LUDZIDZINI: The process leading to the 2024 Incwala ceremony has started. Soon, the water party people wearing their emblematic baboon-skin pelts around their heads will briefly become a common feature in the hinterlands.
A report from the Times of Eswatini this week said the King retreated into seclusion on Saturday (2 November 2024). The king’s seclusion coincides with the start of the travel of water priests, beManti who are despatched to begin the symbolic journey to collect sacred herbs and water from the Mozambique coast. EmaSwati ancestors inhabited the Maputo area in Tembe before they were dislodged by the slave trade. The series of migration led them to settle in present Eswatini.
The incwala season that climaxes with the kingship rite of the tasting of the new fruit, is a process over three months that unfolds in several phases.
The first phase begins in November. It’s beginning is signified by a national thanksgiving prayer service held at the King’s Lozitha Palace. Thereafter the King retreats into seclusion and ceases all but the most unavoidable official activities. During this phase, the king rarely meets with outsiders and key decisions are held in abeyance until the next year.
The water party is expected to return in December, shortly before the southern hemisphere summer solstice. The Inwala is celebrated in two phases – the Little Incwala and the Great Incwala. The ‘Little Ncwala’ begins on the new moon, and the ‘Great Ncwala’, which begins fourteen days later-that is, on the next full moon, and more precisely, on the first full moon following the solstice.
In the next few weeks, the majority of emaSwati will prefer their national dress, and most men will spend their afternoons at Ludzidzini, the national spiritual headquarters.
Read also https://today.co.sz/2024/09/29/when-the-virgin-maidens-come-out-dancing/
Incwala is the most sacred period on the national calendar as it is associated with national renewal. It is the more sombre of the nation’s two symbolic cultural highlights.
Jm/today/6.10.2024
