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While olive branches symbolize peace in Western world, to Chaggas on Mount Kilimanjaro it is the local dracaena (ssale) leaf which fills that role. Ssale plant is found everywhere that people live on Mount Kilimanjaro.
Ssale is a hardy plant which easily propagates from a cut stem. Just push the bottom part of the cut piece into the soil and there you have it; another plant. Cutting the stem won't hurt the mother plant. It will just regenerate itself.
We took few ssale sticks to Washington, D.C. and planted them indoors. As they sprang to life, our home took on the tropical look we had hoped for. Even one potted ssale plant, forgotten outside over winter, came back to life when the snow melted and ice thawed in the spring. Ssale is hardy indeed!
Ssale symbolizes many different facets of peace in Chaggaland. Its most popular use is in demarcating plot boundaries. Neighbors plant ssale together where they agree should be the boundary. Once the ssale has taken root, it is accepted as the rightful demarcation; there cannot be any dispute. It keeps peace on land issues between neighbors.
Ssale has its place at funerals also. The vehicle that brings the body home for burial will have a ssale lodged in the front fender; so would other cars that follow it. There is no mistaking that they are part of the funeral caravan. Ssale is placed at four corners of the tomb site to mark the resting ground of the departed. The area thus enclosed by ssale is given all due respect.
But the most fascinating use of ssale is in reconciliation. When a bitter dispute has hurt peoples' feelings and anger runs deep to a breaking point, ssale provides a glimmer of hope.
Say a brash young man had a serious altercation with his father. In his anger he used abusive or disrespectful language to his father, totally out of line with what Chagga culture allows. The irate father throws him out of the house.
Then the stark reality hits him: What is he to do without his family, without a home, without his father? It dawns on him that no matter how strongly he disagrees with his father, he cannot, as a child, overstep the cultural boundaries. He regrets. He wants to be reinstated into his father's good graces. How can he possibly approach his father, get his forgiveness and be given a second chance? Chaggas have a way; ssale provides a way.
He waits. He lets time cool off the flaring tempers. He finds himself an old man ("mzee"), one who is known and respected by everyone in the village for his wisdom and fairness; the one whom, he figures, his father will lend his ear to respectfully.
With a token gift of a kilo of meat or a kilo of sugar and a bag of tea leaves, he pays the wise mzee a visit. He pours his heart out and beseeches him to be his intermediary, to help him reconcile with his father and be accepted back into the family.
If the young man appears genuine in his repentance and sincere in his wish to be reconciled, and if mzee feels the young man's father is someone he can reason with (in a village on the mountain, practically everyone knows everyone), mzee will agree to take on the challenge.
Without losing time, mzee calls on the father. After a casual talk and may be sharing of a calabash or two of local brew ("mbege" made from banana and sorghumwhich looks and tastes like "makgeolli" ) when the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, mzee will bring up the reason for his visit. But he doesn't broach the subject head on. That would be crude; uncultured. He carefully couches the reason in riddles and proverbs. But what he is alluding to is not lost to the listener. The other responds also in riddles and proverbs. The true meaning behind his words are not lost to mzee either.
So the two will skirt around the subject, referring to it indirectly, figuratively with as much wit as the two can muster. The talk may take hours to unfold. When mzee feels he has gone as far as he could, with expressions of much gratitude and wishing blessings upon his host he takes his leave and heads back home where the young man awaits him anxiously.
If the mzee's verdict is that the temperature of the father's temper still runs high, the young man will bide his time longer. But if the temperature is seen to have subsided and mzee judges the time to be ripe, the young man will take the next critical step, a Chagga way of begging for forgiveness unconditionally.
He picks a fresh leaf of ssale and ties it into a knot (looking much like the red ribbon emblem for fighting HIV/AIDS). Then he goes to his father and offers him the knotted leaf as he begs for forgiveness.
According to the tradition, Chaggas cannot say "No" to an apology that is offered with a ssale leaf. Anyone who rejects such an unconditional apology or who fails to keep promises offered together with such an apology, so they believe, will bring a curse on himself. This belief was so strong that the shock of any such breech would reverberate through the village and start a whirlwind of gossip which would twist on for months.
With the passing away of old men ("wazee," the plural form of mzee), ssale and its role in reconciliation is fading. Village courts and pastors fill the void now. But village courts often deepen the hurt and the divide. Pastors listen, prod and encourage, but they too have their limitations. What if the myth of ssale is revived? Could that bolster pastors' efforts and bring back the ssale's power to reconcile and heal damaged relationships as it had in the past?
The writer resides on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. She worked for the World Bank for nearly 30 years and her email is yhkimaro@yahoo.com.
