On September 13, the Catholic Church will beatify Benedict Daswa, a school teacher from Venda, as South Africa’s third martyr after Maqhamusela Khanyile and Manche Masemola. Stuart Graham interviewed Daswa’s family and friends, and has consulted widely with the church leaders about the man
What struck me most while tracing the life of Benedict Daswa was how normal he was.
His parents, descended from the Lemba tribe, who are known as “The Black Jews”, were rural farmers from a village called Mbahe, which is about a half-hour drive from Thohoyandou in the direction of the Kruger National Park.
They believed in hard work and strong family values, and Daswa, like many other South African boys, herded cattle and tended his father’s vegetable garden and orchards before he started school.
He converted to Catholicism in his teens, became a school teacher, married and had a family of eight children.
Then, at the age of 43, when he was in the prime of his life, he did something he should never have done in Venda at that time and his life came to a brutal and tragic end.
Daswa qualified as a primary school teacher in 1970 and began teaching at Tshilivo Primary School. He later transferred to Nweli Primary School and became its principal in 1977.
As the principal of Nweli Primary, Daswa set about improving the school by building five new classrooms.
He introduced school uniforms, and started gardens and feeding schemes.
He built a soccer field and started a soccer team, known as “Mbahe Eleven Computers”.
He insisted his teachers wear suits and ties to school. It was vital that they were role models for the children. He referred to ties as “the rope of honour”.
What made Daswa stand out in his community was his love for his family.
Lufuno Daswa says his father believed that marriage was a life-long, faithful, partnership of life and love between husband and wife, for bringing children into the world and caring for them.
“I remember my final conversation with him,” Lufuno says.
“I was going to my second year of secondary school at St Brendan’s.
“I was learning a bit of Northern Sotho because I had to adopt it as my first language. We chatted for a long time. He taught me all the ways to greet my mother.
“When we arrived at school, we said a prayer together and he gave me a hug. I closed the door and he drove off. It was the 22nd of January 1990.”
Lufuno says the whole village depended on his father’s small garden for vegetables.
“Some of the people were so poor that he would let them take fruit and vegetable without paying.
“He helped his pupils all the time. During school holidays they would flock into our home. He would buy them uniforms and school books. He was that kind of man.”
Chris Mphaphuli has warm memories of his friend, Daswa.
“You would see Benedict washing nappies. People would say to him, ‘What are you doing, Benedict? This is a woman’s work’, but he would have none of that.”
But Daswa, who had built a Catholic church in Nweli using rocks from a river bed, was unpopular among a group in his community.
He was especially outspoken about witchcraft and had been scorned for banning the Mbahe Eleven Computers from using muti before their games.
For Daswa, the world of witchcraft was one of evil, fear and violence. He was one of the few to speak out against it. Many chose silence, as they still do today, for fear of reprisals.
People saw Daswa’s Christian ways as a betrayal of his culture, says Mphaphuli.
Apart from his stance against witchcraft, there was much jealousy against Daswa. He was a successful teacher, a family man with a beautiful house, a churchman, a farmer and entrepreneur.
Rumours started that Daswa was dabbling in witchcraft by having zombies help him in his garden, says Mphaphuli.
On January 25 , 1990, a number of huts in Mbahe were struck by lightning. The next Sunday, the headman called a meeting of his council to deal with the matter.
It was agreed that each family in the village would pay R5 to hire a sangoma to find the witch who had sent the lightning.
When Daswa arrived at the meeting, he tried to point out that lightning was a natural occurrence. The people refused to accept his explanations. A human was behind it, they said.
In the days ahead, Daswa’s enemies methodically plotted his murder.
On the evening of Friday, February 2, 1990, hours after news had broken that the ANC had been unbanned and that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison, Daswa drove home in his bakkie.
Not far from his house in Mbahe, he saw a tree branch across the road.
He stopped his car and climbed out to move it.
As he did so, he was pelted with rocks. He ran for his life, across the soccer field he had built and made his way into Mbahe.
He looked for shelter but no one would give it to him.
Already severely injured, he hid in a hut.
It wasn’t long before he was found, dragged out and shoved into the middle of a mob.
“The people shouted, ‘Where is your God now, Daswa?’,” Mpaphuli recalls.
