...walking naked. WB

On July 3, 2004, Samson Mudzunga staged a performance called "Farewell to Drums" at his home village of Dopeni in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. He was preparing for the show "Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African Art," which would be held in New York between September 21, 2004, and January 3, 2005, at the Museum of African Art and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The performances in Dopeni Village and at the Cathedral raised questions about the relationship between traditional forms of political power and the challenges of a new and "modern" political dispensation in South Africa and between "traditional art" and "high art" forms in South Africa and elsewhere.

Samson Mudzunga is a contemporary artist whose work is represented in local and international art collections, and everything that he makes is modern in that it responds to contemporary issues and contexts. He has no formal art education, and his formal schooling was limited. It is clear that his modernity is often overlooked in contemporary assessments of his work (see, for example, Murinik 2004, Coates 2001), as is the modernity of many contemporary African artists who have been taken up by the high art world. This paper unpicks the constituent elements of Samson Mudzunga's performance in Venda to demonstrate both how he negotiates his way through the metropolitan, high art minefield, and the instability of "traditional" politics in the rural areas, but in both cases, using old mythologies to appeal to the different audiences involved. That Mudzunga deliberately exploits people's expectations can be seen in the ways in which he develops his performances for different contexts.

Setting the Scene: Of Lake Fundudzi and Singo Kings

Lake Fundudzi, the only natural lake in South Africa, is central to the old mythologies of Venda. Lake Fundudzi is important in both oral and written histories and in continuing customs of the different groups who constitute the Venda. It is the origin of the world and the sacred space of ancestors. As a leitmotif, referring to the genesis myth at whose center it stands, the image of Lake Fundudzi recurs through Venda thinking about social and political relationships--reserved for some, guarded from others, and prohibited to the most powerful. Deliberately shrouded in mystery, the lake, like Yeats's coat, is hung about with old mythologies. Lake Fundudzi is the "swimming pool" of Raluvhimba (the creator), who left his giant footprints in the mountains around it at the moment of creation, while the earth was still soft. Around the lake a number of natural features are identified as belonging to Raluvhimba, including some boulders that are said to be his "drums." In Venda tradition, it is unthinkable to be a king without drums (see Stayt 1931, Van Warmelo 1932, Phophi n.d., Nettleton 1985 and 1989), and drums, the focal point of Mudzunga's performances, are among the most symbolically potent objects in Venda visual culture.

When I first visited Venda in 1977-1979, I was allowed only to the top of the mountains round Lake Fundudzi. (1) My fellow researcher, Richard Tshivhase, a member of the Tshivhase family, is a Singo royal who (like everyone, Venda and non-Venda alike, who is not Ngona or Thavhatsinsi), is prohibited from approaching the lake too closely. The first Singo king of Venda, Thoho ya Ndou, (2) is said to have disappeared into Lake Fundudzi, to live there with his court, replicating the courts of his descendants still on land. Those who ventured close could hear his Tshikona bands' music coming from the lake, the drumming on his ngoma, and his young women performing the domba. But Thoho ya Ndou was a newcomer to the lake, a leader of the invading Singo who had arrived from the north and taken control of the Soutpansberg area only sometime around 1700. (3) The Singo were the last of a number of invasions of Shona-speakers and they, together with Thavhatsindi and Ngona, make up different strata within Venda society. According to legend, culture hero Thoho ya Ndou's disappearance into the Lake and spirit occupation of the waters established Singo hegemony within a lake sacred to the earlier inhabitants, the Ngona. But the Singo were unable to take physical possession of the lake and the Netshiavha lineage of the Ngona remained the guardians of Lake Fundudzi even after the Singo invasion. Singo royalty were believed likely to die from contact with its waters, and ordinary people could be attacked by the mischievous, grotesque spirits, the tshidudwane, who inhabited its perimeter. (4) Annual offerings to the spirits of the lake were made by the head of the Netshiavha lineages on behalf of the major Singo chiefs, the Ramabulana and Tshivhase.

Much in Venda territory has changed, particularly since the democratic elections of 1994. Disillusionment with the old mythology that shores up chiefly privilege has crept into people's dealings with political and cultural dimensions of rural life in this former ethnic stronghold. In the late 1970s, one tarred road traversed Venda territory from west to east. It was sandwiched between the white town of Louis Trichardt (now Makhado) and the Punda Milia gate to the Kruger National Park. A gravel branch led north to Sibasa, the "homeland" government's administrative center, and the mission stations of Tshakhuma, Makumbane, and Siloam. Although rectangular houses clustered around the missions, circular dwellings in homestead complexes surrounded by farmlands were the norm. These were separated by large stretches of unadulterated bush. The Singo royalty had theft capitals (musanda), against the magnificent upper slopes of the mountains, with terraced walls and a large Khoro to greet their guests (Fig. 1). It was the very picture of romantic rural Africa, except for the single large soap-powder billboard, advertising (ironically) "whiter than white" washing, at the turnoff to Vhufuli on the road from Sibasa.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The smattering of missions and hospitals and a few modern school buildings were minor indices of change. This was part of the systematic underdevelopment and ingrained poverty engendered by apartheid, a system that entrenched the traditional rights and customs of a small aristocratic class by buying...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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