The Sunday News
IN line with African cosmology, agriculture was perceived as the domain of women who were generally associated with fertility. There was perceived to be a close link between agriculture and human fertility. Seed, corresponding to men’s semen, was placed in the ground/earth (woman) from where it sprouted and flourished. In similar vein men deposited their semen within the bodies of women where fertilisation happened, resulting in the formation of a zygote which grew and developed into an embryo and ultimately a baby who is born after a gestation period of nine months.
As we shall see in subsequent articles, women played a central role in agriculture, from the planting of seed to food processing and ultimately to food preparation. Gendered roles in food production and processing were reflected in the layout of the homestead. The rear, where harvested crops were brought for processing, was a female purview. In that section of the homestead was found the threshing area isihonqo and isiza, the surface that was specially prepared and hardened by compacting (using a wooden compactor known as isitshayo) a type of soil known as umtshebo (white in Tsholotsho and red in Matobo) or umkhumence. The granaries, in the form of a cluster of grass grain bins were located in the same area.
Next in line, within that general women’s domain, were the kitchen huts (imikulu) where women were in total control of food processing and preparation, including cooking and serving the food to the family members. Women used the same area, the rear part of the homestead, for the calls of nature-the light ones. It was as if they were softening the earth of the area where their remains would be interred. This spatial expression of African cosmology is important to understand. Mind interacted with space resulting in the creation of a cultural landscape — in this case the layout of the homestead and the architecture of the huts.
This article will deal with aspects of this female domain of the homestead. It is the back and the left hand side of the homestead that belong to the female domain, isilili sesifazana. We shall do this in reference to Princess Sidambe Khumalo whose life we have been reconstructing courtesy of Antony Magagula. For starters, we should point out that Princess Sidambe Khumalo had her own separate section within the Siyatsha Fuyane homestead.
We are thus here dealing with an exception rather than the general rule as occasioned by the royal status of Princess Sidambe Khumalo. Her royal status bequeathed on her some degree of independence which was spatially expressed. Her houses had a wooden palisade, (uthango) surrounding it. There was an entrance leading to Siyatsha Fuyane’s section of the homestead. However, the spatial separation of the homestead was not extended to the cattle byre/pen (isibaya). There was a single cattle byre although the princess’s herd was known and distinct from her husband’s.
Princess Sidambe Khumalo had a smaller crop field or garden nearer home. The field was fenced off. There was another bigger crop field further away which was not fenced off. Cattle were herded away from the crop field to avoid cattle straying into the crop field. The princess, like other Ndebele women, knew how to select seed for planting. The middle grain, in the case of maize cobs, was selected while grain from both ends was discarded.
Well developed sorghum tassels were selected and the grain preserved. In order to ensure that the seed was preserved from weevils and other grain pests it was placed in clay pots where ash was added. The ash that was preferred was from the lead tree, umtswiri. The ash from this particular tree is not poisonous and is very fine. The insect pests that were a threat to the selected seed had their breathing holes (spiracles) sealed off by the fine ash. The insects then died from asphyxia. This method of preservation was applied to other types of seed such as pumpkin, water melon, calabash and beans, inter alia. Sweet reeds (imfe), tassels, amazimba were stored in the kitchen hut thatch roof where smoke preserved the grain.
For a people who believed fertility could be metaphysically enhanced the seed was doctored prior to planting. The aim was to enhance fertility and increase resistance to prolonged periods of drought. At the same time, metaphysical intervention was meant to counter the machinations of the witches and wizards. The placing of seed in the soil was done by young women who were still in the reproductive stages of their lives. The fertile were meant to pass on their fertility traits to another fertility dimension, that of agriculture in general.
The Ndebele had types of soils that they preferred for agricultural purposes. These were the black soils (izidaka), the red soils (izibomvu) and the other type found in places such as Esiphezini — the gold bearing soils. Such preferences influenced the location and siting of Ndebele settlements. Generally, the granite-derived sandy soils were avoided. A close look at the distribution of Ndebele villages in the pre-colonial period will reveal these soil preferences. Beyond Bubi, in the Gwampa Valley, there were no Ndebele settlements. Similarly, beyond the Gwayi River there were no Ndebele settlements. In both cases the avoided areas were the infertile deep Kalahari sands.
Ash, rich in potassium, was added especially where pumpkin seeds were deposited. Princess Sidambe Khumalo lived at the time when the ox-drawn plough had been introduced. She used the double plough drown by a span of eight oxen. The iron hand hoe was still in use especially for weeding. Iron ore was mined near Kenmaur (Kenneth and Maureen). There were men who knew how to extract iron from the ore.
Iron ore was placed in a clay furnace where it was mixed with charcoal from a tree in the brachystegia family. The tree is poisonous but its desired quality is that when its wood burns it does not produce ash which would compromise the quality of iron. For the bellows that maintained a steady stream of air (containing oxygen) goat skins were used.
Once again, the process of iron smelting was perceived as symbolic of the sexual act. The furnace was the female part which corresponded to the woman’s womb. It is within the furnace (womb) that the chemical reaction (fertilisation) takes place. The product is molten iron (equivalent to the baby) which flows out of the aperture of the furnace (vagina) fashioned in the shape of the body of woman.
The male side is where the bellows are. There are two of them, corresponding to the man’s testes. The rhythmic working of the skin bellows symbolizes the man’s sexual act. Air that is blown by the bellows moves along a clay pipe that corresponds to the man’s penis. Since the entire process is symbolic of the sexual act, the process takes places in secluded areas (privacy) from which strangers are kept away.
It is interesting to note how different people view the same process differently. Western science views the process as a redox (reduction-oxidation) reaction. The iron ore (oxide) is reduced to iron (metal) while the carbon from charcoal is oxidized to carbon dioxide. The Africans saw the process in a different light. Their understanding of the process informed the attendant intangible cultural heritage. One of the items produced by the iron smiths were hand hoes that were used for weeding.
In the next article we shall look at the crops that Princess Sidambe Khumalo cultivated and the subsequent processes including threshing and food storage.
