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"Gogo (106): Ancestors won't let me die!" - Daily Sun

"Zizi must right the wrongs of 40 years ago - before she can rest in peace" - front page lead, April 30 2015

Daily Sun (April 30 2015) - INYANGA Mandlenkosi says his mum died and then rose from the dead – three times!

His family was tormented by gossip that their 106-year-old gogo was evil.

THEN, THIS EASTER, ANCESTORS TOLD HIM WHY THEY WOULDN’T LET HER REST IN PEACE.

They said she must first ask the family to forgive her for snubbing her stepson’s funeral 40 years ago.

Zizi MaXaba Shange’s only son, inyanga Mandlenkosi Shange (66), told Daily Sun of his family’s grief at gossip about gogo’s returns from death and frightened relatives and friends no longer visiting.

Gogo Zizi said: “Hopefully now when my time comes I can rest in peace.”

Mandlenkosi, of Dukumbane Village at Hluhluwe, said his mum was the second of his father’s two wives.

“When my brother from the stepmother died, my mom didn’t attend his funeral.

“She wanted to spite my father’s first wife as my father’s inkosana got most of my father’s estate when he died,” said Mandlenkosi.

“Suddenly, she got sores all over her body. Worms fell out. Doctors and traditional healers couldn’t help,” he said.

A few months later she died. They were just about to wrap her body in a cow skin in line with Shembe tradition ... when she woke up!

“Paramedics confirmed she was alive,” said Mandlenkosi.

And when gogo Zizi was in her early 80s she got ill and died again, he said.

Once again, she came around as they were putting her in her grave! Family and friends started staying away. “They suspected her of evil,” he said.

And then gogo Zizi died for the third time last year. “We held another funeral – but she woke up again.

“Whenever she woke up, she cried and begged us to ask our ancestors why she had to come back,” he said.

Mandlenkosi said that in his Easter dream his family elders said the gogo must seek forgiveness.

“She had been bedridden since the beginning of the year. The family met quickly to make peace and she felt well again. She can now walk around the yard,” he said.

See the Daily Sun’s new website for more on this and other stories....

 

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