Of course at my age (50 as of this post) you bet there will be things very deep in their essence I will have seen. Of them all though, one thing really eats the cake! Having exhausted its own confectionery, the greedy and very selfsame thing is now busy consuming me for not sharing it! And, for being a Marie Antoinette, itlooks like I will go to a madhouse one of these bad days or even the very early grave if I do not share it with you, my readership TODAY!
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| a picture of me (in black) with royal Dlamini cousins during a function to honour my grandmother who is a Dlamini by birth. But is royal seed also divine? |
As a statement in backgrounding understanding, it is my scientific understanding that this vexing thing I am about on this post is not a state secret; nor is it something that I saw for the purpose of hiding it from others.
On the contrary, I believe, what is miraculous is meant to be shared for it is on these wonderworks that the Christian religion, for example, is based. And I suspect us Africans have lost out in the race of the human race because we have tended to hide under a bushel every native glimmer that was meant to light our spiritual way forward.
You see, I tax objectivity in all my approach to life; but, like any other human being on earth, I was also born with a cultural heritage e.g. my skin colour, my surname Phiri (which is said to be the oldest on earth having spawned different pronunciations and spellings with different peoples and races all over the globe).
In that vein, I like to see myself as a descendant of the first kings on earth, with even divine words like “pyramids” being a derivation from my surname.
In that vein, I like to see myself as a descendant of the first kings on earth, with even divine words like “pyramids” being a derivation from my surname.
I concede that is a very long time ago, of course as the Phiris, who not many centuries ago still ruled the entire African subcontinent south of the Sahara (in present-day KwaZulu Natal stood the Matanje-Phiri Kingdom), are these days ordinary people best known maybe for singing like Ray Phiri, but even he, now denies that he is a Phiri.
Well, I am not going to get too personal because this blog post is about divinity and royalty and how they co-exist, if they do.
Well, I am not going to get too personal because this blog post is about divinity and royalty and how they co-exist, if they do.
If these ancient Phiris were once royal some 50 000 years ago till as late as the 18th century, were they also divine?
MY MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER A ROYALTY AND DIVINITY THAT STILL STANDS
The Dlaminis are my maternal ancestors. Their royalty still stands, symbolized by Swazi King Mswati III. Are these people divine? (my question still stands).
Am I as a grandson of a divine Dlamini princess (where such exists) also divine? I mean, scientifically I bear genes similar to that woman in the region of 20% average chance of being like her!
My maternal aunt, Mrs Bella Mnisi (the only woman in the still picture above) has said I am a split image of my father’s ways of thinking and doing, "but physically Goody you do look like the Dlaminis, my own people as Mrs Bella Mnisi".
The latter point is confirmed every so often when I visit these royal but humble relatives of my maternal grandmother's with people in the entire town (Barberton’s Emjindini) exclaiming: “My o my, for an ethnic Malawian, you so much look like your grandmother Mafede’s grandnephews, the princes Mandla and Zanele!”
My maternal aunt, Mrs Bella Mnisi (the only woman in the still picture above) has said I am a split image of my father’s ways of thinking and doing, "but physically Goody you do look like the Dlaminis, my own people as Mrs Bella Mnisi".
The latter point is confirmed every so often when I visit these royal but humble relatives of my maternal grandmother's with people in the entire town (Barberton’s Emjindini) exclaiming: “My o my, for an ethnic Malawian, you so much look like your grandmother Mafede’s grandnephews, the princes Mandla and Zanele!”
I always respond: “Prince Mandla Nksosi of your Emjindini is handsome and I thank you for this compliment. But please think again before you take me to Prince Zanele Dlamini!”
This all usually ends in a merry guffaw or two. But I know there are things remaining to bother me deep down under the chuckles about this personal lot of carrying blood in my veins similar to royal people, particularly the blood given me by my grandmother!
Did you know? Your maternal grandmother is scientifically the greatest ancestor you can ever have!
I (and you as reader of my blog post) was in fact first conceived in the tummy of my maternal grandmother. You see, people tend to have a misconception of biological facts, thinking that the first sign of life about them was in their adult and ovulating mothers' wombs.
