and soon she would be scolding, counselling and comforting the patient in equal turns, a monologue punctuated only by frequent shakes of her lishoba.
When Mandla threw the bones he borrowed from Grandmother he could make out the signs of illness or death and the patterns which spoke of relations, money, luck, accidents and witchcraft. Yet still he struggled to make out the full story that a proper diagnosis required. It was as though some kind of fog obscured his inner vision.
“You need to find your own sikhwama,” Grandmother explained. “All the other apprentices have theirs, but I thought you were still too young for such a journey.”
“What is this sikhwama, Gogo?” Mandla asked.
“It’s the bag in which a sangoma keeps his muti and his bones. It is also the symbol of his power. Every true sangoma must have a sikhwama.”
“Where is my muti bag to be found, Gogo? Is it something I must buy?”
“No, my child, a true muti bag can never be bought. It must be inherited. It is given to you by your guardian spirit, along with his power and protection.”
The boy thought about this for a moment. “Does that mean I have to go to the spirit world to fetch my bag?” he finally asked. “You always say that we must meet the spirits in their world, as they cannot set foot in this land?”
Grandmother shook her head. “The guardian spirit of a sangoma was himself a sangoma in his lifetime. When he died his sikhwama was hidden according to tradition. Once he selects his mystic heir, he guides you from within to the hidden place where you will find your inheritance. So long as you have his muti bag he is bound to you by a bond of power and he cannot progress from the shadowland of the Ancestors until you yourself have ceased to be a sangoma.”
“Who then is my guardian spirit, Gogo? Is it my father?”
“No, child, he is greater than your father, he is greater than all of us. You shall know him soon enough. When the moon is empty, two days from now, you shall spend the night in the Indumba. There you will meet Lunwabu, the chameleon sorcerer.”
6
On the night of the empty moon, Grandmother and all the apprentices gathered in the Spirit House. The fire was built up and a trance pot was prepared from a mixture of dried insangu herbs and the seeds of the wild morning glory. Mandla sat to one side on a small mat wearing only his loinskins and two strings of protective beads, which were crossed over his chest. Earlier, just after sunset, he had washed his body in the icy water of the spring, as directed by Grandmother, and the chill was still in his bones. He shivered slightly and moved a little closer to the fire.
Whilst Jabu, the oldest apprentice, beat the spirit drum, the apprentices chanted a rhythmic prayer to the Ancestors, calling on the spirits to bless the ceremony and honour the Indumba with their goodwill. The drumbeat and chanting grew louder as Grandmother approached Mandla with the trance pot, from which thick smoke was spilling.
Mandla felt a strange calmness come over him. Time seemed to slow down so that each moment, each movement, was a cloud drifting across the sky of his consciousness. He lowered his head deliberately, and inhaled deeply from the pot. He felt the hot rush of smoke into his chest, expanding and seeping into his veins, licking like tongues of fire along his legs and arms and then a great wind blew through his body, a great rushing whirlwind that ripped his spirit from his flesh.
***
Mandla found himself standing in a cavern so huge that he couldn’t see the walls. Only the vast dome above him was visible, a black tent flickering with lights. Then he realised … the dome was the sky, studded with stars! He wasn’t in a cave, he was standing on the pinnacle of the world. This was the palace of the Great Spirit, filled with sublime silence.
Mandla held up his hand before his face. He saw that his body was made of particles of light, shimmering like the stars in the vast dome of the heavens. He felt free, free to fly up, up into the sky above and merge with the body of the Great Spirit. A great happiness filled his heart and he raised his hands to the sky in joy.
It was at that moment that a voice spoke, cutting through the silence like a crystal knife: “I have been waiting for you, Mandla, and at last you have come.”
Mandla stared in wonder at the old man standing before him. He had appeared out of the air, like a light materialising in the darkness. He was tall but bent, with a long curved back and a large head. His eyes were shining and bulbous, and his thin lips were creased into a wide smile. He was leaning on a thin cane, motionlessly watching Mandla, and Mandla immediately thought of a chameleon, poised in stillness before its tongue shoots out to capture a fly. “You are Lunwabu, my spirit guardian,” he whispered.
The old man continued his slow inspection of Mandla without replying. Then he sank down into a squatting position and motioned to the boy to do the same.
Mandla settled himself down, only glancing up at Lunwabu when he had made himself comfortable. He started back in alarm. Where, moments earlier, an old man had sat, there was now a toad, a glistening green toad regarding him with the same bulbous eyes and large smile. A croaking chuckle came from the toad and once again the old man was sitting before Mandla. “I am Lunwabu the changer,” he said, “and after all this time I find I still enjoy surprising people with my art. Would you like to see another transformation?”
“I have come to find my muti bag, great father,” said Mandla. “Will you give it to me?”
“You are in a hurry to grasp your destiny, little one. Great dangers lie ahead … and great glory if you are true to your calling. You have the mark of power,” Lunwabu said and paused to look again at the boy sitting before him. “I will give you all that I was,” he eventually continued. “Will it be enough? That will depend on you, child, and your strength of character. The poison of the wizard is strong and he seeks to destroy the King. Can a boy save the Nation? Do the signs speak the truth?”
The old man leaned forward and grasped Mandla by the ears, pulling his head forward until their foreheads were touching. Suddenly, a great wave of power surged into Mandla as his soul was linked to the spirit of Lunwabu. All the knowledge and experience of the old sorcerer flowed directly into his mind. He saw faces, the faces of tangoma, men and women, appearing before him one after the other. The faces beamed at him, smiling and nodding with affection and encouragement. Then a stream of places and events flashed past on the screen of his inner vision like distant memories from other lives. Spells and magic chants filled his mind. Great secrets were revealed to him and he gasped in astonishment at each one, but as one secret replaced another he forgot the one before, and when the great wave of Lunwabu’s power had swept through him he could remember nothing. Nothing remained except the profound aftertaste of old wisdom.
It was only then that Mandla realised that the cavern they were sitting in was his own inner Indumba, the place of the spirit within him. It was here that his guardian waited to serve him. Whenever he needed guidance or advice he only had to turn within, to that inner cavern where Lunwabu squatted in silent meditation. He need never feel alone. With the guiding hand of the Great Spirit at his back and his guardian at his side he should always have confidence in the future.
Lunwabu released Mandla and sat back on his haunches. The old sorcerer’s face was shining with happiness. “I have seen that you are a true sangoma,” he said to Mandla. “You have a pure heart. You were chosen by the Ancestors and they have given you powers undreamed of by men. When you find your muti bag you will discover within it the ointment of courage, the ring of imagination and the stone of truth. These powers are given to you for
