SAM MATHE

I only discovered that I had an African name when I was fourteen and in standard five (grade 7). It may sound strange but the Christian identity was an essential part of the naming culture. In my case the family had strong Catholic leanings from the maternal side. As children we were literally baptised with biblical names and I took pride in the fact that I was named after Samuel, an Old Testament prophet – a handle that I also shared with a maternal uncle whom I adored.

The discovery happened one day at school after our Mathematics teacher, choir conductor and deputy principal, Meneer Mahlangu suddenly became unreasonable – at least that’s what I thought at the time – when he demanded to have our indigenous names. I swear the whole class only answered to their so-called slave names. To our shame and embarrassment, we were ordered to go home immediately and come back with what the no-nonsense deputy said were our real names.

He added that it was an urgent matter and those who won’t be able to get this important information shouldn’t bother to return to his beloved Ukuphumula Kwe Sizwe Primary School. At that stage I had acquired seven years of experience behind the desk and was in the final year of higher primary school level. And throughout that entire period no teacher had kicked a fuss about African names.

So something must be seriously wrong with our beloved teacher whose bark was usually worse than his bite. In fact I don’t remember him spanking a single pupil despite the fact that he taught at the height of the time of corporal punishment which most of his contemporaries embraced as an article of faith and some badge of honour. But on that fateful morning Meneer Mahlangu must have woken up on the left side of the bed.

Otherwise how were one supposed to explain such an irrational and definitely outrageous order, I reasoned as my classmates and I trudged to our homes. It was a huge relief to discover that I had an African name, after all. I remember that my dear mother revealed the coveted information in a casual sort of way. “Your name is Mphahlele. You were named after a forebear from your father’s side,” she told me matter-of-factly.

Despite the fact that she never used it there was no indication that she had to remember it. There was no need to retrieve the precious birth certificate to confirm the fact. And knowing this fact felt like being gifted with a hidden treasure. It was okay that I was named after a biblical character – we were Catholics after all, as already indicated – but it was a special feeling to discover that I was also an inheritor of a name that was part of my lineage.

Shortly after this incident I discovered the name Ezekiel Mphahlele. It was in a short story titled ‘He And The Cat’ from a collection named Ex-Africa Stories for Secondary Schools. Although the author had changed his name to Es’kia Mphahlele in 1977, I would see the old version for years to come. Like Samuel, Ezekiel was also borrowed from the Good Book and belonged to another Jewish prophet.

Although I didn’t regard him as a kinsman, the similarities of our names suggested to fifteen-year-old me that we had a special bond. He was a writer and I was destined to follow in his footsteps. His colossal standing in the world of letters was still a closed book to me but the fact that his name appeared alongside those of white writers suggested that he was not an ordinary black writer.

At that stage the only African writers that I had encountered through their works were those who were published in their native tongues. So I thought a black man who wrote in the Queen’s language was a rare breed indeed. Interesting enough, the short biography at the end of his contribution indicated that he was born in Marabastad. That was familiar territory although I didn’t know that in bygone days it was a black residential area, a slum that was teeming with young, gifted and black talent about to be unleashed on the world.

In my formative years Marabastad was a slice of the Orient in a white city that represented the national culture called apartheid. The Asiatic Bazaar was a thriving trading space where Indian merchants sold all sorts of goods to their African customers. This was and I guess it’s still home to Makuloo Hopaan, an ancient general dealership that sold every household item ranging from tonkana blankets to primus stove needles. Even our Christmas and school clothes were bought here.

In my adolescent imagination writers only lived in their books. They came from a bygone era and had since passed on. Who could blame me for such naivety? The school syllabus elevated ancient English writers – Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy, Milton – above the rest. So I assumed that the rest – JM Ntsime, Sibusiso Nyembezi, RL Peteni, OK Matsepe – were also dead authors. And I therefore concluded that this namesake of mine could not be counted among the living. After all, the short biography published at the end of his short story didn’t reveal much.

There was no indication that he was a fine scholar and Nobel Prize nominee who taught at a number of top universities on the continent and abroad. It didn’t state that he left the country in 1957 after he was banned from teaching because he opposed the introduction of Bantu Education in African schools. I also don’t remember mention being made of the fact that on his return from exile in 1977, he was once more denied a teaching post as a lecturer at the University of the North (Turfloop) and was eventually accepted by Wits University where he founded the Department of African Literature.

It was here that I saw him for the first time one morning in-between lectures. He was wearing one of his trademark Afro-shirts with a polo-neck jersey underneath to cushion against standing on the steps of the Great Hall. As I greeted him it was not lost on 18-year-old me that I was in the company of a great man. This short, bespectacled fellow with receding hair and a beaming face had no airs whatsoever about him. His voice was soft and urbane. The encounter didn’t last for ten minutes but it was one of the biggest highlights of my campus experience.

So why am I not using Mphahlele as part of my pen name? The answer is simple. There will always be one Es’kia Mphahlele. It’s a fact that I respect. Secondly, I love Sam Mathe. The name rhymes with Can and the surname is a near-anagram of Themba, another legend from Marabastad.

So why was Mr Mahlangu so impatient with us that morning? What was so important and urgent about our names? That, my friends, is probably a story for another day.

Nomvula Mabena
I remember that day quite vividly. I always thought it was Mr Mnguni(the one we used to call “Mlahlaphansi”) who sent us home to get our african names but I guess you are right. It was the time were were to acquire our Std 5 certificates. He said he does not want to see names like Oupa, Sister or Benjamin appearing in our Std 5 certificates. We were the last (Class of 1982) to be issued with them. I am glad he made us appreciate our African names