Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
IT is a sunny Tuesday afternoon in Bulawayo, at the corner of Duncan Street in Suburbs. Mark Swannack is gazing at a tree that looms large over his house. At face value, it looks like any ordinary tree located in what scribes love to call the “leafy” suburbs of Bulawayo.
Swannack knows a lot about this tree, the Signal Tree. He possesses the kind of information about it that some might only have about their pets or their most prized possessions. For example, he knows the exact dates when it starts to bloom every year.
The signal tree
“On 15 October every year that tree goes into leaf,” he told Sunday Life.
“It never fails. So, on that day, you can sit outside on the fire pit and watch it start to bloom.”
A false marula, this is not just an ordinary tree. It is the same species as the Hanging Tree located along Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Street, between Connaught and Masotsha Ndlovu Avenue. Owing to its history, stretching back to Umvukela (Matabeleland uprisings) in 1896-7 that particular tree was declared a national monument in August.
Like its counterpart across town, the tree in Suburbs also has its share of history. Some may argue that the tree was the nerve centre of the conflict, as it played a central role during the war in Bulawayo, then just a metropolis in its infancy.
“This tree was located here because during the first Umvukela, about 145 settlers were killed out of about 1 000 settlers at the time, so almost 12 percent of the settler community died in two weeks, so it was quite a big deal. When they came here, they built a laager,” recalled Swannack.
“So, they all came into the laager and they used to signal from here to Hillside Dams. There were a lot of battles at the time in this area. So, every hour, they would signal and if there was no signal, they would then realise something was wrong. It was a very significant time in history because a lot of soldiers were missing in action at the time because they had gone for theTrade Fair spire when Rhodes tried to steal gold from South Africa.”
It is easy to see why the tree became the centrepiece of war that Bulawayo became in those last years of the 19th century. Even from the ground, one can see some of Bulawayo’s key landmarks clearly. Such a vantage point would have provided a great respite for settlers on the lookout for the marauding Ndebele warriors. Indications are that even before colonisation and war, the tree held a lot of significance for black people.
“If you’re standing here, you can see the Trade Fair spire. You can also see the centre of town. Why was this tree kept? Well, it is the same species as the Hanging Tree. This is a false marula tree. So, why did the Ndebele look after this tree in particular? There’s reason to believe that they felt it had some spiritual or medicinal value. So, this tree was not valuable only for its purpose of giving out signal but to the people here it also had an added significance,” he said.
“So, ideally located was the tree that only the lack of trees in the area prevented its conversion into a State House by Rhodes,” Swannack claimed.
“This is where they wanted to put the government house. There was supposed to be a railway station here, which is why you see the railway line going through there, but the area is too wet. That’s why they moved to a drier area and swapped BAC and Bulawayo Poly, bringing them up here. So, that’s when they decided that there was no point having a government house up here.
“In addition, if you look at this place, there are a lot of trees, but that was not the case in 1896. If you’re using firewood as a source of energy, there’s no reason for you to be walking 10-20km looking for wood. That was why Lobengula moved his capital and also the same reason why Great Zimbabwe declined. The resources did not permit for the plans that they had for the place,” he said.
Earlier this year, Swannack started renovating the property on which the tree is located.
While the tree is usually the centre of attraction, Swannack paid equal attention to the house, which has historical significance of its own.
“Our entire plan was to put the history back into this place. We did that through the rebuilding of the house. We have restored the house back to the original. Bulawayo was divided up and surveyed by a chap called Fletcher. The family is still here today. So, the title deeds on this property were signed by Fletcher, which goes back to the 1890s. The house was built by the Sanders family, which owned the Sanders Department Store. So, it is a beautiful history we are happy to keep alive,” he said.
Swannack spoke passionately about the house, its Oregon Pine Wood floors, pressed ceilings and foundation stones taken from the Hillside Dams. For him, every inch of the property drips with history.
“Some sections of this house are not cement but clay because if you think back to 1910, cement had to come by ox-wagon from South Africa. Cement in those days did not come in bags, it came in barrels and it would have cost too much to bring it in,” he said.
While the house has been renovated, the process has been organic, with all material used re-purposed from material in-house. It is a home that has been recycled not rebuilt.
For Swannack, both the house and the tree are a source of untapped potential that Bulawayo and other historical sites in Zimbabwe have not fully tapped into, which is why he was not eager to tamper with its originality.
“What we would like to see done more often is battlefield tourism, which we see a lot in KwaZulu-Natal with the Boer and Zulu wars. Our history is equally rich and we need to see people doing working tours,” he said.
While they were once on opposing sides, Swannack said it was important for both white and black Zimbabweans to work together to preserve their history, a fact that is not lost to him as a white Zimbabwean.
“One of the things I would like to see us developing in the country is a celebration of our history together. Our histories are not separate. I always tell my friends that my ancestors were up in the tree and your ancestors were at the bottom chasing us up the tree,” he said with a laugh.
