Cultural Heritage: African perception of the extra-ordinary and the unusual. A look at the Igabha regiment/village

• Published date: 05 September 2016
• Publication title: The Sunday News

Perceptions do, without doubt, influence cultural behaviour. Perceptions are a community's worldview which inspires and informs behaviour. So it was with twins (amawele or amaphahla) among the Ndebele. Here the important consideration is that in normal circumstances a woman gives birth to a single child. Twins are therefore an abnormality, a phenomenon that is out of the ordinary or extra-ordinary, unique and strange.

The story of perceptions does not end here. What is perceived as extra-ordinary is thought to possess power that is more than that of the ordinary and the usual. These perceptions result in a wide range of cultural practices and attitudes some of which border on the spiritual. Here lies the explanation and interpretation for the treatment of albinos in countries such as Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania. Where power is seen to reside, it is harnessed and that, in practical terms, translates to ritual murder or hunting down and killing the habitat.

It is the same thinking that lies behind attitudes towards disabled persons. Their uniqueness is regarded, in African terms, as translating to concentrated power. The perception is that the extra-ordinary, the different and the unique are associated with power and, as a result, sometimes sacredness and divinity are invested in such objects, persons and physical aspects of a landscape.

Such an understanding does help to interpret cultural phenomena such as rainmaking rituals that are associated with extra-ordinary aspects of physical landscapes. Traditional Africa perceived the earth as being female and therefore associated with fertility, which translates to or is associated with rainmaking and rain.

The natural environment, both flora and fauna, is sustained through rain. A mother, more than a father, plays a critical role in the natural process of child bearing-read fertility and continuity. Landscape is by and large consistent or uniform in terms of altitude, vegetation and physical features. A unique physical landscape such as the Matobo Hills is perceived as unique, extra-ordinary and unusual.

Mountains are perceived as indicators of a woman's pregnancy, with caves that have spring water being taken for a womb with amniotic fluid. At the Njelele rain shrine the unique cave comprising stone/rock, mountain, cave, water and trees becomes a very extra-ordinary physical feature which represents a combination of perceptions that led to the investment of sacredness to the hill, thus culminating in the hill...