THE ORIGIN OF SURNAMES AND ITS POWER

THE COVID-19 pandemic has brought the whole world to its knees, what a difficult situation we find ourselves in. Let us take all the recommended precautions; we can conquer this if we work together. 

There is a rainbow in the eye of the storm; through all the negativity, there is something positive to pick. The lockdown may have disturbed a lot, however, we may use it for family time, especially the parents who hardly spend time with their children because of work. This is the time to bond. We hardly have time to visit homes such that funerals have become family reunions, life neh!

Family

Talking about family, what makes one family? Never mind the philosophical approach that family is anybody who shows great care for you. Yes, all human beings are distant relatives from the genesis of all things. What happens when you meet a person you share a surname with? You quickly embrace that person and call him or her your flesh and blood, right?

As a child, my mind was always plagued with this question; where did surnames come from? I was smart enough to understand names but dumb enough not to understand surnames. So I took it upon myself to find out, I couldn’t stay in the dark for the rest of my life. As we all know, our history is not documented in books but our tongues were pages, generationally narrated. My quest led me to my elders. Our elders are our museums; let us take care of them! My elders told me how surnames came about.

Abilities

Surnames developed from people’s names, like the Mamba clan. They descend from a man whose name was Mamba. Surnames also developed from people’s abilities, look at the Mnisi clan. Mnisi simply means rainmaker. Mnisi was blessed with a sweet tongue; he had the ability to flirt with the sky until it gave in and donned dark clouds and rains poured. Animals fattened, plants dressed in green and life flourished.

To us, surnames are more than just letters put together. They are very important and significant. Surnames show a sign of respect and affection. We address each other by surnames when we greet. We recite the surname’s praise when we ask for forgiveness or when giving thanks. Surnames are our biographies; they document the legacies and triumphs of each clan.

Surnames’ praises tell you about the character of that particular clan, from the praises one can tell if that person is short-tempered or not. After being beaten to a pulp, uve emaSwati atsi ‘yena vele bekentani, akabati yini kutsi bantfu balesa sibongo abasukelwa’.  Here is my two cents advice; get the surname first before you mess with anybody ngoba uyohlangana netimbila titfutsa. Surnames are our dietician, they tell us what to eat, what not to eat.

Genetics

The Dlaminis do not eat black sheep. Surnames tell us about genetics; we may not have been as ‘educated’ as colonizers demeaned us to be but we knew that if this surname mated with that surname, a deformed baby would be born. To us, surnames are the umbilical cord linking us to those who came before us, those sleeping six feet under keeping the ground intact for us to run wildly chasing our dreams. We address them by their surnames to listen to either our cries or thanksgiving.

It is a crime against humanity to deny the paternity of a child you know that he or she stems from your seed. It is a crime against humanity to wrongly surname your child when you know who the real father is. You are ashamed of your actions, we get that, but the child deserves better! What we witness on programmes such as Utatakho is heart wounding, it makes one wonder how many children out there are wrongly surnamed and the negative it has on them.

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