‘You cannot fight an evil disease with sweet medicine’ is the saying popular amongst us witch-doctors. And one cannot hope to cure a putrid malady like inter-racial hatred and misunderstanding by mincing words. So I warn readers that they are in for a nasty shock. This is not the book for people who prefer hypocrisy to fact.”
- Credo Mutwa
Credo Mutwa, heralded as the "Father of Indigenous Knowledge", was, until March 25, 2021, the last living sangoma, or traditional Bantu healer, to undergo the thwasa - sangoma training and initiation. He joined the ancestors at the age of 98. In the prologue of his awesome book, Indaba, My Children, Credo Mutwa writes,
“These are the stories that old men and old women tell to boys and girls seated with open mouths around the spark-wreathed fires in the centres of the villages in the dark forests and on the aloe-scented plains of Africa.
Under the gaze of the laughing stars the Old One sits, his kaross wrapped around his age-blasted shoulders, staring with rheumy eyes at the semi-circle of eager expectant faces before him - faces of those who have taken but a few steps along the dark and uncertain footpath called LIfe - faces as yet unmarked by furrows of bitterness, ill-health and anger - the fresh, pure, open faces of . . . .children. . . .
Suddenly the Old One feels a great burden on his shoulders - a heavy responsibility towards the young ones sitting so expectantly around him. Suddenly there is a visible sag to his thin, aged shoulders. He sighs - a harsh, rasping sound - and clears his throat, spitting and blowing his nose into the fire, as his father and his father’s father did before him. And he begins the story - the old, old story which he knows he must repeat exactly as he hear it so long ago, without changing, adding or subtracting a single word: ‘Indaba, My Children, . . .’
It is through these stories that we are able to reconstruct the past of the Bantu of Africa. It is through these stories that intertribal friendship or hatred was kept alive and burning; that the young were told who their ancestors were, who their enemies were and who their friends were. In short, it is these stories that shaped Africa as we know it - years and years ago . . . .
True, the Black man of Africa had no mighty scrolls on which to write the history of his land. True, the Black tribes of Africa had no pyramids on which to carve the history of each and every crowned thief and tyrant who ruled them - on which to carve the history of every battle lost and won. But this they did, and still do!
There are men and women, preferably with black birth-marks on either of the palms of their hands, with good memories and a great capacity to remember words and to repeat them exactly as they had heard them spoken. These people were told the history of the Tribes, under oath never to alter, add or subtract any word. Anyone who so much as thought of changing any of the stories of his tribe that he had been told fell immediately under a High Curse which covered him, his children and his children’s children. These tribal story-tellers were called Guardians of the Umlando or Tribal History.
And I, Vusamazulu the Outcast, am proud to be one of these, and here I shall tell these stories to you in the very words of the Guardians who told them to me. Indaba, My Children. . . ‘“
In November of 2006, I went to Azania (South Africa) and I hoped to see Credo Mutwa. I had organized The Rastafari Global Inity Conference (RGIC) in Azania and was there as a follow-up to my diplomatic efforts with His Excellency, President Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki, President of South Africa. In my five volume work, Come Out of Her My People! 21st Century Black Prophetic Faith and Pan African Diplomacy, I chronicled the event:
“When I reached Azania, I was met at the airport by a large host of Rastafari. The welcoming was overwhelming . . . .The entire Rastafari Community in Azania sent delegations to greet me. The reception at the airport lasted more than an hour and I was immediately given my Zulu name: ‘Siphiwe” which, like Nathaniel (my middle name at birth) means ‘gift’. . . . I have received the Royal Treatment since arrival. Receptions, lectures, etc. have been planned in all nine provinces, though I won’t be able to make them all. I am lecturing at North West University in Mafikeng Campus in North West Province on November 14 and then on to Cape Town.”
Unfortunately, I was not able to meet with Credo Mutwa during that trip. So I am taking this time to pay my respects. Given that Credo Mutwa has just recently joined the ancestors and that the COVID -19 Pandemic is showing itself as a harbinger of a revolutionary change in human society, it is fitting to share the following two excerpt from Indaba, My Children: The Race That Died and Thy Doom, Oh Amarire!, both ancient history and potent warning for mankind today.