The History and Truth Behind Harurwa

While a lot of people have heard of the Harurwa insects of Norumedzo Village, Bikita District, Masvingo Province of Zimbabwe, and while lots more have enjoyed the delicacy that Harurwa insects are, very few people realise that there is a very elaborate management system that goes with the tradition of Harurwa.

There is a whole systematic management system that goes into Harurwa which in itself is proof of the efficacy of indigenous knowledge systems, in this case, as far as management goes.

So lets look at the Harurwa traditional practices used to manage Harurwa so as to demystify the rumour, gossip, innuendo and half truths that a lot of people, out of ignorance tell each other about Harurwa and the traditional practices thereof as practiced by the people of Norumedzo village.

 We hope that by now most people know that the Harurwa insects came naturally from God to cushion Nemeso, the founding father of Norumedzo village who was born with four eyes and was rejected by his father for this abnormality of having four eyes.

He was given his inheritance in advance by his father in the form of the piece of land now called Norumedzo village so that he could be far away from the rest of his people because of this abnormality of having four eyes.

He therefore didn’t have anything to eat and God through the ancestors then gave him these insects, not just for momentary hunger satisfaction but as a perpetual source of food and trade.

The detailed story of Nemeso is found in the book Harurwa written by this same author. What we can with authority reveal is that Nemeso is the first born son of Fupajena – today represented by Chief Mazungunye- and Mhepo, the rain maker daughter of Chief Musikavanhu of Chipinge.

Fupajena is the brother to Mutindini, popularly known as Mutindi today represented by Chief Mukanganwi. Both Chief Mukanganwi and Chief Mazungunye are Moyo Chirandu Duma and in fact form the nucleus or centre pivot or fulcrum of the vast Moyo Chirandu Duma people who are the majority sub tribe of the generality of the Karanga tribe of Zimbabwe. 

What we want to document now is the actual practice of the Harurwa tradition as it is done by the Moyo Chirandu – Duma – people of Norumedzo village, Bikita District, Masvingo Province Zimbabwe because there have been many distortions regarding the Harurwa insects and we want to clear the air and clarify matters so that those distortions  are cleared and Zimbabweans and the rest of the world begin to clearly understand the Harurwa practice as carried out by the Moyo Chirandu – Duma- people of Norumedzo.

‘Do you know the Harurwa insects of Norumedzo village in Bikita district Masvingo Province, right here in Zimbabwe?’

‘Oh you mean those stinking green beetles that are eaten when one is crying?’

This is the answer that one gets when such a question is posed in places far away from Norumedzo village where people don’t quite understand the whole harurwa practice.

Now, the insect Harurwa has an acidic juice inside its belly. This juice is its defensive mechanism. If you try to catch it, it squirts this acidic juice out of itself and if the juice gets into your eye, it is very irritating and you will spend a minute or two with this sharp irritation which goes away anyway without damaging your eye at all. Consequently your eyes will naturally produce tears as tears are also the human’s natural eye protection from any foreign bodies entering the eye.

But the tears people are referring to are not the ones caused by the insect squirting its defensive acidic juice into a person’s eye.

Because this acidic juice is sour, before you fry the insects for consumption you must ensure that this juice is squeezed out of the insects otherwise the insect will be horribly sour in the mouth if you eat it with the juice inside it.

But it always happens that when you kill the insects for frying and eating, there will always be some of the insects which will retain their juice. In fact it is actually a skill which gets acquired through practice and experience that one gets to kill the insects in such a manner that you end up with very few or none at all which retain the acidic juice.

To achieve the highest level of the skill, one has to master the art of pouring very little amounts of hot water on the insects which will be in a container and as the insects try and fight this hot water, they do so by squirting the acidic juice out of themselves. The longer one takes pouring these small amounts of hot water on the insects while stirring them means that almost all of them will die after having tried to defend themselves thus ridding themselves of this acidic juice resulting in very few retaining this juice.

The belly of a harurwa insect which hasn’t squirted all the acidic juice out of itself turns a very distinctly dark brown colour after it is fried and this colour is much deeper just on the insect’s belly as opposed to the rest of the insect’s body which will be a benign and appetising light brown.

If you then go on to eat this insect with a dark brown belly due to the acidic juice still inside it, your mouth is sharply incensed by this sour tangy taste which makes you want to spit the insect out of your mouth. The sensation this sour taste causes in your mouth conjures tears from your eyes in the same way you feel tears when you eat say a sour fruit like a lemon.

These are the tears people in Harare and other parts of Zimbabwe not privy to Harurwa refer to.

But the way they say it, one would think that these insects are eaten when one is howling! In fact people far from Norumedzo actually believe that indeed harurwa are eaten when one is crying. That is not correct. Far from the truth. The explanation lies in this insect which may have retained its acid. And this doesn’t happen all the time at all.

So it is absolutely incorrect to say that Harurwa insects are eaten while one is crying.

They merely cause a teary sensation similar to the one you get when you are eating a lemon and this only happens if you have met with a Harurwa whose acidic juice has not been removed before frying the insect for consumption. It doesn’t happen all the time as people are erroneously meant to believe.

Such a sour harurwa insect is called a FUVE in the Karanga vernacular language (pronounced as spelt) of the area and it is identified by its distinctly more darker brown belly than the rest of the harurwa insect which will be a light crispy brown.

