The concept of ancestry didn’t enter my frame of reference until December, eight months into my service. I was helping out at the Ministry of Education’s Youth Forum in a village called Tsetsebjwe (Tsee-tsee-jway) and strange stories were floating around from the minute I arrived.
Apparently, December is the time when the ancestors call to their living relatives. I’m still unclear on what they want or need from the person. At the Youth Forum, a young girl had tried to get out of her bed in the middle of the night and leave the school. The dorm supervisor wouldn’t let her leave, which was extremely distressing to the girl.
“My ancestors are calling,” she said. “I need to go to them.”
Another boy at the Forum hadn’t had a bowel movement in a week. He was waiting to get the “okay” from his ancestors.
The many questions that entered my mind then are still present as I write this, trying to explain the concept. Why would any family let their child leave in the middle of the night? Why, once the child is gone for days or weeks at a time, do they not worry and call the police? Where do the called people go? How do they survive? What if the ancestors are instructing them to do clearly unhealthy things?
I have yet to get an answer to any of these questions. As it is, if you are called by an ancestor (and it is not only children, but people of all ages) you must follow where they ask you to go and obey any task they require you to complete. If that means you leave your village and go out into the bush for a week or so, then that is what you must do.
A colleague of mine told me that they asked one child, after he returned, what he ate while he was gone. He replied that he ate phaleche (puh-lay-chay), a traditional Setswana dish that looks like mashed potatoes but is stiff and made from maize. When they asked him where the bowl came from, where the food was cooked, or how it got to him, he had no answer. His ancestor would just lead him to a tree and it would be there.
In the Bobirwa district of Botswana (in the eastern region, also referred to as the “nose” of the country) the ancestors are very active. In certain villages, a stranger must get approved by the ancestors before he or she can enter. The job of getting the permission is left to elders who specialize in speaking to ancestors at any time of the year, not just in December. Interestingly, I asked my colleague if I could visit that village, but it’s unclear whether ancestors can appear or belong to white people. I guess my ancestors are hanging around
The same colleague told me about his trip to that village. At one point he was led into the bush and left alone to see his ancestors. Ancestors appear as animals – and scary ones at that. He saw lions, leopards and snakes approach him, but they never attacked. Then, he told me, they would just disappear. He said he was absolutely terrified, and was 100% positive that they were not actually animals, but his ancestors showing themselves to him.
This is only the most basic of explanations of ancestry, and I sincerely hope to learn more about this tradition. My rational, cynical, American mind wants to write this off as folklore and mind tricks. …But there’s also a part of me that wants to head east and see my ancestors for myself.