Watch: From boys to men – Inside the Ndebele initiation journey

It is just before dawn on a Wednesday and 15-year-old Mxolisi Skosana is on edge, pacing about in his makeshift kraal, built from tree branches.

In a few hours, he will be whisked off to the mountains of his Mpumalanga village of Manyebethwana, where he and thousands of his cohorts will undergo the Ndebele rite of passage ritual or Ingoma.

The grass ball or Usonyana, dangling on his forehead indicates that he is a boy about to embark on a two-moth journey of transformation into manhood.

Mxolisi’s parents Alfred and NamaGobholi, have ensured that their son has received his Covid vaccine and went for a medical check-up to ensure his physical fitness, as part of the requirements of the male initiation guidelines.

His village of Manyebethwana in Mpumalanga, about 150 km northeast of Pretoria, is a hive of activity, with intense singing and fierce stick fighting, as boys like him are rounded up for the final departure.

This season of the Ndebele initiation, which comes in every fourth year, was supposed to take place last year but was stopped because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tense moment

The teenager awaits his turn to be collected by one of the many groups of topless men menacingly armed with shields and sticks, with their backs bloodied from fierce stick fighting.

Noticing the teenager’s agitation, his uncles decide to put him at ease by helping him recite chants that form the basis of the passage to join the band of menfolk as part of his clan’s customs.

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His uncles’ occasional nods and pats on his back as he chants after them indicate they are impressed with his grasp of their teachings and that he is ready for the induction.

Speaking to The Citizen during breaks from the chanting, the grade 10 pupil at the local Makhosana high school admits anxiety, largely because he has not the faintest idea what lies ahead. He does, however, believe that it is important for him to go.

“This is the path of my forefathers and goes generations. My brother has been initiated, so is my father, my grandfather and all those before them,” he says.

Mxolisi explain that his culture and customs were important to him, not just for the sense of identity and belonging but also as a form of discipline and indigenous knowledge.

The rite of passage is the first of many customary rituals ahead of him and, according to his clan’s customs, the transition to manhood is the basis of all other rituals.

“For instance, you cannot do a ritual for marriage if you have not been for engomeni (initiation). Yes I do not know what is going to happen to me but I have to go,” he says.

A process, not an event

His preparation for the journey to manhood started three weeks before, with him and other boys spending their days in the nearby mountains learning songs and chants from those already initiated.

This is also where they learned to make the grass balls, Usonyana, that they wear on their foreheads, and also carve the knobkerries they carry as part of their symbolic garb.

After a week, the initiates in the making had to collect tree branches to build kraals in their individual homesteads in which they are expected to sleep for a week before their final departure to the mountains.

A week earlier, The Citizen team joined Mxolisi and his fellow initiate Siyabonga, 16, as they travelled about 100Km to Manyanga in Limpopo to inform his maternal grandparents that he is going for initiation.

This is the first part of the process of the rite of passage, with his maternal grandparents giving him blessings and gifts before he departs for the journey to manhood.

They arrived at the gate of the homestead and chanted their clans’ praises to announce their arrival as spectators gathered about.

His grandfather, Lucas Mahlangu, and a family elder approached the gate to meet the intensely chanting boys and used the opportunity to test their preparedness.

Once satisfied, the grandfather gave his blessings and a gift of a grass mat, before they asked to be excused.

It is now a week later, and late in the afternoon. Almost all his village’s boys have been collected by their individual groups, and the singing has subsided but Mxolisi’s group has still not come for him, further adding to the boy’s anxiety.

Moment of truth

An hour later, the silence broken is by a faint singing coming closer and Mxolisi, who had been resting from intense chanting, springs to his feet and peeps over his kraal.

The singing gets louder and a large group of men and other initiates appear around the corner, and it suddenly dawns on Mxolisi that his moment had come.

His uncles immediately make sure that all that was needed for his departure, like the traditional beer to inform the ancestors that he was going for the ritual, is ready.

