Reed Dance Festival

Daily Mirror says ‘Get your breasts out for the King’
Sun says ‘Best of the Fest of the breast’
Daily Sport ‘Breastacular’

This weekend Mary has been on call. Being a doting husband I decided to stay and keep her company.

That at least was the official line. More accurately, staying put allowed me to go to the ‘Reed dance festival’ that takes place each year in Ingwavuma. This long running event provides the Zulu King with an annual opportunity to add to his collection of wives. Here is how it works:

1) Thousands of women from across Zululand converge on Ingwavuma hoping to catch the eye of the King.
2) Each must carry a reed to the festival. The reed is a symbol of virginity. The reed acts as a ‘lie detector test’. If any girl’s reed wilts or breaks, then this means the girl is not a virgin. (I was unable to establish the consequences for a girl if this happened.)
3) The girls parade before the king wearing a traditional skirt and with their breasts on display.
4) Then they dance and sing and have a good time.

Hearing this description of the event, I felt a strong moral obligation to demonstrate my respect for local culture and traditions.

After a 10 minute drive, we (I accompanied some other medics) arrived at the site for the ceremony. As the Lonely Planet guide promised us, so we were immediately surrounded by half-naked ladies with reeds aloft. They were walking together in regional groupings rather like at a girl guides’ parade.

We made our way to the centre of events – a marquee to house the royal entourage. We were accompanied by a couple of Ingwavuma locals. They headed for seats not far from the King. We followed. I was stopped and asked, ‘Are you part of the Zulu Royal family?’ I was very impressed by the politeness of the question. I pointed and said I was just following my group of friends. This seemed a satisfactory answer.

We took up seats and awaited the entry of the King. We were not disappointed. After not many minutes, a number of chiefs began arriving. They were dressed in leopard outfits. All looked very traditional except for the football shirts many were wearing underneath and wrap around shades.

Then the Zulu King arrived. All rose. He was identifiable by a feather in his hair.

And so the festival began.

From an outsider point of view there were two main detractions from the enjoyment of events. Firstly, each dance was interspersed with very long speeches in Zulu. This obviously made no sense to us. Furthermore, they clearly bored the locals. By the end of the ceremony, a number of the chiefs were fast asleep. The King gave a particularly long and dry (judging from the amount of laughter) speech.

The second drawback was that the King did not pick a wife. Seemingly, he never picks a wife on the day. Instead, he picks later from photos and from research done by his advisers. This created a great sense of anti-climax. Should they choose to commercialise the event I think they will need to change this.

In the end, I was very glad I brought a book with me for proceedings. The only slight peril of reading through the ceremony, was making sure I stood up, with all the other males present, each time the King rose. This happened quite a lot. Suddenly I would have to raise my right arm three times and mumble a Zulu word. Despite the danger, all passed off smoothly.

Unfortunately, after the event, I returned home to find Mary with a gastro bug. She valiantly completed her 24 hour shift at 8 this morning and is now in bed.