by Wanelisa Xaba

I saw my brother today. After two hundred and twenty two years I saw my brother’s skull in the basement of a German museum. Wedged between thousands of stolen African artefacts, I know the shape of my brother’s skull. Inside the cranium of my brother’s skull is a thin layer of gold. All of our kin down in the Namib desert have skulls shaped like a kalashnikov and a layer of gold between the parietal bone and the brain. They call us the intergalactic kingdom.
My dearest brother, with a honeyed predisposition, lay in a brown box with a hole through his cranium. A white tag was hung between his front bottom teeth. On it was written:

“Negro Intelligence experiment, Berlin 1884. Upon drilling through the cranium of the Negro skull, Professor Schindler found a curious gold substance in the inner cranium. The substance was tested in a lab and was determined to carry similar elements found in the star Sirius B. The Negro’s genetic testing can be traced back to the Dogon people of Mali. Very perplexing. Head shaped like the Russian gun. This shows evidence of sub-human qualities. Dispose the Negro neck and body. But keep the heart.”

I let out a shrill wail and remembered the last time we were together. It was at our community’s last birthing ceremony before the Germans drove us out to the Atlantic ocean. The ceremony occurred on the last day of the year at the turn of every century. This was when the Sirius A and Sirius B stars collided and made love. We, the people of golden skulls, come from love. Breathtaking and powerful macronova babies who fall from the sky.
At midnight, we would gather in our thousands on the Namib desert. Sirius A and Sirius B would dance for an hour before colliding. The cosmos would turn royal blue and jazz would rain down from the skies. We would stand facing the heavens, our faces wet with music, and shout, “Singabantu bokuqala.[1]”. The chant would open up the sky and the new generation of children would fall from the stars. The star babies had umbilical cords the texture of lightning. They would fall head first, singing,

“I am born under the rock. My father gave me fire. My mama gave me water. I am three in one. I am fallen from the stars into my mothers belly. Shining into the world. I am spiritual(y). I am born under the rock. Utata undiphe umlilo[2]. Umama undiphe amanzi[3]. I am three in one. I am fallen from the sky. Ndawela esifubeni sikaMama wam[4]. Spiritual(y).”

We did not learn these songs. The songs emerged from beneath our epidermis as medicine. Their lyrics were illuminated against the night as the celestial spirit babies fell into the desert from the southern sky. The desert dunes would elucidate and turn burnt terracotta orange. We would carry our newborn children and introduce them to the ocean. Then we would light a giant bonfire, eat goat liver, and dance till sunrise.
The last time I saw my brother was toward the end of the nineteenth birthing ceremony. The German soldiers had marched in with their guns while we were suspended in song and lightning. They gunned down the elders, put the young men in chains and took them away. All the women escaped to the Atlantic ocean. We were exiled to the underwater cities built by ancestors who had jumped off the slave ships heading to the Americas. There have been no more spirit babies falling from the stars for two hundred years. We are losing our magic.
When we have gathered the bones of all our people, we will go back to the stars. On the last day of the turn of each century, we travel to Germany to collect the bones of our people. We refuse to depart back to the stars until every skull is collected from every basement in every German museum.
Today I am reunited with my brother. I hold his skull on my lap. My tears fall and gather inside his golden inner cranium. The other exiled sisters retrieve the rest of his remains from the Berliner Mauer[5]. They comment on the irony of our bones being located on the foundations of the German symbol for freedom and unity.
When all our young men have been gathered, we will drag our wooden kists full of bones across the Atlantic ocean bed and return to the Namib desert. On the hour when Sirius A and Sirius B collide and make love, we will gather in between burnt terracotta sand dunes and pray to return to the stars. We will wait for the jazz to rain and sing a new song,

“Oh Khanya!
Khanya nkwenkwezi!
Oh Khanya!
Khanya nkwenkwezi![6]
Oh banini beZulu siyakhuleka. Oh banini beZulu siyakhuleka![7]”

Upon hearing our new song, we hope the custodians of the skies will open up the heavens. Our faces wet with tears and jazz, we will travel back home to our southern skies. We, of golden craniums and of umbilical cords made from lightning, will travel home. Approximately 8.6 light years away from this earth. We will leave you with your parliaments, your blood economics, your never ending thirst for carnage.
Will we pray for you?
Yes. Yes, we will pray for you. But…
We will leave with our jazz and remove our constellations from your night skies. We will take our magic.
The Celestial Spirit People of the Namib Desert

[1] “We are the cradle of humankind”. The lyric is taken from Thandiswa Mazwai’s new song called Children of the soil, from the album Sankofa.
[2] My father gave me fire.
[3] My mother gave me water.
[4] I fell into my mother’s chest.
[5] Berlin Wall memorial[6] “Light up. Light up, dear star.” The lyric is taken from Thandiswa Mazwai’s new song called Dogon, from the album Sankofa
[7] “Dear Custodians of the heavens, we pray to you.” The lyric is taken from Thandiswa Mazwai’s new song called Dogon, from the album Sankofa