Daswa: Family man, leader, martyr
In October the Vatican will examine the sainthood cause for Benedict Daswa, the Limpopo man who was beaten to death for refusing to take part in witchcraft in his village in rural Limpopo. STUART GRAHAM travelled to the area and spoke to people associated with the man and his cause. In the second of three articles, he speaks to Benedict’s family who recall a doting father and husband who was never afraid to take on tasks “reserved for women”.
In a field among the naartjie, orange and avocado orchards, Tanyane Daswa’s hands are in the soil harvesting a crop of lettuce and spinach.
He is hesitant to leave his work to answer questions about his brother Benedict who was killed by a mob less than a kilometre away nearly 24 years ago, but with a smile and a shrug he agrees.
“There’s always work to do when you’re a farmer,” Mr Daswa says as he dusts off his hands.
Mr Daswa’s love of farming and reluctance to break from his work is reminiscent of Benedict who was a hard taskmaster and loved nothing more than tending to his garden.
“I was born after him. He reared me,” Mr Daswa says. He pauses before he adds: “You are opening wounds, asking me to look back like this.”
Still, he continues: “We stayed together until we started working. We were at the University of Venda. We studied together.”
It was Mr Daswa who found Benedict’s mutilated body in Mbahe village on the night of February 2, 1990. He arrived after his mother, who had fainted when she saw Benedict lying dead and bloodied on the dirt.
Earlier in the day a mob had blocked Benedict’s road home with the branch of a fig tree. They chased him into Mbahe where he took shelter in a house, before dragging him into the open and breaking his skull with knobkierrie and rocks.
After killing Benedict, the killers poured boiling water over his head.
A witness remembers Mr Daswa being silent before falling to his knees beside his brother and calling out: “You people who have killed my brother, come and kill me, because without my brother I’ll be nothing.”
Mr Daswa is reluctant to talk about the events of that night. He prefers to remember his brother’s contribution to his people and his family.
“In the Christian sphere, the social sphere and in our family, he was considered to be a leader,” says Mr Daswa.
“When he passed away, I didn’t only lose a brother. I lost my father.”
His brother provided a great example, as a man and as a Christian.
“As far as humanity is concerned, I could say he was much better than me. He had humanity or buthu. Obana buthu—to care for other people. To put yourself in others people’s shoes and try to help wherever you can,” Mr Daswa recalls.
“I couldn’t understand him when he used his new bakkie to carry stones to build the church. I thought maybe it would be another old car, or maybe somebody else, but he did that. He was fond of going to church and working for the Church.”
There is little hint of bitterness and anger from Benedict’s family over the death of their brother and father.
Benedict’s son, Lufunwo Daswa, was 14 when he last saw his father alive.
“I remember my final conversation with my father. I was going into the second year of secondary school. He drove me to St Brendan’s and we chatted for a long time,” he recalls.
“He was teaching me some words in Sepedi, about how to greet my mother. We prayed and then we hugged and then he closed the door, then I had to close my door, and then he drove off.
“I think it was the 22nd of January. Just over a week before his passing.”
Lufunwo, who is training to be a teacher at the University of Venda in Thohoyandou, says his father insisted that he study at St Brendan’s, a Catholic school which was considered the best in the area at the time.
“The whole family was focused because of him. He was a hard worker. He was a visionary. He had future plans. He planned for our family, for our education,” Lufunwo says.
“It was the 1980s, but he sent us to the best school” in what was then the Northern Transvaal region.
Lufonwo describes his father as “a natural leader” in the family and the Church.
“We could go to him. He was friendly. He was everything you could ask for in a father,” he recalls.
“He would get us to go to the veld to collect wood for my mother on a Saturday morning, which was not done. It was unthinkable for a man during those times, in the ’80s, in that village,” Lufunwo tells The Southern Cross.
“During that era there was no electricity. The road to there was meandering like nobody’s business. He would insist that we go to the veld and cut wood for my mother. He would also take a big basin of laundry to actually go and wash [clothes and even nappies] in the river,” Lufonwo recalls.
“I was young when he died. I only managed to live with him for 14 years. My memories are getting a little bit faint. I am now approaching 40, but as far I can remember he was the best father.”
Benedict’s critics have accused him of turning his back on his Venda culture to embrace western traditions. Lufunwo disagrees.
“We are Lembas. There is a saying that we are ‘black Jews’, or something. We cannot say he did something wrong according to the Lemba culture, because we are business people. We are tradesmen and that is what he was about.”
Lufunwo, like his brother and his uncle Tanyane, is a keen farmer. He remembers that Benedict would often give away vegetables to those in need.
“He was open to life, to goodness. He was a helper, a people’s helper. The whole village depended on his small garden for vegetables. Tomatoes, onions. You name them. Some of them were even so poor that he would let them have vegetables without money.”
Today some of the same people who killed Benedict come to Lufunwo for help when they are in need. He believes his father would have forgiven his killers and so he never turns them away. “We help them. It is what my father would have done,” he says.
“You cannot let the darkness overcome you. Once you let it go and you forgive and embrace love and kindness, you are free,” Benedict’s son concludes.
The Vatican is scheduled to examine Benedict Daswa’s case on October 9. On September 25 a group of Southern Cross pilgrims, led by Bishop João Rodrigues of Tzaneen, are leaving on a pilgrimage of prayer for Benedict’s cause to Fatima, Avila, Zaragoza, Lourdes, Paris and other places associated with Our Lady.
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