READ THIS
The poet, while hitching a ride, gets to talking with the driver who tells him how he often speaks to the
shades -- the spirits of his ancestors -- and how they help him.
The poet is then left to ponder the shades. What is their role in life? How should one honour them?
ABOUT THE POET
Chris Mann was born in Port Elizabeth in 1948. He spent many years in rural and semi-rural KwaZulu
Natal engaged in development work, during which time he became imbued with the spirit of rural South
Africa.
In the mid-1990s he moved to Grahamstown where he became associated with the Grahamstown
Foundation and Rhodes University.
Mann is a multi-faceted poet whose major concern is the increasing exclusivity and inaccessibility of
poetry. His work is therefore not only for the printed page but also for multimedia performances.
Much of his work is in association with Julia Skeen who produces graphic images for many of his poems.
In this way he could perhaps be compared to William Blake whose poetry should also often be viewed in
a wider graphic forum and not merely in the isolation of the printed page.
"In praise of the shades" looks at what has been described as "an indigenous knowledge
system" that flourishes among many people in Southern Africa.
Mistakenly called "ancestor worship", its nearest Western equivalent is possibly the Catholic
Church's veneration of the saints which offers the life and works of the holy people of the past for our
enrichment and inspiration.
Since these ancestors still exist in the afterlife where, because of their proven holiness, they carry
considerable power of intercession with God, the Church offers their veneration as another dimension to
our contact with the world of the spirit.
"In praise of the shades" explores in a simple yet graphic way the vital role of the shades in guiding
our complex lives in a modern scientific and urban society.
Both the wording and vision of the poem is strongly South African. Indeed, the poem explores a vital force
within this multi-dimensional community.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
|
TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
List the words with their meanings which prove that this is a South African poem. (4)
[Need help?]
"Platteland": literally, flat land -- usually referring to the interior of South Africa which tends to be
flatter than the coastal regions.
"Bakkie": a small pick-up truck.
"Mealie-stalks": maize or corn stalks -- is the word "mealie" used anywhere else in the
world?
"Shades": ancestral spirits or the spirits of the dead.
|
The poet merely hints at the season of the year in which this incident occurs?
- What season is it? What words suggest this? (4)
[Need help?]
Yes, of course, it's winter. After all, the poem is set in South Africa and it's June which is mid-winter in the
southern hemisphere.
Second, there are mealie-stalks in the fields. Mealies are harvested in the autumn and the stalks are
often still there in winter. They get plowed into the soil in spring.
Are sunflowers a winter crop?
Finally, the poet describes the landscape as "waterless". It could be a drought, of course, but it is
another possible indication that it is winter on the platteland.
|
What words in the poem suggest that the incident described in the first three stanzas
might have taken place on a Sunday? (2)
[Need help?]
The driver of the bakkie speaks about his church. This would not usually be a topic of conversation for
a labouring person unless he had been to church that morning.
This would make the day Sunday because labouring persons do not usually go to church on any other day.
They don't have time.
Remember though that this is a personal interpretation. The poet does not say explicitly that it was a
Sunday.
|
The poem can be broken naturally into two parts.
- Where does this break occur? What is the theme of each section? (3)
[Need help?]
The break occurs at the end of stanza 3.
The first three stanzas relate the conversation in the bakkie, whereas the final four stanzas form a
philosophical analysis of the influence of the shades in one's life.
|
Hitching across a dusty plain last June,
down one of those deadstraight platteland roads,
I met a man with rolled-up khakhi sleeves,
who told me his faults, and then his beliefs.
- What is meant by "hitching"? (2)
[Need help?]
"Hitching" is short for "hitch-hiking", or thumbing a lift from a passing vehicle.
|
- What does the term "with rolled-up khakhi sleeves" indicate about the driver of the
bakkie? (2)
[Need help?]
"To roll up one's sleeves" is usually synonymous with being ready for some heavy work. The driver
is dressed in khakhi, a colour of clothing also synonymous with labouring work.
It is true that his sleeves could be rolled up because it is a warm winter's day but the image that is
portrayed is that of a man who is involved in manual labour.
The driver is a labouring person, and his work is probably somehow involved with agriculture. Indeed,
most South African farmers and labourers wear khakhi clothing.
|
He said he'd always asked them to guide him,
and that, even in the city, they did.
- Why does the poet comment that "even in the city" the shades guided the
man? (3)
[Need help?]
The shades are usually associated with rural tradition. Urbanisation tends to destroy the traditional beliefs
in favour of Western religion and philosophy.
The driver is clearly a rural man but he takes his traditional beliefs with him, even on those occasions
when he enters the city.
|
"The shades . . . work like the wind, invisibly."
- What point is the poet making? Why is he making it? (3)
[Need help?]
The point is that we cannot see the shades unless, of course, we know where to look and how to look.
The shades exist in the spirit world and yet they give indications of their existence in everyday life: in the
breeze, in people's conversations, in the books we read.
Only when we become aware of this spirit world all around us, do we begin to notice its overlap into our
physical world.
|
- In what way do the shades communicate with us? (6)
[Need help?]
The poet lists several ways in which the shades communicate with us:
- "dressed in the flesh of the children they reared". The children inherit the traditions of their
parents who in turn inherit from their parents -- when these parents die, they go into the world of the
shades where they continue to inform the children both spiritually and by the traditions which they have
bequeathed;
- "gossiping away from the books they left". The elders have written the books but, when they
die, their spirit continues to dwell in these books, informing us, influencing us -- the poet is also hinting
that the spirits of the dead become involved in the very words, and the shades get to speak to us through
these words;
- "a throng who even in the strongest light are whispering". The shades in unison are whispering
to us, suggesting their powerful philosophy that the world we see is not the real world -- notice the
reflection of Plato's philosophy here, or even that of the movie The Matrix.
|
Do the shades have the characteristics of spirits or of mortal people? Give reasons for your
answer. (4)
[Need help?]
In a sense they are neither, or they are both.
One can scold a living person -- a mortal -- but one cannot scold a spirit. On the other hand, one
cannot profane a mortal. One can only profane the gods and the spirits.
But, says the poet, the shades can indeed be scolded. On the other hand, the shades cannot be
profaned.
So, in a sense the shades are like mortals who live in the world of the spirits and, if we treat them as
mortals and if we honour them, we become more aware of the essence of ourselves as mortals.
|
|