The Sunday News
Cultural Heritage Pathisa Nyathi
BEFORE we deal with the roof of an Ndebele hut, especially with regard to how it was crafted, let us deal with an inquiry that we received from one of the readers of this column. Last week we referred to the use of stone as an expression of eternity. This was in contrast to the use of wood and grass that are associated with transience, and hence the living. Stone is associated with eternity and therefore with life beyond the grave. Stone is associated with the ancestors who live beyond the grave, having been ushered into that realm by the process of death.
Was Great Zimbabwe a monument in honour of ancestors? We are not going to pretend we can answer the question adequately but we shall make a few observations. It is only intensive archaeological research which can identify the presence of the remains of the dead which will draw the comparison between the Stonehenge in England and Great Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe.
It is known though that where inhabitants ran out of forest resources they resorted to the use of stone as an alternative. In this case the choice of stone was a practical consideration and not an ideological issue. There is no evidence to suggest that there was a general shortage of timber in the area where Great Zimbabwe was built. We thus can surmise that the choice of stone was influenced by ideological considerations.
As a general rule, Africans had separate areas for graves and human settlement. The distances between the two areas would vary depending on the traditions of a particular ethnic group. The most prominent feature at Great Zimbabwe was the colossal walls within which there were typical generic Kalanga houses characterised by “cone on cylinder”. It is unlikely that within the enclosures embracing the hut structures there would be graves.
Great monuments such as the Stonehenge and Great Zimbabwe were not associated with a hunter-gatherer people. The mode of life for these people did not produce surplus food to feed the workers enlisted for the great work lasting several years. The monuments are associated with an agricultural people who led a sedentary life and were able to produce surplus food for the large labour force engaged in the construction of the monument.
Furthermore, the particular society in question would be stratified. A ruling elite would have emerged which uses its privileged socio-economic status, political power and authority to enlist the services of lower classes to build the structures that are a physical expression of the social reality. The choice of stone is thus in line with the social, political and economic stratification of society.
The ruling elite class behind the choice of stone does share something in common with the choice of Stonehenge as a burial place with Woodhenge and Durrington Walls as the settlements for the transient living. The key word in both cases is eternity. In the case of Stonehenge the ancestors continued living in eternity, as expressed in stone and looking after the living.
The question is: “What eternity was sought after at Great Zimbabwe?” A ruling dynasty was expected to rule for ever. Successive rulers would come from the founding lineage that is expected to keep the royal power within itself. Stone was the most ideal natural resource to capture that idea of dynastic eternity.
Stone was not alone in expressing the idea of eternity. The idea would have been expressed prior to building in stone. How is the same idea or ideas expressed? While the colossal stone walls expressed wealth, privilege, power, status and authority, these ideas were expressed even before the settlement was built in stone.
The circular design itself expresses the idea of eternity and social equality. A circle has no beginning and no end. It represents eternity, continuity and perpetuity by virtue of its design. The stone expresses the same ideas by virtue of its physical attributes, largely toughness and resistance to erosion. It is important to see complementing metaphors at work at Great Zimbabwe.
The Great Enclosure is largely circular in design and therefore expressive of eternity. A part of the Great Enclosure carries several chevron motifs. We know the chevron motif is a fertility symbol which expresses the idea of eternity, continuity and perpetuity. Unlike the circle, it pins down continuity to sexual reproduction. The chevron is the female component in the equation of sexual reproduction.
The Africans of yesteryear knew about all this. Where there is a chevron motif there must be its counterpart so that the equation of sexual reproduction is balanced. What is there at Great Zimbabwe to complete the equation? Clearly, it has to be a phallic object of great magnitude to match the Great Enclosure. The one possibility is the Conical Tower which unfortunately has lost its top. It is a top that was likely to reveal its identity — a penal glans!
The Zimbabwe stone birds equally bear a balancing equation for sexual reproduction, the guarantor of eternity, continuity and perpetuity. The phallus is the elongate pedestal on which the bird rests. If that is so, then we should be able to identify the female side. Indeed, there is a chevron design, represented in two respects: the crocodile and the chevron design. The crocodile is arguably the most “chevronic” of all reptiles.
One does not need a perceptive mind to see why the crocodile is a chevron animal. Everywhere you look you will see chevrons: its open mouth, its teeth, its head, its dorsal scales (body and tail), and the bends of its legs. The BaPfumbi, a Crocodile people, have a link with a stone said to originally have been extracted from the belly of a crocodile their chevronic totemic animal. The idea of continuity inherent in the crocodile rubbed on to the stone which was later used to identify the rightful chiefly successor to continue the royal line.
A reigning chief will have swallowed the stone fallen from the decayed body of the previous chief. The “stone of continuity”, has a reinforced or double metaphor. It is stone and eternal. Secondly, it is a stone imbued with eternity derived from having stayed in the belly of a crocodile, a chevronic reptile which conveys the idea of eternity and continuity.
So after all, if we care to unravel the cosmologies of pre-historic peoples we should be able to find a lot of commonalities. This is apparent in terms of ideas as represented through the various cultural and ritual practices. The perception and hence application of stone was no exception. Stone represented eternity, be it at the Stonehenge three millennia before the Birth of Christ (BC) or at Great Zimbabwe just over a thousand years ago.