Nothing can be further from the scientific truth because a baby girl, in this case, my mother Belinda Thokozile Mavimbela-Phiri was born with all the ‘eggs’ that were ultimately going to become me and my Phiri siblings.
In that sense, we all of us first got our sense of life in the tummy of the Dlamini Princess Eleanor Mafede Nkosi-Mavimbela, whom this post is really about.
Nothing can be further from the scientific truth because a baby girl, in this case, my mother Belinda Thokozile Mavimbela-Phiri was born with all the ‘eggs’ that were ultimately going to become me and my Phiri siblings.
In that sense, we all of us first got our sense of life in the tummy of the Dlamini Princess Eleanor Mafede Nkosi-Mavimbela, whom this post is really about.
THE MIRACULOUS AND UNEXPLAINED HAPPENS
Allow me to come to the gist of my mystification, my inquest and my quandary intellectual and "intellectual" without being tautological as indeed, the dilemma so far is limited to the rooms upstairs, to my spirituality, my religiosity and my as-yet-to-make choice whether I am an idealist or a materialist or both.
Now May in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province, my dear reader, is not just winter time, but there is also no rain. Even if the weather is going to be quixotic enough, which it always can and does, there is no way in a billion scientific chances that a man (just because he is a paternal descendant to Swazi King Sobhuza The First while I am an agnostic maternal descendant to the same king who can only approach a Dlamini grave-side in a fellow-Dlamini-male company) will, half-drunk on a wintry sky-blue morning , correctly predict that within the next 60 minutes’ drive and walk up the holy mountain with graves of the Dlamini chiefs and chietainesses the rain is going to fall cats dogs.
"HOLY AND DIVINE"? MY FOOT!"RESPECTED" YES!
You see, my little study of climatology tells me it takes the weather time to generate winds where none had existed.
It takes the weather time to aggregate the clouds, and clouds appropriate for that matter, and not just any cumulus nimbus that accumulates and lacrimates in split seconds over Goodman Manyanya Phiri’s shoulders almost immediately after a prediction "it will becasue we're visiting holy people's graves".
There are also all kinds of warning signs that you get from the radio, over the World Wide Web and other media portals if later today or tomorrow is going to be a rainy day.
There were no such reports that day prophetic but inebriated Prince X ascended the mountains of Barberton for graveside libations. Nor were there reports the day before.
The day before had seen me fatefully going to visit those royal Dlamini cousins “who look like me” and live in Nelspruit Kanyamazane/Lekazi as well.
The point is this, I would not have risked driving with two senior Dlamini Princesses all the way from Kanyamazane where we had gone to get blessings from Prince Michael Nkosi-Dlamini (a third cousin of mine) and later, up hills of Barberton slippery and studded by huge boulders that the Swazi/Emaswati people of my mother call emangerengere (and about the only native word where I have heard this nation use an 'r' which English-letter-sound is next to non-existent in their language, just as is the case in their sister language Zulu). Never!
I mean, if you have ever been permitted (which I have) to see the grave of “The Queen of Emjindini” who was among one of the first royal emissaries sent by King Mswati II (the great-great grandfather of Rex or the current King Mswati III) you will know what territorial hostility I am blogging about here.
Apart from going deep into the countryside of Emjindini, please bear me witness if you have ever driven from Nelspruit to Barberton or Badplaas, some 10 km to Nelspruit, there is this circutous and hilly road stretch with a name I forget if it is not called Hilltop.
Many a drunken and juvenile soul has departed to heaven just on that spot. But the deepest Christian prayer I have ever heard and saw answered came for my safety at that very spot, belted out to God his Jesus Son in the IsiXhosa language spoken in South Africa’s Eastern Cape! You know I am no more young nor drinking and driving, still the Xhosa-language Christian prayer from thelips of a Swazi Princess by marriage did all right even for me, I must reveal today!
This Xhosa-speaking woman who was praying for a safe journey for me and two by-birth Dlamini princesses with whom we had visited her and her husband, is the wife to Kanyamazane-based Prince Michael Dlamini.
