Read The Ear, the Eye and the Arm Online
Authors: Nancy Farmer
The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (43 page)
It is a serious crime to accuse someone of witchcraft in Zimbabwe, because the results can be so devastating. The accused sometimes commits suicide. It is possible to be a witch and not know and therefore to feel responsible for whatever illness and deaths have occurred.
Among many other activities, witches create monsters called
chidoma
(singular) or
zvidoma
(plural) out of dead children. These are a cross between zombies and the familiars (such as black cats) used by witches in Europe.
Witches are discovered either by a professional finder who can smell them out or by undergoing an ordeal by poison.
Muteyo,
the ordeal poison, is frequently lethal, and death is taken as proof of witchcraft.
Slavery
For those surprised to find slavery in Gondwanna, please consider a report in the
Sudan Democratic Gazette,
March 1993, published in Great Britain.
Between 1990 and 1993, according to the
Gazette,
the Nuba Mountains area of South Kordofan province in Sudan were singled out for destruction. The government in Khartoum carried out an ethnic cleansing program designed to remove the Nubian people from rich agricultural lands and to resettle those lands with nomadic Arab tribes.
More than sixty Nubian villages were destroyed, and twenty-five thousand children forcibly taken away and relocated to concentration camps. These children were then been distributed as slaves to fourteen Arab towns and villages across northern Sudan, including Khartoum.
Praise Singing
Praise Singing was and is important in many African cultures. Most of the praises used in this book are traditional, including the ones Fist and Knife use to describe the She Elephant. "A beauty whose neck is so long, a louse has to rest before it can climb it" may not seem like a compliment to us, but three hundred years ago most people considered lice a normal part of the world. Women today might not care to be called She Elephants either. A female elephant is a noble creature with a graceful stride — not a surprising subject for a Praise Name. It is only very recently that plumpness has become unpopular. Most civilized people throughout history have considered it attractive as well as a sign of good health and prosperity.
Tribes of Zimbabwe
SHONA: The ancestors of the Shona arrived from the north between A.D. 1000 and 1200 as a collection of tribes with a common language. The whole group was not referred to as Shona until the nineteenth century. Histories of several royal lines were preserved in oral poetry, but the most famous king was Monomatapa. When Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980, the Shona, who made up 80 percent of the population, became the most powerful political group.
MATABELE, or NDEBELE: Mzilikazi, one of Shaka Zulu's generals, was allowed to leave the Zulu tribe with three hundred warriors. He built up his own tribe (the Matabele) but was driven out of South Africa by encroaching white settlers. He moved into southern Zimbabwe around 1836. Mzilikazi brought with him the powerful military organization of the Zulus and was able to establish a kingdom at the expense of the resident Shona. At the time of independence, the Matabele made up about 19 percent of the population. The two tribes, Shona and Matabele, have had a long history of mutual hostility.
BRITISH: The British tribe is composed of several subgroups: Scots, Irish, Welsh and English. One of these, the English, has been dominant for several centuries. The British gained control of Zimbabwe around 1890, but not without violent dissent from the Shona and Matabele. Several uprisings occurred before 1965, when the British lost control of the country. From 1965 to 1979 Zimbabwe was ruled by a small minority of English tribesmen.
PORTUGUESE: The Portuguese first settled in East Africa in the fifteenth century. They pursued a policy of conquest and trade with the interior for five centuries and developed the slave trade from around 1600. In the twentieth century, a great number of Portuguese immigrated to colonies in Africa. After Mozambique and Angola became independent in 1975, many of these people moved to South Africa, Zimbabwe or back to Portugal.
OTHER TRIBES: Several small tribal groups exist in Zimbabwe. Some of them are immigrants from other countries. These include Indians, Afrikaners, Tonga, Xhosa, Tswana, Venda and an interesting group known either as Brown or Cape Colored. The Brown People originated in the Cape province of South Africa. They are of mixed race, and some of their forebears were Malay indentured servants imported to South Africa many years ago. The Brown People have made important contributions to music, literature and fine cooking. In the book, Eye is Brown.
