The Life and Times of Credo Mutwa

The Life and Times of Credo Mutwa is a 6-part documentary series that aims to encapsulate the many lessons that we can glean from the cultural output that the works of Credo Mutwa offers us. As a tale that spans a lifetime of a recent and significant century of human life on earth, it bears a gift to offer critical reflection on who and what we are as Africans, the benefits of hindsight and the tools that are necessary to understand the future. In a recent article, former South African Minister Jay Naaido, pleads the case for preserving the legacy of Credo Mutwa:

“....I wonder why we ignore our African heritage and even deny our roots. And we wonder why we are lost. Africa is drowning in a limbo of hopelessness, despair, besieged by a sense of subservience to the west, east and north. Every place except the continent that birthed humanity...”

Credo Vusamazulu Mutwa was born on July 21 1921 in Msinga, an area in the heartland of KwaZulu-Natal notorious for sporadic faction among local clans. "From early childhood I grew accustomed to the sight of death in its most horrid and violent form," he recalled. While still an infant, he was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church at the behest of his father, a staunch Christian catechist, and was given the name Credo. Credo is statement of faith in Latin that denotes a Christian belief in one God. His mother, Nomabunu, was the daughter of Ziko Shezi, a royal counsellor and veteran of the Battle of Ulundi, the historic 1879 conflict with the British that ended the Anglo-Zulu wars, and paved the way for British colonial domination in the region and other parts of southern Africa.

Because Mutwa's mother, a Zulu traditionalist, refused to convert to his father's religion, the couple separated shortly after his birth. So he was raised by Shezi and initiated as his apprentice with the enviable task of carrying the revered muthiman's medicine bags. When he was barely seven, his father obtained custody of the boy against his mother's wishes. They settled on a white man's farm in the Potchefstroom district in the then Western Transvaal. It was here in 1932 that he was exposed to the brute force of white racism when his brother, Emmanuel, was whipped to death by the farm owner, his father's employer.

In 1935 Credo's father converted to the Church of Christ -Scientist. It was founded in 1886 by Mary Baker Eddy, an American spiritual healer. The sect forbade medicine as a treatment for the sick. In this regard, the consultation of African healers was also prohibited. The family eventually settled in Crown Mines, south of Johannesburg, where Mutwa senior found a job as a carpenter. In 1943, he responded to the ancestral call to be trained as a sangoma after he was afflicted with a series of strange illnesses that Western-trained doctors did not understand.

He would prove to be a very successful sangoma and like his grandfather, he eventually achieved the status of iSanusi. He reasoned that it was best to share the hidden wisdom of Africa with the rest of the world to forge a better understanding between different races and cultures. Secondly, he felt that it was important to reveal the continent's glorious past as the cradle of human civilisation. He has accomplished these goals in a masterful way following the publication of his first and most celebrated work, Indaba, My Children in 1964. Described by the Sunday Times as 'a work of genius', it's an epic classic that incorporates history, legend, storytelling, poetry, art, folklore, and philosophy.

Since childhood Mutwa had demonstrated unusual talent for painting and sculpting. His jobs included working at a pottery farm, and in 1954 he was employed at a curio shop in Johannesburg. In Kenya, he was fascinated by the blacksmithing craftsmanship of the Gikuyu. They smelt brass cartridge shell cases which had come out of the Mau-Mau anti-colonial war. He said this inspired the building of his first cultural village in Soweto which today is one of the township's famous landmarks. This is where his genius as a painter and sculptor was first exposed to the public.

Some residents accused him of having advised the government to order the police to shoot the marching pupils. His house in Diepkloof, Soweto, was stoned and burnt by angry youths. However, his family managed to escape with their lives. For a while they hid in the KwaZuluNatal countryside. However, the news of the government introducing the 30-year leasehold scheme for homeowners encouraged him to return to Soweto. Still, the situation remained tense, and for many nights the family was terrorised with bullet shots by unknown gunmen. Though no one was fatally injured, the message was clear that they were no longer welcome in Soweto.

In 1978, a chance meeting with President Lucas Mangope would open a new chapter in his life. The leader of the then recently declared independent homeland of Bophuthatswana invited him to settle in Mahikeng. Here, in the land of the Barolong people, he built another cultural museum on a pleasure resort named Lotlamoreng Dam.

A 1979 painting of an aeroplane plunging into New York's Twin Towers is prophecy on canvas, testimony to the fact that he was indeed an exceptionally versatile creative spirit, a rare cultural treasure and a prophet who now belongs to the ages... Although most of this knowledge is available and known by those who followed Mutwa’s life, very few know what happened from this point until he was lain to rest on 4 April 2020.