Z is for z'Ebyanzi (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

The Epic of Kachwenyanja
Haya, Tanzania

Alright so this letter needed some sleight-of-hand. But luckily, the heroine of this epic, whine generally known as Nyakandalo, also exists in variants under the name (Nfundo) z'Ebyanzi. I'll take it.

This story is the most popular Haya epic. According to the introduction by Mugyabuso M. Mulokozi, no real Haya bard is worth anything without having it in their repertoire; it was even aired on Radio Tanzania. The version I read was collected from a bard named Jason Rwezaura, who was surprisingly young at the time (25 years old). He had other poems and epics in his repertoire, and he even composed new ones (including one on a bus accident, and one on the AIDS epidemic). He died in the epidemic in 1991.

The epic is known in various versions; Mulokozi compares 6 of them. He also provides a detailed introduction and notes for the text, including discussions of the story's geographical and historical context. Apparently, the story of the epic takes place somewhere between 1450 and 1600 CE. Mulokozi theorizes that the epic itself can't be much younger, so it is about 500 years old. In the translation I read, it is close to 1100 lines.

The introduction repeatedly calls Kilenzi the hero, but the entire story revolves around Nyakandalo, so I decided it counts as a woman's epic.

I read the epic in this book. You can also read it here, and learn more about it from here.

What is it about?

TL;DR: Kilenzi has a dream about a woman, so he sets out and marries her. Soon after, he is killed in battle. His new wife, Nyakandalo sets out to avenge his death.

CW: lot of violence

The epic opens in first person (addressing the audience as Long-Liver). Kilenzi talks about having a nightmare that wakes him - a nightmare of war and marriage. His wife tries to comfort him, but he decides to set out and have his dream interpreted. When he sets out on the journey, the narration switches to third person, but it is still told as "I saw him..."

Eventually Kilenzi meets the women he has seen in his dream, Nyakandalo among them. They talk and immediately like each other, so Kilenzi proposes on the spot (initially he wants to marry both women, but they say it's a bad idea). Five days after marrying, the war drums sound. A messenger comes from King Ruhinda to summon Kilenzi, but he is off drinking banana beer, and Nyakandalo is harvesting enumbu potatoes outside of town. The messenger goes to her. Nyakandalo immediately hurries to prepare food for her departing husband. However, her work is full of bad omens: the plantains she cuts crash-land, she digs for yams but can't find them, her digging runs into rocks, the grinding stone slips out of her hands, the cooking pot breaks. Even worse, when she tries to hand his weapons to Kilenzi, all turn out to be broken: eaten by insects, bored throught or snapped. Nyakandalo, reading the signs, tries to persuade her husband not to go, but he swears at her and insists on going. He tries to have sex with her but fails. He leaves, telling Nyakandalo that if she sees a mushala leaf on the ground while she works, she'll know he's dead.

Kilenzi fights valiantly, but when he stops to chew some coffee beans, a small man named Lulyandibwa shoots him with an arrow and kills him. Warriors returning home tell Nyakandalo what happened. She decides to take revenge by killing all of Lulyandibwa's tribe. She first goes to her aunt and asks her to fringe her hair (in a bridal style), dress her, and smear her with butter. On her way to the enemy she vows at her husband's grave that she'll take revenge, and kill at least nine people if she has to fight.

A lot of men gather to court Nyakandalo and sing her praises, but she rejects all of them. Finally she meets Lulyandibwa (who is dirty and smelly) and he boasts about killing Kilenzi. She pretends to be enchanted by him. They marry. On the fifth day after, she tells her husband to make banana beer and invite his people to drink. When the beer is being made she picks poison herbs and mixes them in in secret. Once eveyone is drunk and passed out, she kills (and castrates) her new husband first, and then everyone else. The next morning her in-laws come; her father-in-law tries to seduce her, and she kills him too. All in all she kills 2070 people.

On her way home Nyakandalo grieves for her husband, but also accuses him of ruining her life. She calls out the king loudly, saying his people are useless and his war was senseless. The last line of the epic is "I loved my husband!"

The highlights

I liked the small details in the text. At the beginning, when Kilenzi has a nightmare, it is described as "I added a snore and she patted me, I saw that I had fallen off the bed..." It is noted that he tries to distract himself by sleeping with his wife, but because of his worries, he fails to do so. At one point Kilenzi's battle prowess was described as "he who stems a swarm of grasshoppers", which is not very fearsome at first glance, but if you think about it, would be quite a feat. Nyakandalo is initially described as an ishasha fig (a sumptous red fig) and a waterlily. Some other lines were quite shocking at first: "O Maiden, let me kill and eat you, and wear your eyes" (which means, let me make you mine and hold your gaze, but I don't recommend it as a pickup line). At one point Kilenzi is described as "his calves are bettter than those of a pigeon."

There is a moment in the text where someone called in "well done" to the bard from the audience, and he answers "thank you, Bestower; it is your energy, sir", which I thought was cool.

WITH THIS, THE SERIES IS DONE.

Thank you for sticking around! I hope you enjoyed learning about women's epics. I could have included a lot more of them, but alas, only 26 letters. Maybe next time.

How was your A to Z this year?

See you next Monday for Reflections!