Great Zimbabwe
This ancient city was constructed between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. No one is absolutely sure who built it, but most people attribute it to the Shona. The ruins are located on a hill. It is nearly invisible from below and must have been easy to defend. Around it lies good farm-land with adequate rainfall. The area has always been free of tsetse flies, a crucial consideration for any economy dependent on cattle. The ancient Zimbabweans mined gold, which they traded for glass beads, porcelain and silk from as far away as China.
Several statues of birds perched on pillars were unearthed from the ruins. It is not clear whether these were eagles or vultures. In some cases a crocodile was carved climbing the pillar. The Zimbabwe bird is the symbol of the modern country.
Great Zimbabwe is only one of several ancient cities in the area. Ruins are found from Mozambique to South Africa, but it is unknown whether they were all part of a large kingdom or represent the remains of several small ones.
Monomatapa
Monomatapa lived in the fifteenth century, and tales of his splendor reached the first Portuguese traders on the coast of Mozambique. He was supposed to rule a vast kingdom from the Kalahari Desert in the west to the Indian Ocean in the east. The size and grandeur of his country were exaggerated, but no more so than that of Camelot in the tales of King Arthur.
Vlei People
In the early twenty-first century, a marshy wasteland in Harare was used to dump toxic chemicals. These formed a witch's brew that had unpredictable and dangerous side effects. The chemicals spread far beyond the original contamination site and permanently ruined a large area in the middle of the city. The area became known as Dead Man's Vlei.
Ordinary people shunned the place. Others, rejected by the normal world, found it to their liking. Every year a few of these individuals would drift into the melancholy wasteland, and every year a few of the older inhabitants would die and add their bodies to its gray mass.
In time, the
vlei
healed itself. Plants and animals moved back, but only these rejected humans dared to live there — if they could be called humans anymore.
Years of isolation and exposure to strange chemicals had wrought a change in them. They seldom spoke, but understood one another's thoughts. When one
vlei
person was angry, the others sensed it. They had evolved a kind of group soul like that of an ant nest. Only one thing was missing to complete their metamorphosis: a spiritual center. This the She Elephant supplied. Her vitality drew them like winter-chilled bees to the sun. She enslaved them, but she also gave them a sense of
home
and
family.
For the first time in their long, dreary existence, the
vlei
people experienced something akin to happiness. And the She Elephant, for the first time in her life, felt needed and perhaps even loved.
Among many other activities, witches create monsters called
chidoma
(singular) or
zvidoma
(plural) out of dead children. These are a cross between zombies and the familiars (such as black cats) used by witches in Europe.
Witches are discovered either by a professional finder who can smell them out or by undergoing an ordeal by poison.
Muteyo,
the ordeal poison, is frequently lethal, and death is taken as proof of witchcraft.
Slavery
For those surprised to find slavery in Gondwanna, please consider a report in the
Sudan Democratic Gazette,
March 1993, published in Great Britain.
Between 1990 and 1993, according to the
Gazette,
the Nuba Mountains area of South Kordofan province in Sudan were singled out for destruction. The government in Khartoum carried out an ethnic cleansing program designed to remove the Nubian people from rich agricultural lands and to resettle those lands with nomadic Arab tribes.
More than sixty Nubian villages were destroyed, and twenty-five thousand children forcibly taken away and relocated to concentration camps. These children were then been distributed as slaves to fourteen Arab towns and villages across northern Sudan, including Khartoum.
Praise Singing
Praise Singing was and is important in many African cultures. Most of the praises used in this book are traditional, including the ones Fist and Knife use to describe the She Elephant. "A beauty whose neck is so long, a louse has to rest before it can climb it" may not seem like a compliment to us, but three hundred years ago most people considered lice a normal part of the world. Women today might not care to be called She Elephants either. A female elephant is a noble creature with a graceful stride — not a surprising subject for a Praise Name. It is only very recently that plumpness has become unpopular. Most civilized people throughout history have considered it attractive as well as a sign of good health and prosperity.
Tribes of Zimbabwe
SHONA: The ancestors of the Shona arrived from the north between A.D. 1000 and 1200 as a collection of tribes with a common language. The whole group was not referred to as Shona until the nineteenth century. Histories of several royal lines were preserved in oral poetry, but the most famous king was Monomatapa. When Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980, the Shona, who made up 80 percent of the population, became the most powerful political group.
