Kholomo ya Duma - THE SMALLEST BEAST FROM KARANGALAND

The Duma are a branch of the Karanga of southern Rhodesia [Zimbabwe], who are noted for a breed of small cattle.

Stayt (1931 :120) reports that for this ano the girls are merely shown the clay model of a bull.

At some madomba, they tie the horns of a dead bull and a dead cow on two people, who then cover themselves with blankets and dance in stately fashion (-) round the drums while the novices sing domba. One represents a cow and the other the bull.

At Thengwe, only one youth disguised himself and walked, crouching, round the drums. His horns were painted with red and black stripes (see colour symbolism), which ran round their circumference. Part of the beast's skull had been retained, to hold the horns in place.

On the following morning, the master of initiation rubbed fat (gulungwa) on the heads of the novices, explaining that it was the fat of people of noble rank (gulungwa ya vhakololo) and reciting the following milayo:

  

275
Sangaubwi vhu phila : lwo phila tswuku na thema: Sangaubwi ndi thavha ine dza vhuya ngaho. Kholomo yo rengwa ha Tshivhi. Ya Malungudzi, ya ya mupani. Ha Tshivhi yo vha i tshi mutondo u no itwa mutsilu. Vhuduma ndi Vhukalanga. Tshivhi ndi ya Vhukalanga.
Cattle flourished at Sangaubwi: red and black breeds flourished: Sangaubwi is the mountain from which they come. The beast was bought at Tshivhi's. It came to Malungudzi, it came and ate the mopani tree. At Tshivhi's it had eaten the Transvaal teak tree, which is considered mad. The country of the Duma is Karangaland. Tshivhi is a chief of Karangaland.

  Tshivhi was a powerful king who was defeated by the Senzi with the help of their magic drum, Ngoma Lugundu (van Warmelo 1940 :18-20 and 119-121). Malungudzi is a hill in Rhodesia [Zimbabwe], from which came the rain-making Mbedzi clan (see milayo Nos. 25-35). One informant said that mutsilu should be sutsila (craftsman); but the meaning still remains obscure, apart from the reference to intermarriage with Karanga clans implied by the transfer of marriage cattle.

On the evening of the same day, further milayo were given:

  

276
Makolo e a hone: mirando-mirando: mivhala mitshena
the painting on the horns: those rings: the white rings [lit. colours, stripes]:
Vhanna
men.
(Nobody commented on the fact that there had not been any white rings on the horns!)
277
Mitswuku
the red ones:
Vhasadzi
women.
278
Mitswu
the black ones:
Vhakegulu
old ladies.
279
hodzini ya
at the point of the horn:
Munna a konaho
a potent man.
280
Hune lwa lwa ladza hone
here the horn rests on the forehead [i.e. the part between the horns]:
Munna wa tsilu
a fool (an impotent man).
281
lunanga lwa hone: tsenzhe
where the horn sticks in: the core [marrow]:
Munna a konaho
a potent man.
282
Vhukati ha lwone
the middle of that horn:
Tshishasha

the upper arm.

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