Nukain Mabusa’s Painted Mountain at Revolver Creek is testimony to a remarkable vision born from grief.

Shootout in Paradise

I grew up in Champagne Valley in the central Drakensberg. Our old sandstone house had no plumbing or electricity, but it did have a dark cellar in which snakes and nightmares resided.

It was there as a twelve-year-old that I hid while my father was involved in a gunfight with police. And it was there, while bullets flew overhead, that I had an epiphany. I will never know whether this was a message from God or an awakening spirit within.

Biblical Journeys

My realisation in that moment was that I was destined to chronicle the lives of those who had been affected by deep trauma. We know today that there is a relationship between childhood trauma and the onset of bipolar disorder, but little outside of my work has been done to understand the link between trauma and eccentricity.

In the last 40 years I have travelled to nearly half the countries in the world and sailed the high seas. But the most special journeys have been the four biblically proportioned 40-day trips I have made around South Africa to meet extraordinary people who live beyond the pale of society.

These odysseys have been undertaken without planning; going only where my heart took me. The first was on a motorbike and somewhere along that drug fuelled trip I came upon the Painted Mountain in Mpumalanga.

The Noordkaap Hotel

It was misty with fine rain nettling my face the night I rode through Barberton towards Revolver Creek. Passing the Noordkaap Hotel, I decided to sleep in a bed for the second time since hitting the road. Slowing to U-turn, I gunned the motor back to the entrance, the bike fishtailing as it battled for traction.   

The receptionist giggled when she saw me, soaked through, hair and beard matted to my face, a droplet clinging to the end of my nose. My reservation processed, she said, ‘As we weren’t expecting guests we let most of the kitchen staff go, so there won’t be dinner. But you can order a sandwich in the Hanging Tree Pub. Enjoy your stay.’

After I freshened up, I selected my driest clothes and headed for the bar; its walls clad with corrugated iron from which hung mining memorabilia to evoke the gold rush of a century ago. But that was as far as the theme went, as the rest of the space was decorated with such appalling taste that it took on an appeal of its own. Among the plastic flowers and erect penis ashtrays were signs such as: ‘If a man can’t drink when he’s living, how the fuck can he drink when he’s dead?’ and ‘Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults have in adultery?’ 

The Crazy Man

‘Howzit, stranger,’ greeted the grizzled, yellow-bandannaed barman, as I sat on a stool at the end of the counter. ‘What can I get you?’

‘A toasted cheese n’ tomato, chips and a Lion Ale.’

He stuck his head through a hatch and shouted the order before taking a beer from the fridge and opening it. No glass was offered and I drank from the bottle.

‘Come from far?’

‘Yeah,’ I replied in a tone that implied I did not want to indulge in barroom chat.           

But he did not take the hint, ‘So what brings you here?’

‘I want to meet Nukain Mabusa, who I believe lives just down the road.’

‘The crazy man, he’s about two kilometres from here,’ he sneered.

The Hanging Tree

The following morning I took my coffee on the lawn. There was no sign of the previous night’s fog, other than a sweat in the air. Towards the bottom of the garden, which bordered the Noord Kaap River flowing fast through moss encrusted undergrowth, I sheltered under a tree. On a plaque at its base was a sign: The Hanging Tree – Last Stop for Bent Bert. Below, a wit had added: Always Crooked – Gone to be an Angle.

When finished I settled my bill and headed off to meet Mabusa. Little is known of him other than that he had come from Moamba in southern Mozambique after his wife and child died. In his grief God had visited him and instructed him to recreate Earth as the Garden of Eden in anticipation of the Second Coming.  

He began this project on the side of a mountain near Revolver Creek in the late 1960s. Against incredible odds he negotiated with the farmer who owned the land to allow him occupation, which was agreed in exchange for labour.

Nukain Mabusa

I pulled up at the Panzela Store opposite the Painted Mountain. Stretching up from the decorated two-hut homestead, was an elated garden in which every surface had been painted with bright geometrical patterns. It reminded me of the pictures I had seen of Australian Aboriginal art, but on an immense scale. I entered the shop and bought a five litre can of yellow paint, which I had been told was his favourite.

I left the motorbike there and crossed the road to the kraal, where I was met by a tall, middle-aged man wearing clothes painted with stripes and patterns. He had large ears, a protruding Adam’s apple that appeared to float freely up and down his long neck, distracted charcoal eyes, and hollowed cheekbones that caught the sun. His distinctive face was made outlandish by oversized spectacle rims fashioned from a tomato box.

The Kraal

I introduced myself, handed him the gift and asked, rather obviously, ‘Would you be Mr Mabusa?’

‘I am.’

‘I was wondering if I could see your beautiful home and garden.’

‘Yes, of course, you are most welcome,’ he said, standing aside. ‘Let me show you round.’

The triangular kraal area consisted of two rondavels with facades painted with yellow, black and white circles and squares inspired by traffic signs and chevrons. Inside the main hut, which he called his studio, the walls were covered with similar patterns and hung with various objects and framed newspaper clippings. One, from Vulamehlo, read:

Step inside Mr Mabusa’s shack, an array of colour strikes one. Cherubs and the Premier Mr John Vorster stand shoulder to shoulder with King George V1 and his family, General Smuts and Captain Devil.

The Start of the Mission

Mabusa’s mission started when he removed the backs from two dining-room chairs and replaced them with wooden decals. He then decorated them with yellow markings, a theme continued on the remaining sparse furniture, the inside walls, exterior walls, the second hut (which he called the kitchen) and his garden.

There was no vegetation in the garden, but two painted crucifixes; a striped self-portrait statue which bore no resemblance to him; the stump of a tree that died when he painted it; many painted rocks and boulders arranged into paths leading to two rock-cluster focal points; and an elaborately painted stile over an equally vibrant split-pole fence embellished with old paint lids, which defined the boundary of his living area.

The Painted Mountain

Beyond this, every rock surface and boulder up the mountain had been painted; predominantly with his preferred patterns incorporating red, blue and gold animal and bird motifs. At the top a large black and white striped boulder resembled the haunch of a zebra.

As I admired his work, Mabusa called, ‘Come, it’s at its very best from over here.’

He led me to a boulder to the right of the studio, which was identical to the zebra rump on the crest of the mountain. ‘Now keeping these aligned, look downwards from the top and you’ll see how it appears to be flowers tumbling from heaven; now look back up and you’ll see how it narrows into the distance as if you were looking along a railway line. These two rocks are my sacred altars: one on earth, the other in heaven, both separated, but linked. This is where the Messiah will land and walk down when he returns.’

Judgement Day

‘Is there anything more you plan to do?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes. There is the rest of Earth. It must be perfect so that God will be pleased when He returns on Judgement Day.’

‘I’m sure God is delighted with your work so far.’

‘Yes, I think He is,’ he said, gazing up the mountain. ‘I have the most beautiful garden in the universe.’

A Remarkable Spirit

For those who like happy endings, stop reading now. Many eccentrics driven by a purpose they are unable to complete come to regard themselves as failures in the eyes of God. So it was for Mabusa.

A few years after we met, when realising that painting the entire surface of Earth with road marking was not achievable, Nukain dug a grave atop the Painted Mountain and buried himself alive. His work, which can still be seen, but is fading fast because we live in a country where artistic vision is not appreciated, is all that remains of his remarkable spirit.