The Tongue Is Fire: South African Storytellers and Apartheid

TEARS IN YOUR STOMACH

J\shton ~gcafJna TEARS IN YOUR STOMACH (XHOSA) Ashton Ngcama performed this poem on August 25, 1972, at the foot of Nolangeni Mountain in Mount Ayliff District, the Transkei. The audience consisted of about twenty men, women, and children. (NS-520; tape 16, side 2) To the mountain! Consider the mountain: When we study the mountain, its stories are many. We people love this mountain, We say that the ancestral spirit moves there. Go, Nolangeni, along with your things, And age, for we see that you are now growing old. But it is sad: A drought appeared, and you were left alone, Fearing even human beings, Afraid even of white people. Once, when they sat on you, They erected stones on you, Seeking to bring you to life. We knew that you already had life. Beyond you are people we do not knowWe do not know their language, We do not know what they think. But we know they are wise people Because they tell us there are tears in you, These tears that are inside your stomach. We only see those tears when you cry, Then we open our mouths and receive your water, We rejoice when you give us your water. It is then that everything becomes green below you. The drought, There is this matter that has plagued us, There is this matter about which you should pray for us 287 "Consider the mountain." Ashton Ngcama, a Xesibe poet. 288 Tears in Your Stomach 289 There with the ancestral spirit: What is it that happened, that you are sere? That you are patched white, as if you have aged? Indeed, it seems that you have aged, Because on this side are erosions, On that side are streams, streams with no forests, Streams in which nothing lives. We see no wild game on your banks Because their food has gone with the drought. No, Nolangeni! You are too important to the Xesibe, Because you are the divider of the land: You divided the Xesibe And divided the Khoi above (the Khoi sold their land And today it is called "The Republic," But we know it to be "The Transkei," Although it is inside the Republic). You, Bird, That repeatedly sings when flash floods Descend from Mthatha, The floods move along this snake, This black snake that tears the soil, Then comes to stop there, Then here in the Khoi area, Then here in the Xesibe region. We fear the road that goes to Mthatha Because there is something that is going to break through. Well, let it break through. We salute you, Beautiful Mountain! Come out, Sun, so that we see you as go over Nolangeni! Then the dew of heaven will descend And you, Nolangeni, will rise And become young: Your youth is resplendent, As green as the land of the people. ...