Ndebele initiates’ return from the ‘Wela’, the journey to manhood

The entire experience was serendipitous. We have been working with the Ndebele people for nearly 30 years, having made two documentary films about them, and made firm friends with families. But we had never visited the “original” tourist village — Mapoch.

Maybe it was our dislike of apartheid-era concepts of “ethnic” and “tourism”, or our predilection for real experiences rather than guided tours. We first met Ndebele mural master artist Dr Esther Mahlangu in 1993 but decided to work with her biggest rival, Francina Ndimande, and her family for the more than 25 years that followed.

So here we were, finally at Mapoch (pronounced Maposh) with our cameras, to explore what appeared no longer to be a tourist village at all but a living community. A very poor community. The roads to it were terrible, there were no signs, no maps, no GPS reference, and the people appeared poverty-stricken and desperate for some tourist trade.

As we wandered around, documenting the beautifully painted walls, a young lad came up to me. Siyabonga Msiza introduced himself and explained that the boys who had gone to the “Mountains of Manhood” some six weeks earlier were due back in a few weeks, and we were welcome to come and photograph the ceremony of their return at the house of his grandmother, a painted house on the other side of the dusty street.

We already knew about the “Wela”, as the male initiation process is called, as we had filmed it several times before, but never in this village. He assured us he would arrange a place for us to stay. We discovered Siya was just 13 years old but with an entrepreneurial spirit that was admirable. His elder brother Lindokuhle was “at the mountains” and would be returning.

True to his word, his mother Patricia, a teacher, formally invited us via a phone call and WhatsApp, and all the arrangements were made. His father is a policeman. When we came up weeks later, we were warmly greeted and accepted immediately into the bosom of the family.

The boys who had left for the “Mountains of Manhood” had returned now as men. Their mothers had “lost a son” but “gained a man”. This concept is why the mothers wear the “mlinga koba” or Long Tears of beadwork that reaches down to the ground during the ceremonies linked to the Wela.

The new men were secluded in a small private boma of sticks and brushwood once they arrived back from their “bandla” (where they had spent time in the mountains). They run around the village in their skin loincloths and with their sticks to show the village they had returned, and then all night they sing praise songs to their fathers. The next morning they would emerge from the boma, having received each a “Middelburg blanket” (a blanket with thick yellow, red, blue and green stripes) marking Ndebele culture.

After everyone had eaten (some 300 guests), a ceremony would be held where the mothers would give thanks for their safe return and give advice to the young men. In turn, the young men would recite their forefathers’ praise names. Then they would be given gifts by their family, ranging from toothpaste to beds, plastic wash basins to computers.

Both Saturday and Sunday (including the nights) were extremely busy. Mountains of vegetables were prepared by women relatives. The elder men mostly sat outside the boma talking and drinking, and the younger men who had already been to initiation school sat either with the initiates inside the boma around the fire, or worked to keep the generator working, to prepare meat, booze, firewood and petrol, or feed the initiates.

We managed to snatch a few hours sleep in a beautifully painted Ndebele rondavel before rising early to photograph the frenetic but organised activities around the homestead, teeming with small children. These photos give an insight into the diverse cultural riches in our beautiful country that are mostly ignored by the department of sports, arts & culture.