From conversation with the royal couple I gathered that Prince Michael is also deeply spiritual... for example he said to me:
“You may go to the graveside of the Dlamini ancestors tomorrow in Emjindini, Phiri; and I insist you do it. But if there is a reason that stops you from doing so afore the family gathering you are planning, you can do that much later for they don’t dwell in those graves... they are even here with us as we speak and they hear, understand and accept the idea of you bringing the Dlaminis together in your hometown of Mayflower or Empuluzi.”
Then the woman, with her strong and fleshy arms gesticulating as she prayed, her steely tongue clicking the beautiful Xhosa clicks, tied the devil not to bother my car as I was leaving Kanyamazane/Lekazi that dark evening.
I had some five minutes behind me together with the first bridge one crosses from Nelspruit to Barberton when a madly-speeding white Toyota Camry overtook me on a barrier line.
I was shocked to see just how fast and recklessly some people could drive in the lethal darkness of the roads of hallowed Emjindini.
I had some five minutes behind me together with the first bridge one crosses from Nelspruit to Barberton when a madly-speeding white Toyota Camry overtook me on a barrier line.
I was shocked to see just how fast and recklessly some people could drive in the lethal darkness of the roads of hallowed Emjindini.
Whatever was pushing that motorist, we joked among ourselves in my car, must have been the devil tied by our beautiful Xhosa-speaking cousin for us only to be freed for him or her in that Toyota Camry. But I too was not driving that slowly either, confident that whatever might have stood on the road beyond my headlights, must have been cleared and swept away by my flying Japanese.
I nearly killed myself and the princesses for that driving stupidity. I believe only prayer, especially in IsiXhosa, saved us.
Here is how Miracle Number One unfolded.
To the left of the road and just on the brink of the Hilltop , stands some grand house. It is some 400 metres to that house that one of the elderly princesses asked me to open a tricky juice container for her.
If you are South African, you will know these juice cartons with straws like elm-keys that require a bit of detaching art accompanied by a spot like a G into which to fit in the straw with an art of Phiri's Blogspot fit for children and not adults-only.
Even I, not as purblind as the two princesses in my car, had no way of consummating this act while driving. There is only one Houdini and one Ananias Mathe per every 40 million human beings!
Thus, to help the princess, I was compelled to stop the car and the farmer’s driveway from the mainroad became my perfect parking bay, nose of the car teetering forward almost like it sensed the steep downhill we were about to take from the roof of Hilltop.
The princess thanked me.
Now some gentlemen find an indescribably good masasage to their egos when thanked by ladies, but not me!
Within seconds, half of which I used to curse myself why I had not bought these elderly princesses more simple juices like Appletiser in a bottler or a tin, I was back on road at 30 km/h and accelarating pretty fast.
I was about to engage the third gear of my manual when two disintegrated chunks of a red Volkswagen Golf suddenly and completely blocked my road a hundred metres in front of me!
One of the chunks dangled the lifeless arm or a young black man whose torso now served as a mere hanger to a T-shirt the colour of the mangled steel his car had become.
Nobody could have survived in that accident and I was to learn the following day that indeed every single one of them had died on the spot. These were motorists who were driving uphill with Hilltop, their car ripped asunder by the white Toyota Camry that we had seen 10 minutes earlier driving downhill from Nelspruit.
Whenever you happen to drive along that stretch of tarmac one day and feel like taking a serious warning if not a precaution, just remember that America’s Grand Canyon has a replica right there, with its wide yawn, closer to you than you ever cared to think, hiding behind the roadside bushes that paint the marvellous but otherwise aeathetically dull work of magnificent road engineering!
It is at the bottom of the Grand Canyon that they found what remained of the Camry, I gather.
If the passenger who caused my car to stop where I stopped it had not caused it it stop it there, If I had succeeded to get the "right" cold drinks for my princesses back in Nelspruit, I probaly would have been suddenly and very violently stopped at the bottom of that Grand Canyon with fatal consequences for kissing with my car corpses of dead motorists that night.
That I survived (I know it is a wrong word) getting myself into a nasty accident that night is for me miraculous if ever miracles existed.
