Sena girls shun old traditions


When National Aids Commission (Nac) decided to root out harmful cultural practices, they thought of doing it gently to avoid upsetting some cultural balances.

In places like Nsanje where the predominant tribe is Sena, its cultural practices are rooted in sexual activities as a way of pleasing the spirits.

Almost every event in the community requires sexual cleansing, whether it be death (kulowa kufa), birth (kupita bzyade), accident (kupita ngozi), a fire (kupita moto) or even a pregnancy.

It was not surprising that Nac decided that some cultural practices had to be rooted out or in the least modified to suit the current times when HIV and AIDS has become a pandemic.

In 2003, Nsanje’s HIV prevalence was at 18 per cent but in five years since, it has gone down to at least 14 per cent, according to Nsanje district health officer Medson Semba.

Some areas in the district have abandoned some of the sexual cleansing practices while others have modified them.

For 20 year old Ofabia Bongwe and 24 year old Elizabeth Chiwalo, it was not so much as abandoning or modifying the cultural practices but completely shunning them.

Chiwalo, who is married and has three year old daughter has spent all her years in Ndenguma village, T/A Malemia and as a teenager, she went through the cultural practices as required of a girl who has reached marriageable age.

But because, she went to school and ended up becoming a member of several community based organisations, she realised the danger and absurdity of some of the practices.

She says Nsanje is rooted in cultural practices which she believes have components of witchcraft to them.

For example, when she gave birth to her daughter, she and her husband were expected to undergo a ritual called kupita bzyade, a family event whereby the couple would have sex for the first time after the birth of a baby.

Failure to do so would be a curse on the baby who could die from tsempho.

“I followed all the advice they gave me when I was expecting but when it came to this, my husband and I just pretended to do it to satisfy the elders in our two families,” she says.

Kupita bzyade, according to the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) who conducted a research in 2003 to gauge which practices were impinging on a person’s human rights, is a practice which takes place over five days and involves the whole family.

All members are expected to abstain, and those who fail to are expected to apologise to the couple on the day of the ritual.
Chiwalo says although she had always known about this practice, it was humiliating when people started talking about when it would be conducted.

‘You can imagine, everyone knowing that something was happening, it wasn’t good. My husband and I agreed that we wouldn’t do it,” she says adding that her excuse to friends and parents is always ‘tinakulira moyenda’.

Since Bongwe, who has a 15 month old son, was not married, her parents were expected to do the ritual in her behalf.

For a woman who has died after a still birth, kulowa kufa and kupita bzyade is done by selected members of the family for a period of nine days.

Chiwalo says her months old pregnancy disappeared in May through witchcraft and the elders expect her to do kupita bzyade and kulowa kufa because they believe the child died or she had a miscarriage.

“We have lied that we did it but after the ritual I am expected to shave my head. I haven’t done that and when I am asked, I say next week,” says Chiwalo who hides her head under a headwrap.

Kupita moto, according to Chiwalo, a sexual cleansing conducted before the burning of bricks or when a house burns down, whether arson or accidental.

“This is supposed to be an offering to mizimu to remove any misfortunes that could happen again,” Bongwe says.

Bongwe, who had a child out of wedlock will have to undergo kululupitsa or kupeputsa thupi when she finally gets married, another sexual ritual which the elders believe removes any possible misfortune in the new family.

“I will not do that. They say if we don’t it we will die but there are many cultures who get married after having a child and other relationships. They don’t die,” Bongwe says.

Bongwe, just like Chiwalo, doesn’t take some of beliefs seriously and does not expect any calamities or misfortunes to happen.

Chiwalo, on the other hand, believes there is HIV and AIDS and because she knows the ways it is transmitted, she avoids all sexual cleansing practices.

“Pleasing mizimu has nothing to do with sex because we are advised to make other offerings such as food or if they refuse that sex between people who have recently been tested of HIV,” she says.

Its all just witchcraft, Bongwe says, the witches know you believe too much in the practices, then something bad is likely to happen to you.

But Gogo Estery Frank of Macadamera village, T/A Mbenje says children these days don’t respect what the beliefs and practices have tried to teach the Sena people.

She firmly believes that failure to perform some of the sexual cleansing results in illness or death of a child because of tsempho.

Gogo Frank, who says she had five children when Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, came to Nyasaland in 1958, cites a practice which says is meant to protect the child when a mother has sex soon after having a baby.

“When this girl goes to meet her man, she is supposed to carry a chitenje, bundle it up and put it on the side of the bed they will be lying on. When she come back home, she is supposed to take that cloth and wrap it around the baby. This way there will be no tsempho,” she says.

If a woman fails to do this, her child becomes ill with swelling in the face and arm and the baby could die.

On whether she is aware that Nsanje is ravaged by HIV mostly because of sexual cleansing practices which in the past went unchecked, Gogo Frank says she is aware but blames it on the misbehaviours of the young people.

During the practice of kumulangiza wapakati, which she takes part in many times, she now advises young women not to breastfeed at all because she was misinformed that HIV can be transmitted through breastmilk all the time.

“Aids is here because young people these days don’t take care. Children are dying from tsempho because they don’t follow what mizimu dictates,” she says.

But MHRC has through its research recommended that not all cultural practices were bad but just needed slight modification.

For example, those aimed at protecting the life of a pregnant woman or child were highly recommended while those that required sexual cleansing between married couples, MHRC and Nac recommended the use of condoms.

But if young people like Bongwe and Chiwalo start shunning these practices, good or bad, they could soon die out.

The Malawi Human Rights Commission has compiled a list of cultural practices which they found might be useful to preserving culture and life in traditional settings but also those that impinge on other's fundamental rights.

Gender does not come into play here. That is left to organisations working in the gender sector to point out those practices which highlight gender disparaties in society.