The searing heat of the day to come had yet to make itself felt as we walked in the dawn light along a winding path in the Zambesi Valley. We had camped the previous night on the outskirts of the village of the custodian of Chingombe, the iron god, and as the new Native Commissioner of the Urungwe District, I was privileged to be one of the few who were allowed to visit Chingombe. After walking about 250 metres through some mopane veld we came across a scrupulously swept clearing, some 10 metres wide, in which was constructed a miniature hut made of unplastered poles with a thatched roof and a simple door made of poles. As we reached the outer edge of the clearing the custodian asked us to be seated, and sitting himself, he started to clap his hands in a slow and rhythmic Shona honorific style, while shouting Chingombe's praise names and announcing the arrival of visitors. We joined in the clapping, seated on the sandy soil, whilst the rising sun could be seen shining red through the bare poles of the little hut.
Having received Chingombe's silent agreement to the visit, we came closer and sat down again whilst the custodian, still voicing praise-names, opened the door and removed a reed mat. Then the god was taken from his shrine. We perceived a fabrication some 60 centimetres high, of what appeared to be thin wrought iron, with one central column to which were attached a configuration of crooked arms. The point of the figure was pushed reverently into the ground through the reed mat that had been unfurled, so that it was free-standing. Then from the hut were brought six small elephant tusks which were arranged three on each side together with a wooden dish, the barrel of a muzzle-loader and some rolls of black cloth. I handed over the roll of black cloth that I had been advised to bring with me and this the custodian placed with the rest.
After a while he indicated that we should leave whilst he returned Chingombe to his shrine, and so we said our farewells, and departed, to carry on with our Zambesi patrol.
It was part of a District Commissioner's duties to be aware of everything that went on in his district, and what a pleasure it was in an instance such as the visit to the little iron god.
There are numerous versions as to the origin of Chingombe, one of which is that originally he was a chief of a Zambian tribe who, about 150 years ago, moved with his people across the Zambesi river and entered the domain of the local Makorekore, eventually settling at a salt pan. When the Makorekore came on their annual salt-collection safari they were refused permission to gather salt. After discussing the matter they mounted an attack on Chingombe's people but were soundly defeated. Retiring in confusion they decided to resort to other means and so they left a beautiful maiden at the water hole from which Chingombe's people drew their water. There she was found in the morning and taken to Chingombe, who was struck by her beauty and took her to be his wife. (We are not told how the usual pre-marriage ceremonies were conducted in the absence of her guardian!) On the first night as he lay sleeping beside her, she took a knife which she had concealed and slit his throat. Blood gushed forth and formed a river of blood which washed them both away never to be seen again. In the morning the Makorekore arrived and found the bloody river. In fear they fled, and the river turned to water and is still there today, now called the Masikoti.
Some years later a young man was walking by the Chewore river, into which the Masikoti flows, when he saw an iron figure lying in the sand. As he approached it, it spoke, informing him that it was Chingombe, who wished to return home. He decreed that the young man was to be his mouth-piece and that he and his descendants should care for him forever after.
And so it was that he was returned to his people and became their god from whom, to this day, they seek rain, health and good fortune.
When I visited him, he was resident in what is now known as the Chewore Safari area but in one of the numerous movements of people to which the African people were subjected, he and his custodian and their neighbours were loaded onto lorries some twenty years ago and moved to the neighbouring communal land. This I understand was done with due reverence and propitiation and Chingombe and his possessions, together with his custodian, had a 5-tonne lorry all to themselves.
I enjoyed 36 years service in the Southern Rhodesian Department of Native Affairs (later Internal Affairs) and this is just one the of interesting incidents in which I was privileged to participate. My father, Mr H N Hemans, was one of the early Native Commissioners of Southern Rhodesia, and wrote a fascinating book, " Log of a Native Commissioner" printed by Witherby in 1935 and reprinted by Books of Rhodesia in 1971. It was this book of his, which I read over and over again, that decided my career - in fact, I never had any ambitions but to become a Native Commissioner, unfortunately foregoing a university education that was offered to me in favour of joining the Native Affairs department at the age of 16. My father was unable personally to influence my choice of career as he had died when I was six years old. However, I am sure he would have been pleased with my choice. It was rather poignant that I was one of the last, if not the last Native Commissioner to be appointed to that post in 1962, just before I visited Chingombe. Thereafter to avoid giving offence to the increasingly sensitive African population, the title was changed to District Commissioner, and the department became the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The change of name came about as a result of two commissions of inquiry into the Southern Rhodesian Public Service - first the Robinson Commission and then the Paterson Commission.
