SIX: Preparing for the Party
The first thing Nomusa thought when she awoke was, “Today is the day of the party at Damasi’s kraal! My work must be done quickly so I shall be ready to go this afternoon.”
Mdingi and Kangata were now awake. Their eyes shone with excitement, and Nomusa knew that they too were thinking about the party. Because of it, they would start off to the pasture earlier today.
They helped themselves from the cook pot. Nomusa pushed more dry twigs on the smoldering fire so her mother could start cooking more food when the pot was empty. She and her brothers made sure there wasenough food left for their mother and Themba when they awoke.
Out of the hut crawled Nomusa, Mdingi, and Kangata, one after the other, eating the food they held in their hands. They looked up at the sky to see what kind of day it was. Off in the distance Nomusa saw some threatening-looking clouds.
“Oh, it’s not a nice day,” she said, disappointed.
“That is true,” replied Mdingi; “but it may clear up before we leave this afternoon.”
“I think it’s going to rain,” said Kangata pessimistically.
“Come along, Kangata,” ordered his big brother.
Nomusa was just leaving through the kraal gate when she heard one of her sisters calling, “Nomusa, wait for me!” It was Hlamba, the daughter of her father’s third wife. Nomusa’s mother was his fourth wife. Hlamba, too, was carrying a water jar, which she balanced expertly on her grass-skirted hip.
Nomusa waited until Hlamba caught up with her. “Sakubona!” she greeted her. “I am glad to have your company, sister. I see you are already wearing yournew beads. They are beautiful! And is that the grass skirt you are wearing to Damasi’s party?”
“Oh, no,” said Hlamba loftily. “I am saving the new one until we go. But I just couldn’t wait to wear the beads.”
Hlamba was taller and plumper than Nomusa. Her body was beginning to take on the form of a woman, and she felt her importance now that her age required her to wear a grass skirt just like her mother’s.
“When I am twelve years old, I suppose I shall have to wear a grass skirt, too,” said Nomusa without any enthusiasm.
“Of course,” said Hlamba. “You will be a woman then.”
“A woman—in two years!” thought Nomusa. Somehow she could not feel happy about it. She wanted so much to play for a long, long time. She walked beside Hlamba for a while, not saying a word, but thinking a great deal. Hlamba kept a steady flow of conversation most of the way, but Nomusa hardly heard her. She kept talking about the designs she would put on her body for the party.
“And what designs and colors shall you paint on your body?” Hlamba was asking. This question interested Nomusa. All the way back to the kraal the conversation continued about the preparations for the party.
“Do you know that our sister Sisiwe has tattooed herself?” asked Nomusa.
“So soon? Did she use a pointed stick, or did she put the glowing embers on the cow dung over the skin?” inquired Hlamba.
“I saw her use a pointed stick. I hope the marks will last at least until the day after the party,” said Nomusa.
“Yes, after all that work and pain of making the tattoo,” said Hlamba sympathetically.
When Nomusa and Hlamba brought their water jars to their huts, the bigger boys were already in the cattle pasture. Only the smaller children were playing about in the kraal space. They were making toy kraals, cattle, and dolls out of clay and baking them in the sun.
There was Themba among the little boys, making clay oxen and cattle kraals and pretending to trade toycattle for dolls as wives. That was what the men did.
While the small children played, the older girls were busy helping their mothers, and there was great activity inside and outside the huts.
Nomusa had finally finished weeding her mother’s garden and had carried back in her left hand a large pumpkin. In her right she held three long pieces of sugar cane. Out of her mouth stuck a small piece of sugar cane which she was chewing and sucking as she walked briskly to her hut. She had stuck five gray and white porcupine quills in her thick hair. Carefully she dropped the pumpkin and the sugar cane before the hut entrance and pushed them before her as she crawled in.
“Well, today you have returned very quickly, Nomusa,” her mother said approvingly. “Have you weeded the garden well?”
“That I have, my mother,” said Nomusa. “And see what I have brought you”—pointing proudly to the quills in her hair.
Her mother stopped brewing corn beer and came over to examine the porcupine quills. She took one outof Nomusa’s hair and put it into her own, trying it out by gently scratching her head with it.
“Yo! Very sharp point,” she observed. “How did you get the quills?”
“While I was weeding the garden, I saw the porcupine close to the ground trying to creep out from under our thorn fence. So I threw a large yam at it as hard as I could, and although the porcupine got away, the yam lay on the ground with these porcupine quills in it.”
[Girl]
Her mother laughed aloud. “You are as good a shot as your brothers. You would be a good hunter.”
“I would rather be a good hunter than be allowed to wear a grass skirt,” confessed Nomusa.
“Perhaps you can do both; but you will learn that it is good to be a woman, too. How are the crops? Are any pineapples ripe yet?”
“No, my mother. They are still hard and green. I felt all of them. But the beans will be ready by tomorrow, I am sure. I go now to gather wood for your fire.”
“Very well, Nomusa. Hurry with your chores so you can prepare yourself for the party.”
Nomusa smiled at her mother, grateful to her for understanding what was in her mind.
When she had returned with the firewood and ground some corn, her mother said, “You have done enough. The sun is now high, and it is time for you to paint and grease yourself.”
