The Nguni tribes have a saying that goes “Ubuhlebendodazinkomozayo” which when directly translated means “The attraction of a man is his cattle”.

Now, when analysing this saying it would be best to keep in mind that the ancient tribes used cattle as a bargaining tool because the currency of those days was not notes and coins but rather things that could be used to sustain a family, things that could be eaten and worn, used as shelter and so forth and in the ancient days, marriages were not arranged with the values of today of love, mutual respect and companionship but each family was trying to increase their esteem and bargaining power and collecting cattle via lobola was a way of doing this.

The head of a family would wait until a young man had spotted one of his daughters as a possible bride that could provide him with strong and virile children, then two delegates from each family would sit at the bargaining table and they would see how many cows would be able to seal the transaction based on how much the girl’s family had invested in her, The wealthier the suitor was, meant that there was more possible wealth that could be transferred and therefore a suitor with a bigger kraal was a much better prospect for the girls family.

In 2015, this saying still resonates very strongly with people from all walks of life because in fact what this saying is saying is that “the influence and power of a man depends a lot on the wealth at his disposal”. The Times Magazine in New York releases a list of the 100 most influential celebrities every year and the mechanism used to decide this is that they look at the celebrities social responsibility work, their impact on social media (their followers and friends across all social media platforms) and the net worth of the particular celebrity…Ubuhlebendodazinkomozayo.

Take a look as well at the process that goes on when election time comes around in any country…Yes political parties and candidates will draft up great and ambitious policies, they will brush up their debating skills and prep their candidates for interviews and plant witty sound bites in them for the journos, but all this is for nought if the right amount of capital is not raised for electioneering. How will these policies be heard if enough money for advertising and street marketing is not raised?…Ubuhlebendodazinkomozayo.

And I’m sure there is no need for me to take you into the dark and noisy night clubs of the world over where it is sometimes so dark that all you can see are the whites of the eyes of the pretty prospect dancing in front of you. However, no matter how dark it is in the club, everybody will see who the big spender is in the club, especially when the skimpily dressed waitress sashay towards them with a bottle of overpriced fire water that could be charged at over 150% the retail price but illuminated with a sparkle to lighten his mood at this daylight robbery..Ubuhlebendodazinkomozayo.

One thing is certain, we definitely know the saying but I think we would be better served in paying attention to it. You see, the analogy of a cow is a very clever one when dealing with wealth. The reason why the cow was such a valuable commodity to the Nguni tribes was because it was the biggest thing they could barter with. It provided more meat then sheep, goats and chickens; the females provided milk and its hide could be used for an assortment of things from clothing to cover for huts and even accessories like bags and when we have the right mix and in the right combination, cows can give us even more cows thereby expanding the things we are able to do. Is this not what we want our money to do for us as well these days?

We want money to provide the meat of life and provide for our daily essentials. We want it to provide the milk of life, to allow us to enjoy the finer things in life like dining out and turning up and exotic holidays. We need it to house us and to keep us warm. The accessories of life need to come from it as well in the form of Timberland boots and Tempo watches and in the right conditions we want it to make us even more money and to expand our options.

Yes, this would be the ideal way to treat our money, with the respect, reverence and patients that our forefathers treated their live stock. If we were really smart we would build lovely kraals similar to those that are popular eNkandla for it and we would get herds men to protect it and make sure it grows. However, we do no such.

Nowadays, we get a calf and instead of giving it time to grow and reach maturity, we would rather slaughter it young and have a feast. The meat from a young calf is tender and moist. It is sweet to the taste and makes for one hell of a feast, but it is over very quickly. You see there is not a lot of it because the cow is still small. The meat from a full grown cow can feed a family of four comfortably for a month and the family members will grow rather handsome potbellies from it. A young calf however will be done for by the time the sun reaches its highest elevation point the next day; such a waste for an animal that could have given so much under the proper circumstances.

No one can tell you what to do with your money or your livestock, but there does come a time when the sun goes down and each man needs to go and look at what is in his kraal and when that time comes, we will all be saying “Ubuhlebendodazinkomozayo”…