Gwenyabira

He grew up around the magical sound of the mbira instrument. His

father was a renowned mbira player and people would come to

their pamusha (compound) just to hear him play. Recounting one of his

memories of his father he remembers when his father took him to a bira

(a traditional all night spirit medium ritual). This ritual was held in the

mountains along a river bank and entranced spirit mediums were dancing

around his father. He remembers seeing his father fall into some type of

a trance while playing the mbira. It was as in if his instrument and tune

hypnotised everyone at the ceremony.

A tune so deep and enchanting that even the trees began to sway from

side to side as if they were dancing to his father’s rhythm. He remembers

getting scared when he saw movements in the river figures which moved

like fish close to the surface. They were also swaying to the music but these

figures were bigger and longer than fish and they looked more like human

beings with fish tails. It was only years later in his adult life that he figured

that he had an encounter with mermaids. Mermaids who had been drawn

by the magical mbira instrument being played by a master.

As if the water movements and trees were not enough to scare a young boy,

he saw, from a distance, a troop of monkeys coming down the mountain

in a straight line. In the centre of that troop there was a white goat which

the monkeys led to the centre of our bira ritual. After they left the white

goat in the centre, they all went back the same way they came, only this time they were going up the mountain instead of down. All these magical

events were happening while his father’s eyes were closed, head down while

moving from side to side in his deze (the gourd which the mbira instru-

ment is placed inside to amplify the sound). The young man’s mind was

blown away and for the entire night, even after the spirits had taken over

the mediums, his father did not shift from his position or stop playing

his mbira. Instead, he only either decreased the volume or increased it in

accordance with how the ritual was going at any given moment. At exactly

midnight when the music was turned up and it seemed every single person

in that place was now in a deep trance, when the women vocalists started

singing, ”Mhondoro dzinomwa munaSave”(The spirits quench their thirst

in the Save River). He could have sworn he heard a lion roar. It sounded

so close he could have touched the sound. Years passed by and after his father passed away, it seemed all odds were

against him and life was not an African movie after all where good always

triumphs over ever and there is a happy ever after storyline. instead, he

became the local alcoholic. He was a common sight in the kachasu bars.

He wasn’t even a shadow of his father’s greatness. The old madhalas and

grannies shook their heads every time they saw him because they felt

like he had played down his father’s legacy. But then again, who can ever

precede such greatness? He had hated his father’s profession and art. In

fact he had made sure to steer clear of that instrument because its power

scared him.

One evening as he was returning from one of his drinking sprees, drunk

off his head, he decided to take a shortcut to his village through a bush

pathway. The combination of his drunken state and a rock caused him

to lose his footing and he fell head first into the grass. As he struggled to

get back on his feet he felt something hard underneath the earth. It was

covered with grass and he decided to dig it out. To his surprise it was a

mbira instrument. The wood was now flaky from having been there for

years but the metal keys were all still intact. He felt drawn to the instrument so he took it home with him.

As soon as morning came, he woke up with an urge to repair the instrument . It took him a couple of hours to have it back in a playable state.

Never in his life had he played the mbira instrument but he had grown up

listening to it and watching his father play. After putting his new instrument into a deze, he decided to test it while sitting in his compound.

When he started playing it was as if something took over him, something

he could not put a finger on but he just kept playing. Fingers playing with

the keys, his head down, swaying from side to side. He was in a trance

and it was as if someone else was playing that instrument and he was just

a conduit or vessel being used by another entity. In his mind, he was all

alone in the compound and had only played for a few minutes. In reality,

he had played that instrument for the entire day and when he lifted his

eyes from that deze, he saw the whole village standing in awe around him.They all had tears streaming down their faces and he could hear the old

people whispering, ”Azouya. He has finally come to us.” They had all

come because of the beautiful rhythm they had heard emanating from his compound.