In terms of process, Nhimbe/ulima relies on a middleman or a family friend known in local
parlance as sahwira. The Sahwira knowing fully well what has transpired with regards to the
violations be it stock theft, destruction of homes and crops will initiate talks between aggrieved
families to hold a nhimbe in the victim’s field. The whole community is informed of the day of the
nhimbe and they will congregate at the victims’ homestead to assist in ploughing, weeding and
other agricultural processes that will need to be carried out. As the day progresses and almost
when all the tasks are done, the Sahwira acting as a family friend and mediator will at some
point introduce the matter of human rights violations, wrongs committed/perpetrated against
the victim family and ask that the identified perpetrator give their own narration of what
happened, why they did it and to ask for forgiveness.
This is never easy but the fact that the environment is cordial and secure, perpetrators usually
come forward because they want to cleanse (kuchenurwa) themselves and be relieved of the
“burden” of guilt they would have been carrying for long periods of time, or even facing the
wrath of their own kith and kin who might be blaming the perpetrator for bad omens besieging
their family through unexplained deaths, children who can’t stay in marriages, unexplained
illnesses, poverty among other challenges. When the perpetrators confess, the whole community
will be witness and it is then the duty of local traditional leaders such as chiefs to give their
judgments which might ask for reparations to the aggrieved family among other remedies.
Again when all truth is established the victim’s family can now begin processes to honor their
dead, “bring” them back to the homestead through processes of kurova guva, performing
memorial services and relieving the perpetrators family of the ngozi and bad omens that could
have befallen them. In other instances there have been cases where victims’ families have
refused to bury their dead demanding compensation before the burial. This has caused
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