Land of the ancients

These ignorant attitudes are, I believe, a good thing otherwise today we would not be holding in the palm of our hand the purity of the 12 tribes of Zimbabwe. We now have these cultures to work with in order that we might promote something that the world has forgotten about.

We even have our own “spiritual temples” situated at Great Zimbabwe, Khami and Nalatale (which is one of three, Bila and Zinjanja being other two) located 25 kilometres east of Shangani, in the north of Matabeleland and north of Dhlo Dhlo ruins. These ruins are attributed to the Torwa State and are thought to date from the seventeeth century. You have to confess that we still explore in awe every time we visit!

These are precious remnants of our past that still exist in our midst today and to which we should at least make one pilgrimage in our lifetime – why not take the family out there over the Heroes and Ancestors weekend? We go out of our way to visit foreign museums and ruins but do we even bother with that which we have inherited? We think it will always be there, but for those in the Diaspora the cold reality is that we ourselves will not always be there. We may even die without ever having trod in the footsteps of our own Ancestors. (Zimbabwe may be landlocked and far from the sea, but the tears that its people weep in distant lands are salted!)

It is time these ancient ruins were acknowledged as more than historical monuments, giving a totally new slant on what is a treasured availability in our country that the world gawps at and underestimates. I have often been asked why Zimbabweans are so passionate about their country compared to many other black states of the Motherland?

Previous governments focused on the wildlife which, upon reflection, is good because the wildlife represents a totem to each one of us and Government's new zero tolerance on poaching now will go a long way to enhancing this facet of our world. In focusing on the wildlife our country has promoted some of the world’s most amazing wildlife artists that have in turn promoted Zimbabwe. However, may I urge you now to focus on your totems of the Animist world from which we emanated and to which we belong to?

In Asia, during devastating droughts, do you see Hindus slaughtering their sacred white cows for mouth-watering steaks? If anything, during a drought you will find Hindus going without themselves, ensuring that their bovine icons are nourished instead. Possibly as a result of their spiritual stability, nowadays India appears to be thriving. Even major British companies are establishing call centres in that part of the world!

Tibet is successful because of its Buddhism.

Another nation going from strength-to-strength, spiritually, is Canada. In June 2006, the Earl of Wessex, Prince Edward, unveiled a plaque at the First Nations University of Canada, situated on the Saskatchewan Prairies of Regina. Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations is Perry Bellegarde, who said, “Education is our Buffalo of the Year 2003 and beyond.” The University’s Vice-President, Wes Stevenson, said it was essential for the native people to have their own campus with their own curriculum as they needed to learn about their own history and culture, which would prepare them to walk with a moccasin on one foot and a shoe on the other.  In Zimbabwe we desperately need to learn how to walk with one safari boot on one foot and barefoot on the other so that we have a foot in each of our worlds.

In The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manley P Hall states that, “Realising that visible bodies are only symbols of invisible forces, the ancients worshipped the Divine Power through the lower kingdoms of Nature… every existing creature manifests some aspect of the intelligence or power of the Eternal One.”  (Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1977) p.LXXXV.

"Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man Adam to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field." (Genesis 2:19-20, NIV -- emphasis added). Those who doubt how God could have done all this on the 6^th Day under-estimates the computerised age which we are only now scratching the surface of.  “Jurassic Park” was first done on computers and then automated. Now, just imagine if God had done the same with his computer in the sky, and then breathed life into the dinosaurs? Not impossible.

As it would appear, millions in the world are still searching for a pure form of spiritual walk. We acknowledge that God has Zimbabwe in the palm of his hand, especially as identified in TRUTH in the last two weeks, and therefore, I advocate that if we each focus on our own totems, totems that are God-given, the world will be reminded of Animism, the first religion of our Ancestors who gave it to us. Animism formed the basis our own culture and beliefs long before the British South Africa Company brought in the missionaries with their commercial interpretations of God and tossed our own beliefs aside.

Pure religions tend to embrace and enhance that which is classified as the spiritual “Holy Grail” which the restless “spiritual grasshoppers” still seeks, whilst we have it here right in the palm of our hands – why else would we want to return to our roots?

Despite every intrusion, no one has ever managed to remove our culture and our beliefs in Animism and the Ancestors, because this is our God-given right, given to us in the first place by He who created us in this land, the land of the true ancients of Zimbabwe!