The
Coronation of King Ndamase ll of Amapondo ase Nyandeni.
Rain. Petrichor – my almost most favouritest smell. The road
was slushy with red mud road; at last we had had proper rain after a very dry
winter. My friend Sandy did a half gasp
as we negotiated a muddy patch. I’d said I hadn’t driven in mud for ages, and needed
a bit of practice ; she thought I would limp through the nasty parts. I didn’t –
that’s a recipe for getting stuck., so we did a few skids, and a few bumps, but
eventually we got to Nyandeni Great Place, near Libode, in Pondoland, Eastern Cape,
South Africa, after having flagged down a few taxis to ask if we were on the
right road.
Rain, is regarded as extremely auspicious in Pondo culture.
Rain at a wedding is a sign of a marriage being a long and happy one.
Rain at a coronation, is an extremely good sign of the king
having a long and good reign.
It rained today, 3 October 2018, at the coronation of Ndamase
Ndlovuyezwe Ndamase, as King Ndamase ll of Amapondo ase Nyandeni, Pondoland, so
his subjects who came to see the coronation, were very happy, and stepped
through and over puddles with smiles.
Pondoland, a region of the former Republic of Transkei, now
part of the Eastern Cape, South Africa, stretches along the Wild Coast, from Hluleka south of Port St Johns to the Mtamvuna River in the north, on the border
of the Kwa Zulu Natal south coast, and extends 100 – 150km inland. It is divided into Western Pondoland, and Eastern Pondoland.
Amapondo ase Nyandeni is part of Western Pondoland, and the king’s seat is at
Nyandeni Great Place near Libode, about 75km from Port St Johns.
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| The Amapondo People wishing their new king well. |
Great tents were erected to accommodate the thousands of
guests who were in attendance. The guest list included South African Government
Ministers, South African Kings and Queens from other regions,
We, as media, chose seats in the fourth row, in front of the
raised dais. It turned out that those seats were reserved for the Royal family,
so we moved further along. The seats we chose were also in the fourth row. The
rows behind this row was full of people from Port St Johns, who were very happy
to have us in their group. They were delightful. They sang and chanted their
opinions, and had to be the noisiest, happiest group in the audience of several
thousand people. A bit later we were also asked to move from those seats to
make room for more royal family members. We were very happy to oblige, but our
new found friends, told us not to move. They had no intention of moving either,
and it turned out that our seats weren’t needed after all,
The Royal Family members were splendidly dressed, the
princesses were quite gorgeous. The Pondo people in attendance were dressed in
traditional Pondo dress, with magnificent bead work enhancing the traditional
dress.
Of course, the main reason for the day’s celebrations was the
‘crowning’ of King Ndamase ll,
I recognized and greeted many people. Ayanda, who had
probably hired out the massive tents for the ceremony, OR Tambo Regional
Municipal staff who I meet at tourism get togethers, Roger, representing the
South African Defence Force and local regiment; resplendent in his dress
uniform, and untitled ordinary men and women who had also travelled up from Port St
Johns to be part of this historic occasion.
Speeches were many.
Ululations and
singing was plentiful. Traditional dancers performed, including one very
unusual dancer, a man, who impersonated a female dancer. He had everybody agog –
cross dressing is not common in Pondoland, and especially not at royal functions.
Speeches ranged from political wish lists to the reciting of the entire Royal
Pondoland family’s genealogy, with great emphasis being made on the great King
Faku, the Ndamase family, and the Bokleni family.
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| Pondo Dancers |
The mention of the Bokleni family brought to mind how many
royal family members and chief’s family members from this area, had died when
the SS Mendi was sunk in 1917. The SS Mendi was a troop carrier that sank when
another British ship collided with it in the icy English Channel. 646 men perished
in this disaster, many were from Pondoland, including those from the Bokleni
and Ndamase families.
