I recall how in my teens I joined hordes of giggly village boys and girls to watch the Saturday graduation rites of traditional healers. This phenomenon, which takes place amidst the thunder of the pulsating rhythm of African drums, will hypnotise any curious young mind. For Pitika Ntuli, one such occasion changed his life forever. Whatever he would become or do in life he was going to be it and do it as an African. Thus started the awesome story of the boy from the shanty town of Blesbok Masakeni outside Witbank.
At a young age, Ntuli responded at once to the call of his ancestors and the Africanist liberation message of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. Sensing a deep resonance between Sobukwe’s call for political liberation and the ancestral project of cultural and spiritual liberation, the young Ntuli immersed himself in political and cultural activism. Comrades and ancestors were drawn to him as if to a magnet. But he also attracted the attentions of the apartheid police. In the year when Nelson Mandela’s “Black Pimpernel” days were put to an abrupt end (when he descended into the hell of jail, there to stay for the next 27 years) 20-year-old Ntuli fled South Africa. Swaziland was first and he nearly died there. You do not get closer to death than being on death row! Thirty-two years later, several countries later, a dozen qualifications later, several artistic works later, Pitika joins thousands of fellow South African personae non grata. He arrives back home to “rejoin an ever-fluid flow of my umbilical cord”.
But I digress. This was meant to be brief review of Ntuli’s new book, published by Unisa Press, and launched on Sunday, August 22 at the Africa Museum, Newtown. Sitting in a packed auditorium last Sunday, mesmerised by the eloquent poetry of Pitika and his collaborators (Bra Don Materra was also in the house!) I rediscovered what I had known for some time. Ntuli is a one hell of an intellectual!
But how do we define him? How do we define an intellectual who insists on being an African even when it seems either unnecessary or detrimental to do so? And how does one so diverse, so educated, so well travelled, so knowledgeable about peoples and their cultures, insist on privileging his Africanness? What words and what categories do we use to explain the things he does?
I bathed in the soft rain of his finely chiselled words, deftly sprayed upon an audience in semi-trance. I conversed with his life-like human busts and figurines of wood, stone, bone and metal on display at the Africa Museum in Newtown, Johannesburg. I looked at them. Some of them looked right back at me. Others hid their faces. Others looked away. The works of Ntuli form a community of interlocutors. I gave them answers, but their questions were sharper. This book, which I am failing to review — if I may admit this upfront — is no ordinary book.
It is at once a manual, a collection of academic essays, an artistic biography, a compendium of poems, a book of healing, a book of romance between Pitika and the “goddess of his heart”; a book of struggle between Pitika, stone, wood and bone; a book of love between Pitika, his country and his people. The department of education will be at a loss as to how to classify this book.
Who is this man whose words tease, soothe, bruise and heal? Who is this man at whose touch dead wood comes back to life? Who is this man who battles with stone until it smiles? Who is this man who, bypassing flesh and blood, goes back to the bone to draw meaning and invoke immortality? Who is this man who causes an uprising of the debris of Western industrial culture, instigating them to revolt against their users and their uses? Under the spell of this man, derelict wheelbarrows, abandoned exhaust pipes and irreparable motor engine parts come back to haunt us — as works of art!
This is the son of preacher man Ndlebe ka Ntuli. Sompisi! Mphemba ngamabele abafokazi bephemba ngezibi. He is healer, sculptor, subversive bricoleur, philosopher, writer, poet, performer and academic.
Do yourself a favour and visit Museum Africa where Ntuli’s work is being exhibited till August 31. Do yourself yet another favour and get hold of his book Scent of Invisible Footprints: The Sculpture of Pitika Ntuli. This is a book you must read. It will read you back — backwards and forwards. It will blow your mind. You shall be healed.
I like this, Tinyiko Maluleke, thank you. I shall find out more.
Im one of the young people who follow his works,watch his comments on an array of issues,have had the opportunity to visit the African Museum over the World cup period….the way he scups the animal bones and combines with metal is mind blowing…truly one man worth celebrating in deed….”Sompisi,Cabacongo,Hlokwemamba” as he normally ends his comments…Great man!!!! Thanx for the insight
He is simply brilliant and speaks so passionately!
When I was a staudent in UDW I happen to stay at the same street with Ntuli in Westville suburb. If you were not lucky to meet Ntuli, you were guaranteed to walk almost 2kms to class as public transport was a problem. When one of our strikes in UDW resulted in a cop shooting a student in cold blood, Ntuli was at that time not attached to UDW but he was one of the first people and the only academic on the scene. Had it not been for Ntuli who calmed the student and led them in a song(Senzenina) to heal their wounds things would have turned out very ungly that day. So yes Ntuli is a healer and he practice what he preaches; Ubuntu.
As a young white country guy trying to figure out how to replace Apartheid in SA (rejecting the marxism and false liberlism of the ANC/SACP) must confess found the words and ideas of Sobukwe very compelling and also Biko’s BC thoughts and concepts also very apt and correct for SA. Pity the ANC/SACP alliance aided by the Soviet Bloc + liberal Western Countries just wiped those wonderful ideas and solutions off the table, using waves of propaganda plus physically during the 80′s as the alliance controlled the townships and the BC movement/PAC was virtually physically eliminated.
Not too late to bring back those ideas and solutions taught to us by great African people – African solutions for Africans not already failed Euro centric libro-marxism.
Brent
Thanks Tinyiko Maluleke,you are so helpful. You always tell or clarify what happened with our fallen brothers.You educating the nation. I think South Africa need more intellectual persons such as Tinyiko Maluleke.
Thanks a lot! I was watching SABC 1 sometime last week during the week, I can’t remember what programme – Prof. Pitika Ntuli appeared and spoke “so nice, so soft” and as he wrapped his speech he said “this is Pitika Ntuli – Sompisi, Qabaqongo, Hlok’emamba!”
As a Ndebele and a culturalist myself I had an interest to know more of this intelligent “timer”, today as I googled hime I across this Tinyiko Maluleke’s page and I must say it came in handy as now I know more about Prof. Pitika Ntuli. Thanks once again! Inarha ayilale, iinhliziyo zipharumelane!
Well-put Tinyiko. The socio-cultural and intellectual worlds that Mphemba traverses locate possibly tell so much about this Africanness. Yet this is someone who adheres to the wisdom of the Igbo sages who tell us not to be stuck in one place if indeed we are to grasp and imbibe humanity’s universality. Kwande!
I thank you so much Sir Tinyiko Maluleke. I am one of the viewers who remain glued to Weend Live untill Prof Pitika Ntuli speaks. Naturally, i became interested to know more about this son of the soil who always wallows words of wisdom. He who have traversed the universe yet remained firmly grounded in the African soil. The neonlights of London, New York and elsewhere have failed to steal his heart away from Africa in general and South Africa in particular. Ndiyavuya ke mhlekazi Maluleke ngokusityhilile ngokubanzi ngobomi bale ngangalala. Camagu!
I just love this guy, I make sure I dont miss him on Weekend Live. The fact that Im a Swazi and he speaks so much about my country really amazes me, people like him deserve to be honoured while still alive. He is a true African and firmly grounded to the African soil and African beliefs!! Thank you Mr . Maluleke for sharing this with us kuwe Babe Ntuli siyabonga kakhulu kusifundzisa ngelive letfu and contributing to our country (Swaziland). Sompisi,Cabacongo, nhlokeyemamba.