Please let our ancestors rest in peace

In the African tradition, the dead are treated with utmost respect and dignity and the places where they are buried is regarded as very sacred.

In the rural village of Tshithuthuni in Thengwe outside Thohoyandou, however, it seems as if the dead will never rest in peace. This has left a Gauteng based businessman, whose family lived in the area some decades ago, very furious.

Pretoria based businessman Mr Phineas Nunga said he will stop at nothing in making sure that graves belonging to his forefathers are left intact and not desecrated. Nunga (65) of Tshithuthuni, who owns several businesses in the Pretoria townships, this week came out fuming, saying his ancestors are no longer resting in peace, as the area in which they are buried is being mined for building sand without the family being informed.

Nunga said the family settled in the area in the early 1900s when the late Chief Malilele Nethengwe gave them land. Nunga's father, Maginya Nunga, was a well-known traditional healer who was brought from Zimbabwe for the service of the chief.

At one stage the chief also wanted to make him a headman, but he refused because of his healing commitments. As time went by and people were resettled, the Nunga family, a big family by then, moved to different villages like Vuvha, Tshiombo and Mangaya, leaving the graves of their family members in the bush.

Nunga said from time to time the family visited their ruins at Tshithuthuni for rituals and other purposes. “It was three years ago that we found people busy mining sand at the spots where there are graves. We complained to Chief Mufula Ndwambi, but he was not interested in helping us and he told us to fence off all the graves.”

According to Nunga, it is very difficult for the family to understand, as some of the graves are no longer visible with only a stone or two left to show that there was a grave.

“The (graveyard) is in the bush and people will definitely steal the fences if we erect them here,” said Nunga.

He further indicated that the last time they had visited the royal council was on a Sunday, but they received the same answer that they should fence the graves. “We are tired of this circus and we have tried to be diplomatic, but with no positive results. We will stop at nothing to preserve these graves,” he added.

He emphasised that he doesn’t want to die knowing that the bones of his ancestors were carried away to unknown destinations. “What we want here is that the mining of sand stops completely and the dead rest in peace,” he said.

Chief Bethuel Rantsana, a family member, said it is surprising to see that people have lost respect, even for sacred places like graves. “We are appealing to the local traditional leader to stop this activity because this is where our ancestors are buried. These people should just stop what they are doing here and leave our graves alone,” said Rantsana.

Chief Mufula Ndwambi confirmed that the family stayed in the area many years ago and that they have graves there. “They came to us with their complaint and they told us they have identified 13 graves. We told them we cannot stop development in the area, but what they could do is to fence off all the identified graves so that people will not tamper with them,” said Ndwambi.

News - Date: 15 July 2018

Elmon Tshikhudo

Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.

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