Women Amagugu (Precious)
GUGU is a favourite girl’s name, Gugu the precious one. There is no single word in English that can
convey this emotion about baby girls who grow up to be women. Daughters are precious. They are the pride of people called amaZulu. They are their essence.
This was the state of affairs before culture left the countryside
where its umbilical cord is buried and went to the city to work for money. Today’s reality is child abuse and the ease
in which some men solve family problems by raising their hands on women. Be that as it may, there are millions of men
who still remember that women amagugu,
they are precious.
Let me borrow some salt from Caiphus Semenya, a South African music
producer who is known all over the world.
In his song Matswale, a husband goes to his mother-in-law to ask her to
speak to her daughter, who refuses to forgive him. This is how men who remember that women are
precious solve problems. This also
recognises the role of the mother-in-law, something that has been partly degraded
by cinema. Some married women in urban areas
also regard her as a nuisance. This does
not nullify the fact that there are mothers-in-law who are destructive.
Non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) that deal with wife abuse put
a premium on counselling, which basically means to talk things over. That is not new. That counselling was done by the family when
culture still lived where it was born.
There were plenty of counsellors because grandparents lived at home, not
in old age homes. There are reasons why
some South Africans are warming up to old-age homes. One of them is abuse by grand children who
don’t work and demand pension money from their grandmothers.
A man who remembers that women are precious respects his wife’s
maiden name, because if it hadn’t been for his in-laws, he wouldn’t have a wife
and children. Modern women live in
wonderful times where they can identify themselves. We have ‘just my name’ women like Cher,
Madonna, Beyonce and women who prefer double-dutch names like Thoko Cele-van
der Merwe to show that they are married.
Men who remember always keep their wives’ maiden names alive by
calling them Ma-Ngcobo, Ma-Nzuza, Ma-Goba, Ma-Jwara, Ma-Mofokeng,
Ma-Zwane. They also use that when they
are in a playful mood. A woman’s
father-in-law even raises the bar and calls her by her second surname isithakazelo. If her surname is Msimang, he will say, “Thabizolo, ngicel’amanzi,” when he is
asking for water. I call it second
surname for lack of a better word. I
don’t like the existing terms of reference like clan name.
Daughters are so loved it is common for them to be named after the
whole family. Baby girls born into the
surname Sithole are given the name Zama-Jobe, which means daughter of Sithole
people. If their family is Ngcobo, they
are named Zama-Nyuswa, daughter of Ngcobo people. If the family name is Cele, they are named
Zama-Ndosi, daughter of Cele people. I
don’t know naming practices of other groups like amaXhosa, abeSotho etc.
Men who remember that women are precious still swear by their elder
sisters, omafungwase. This is normally said in a heated
argument. They mean something will never
happen. They are even prepared to
die.
There are men who still slaughter animals and invite people to
celebrate the beauty of their daughters in a ceremony called umemulo.
It is loosely called a twenty first birthday party now. In the olden days a man was happy to see that
his daughter fended off boys even when she had reached the age where she could
choose one.
Her father loved that, because she was just enjoying being his
daughter. Umisile in Zulu. Indeed,
they are still girls today who are proud of their fathers and are quick to say.
“Don’t fool with me. My father is
so-and-so.” Umemulo the ceremony has lost that original meaning and unmarried
women with children also do it for themselves.
These are a few examples of how women were revered in ancient
times. It is also a reminder that
despite the wife abuse, child abuse, sex for sale, the majority of men still
remember that women amagugu akwaZulu.
They are precious.
Nonqaba waka Msimang is the
author of Sweetness the novel.
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