Professor Musa Xulu
Ubuntu is learned, not natural or automatic, behavior
ANC Today
Online Voice of the African National Congress
November 2007
There is a saying in isiZulu language which says: “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”, meaning a human being is a human being because of others, or one owes one’s humanity to other people. It has equivalents in almost every African language spoken in South Africa. Its essence is to define the basics of humanity. Because it is mentioned so often its deeper meaning is often perused over, and accepted as known to all. Experience, however, shows that this is not necessarily so.
IsiZulu, like many other related African languages, uses idioms, sayings and even non-linguistic, but related, expressions like music, theatre and dance to communicate the fundamentals of life and its under-bearing social order. The essence of language in Africa, therefore, is not just to allow people to talk and get through life; it is to consistently define life and its meanings and preserve tangible and intangible knowledge systems.
Consequently, humans, rivers, mountains, skies, the weather, animals, and in fact everything, has life and patterns of behavior that need consistent definition, As these change, so does language. Its expansion is in this way continuous as it attempts to define the changes. When, as a result of schooling, the missionaries, urbanisation and industrialisation, Africans came to contact with new words and new meanings the African languages expanded tremendously.
Umuntu, at its simplest meaning, is a person or human being. This is so, until one hears someone thanking some good done towards him/ her by saying: "ungenze umuntu," meaning, "you have made me into a human being" or negatively: "U Sibanibani, akumuntu lowo" meaning, so and so is not a human being. So, to be umuntu is an attained status. One has to constantly work towards attaining this status. Once attained, it must be maintained. Furthermore, it seems to be revered, or to have been revered and held in high status in the past. Thus, one would hear: "Eyi! u Sibanibani, umuntu lowo," meaning so and so is a human being. However, there is not to be heard something like: "Mina ngiwumuntu" or such self- praise. It seems like this status is always bestowed by others. Further, it cannot be demanded, it cannot be asked for, it can, however, be worked for.
This is where the role of others creeps in to the lives of individuals. For one to attain this most sought after status of being umuntu one needs the participation of others in their life. One also needs the general acceptance of their standards of behavior, talk, walk, dress and actually be cultured in a manner that meets the basis of humanity. Umuntu is definable.
There are various contexts in which one's approval by others is demonstrative of the attainment of the umuntu status. It should be pointed out that in isiZulu there are many words which define people who, through their behavioral patterns and other, are not able to attain the status of umuntu. Among these are: umgulukudu, a badly behaved, ill-mannered vagabond, and inswelaboya, one who displays animal-like behavior, but lacks, animal skin and hairs. Even today no-one seeks to be labeled in these terms.
In traditional African society music gives meaning to the saying "umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu". African music is organised in a call-and-response format. There is often one leader who starts the song, and a chorus of many who respond. In almost all the time, the leader is desperate for the response, because if it does not come, this may mean non-acceptance of their person. Ultimately when the song is ripe, the dancer steps forward to begin the dance. They too, are desperate for the chorus response, hand-clapping, ululating and general encouragement, because should these not come, the dancer will simply be unable to continue with the dance. The dancer needs these, because a successful dance improves one's chances of being recognised as umuntu. In a traditional setting no one wants to live as a non-umuntu, angimuntu walutho. However, it is also important to mention that a successful dance is not always the one which is aesthetically superior, but the one in which there is collective, cascaded participation by those who complement the dance, hand clappers, ululating parties, drummers and admirers..
According to ethnomusicologist, John Miller Chernoff (1979), music thus ordered works to establish a framework for communal integrity and "offers a superb approach to understanding Africans' attitudes about what their relationship to each other should be." In such events people are always alert of each other and act in complementary ways. According to John Blacking (1980) the Venda tshikona dance achieves this interrelatedness of human beings, and, as it happens, creates the biggest universe known to Venda society as each one present demonstrably sees the role of others in their life.
In most African communities the dependence of one's life to the cooperation and complementarity of others is also demonstrated through exchange of gifts. Exchange of gifts is one of Africa's biggest inheritances. People just want to give, and give back, even poor to the rich. When a wedding occurs in the village, many people, some totally unrelated to the bride and groom, will go out of their way to procure gifts for their relatives, which they give out as the wedding proceeds, as a side event.
Imonjonjo, in isiZulu, is beer prepared by non-relatives of the bride and groom who use the wedding event as a platform to cement their own relations by exchanging gifts of beer and snacks on the sides of the main event. In this way, an African wedding, due to its all-complementary nature is a festival of shows, side-shows and gifts. It is not expected that the wedding parties themselves should provide everything for their guests. In line with umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, the wedding parties only provide a stage for this chain of shows, side shows, gifts and complementarity to take place. The bride thus weds to the village, and the groom is a brother-in-law to everyone in the bride's village. And so, relations multiply.
There is another complex issue closely related to the idea of complementary existence. After putting an emphasis on one's dependence on others for the completion of one's identity, it is possible to think that in African thought there is no concept of individuality. To the contrary, there is a lot of individuality, but its acceptable existence exists within the self same context of umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. Its meaning is that one needs the communal whole to advance one's individuality. In traditional Zulu society the biggest marker of one's individuality was one's set of praises -izibongo. But one seldom composed their own izibongo; this being left to the discretion of others, who compose their praises based on their known and accepted achievements. But such achievements must meet with the criteria for generally accepted public behavior. To have no praises or to have short praises would be indicative of one's ineptness.
So, the dancer as well needed the communal whole to demonstrate their dance skills, but they had to be part of the communal whole first, and to be known for complementing others. No matter how beautiful the song, people would not respond to it, if they had not established the credentials of the leader of the song. And no matter how beautifully one dances, no one would recite one's praises unless they were composed within the communal whole.