In a nutshell, what was recommended for the old Native Affairs Department was fundamental change which was designed to destroy the department by removing its judicial functions and its agricultural functions, then merge it into the Ministry of Local Government. The theory behind this was put in this way - " Sapiental authority cannot be exercised in the form of advice to a person over whom structural authority is also exercised by the same agent. In other words, it is impossible for the Native Commissioner to advise and his advise accepted as such, without the feeling of the persons advised, that this is not advice but command".
Similarly, it was felt that the division of Native Agriculture should be removed and added to the Department of Conservation and Extension which was the body responsible for commercial agriculture. It was felt that all agricultural extension in the country should be merged and have ready access to the research and specialist services.
And so our judicial functions (except for civil cases between Africans) were stripped from us and later the agricultural division joined "Conex" for a while but later reverted back to us for a few years before it was finally irrevocably absorbed by "Agritex" - the Department of Agriculture, Technical and Extension Services.
While we accepted that the titles "Native Affairs Department" and "Native Commissioner" were anachronistic and no longer acceptable, we fought hard against the title "District Secretary" that the commission wanted to bestow on us. We wanted to be called "District Commissioner" and we won our case. It is a strange and rather interesting little story that the present government, having changed our title from District Commissioner to Assistant Secretary (Development) about-faced and decided to bestow the title "District Administrator" on the black successors to the District Commissioners. Paterson had said in his report "The title District Administrator smacks of colonialism which is an anathema to Rhodesians". How much more should it be an anathema to black Zimbabwean rulers!
Paterson went on to say "It would seem to me that local government and District administration must be merged into one. What is left of Native Affairs, after removal of the Department of Agriculture and of the judicial functions, is local government, synonymous with District Administration. The Native Affairs Department has done a fine piece of work, but as such it is no longer needed - requiescat in gloriam".
My first two years as a very junior clerk (the post was later to be changed to the more dignified "cadet") were not at all after the life-style depicted in my father's book. There were no Zambesi patrols and none of the excitement of life in the wild blue yonder. Instead, on 2nd January 1946 I was put into the tax office of the Native Commissioner's office in Bulawayo where I was given a chair in the middle of the office and was told to sit and watch what was going on. Large and impressive ex-servicemen (it was just after the Second World War) were seated at tables place against the windows, through which those who wished to pay tax put their registration certificates and £1.00.
After a couple of hours I became extremely bored as no-one was taking any notice of me and I was much too frightened to get up and see how the tax payments were being handled. My boredom was rudely interrupted by a lovely young lady who waltzed into the office, saw me sitting in solitary state there and saying "Oh, is this the new clerk?", and to my horror sat herself on my lap and gave me a big hug and a kiss. That certainly broke the ice and the large young men at the windows decided to notice me and bring me into the team.
The tax being paid was the annual amount payable under the blatantly discriminatory "Native Tax Act". This was a device common to nearly all colonies, certainly in Africa, by which the administration kept a check on the indigenous male adult population of each district. From a base line in about 1900 District Commissioners listed by name each male over the age of 18 in a tax register, and issued a registration certificate giving the subjects tribal particulars, and district number. Failure to possess a registration certificate was a criminal offence, and so fathers used to bring their sons when approaching the age of 16 to the District Commissioner's office, and they were duly registered in what was called a prospective addition ledger, the details of which were duly entered into the main tax register in time for the tax year in which the subject turned 18. Thereafter, the young men become the responsibility of the "kraal" (village) head, who was expected to collect from him his annual due of £1.00. However, those working in town or working in other districts could pay there, and advice of his payment was sent to his home district for crediting in the register. Non-indigenous Africans did not escape the net and their payment were credited in registers in what is now known as the Central Alien Tax Bureau. The highlights of those rather dull first years was when I was sent out in the Ford or Chev to collect tax from the Railways or from the factories which were beginning to be set up in Bulawayo.