ARE MIRACLES CLOSELY TIED TO ROYALTY?
To refresh and return to my theme, the woman woman passenger who opportunely saved my life from a driving accident is as said before, a princess. But I need to elaborate this point.
She, like me, is a descendant of royal emissaries that had come all the way from Swaziland in the 19th century... no ordinary woman indeed.
That I survived (I know it is a wrong word) getting myself into a nasty accident that night is for me miraculous if ever miracles existed.
ARE MIRACLES CLOSELY TIED TO ROYALTY?
To refresh and return to my theme, the woman woman passenger who opportunely saved my life from a driving accident is as said before, a princess. But I need to elaborate this point.
She, like me, is a descendant of royal emissaries that had come all the way from Swaziland in the 19th century... no ordinary woman indeed.
The Emjindini emissaries were indeed political heavyweights after whom Mpumalanga tourist sites like Shangubo Dam are named.
On a good and well-predicted rainy day in Summer (as can be offered by the December month), the Queens River will milk the jagged mountains of Emjindini for all the transparent heavenly juice they are worth only to jet treat into the thirsty spinach gardens of the nearby township...not English spinach or Chinese... but the spinach the Swazi call imbuya. Imbuya will gives your mouth the same taste that your eyes get when they graze on the Emjindini Mountains.
Many of you who are followers of Zulu music and my age, will recall a hit single in the 70's praising the heart-stopping beauty of Barberton/Emjindini mountains and it went:
Ngikala ngezintaba zaseMjindini
Ezingisitela wena S'tandwa!
Mjindini! Mjindini!
Ngipupa ngawe!
"My jeremiad only provoked by the Emjindini Mountains
"The only real curtain to frustrate my gaze for my true love
Mjindini! Mjindini!
I dream about you!
On a good and well-predicted rainy day in Summer (as can be offered by the December month), the Queens River will milk the jagged mountains of Emjindini for all the transparent heavenly juice they are worth only to jet treat into the thirsty spinach gardens of the nearby township...not English spinach or Chinese... but the spinach the Swazi call imbuya. Imbuya will gives your mouth the same taste that your eyes get when they graze on the Emjindini Mountains.
Many of you who are followers of Zulu music and my age, will recall a hit single in the 70's praising the heart-stopping beauty of Barberton/Emjindini mountains and it went:
Ngikala ngezintaba zaseMjindini
Ezingisitela wena S'tandwa!
Mjindini! Mjindini!
Ngipupa ngawe!
"My jeremiad only provoked by the Emjindini Mountains
"The only real curtain to frustrate my gaze for my true love
Mjindini! Mjindini!
I dream about you!
The Queens River which flows from those balladed mountains was named after my cousin princess, “The Queen”. She was so named by a settler-colonialist white ruler of what is today Mpumalanga. And here is the short story behind the naming.
The woman was not only extremely beautiful where she was even never afraid to show her contours to passers-by with a bath in the river that was to be named after her later as stated, but she also sported such a majestic gait the European exclaimed “She cannot be a princess! This, I swear, is the Swazi Queen herself”
The woman was not only extremely beautiful where she was even never afraid to show her contours to passers-by with a bath in the river that was to be named after her later as stated, but she also sported such a majestic gait the European exclaimed “She cannot be a princess! This, I swear, is the Swazi Queen herself”
I like to think people see these kinds of common traits with my cousins when they frequently say to me: “Phiri, you do walk like you own Mother Earth”. I get embarrassed of course and ask: “Is it a prideful arrogant walk?” And they will say: “Not at all! It’s just a frighteningly beautiful walk. The walk of confidence.”
Well, I say Thank You, to you Royal Dlaminis for making a Phiri king again!
This is one of the reasons then, that I was this particular morning on foot scaling the Barberton mountains so treacherous. But remember: lurking behind those dangers is also the everpresent chance to taste complete beauty with your eyes and to lick complete honey sweetness with your mind.
Protocoal for visiting these areas with my ancestors' grave is tedious and daunting for various reasons not excluding royal protocol of course.