At the level of economic activity, it is often easy to understand African attitudes to wealth, if one reconstructs the pre-colonial economy through language and social patterns. Zulus, especially during the time of Kings Shaka to Cetshwayo (1816 to 1879), were basically accumulators of wealth. This is supported by Shaka's praises: "Oth'esadl'ezinye, wadl'ezinye" (a reference to his capturing of others' izinkomo-cattle) To have many cattle, goats, sheep and to work all the land available and have plenty of provisions and food security, immediately raised the social status of an individual. King Shaka himself undertook many attacks and expeditions in pursuit of wealth, mainly cattle and women. The inner circle of his council were all rich men, who had many cattle, wives and children. Kings and their inner circle needed cattle to sustain the economy of the state and their politics of patronage. So, they went to war.
However, there is a concept in isiZulu called ukusisa. In ukusisa, the rich lended part of their wealth - cattle - to the poor to allow them to build their own wealth. At some stage in future cattle so given would have to be returned, but not their offspring, which became the property of the borrower. And so the wealth was spread and shared.
Within such a framework, the community would take responsibility to ensure that each household had adequate food and supply of milk and meat. And so, different households would organise an ilimo, which included brewing beer and inviting or allowing the whole community to come and work one's fields. So, when the time for harvest arrived, every household would have enough food. Some kings even organised food festivals and went to the extent of ritualising food and food supply. The Zulu First Fruits Ceremony, umkhosi wokweshwama, is an example. It has equivalents in most parts of Africa and the Diaspora. These took the form of bring and share, and provided opportunities to prove that the nation had enough food supplies.
A religious belief system in which the departed continuously watch over the living, which the departed themselves are judged and have their lives and influence expanded by those who remember them, ensures complementarity between the living and the dead, each in need of the other. In African thought a person truly dies when his influence on the living ends, and so he is forgotten. No ancestor wants to be forgotten.
There is language for every occasion in most African languages. Speech becomes structured differently when there is a death, and speech so meant cannot be used in a wedding and in everyday life.
In traditional Zulu society women continuously expand the horizons of the language by engaging in hlonipha language, So, all women married to the Zulu of eNtembeni clan near Melmoth, where Sitheku, son of king Mpande, is the chief ancestor, avoid at all cost any word that involves theku and will, therefore, refer to eThekwini (Durban) as e-Hwebini. Those married to the Zungu of Manzini will avoid pronouncing the word amanzi (water), and call it amada. The effect of hlonipha language is to raise the status of the ancestor, exploiting the power of what is not said. It also expands the language by providing new words and new meanings to words. So, an ancestor needs women to marry in to his clan in order to hlonipha him and thus immortalise his name - by avoiding its mention.
Clan names, izithakazelo (iziduko in Xhosa), provide a platform for individuals to expand their personal identities. Firstly, before surnames emerged, possibly some 200 to 300 years ago, at least in Zulu society, people were known by their names and the names of their father, always mentioned together in sequence. So, u Shaka ka Senzangakhona, that is Shaka of Senzangakhona; uZulu ka Nogandaya, that is, Zulu whose father is Nogandaya. One needs a good name for one's father to enhance one's identity, and so ill-treating one's parents is out of the question.
A woman who married would be known as ka - then the name of the father and later the surname. Thus, ka Mbondi (daughter of Mbondi), ka Majola. (daughter of Majola), kaMsweli, daughter of Msweli, and so on. Women would be further identified with the solo song - inkondlo, which they sing, compulsorily so, during the wedding. Of course solo here is still within the confines of umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. No-one could sing solo without the participation of others.These days married women are only Mrs so and so. Does it enhance their status?
The concept of umuntu is linked to the concept of ubuntu, which would be all activities which make one qualify as umuntu. The intervening period of slavery, colonialism. and apartheid did much to hurt the concepts of ubuntu and umuntu as an attained, learned and taught status. The effect was to erase the supporting knowledge that defines it. However, even today contemporary African communities in the townships, rural villages and even suburbs are very much grappling with living by the concept of ubuntu. Everyone wants to be an umuntu. But do they know how?. Only now there are no opportunities for people to learn to be an umuntu-abantu, So, many do not attain the status. This impacts on their sense of judgment, discretion, and even where some celebrate crime, criminality and bad behavior while seeing no value in the lives of others. So, killing them becomes easy. Are criminals rapists, cheats and others abantu? Traditional society provided for rehabilitation.
So, of what significance are these ideas, values, expressions? Well, they fall in the category of intangible heritage. It is the intellectual aspect of heritage, that which cannot be touched, but is there and is definitive of life around us. What shall be done?
Ubuntu and good citizenship are learned, not automatic behaviors. Umuntu remains an evasive but attainable status. Black South Africa needs platforms to recycle these ideals so they gain currency. At the least they can be appendaged to our education system. What of our museums, archives, universities and libraries? Is it not time that cultural officers and students should be out there collecting intangible heritage and structuring it for preservation and recycling? What of publishing firms? What of themes for indigenous films? What of indigenous musicals, theatre and commercial music?
KwaZulu Natal Premier Sibusiso Ndebele's provincial heritage initiatives of seeking to collect and consolidate all written records on and about isiZulu, motivated by the death of Professor Mazisi Kunene last year, and the Family Roots Project, aimed at assisting clans and families trace their roots and reconnect, to name a few, will, when accomplished, give reality and meaning to the urgency of reconstructing African realities in this ever transforming South Africa.
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** Prof Musa Xulu is an ethnomusicologist and cultural researcher, and advisor in the Office of the Premier, KwaZulu Natal. This article, the second from Prof Xulu, is part of a series from readers on the subject of African languages and literature. More articles and comments will be published in future editions.
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2007/at43.htm#art1