in the things of the spirit to his grandmother, but he longed to join the apprentices in their training. Often, if he was not herding the cows or hunting in the veld for small game and birds, he would climb into the grain bin next to the Indumba and eavesdrop as the apprentices learned the mysteries of herbs and potions and the secrets revealed in the throwing of the bones.
Grandmother had four apprentices, three women in their early twenties and a young man of about eighteen called Sidumo. Grandmother occupied the main hut, the young women lived together in the spacious beehive hut and Mandla and Sidumo shared the mud-and-thatch hut next to the Indumba.
The Indumba was the Spirit House where Grandmother communed with the Ancestors. She often spent her nights there in conversation with the spirits, only returning to sleep in her hut in the hour before the sun rose.
Mandla was fascinated by the dialogue Grandmother held with the Ancestors, but Sidumo cursed and covered his head with his blanket if the insistent clamour of spirit voices became too loud.
In fact, Sidumo always seemed to be in a bad mood. He was tall and bony, with coal-black skin and hair twisted into a mop of greasy rats’ tails. His long yellow teeth were far too large for his gaunt face – so that he always seemed to be snarling – and he behaved like an ill-treated mongrel: sly and secretive, suspicious of kindness, ever ready to growl and snap.
Mandla couldn’t understand why Grandmother had agreed to take Sidumo on as an apprentice. He had no interest in the healing arts. All he wanted to learn about was sorcery and witchcraft and he often boasted about his dark ambitions when Grandmother wasn’t around.
“The old woman doesn’t realise how lucky she is to have a male apprentice,” Sidumo told the other apprentices one evening while they ate their meal outside the kitchen hut. “The Ancestors usually choose women as diviners. When a man is chosen it means that the spirits believe he has exceptional potential. If you were real tangoma you would know how special I am.” Sidumo gestured at Mandla with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Boys like you will never be chosen, even if you are your granny’s favourite,” he said spitefully. “And women are soft. It is easy for the Ancestors to dominate them,” he continued. “A male sangoma like me takes the power of the Ancestors and makes it his own. Which of you can make really strong magic … dark magic? When I finish my bondage in this kraal of women and goats the whole Nation will find out about Sidumo. All your sick old men with their constipation and their limp imitfondvo … pah! I will not deal in enemas and love potions. My cauldron will brew corruption and death.”
The older apprentices looked at each other and rolled their eyes. They weren’t impressed by Sidumo’s boasting, but Mandla wondered what Grandmother would think of Sidumo’s dark ambitions. She treated Sidumo with the same kindness that she showed to all the other apprentices and often it seemed to Mandla that she was blind to Sidumo’s faults. Somehow it was always Mandla who got the scoldings. But Mandla also knew that the old lady didn’t like telltales and he would be the one to get a swift clip across his ear if he said anything to her about Sidumo’s boasting. For the same reason he hadn’t told her that Sidumo had lately taken to leaving the homestead after dark, usually to return a little before first light. At first, Mandla suspected that Sidumo had found himself a girlfriend, but when he mentioned this to the other apprentices one morning they exploded into girlish giggles. “Not even a baboon would accept Sidumo as a boyfriend,” Thuli said.
One night Mandla couldn’t sleep. It was the month of iNkhwekhweti, when the night wind blows the leaves from the trees and rustles the thatch roofs of the houses. The wind was strong that night and showers of dust kept falling from the eaves onto Mandla’s sleeping mat, keeping him awake. On the other side of the hut Sidumo lay on his back, snoring.
A shaft of pale moonlight slanted through the open door and Mandla could hear Grandmother chanting her spirit song in the Indumba. He lay still, letting the distant sounds wash over him and thinking of his grandmother. She was the wisest person he knew, yet she never claimed any knowledge as her own. “I’m just an old pig’s bladder, filled with the hot breath of the Ancestors,” she once told him. “When an answer or a prophecy is needed all the Ancestors do is squeeze this old bladder and out comes their voice of wisdom.”
Suddenly a large, spiky dung beetle flew noisily through the moonlit doorway, carrying with it the smell of fresh manure. It made for the snoring form of Sidumo and landed clumsily right in his open mouth.
Sidumo sat up, spluttering and coughing. He spat the beetle into his hand and looked at it with disgust.
Mandla chuckled.
“You did that, didn’t you?” Sidumo said, glaring at him. “You put this libhungane in my mouth.”
He hurled the beetle at Mandla, who ducked even as he chuckled some more. “It wasn’t me,” he said, stifling his laughter. “The libhungane thought your face was a cowpat. It must have smelt your breath.”
Now Sidumo was really furious. He leaned over to reach for the knobstick that he always kept in the corner near his sleeping mat. Mandla had been bruised by that knobstick before and he doubted that Sidumo would ever believe that the dung beetle had found its own way into his mouth. It was time to go. He rolled over quickly, pulling his blanket with him, and made for the doorway. Sidumo would soon go back to sleep if he kept out of his way.
Mandla crept outside, wrapping the blanket around himself. The moon was up above the granite mountain and in the silvery darkness Mandla could hear the trees groaning and swaying. A dim light glowed from the low doorway of the Spirit House. He peered inside and saw Grandmother on her knees in front of the embers of a fire. Her face was wet with sweat and she seemed to be pleading. “Ye, Nkhosi, it is true that he is pushed by the spirit and he has the hole in his head, it is true, it is true! But, Nkhosi, it has been spoken that the son of his father must never be permitted to follow the path of the diviner or there will be great danger to the King and the Nation. And, Nkhosi, he is only a boy! Whoever heard of a child becoming sangoma at such an age? Take this task from me, Nkhosi, I cannot condemn my own grandson …”
Mandla heard an angry snort. Turning, he saw that he was not alone outside the Indumba. Yellow teeth and eyes glittered in the darkness. Sidumo had followed him from the sleeping hut. “The fat fool means to initiate a cockroach like you,” he said, his voice low and spiteful. “What nonsense is this? The spirits will crush you, and if they do not, I will crush you myself – like this!” He raised his knobstick threateningly.
Mandla ran behind the Indumba and took the path beside the cattle kraal that led down to the stream. Once he was sure that Sidumo wasn’t following him, he found his old hiding place in the hollow of a huge waterberry tree and crept in, holding the blanket around him so that he was cocooned in a snug, warm nest. He didn’t care about Sidumo’s jealous words. He was filled with a strange feeling of elation. Grandmother had spoken of him becoming a sangoma. He was going to be an apprentice, he just knew it! Too excited to sleep he sat in his cosy nest imagining all kinds of triumphs and victories. Mandla the sangoma, he said to himself.Mandla, the greatest of the tangoma, he repeated out loud. It was not until the cocks started crowing that he nodded off, still sitting upright in his hiding place.
3
The customers usually arrived soon after sunrise, gathering on a wooden bench near the Indumba. If it was raining they were welcomed into the kitchen hut, where a warm fire burned in the stone hearth. There they waited whilst the homestead came to life, until Grandmother and her chosen apprentice were ready to see them in the Indumba.
Grandmother used her supernatural knowledge and her long experience as a sangoma to diagnose and treat illnesses and to give advice on all kinds of problems. Most of the time Grandmother and the apprentice were kept
