In the Presence of a Great One

Baba Credo Mutwa with Mbali, South Africa May 2006, Kuruman

In May of 2006 I got on a plane from Cape Town to Kimberly to meet a stranger who lived in Kuruman on the edge of the Kalahari desert. I did all the things I was told never to do-travel at night in a car with a strange man. I was met by a young man who gave me a warm blanket. I climbed into his van which had NO heating, he was to take me to meet High Sanusi, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa(Awakener of the Zulus) also known affectionately as Baba Mutwa. It was 11pm at night and we were driving 2 hours into the bush . Even the driver said "It's dangerous to be driving at this time of night" I should have heard alarm bells and seen red flags but I did not. Instead I clutched my faithfull, cowskin medicine bag asked all my ancestors to stay with me and I sat back in my seat with no seat belt and trusted. This young man played Whitney Houston singing "and I will always love you " He told me it was Baba Mutwa's favorite song. I really wondered what I was doing, no fear, just one of those magic moments when you realize you have just pushed yourself to the edge of life ! It was freezing . "its not supposed to be freezing in Africa !" I said and he reminded me I had arrived in winter. I smiled in the dark, a dream was about to come true it was exhilirating. As I drove into the village I saw large 9 foot wire sculptures that looked like martians but held a flame to light the way fuelled by paraffin. White rondaavals which I later found out were ancestors houses. I was met by Virginia, Baba Mutwa's wife, dressed in her Sangoma clothes, her hair studded with brightly colored beads. She welcomed me into her house and told me I was to stay at the hotel in town. The next morning I was picked up by the driver still playing Whitney Houston mixed with popular music.

The great man Baba Mutwa was standing in his yard by a stunning sculpture of Mary holding Jesus on her lap that he had fashioned. Virgina guided me to him. He is partially blind from the diabetes and a looming presence in his own way. His head moved in a way that seemed to be picking up transmissions, it jerked from side to side. "you have come a long way why are you here?" were the first words that came from his mouth. "To find out more about my ancestors" I replied.

Your name is Mbali. Baba Mutwa spoke quietly in a beautiful lulling tone (you can hear his voice in various interviews with David Icke and he always addressed me as Maam or Mbali ) I looked at Virginia and she translated my name. In Zulu it means the flower. From that day on they called me Mbali and after a just a few times of hearing that name it began to sound very familiar. I was renamed in the country that I was born.

There are too many links to post but I do suggest you try to read a cross section of them to get a true picture of this extraodinary Healer, Shaman, Educator, Storyteller, Diviner and Elder and holder of the history of Africa . He is counsellor to many heads of state, kings and queens including the Dalai Llama and an amazing story teller. At 82 years old he is a beautiful, gentle spirit, fierce with passion, partially blind but still building sculptures with the help of orphaned youth which he interns. They are as high as 8-10 feet tall. A remarkable seer, diviner that knows about the creation of the earth, that talks as though he has lived in those times and in some way he probabaly has, and a man that has knowledge about caves that are millions of years old and rivers that have no bottoms. He knows Africa, he knows about the old indigenous ones, he knows where you have been even before you were born and where you are going! When you sit in his presence you are in the presence of the other world, in the presence of someone great and remarkable and astonishing and he transmits information that leaves you wide eyed, and stunned. I was humbled by his humbleness.

In the four days that I was with him I recieved a divination.He also gave me some of his divination stones. I received several hours of transmission. It was a magical time and a deep honor. Baba has been through many tragedies, and with all this he, like many black Africans I met continue to carry the strength and resiliance of a people who has seen and experienced much suffering.

He also carries his traditions and Medicine with great honor, the neckalces he wears and hold from his ancestors, are said to carry the oral history of his people and there are few who can read them. He understands the importance of passing on the medicine and traditions, but as many medicine men/women of his standing, (he has the highest in the Zulu tradion that a Shaman can have, he is ostracized by some of his people because they feel that the oral traditions should be kept secret.

In addition his book "Indaba my Children: should be given a place in schools for children to read the history of Africa written through story. It is his determination to keep the rich oral tradition of South Africa alive. He believes Africa is dying and he believes that HIV and Aids are a man made disease. He teaches with love and he does not suffer fools. He is the genuine article, steeped in his tradition as a Zulu, his father a direct descendant of King Shaka (this he says with a smile) He is a genius that takes us in to the heart of ancestral wisdom and he extends ubutnu with a gentle spirit and humility. If you are interested in tours to meet with him, post a comment and I will contact you

Song as a Way of Life

Ingoma~ The Song

Unzima Lomthwalo

Unzima lomthwalo

Ufuna Madoda

Unzima Lomthwalo

Ufuna bafazi

Azikatali noma siyaboshwa

Sizi misel inkululeko

Thina bantwana base Afrika

Sizi misel inkululeko

English translation: "Oh we dont care if we go to jail, it is for freedom that we gladly go. A heavy load a heavy load, it will take some real strength. We are the children of Africa. It is for freedom that we are fighting now. A heavy load, a heavy load, and it will take some real strength."

This was a song of defiance and determination. It has been sung for many years and was also sung at the funerals of the victims of the Soweto Massacre in June of 1976.

