VARIATION OF STYLE IN TEACHING MILAYO

Milayo are presented in much the same way as Venda stories and evidence in tribal court cases: sentences, phrases, or even single words of the instructor are punctuated by a refrain spoken by another official or a senior novice. A common refrain for milayo is "Fhira' ri ye, Khomba! " (lit. pass on that we may go, Khomba!)

 

 

I recorded and transcribed the milayo of domba as they were given to novices by four senior masters of initiation, who are referred to as Khomba or Vho-Nyamungozwa. Although I worked mostly in the areas of chiefs Tshivhase, Mphaphuli and Ne-Thengwe, three of these men were known throughout the Sibasa district, and had run domba schools for other chiefs, and even for Venda living in the south of Rhodesia [Zimbabwe]. Their individual styles of presentation differed considerably, but they knew most of the milayo given in this paper, although they never recited them all at one sitting. The contents and sequence of each set of milayo varied little, but the instructors presented the sets in different order, and even the same instructor would vary his presentation on consecutive occasions. They tended to present them as lectures from notes, rather than from a script, so that although many sentences might be repeated verbatim, performances varied according to the context of the situation.

 

Swethani Nembukula of the Twanamba clan, a famous master of initiation.

One instructor, whom I knew particularly well, sometimes took great care to be heard and understood and to communicate to his audience; but on other occasions he was bored and anxious to get away, and would rattle off the milayo while the girls mumbled, giggles and whispered amongst themselves. Once, when he was tipsy after a beer party, he stumbled through them with some remarkable Rabelaisian diversions, including impromptu milayo on the parts of my tape recorder. He was clearly better suited to be a university lecturer than a high school teacher.

Since variations in the choice of words and in the sequences of milayo are not significant for purposes of analysis, I present only a synthesis of my transcriptions, with the milayo in the order in which they were most commonly given. First, however, I shall draw attention to certain general characteristics of style.

Since there should be no pause in the presentation of the milayo and the refrain, every instructor inserts a number of sentences which either give him time to think of his next point, or bridge the gap between one set of milayo and the next. One man solves this problem by chatty introductions, such as the following: 

(Note: In this and all subsequent transcriptions of the words of instructors, the interjections of the refrain will be marked by colons or full stops.)

"A few days ago, I was in a district on the other side of the river Mutshindudi: I was on my way back to Mbilwi: and I came to the river and found a lot of big girls there. They said to me: 'Mr M. please teach us some milayo' 'Very well', I said, "what sort of milayo do you want?' 'Here in the water there is a girl', they said. 'That doesn't worry me at all.'"

[The big girls who request instruction from Mr M. are referring to a girl who is soaking (-kama ) as part of her vhusha initiation. Although they know him as an expert on domba, they hope that he may be able to explain the rites that they are carrying out by the river.]

 

Mr M. then gave the milayo for the river. He completed the set with a cheery : "There you go girls, goodbye!"and a very brief description of his walk to the place where he crossed, which led him on to the next set of milayo. All instructors express the idea of progress in the oft-repeated sentence, "Nda dadamala nda swika " (I walked along a narrow path and I arrived [at a certain place]).

Another outstanding instructor scarcely used verbal props unless he was off form, and then he repeated certain sentences with almost monotonous regularity:

amusi vha dzula ngauralo Today they will sit like this: vha konou ri Ndi zwone And then they say, It's all right [we understand]. Ndi putulula thevhele zothe ndi khou I will unwrap my whole bag of tricks and then I am going off.

These would often be accompanied by a recitation of his clan's praise couplet.

An older and more pedantic instructor liked to say a few more words about himself or about the value of milayo: 

	a)	"These are the milayo which I have told you: and it's because of my knowledge of them that I am called from one district to another. They call me for the milayo: which I know so well. Now listen to me girls!"
	b)	"Don't you say , 'L. hasn't taught us anything': you must not forget them. Spit: all you novices. You won't forget the milayo: if you spit. I will now continue." ("To spit into a little hole in the sand and to cover this up before witnesses almost amounts to a sort of oath that something is thereby abjured for ever" (van Warmelo 1937:212).
	c)	"I am the milayo man. Now listen carefully, all of you novices. When I am dead and gone, you will stay behind and will have to teach others."

Rhetorical questions are frequently used to liven up and add a little mystery to a recitation of milayo. The following examples are typical:

 

	a)	"I found the entrance to the courtyard closed. I said, 'Why on earth have you closed your gate?'"
	b)	"I walked along and I came into the courtyard. I said,'Why on earth is your fire so enormous?''What fire are you talking about? We haven't kindled any fire. That's a rainbow'."
	c)	"'My goodness, whatever do you do with all these drums?', I said. And then they replied:'O dear! What makes you think you're looking at drums?'." (This refers to the special fire and arrangement of drums in the courtyard of rulers during the domba initiation school.)

 

The idea of this technique is to highlight the novice's adventure into a new world, in which objects are familiar and yet not known, because they are given new names that are related to the symbolism and instruction of the initiation schools. To emphasise new name still further, an instructor sometimes gives two or three deliberately wrong names before the right one. For example:

 

"'There where the novice is sitting in the water: it is vhulungu (beads) ha musweswe'. 'You're wrong', they said.'Then it's vhulungu ha mukhuvhibvu'.'Wrong again'.'There where that novice is sitting in the water: is a child in the womb'."

 

Sometimes an instructor makes an unintentional mistake: if he is aware of it, he may immediately correct it by repeating the right sentence; but if he is not, the novices have to learn from subsequent repetitions which is the correct version. Less experienced instructors tend to digress (especially on the subject of sex), and pad out the milayo with irrelevant material. Since novices generally experience only one teacher and his assistant, they are not in a position to judge whether a discursive style makes it easier or more difficult to learn milayo. They do not object to a man who unintentionally repeats himself, because it is only through constant repetition that they can remember the milayo. At the domba which I studied intensively, the general milayo were usually repeated once a week, or at least once a fortnight, and usually at weekends when girls from outlying districts came in. If there were other important events, such as the showing of or dzingoma , the special milayo for these were given on the following day, or as soon after the event as possible.

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