Nomusa did not have to be urged twice. She took out her little piles of ground stone, which were lying neatly on large leaves, carried them carefully outdoors, and laid them on the shady side of the hut while shegot some water and lamb fat. Leaving each color on its separate leaf, Nomusa poured water, drop by drop, first on the red powder, then on the black, then on the white, mixing each with a different thin twig. Into each color she stirred a little fat until it was just the right thickness. As if she were a chemist, she examined each color with the tip of her finger to see that it was neither too thin nor too thick, neither too light nor too dark. From time to time she tried a little of the color on her arm in order to see if it was just the right shade and would stay on well.
Finally Nomusa was satisfied. With some soft dried rabbits’ paws that she used as paintbrushes, she began smearing her body, first putting on the red coat that made her skin a lovely warm copper color. She waited a few minutes for it to dry well. On top of the red paint she began putting the designs she had decided on long ago. The white circles were painted on first, then black circles put around these. Radiating from these she drew shapes of diamonds, squares, a series of wavy lines, and then dots. It was such a balanced pattern of design and color that an artist could not have done better. For herback she needed some help; so she called Sisiwe, who was coming out of her hut.
“What, you are all ready?” asked Sisiwe. “Why, I haven’t even finished my work yet. I still have to get wood and grind some corn. It’s a good thing the tattooing is done.”
“I will help you with the corn, Sisiwe, if you paint my back the way I tell you to.”
“I shall do it gladly, Nomusa.”
Carefully, Nomusa stooped before Sisiwe’s grinding stone, afraid lest she make cracks in the paint on her body. She began grinding the corn, throwing into the scooped stone a handful of dried kernels now and then. Sisiwe, more cheerful now, ran quickly out of the kraal for the wood.
[Girl]
While Nomusa worked, she could not help admiring herself, and her eyes wandered up and down the front of her body. Nomusa was pleased with her designs. When she had given her body a final layer of grease to protect and bring out the colors of the paint and had put on all her bangles and bracelets, she would look beautiful indeed. She would not forget to wear her newoxhide neck-pocket, either. Already she had put into it most of her best treasures, to be exchanged for even better ones, she hoped, with Damasi’s guests.
It did not seem at all long before Sisiwe was back again, her arms filled with branches and twigs. She dropped her load behind her hut, then carried into the hut as much wood as her mother would need for several hours. Out she ran to Nomusa and squatted beside her, taking the grinding stone out of her hand.
“I can go on grinding if you will get my paints and cover my back with red paint,” said Nomusa.
Sisiwe darted over to Nomusa’s hut to gather up the paints. When she returned, Nomusa said, “I think the paints will need more water. They are a little dry now. When you have used what you need on my back, you may have the rest of the colors for yourself.”
“You are good, Nomusa.” Sisiwe added some water to the paint, stirring water and paint together with great care. She began covering Nomusa’s back with the red color as smoothly as she could. Nomusa giggled as the rabbit’s foot tickled her sides.
After having made the designs and used the colorsNomusa showed her, Sisiwe said, “It is done now, and you look splendid.”
“I can help you with your back, just as you did mine,” said Nomusa. With Nomusa’s help it did not take long for Sisiwe to be completely painted. Nomusa then went back to her hut to get her bangles and beads. She reappeared before Sisiwe wearing them around her waist, her neck, her elbows, her upper arms, her ankles, the calves of her legs, and her knees. She was now well greased, too, and glistened in the sun. Her bulging oxhide neck-pocket, soft and new, hung around her neck. A thin circlet of white, green, and red beads surrounded her pretty head.
As her little brothers and sisters saw Nomusa approach they stopped everything they were doing. Excitedly they crowded around to examine her decorations and adornments and point out to one another the extraordinary designs on her body. They touched her shiny bangles, her beads and bracelets, all of which she had made herself.
“How I wish I could go to Damasi’s party, too,” said one of her small admirers. “Did you make thisbracelet?” asked another. “Where did you get those beads?”
Puleng returned from some little adventure he had been having and began to bark at Nomusa, disturbed over her strange appearance. What with his barking and the shouting and loud questions of all the children crowding round Nomusa and Sisiwe, there was such a din that mothers stuck their heads out of the entrance of their huts and crossly commanded, “Tula!”
“Hush!” warned Nomusa. “You will wake all the babies.” She stroked Puleng’s head to reassure him and quiet his barking.
“Here come the others, ready for the party,” announced Sisiwe. “Oh, look!”
Nineteen boys and girls—painted, greased, bedecked with all kinds of beads and bangles encircling almost every part of the body—began gathering at the kraal entrance ready to set forth. Some of the girls wore grass skirts; some of the boys were wearing antelope belts for the first time and were proudly fingering and arranging them. Some had feathers stuck in their hair. Faces were painted with designs meant to terrify and amuse.
[Children]
Nomusa and Sisiwe joined their older sisters and brothers at the kraal entrance. They were ready to start for the party now. The smaller children, who were being left behind, began jumping and shouting around them, cheering as they left.
The morning haze had disappeared, and Damasi’s kraal could now be seen clearly on the hill beyond. As Nomusa walked along with her nineteen excited brothers and sisters, she fingered her neck-pocket and began to think of Damasi and how glad she would be to see him.
[Huts]