By Vitalis Ruvando

ANY talk about antecessors revolves around ‘the family tree’ and genealogical considerations.
Antecessors create life and animate one’s lifestyle for the common good. Sovereignty foundations of African creation, life, pride, identity and liberation come from antecessors.
Antecessors are an inspiring and resolute standing army.
Antecessors are persons or spirits from whom one has descended.
These living dead have sovereignty genealogical and land predicates.
No bachelor or spinster can be an antecessor.
Land, parenthood and moral rectitude define an antecessor.
It is by the facts of land, genealogy, Afro-centric pride and identity that antecessors create, protect and are venerated.
Sovereignty traditions impute an antecessor as ‘mudzimu’.
The word ‘mudzimu’ derives from mudzi; tap root, that can’t exist without land or umbilical cord, that can’t be without a woman and suffixed with mu: core or essence.
The womb, the nest in allegorical terms is the first land or hub every baby knows. In the womb abides procreation antecessors: mudzimu weshiri uri mudendere.
The first proof of the presence of antecessors express as nesting instincts: chingo yedendere.
The breast, that can’t be without womanhood is the external root that feeds the baby.
In the breast abides life sustaining and disease protecting antecessors.
‘Mudzimu’ is the core root of a family that is enduringly anchored in womanity.
In essence, word and design; the irrevocable nexus between mudzimu and mudzimai: virtuous wife form a family: musha mukadzi.
This sovereignty and enduring nexus nurtures nostalgia for self-identity, determination and pride or reverse empty nest syndrome in every person that emotionally and socially ties one to the mother, antecessors and land: kusina mai hakuendwi.
The etymology between mudzimu and mudzimai is not coincidental.
Both have the stem mudzi: root.
The suffixes of the two concepts (mu: core and mai: mother) are socially and emotionally converged.
Proverbial wisdom affirms that, mudzimu mukuru ndowokwamai: the influential antecessor is from the matrilineal side.
Self identity, pride, determination, land and sovereignty are endowments from antecessors bestowed on indigenes through the mother.
Land, mother, self-identity, pride and determination are a birth right proceeding from sovereignty genealogies or antecessors not colonial precedents.
Knowledge society, being the antecessors’ superhighway orients the child towards the mother and land.
The numbers of months a baby stays in the womb or is breastfed contribute to increased affection between mother, child and land.
Knowledge economy, being a colonial superhighway disorients the mother-land-child relationship and subsequently diminishes the nexus they have with the antecessors.
“Six months of exclusive breastfeeding is far less than a quarter of what tradition prescribes, delegitimises the African ethos of the mother and significantly dilutes the rootedness of an African child,” said Nyamukuta: traditional midwife Masiziva.
Consequently, the etiologies of identity crisis, self alienation and contempt, schizophrenic, masochistic and Afro-phobic behaviours prevail.
Doubtlessly, the concept mudzimu is subject to temporal conjunctures.
Hindsight wisdom affirms that it’s the mother who knows the truth about the paternity of a child.
Many men unconsciously plant the seeds.
Many women consciously decide which of the planted seed to germinate.
Thus, one can only be sure of one’s mother: anoziva ndimai kuti mwana ndewani. It is the land or womb, that can’t exist without the woman that knows the germinated seed: chinoziva ivhu.
Believe it or not, some women can retrieve virginity and manipulate DNA using rituals and herbs called kuriga dzinza or kupingudza binga.
Women can determine the sex and gender of a child using rituals or herbs: kuchinja nyoka.
It is from these affirmative perceptions that indigenes acknowledge the mightiness of the mother: mudzimu mukuru ndookwamai.
However, male chauvinists contempt this portrayal of women as naive by equating women to restitution spirits: mukadzi ingozi.
Colonial literature subverted antecessors to intensify the subjugation of women. Their literature is not only about Christ modeling our lives, but glorifying European patronage, colonial dictates and reifying woman.
The literature depicts midzimu as goblins to excite would-be travellers to Africa about the need to be eradicated antecessors and ensure evangelical success.
This is propping spiritual globalisation that is transplanting indigenous concepts with evangelical proxies.
They diminish antecessors as the bedrock of paganism.
Africa is labelled a dark continent and the upside-down of Europe. Africans are portrayed without a single ray of faith.
Racial extremism blurs their vision from distinguishing between wild animals and Africans. The same fails us in distinguishing ancestors from antecessors. Christianity expansionism thrives on the death rate of antecessors.
Antecessors provide for daily necessities.
“Retrieve and restore sovereignty antecessors,” said aspiring Village head Nee Rerwi.