Speeches included how to get farming up and running in the area
again, and how royal families and traditional leaders were going to be asked to
give a lot of their unused lands to their subjects and communities, so that they
could become self sufficient again. Pondoland was traditionally extensively farmed,
but with the South African government creating a welfare state, people no
longer had the need to grow their own foods, and the skills, and will to farm
was lost. Nyandeni Great Place is surrounded by rolling hills, which still have
unused terracing clearly visible on old farmland. Getting crops growing on the
fertile land will be easy. The motto of the Nyandeni Kingship says it all:
"The Soil is our greatest asset".
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| Unused, fertile, farmland with terraces in Nyandeni |
The horrendous unemployment was also mentioned, with figures
from Port St Johns being cited: out of a population of 55 000, 53 000 people
are unemployed and are surviving on government grants.
The actual investiture of King Ndamase was about to happen. The
lion skin which is the king’s symbol of office was duly blessed by the Bishop, and then it was placed over the head
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| The Lion Skin is blessed |
He then took his place on the golden throne, and faced his
happy subjects.
During the entire ceremony, the king’s wife, now queen, did
not take part in any of the ceremony. She sat on her own throne, amongst her
family, in the front row of the audience.
Only at the end of the ceremony, did
she join the king on the raised dais.
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| The AmaPondo King and Queen |
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| The Praise Singer |
Praise singers are normally
male, but King Ndamase also had a female praise singer; she was full of whim
and vigor about how King Ndamase would make development and job creation happen
in the area.
Many a closing thank-you was done, it was now time for a
rather late lunch, which we declined, as we had to drive back to Port St Johns
in the auspicious rain.
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| Beautiful women in traditional dress. |
Sandy and I got separated in the throngs of people, and I
wandered around, for a while trying to find her. It was indeed a privilege to
be there, stopping to chat to people, photographing people in their wonderful traditional
costumes, just being part of Pondoland. I did laugh at myself though, taking a
youngster to task in the melee of people: one young and tall whippersnapper
(maybe, being tall, he wasn’t a Pondo), thought himself quite clever by walking
past me and saying: ‘Hi Mlungu’. Whatever you may have been told about the use
of that word, Mlungu in Pondoland, is generally an insult. Sometimes it isn’t,
you have to be au fair with how and when it is used. This young man, wasn’t
exactly being insulting, he was being disrespectful, naughty, maybe trying his
luck at impressing his friends. Luck wasn’t on his side. I stopped, turned and called him back politely
with a smile. He and his four friends came up to me, and I greeted them all,
and then asked him if he would talk to his mother like that? His face fell, his
friends sniggered at him, and I got many an instant ‘cele xolo’ (I’m sorry) from
the young men. The apology was accepted, and we parted. Later when I saw him in
the car park, he again greeted me, this time politely, with a sheepish smile.
Yes, Umfana – manners maketh a man, I hope you don’t repeat your rudeness to
someone else. As an aside: three South African police officers in Durban were
recently fired for addressing their superior like that. After a court case and apologizing, they
were reinstated.
On the way home, I took the turn to the Mendi memorial – it was
newly erected and I hadn’t seen it yet.
Somehow, we missed it, the last sign
said it was 200m away - but we must have
taken the wrong fork in the road, and we ended up on an almost non-road, which
did eventually lead back to the road to Port St Johns. The Mendi memorial, remembering
those brave fighting men, one whose family member was made King of Amapondo ase
Nyandeni today, will have to be visited another day. May his reign be long and
good, and may he remember the words that that were spoken as the ship sank: ‘We
are the sons of Africa’, and instill that same sense of pride in his subjects,
and build the Kingdom up to be prosperous for all.
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| Mendi Memorial |
Books on the Amapondo People and the Mendi tragedy:
Faku: Rulership and Colonialism in the Mpondo Kingdom by Timothy J Stapleton
Men of the Mendi by Brenda Shepherd
Dancing the Death Drill by Fred Khumalo (Historical fiction)
