Swaziland- Mantenga Cultural Village

To truly experience Swaziland, my parents took us to the Mantega Cultural Village which is a re-creation of how life would have been for a local tribe in the 1850's. From their website: The objective of the cultural village is to enable visitors from all over the world as well as Swazis from all corners of the country to visit it and to maintain a positive interest in the Swazi cultural heritage, including language, customs and practices, rituals, dance, music, folklore, arts and crafts. 

Of course, the drive to get there was breathtaking.

This is called Execution Rock. Those convicted of adultery or witchcraft had a one-way walk up the mountain before they were forced to jump to their death.

The guard at the gate saluted and greeted us with a charming smile.

Again from the website: Mantenga Cultural Village is the only tourist facility in Swaziland with its own fully-fledged permanent troupe. The group has over the years attained international acclaim with invitations to appear in international events in different parts of the world. Since 2004, Mantenga Cultural Group has toured several European countries for a series of festivals and private appearances in countries such as Belgium, German, France. It also flew to the Americas to join the world finest cultural performers at festivals there. The group is also a household name in South Africa where it has been appearing as the main attraction on numerous occasions, including during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The performance was amazing and the soulful harmony gave me chills. For this part of it, they are demonstrating how the boys would have contests to see who could kick the highest when they were tending to the herds.

The girls would as well (and man are they limber!) but only until they were married as a married woman would not lift her leg above her waist. These contests also served to impress members of the opposite sex.

Brigitta wanted to join in.

However, it was Ireland who was asked to learn how to do a some simple steps by one of the performers.

Next was a tour of the village. The huts have a very low opening (we had to crawl to get inside) which was a defensive measure. If the village was attacked, intruders would not only be slowed by the small entrance, but those inside could more easily defend themselves as a head or weapon was likely to enter first. This is the medicine hut which was located near the boys huts, girls huts and bovine enclosure. The parents and grandparents lived in another section of the village. The huts were incredibly cool on that hot day and while it was extremely dark at first, my eyes eventually adjusted. We were told the huts stay very warm in cool weather as well.

Notice one of the fences has 3 bars and one had 4. The fence with 3 bars leads to the beer hut while the one with 4 leads to the food hut. If someone needed to find them in the dark, they could do it by feeling around for how many bars there are on the fence and then following that to the appropriate hut. There is no opening at the top of the hut which keeps out rain. When a fire is burned inside, the smoke clears the hut of any bugs and disinfects it. The cooking huts were made of looser thatching to allow for ventilation.

Our guide is pointing out an area where the men would gather before a hunt to smoke mare-ah-jew-ahnna (marijuana) which they believed "inspired" them as to where to go. Now lighting up some Mary Jane is a non-bailable offense (I don't think we're in Colorado anymore Toto!).

Nearby is the boys club. This is basically a fire pit where unmarried boys would gather to carve and learn to become men. Any unmarried man was considered a boy... even if he was 50. Married men were distinguished by their clothing made of antelope skins and married women by their goat skins. Although it was a male-dominated society, the grandmothers were very respected. Anyone visiting the village would get an audience with them to find out what was going on in the village. Grandma always knows. 

No cats or dogs around but how about a pet vervet monkey? This little guy sauntered into the village like he owned the place.

It's time for a child to begin school when she can touch the ear on the opposite side of their head. Generally this is around 6 years old. I had the girls try and and Liesel (almost 6) had no problem while Ireland (now 4) couldn't quite reach. 

Members of the troupe make and sell jewelry and other items. I'd been hoping to get some big bracelets during our trip. Liesel, Ireland and Mom each picked one out for me, much to my delight!

 Hiking to the storied waterfalls wasn't in the cards with the little ones, but we drank in more of the stunning Swazi landscape as we left.

Some more interesting tid bits about Swaziland in general:

It is ruled by a king who occasionally feels the need to flex his muscles and remind the people who is boss. For example, he had the internet taken down for a few days in the entire country. This happened when my parents were visiting and suddenly no one in the family had heard from them in days and they weren't responding to email. We were all concerned something amiss had happened and were greatly relieved when they returned to South Africa and could again communicate.

The king takes a new bride every few years from one of the many tribes in the country. This is meant to keep them from warring with each other. The girls audition in front of the king's mother by dancing topless. Wouldn't that be an interesting episode of The Bachelor? It made me wonder how such an audition would have gone between me and Jeanne.

In all our shopping, I discovered soap on a rope knows no cultural boundaries: