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Abstract
In Zimbabwe, and across the region, rainfall and drought have long been measures of contested political legitimacy in ways not limited to the politics of food, famine and agricultural production. Around Lake Mutirikwi in southern Zimbabwe, this is true not only for spirit mediums, chiefs and other ‘traditionalist’ authorities for whom rainmaking practices are well-established means of demonstrating ‘autochthony’, sovereignty and legitimacy, but also for war veterans, new farmers, government technocrats and others involved in land reform during the 2000s. This is what I examine here. Whilst I focus particularly on rainmaking practices, encounters with njuzu water spirits, and national biras that took place in the 2005–2006 when fieldwork was carried out around Lake Mutirikwi, the larger point I pursue is that water acts as an index of power – of the entangled but contested play of legitimacy and sovereignty – across many different registers of meaning and regimes of rule.
Au Zimbabwe, et dans la région, la pluie et la sécheresse ont depuis longtemps été des mesures de légitimité politique contestée qui ne se bornent pas aux politiques de la nourriture, famine et production agricole. Autour du lac Mutirikwi au sud du Zimbabwe, cela est vrai non seulement pour les mediums, chefs et autres autorités « traditionnelles » pour lesquelles les procédés d'obtention de la pluie sont des moyens bien-éprouvés de démontrer leur « autochtonie », souveraineté et légitimité, mais également pour les anciens combattants, nouveaux agriculteurs, technocrates gouvernementaux et autres personnes impliquées dans la réforme agraire des années 2000. C'est cela que j'examine ici. Si je me concentre particulièrement sur les procédés d'obtention de la pluie, rencontres avec des esprits de l'eau njuzu, et le biras national qui se déroula en 2005–6 lorsque le travail de terrain fut effectué autour du lac Mutirikwi, l'argument plus large que je défends ici est que l'eau agit comme un index du pouvoir (du jeu emmêlé mais contesté de la légitimité et de la souveraineté) au sein de divers registres de sens et régimes de règles.
Notes
† Early publication from the forthcoming Special Issue of Critical African Studies: Crossing Africa and Beyond: essays in honour of Marian Charles Jedrej (1943–2007).
1. ‘Political interference in Zim weather forecast’ www.radiovop.com, 17 November 2010.
2. ‘Mugabe seizes weather service', Sunday Telegraph, 27 January 2003.
3. Protests about food shortages and rising prices had been a feature of Zimbabwe's political landscape since 1997 (‘Zimbabwe police fight food price protesters', Reuters, 17 October 2000; ‘Zimbabwe food riots spread’ BBC News, 6 January 2003). The situation dramatically worsened in the 2000s, but it also created new spheres for ZANU PF patronage, particularly through the politicization of food distribution (HRW, Not Eligible: The Politicization of Food in Zimbabwe, October 2003, Vol. 15, No. 17(A).
4. ‘Don't blame it on the weather: CFU', Zimbabwean, 1 August 2012.
5. Also ‘No rain in Zimbabwe's Matabeleland south', Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 27 June 2011.
6. There has been a proliferation of controversial war veteran visits to Matopos in recent years, especially Njelele (‘War vets Njelele trip slammed', Newsday, 29 April 2011; ‘Blood soaked war Vets’ Njelele sacrilege’ Newsday, 2 May 2011; ‘War veterans fight over Njelele shrine’ Standard, 20 May 12).
7. Officials were highly sensitive to the threat posed by mediums and Mwari cult messengers after the 1896 rebellions. In October 1899, the Chief Native Commissioner (CNC) told the Native Commissioner (NC) for Gutu that ‘your chiefs should be warned against listening to any foolish advice or prophecies by their witchdoctors or “mswikiros”’ (Circular, CNC to NC Gutu, 2 October 1899, NAZ NVG 1/2/1). A year later, the assistant NC Gutu was requested to investigate reports ‘quietly and without alarming the Natives’ suspicions’, that ‘M'wri of Matabeleland has instructed Gutu's people not to sow any Rapoko [finger millet] this year, but only to sow Munga or Nyauti [sorghum], and has told them something is going to happen’. In 1904, the NC Charter district requested that the NC Gutu to ‘collect evidence … to support a charge of endeavoring to incite natives to rebellion’, against Manyanga, a ‘Mlimo [or mwari] messenger’ spreading a ‘Mlimo message’ amongst the chiefs of Gutu and Chilimanzi ‘to the effect that that the whites would be driven out of the country by a gale’ (NC Charter to NC Gutu, 7 March 1904, NAZ NVG 1/2/1). As late as March 1936, a messenger called Koko, possessed by the ‘rainmaking’ spirit Mbedeze, from Matonjeni, was stopped in the Mtilikwe reserve and taken to police at Fort Victoria, where he signed a statement explaining he was collecting ‘contributions from all chiefs, headmen and kraal heads … so that rain sent by the Spirit would fall’. He would take them to Matonjeni and then return with ‘a certain kind of seed grain’ for contributors to mix with their own seed to ‘strengthen their crops so they could resist drought’. By then official anxieties had eased, and the NC was more concerned about ‘fraud’ than rebellion, adding that Koko ‘appears to be a victim of Machokoto’ the ‘principle offender’ (Statement by Koko, 12/3/36, NC to BSAP, Victoria, 12/3/36, ‘NC Victoria: correspondence, 1935–1936 NAZ S1043).
