ABSTRACT
On Wednesday, April 27, 1898, a woman sent anguished cries into the early morning sky. 1 She kicked and screamed as prison wardens dragged her to the executioner's scaffold in Salisbury, (Southern) Rhodesia. After much hustling, the prison guards hoisted her up and hooked the noose to her neck. A prison warden covered the woman's head and face with a black pouch-like cloth, tying it at the back. Then, he stood back. The woman wailed, lamenting her plight to the ancestors who had seemingly abandoned her. On a cue from the chief prison warden, the executioner pulled the trap door. The rope caught the woman's throat in mid-lament. A heavy thud was heard. Her body quivered as her spirit left to meet those to whom she had called for delivery, to no avail. For a moment, there was a chilling silence; no bird chirped, no one moved. 2 On that late spring morning, the physical life of Charwe wokwa Hwata, spirit medium of Nehanda, ended, but her (own) spirit began anew as Mbuya Nehanda in colonial and post-independent Zimbabwe. The memory of Nehanda has persisted in each generation's historiography and popular evocations, making true the statement: “The past no longer belongs only to those who lived in it; the past belongs to those who claim it, and are willing to explore it, and to infuse it with meaning for those alive today. The past belongs to us because we are the ones who need it.” 3
