Sinelizwi Citizen Journalism candidate Nozipho Ntshingila remembers King Goodwill Zwelithini as a true cultural activist against the social ills of teenage pregnancy, the spread of sexually transmitted infections, gender based violence and substance abuse within the youth in South Africa.
Without a doubt the death of a loved one is never an easy pill to swallow.
Sadly, I know this truth very well as I’ve been confronted by it five times in the past six years where I have had to bury both my parents, a very young niece, and my maiden leader and founder of the reed dance maidens organisation in the Gauteng province, the late gogo Thembi Sibisi. And now His Majesty himself, King Goodwill Zwelithini kBhekuzulu.
You may wonder why the death of the king would be something that I take as a personal loss when we were not related at all, but it is simple really. King Zwelithini was not just a king on a throne that was far removed from his subjects. He was an engaged leader who was very accessible to the nation that he led.
I speak as a former reed dance maiden who voluntarily attended this cultural ceremony annually for nine years since 2009 when I was already a fully grown adult at the age of 23, until the age of 32 when I felt that my journey had come to its end.
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Every year, I had the pleasure of being personally received by the King and his royal entourage at his palace of Enyokeni in KwaNongoma, northern KwaZulu-Natal, where he welcomed all his maidens who placed their intact reeds at his feet.
The annual royal reed dance is an ancient event that King Zwelithini himself revived in the 1980s with the aim of demonstrating how thousands of Zulu maidens took pride in their virginity status, living in the country with the most people living with HIV/Aids in the world. This makes the cultural practice, with its primary aim to encourage a healthier lifestyle in girls and young women, still relevant even today.
The reed picked by a maiden herself and held upright for a good kilometre symbolises the status of her virginity. It is believed that if it bends, then it means that the maiden’s virginity has been tampered with. And if it breaks, then no doubt foul play must have happened.
In such cases the maiden together with the leader of the organisation that she belongs to would be requested aside. The royal practitioners perform an exclusive virginity test on the maiden in question to verify if what the reed demonstrated has any accuracy to the suspicion at all.
If it turns out that the maiden is no longer a virgin, her parents are then consulted and a decision involving her continuation with the cultural practice taken. The circumstances surrounding her broken hymen are considered, because it is considered immoral to exclude rape victims from participating in the cultural practice.
‘AS THE ZULU NATION, WE HAVE LOST A JEALOUS LEADER.’
The annual royal reed dance is a ceremony which takes place for the duration of a whole weekend between the last weekend of August and the first weekend of September. It happens in consultation between the Zulu Kingdom and that of Eswatini, as they are in support of one another and attend each other’s events. Of course there are as many differences to the manner in which the events are organised and conducted as there are similarities between these two tribes.
King Zwelithini welcomed his maidens from all over the country and Eswatini. He accommodated them in his palace on a Friday afternoon, where they would sleep in big white tents surrounded by security guards and the South African Police Service. The actual reed dance ceremony takes place on a Saturday where the reeds are picked and placed before the King in his palace. On Sunday, King Zwelithini expected all the maidens to gather around his stadium, with song and dance by the different organisations and ethnic groups. He delivered his annual speech directed at them and would release them later on that day so that they may return back home.
The last Zulu reed dance that I attended was in 2015 when my gogo Thembi was still alive. After her passing on the 20th of September 2015, I could no longer bring myself to attend the Zulu reed dance due to the overwhelming emotions of grief. I felt that the journey was not the same without her.
Her death affected me to that extent and manifested in every other cultural event that I have had to attend without her by my side. She guided and mentored me. I was the oldest maiden in her organisation at the age of 29. That is when I started attending the Eswatini reed dance from 2016 until 2018.
What struck me the most in King Zwelithini’s last maidens’ speech that I personally heard in 2015 was his reiteration that the spread of HIV/Aids literally stopped with us when we say “Not with my body”.
Not even the King himself could deny what he termed as the “evil act of rape” levelled against his maidens, especially in his province of KwaZulu-Natal where some men to this day still believe that HIV can be cured through sleeping with a virgin. But he appreciated the power that lies with girls who have no time for chancers who target and lure them into bed with empty words and promises of love that they know very well does not exist in them.
He was a true cultural activist against social ills pertaining to teenage pregnancy, the spread of sexually transmitted infections, gender based violence and substance abuse within the youth in South Africa. He advocated for the importance of education and independence in girls and young women so that they may not be taken advantage of. He was a known and devoted Christian who put God and prayer above everything in his reed dance ceremonies that I was blessed to have attended.
As the Zulu nation, we have lost a jealous leader of his people who was unapologetic about his roots and what he stood for. In the eyes of his 12 million subjects who were only proud to follow his lead, he was the father of the nation. I can confidently claim that through the cultural practice of ukuhlolwa, he raised me and shaped my life into being this healthy university graduate and childless, non-married 34 year old woman that I am today. It truly does take a village.
His death comes as an untimely event to those of us who loved, respected and looked to him for guidance at a time when we still needed it the most to help raise our own children. Having said that, I personally thank God for keeping to His promise of having borrowed us King Zwelithini’s life for more than 70 years so that he may impart to us valuable knowledge and wisdom regarding our beloved culture.
King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu, born on 14th July 1948, passed away on the morning of Friday the 12th March 2021 after battling diabetes following his month-long hospital stay at a local private hospital in KwaZulu-Natal. May the Heavenly Royals receive his precious soul.
