Swaziland’s reed dance is not soft porn
President of Zambia Rupiah Banda will today be among dignitaries attending the reed dance in Swaziland.
The following article looks at what the reed dance is all about.
By Prophet LaNdwandwe a.k.a Joy-Dumsile Ndwandwe
Ancient Swaziland has always celebrated August as women’s month; the Umhlanga ceremony marks the end of women’s months’ celebration.
The Umhlanga ceremony is Swaziland’s celebration of maidens who since the previous year have upheld the value of self respect, chastity and self-preservation.
To fully understand this ceremony, we must reflect on the connection between women and maidens and umhlanga, the reed which are collected for this sacred ceremony. Professor Herbert Vilakazi stated thus:
“According to Nguni history/mythology we are told that life emerged out of a reed (umhlanga), that the first to emerge was a woman with a baby on her back. In another region of Africa, we are told life emerged out of deep expansive waters, and the first to emerge was a woman with a man on her back!
YES…and the first living merciful Deity known to Zulus is NOMKHUBULWANE, the daughter of God … the goddess we get close to, with whom we converse, in front of whom we cry, plead and sing, for rain, who at the end issues the RAINBOW! (Mazisi Kunene, Anthem of The Decades).
“In early Christianity, Woman was honoured all over Europe as Mother of the Saviour. (Ean Begg, the Cult of the Black Virgin)”
‘Kushuqa Kwetintfombi Temhlanga’ our maiden’s pilgrimage must be understood from the Nguni history or mythology as a pilgrim to the source of life, the reed.
maiden’s pilgrimage
Maidens as our future source of life for generations to come must embark on this pilgrimage to emerge with feminine power as worthy regiments who will educate our future generation integrity, and moral principles and values.
A mhlanga maiden is on a journey of transformation towards being a worthy regiment committed to self-respect, chastity and self-preservation whilst waiting to becoming future mothers and women with power and influence in nation building and moral preservation.
The maiden’s pilgrimage march is an affirmation to the belief that simplicity is royalty; which is part of their test of character on endurance required by future mothers and women. Hence they march to the reeds our mythological and ancient source of humanity; to emerge with the reeds from the deep waters as a symbol of reviving feminine power, the source of wisdom for all future mothers and women.
The reeds are used to build ‘amaguma’ ‘the shields’ for our traditional homesteads; creating awareness to our maidens on how they are future custodians of our indigenous values, ethos and morality intended to shield homesteads, communities and the nation.
women’s month
Therefore umhlanga ceremony must be enjoyed by the nation with pride and joy marking the end of women’s month; and the day when our maidens celebrate their renewal of feminine power whilst also affirming their commitment to self-preservation, chastity and self respect.
It is unfortunate that our umhlanga ceremony has been turned into a superficial tourisms event for viewing breast and bums; without focusing on its ancient teachings of self-preservation, chastity, and self respect which is taught to worthy regiments.
These teachings are based on the understanding that in traditional society when a baby is being born, there is a woman, and in a room of a dead person there is woman; hence birth and death were handled by women as only women are deep.
The depth of women can also be expressed through their biological design; God designed women as inverted men, the ovaries are similar to testicles, whilst their urinary canal is similar to the penis, and most significantly both the penis and vagina end in interestingly similar pattern.
The parallel of women being inverted men creates a base for complementary relationships, roles and responsibilities between men and women.
Our Umhlanga maidens must understand their complementary relationship with men in order for them to be worthy mothers and women in the future; through spending their maiden days being committed to self-respect, chastity and self preservation. This creates future mothers and women who can manage disruptive emotions and impulses; as they are not enslaved by impulsive feelings and distressing emotions.
Umhlanga creates maidens who will be futures mothers and women who are not preoccupied with illusions of their own grandeur and gluttony; as they marched on the pilgrimage of feminine power based on principle, value and ethos of simplicity is royalty.
disappearance of values
This principle, value and ethos is critical as we are living in an era of disappearance of values as we have evolved from the century of Enlightenment, where we led ourselves to be drawn into undermining our own value systems; as this era can be best characterised as ‘there is only one morality just as there is only one geometry.’
After this era we went on to believing in philosophical, religions and artistic faith based on Truth, Goodness and Beauty; which has created crises in our values resulting in misfortunes such as our maidens becoming sexual objects and porn’s to fulfill their personal and family materialism.
Maidens must understand that the Umhlanga pilgrimage is their rite of passage to their feminine power; hence they must view themselves as equal to men and not sources of tantalising and satisfying greed, gluttony and the illusion of grandeur.
The best way to summarise our moral, principles, values and ethos crisis of values during the 20th Century is that they were influenced by model of the stock market; as there were no fixed standard value, no stable and absolute measure, but rather all values fluctuate in a vast market, their quotations rising and falling according to wholly subjective crazes, panics and wagers.
The value of the mind was hence no different to the value of commodities and unfortunately it continues to fall in a phenomenon fashion; resulting in social ills such as human trafficking, transactional sex, intergenerational sex and most significantly incest.
moral decay
This moral decay reflects how our women-men relationships were and continue to be driven by aesthetic values; which unfortunately are based on frivolous and illusionary belief systems such as beauty, body, bums, breasts, commodities, money, entitlement and greed.
