/ 18 December 1998

Cavernous `college of knowledge’

Phillip Kakaza

The morning sun glitters over Mount Mautse in the eastern Free State. Cocks crow from its majestic slopes and the jungle drums telegraph a mystic rhythm.

Welcome to the holy mountains, where people since the early 1970s have been going in hundreds to pray to their ancestors and to God. Ideally situated in the dorp of Ficksburg, a stone’s throw from the borders of Lesotho, this is where the history of the Sotho people is immortalised.

Photographer Ruth Motau and I are looking at the site where the former Sotho king, Moshoeshoe I, fought some of his victorious battles with encroaching settlers and would-be colonisers. Many Sothos believe that his spirit lives on the mountain. For this reason, and an ancient belief that the ancestors’ spirits finally rest in the mountains, believers come here to spend some quiet time.

Prayer is not the only the order of the day. Some spend six months to a year or more living in shallow caves towards the top of Mount Mautse. The caves have been turned into “universities” for practising traditional rituals. The “universities” are open to all, but, in particular, they draw traditional healers and fortune tellers.

On graduation, the traditional healers slaughter goats and lambs and hold a big feast. “This is a college of knowledge,” says Thokozile Tladi, who has just graduated as a healer. “White people go to academic universities to become doctors, and some black people, upon a call from the ancestors, come here to be trained as traditional healers. This is where the power for healing rests.”

Tladi comes from Lesotho and has spent a year training to become a traditional healer. Now graduated, she says she is ready to heal people suffering from all sorts of diseases -from witchcraft- related sicknesses to high blood pressure.

We bid her farewell as she heads home with a 25-litre plastic container of clean water on her head and a few goodies in her bag. “This is clean water from the waterfalls, and herbs from the mountains,” she says, pointing at the bag. “A provision from God and the ancestors.”

On entering the holy grounds, we pay the R8 entry fee to a white farmer who claims that the mountains are part of his turf. Our tour guard, Paul Phala, a young traditional healer from Soweto, says the farmer had been trying to stop people from visiting the mountains. But one day hundreds of people, including children, started camping outside the barricaded area. He then started to charge an entry fee that started at R1 per person and has been steadily increasing each year.

Up the mountain, close to the caves, my blood ripples and I am reminded of the primitive life of the ancient San who lived in the caves and left behind drawings on the cave walls. Names and dates of inhabitants and visitors are engraved on cave walls of the mountains near the Lesotho border. Some caves host statues of Jesus and Mary.

“People from different denominations create their holy places here,” explains Phala.

In front of the places of prayer, candles are lit and goodies have been left lying around. These include half cups of umqombothi (African beer), money, BB tobacco boxes, bread, fruit and an assortment of items for the ancestors.

At Emely Matsoso’s cave, I begin to feel itchy and nervous as big rats and mice run around in search of food.

“Don’t worry about them, they are God’s creatures, and we live together,” Matsoso says, grinning. Matsoso is a qualified traditional healer from Qwaqwa.

She claims she was sent to the mountains by her ancestors to heal people. “The message came in my dreams and I was told to bring people here to heal them because this is where the power of healing is.” With herbs from the mountains, she claims, she has healed a 17-year-old boy infected with HIV.

Whether you’re a believer or not, the echoing, ululating and singing voices are proof that you’re far away from the modern lifestyle. Engulfed by the majestic mountains, I feel as if I’m in my mother’s womb or at the beginning of the world. Our warm feet empower us to explore further. The inhabitants seem not to mind as Motau takes photographs of them. They carry on with their daily lives. Some are preparing meals in three-legged pots. Others are washing clothes in shallow wells.

“White people came with white civilisation and made us believe in their gods,” says Monica Khambula, a former professional nurse.

Clad in her robes, she waves her hands to the sky as though she’s addressing the angels: “Africanism has been with us and will always be part of us. Only if you’re a coconut black, then you’ll be hooked in white civilisation.”

Khambula says she gave up nursing 24 years ago after being called by the ancestors to go the mountains to find herbs, to heal people and train others to become traditional healers. Since then, she has been in the mountains and will return only once she has fulfilled her duties.

Despite the rising entry fees, people from throughout Southern Africa continue to arrive.

“Whatever church you belong to, you’re allowed to find a place of prayer here. God works hand-in-hand with ancestors,and we are equal to him,” says Phula.