A month ago I went to see a rehearsal of a mixed race choir who I heard sang freedom songs primarily of South Africa in Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho and English. They also sing spirituals and gospels. They are called Vukani Mawethu which means People Arise (in Zulu) www.vukani.com. After the first song I was very moved, it felt like a reremebering, but mostly I was touched knowing that this choir which was formed 21 years ago by the late James Madhlope Phillips, has sung out against racism and apartheid and contributed to the international effort to bring about democratic elections for the people of South Africa. In short I was humbled, humbled that they knew more about my country than I did, humbled that they have been doing the work I asked if they would allow me to sing in their choir. I, who knows nothing from alto or tenor who sings only in the shower and sometimes when I do my medicine work. They said yes and so I have been singing my little heart out and each time I sing, hear the songs and the languages, something inside me cracks open and another piece heals, not me, but for all those who came before me, because that's who I am singing to and for. Indigenous people say the song brings the spirit down! And I feel the ancestors rejoicing as they hear the songs. During the fourty years of apartheid when black people were denied the basic rights as Africans they would protest throughout the struggle with song. When a mother went out looking for a job, every day and was sent back empty handed, every day, she would return to her hungry children and sing a dirge to express how she felt. Music played a major part of their liberation.

Vuyisile Mini was a gifted actor, poet and singer, he is remembered for the songs he composed as well as their delivery, an ANC member who was hung, who went to the gallows singing freedom songs. The night before I left for my first trip home n 2006, I had the honor of meeting Hugh Masekela at Yoshis in Oakland. Since 1954 he played music that reflected the agony,conflict and struggles of his personal life and life in South Africa. But it was those struggles, and sorrows, passions and joys that inspired him to make music and influenced his songs. Mama Afrika also known as Miriam Makeba was banned from returning to South Africa in 1963 along with her records after giving an impassioned testimony before the United Nations Committee Against Apartheid.

"Where is the Way" Song and Struggle in South Africa by Helen Q. Kivnick, is a book

and language of the songs in South Africa. It captures the essential link between cultures, peoples strength and courage that helped them to resist oppression and it speaks loudly to the spirit of Ubuntu. Kivnick says it this way "The particular way these people sing -in overlapping parts that work, all together, to produce rhythmic and harmonic fullness-reflects a fundamental African social philospophy: an individual acheives wholeness only in interaction with others. In Zulu the full saying goes umuntu ungumuntu ngabantu ("one can only be fully human through relationships with fellow human beings") " And so it speaks to achievement and purpose being pursued in order to enhance the community as a whole. The author travels with her husband often being the only two white people in a sea of blacks into rural villages, prisons, townships, churches, and communities, sometimes seeking out a lone musician. Her descriptions invite you into the soul of the player, singer or song and how like a magician the performer(s) casts a spell on the people who grow and grow around them as they stop along the way to listen and join in. They are often in tattered rags or hungry, they have often walked three to four hours. She does an incredible job of showing the hope in the people who sing for freedom and a better tomorrow.

The people sing at births and deaths and funerals and weddings. They sing about the men who have left them to work in far away towns, they sing about their life in the village, they sing about the struggle and they sing about unity. She says "they sang in celebration of the pride that years of enforced servitude had not destroyed. And they sang to fan the flame of humanity, burning even inside the land of apartheid" Amongst the Africans, music permeates every cycle of life from birth to death, it's inextricable with the other world the spirit world which is intertwined with the people. It reinforces community as inseparable from the natural world and the individual and children learn about their folk lore through song and stories. 

"In black South Africa singing is inseparable from life. And life is in turn, is in turn inseparable 

 from the country's history, from the religious, political, economic and social currents that have washed the land ever since whites laid claim to that which blacks do not believe can be owned"

Helen Kivnick  

When I was in Africa in 2006 I visited the High Sanusi, Shaman Baba Credo Mutwa. His clinic had lost a patient to HIV in the village, and I was invited to the funeral. At least a hundred people showed up. I asked how the people got there, as I know they did not have cars, they had walked for miles, I asked how they knew about the funeral as I knew some did not have phones, word of mouth and I asked if all of these people knew this man and they said no but they were welcome anyway. I, a stranger and obvious a tourist was invited to sit in the front of this tiny church with the family which could not hold all these people. They sang and they sang and they sang in harmony in chorus with beautiful melodic rhythms. It was the best acapella I have heard. It was some of the best rhythm I had ever heard and they were some of the most moving songs I had ever heard. I did not know this man or understand the language but I became part of the community without suspicion or questions and I wept for a stranger and for the love that welled inside of me for all these people who welcomed me in their midst. They had not rehearsed, they did not know each other but they knew how to unify in song, they knew how to grieve together in song and they knew how to honor the death as a community in song. They believe that if you mourn a person for too long it weakens the spirit, so at funerals they did not cry they sang.

When I asked my Zulu grandmother last year what helped her family through apartheid she said " we were lucky, we had each other and we sang" Please watch Amandla, it is a beautiful story about the vital role music played in the struggle to eradicate apartheid in South Africa. It was the power of song when crowds were gathered that often scared policemen who thought the crowd was getting out of control sometimes opening fire. So praise to Kivnick who "gets it right"! Joseph Shabalala(Leader of Ladysmith Black Mambazo) praise to Vukani Mawethu for keeping the flame burning for others in the USA and praise to those people everywhere who lift up their voices open their hearts and continue to sing for their right to be free spirits. AMANDLA~Power to the people!