I, for example, being a relative of the Emjindini Royal House Empakatsini, still had to get a thorough runaround before I could get comfortable with the geography of the area. Things could have become worse for me had I not chanced upon Princess Siyapi Dlamini who had grown up with my grandmother and she stopped the red tape there and then and directed me Chief Nkelengane, who I seem to think with lots of doubt though, is a Fakudze.
It is Chief Nkelengane who gave me the full details of my lineage back to King Sobhuza The First over and above pointing out to me other relatives of mine around South Africa.
But all that was many moons before I had set out to throw a party for my late grandmother. Many moons yes, but the lividity oozing from an ego bruised by protocol will never diminish. I could have killed somebody when most recently, her Royal Highness Princess Siyapi died, nobody could be found to give me permission to film the funeral. How is posterity going to know about our history if we are still so backward in our handling of technlogy?
Furthermore to the point, I am as yet to see my great grandfather’s grave for the reason it now stands on some ethnic European's farm who reportedly does not take kindly to some blacks trespassing only for the purposes of “ancestral worship”.
The farmer moved to my grandfather's grave and not the other way round; but I am told I must dance or do some protocol with the farmer before I see my granny's grave, a grave that the farmer has invaded with his money, indilinga, in Siswati!
So I advise any extended-relative Dlamini who considers a visit there to think again before simply getting there whether for the blessings or for the diversions which of course go beyond consanguinity with the Dlaminisi.
In fact, where tourism is concerned, I advise South Africa’s millionaires (and the the not-so-rich of the nation and a world who often like to do a home-coming to the beginning of all life) to please see what I am talking about.
Let your money fly you in a helicopter over the area! Your soul will quaff beauty and horror put together, I promise you, all of which is mostly cushioned under lush vegetation with the lone white boulder here and there occasionally surfacing to grin a huge molar at you, maybe to remind you that the original ivory and elephant tusk had chromosomes derived from these same rocks.
You, my American tourist and British of course, Helicopter is my first choice because a Hummer or a Land Rover can easily get you killed for nothing among the many rocky and treacherous dongas, memento mori, memento Camry, memeto Canyon.
By the way (and remember this as you tour the birthplace of one of the leaders of our great African Natioal Congress, the inimitable Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa of the Roman Catholic Church), one of the two rocks ever found on earth with the oldest signs of life on earth (some two billion years ago), was found by scientists in this exact spot.
In fact, where tourism is concerned, I advise South Africa’s millionaires (and the the not-so-rich of the nation and a world who often like to do a home-coming to the beginning of all life) to please see what I am talking about.
Let your money fly you in a helicopter over the area! Your soul will quaff beauty and horror put together, I promise you, all of which is mostly cushioned under lush vegetation with the lone white boulder here and there occasionally surfacing to grin a huge molar at you, maybe to remind you that the original ivory and elephant tusk had chromosomes derived from these same rocks.
You, my American tourist and British of course, Helicopter is my first choice because a Hummer or a Land Rover can easily get you killed for nothing among the many rocky and treacherous dongas, memento mori, memento Camry, memeto Canyon.
By the way (and remember this as you tour the birthplace of one of the leaders of our great African Natioal Congress, the inimitable Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa of the Roman Catholic Church), one of the two rocks ever found on earth with the oldest signs of life on earth (some two billion years ago), was found by scientists in this exact spot.
WHAT REALLY MYSTIFIED ME ABOUT EMJINDINI
So when, finally, we at Emjindini Royal Residence met Prince X who was going to be our chaperone to the graveside up the mountains, he marveled at the fact that ‘I was underdressed’.
“Am I too casual, Cousin?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. “Formality of dress is never a prerequisite when you visit the graveside. Maybe protocol yes; but of that you have already got more that a fair share.”
“So what is your gripe about my garb?” I asked. “Please come to the point, Coz.” Usually it takes me a sip of your booze to share in your crudity. Otherwise I do not suffer fools gladly.
“I still love you.” He said. “And I think you are going to shiver to death a few minutes after getting drenched up the mountains as it always rains when a blest one visits the graves and I have a suspicion yours is a holy mission to be similarly requited.”
