The Rain Queen Cycles told by E. JENSEN KRIGE

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.212716/page/n93/mode/2up
THE CYCLE OF THE QUEENS

The Sixth Pageant (c, 1800).
Mugodo is the instrument of an inexorable fate. His faith in his fellow men, in his councillors, even in his sons, has been shattered. He muses that women also are faithless. But their faith, however unfaithful, keeps them falsely true; they intrigue against him as their husband, but they are loyal to him as their king. Above all, their mystery is allied to a power, not to blast the tribe to fragments, but to subdue men and turn their passions to the service of the state. That is the vision given to Mugodo, and the guarantee of its divine origin is the far-off past in which Dzugudini originated the tribe. That past also suggests how the vision can be realized. And in the scene before us these mighty issues are handled with a simplicity and a directness which it is impossible to reproduce.

Mugodo betakes himself to his favourite daughter at Maulwi, sacred reminder of the mountain in Rhodesia. Simply he tells her of his purpose, but she doubts its divine source: It cannot be, my father,’ she says; ‘these things are too difficult.’ Mugodo goes again to her, but she remains mystified that a sin that defiles can be a rite that sanctifies.

Then Mugodo goes to Lekhwareni, the despised place of stones and of slothful people (for, according to their praise song, they burn their nails roasting the maize that they should have stamped). There lives Mujaji, daughter of his wife, Mamujaji. To her also he confides his vision; he tells her she will be queen if, though celibate, she will bear the heir to the throne. He is not speaking of a virgin birth, for she understands that he, her father, will be the father of her issue. ‘You are allwise, O father,* she replies, ‘I am the servant of your will.' A secret hut is built; an inquisitive intruder, the favourite wife of Mugodo, suffers the extreme penalty; and in due course a son, not a daughter, is born.

But Fate tricks Mugodo in vain. The son is strangled and a little later there is a daughter. She is to become Mujaji II.