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21 March 2020 | Story Dr Stephanie Cawood | Photo Charl Devenish
Dr Stephanie Cawood.

Credo Mutwa, renowned African spiritual leader, diviner-seer, healer, mystic, author, poet, and artist, died on 25 March 2020 at the ripe old age of 98. He died on the eve of South Africa’s entry into unchartered lockdown territory due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. His death will forever be intertwined with the seismic shift in South African society. Credo Mutwa was born on 21 July 1921 in Zululand (as KwaZulu-Natal was known at the time), just after the life-altering ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic ravaged the world and South Africa (c. 1918 to 1919) at the end of the First World War. His birth and death book-ends a storied life filled with equal parts reverence, controversy, and hardship. Africa Day, this year, takes place during a time of great uncertainty and it seems fitting to remember the life work of one of Africa’s greatest storytellers, Credo Mutwa, and how important storytelling is for resilience during times of great upheaval. 

Storytelling is integral to human life. It is more than a mere frivolous or meaningless pastime. Storytelling connects us with our human world, helps us to make sense of it, and leads to understanding and reaffirming our common humanity. Indeed, Frederick Turner argued that aesthetic pleasure is crucial to maintain our complex human lifeworld. In this way, storytelling and the pleasure created by its ritualised performances are vital for our survival. Credo Mutwa understood the importance of storytelling in how it connects the past with the present and future, and people with the land of their birth. This is how the wisdom of the ages is transmitted to the next generation. He used storytelling – oral and written – as a means to “lay the foundation for better understanding between … human beings”. 

It was a gift and responsibility he inherited from his maternal grandfather and took seriously. In his epic tome, Indaba, My Children, Mutwa proudly affirmed himself as storyteller, planting his work firmly in the roots of the oral tradition of which he became a custodian. Through his work as author, Mutwa acted as interlocutor between the oral and written word. Throughout his life, he adopted the persona of metaphysical and material traveller. In his own words, “I was not travelling for enjoyment; however, I was travelling for knowledge, in search of clarity of mind and in search of the truth about my people”. As traveller, Mutwa was on a lifelong journey to other worlds and ideas. In African literature, journey is an important trope and marks a path towards wisdom and enlightenment; but a journey also represents a mixing of traditions, and, as traveller, Credo Mutwa bravely inhabited the intersection between African orature and literature – a position fraught with controversy at times.  

In a time where we bear the burden of separation, storytelling has the power to reconnect us. The human need for this ancient ritual is as strong as ever, although the “spark-wreathed fires in the centres of the villages in the dark forests and on the aloe-scented plains of Africa” may have become virtual in the form of social media and web-based platforms. Storytelling remains a powerful means for human connection and, during this time of physical immobility, has the power to let us roam free, to transform us into virtual co-travellers on this shared journey. Indeed, we need storytelling to thrive as fully formed ‘humane’ beings. Celebrate Africa this 25 May by sharing her and your stories. Answer the clarion call of Credo Mutwa to come together, in spirit if not in body, and make meaning in alternative ways to re-forge our human bonds, to “Indaba, My Children”.  

This article was written by Dr Stephanie Cawood, Director of the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State.

News Archive

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative
2006-05-10

At the conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue were from the left Dr Aldo Stroebel (senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate), Dr Edith Vries (acting Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Development Trust) and Prof Frans Swanepoel (Director: UFS Research Development Directorate).

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative

Two staff members of the University of the Free State (UFS) have been appointed as members of the advisory board of the national programme for the creation of small enterprises and jobs in the second economy.  This programme forms part of government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGI-SA).

Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of the UFS Research Development Directorate and Dr Aldo Stroebel, senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate, are working with a team of experts from the UFS on a draft implementation strategy for the national programme.  Both Prof Swanepoel and Dr Stroebel are also associated to the UFS Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.
 
“The strategy is being developed in collaboration with institutions like the Independent Development Trust, the Department of Agriculture, the National Development Agency and the Department of Trade and Industry,” says Prof  Swanepoel.  

The other team members of the UFS are Prof Basie Wessels, Director of the  Mangaung-University Community Partnership Programme (MUCPP) and Mr  Benedict Mokoena, project manager at the MUCPP.

Dr Stroebel was also member of the organising committee of a conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue that was recently presented in Johannesburg.  The conference was attended by more than 400 delegates from government departments, higher-education institutions and civil society, including Dr Kobus Laubscher, member of the UFS Council.

The conference was facilitated by Ms Vuyo Mahlati, previously from the WK Kellogg Foundation’s Africa programme and opened by Ms Thoko Didiza, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs.   

“The colloquium formed the basis of an induction workshop during which a group of 150 individuals (50 teams of three) from all nine provinces, identified to initiate the implementation of the national programme, was trained and orientated towards an induction manual in collaboration with Hand-in-Hand, an Indian counterpart,” says Prof Swanepoel.

Dr Stroebel and Mr Benedict Mokoena formed part of the team to conceptualise and finalise this training manual.  The induction training includes a case study of a successful community self-help partnership model, namely the MUCPP at the UFS. Prof Wessels and Mr Mokoena are both playing a leading role in the further development of subsequent training initiatives throughout South Africa, in partnership with the relevant provincial departments.

“The involvement of the UFS in the programme is a compliment to us.  It reflects the value government sees in the use of academics and experts in the management of the ASGI-SA initiative.  It is also an indication of one of the aims of the UFS to play a role in South Africa and Africa and in the transformation and change that is taking place in our country,” says Prof Swanepoel.  

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
10 May 2006

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