Venda Culture

Unfortunately, the chief was vacationing at his home in Cape Town during our visit, so we were only able to approach the gates of his compound. Even this much access required twenty minutes of negotiation between the chief’s underlings and our guides, Dr. Dima and Solly. After many bows, gesticulations, niceties, and donations, we were able to wander briefly around the compound. 

 

 

The Sacred Forest

Traditionally, the Venda people were buried at home. However, after ten to fifteen years, their remains would be uncovered by family members and brought here, to the Sacred Forest. The family members would spend the night in the forest, using snuff to help them communicate with the ancestors, and leave the remains deep in the forest so that their loved one can join the ancestors there. 

 

Now, the Sacred Forest, a fertile area of wetland and rainforest, is surrounded on all sides by towering, slim pine trees that have been planted for paper production. It is certain that these pines are straining the land and draining it of its water (pine trees require huge amounts of water to thrive), but for now, the rainforest remains, its very existence among the pines a reason to consider it sacred. 

Lake Fundudzi

The ghosts of the ancestors of the Venda people swirl beneath the surface of Lake Fundudzi. When you visit the lake you must greet them through ritual, without looking at the lake directly. Turn around, keeping your back to the lake, and then bend over so that your head hangs between your legs. Now, open your eyes. The lake is before you, swimming upside down. Call “Fundudzi!” and raise yourself out of your pose. Now, you may gaze at the blue waters, home to many sacred fish and snakes, and of course, the powerful ancestors.

Limpopo River

“Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees,” 

-Rudyard Kipling, “The Elephant’s Child: Just So Stories”

 

Bietbridge

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Bietbridge is the border post between South Africa and Zimbabwe. It was nearing five o’clock in the evening when we approached and the border seemed to be closing soon. The queue of vehicles snaked for at least three kilometers and was completely stopped. Well-dressed men and women, looking as if they’d just left work, walked casually past our car on their way home. The group of men who filled the van in front of us began to climb out, gather their packages, and walk the rest of the way to the border. People and goods were passing through South Africa and into Zimbabwe, and everywhere was the push to get across the border before the sun went down.

Read: -Heart of Darkness- by Joseph Conrad

“Ivory? I should think so. Heaps of it, stacks of it. The old mud shanty was bursting with it. You would think there was not a single tusk left either above or below the ground in the whole country. ‘Mostly fossil,’ the manager had remarked, disparagingly. It was no more fossil than I am; but they call it fossil when it is dug up. It appears these niggers do bury the tusks sometimes-but evidently they couldn’t bury this parcel deep enough to save the gifted Mr. Kurtz from his fate. We filled the steamboat with it, and had to pile a lot on the deck. Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he could see, because the appreciation of this favour had remained with him to the last. You should have heard him say, ‘My ivory.’ Oh yes, I heard him. ‘My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my–’ everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him-but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible-it was not good for one either-trying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land-I mean literally. You can’t understand. How could you?-with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums-how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man’s untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-utter solitude without a policeman-by the way of silence-utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong-too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil; the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil-I don’t know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place-and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won’t pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, sounds, with smells, too, by Jove!”