South African stories. What a lot we got. Folklore, fables, strange phenomena, myths, old wives’ tales, tall tales, we’ve heard them all. Or so we think. These make South Africa an intriguing, even mystical, place in which to live.
I heard about “the Tokoloshe” when I was very small. Yes, deep under apartheid. The 60s, babies. Mary was a very large, round woman who lived in what was then called a “khaya” (home) in my family’s backyard. A tiny room with a bed, chair, shower and toilet. Behind the garage where my Dad kept his gleaming white Ford Cortina. With red leather seats. And those kiff tail fins.
Artistic impression of “the Tokoloshe”… fortunately not invisible and, even more fortunately, without its “exceptionally long penis”.
I loved Mary. What I’m about to say may seem patronising but it isn’t. She was one of two mothers that I was blessed to have. My Mom worked all day so Mary looked after me once I got home from school. Fed me lunch, checked on me while I played on the foofie-slide down at the river with George from next-door and worried that I might have my leg taken off by one of the legavaans (large monitor lizardy-type reptiles) that lived there. And wouldn’t allow me to bring tadpoles and silkworms into the house.
When I was very small, she would wrap me in a blanket, tie it to her back and take me with her to the tea-room to buy milk and bread, having countless very long conversations with other “maids” on the way. When I was about 12, Mary “got sick” and moved back to her family who lived in a “location” somewhere near Edendale, outside Pietermaritzburg. Soon after that, she died. I cried as if I had lost a mother. Because I had.
While she was living in that “khaya”, Mary had her bed put up on bricks. I remember she had two bricks placed under each leg of the bed, making it so high that it was difficult for me to clamber up and chat to her.
Awesome SA\’s fascinating new Awesome South Africa book tells us why Mary did that…
“Many urban and rural women use bricks as a protection against the Tokoloshe. That is, they raise their bed on bricks. This is so that the Tokoloshe can’t reach them while they are sleeping. The Tokoloshe is the evil creation of a man who murdered nine women in his quest to be come a witchdoctor. He is hairy, has the face of a monkey, can make himself invisible and, other than attacking unsuspecting women, is responsible for all sorts of mischief. The Tokoloshe has an exceptionally long penis (which it hitches over its shoulder as it walks) and is, fortunately, a dwarf.”
Yowzers!
Musical footnote: There is a very cool South African band named “Bed On Bricks”.
Fred Hatman (AKA Howard Donaldson) knew he wanted to be newspaper journalist at age 13. He has worked as a reporter and sub-editor for the Daily News and Cape Times, both based in South Africa and Wimbledon News, Today, London Daily News, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror, all based in London .
