Clearing the graves of the ancestors

Clearing the graves of the ancestors
Thursday, June 30

I spent yesterday afternoon relaxing and talking in the summer hut with Koni and Terna. Women, especially the older generation, from all over the village began walking by with buckets of water going towards Frazer’s place. It was most unusual. Finally, I called sister-in-law, Chifundo aside to find out what was happening. She explained how the women were making tobwa, boiling maize and millet into a sweet, thin, opaque porridge for the men. Apparently it used to be an annual rite to call out all the descendent s of the early reverends of the church to a special graveyard reserved for these elders right beside the church and clear the site of the weeds and undergrowth that had sprung up since the previous year. I didn’t even know this special cemetery existed. Of course, with my religious predilections, I have not spentany time over the last 40 years visiting and acquainting myself with the old church and its surroundings.

The Reverend LameckPhiri was the first of that line.He was Nellie’s grandfather, the father of her dad, George and his siblings. He was a lakeshore Tonga who had come from Chinteche or Bandawe as a teacher and then become the first of the African ministers in the early decades of the last century. As aneducator, he had taught the young Kamuzu Banda whose school bench is still painted black in his honour in the old church / school built in 1903.

Lameck had come from Bandawe Mission on the lakeshore to Chibweya with the Free Church of Scotland. He was amongst the early converts to Christianity and school leavers from the old system where Standard Three represented a lot of schooling. He qualified as a teacher and went inland as part of the missionary enterprise. In Chibweya, he met and married Leya, a Chewa lady and they began their family. A number of lakeshore Tongas followed a similar path, including the family ancestors of our old friend Timothy Ngwira and gradually became assimilated from a patriarchal to a matrilineal and matrilocal tradition.

The Dutch Reform ran the mission at Chilanga and they must have had some agreements with the Free Church of Scotland, since Lameck was teaching in the school at Chilanga when Kamuzu was there in the early years of the mission before the First World War. Sometime in the 1920’s the 2 churches formed the CCAP, Church of Central African Presbyterian, and it would have been under those auspicious that he became the first African minister at Chilanga.

The tobwa was for the menwho had come out to work,almost all of them related to the early reverends. By 5h00 in the morning, a large group of them had collected and begun hoeing up the weeds in the several paths leading to the graveyard and burning the leaves and debris that had been collected.

By 7h00 the work was over and Theodore (Feodolo) Saka at 90 years old, the last surviving son of the reverend Lameck, called the men together and they knelt or sat on their hoes around him as he sat on his father’s tomb and recounted the history that had brought their ancestors and their wives to this spot. It was fascinating for what it represented.

The Cheŵa people have great respect for their elders and to see so many of them kneeling in front of Theodore listening in silent respect was very impressive at a time when many people have walked away from traditional obligations and practices. It was also a reflection of a pre-Christian time when the dead and the living all formed part of the same community. The late departed were honoured as elders still living in the community, just present ina different way and place. I have not read enough about Chewa early religion, but in many ways one sees traditions maintained that do not derive from the Christian mythology, These practices have been slipped in as complements to or add-ons because they have been part of the people’s traditions from time immemorial. Just as the christmas tree and the easter egg date back to pre-christian time in Europe, many Chewa people are looking for sanction from the current churches for practices of their ancestors dating to before the arrival of Christian missionaries who were dedicated to destroying those ‘pagan’ belief systems.

The way the women and men shared the work and came together so willingly to honour their ancestors is a tribute to the power of some customs and traditions. I spoke with a couple of the young men who had sat at Theodore’s foot as he taught and they were very happy to learn from him and be part of the process. It creates a powerful sense of inclusion and brings the history to life and contributes to keeping it alive in a way no school textbook could ever hope to accomplish.