The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
ONCE some plants had been domesticated for the food they provided what came next was the domestication of animals. Some provided meat while others became the best friends of man. Dogs were in this category. Yet other animals provided transport to man. Camels, donkeys and horses were such animals. The next article will deal with animal domestication and the socio-political and economic changes that were wrought on societies.
Before epoch-making domestication of both plants and animals human beings were hunter gatherers whose economic activities became gender-based. Introduction of crops led to some social and political engineering of communities so that emerging social structures supported new innovations. Gender relations and issues were adjusted to cater for the new situation. Not only was a new supportive ideology developed, at the level of crafts there were innovations that were driven by new demands.
Cereals needed crafts where they could be stored. Pottery and basketry were introduced to serve as storage vessels and in some instances as cooking pots. In all instances the new crafts were aligned to existing ideologies. At the same time, available technologies and artefacts initiated the development of new socio-political structures, inter-group relations and power distribution.
Materials that were used in the production of artefacts were allocated to either men or women. Pottery production was the preserve of womenfolk. Various economic and cultural activities and practices involving clay or the soil were allocated to women. Ceramic pots were produced by womenfolk. Tilling of the soil was left in the main, to women. Agriculture, being a land-based economic activity, was the preserve of women. Ideologically, there was some seminal link between women and the soil.
Production of grass-based artefacts was in the domain of women. Baskets that were used as food-serving vessels were produced by women. Grass grain bins were woven by women. In fact, there was a whole array of grass-derived crafts that women produced such as beer strainers (izihluzo) and mats to receive meal when grain was being crushed. The mat was called isithebe and also served as a meat platter. What needs to be appreciated is that as more food was incorporated into the menu more social usages emerged. Language grew in tandem with the introduction of the new artefacts. For example, from isithebe there emerged the proverb “Guga sithebe kade wacholela”. Yet another one goes like, “Isitsha esihle kasidleli”.
Gourds found their way into the wide array of food-related vessels. Some became gourd cups, inkezo or iziphungo for collecting water from a well. They were also used as drinking cups. Some calabashes became beer storage vessels (amaqhaga). Others, known as izigxingi, were used to store water. Seed was stored in some gourds, and also in clay pots, izimbiza and grass baskets (izitsha/izingcebethu).
On the other hand men were associated with wood and metal. For example, the iron furnaces were worked on by men in secluded spaces. This was in line with their perceptions of the process as they went about domesticating the process-integrating it into pre-existing technologies and cosmologies. Technology had to be understood and interpreted on the terms of the receiving community. Resulting cultural practices were informed by dominant cosmologies.
Metal was thus the preserve of men. They worked on iron, went out to collect hematite (iron ore), burn wood of certain trees to get charcoal. In scientific terms charcoal is carbon which is more reactive than iron. Smelters did not burn wood from just any tree. They possessed knowledge that there were trees which, when burnt, did not produce ash. In the Matobo area that tree was umnondo. In Lupane and Nkayi the tree was umnyezane. Wood from such trees burns till it is completely consumed and yet there is no ash that is formed. Ash would have compromised the quality of iron.
While homestead architecture underwent transformation in response to the fact that crops were being grown, harvested and processed after which there had to be some storage structures and vessels. The homes of these sedentary people underwent structural changes. Granaries became an integral part of the home structure and layout. However, among the Ndebele grass grain bins were the storage structures placed on wooden platforms, izingalane, without a roof (ithuli).
The grain storage area was close to the kitchen huts — the rear section of the homestead. The whole area became the domain of children, their sisters, mothers and grandmothers. It was women who processed food from grain stored in granaries or grass grain bins. Convenience demanded that granaries and the itchen be close to each other. Children used to play in that area, ezibuyeni. Women visited the same area to answer to the calls of nature — as if to soften the soil in which their remains were going to be interred.
Domestication of technology and science, upon which it is based, was given a new language that became socially acceptable. Iron smelting, for example, goes beyond a simple chemical reaction where the more reactive carbon atom snatches oxygen from iron oxide. This is where we sometimes miss it and think Africans are not scientific. They are and they use their own language which is intelligible within a broader social, language and knowledge context. Carbon dioxide is a colourless and therefore invisible gas. Can we then say the African does not know that there is a gas which in the Western world is called carbon dioxide?
When an African lady wishes to check if beer she is brewing is ready for straining (ukuhluzwa), she makes use of knowledge that is underpinned by the presence of carbon dioxide. The lady takes a lighted firebrand isikhuni esibhebhayo and introduces it just above the fermenting mixture in a clay pot. In fact, she will put up in the same hut where the fermenting beer mixture in located. This is done so that she can carry out the test even at night. When the reaction is complete — note she says “nxa utshwala sebuqumile,” she introduces some burning fire brand (isikhuni). When it immediately extinguishes she knows it is time to undertake beer straining (ukuhluza).
The question is what knowledge did she make use of? She knows that the chemical reaction that takes place produces alcohol, the desired chemical. There is however, a by-product that she knows does not support combustion. That by-product is carbon dioxide. The language she uses is not what I as a science teacher would use — but so what? She explains and interprets scientific occurrences her own way. This is how Western science is rendered within the African context — a necessary context for the domestication of both science and technology. Perhaps I have the advantage of being au feit with both worlds.
We have so far tried to see changes that were wrought on African communities following adoption of exotic sciences and technologies. Science is universal, however, its language and rendition differs from society to society. This is true of technologies that are developed from the science. Indeed, this is the case with culture. The essence of culture is universal. However, its applications or manifestations of the same essences differ from society to society. This is how we end up with cultural diversity as different societies and communities interact differently with their environments — both material and spiritual.
Who has problems appreciating that spirituality, science and philosophy share the same convergence?
