Many religious stories concern people who have taken themselves out of society in order to focus their thoughts after hearing a call (whether internal or external) from gods or ancestors. Jesus, The Buddha, Mohamed, John the Baptist, Moses, and many others have spent time facing deprivation and temptation in the wilderness in order to find new awareness. This is also a tradition in the Tswana society, though rare outside communities of traditional healers. I have a story for you today from my friend and guide to African spirituality, Mma Seitsang concerning a woman facing her own spiritual breakdown and awakening (for some background on this subject see South Africa # 16): " I will tell you about my sister (probably a distant cousin) Banthle. She has got the ancestors for real, but she never went to (traditional healer) school. She had two children when I was just a girl, and lived in Tlakgameng (a village in the Northwest Province near Mma Seitsang's home) with her husband. This was in 60's and the white people were so full of apartheid. You would not believe it! They wanted to hold everything in their hands. Banthle needed money because her husband was drinking beer too much. She was cleaning for a rich white family in Jozi (Johannesburg) and coming home to see her babies at the break (quarterly school holidays.) Things were not too bad for her. Then, the ancestors were talking to her time and a time-when she was sleeping and when she was working. The ancestors were making a big fire inside of her head. She started drinking the white people's beer and brandy to make the ancestors be quiet, but they had the power. She left her work in Jozi and came home to her family. They were working for a white farmer near Tlakgameng. She said to them, 'I have received a vision. I am being called by Modimo (God) to live in the bush with the beasts.' Then, Banthle was living under a tree in the bush near her family. For three years, she was drinking only water and eating the dried shit of a cow. She did not wash her body, so her clothes were old and fell off. Her family was coming to her to her to bring her water, but she would not eat the food they brought, only this shit. She was telling them about the things that the ancestors were saying to her about people who are sick and how they can be fixed. Then, so many people with problems were coming to see her. She would touch these people and help them. Banthle knows the Bible like 1, 2, 3-like thunder and lighting. She was walking around Tlakgameng naked telling so much about the Bible and sweating like a donkey. Then, in 66, she went back to her family. Her family made a big party to celebrate. It was like a funeral, but Banthle was back from being dead. The white farmer was even giving them a cow to kill. She washed, put on clothes, and started to eat meat and pap. But, she was still full of the ancestors. She was making her church in Tlakgameng and people were bringing her food. Banthle is not a sangoma (traditional healer,) but she has had a true vision and has helped so many people." Today's picture is one that I drew before I heard Mma Seitsangs story about Banthle, but (if the central figure were female instead of male) it could almost be an illustration for it. This drawing is a companion to the artwork that I presented with South Africa # 8-a lot of detail here, I suggest you click in it to get the full-sized version. When working on this, I was thinking about the trials and temptations in the wilderness that The Buddha went through (food, sex, power) before he found enlightenment. At one point the Buddha is said to have starved himself until he could " touch his stomach and grasp his own backbone." This physical state was on my mind because so many of my friends were in the final stages of AIDS and becoming rail thin themselves. Elements from life in rural South Africa here include: the three-legged iron pot, herding stick, marching ants, and a barbed wire fence. In the middle of the right hand side of the picture is a sexual demon called a thokoloshe. I will discuss the thokoloshe and his evil mischief in South Africa # 22.
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