Fiction

It is 1207 AD, the year that Dini, the adopted son of Mutsindo, the zivi of Mpemba Kasi, turns 12. There is joy and jubilation as Mutsindo’s first wife falls pregnant, but the joy is short-lived when she gives birth to a baby girl with the same skin tone as Dini – a skin tone most abhorred in Mpemba Kasi. Mutsindo, the zivi of the Kingdom of Mpemba Kasi, is left with no choice but to banish Dini from the kingdom, to never return. Further South-East, in the Kingdom of Mapungubwe, the Lemba lived harmoniously with the Vhangona as one. The Lemba’s sacred drum, in the custody of their high priest, has been exploited by the king of the Vhangona to conquer other kingdoms. Discovering the secret to Vhangona’s power, the King of Mpemba Kasi intercepts the scared drum. The sons of the high priest, Hadzhi and Mukoma, are determined to find their sacred drum and will not rest until it is returned home. The journey is unkind, and as Hadzhi, with the same skin tone as Dini, finds himself alone in the journey, he is determined to enter the Kingdom of Mpemba Kasi to retrieve the drum. But the kingdom has not forgotten about the boy whose skin tone continues to scorn the kingdom’s zivi through a girl he left behind. As soon as Hadzhi enters the kingdom, a muddle of cheers and cries can be heard – jubilant cheers from the villagers as their whips pierce through the body tied to a pole, and a cry for help from a boy dying for the sins of the other who resembles his skin tone.