IN our last episode, we made reference to different strategies for mobilising supplementary irrigation to avert drought-induced food insecurity.
We discussed traditional African ways to enhance rainfall in an earlier article.
A colleague pointed out that most Africans today would be too embarassed to follow the traditional ways of enhancing rainfall.
As a result, we are unlikely to benefit from the wisdom of our ancestors as we refuse to recognise the various technologies that stood well for Africa for centuries.
This week we explore rainfall phenomena that point to the crucial role of ancestral spirits and Musikavanhu, the creator.
So-called educated Africans shun traditional practices.
They argue that these practices are unscientific, primitive.
Others swear by the Bible, which they believe is God’s word.
When you ask them how much of God’s word was left after King James of England and Scotland (United Kingdom) engaged 42 scholars over a period of six months to revise the Bible, they still insist whatever the scribes and the revisers wrote was the inspired word of God.
When you point out that King James and indeed much of Europe resented the African focus and content of the Bible, hence the revision to de-Africanise the scriptures, they can’t see the point because they have been indoctrinated beyond salvation.
My concern is, we are rejecting our own wisdom, culture and religion and worse, our own technologies that have served us well for thousands of years.
I have been making some simple observations about rainfall patterns during this cropping season.
Many of the observations can only be explained from an African perspective, but many will dismiss me.
A colleague reminded me that as an educated professor I should not entertain these superstitions, but I believe I am educated enough to appreciate that a little whiteman’s education cannot rub away the reality of my experiences.
Therefore, I refuse to deny the African reality around me.
I call upon Africans, especially those who have received considerable Western education and Christian indoctrination to stop and think.
God created one world.
The reality of existence is the same across all continents.
What we see is largely what is there.
Magic is what you do not understand.
Whatever name you call it does not change reality.
And so let us return to recount some experiences during the drought and rainfall situation of this 2016 cropping season.
I drive through the town of Banket in Mashonaland West on numerous occasions as I commute to my farm in Makonde Disctrict.
Whenever there are rain showers, I have noticed that these stop at the edge of the town on either side.
Rarely do the rain showers fall within the town’s environs.
Over time, my scientific mind began to see a pattern; for some reason it was not raining in Banket town.
Rains have literally been skipping the town.
Hard evidence has come in the form of near total crop failure for all the maize fields within the town.
When I asked some residents of Banket why little or no rain was falling in their town, answers came thick and fast.
“Makunakuna awandisa.
“Makorokoza arikuurayana pazvimugodhi zviripedyo nekuchipatara.
“Uye kunekupondwa kwevanhu murokesheni.”
You get the impression the place has become some Sodom and Gomorrah.
In the case of Banket and perhaps other villages, our own gods are withholding rains as punishment for the sins of the residents.
Africans in Zimbabwe generally believe that incest, murder and other anti-social crimes invite the anger and wrath of our ancestral spirits and indeed Musikavanhu.
The punishment does not wait for the person to die, it is delivered collectively.
Selective droughts are one form of punishment.
We visited a mhondoro (spirit medium) to inquire about the persistent dry weather in our area.
We submitted the traditional tobacco (chambwa), black cloth and a small amount of cash, in conformity with the kupetera practice.
We were told the skies were dry, but locals had desecrated the holy places and hills.
Particularly, the apostolic faithful were alleged to be climbing holy mountains, entering sacred caves and baptising their converts in sacred river pools normally inhabited by the water spirits such as ‘njuzu’ and the water snake spirit, tsunguni’, both key elements in the rain-sourcing sequences.
These practices had angered the ancestral spirits of the land and Musikasvanhu.
Several local people came to conduct ceremonies to request for rain, but some members of the same communities had professed to be Christians and did not associate with what were considered ungodly African religious practices.
When the rains eventually came, they literally ‘jumped’ the fields of those who had refused to participate.
At first it looked just like patchy rains, but when the villagers identified whose fields had received rains, it became clear that the fields of those who had not participated had not received rain.
Of course the ‘educated’ Africans will want to dismiss this incident, but it is real.
In a third incident, a large scale farm on the banks of the Manyame River irrigated their maize and soyabean crops until almost flowering stages when their pumps broke down.
They left the pipes in the field.
When the recent spate of wet weather started, no rains fell on that farm until most of the crops were wilting.
By some unknown inspiration, the manager ordered that all the irrigation pipes be removed from the field and stowed away.
Almost immediately, the rains began to fall on his farm.
They are still falling.
We were also irrigating but our unit had broken down and when repaired, the ZESA lines were brought down by the high winds.
We had pipes lying out in the field waiting for the power to return some day.
We suffered the same fate as the neighbouring farm; the rain kept skirting round our farm.
Last Saturday I added two and two together and ordered that all pipes be stowed away.
The same afternoon it started raining and we have continued to receive showers every day.
You can dismiss all this as mere speculation, but the truth is what we experience!
We must record more such cases to build up evidence for what is a commonly accepted African phenomena: the link between rainfall and religious ceremonies and morality.
Let us embrace and refine our African technologies, the wisdom of our forefathers and Musikavanhu!