The Sunday Mail
Jinda Mutinhima
THE Nyangani people of the Simboti totem, who claim traditional custodianship of the sacred Nyanga Mountain and surrounding areas, have started a series of ceremonies to welcome the return of their chieftainship.
Government last month restored the Nyangani chieftainship, whose jurisdiction the famous Nyanga Mountain falls under.
The Nyangani, with the aide of successive mediums of their great ancestor Firakutumwa, also known as Mufambanhando, have since the advent of colonisation been fighting for their chieftainship.
They say that the disappearance of people at Nyanga Mountain was a subtle way of protestation by the spirits of the Simboti over the lost chieftainship.
And the traditional ceremonies (biras) are the beginning of a dialogue with the spirits since the descendants of the Simboti now have what they have been fighting to reclaim for more than a century.
Alice Masoko, the medium of Firakutumwa, said a bira in Tsoka 1, Nyanga last week paid homage to the ancestors.
“Since the chieftainship has been lost for a long time, there are processes which should be conducted. Remember the spirits of the area were angry because their children did not have a place which they called theirs. In Shona religion, a home without a place to conduct rituals from is not a home.
“Kana musina chikuva mumusha, hausi musha. So we are telling our ancestors that we are now mumusha uye tava kukugadzirirai chikuva chekupira tiri,” said medium Masoko.
“This bira which has just ended was the first and the second one we are going to hold soon is to appease all the sacred places. There have been disappearances of people and other things happening.
“After this is done, all the sacred areas are appeased and all that is supposed to be done is done. We then have the third and last Bira which is to have celebrations, celebrating that we are now in our area and by then the new Chief to lead us would have been chosen and installed.” Last year an Indian, Mr Zayd Dada, disappeared in Nyanga Mountain, which also swallowed the Masaya twin daughters in the early 1980s.
The victims, according to the Nyangani medium, are all still alive and can be returned if the appeasement processes are done well.
The houses that are in-line to assume the chieftainship under the Nyangani lineage are Turangwa, Tsatse, Mwandipenura and Nyamarodzo.
