ZIMBABWE is known for its relatively short rainy season.
This deficiency has pre-occupied the people who inhabited the geographical space of Zimbabwe for centuries.
With an average annual rainfall of 100mm a month recorded in some areas of Zimbabwe, and a short rainy season, usually from October to March, it stands to reason that some intervention is required for the Nation to have adequate rainfall for their agricultural production.
Pre-historic archaeology and anthropology are replete with examples of rain-asking ceremonies, rites and rituals which are inscribed on cave paintings and recorded in our oral folklore.
Many aspects of early southern African San rock-art imagery can be understood in light of the 19th and 20th Century ethnography.
One of the most prominent subjects, observed on the iron-age rock-art sites is rain-asking.
The southern African San peoples’ beliefs and paintings, depicting a variety of rain-control rites and ‘rain-animals’ in supernatural and surrealist imagery painted on granite rock friezes in caves and open granite rock faces widespread around Zimbabwe, inform us about their reliance on weather intervention and supplication.
In the few examples of meteorological archaeology recorded in indigenous San rock-art paintings dating back to the later Stone Age occupation in Zimbabwe, between 6 000 and 10 000 years ago and even further to Early Age sites of 40 000 years ago on rock-art friezes painted, chipped or smeared with coloured organic pigments, they are clear illustrations of some rites and rituals associated with rain-asking in Zimbabwe.
It is interesting to note that most of these rock-art friezes are found in caves in the more fertile areas of Zimbabwe; Matopos, Domboshava, Nharira, Marondera, Mutoko and Murehwa.
Could it have been that the rain-asking supplications that took place in these ancient sacred sites ensured the fertility of the soil that is evident around these areas?
Rain-asking practices have baffled many scientists, religious pundits, meteorologists and others, and continue to do so today.
Yet year-in and year-out, the faithful traditionalists continue to hold their annual mukwerera ceremonies.
The rain-asking ceremony of mukwerera is among the most important Shona rituals held to petition ancestral spirits for rain and generally takes place between September and January each year.
Each household participates in the ceremony by sharing in the provision of music, dance, food and drink.
The ceremonies are generally held at shrines dedicated to the particular mhondoro of that area.
Among the Zezuru people, the shrine is built around a muhacha tree and is termed a ‘rushanga’, while the Korekore built a special hillock shrine and call it ‘dandemaro’.
In the pre-colonial period, a delegation of elders would visit a paramount chief if there was the slightest sign of impending rain, who would then summon all headmen and spirit mediums and a day would be set aside for the rain-asking ceremony.
Beer was brewed in large quantities, with the chief providing cattle for slaughtering.
During the beer-drinking, names of all the dead chiefs were invoked in order of precedence to intercede for their children, the village and community, by sending good rains.
Should there be no rain after the ceremony, black bulls, rams and fowls would be sent to a spirit medium to appease any communal wrong-doings that might be preventing the rain.
If these gifts were acceptable, rain was bound to fall in the area of the supplicating chief.
In later-day ceremonies, beer is brewed and the entire village is summoned to a sacred place, usually in a rocky mountain area, where traditional dances are performed, following which, requests are made to the spirits for bountiful rain.
A research and survey of rain-asking ceremonies conducted in Zimbabwe in the mid-1970s showed that traditional sweet-millet beer was an essential ingredient of all ceremonies.
The rain-asking brew is a sweet beer, brewed from finger millet and sometimes using fruit and branches of a muhacha tree spread out symbolically around the rain-asking site.
Praying for rain however, is not exclusive to Zimbabwe, but to most indigenous societies including Islam, Native American Indians, Aborigines, China and Japan who have all developed sophisticated rites and prayers to ask for rain.
Every culture in southern Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, is integrally integrated with the environment.
In fact, culture feeds off the environment.
It is the bedrock of hunhu/ubuntu.
Our ancestors knew the environment all too well and were aware of the needs.
Rain is closely linked to fertility, a fertility which begins with the land; the propagation of seeds, its germination, its blossoming and ultimately the harvest.
Many aspects of our material and culture as well as intangible heritage make reference to the rains and their symbolic importance to indigenous life.
The Mwari religion, with the high priests and priestesses, was centred on indigenous cultural practices around rain.
These practices, in the form of ceremonies and other rituals, were necessary for the survival of the people of Zimbabwe.
Most ceremonial rites were carried out at natural altar sites in the batholiths rocks and archaeological sites of our ritual memory and other numerous granite outcrops and sacred spaces as well as water- bodies that dot the landscape of the Nation.
One such ceremony was the annual traditional mukwerera observance at the sacred Njelele Shrine, in the Matobo Hills, south of Bulawayo, in order that the community receive abundant rains for the season.
The mapfuwe ceremonial dance, which originated in Mashonaland Central, is also associated with the agrarian success of rain-asking and a thanksgiving ceremony is performed following a good harvest.
Most of us have also come to appreciate the historical evidence during the Great Zimbabwe era that prove that our ancestors were agrarian people with great skills in agriculture and animal husbandry, as well as metal smelting in iron, copper and gold which they traded.
They cultivated fields of sorghum and millet and bred domesticated animals.
One of the spiritual functions of Great Zimbabwe was as a rain-asking shrine.
A rain-asking bira (bira re musa), still takes place in the Masvingo area.
Over the decades too, Zimbabwe has come to be known as an ‘agricultural country’.
How did our ancestors develop such successful agrarianisms with such low rainfall?
Nenyasha dzaMwari (By the grace and mercy of God?)
It is for this reason therefore, that rain-asking ceremonies, dances, songs and rites have been developed.
From Domboshava to Njelele, to Mamvuradona to Chitomborwizi and Nharira are all water bodies that were used as rain shrines.
From Cecil John Rhodes to Ian Douglas Smith, the colonisers clandestinely practiced the same African traditional rain-asking ceremonies.
In fact, it is known that the racist Smith annually called upon the Council of Elders to his farm in Shurugwi to carry out rain prayers and related rites in order to supplicate the ancestors to intercede on his behalf for a good rainy season.
Has this important practice fallen by the wayside in Zimbabwe today?
Have we, in our high-tech age, lost our beliefs and the need to invoke our ancestors for their help and guidance?
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) and Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, lecturer, musician, art critic, practicing artist and corporate image consultant. He is also a specialist art consultant, post-colonial scholar, Zimbabwean socio-economic analyst and researcher.
For views and comments, email: tonym.MONDA@gmail.com