4.3 Traditional Sotho intertexts in MSP
4.3.2 Traditional Beliefs and Practices
4.3.2.1 Ancestral Belief
171 | P a g e the purification offal over them all since to all intents and purpose they were the tomb of the departed.”
As Ellenberger (1912: 228) states, Moshoeshoe’s view over the matter prevailed and as per his orders the following morning an ox was slaughtered and the cannibals who were treated as a grave had their stomachs smeared with mosoang (chyme) while at the same time saying “U re roballe” ‘Have eternal sleep’. This is what the lines cited above allude to as a pre-text from which MSP, as parasite, has drawn for its literary survival.
172 | P a g e us that ancestors have been of great influence in the lives of the Basotho and those with whom they are closely related like Tswana and Pedi.
Barthes (1981:39) argues that any text is an intertext in which other texts are present at varying levels and in more or less recognizable forms. Thus, texts indicative of ancestral beliefs are manifested in the following poems in MSP: Hlakantsutsu ea mophato-moholo ‘Mess in big house’ in Khaketla (1963: 14), Mahlomola a motho le boikhothatso ba hae ‘Human misery and his self-consolation’ in Bereng (1931:47) and Sengoli sa lingoli ‘Author of authors’ in Mahase (2005: 29).
Not only do the poems refer and reflect the traditional belief in the ancestors but also in the existence of the ancestral world “Balimong” and that when people depart from this world they go to “Balimong”. This notion is shown in Bereng (1931:47) and Mahase (2005: 29) from the lines cited below respectively.
55. Khoele, ak’u ikohle, ke rure,
56. K’eo bona bo-rare Balimong; (Bereng, 1931) ___________________________________
55. Thread, spin yourself so that I fly,
56. And go to see our fathers in the Ancestral world;
9. Le hoja a bilelitsoe balimong; a phomotse, (Mahase, 2005).
‘Though having been called to the ancestral world and resting,’
In both excerpts, allusion to the ancestral world or place of ancestors, ‘balimong’, is made. The texts also affirm that in order for one to go to the ancestral world, he/she has to be summoned and that call is usually in a form of death. The inability to go at one’s own will but to be called, results in the wish by the persona in the first extract, to fly and see his fathers who are now in balimong. This emphasises the fact that one cannot cross over on his own accord. The same idea is communicated in the second quotation text through the phrase “a bilelitsoe balimong” ‘having been summoned to the ancestral world’, expressing the passivity on the part of the subject with regard to going to the ancestral world. In other words, the subject’s (Mr Makalo Khaketla in this incidence) passing on and going to the ancestral world had not been his own making but of the power above that of humans.
173 | P a g e The belief that people die because God has remembered or called them and that their departed or ancestors come to fetch them upon that call is further reiterated in Matlakala (1948: 14). Upon realising the terminal condition of her grandmother and that “…la hosasa ha a tl’o le bona” ‘she would not see the next day’ Sentšo (ibid, line 183) Matlakala cannot help crying. Her grandmother responds thus to her granddaughter’s mournful sobs:
190. Se lle, hoba le uena u tla fihla teng 191. Mohla Molimo oa hao o u hopolang,
192. Le mohla ntat’ao a u latang. (Sentšo, 1948: 14).
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190. Don’t cry for you’ll get there too, 191. When your God remembers you,
192. And when your father comes to fetch you.
This also shows that people don’t just belief but they also know that when God has made such a call, it is beyond the power of the called, his/her family or friends to stop or postpone the call or even persuade God otherwise.
On the other hand, “le sa tla bona ha balimo ba koetja” ‘you will see the wrath of the ancestors’ (Khaketla, 1963: 14) makes further reference to the belief in ancestors among the Basotho. In addition, the line brings in the element of fear by the living towards the power and wrath attributed to the ancestors in case of wrong doings by the living. On this feared power Matšela (1990:12) comments thus:
Balimo ba ne ba ruile a mang a matlahali ao a Molimo oo le a botšabeho ba oona, etsoe ba ne ba se ba apere sebopeho sa oona …
‘Ancestors possessed some of the powers of God as well as some degree of fearsomeness as they had assumed His being.’
It is against this background, therefore, that Basotho believed that by violating any of the cultural norms collectively, or by an individual family or community member as shown in lines 3–5 in the cited poem, such a person would face the wrath of the ancestors who are regarded as the custodians of the people’s culture as dictated to by Sesotho custom. In these lines Ramosoeu ‘the white man’ and those who have been allowed to violate the lebollo tradition by having boys and girls in one mophato ‘school’ as shown earlier, will surely face the wrath of the ancestors.
174 | P a g e