The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi Cultural Heritage
AFTER a two week lapse we are back on the cultural trail, albeit on reduced performance due to a near fatal accident we encountered on the 11th of December 2014 along the Bulawayo-Maphisa Road. I am glad to say I am fairly well on the mend.In the last article we dealt with food preservation. We were going to deal with the grain bin pits that the Ndebele constructed within the cattle byre, esibayeni. There was a reason for locating these bins within the cattle byre. Times were unsettled in military terms. Internecine wars sometimes resulted in grass grain bins within the homestead going up in smoke.
When that happened there was a real spectre of famine, a situation that had to be obviated. Locating grain bins within the cattle pen was meant to serve as some form of concealment where reserve grain was stored for use in times of crises. The pear-shaped bins were quite big and could accommodate a number of bags of grain. Enemies on the rampage could ravage the grain. The grain in the cattle byre, it was hoped would survive the pillage. However, there were challenges that were to be overcome. There is high moisture content in the ground, and more so in the cattle byre where cattle add copious quantities of urine and dung.
We pointed out in an earlier article that grain preservation needed to take care of moisture content and secondly, the physical damage to the grain as a result of pests such as weevils, imbovane. Dung is both an insect and water repellant. Pests are thus taken care of. It is the moisture which must be dealt with.
Moisture may cause the grain to either germinate or deteriorate in quality. The grain would then be unsuitable for human consumption. As a measure to counter moisture content once the pear-shaped pit had been dug a fire was lit inside. The fire drove moisture out of the pit, rendering it sufficiently dry to preserve the grain.
The inner wall of the pit would then appear either blackened out or reddish depending on the temperature reached during burning. Both grass and wooden twigs and even dry cow dung, amalongwe were burnt inside the pit. Once the inner wall of the pit was sufficiently dry, plastering, ukusinda was done, using a mixture of clay and cow dung, ubulongwe. This was meant to serve as yet another measure to minimise moisture seepage.
Finally, some dry wooden twigs were introduced both at the bottom of the pit and on its side walls. A layer of tinder-dry grass was then overlaid on the twigs. Air was trapped between the grass and the twigs, thus avoiding the seeping in of moisture through capillary attraction.
With all this done, the pit was then ready to accommodate the grain, be it sorghum, amabele or finger millet, uphoko. The mouth of the pit was small, so as to accommodate a small stone slab that sealed the mouth. Cattle manure was then spread over the structure rendering it imperceptible. The grain stored in this manner was called umncantsha. Its condition was certainly not the best desirable one, but that was the price that had to be paid for food security.
When it became necessary to retrieve the grain the cattle were driven out and a metal prodder used to locate the pit. Cattle manure was carefully removed from the top of the pit and the stone taken aside. The pit was left open over a long period of time to allow for aeration. Because of incomplete combustion one of the gases produced was the poisonous carbon monoxide.
Once the pit was sufficiently aerated a boy went inside to take the grain. There have been reports where death occurred when someone went into the pit before sufficient aeration had taken place.
We saw in earlier articles that the BaNyubi people of the Matobo Hills area resorted to the construction of grain bins in concealed rock recesses. However, after the Ndebele people made their presence felt in the area the BaNyubi began adopting Ndebele ways of grain preservation.
When some of the hill dwellers were evicted to the south, in particular to the mopane veldt, the BaNyubi took with them the new cultural practices and the grain bins were to be found in places as far south as Kafusi and Sankonjana. As recently as the 1960s some of these grain bins located within cattle byres were still visible.
There are people who, finding umncantsha, not to be tasty, added honey to it prior to consumption.
