THE major reason why Western powers shipped First Chimurenga heroes’ decapitated heads as trophies and artifacts to their countries was to break the spiritual link that bound the people with their ancestors and erase their story from the people’s memory.
It is a common belief in the African culture that if a person is not properly buried, their restless spirit will cause problems.
This could explain why so many problems are afflicting Zimbabwe at the moment.
This is why there was a well-hatched plan from the onset of colonialism to separate Africans from their spirituality as captured in Belgium’s King Leopold II’s infamous ‘lecture’ to missionaries journeying to Congo in 1883.
“Reverends, Fathers and Dear Compatriots: The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact,” said Leopold.
“Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the niggers to know God, this they know already.
“They speak and submit to a Mungu, one Nzambi, one Nzakomba, and what else I don’t know.
“They know that to kill, to sleep with someone else’s wife, to lie and to insult is bad. Have the courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already.”
Leopold was more damning in his presentation, telling the missionaries to twist the minds of the Congolese from practising their beliefs and following their culture.
“You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives them the courage to affront us,” he said.
“Teach the niggers to forget their heroes and adore only yours.”
In Zimbabwe, that ‘strategy’ was executed by Cecil John Rhodes who, despite dying at Muizenberg in Cape Town on March 26 1902 chose to be buried at the Matonjeni or Mabweadziva in Matopos.
Mabweadziva was the revered shrine where our forefathers gathered to communicate with our gods.
Rhodes knew the significance of that place to our wellbeing.
That is why he chose to be buried there because that way, there was no way we could communicate with our gods without passing through him.
Today we are literally being forced to mourn the shooting of a lion called Cecil!
Following President Robert Mugabe’s call for London’s Natural History Museum to return of the country’s human trophies and skulls of freedom fighters who were killed by British colonisers during the Heroes Day commemorations, there has been a muted response from the colonial master.
British officials acknowledged that discussion about the repatriation of Zimbabwean human remains began last year, but did not say whether a final decision had been made, a British daily, The Guardian reported last week.
President Mugabe said the missing skulls probably belonged to leaders of The First Chimurenga most of whom were hanged in 1898.
“The First Chimurenga leaders, whose heads were decapitated by the colonial occupying force, were then dispatched to England, to signify British victory over, and subjugation of, the local population,” President Mugabe said during this year’s Heroes Day commemoration.
“Surely, keeping decapitated heads as war trophies, in this day and age, in a national history museum, must rank among the highest forms of racist moral decadence, sadism and human insensitivity.”
In April last year, The Patriot went to Chesa in Mt Darwin to listen to how significant the spiritual dimension was to Zimbabwe’s struggle for freedom.
The eye-opening encounter with Obert Gwerevende, a man who saw it all, transported us to that world.
This is why Zimbabwe has been making frantic efforts for the repatriation of the remains of the country’s freedom fighters.
There is a catch to it.
Their spirits, wondering in foreign lands must be brought back home not only for a decent burial, but perhaps to protect the nation from the evils wrought upon us by the other world.
This is why Mbuya Nehanda is important to us and our history.
This is why it is documented that on the day she was captured by Cecil John Rhodes’ British South Africa Company, the wires to London were hot with jubilant messages to relatives in England that the ‘Mashona War’ had ended.
She is important to our history, our conquest of colonialism, our lives and even to our unity, peace, growth and development as a nation.
There are many things that some believe have a bearing on their successes or failures in life.
These include our human trophies and our artifacts.
When I was growing up in the Jowane Masowe Echishanu Vadzidzi apostolic sect, we were told many times about the sacred staff of the sect founder, Sixpence Shonhiwa, that the colonialists had taken away in 1932 because it performed wonders.
That staff is believed to be in some museum in England.
Such is the significance of that staff that up to date, there are concerted efforts to bring it home.
We believe there is mystical power in that staff, the same way we believe there is a mystical power in our human trophies in London.
Only time will tell.