Banks and Libation

What is the connection? Value. Banks own more land than governments because when they ask for collateral, they mean land, not your vintage car collection or roomful of shoes.

They’ll even take a run down apartment building with structural and tenant problems you inherited from your aunt, because it sits on a piece of land. Buying a house? First question from real estate agents is: do you own your home or rent? Indigenous people have always known the value of land. That is why they do libation, which is pouring a drop of local beer on the ground before drinking.

This is testimony that everything comes from the land. When children were born, their umbilical cord was buried behind the house or under a tree.  Africans like Ama-Zulu of South Africa and Igbo of Nigeria used to bury family members in the yard.

Kids grew up knowing that grandpa is lying there, so the concept of ghosts didn’t exist. Therefore, in ancient times, libation was for people close by in family graves. Ancestors were right there in the backyard.

Banks and libation? For banks, the value is interest on the loan for the condo or semi-detached. For indigenous people, the value is on communal land, everybody enjoys and protects.

That is why there was libation in ceremonies to thank ancestors, for the bounty of the land: food, animals, plants for medicine, trees for the shade, building homes, farm implements and mud to build houses.

The Queen of England and missionaries said libation and other practices to worship the land were barbaric. Banks loved her for it. They uprooted the 'savages' and put another value on stolen land: money.

Nonqaba waka Msimang.