8. Fieldnotes 26–27 January 2001.
9. In other words, the politics of water embodies both Gramscian notions of hegemony, at the intersection of coercion and consent, and Foucauldian notions of discipline, techniques of the self and governmentality (cf. Moore Citation2005, 9).
10. Fieldnotes 29 October 05.
11. Ibid.
12. If ZANU PF has often been implicated in politicizing food distribution, frequently it is chiefs who have been directly accused of restricting aid to party supporters (‘Cases of Politicised Food Aid Growing, Says MDC', Daily News, 17 January 2003; ‘Villagers walk out on Chief Charumbira', Daily News, 4 June 2013).
13. VaZarira, 10 June 2006.
14. Aschwanden also noted that requests for rain were rarely made directly to njuzu, although ‘in reply … one occasionally hears a noise coming from the caves, which is made by the njuzu’ (Citation1989, 189). Only ‘during persistent aridity’ did people in the past ‘make a “human sacrifice” to the njuzu’ – by leaving a child by a pool to become an njuzu – ‘to ask the ancestors and god for the life-saving rain’ (Citation1989, 189–190).
15. Simon Charumbira, 27 May 2006; Bhodo Mukuvare, 19 November 2005a.
16. Acting Chief Murinye, 13 June 2006.
17. Ibid.
18. VaChigohwe, 10 May 2006.
19. As Lyn Schumacher pointed out (Pers. Comm. December 2012), ‘in northern Zambia it is just the opposite – the men are the incomer “strangers” who must marry into the matrilineage of the ‘owners of the land’, eventually becoming owners themselves when subsequently buried in the land’.
20. For example in Great Zimbabwe (Fontein Citation2006a, 19–41), where the little girl Chisikana, who was taken by njuzu and emerged from a sacred spring, is claimed as a founding ancestor or as an affine, by both the Nemanwa and the Mugabe clans, in their continuing disputes over the custodianship of the site.
21. VaChikami, water bailiff 6 November 2005; VaChinengo, 26 May 2006; Geri Zano, 23 March 06; Chief Mugabe 19 November 2005; Bhodo Mukuvare, 19 November 2005; and Matopos Murinye 13 June 2006.
22. Fieldnotes 2 November 2005.
23. Fieldnotes, 24 November 2005.
24. Ibid.
25.
People were preparing to have their bira there at … Mafuse, but the chief … sent them away … These biras should be done at the sacred places not in someone's house. The problem is that he is a Zion and that is why he doesn't want anything to do with chikaranga [‘tradition’] and biras. Even though he wears the nyembe [title] of the chief, which comes from the elders [ancestors], he refuses to respect them, and even calls them mweya wetsvina [dirty/evil spirits]. (Manyuki, 29 November 05)
26. VaMutsambwa, 19 December 2005.
27. Sabhuku Furere Mashuro/Gundura, 12 April 2006.
28. The biras were celebrated on television and in the government press (‘Message from Manhize. Dzimbahwe speaks with Muhera wekwaPfumojena', Daily Mirror on Saturday, 4 March 2006), although some reports chided that they could not ‘ask for crucial inputs [i.e. seed and fertiliser] from the other world’, which still ‘had to be met by the responsible ministry' (‘No more rhetoric: heads should roll’ Sunday Mirror, 26 February 2006).
29. ‘Dzimbahwe speaks’ Daily Mirror on Saturday, 4 March 2006.
30. Trust Mugabe, 16 March 2006.
31. He was elected president of the council of chiefs, replacing Jonathan Mangwende, in April 2005 (‘Zimbabwe: Charumbira Elected Chiefs' Council President’ Herald, 7 April 2005).
32. Fieldnotes, 23 April 2006.
33. ‘Zimbabwe produces better harvests: Chiefs’ Herald, 24 April 2006.
34. VaChuma, 12 June 2006.
35.
Why there was no rain last year? There were some problems with leadership and the masvikiro and ancestors who felt they were being ignored. So then they had those mabira. It was an issue to do with chivanhu chedu [our culture]. So government told us to brew beer to appease the ancestors, because they were being disturbed … they held those biras and that is why this year it rained a lot, which showed us that some of those problems have now been sorted out. (VaKurasva, 17 April 2006)
36. VaMakasva, 14 January 2006.
37. Robbie Mtetwa, 29 June 2006.
38. Manyuki, 5 November 2005.
39. Mukuvare, 19 November 2005.
40. Mai Makasva, 26 November 2005.
41.
