The Way to Nyikadzimu

 

What is the way to heaven?

Where is the path to Nyikadzimu?

How do we find a place in the Land of the Ancestors?

Nyikadzimu is in the east not the west

It is where the dead spend eternity

It is a place of joy and rest

But only the righteous will find it

Those who honour their ancestors will dwell there

The wicked have no place in the heavens

They will roam the earth without rest

So let us honour our forefathers

We will remember our past

Then we will go to Nyikadzimu

And sit with God Mwari and our ancestors

We will make annual pilgrimage to Great Zimbabwe,

We will walk barefoot in the Enclosure for it is sacred ground

We will pray at the Conical Tower where Tovera is buried

We will pray through our ancestors to God Mwari,

We will pray for guidance and protection,

We will pray for forgiveness for our wrongdoings,

We will pray for blessings and good fortune.

We will wear proudly garments with our totems,

We will sacrifice our fattest beasts to God and our predecessors,

We will study the tsumo proverbs and apply them,

We will tattoo our totem symbols on our skin

We will keep sculptures and amulets of our totems for good luck and protection

We will use our totems as our surnames

Wherever we are, we will pray facing Great Zimbabwe

We will not marry foreigners who don’t speak our language

We will not have marry anyone from the same totem.

We will never forsake our traditions

We will never forget our history and ancestors

We will remember our tsumo proverbs.

We will not follow the religion of strangers

We will not give our children foreign names

If we do so we will provoke our ancestors’ anger

May we suffer if we abandon our ancient ways.

We will not steal, murder or rape

For murder, theft and rape are the worst of crimes

Murderers, rapists and thieves are worse than animals

The ancestors cannot forgive those who rape, steal and kill

There is no place for thieves, rapists and murderers in the Nyikadzimu afterlife

The rapist, the murderer and the thief cannot sit with Tovera

The ancestors will reject thieves, rapists and murderers

And the ghosts of the wicked will roam for eternity without rest.

If we forsake our heritage

If we give our children foreign names

Our ancestors will not recognise us in the afterlife

They will reject us from the Nyikadzimu hereafter

And we will wander aimlessly for eternity without rest.

If we follow the ancient way of the ancestors

When we die we shall dwell with our forebears in the 

Nyikadzimu hereafter.

And we will drink and feast for eternity with Tovera.