“One of the mob, a security guard who worked in Johannesburg, stepped forward, and hit Daswa in the middle of the skull with an iron knobkierie.
“The mob took boiling water from a young mother, who was about to wash her baby’s nappies, and poured it into the wound on his head, into his nostrils, his ears, his mouth. They started singing. They were happy.
“I remember one man, he was full of blood. He told a woman who was a relative of Daswa, ‘Woman that dog, that relative of yours, that one that you used to say that he is your brother, we have killed him’.”
Many years later, while visiting the area, Bishop Hugh Slattery, of the Archdiocese of Tzaneen, noticed a group gathered around a grave. They were praying and singing.
Slattery asked who the ceremony was for.
He was told they were singing for a man named Benedict Daswa.
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Ceremony in field open to all
Benedict Daswa’s beatification will be held in an open field at Tshitanini village about 17km outside of Thohoyandou on Sunday, September 13.
The ceremony is open to anyone who would like to attend. About 20 000 people are expected to attend.
Prayers for martyrdom are expected to start at 8.30am. The beatification mass, to be led by Cardinal Angelo Amato the prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes and the pope’s representative, is expected to run from 10am to lunchtime.
Pope Francis approved Daswa’s beatification earlier this year.
A letter from the holy father will be included in the beatification booklet.
After Amato performs the beatification, Daswa will officially be known as The Blessed Benedict Daswa. His sainthood however, is still to be determined.
“Benedict can only become a saint for the whole church if he is canonised,” said Cape Town Archbishop and Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference president Stephen Brislin.
“For this to take place, a sign from God, a miracle in answer to Benedict’s prayers, must take place.
“Any claims to such a miracle would need to be thoroughly investigated by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which up to now has made a thorough study of the testimonies given by people who knew Benedict well.”
Brislin said it was important that “we pray to this martyr for the faith” with confidence, using the official prayer to obtain favours as a witness for his canonisation.
Any answers to prayers should be reported to the promoter of the cause for canonisation of Benedict Daswa in the Diocese of Tzaneen.
Sister Claudette Hiosan, a promoter of the Daswa cause, has appealed for Catholics to encourage people to pray “earnestly” through the intercession of Daswa, for the favours they need.
Hiosan said it was necessary to pray for and obtain a first-class miracle, attributable solely to the prayers of Daswa, for him to be canonised.
“This miracle must be verified, not only by church officials, but also by a team of medical experts appointed by the Holy See,” she said.
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Other martyrs who died for their beliefs
* Maqhamusela Khanyile was the first Zulu martyr who died for his beliefs in eShowe on March 9, 1877 when he was about 70 years old.
Khanyile was a Christian convert who had joined the Norwegian Mission Society and was killed for these beliefs.
King Cetshwayo ordered his death after he forbade his soldiers from becoming Christians, wanting their undivided loyalty. Khanyile ignored him.
Just before he died, it is said Khanyile asked to say one last prayer. On completion he said: “Now I am ready. Slay me.” At the time of death he was unbaptised. With his death he became the first martyr in the country. The Anglican Church of Southern Africa commemorates his death, through its Calendar of Saints, on March 9 every year.
In 2007, 130 years after his death, he was honoured by former premier Sibusiso Ndebele who said: “Maqhamusela’s views were that of a non-racial South Africa. To him it made no difference that the Christian faith was brought by white people. Through his faith he saw the universality of mankind and realised that out there, there was a bigger world of multiple nations, united by a common desire to make this a better world.”
* Manche Masemola was another Christian convert who died for her beliefs. Her death was at the hands of her parents who did not like her conversion to Christianity as they feared she would leave them and not marry the person they wanted to be her husband.
At the time of death, in February 1928, she was only 15 years old. She was born in the village of Marishane now called Polokwane in Limpopo.
In 1998, a statue of her was erected at the west entrance to Westminster Abbey in London, along with nine other 20th century martyrs. Manche converted to Christianity after she started to attend services with her cousin, Lucia, at the then recently opened Anglican Community of the Resurrection.
She became enraptured with the sermons of Father Augustine Moeka and wanted to hear more of them, much to the consternation of her parents who viewed the church with suspicion. In a strange twist of fate, in 1969, her mother was baptised.
Manche was made a saint by the Anglican Church in 1975 and like Khanyile, is remembered in the church every year – on the date of her death. She too was never baptised.