I said to him only by heart: But I was not doing my grandmother-honouring function to create any aura of divinity here. I was just seeking to let descendants of these Dlamini people to know one another: personally a greater chunk of my adult life had been spent in the struggle and in exile and I sought dearly to know my relatives that is all. I don't believe the dead come back to commandeer the lives of the living and I am going to the graves because it is a culture prescribed to me by my cousin Prince Michael Dlamini but not because I think these dead people hear me!
It was as if Prince X heard my heart-felt complaint and only pretended he did not.
I looked at the clear skies again, then at the princesses who simply smiled at me, and finally I put his climatological predictions to his bottle. (See? I use “X.” very wisely because the prince is going to wring my neck if I wrote his first name fully in association with the dear bottle!)
Some 50 minutes after this conversation I was gettig a lecture from my first cousin once removed Me Klara Mncina, regarding “The Queen”. This she dished out to me as our fingers uprooted the weed that constantly threaten The Queen’s sepulchre.
My previous memory in the moment was of a hot day, making me so pleased to share the shade over the The Queen’s grave. But then the pelting over my shoulders began.
My previous memory in the moment was of a hot day, making me so pleased to share the shade over the The Queen’s grave. But then the pelting over my shoulders began.
I jerked my head up from my digital, if sepulchral, preoccupation to realize it was raining cats and dogs! The whole mountain and as far as the eye could see, was covered in mist and cloud.
I looked at Prince X who had previously been drinking as highlighted already, but at that moment it is I, a teetotaller for the day, who received the sobering up, instead. He in turn looked at me in utter enjoyment as I gasped from overawed surprise. It was his superb moment for the proverbial "I told you so".
I have never talked about these things before and I think you are very lucky to read this post. And as coincidence would go, I planned a 15-minute video in March this year about the self-same royal Dlamini people of my granny. And while I was still waxing large about their achievement for the formation of the African National Congress a hundred years ago, just in comfort time for Youtube's stingy 15 minutes, THE SAME RAIN DISTURBED MY VIDEO AROUND THE 12TH MINUTES.
Yet that video, whose vocal sound is drenched by loud raindrops on a makeshift studio, remains my most-watched video on Youtube. IT IS THAT SAME VIDEO ABOUT THE ROYAL DLAMINIS THAT CAUSED YOUTUBE TO WRITE TO ME RECENTLY THAT I AM NOW ALLOWED TO RECORD A VIDEO WELL BEYOND 15 MINUTES!
Yet that video, whose vocal sound is drenched by loud raindrops on a makeshift studio, remains my most-watched video on Youtube. IT IS THAT SAME VIDEO ABOUT THE ROYAL DLAMINIS THAT CAUSED YOUTUBE TO WRITE TO ME RECENTLY THAT I AM NOW ALLOWED TO RECORD A VIDEO WELL BEYOND 15 MINUTES!
But I want to ask you: Do you think divinity is a real thing?
Do you think kings, queens and their relatives are divine? Do you think that maybe some of them are and others not? Are those of them without divinity aso the ones who ‘lost their conscience’? And is a man or woman’s conscience her only language with God, her only bridge for chances and chariots of divine intervention? Is divinity the same thing as holiness and are all of them too often manifested in miracles?
As you ponder these questions (I find them too imponderable for my sanity), please enjoy a video I made of the gathering dedicated to the royal Dlaminis (of course after I had been sufficiently drenched, don’t you think?). Do inform also anybody you know to see it, especially if they are also surnamed Nkosi or Dlamini. Indeed, if I were a billionaire (maybe I will become one one day and a far cry from my current poverty in a shack on a festive season), I would have invited anybody who is a Dlamini from the Swazi, the Xhosa, the Zulu and any ethnicity around Southern Africa to have been part of that gathering.
And one day I will do a gathering for all the Phiris of the Subcontinent. Only if I not only survive my current hardships (which I think will be a miracle to happen pretty much like drunkenly-predicted rainfall). I need to survive my current hardships if not for justice then to be a fabulously rich man too one of these good days!
Or don’t you think so, my prophet and prophetess for a reader?
PLEASE ENJOY!!!
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