He is then ushered outside of his kraal as the group enters his homestead and his elder brother, Alex, who will be his minder throughout the process, prepares his stick for a fight to usher him out.

From here their group is taken to the central chief’s kraal in Machiding, where they will spend a night before heading for the river in the early hours of the next morning for the actual ritual of ukuwela.

Only those who have undergone the initiation are allowed beyond this point.

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Left a boy, returns a man

On a balmy Friday morning at the start of July, The Citizen returns to Machiding. It’s been two months since Mxolisi and his fellow-initiates headed into the mountains.

The people of Machiding village have lined up along their dusty street; bursting into cries of joy and relief as young men from initiation, wearing nothing except for covering their loins, slowly parade at sunrise.

The last time the community saw the youngsters when they paraded along the same route before departing for their seclusion in the mountains for the sacred Ndebele coming-of-age ritual, Ingoma.

As early as 4am, the gate of the large kraal in which the young men were ushered into the previous evening, was a hive of activity, mostly women and children, anticipating the parade.

For families and relatives of the initiates, between the ages of 16 and 22, it is a very tense moment as the customary practise has in the past been bedevilled by deaths and maiming of hundreds of teenage boys.

In April, days after the boys had departed for the rite passage, police reported the deaths of 10 initiates in the custom central to lives of many black South Africans, especially Xhosa, Ndebele and Pedi people in Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

The 213 young men, who are now no longer boys, finally emerge from the kraal, led by Mxolisi Mahlangu of the royal Ndzundza Somalakazi house, as throngs ululate and whistle in excitement.

Upon their return from the parade, the initiates gather around a steel drum on which the head of the royal family, as the custodian of the Ndebele traditions and castings, is standing ready to assign them to their regiments.

Khuluma Mahlangu, the head of the Ndzundza Somalakazi royal household opens his speech by telling the initiates the fact that they are now men and not boys didn’t mean they could start disrespecting elders, especially their parents.

He says those who were at school must go back and the same applies to those who are working, as nothing has changed other than that it is now expected of them to be more responsible.

“Your father is still your father and your mother is still your mother. Being a man means you are in another stage in our social hierarchy as Ndebele people. Nothing more,” he stressed.

Of importance in Mahlangu’s statement was his plea with the young men to protect and keep the secrets of the ritual sacred and dignified.

“I do not want to see anything on social media. This is our custom, something that is ours, and the least we could do is to respect it and keep it dignified for generations to come,” Mahlangu pleaded.

Honoured with a regiment

He then asks the anxious initiates to listen carefully as he gives them their regiment name, AmaPhogo, officially declaring them men who can marry their own wives and head their own households.

The last time this regiment went for the initiation was in 1963 and the first ever regiment of aMaphogo, amalinga amafu kaNyabela usoSenzani (the tempters of clouds of Ndebele King Nyabela) underwent the sacred rite of passage in 1835.

This cohort was supposed to perfom the ritual last year but was disturbed by the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, with the next AmaPhogo expected to be inducted in 2081.

There are a total of 15 regiments in Ndebele rites of passage, conducted after every three years, starting with AmaGawu regiment in 1827.

The newly declared men of the village roar into a mass chant, as gratification to their chief for transforming them from boys to men.

Thereafter they are allowed to divide into groups for celebrations and gifts at their individual homesteads.

Mahlangu explains to The Citizen that Ingoma was a crucial ritual for the Ndebele people, since it is the only time where the community could gather young men in one place for a certain period to instil African values in them.

He says without their roots, sense of family, communal and ultimately national responsibility, young people are doomed, as they tend to adopt destructive cultures.

“We show them the importance of working together for a common goal, what is really central in the Ndebele way of life. Now they know what is expected of them and how to achieve that.”

He also expressed his gratitude that there were no incidents in their entire kraal during this initiation season, adding that his family was celebrating 60 years as custodians of the Ndebele rate of passage.