MATABELE, or NDEBELE: Mzilikazi, one of Shaka Zulu's generals, was allowed to leave the Zulu tribe with three hundred warriors. He built up his own tribe (the Matabele) but was driven out of South Africa by encroaching white settlers. He moved into southern Zimbabwe around 1836. Mzilikazi brought with him the powerful military organization of the Zulus and was able to establish a kingdom at the expense of the resident Shona. At the time of independence, the Matabele made up about 19 percent of the population. The two tribes, Shona and Matabele, have had a long history of mutual hostility.
BRITISH: The British tribe is composed of several subgroups: Scots, Irish, Welsh and English. One of these, the English, has been dominant for several centuries. The British gained control of Zimbabwe around 1890, but not without violent dissent from the Shona and Matabele. Several uprisings occurred before 1965, when the British lost control of the country. From 1965 to 1979 Zimbabwe was ruled by a small minority of English tribesmen.
PORTUGUESE: The Portuguese first settled in East Africa in the fifteenth century. They pursued a policy of conquest and trade with the interior for five centuries and developed the slave trade from around 1600. In the twentieth century, a great number of Portuguese immigrated to colonies in Africa. After Mozambique and Angola became independent in 1975, many of these people moved to South Africa, Zimbabwe or back to Portugal.
OTHER TRIBES: Several small tribal groups exist in Zimbabwe. Some of them are immigrants from other countries. These include Indians, Afrikaners, Tonga, Xhosa, Tswana, Venda and an interesting group known either as Brown or Cape Colored. The Brown People originated in the Cape province of South Africa. They are of mixed race, and some of their forebears were Malay indentured servants imported to South Africa many years ago. The Brown People have made important contributions to music, literature and fine cooking. In the book, Eye is Brown.
Great Zimbabwe
This ancient city was constructed between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. No one is absolutely sure who built it, but most people attribute it to the Shona. The ruins are located on a hill. It is nearly invisible from below and must have been easy to defend. Around it lies good farm-land with adequate rainfall. The area has always been free of tsetse flies, a crucial consideration for any economy dependent on cattle. The ancient Zimbabweans mined gold, which they traded for glass beads, porcelain and silk from as far away as China.
Several statues of birds perched on pillars were unearthed from the ruins. It is not clear whether these were eagles or vultures. In some cases a crocodile was carved climbing the pillar. The Zimbabwe bird is the symbol of the modern country.
Great Zimbabwe is only one of several ancient cities in the area. Ruins are found from Mozambique to South Africa, but it is unknown whether they were all part of a large kingdom or represent the remains of several small ones.
Monomatapa
Monomatapa lived in the fifteenth century, and tales of his splendor reached the first Portuguese traders on the coast of Mozambique. He was supposed to rule a vast kingdom from the Kalahari Desert in the west to the Indian Ocean in the east. The size and grandeur of his country were exaggerated, but no more so than that of Camelot in the tales of King Arthur.
Vlei People
In the early twenty-first century, a marshy wasteland in Harare was used to dump toxic chemicals. These formed a witch's brew that had unpredictable and dangerous side effects. The chemicals spread far beyond the original contamination site and permanently ruined a large area in the middle of the city. The area became known as Dead Man's Vlei.
Ordinary people shunned the place. Others, rejected by the normal world, found it to their liking. Every year a few of these individuals would drift into the melancholy wasteland, and every year a few of the older inhabitants would die and add their bodies to its gray mass.
In time, the
vlei
healed itself. Plants and animals moved back, but only these rejected humans dared to live there — if they could be called humans anymore.
Years of isolation and exposure to strange chemicals had wrought a change in them. They seldom spoke, but understood one another's thoughts. When one
vlei
person was angry, the others sensed it. They had evolved a kind of group soul like that of an ant nest. Only one thing was missing to complete their metamorphosis: a spiritual center. This the She Elephant supplied. Her vitality drew them like winter-chilled bees to the sun. She enslaved them, but she also gave them a sense of
home
and
family.
For the first time in their long, dreary existence, the
vlei
people experienced something akin to happiness. And the She Elephant, for the first time in her life, felt needed and perhaps even loved.
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