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| Mercy Pakela. |
by Simbongile Mdledle
05 February 2010
The disco Queen of Ayashisa Amateki fame, Mercy Pakela, has eventually decided to accept intwaso (the ancestral call) to become a traditional healer after a long period of refusing to accept it. The well-known Port Elizabeth-born female singer had a hit song - “Ayashisa Amateki; this is not my size” in the early 1980’s. Meanwhile, she has tried everything in her power to get away from the call but it was too strong for her to escape and she failed. She now says “it’s time to accept it because it has been bothering me for some years. I went to different churches, trying to escape it but it becomes worse”. Once Mercy became a member of the Hindu Movement Hare Krishna where she was doing spiritual science but she later left and went back to the drinking spree because the ancestors were still calling her. “All the churches failed me”, she said. The Mthatha Fever team recently met her at Thantseka village near Bumbane Great Place, Mthatha, where she claimed she was directed by her dream to conduct everything of ubugqirha and other rituals. She conducted imbeleko, intonjana (grade to become a mature woman), as well as acquiring other cultural values, as she said that she never gets that opportunity from her family in Port Elizabeth. “Now I want to take the customs very seriously”, said Pakela. She said the dream also told her to go to Bumbane Great Place, in an endeavour to revive her roots as she belongs to one of the AbaThembu clans. She said she was supposed to revive her roots years ago but her attempts were hampered by the fact that her family are Christians who don’t believe in customs. While she was in that homestead with Thembus, Mercy was wearing a red-mini-skirt with colourful beads, white ancestral beads, a red bra with yellow straps, white cloth on her head, waist bands made of goat skins and her body smeared with white ochre and she was walking bare feet. Although she was speaking a pure English, she was murmuring, saying that the call doesn’t allow her to speak loudly. The isipantsula songbird revealed that even her colleagues used to tell her that her music is based on intwaso and she must accept that call because she will never run away from it. “Really, you can’t run away from this as I was trying previously”, she said. Mercy agreed that the drinking spree, misbehaving, promiscuity, fighting with the people in the music industry and other wrongdoings she was practising in the past were because she was in denial to accept the call. Mercy also went to the rehabilitation centre with the assistance of Hugh Masekela because of her bad behaviour. After finishing with her call, Mercy intends to release her new album on her own. It will be based on her intwaso and its road. “I can’t leave music because it is my butter and bread”, she emphasised. Mercy is staying alone at Orchards in Pretoria where she is renting a flat. Even though she would not reveal if she still has money, she expressed the view that singers are often robbed by the music companies because they have no knowledge of the music. Pakela will be named Bangenile after she has completed her course as a sangoma. Her teacher Nothusile Nyoka said that if things go well on Mercy’s side, she would finish her course before the end of this year. “I’m going to release her to go back where she stays because she is working. It will be her dream which will direct what we should do next”, concluded Nyoka. |
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