Another method of revenue collection and a check on influx into urban areas, was a dreadful thing called a "town Pass". The employer of every adult African male had to pay one shilling per month to enable that African to live and work in an urban area. Fortunately, one could pay six shillings for a six month pass, which eased the load. Anyone found in town without a pass or permit to seek work, would be prosecuted.
The collection of tax in the rural districts was totally different to that in town and much more interesting for the staff concerned, as it entailed patrols into what were known as "native reserves" later changed to "tribal trust lands". Notification would be sent out by messenger well in advance of the District Commissioner's programme of tax collection and we would go out for a week or two at a time to selected venues where rest-huts had been built. In my day, unfortunately, I was never stationed at a district where foot patrols took place, as they did in my father's time. As described in his book, he used to leave his district headquarters at Gokwe for a patrol lasting several months with his camping kit, tax registers, medical equipment and everything required for a long, arduous and exiting journey, packed into suitable containers on the heads of sixty carriers. The Zambesi patrol started from Gokwe, and struck out for the mighty river west of the present Binga. On reaching the river, part of the convoy transferred to dug-out canoes and part kept to the bank, the whole retinue making leisurely progress down-stream to what used to be the entrance to Kariba Gorge before it was inundated. Thence they made their way home overland. A stop was made at predestined places where a conference was held with the local chief and his elders, tax was collected, marriages registered, civil cases on appeal from the chief were heard, wounds were dressed and generally all manner of complaints were dealt with. These included the depredations caused by big game amongst the crops and stock, resulting sometimes in the patrol halting for a time whilst elephants or lion were hunted. What a wonderful life - can anyone blame a young man for wanting to follow in father's footsteps!
However tame it might have seemed setting forth by motor car for one week, it was still very exiting and the highlight of the job. We had to make use of all sorts of vehicles in those days just after the war. I well remember the two door, 1937 Ford V8 sedan we had in Belingwe. Then we had forced on us an extraordinary vehicle called a Ford Pilot, which though made in Britain had an American V8 engine and a pick-up body only about 4 feet long. They were very low slung and totally unusable for bush work.
The tax patrol would eventually consist of the District Commissioner or the Assistant District Commissioner with one clerk, and three or four native messengers (later called District Assistants). Procedure was an early rise followed by a substantial breakfast prepared by one of the District Assistants trained in the culinary arts. Then depending on the weather, a table was set up on the verandah of the rest hut, or under a nearby tree, and the tax register and receipt book would be opened, the chief invited to come and sit nearby to answer any queries, and each Kraal head called up in turn. The names of the men entered under his name were read out and he would indicate in respect of each one whether his money was present or not. If not, he would be asked where the defaulter was to be found and the address noted in the register for follow-up later. If a man died this would be noted so that his name could be written off.
By this means, the District Commissioner kept a close check on the whereabouts of the men in the district, a means of census and very often very useful in police investigations. Realising the burden the collection of the money placed on the kraal head, whose responsibility it was to seek out every man listed under his name, the government later devised a scheme whereby a 10% collection fee was refunded to him.
And so the day continued until all the kraal heads had paid. We designed it so that we did not work much later than noon, even though a tax patrol was often combined with the registration of marriages and the receipt of all types of petitions or complaints. When Native Tax was first imposed, it was fixed at ten Shillings, and it was only around 1910 that it was raised to £1.00. When assessing the age of an elderly man who presented himself for exemption from tax, a statement "Khade ngangithela itshumi" (long ago I used to pay ten shillings) was evidence of his age. Then it was raised to one pound, but for each successive registered wife after the first one, an additional charge of ten shillings was made. One outstanding example of flourishing polygamy was a hale and hearty old man in the Gutu district with 48 wives and , by coincidence, 48 daughters and 52 sons. Tax was raised to £2.00 for a while but in a conciliatory gesture was lowered again to £1.00 before it was finally abolished in about 1970 as being discriminatory.
It was a District Commissioner's duty and ambition to achieve as close to 100% payment of tax in his district as possible, and we were kept very busy on follow-up after the initial collection.