A kavady chariot procession in Overport 1958.
Image: 1860 Heritage Centre
The words “Enjoy Enjaami, Vaango vaango onnaagi, Ammayi ambaariIndha indha mummaari,” form the chorus of a popular Tamil song sung by Australian, Sri Lankan-born Dhee and Tamil Nadu rapper Arivu.
It is a celebratory song that parallels our South African indentured story.
Transliterated and translated the chorus reads: “Enjoy enjaami, Vaango vaango onnaagi, Ammayi ambaari Indha indha mummaari.”
Enjoy my dear,
Come together as one,
Ride on the elephants,
Shower in the rains
The occasion of KwaZulu-Natal’s Premier Thami Ntuli and the MEC for Sports Arts and Culture, Mntomuhle Khawula’s sod-turning ceremony to mark the construction of the indentured workers monument, signifies a watershed moment to tell the story of indenture as a proudly South African story, no longer confined to the margins of our history books.
In the 165th anniversary year of our indentured ancestry arriving in South Africa in 1860, it is time that we come together as one to celebrate the arrival of the 152 184 indentured workers, who contributed to the building of the nation of South Africa.
Together, we shall ride on elephants, dancing and showering in the rain as proud South African Indians. Like the multilayered meaning embedded in the beautiful Enjoy Enjaami song, our journey and its future in our African homes must see us coming together to constantly honour the work of our ancestors and to proudly "claim our space in the land of birth".
Enjoy Enjaami celebrates our kotri, the ordinary folk, the villagers from rural India, who make up India’s life source. It honours the people of the salt, who toil in the soil, day after day, generation after generation. The song resonates with the South African Paraiyar working-class ancestry that spent years nourishing and nurturing the land of karumbu, yet sadly remain thirsty, never fully able to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
Muslims, Christians and Hindus come together to beat the Parai Drum as part of the Muharram Festival in Tongaat in 1903.
Image: 1860 Heritage Centre
Enjoy Enjaami is not a song of resentment. It is a song of triumph, hope, and compassion. It is drawn from stories told by a grandmother to her grandson, reminding him to enjoy the bounties of nature and pay homage to their ancestors, the very ancestors whose DNA course through our African identity.
The very people who are celebrated in the song Enjoy Enjaami come from our ancestral villages in rural India, the same people who proudly beat the parai drum and whose cultures and traditions we continue to celebrate, here in our African homes today.
According to eminent scholar on indenture, Professor Surendra Bhana, “the three principal areas that constituted the sources of indentured migration was the Madras Presidency, the United Provinces of Agra, and the Bengal Presidency, in which only Bihar featured prominently”.
A Muslim worshipper walking on a bed of hot coals in the early 1900s carrying a baby adorned with marigolds. Devotees are physically unaffected by the coals. This ritualistic practice is generally associated with the Hindu worship of Mariamman. The confluence of ritualistic practice among religions was a fairly natural part of community life from the early years of indenture until the 1970s.
Image: Local History Museum
Hugh Tinker, a revisionist scholar who shed light on the links between indenture and slavery, tells us that the highest frequency of indentured people that left rural India for South Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries came from the Tamil districts like Trichinopoly, Madurai, Ramnad, Salem, Tanjore, Chingleput, north and south Arcot and Tirunelveli.
For those Dravidians, who make up two-thirds of the 154 182 people who came to South Africa, the highest concentration of indentured workers came from north and south Arcot, Chitoor and Poloor as pointed out in Bhana’s seminal Study of the Ships List to Colonial Natal.
Those village traditions from the indentured recruitment catchments brought with them a prehistoric veneration and respect for the natural world.
Long before caste and Brahmanical socio-religious practice, Dravidian culture was steeped in devotion to the natural world. The beautiful ululating sounds at the start and end of Enjoy Enjaami remind us of the primal African sounds that resonate with the spirit world where nature merges with human existence. A world where ritualistic practice is as old as time and deeply rooted in philosophy.
