A Tsonga Initiation

Abstract

(TOP) 1. A COURT MUSICIAN PLAYS A XIZAMBI FRICTION BOW AT THE MEETING OF THE CHIEF'S COUNCIL HELD TO CONFIRM THE WOMEN'S DECISION TO BEGIN THE KHOMBA. (BOTTOM) 2. A GIRL INITIATE PLAYS A XIPENDANA BRACED BOW ON HER WAY TO THE ASSEMBLY POINT. The Tsonga are a Bantu-speaking people of southeastern Africa, numbering about 1,200,000 in Mozambique and 700,000 in the Northern Transvaal. They are famous among neighboring tribes for the emphasis they place upon the maintenance of their folklore tradition, an important part of which is mime, music, and dance. Toward the end of a two-year (1968-70) period spent studying the various Tsonga art forms, the author was unusually fortunate in gaining entrance to the girls' secret initiation rites held at the river's edge, and in tape-recording and photographing the musical events there. Infertility and infant mortality are high in Tsongaland, and the secret rites are thought to provide protection against barrenness caused by witchcraft. Invoked in these rites are fertility-associated visions (water, snakes), the hearing of supernatural voices, music/color synethesia, and other hallucinogenic experiences. All of these result from a combination of the ingestion of a plant drug called Datura fastuosa (known as Jimson weed in California), fast rhythmic drumming at basic brain wave frequencies, hyperventilation through energetic dancing, hypersuggestibility due to the leader's strong urgings, and the culturally-patterned motivations, expectations, and attitudes possessed by the girl-novices. In the secret river-rites, know as khomba, nubile Tsonga girl-novices, schoolmothers (the previous year's graduates), and the supervisor wear blue-dyed salempores, wave blue flags, and paint their faces blue. This color is considered significant because the harmless, bluish-green snakes (Dendrophis subcarinatus, called xihundze locally) which live under the eaves of Tsonga huts are thought to be ancestor-spirits, and because bluish-green patterns (mavalavala rihlaza) are expected to be experienced as part of the drug's effects. The march to the river bank starts out from the village plaza, after an initial ceremonial beer-drink at which the elders debate the time, length, and place of the rites. Three large carved wooden hemispherical tingoma drums are played at the assembly beer-drink. After the decisions are made here, the men hold a special meeting of the Chief's council in order to confirm and/or modify the decisions (Fig. 1). Girl-novices on their way to the assembly point often play musical instruments as they go (Fig. 2). The procession to the river takes the form of hierarchical lines, with the supervisor followed by the drummers followed by the schoolmothers followed by the novices, all singing special assembly and departure songs containing fertility connotations and references to marriage and in-lawship (initiation is a passport to marriage). On the way, the procession stops to perform various dances, including one in which the girls blow whistles and wave hatchets (Fig. 3),