In fact when eating the harurwa insects, you are actually warned to be careful of these FUVES, so you can select those harurwas with the dark brown belly and you throw them away as they are the fuves and you only eat the ones without the dark brown belly to avoid the sour taste. We hope this puts an end to the incorrect debate particularly in Harare and other places far from Bikita and the Harurwa insects as it is in these far flung places where some people who know nothing about Harurwa have gone on to mislead people into believing that harurwa are insects that are eaten whilst people are crying.

The Moyo Chirandu dynasty -  The First Migration

All people of the Moyo Chirandu totem are one and the same people and originate from the same ancestors. The major variants of Moyo Chirandu which comprise the Moyo Chirandu Varozvi, Moyo Chirandu VaDuma, Moyo Chirandu Dhewa etc  are mere descriptions that came about because of the various experiences of these various groupings of the same Moyo Chirandu. 

The first three Bantu groups of people to come into Zimbabwe were as follows:

a) The very first Bantu group to cross the Zambezi river coming from the North East i.e. from Nubia and the Kingdom of Kemet which comprises areas around present day Ethiopia/Sudan and Egypt were the Tonga whose totem(mutupo) is the lion (Tau or Dau). This lion mutupo of the Tonga must not be confused with the lion mutupo of the people of Chirimuhanzu near Masvingo ( referred to through their praise poem of Mhazi) or the lion mutupo of most people in Chivi again near Masvingo whose chidawo is Murambwi and other various lion mutupo’s zvidawo’s like Sipambi.

The Tonga lion is completely different from the Mhazi lion of Chirimuhanzu and or Murambwi lion of Chivi and or Sipambi lion also of Chivi as the lions of Chirimuhanzu, Chivi and other lions as they depict totems have their own completely different historical origins which are completely divorced from the origins of the Tonga lion mutupo.

In fact all these other different lion zvidawo’s like Mhazi, Murambwi, Sipambi etc are somehow related but are all of them not related to the Tonga lion.

The Tonga crossed the Zambezi into Zimbabwe around 300 and 400 A.D.

b) The next Bantu group to cross the Zambezi was the Dziva/Hungwe/Kalanga. They arrived around 800 A.D. also coming from the same North East where the Tonga originated.

This group’s mutupo comprised fish and the fish eagle bird, the Hungwe which is today’s national Zimbabwe bird found on various statutory documents and emblems in Zimbabwe. They are also associated with water (dziva) and the east where the sun comes from (Kalanga).

c) The third and last Bantu group to cross the Zambezi into Zimbabwe also from the same North East was the Shoko Mbire group. Their Paramount chief was called Mwene Mbire or simply Nembire.

This group arrived around 1000 A.D. Their totem was Shoko Matarira Chirongo or Mukanya which simply means baboon/monkey essentially meaning their totem/mutupo is the baboon/monkey.

This Shoko Mbire group and all its offshoots is the group responsible for the construction of the vast Great Zimbabwe Empire including the Great Zimbabwe City which became the capital city of Zimbabwe and is in fact the de facto capital city of Zimbabwe even today albeit the de jure capital city of Zimbabwe is Harare.

It is from this third group, The Shoko Mbire group that the Moyo Chirandu people originate from, all of them be it Moyo Chirandu, Duma or Moyo Chirandu Rozvi. The terms Duma, Rozvi, Dhewa etc are mere descriptions of events which resulted in the same Moyo Chirandu people being described as Rozvi and or Duma or Dhewa and or any other variants of the Moyo Chirandu..

So from the onset, it has to be clearly understood that all Moyos are Moyo Chirandu. The question of the variants such as Moyo Chirandu Duma, Moyo Chirandu Rozvi/Dhewa etc are really unimportant and inconsequential although it will be important to show how these variants came about.

In other words, as shall be clearly illustrated, it is correct for any Moyo Chirandu to refer to himself or herself as Murozvi or Muduma or Dhewa as these descriptions are exactly that, mere descriptions that came about because of certain experiences that happened to the Moyo Chirandu people as a whole and are therefore inconsequential to the oneness of the Moyo Chirandu thus making any Moyo Chirandu a Muduma or a Murozvi or a Dhewa or any of the variants of Moyo Chirandu as every Moyo is a Moyo Chirandu no matter what variant they have been erroneously taught to adhere to as that variant is a mere description which is incapable of tearing itself away from the tap root and the origins; i.e. Moyo Chirandu.

The other very important thing to remember is that the Moyo Chirandu must never forget to add the term Vapamoyo when they refer to their female relatives (sisters, daughters, aunts) as they are indeed our VapaMoyo, our very loved ones who are very close to our hearts and it has been like that ab initio and will be like that ad infinitum.

It is imperative for every Moyo Chirandu person to remember that at any event, function or gathering, no protocol is complete until honour and recognition is accorded to the Moyo Chirandu female relatives i.e. the aunts, sisters and daughters; i.e. VapaMoyo. Whether these female relatives are present or not, this honour and recognition must still be given even in abstentia in the event that no female relative is present. Any function that does not honor and recognize Vapa Moyo is considered to be incomplete.

Courtesy: Dr.Claude Maredza