Thimidhi (fire walking) at the Umbilo Road Temple in 1931.
Image: Local History Museum
Enjoy Enjaami prophetically foregrounds obeisance to nature in a post-Covid world recovery.
The village traditions from the areas where indentured workers were recruited saw the parai drum as the center of cultural traditions and practice.
Here in South Africa, Mohurram, Kavady and Mariamman worship is venerated with the parai drum and the uddakai at its heartbeat. To the Colonial White population in Natal and later day Hindu reformists, village migrants were “heathens” and had little comprehension of, or patience for, the traditional religious, ritual village festivals that were brought here from a bygone age.
Well before Hindu and Muslim reformists arrived in South Africa in 1907, Mohurram, Kavady, and Mariamman religious observance became major public events in all British colonies where Indian indentured workers were transported. In South Africa, apart from personal devotion, Mohurram, Mariamman and Murugan worship has become part of the process of mobilising identity.
Mohurram, Kavady, and Mariamman worship is embedded in powerful folk/devotional beliefs and practices that are very popular among Dravidians in India and in the diaspora. The rituals associated with this form of worship and the depth of consciousness that it comes with are often misrepresented and sadly misunderstood by classical mainstream literature.
African Caribbean music and Oppari
Image: 1860 Heritage Centre
In South Africa, indentured labourers have adapted to the local conditions by hybridising religious and cultural practices. For example, the major Mariamman observance that is held in the month of Adi (July 15 – August 15) in Tamil Nadu has been shifted in South Africa to the Easter weekend, because plantation owners would shut down all activities and give the indentured workers three days off from work.
"Theemithi" or firewalking, traditionally associated with Draupadi Amman worship, continues to be observed at Mariamman temples throughout South Africa with a rich history going back to the first Indian indentured workers arriving in 1860.
Enjoy Enjaami’s lyrical beat as a fusion of Afro-Caribbean music and Oppari, a type of folk song, part-eulogy, part-lament, traditionally performed at funerals in Tamil Nadu.
Sadly, the Oppari tradition was discontinued in South Africa, with even the popular Uddakai Poosari/Pujari traditions where holy men sang from the Mariamman Thalattu seeing a gradual decline from times of indenture. These traditions, together with spoken Tamil, Bhojpuri, and Telugu also desperately yearn for a rekindling provided that "we come together as one" to honour our ancestors.
In drawing parallels with indenture, the song’s lyrics deeply resonate with our history and identity in South Africa. Part of the lyrics, implore us to harvest the metaphoric and literal seeds of age-old traditions passed down by our ancestors.
The translated lyrics speak to our responsibility that lies ahead:
"The land guarded by my ancestors
The devotee that dances
As the earth rotates around the rooster crows
It’s excretions fertilised the forests
It’s turned into our country
Then our home too
What’s the matter, what’s the matter my dear?
What’s the matter my Karumbu (sugar cane)?
What’s the matter, what’s the matter my dear?
My darling grandson, what’s the matter?
Bitter gourd (Pavakkai) in my canopy
Bitter gourd in my canopy
It has given us seeds
Given us seeds
Left by our mom and dad
Left by our mom and dad”
Enjaami is a term of endearment, a word a grandmother would fondly use to address her grandchildren. It comes from "en saami", literally, "my lord".
It is also a term that landless labourers would use to refer to their masters. In looking to the future, the use of "Enjoy" in the song’s title makes this song festive and aims to celebrate one’s roots.
There is no better way to welcome the anniversary year of the 165th year of indentured workers in South Africa than to honour our ancestors where we can "come together as one, riding on elephants and showering in the rain".
“Enjoy Enjaami Vango Vango Onnagi, Amma Yi Ambari Indha Indha Mummari…”
Selvan Naidoo
Image: Supplied
Selvan Naidoo: 1860 Heritage Centre.
The link to Enjoy Enjaami is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYq7WapuDLU
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.