These belief systems are unfortunately short term trends, implying that our women-men relationships are short term, based on crazes, cravings and most significantly temporary illusionary feelings of lust and irresponsible behaviour.
Lastly, umhlanga is about empowering maidens with principles, values and ethos, which can result in a nation of HIV and AIDS negative citizens, non-materialism, no incest, no rape, no sex workers, no abuse, no gender-based violence; no human trafficking and most significantly create women of prominence who are achievement driven, hence excellent nation builders.
Finally our maiden’s traditional dress during the umhlanga ceremony is by no means soft porn; but it symbolises the nation’s pride and joy on the maidens that have upheld the morals, principles and values of self-respect, self-preservation and most significantly chastity.
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Would God allow this craziness, please Kumawa ask yourself that. I would not let my sisters neighbours or friends be belittled like that.
Prince Charles never misses this breast bonanza!
To the chickens brains….Splaka and Abena RB ababufi bwakunya,
Porn is nude and/or sex acts produced for commercial purposes.
Rupiah has Nguni heritage and is part of the Nguni commonwealth he is well within his rights to attend this ceremony, so get a life u bunch of low lives!!!
Kwathu Kumozi Kumawa… thanks for the well reasoned response, notice how these low lives have scumpered.
Bayete
kwathukummawa
Kwathu is that thumbnail picture your true image, no wonder your skin is that rough because of ulubembu mambala lyobe.
Abena RB ababufi bwakunya
For sure muli babufi. Have you ever been to any popular beach? Girls walk about completely naked or with stringed Bikinis and nobody raises a finger. I hope you had the courage check the web page I posted earlier which clearly shows a page 3 girl with bear breasts and a scant undie which unfortunately is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Just own up and admit your inferiority complex as a mistake and work on it.
I AM A VERY PROUD NGONI AND STRONGLY BELIEVE THAT AFRICAN CULTURE IS AND WILL NEVER BE INFERIOR.
anyone who has never watched porn or had a secret stash
of porn somewhere cast the first stone!
kwathukummawa
OK i might be wrong on breasts, but page 3 girls dont show amatako like those girls in the picture.
Hey Mister have respect for other people’s cultures. Dont misdirect your hate for your President on innocent people. No matter how you hate your president you cant call Swazi culture bullshit. And Kwathu kumawa you are very right. What is offensive or immoral in one society isn’t in another. There’s also the time factor. In 1335 it may be immoral to wear nothing but in 2009 it will be accepted. Thats the fact of life we should get used to as a global village. Who said nudity is immoral? I have seen a church in America where the pastor is nude and the whole congregation is nude. try not to cheat yourselves that Africans respect clothes
Abena RB ababufi bwakunya says:
It appears you read a different version of The Sun Newspaper, or worse still the Daily Sport, because Page 3 girls expose their breasts and most times are in g-strings or string bikinis.
Visit this page to see for yourself http:SLASHSLASHwwwDOTpage3DOTcomSLASHindex2DOTshtml#main-image
FREE CHANSA KABWELA.
Umhlanga is worse than what Kabwela did.
Yes reed dance for our President just imagine what does that mean to him?
kwathukummawa
No mate! you are being economical with the truth, page 3 girls don’t show their bare bottoms let alone their breasts. Would you be happy to see your daughter or wife walk past king mswati with just a string of cloth around her waist like those girls in the picture? I bet you would say no if you’ve got anything between your ears but i wouldn’t mind my girl in ‘page 3′ clothes because she would be showing nothing other than her legs. The picture above is saucy and every normal man would like to see those girls in person in fact small wonder our own RB had to delay his flight to Libya to satisfy the young man inside him. In summary the Swazi ceremony is laundered xxx pornography(rated 18 and above) and as for page 3 girls at worst is soft porno.
CORRECTION;
….where we live all determine our perceptions of offensive nudity or soft porno.
Any difference from what we see everyday at beaches around the world? Or is it the colour of the skin that determines whether it is acceptable or not to dress in a particular way.
Tricky, diverse cultures of this world, complexes (whether inferiority or superiority) and where we live all determine our perceptions of nudity. The women in bikinis, g-strings and transparent attire parading on our TV screens and in Newspapers, at different social gatherings in different western cultures, most especially the page 3 girl in The Sun newspaper, The Daily Sport, The Daily Star and others are a clear example of how where we have lived determines what we view as nudity.
To be honest, those Swazi girls are not nude if compared to some of the images shown as the Page 3 girl in The Sun and other images thrust down our throats by Western Media. IS AFRICAN CULTURE INFERIOR OR IS IT AN INFERIORITY COMPLEX AT PLAY?
‘It is unfortunate that the ceremony has been turned into a superficial tourisms event for viewing breasts and bums’
Unfortunately, the author has just admitted that this is indeed a mass soft porn event. And the president has extended his stay in Swaziland to enjoy the spectacle. Dirty old man. Complaining about porn pa Zed but can’t wait to see thousands of girls’ breasts!
When those pics,where said to be porn by rb,i imemdiatly,knew that there was soMething seriously wrong with his head,now its clear,for o to see.
Total nonsense, how can the whole lot of a president go to watch such bullshit.