be inculcated in their children.
Changing gender roles that are based on Western formulations shift power bases and adversely affect the family structure in urbanised, educated families. The choices and decisions made regarding traditional culture are based on material acquisition. Popi’s values are those that look up to European mores at the expense of African ones, creating ‘umlungumnyama’