I’ve always been Afrikan
Daughter of Mntungwa*
uMuntu ngabantu (i am because we are)**
Owadl’ izimfe zambili kwaphuma khambi lilinye***
One of the brown blk dirt
Soil burnished by ilanga (the sun)
Daughter of sun
Dispossessed though
Langa linye ngizonqoba (One day I shall triumph)
I’ve always been Afrikan
Even before labeled blk
Ngintsundu earth camouflaged (
I’m an adept centered
Survivor 999, shape-shifter
Earth crawler
Sky kisser, water thing – A fusion
Fired in the wombs
Life waters
I’ve always been Afrikan
Exotic esoteric wild tamer
Of knowledge ethule (quiet)
Elele in the earth’s core (sleep)
Potent intoxicant deadly
Everytime released at rebirth
Of ancient spirits
In pieces of lifetimes
Running cycles
I’ve always been Afrikan
Without being Afrikan
Descendant of the sky people
Angels fallen from beyond
Dispossessed in space
Nkath’ izulu likhala izinyembezi (when the heavens wept)
I’ve always been Afrikan
Before the birth
Will always be Afrikan
Before the renaissance
Even when I shed my skin
I’m of this so-called Afrika
Though really I am …
Umuntu (Human)
*Mntungwa is the clan name or totem of people whose last names are Khumalo, Mabaso, Mashobane. Zamantungwa also means – daughter of Mntungwa
** a version of the maxim : umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. This is about community, interdependency of the human society a principle that has come to captured with the one word ubuntu/humaneness
***This is a line lifted out of the praise/historical poem of the Mabaso family