When the second chimurenga first started a few freedom fighters came into the country to fight and they were all killed. That was when they realised that they needed the support of the masvikiro and we helped them. That is why we got independence. But since independence they have forgotten about us and the important work we do. That is why there are now problems of fuel, money and rain. Then they started to say we need to take back our land, and of course the land has to be returned but they have done it in the wrong way. They have forgotten about the masvikiro. They have chased away the whites from the land not thinking that the country needs money, and the land needs to be returned properly, with the masvikiro. That is why there is no fuel, no food or money and no rain. (Fieldnotes 3 November 2005)
42. A similar argument could be made for Zimbabwe's diverse array of churches. Since 2008, there is growing evidence of a concerted campaign by ZANU PF to court churches of all varieties, including Zimbabwe's many Pentecostal churches. This was not particularly prevalent around Mutirikwi in the mid-2000s.
43. Ambuya told me:
there has still been no rain. It is a big, big problem. There is definitely something that has been done wrong … In the old days in November if the rain had come, it had come, but this wind is taking the rain away. The reason the rain is not falling is because of those national biras in September. They should have been held with all the chiefs at Great Zimbabwe [GZ], instead of just Charumbira by himself. It is not his place, none of his forefathers are buried there. Beer should have been cooked in the sango [bush] outside of GZ. Then those elders who have graves in GZ, should have gone in with their beer, bute [snuff] and black cloths to pray to their ancestors there. It is only Mugabe and Nemanwa, and maybe Murinye, but not Charumbira. There are Haruzvivishe graves there, right on top of that mountain. I would like to see Charumbira showing us his ancestors’ graves there.
44. Fieldnotes 19 November 2005.
45. As indeed she had successfully done when I was researching Great Zimbabwe five years earlier.
46. See note 22 above.
47. In these efforts, the district and provincial administrators, the now former provincial Governor Chiwewe, the now late, retired General Zvinavashe as well as the then new senator Mavhaire were all approached, without success.
48. Fieldnotes, 29 November 2005.
49. Fieldnotes, 17 March 2006.
50. VaChinengo, 26 May 2006.
51. Matopos Murinye explained:
One time my father went to the Matonjeni with a delegation. At that time he had not had any sons yet and he said this to the voice at Matonjeni and the voice said that when he returned he would find that one of his wives who was pregnant had had a son. He was told to name his son Matopos, and much later on I myself had to go to the Matopos to thank the voice that speaks from the rock there. (Fieldnotes 17/3/06)
52. Fieldnotes, 24 April 2006, also 17 March 2006.
53. Chief Murinye, 22 May 2006.
54. See note 23 above.
55. See note 49 above.
56. Mhanda (Citation2011) describes how during the war, guerrilla fighters had returned Nehanda's remains, who died ‘in exile’ in Mozambique, to Zimbabwe for burial before the struggle could be continued.
57. ‘Police destroy home on orders from Spirit Medium’ Zimbabwe Independent, 5 March 2010.
58. ‘Bogus national spirit mediums hammered’ Herald, 8 March 2005.
59. ‘Chaminuka: The resurrection?’ Herald, 14 December 2009, cited in Ranger Citation2010, 14.
60. ‘Saga could land Mudede in court’ Financial Gazette, 2 November 2007. The same report implicated the Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede for obstructing justice by harbouring Rotina Mavhunga after the fraud was discovered.
61. For example ‘Zimbabwe's person of the year', 18 January 2008; ‘Changamire Dombo on trial’ 9 April 2008, Blog: ‘THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GAPPAH’, available at http://petinagappah.blogspot.co.uk/, accessed 18 June 2013.
62. ‘War vet Tenzi Nehoreka acquitted’ Nehandaradio, 20 April 2014; ‘War veterans vow to defy Zanu PF’ Standard, 24 June 2012.
63. Fieldnotes, 7 March 2006; 16 March 2006; 19 March 2006; 28 March 2006; and 20 March 2006.
64. Fieldnotes, 9–15 December 2013.
65. Mai Macharaga, 25 March 2006.
66. Her confrontation with the provincial governor Josiah Hungwe in 2001 is a good illustration of both her own disaffection, and how she too, like VaZarira, is imbricated in the nitty-gritty of ZANU PF's complex factionalism (Masvingo Star, 2–8 and 9–15 March 2001, also Fontein Citation2006b, 183–184).
67. ‘Spirit mediums condemn Terror’, Daily News, 7 March 2002.
68. From Sudan and Ethiopia to the Eastern Congo and down to Zimbabwe (Krige & Krige Citation1943; James Citation1972; Packard Citation1981; Lan Citation1985; Akong'a Citation1987; Southall Citationnd).
69. In the past, rain offerings across Zimbabwe were closely aligned with the agricultural season to ensure the right kind of rain fell at the right moment in the annual cycle (Lan Citation1985; Bourdillon Citation1987; Garbett Citation1977, Citation1992).
70. Just as Mauss's The Gift (Citation1954 [Citation1923]) anticipated Gell's Art and Agency (Citation1998), and Williams's (Citation1977) notion of ‘structures of feeling’ anticipated recent interest in notions of ‘affect’.