Journey to koByo: Identification of faunal remains

Cultural Heritage with Pathisa Nyathi

CAROLYN Thorpe of the National Museum and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) was, from 1997 involved in extensive investigation of faunal remains retrieved from Old Bulawayo.

Excavation pits were made to cover both the Royal Enclosure and the Commoners’ Enclosure. 

However, the more intensive work was carried out within the Royal Enclosure and covered numerous sites including the following: three beehive huts, King Lobengula’s storeroom, the royal midden (isilotha), King Lobengula’s wagon shed, King Lobengula’s modern house, area covering the cattle byre and the area between the storeroom and the royal palisade.

Over a period of two weeks in 2001, Emily Murray was involved in the analysis of the faunal assemblage. Similar Nguni royal towns of Ondini (for King Cetshwayo) and uMgungundlovu (for King Dingane) were used for comparison.

There were a number of considerations that were investigated such as phasing, retrieval and recording methods, preservation and quantification (Davis, 1992).

However, we are not, for the purposes of this article, going to dwell much on the technicalities and methodologies.

Rather, we shall concentrate on the interpretations, which are informed by the underlying worldview, cosmology and beliefs of the Ndebele people who occupied Old Bulawayo from 1870 to 1881.

It is important though to appreciate that Old Bulawayo was unique in the sense that it was the seat for the King and queens who were the cut above the rest. 

From information gleaned on the spatial distribution of the faunal remains, we are able to draw conclusions or derive corroborations regarding culinary practices based on gender, age and royalty.

We know that the various parts of a carcass were distributed and consumed in accordance with one’s age, gender, socio-economic, political standing, and one’s spiritual makeup, inter alia. 

We thus would expect to find differences between bones retrieved within the Royal Enclosure and the Peripheral Enclosure.

The beef cuts supplied to the King were not what was availed to commoners. Similarly, the beef cuts reserved for the queens were different from those given to women of lower social women.

Other considerations that were investigated added to a better understanding of the culinary traditions of the Ndebele people.

Butchery was one such consideration. Back then, the Ndebele used axes and knives for butchery purposes. Do we see the butchery marks such as “cutting,” and “gnawing” on the bones, inflicted by rodents and carnivores? 

Equally important was the need to note the presence of burnt bones.

We have, in earlier articles, referred to burnt bones that were recovered from Old Bulawayo. 

This time we shall be giving the topic-heightened attention and drawing from ancient African science deriving from, in particular Enki, the son of Anu one of the Anunnaki gods, who did a lot of work in his African laboratory over 400 000 years ago.

Researchers were able to categorise the faunal assemblage into bovine (that is cattle), carnivores, rodents, snakes, reptiles and birds.

It is to these finds that we turn in the forthcoming articles with a view to explaining and interpreting the faunal finds. As we do so we should at all times be alert to the fact that we are here dealing with a unique settlement where the king and queens lived. 

We are thus dealing with much more than the mere culinary traditions.

A people’s worldview and cosmology are equally represented through the faunal remains. It is these considerations that are least appreciated and understood.

They constitute what I have termed ancient African science into which both the so-called witchcraft and African medical practices draw upon.

Before analysis and interpretation, perhaps it is pertinent to give an overview of what types of bones constituted the total faunal assemblage.

The cattle, bovine taurus, constituted 43 percent of bones retrieved from the Royal Enclosure.

This contrasts with the Peripheral Settlement where Bovine taurus bones constituted 72 percent.

Interestingly, uMgungundlovu yielded 99 percent while Ondini yielded between 83 percent and 99 percent. What are we to learn about the culinary traditions at Old Bulawayo, which seem to differ markedly from comparable Nguni royal settlements in KwaZulu-Natal from where the Ndebele migrated to Zimbabwe?

There was evidence of faunal remains from carnivores, particularly their phalanges. The carnivores that were positively identified were the lion (panthera leo) and the leopard (panthera pardus).

The carnivores contributed 69 countable elements to the 594 elements within the faunal assemblage. There were other species of carnivores, which were not positively identified to species. We shall, based on Ndebele ethnography, attempt to give possibilities and related justifications.

Also retrieved by researchers were the vertebrae of a python, a snake that carries a lot of spiritual significance among the Ndebele and other African people. Quite clearly, the bones of that royal snake did not testify to the culinary traditions of the residents of Old Bulawayo. This was true of the faunal remains of carnivores. 

Explanation and interpretation of these bones require treading with maximum care. The bones are pointers to a worldview, philosophy, cosmology, and beliefs that are no longer held in Western societies who call the tune when it comes to academy and scholarship.

Not out of sync were the bones of a ground or cape pangolin (inkakha in IsiNdebele). Once again, a pangolin was not one of the animals whose flesh the Ndebele people consumed. It had some very important use in relation to royal fortification, based on perceived attributes that the animal exhibits.

Also retrieved was a large canine from what researchers thought to be a pig. Where there is doubt, regarding identification of the species, knowledge of African Thought does help in giving possibilities. 

The broader beliefs and worldview of the people that relate, not to the material world but the intangible or spiritual realms helps in giving possible interpretation of identified bones. 

This certainly presents challenges to people whose scholarship is confined and restricted to the concrete and material aspects of the world.

The Africans, including the Ndebele, deal with a much broader world than that acknowledged in the Western world. It is against this background that Africans hold a very different view with regard to exhumation of human bones.

To them the bones go beyond their material or concreted aspects to embrace the more fundamental intangible and spiritual aspects.

Bird bones were also retrieved during excavations at Old Bulawayo.

Once again, birds generally did not constitute part of Ndebele cuisine or expressions of their hospitality.

Indeed, the researchers’ guesses were not unplaced.

There are birds whose parts were used as expressions of African spirituality – the ancient African science transmitted down the ages through spiritual channels as evidenced and testified to through spiritual mediumship. 

Once again, we are in a field that has been scandalised and demonised as always happens when conquerors despise the cultures of the peoples that they have conquered.

The conquered’s cultures are reduced to occults and similar derogatory perceptions and naming.

The tentative identification of the bones as belonging to a vulture was not too far off the mark, as we shall demonstrate when we begin in earnest the process of interpretation. 

Whereas pieces of horse bridals and other tucks were retrieved, there was no evidence of equid remains. Again, this does not come as a surprise when the beliefs of the Ndebele are taken into consideration. 

Horses were perceived as similar and akin to donkeys, which did not constitute part of Ndebele cuisine.

In the next article, we shall initially deal with pertinent principles from ancient African science within whose context we are going to interpret the presence of the various faunal remains enumerated above.