The Sunday News
Phathisani Nyathi
On Christmas day I had the privilege to visit the Khami Monument outside Bulawayo in the company of my two daughters Sikhanyisile Sibanda and Fikile Nyathi.
I was doing so against the backdrop of penning several articles relating to the Great Enclosure at the Great Zimbabwe Monument in Masvingo. I carried pen and paper with me just in case there was something to observe and document with a view to comparing the two related stone monuments.
Starting with the name of the monument, I realised it is of TjiKalanga origin, though now somewhat polluted.
The name ought to be Nkami; nkami wepfumba dzisina mhulu, the milker of cows without calves. Tradition has it that the structures at Khami were set up following relocation from Great Zimbabwe in the 15th Century. It thus does not come as a surprise that there are some similarities and also palpable differences.
This article seeks to delve into what we saw by way of similarities and differences between the two monuments before we venture finally, to draw upon the most recent researches carried out by Shadreck Chirikure et al.
What we observed was the very obvious fact that both historical monuments were built out of dressed granite stones.
This is indeed to be expected if the builders of Khami had migrated from Great Zimbabwe to set up the Kalanga Togwa/ Torwa State under King Tjibundule of the Hhowu totem. Here we observed the first difference which was corroborated by other differences.
After all the two seemingly related monuments are different. Stones ought to confuse and blind us! We shall draw on the studies of Chirikure et al to see if we can glean sustainable conclusions.
The Khami Monument walls seem more refined displaying a finer finesse. This too does not surprise us as people polish their skills over time.
In this particular case it was skills in stone masonry. We confined ourselves to the hill complex. While there are tall free standing stone walls at Great Zimbabwe, the same is not true of Khami where stone walls retain earth and, in the process, create ascending platforms where huts were built.
What was important for us was to attempt some explanation for this discrepancy. From a long distance the huts built at Khami would have been visible.
This indicates that privacy was not an issue as was the case at Great Zimbabwe. From what we have surmised so far regarding the function of the Great Enclosure, the difference is not misplaced. Where there is circumcision there has to be some privacy as distinct from defence and protection. Location on a hill and within high stone walls does provide the necessary conditions of privacy and secrecy.
Nudity is part of circumcision. It is clear Khami did not require privacy or secrecy from the way huts were displayed on created ascending platforms. Instead, there was some element of show off by the ruling royal elite. This initial observation, taken in conjunction with other considerations, points to a fundamental difference between the two monuments.
Khami does not have competing structural centres of power. The hill complex is the highest and indisputably the most important structure within the Khami Complex. This is not the case at Great Zimbabwe where the Great Enclosure competes and even beats the two hill complexes which are, in terms of altitude, higher than the more grandiose Great Enclosure.
This is a scenario that is confusing and contradictory to African ideas of expressions of royalty and superiority.
The royals occupy the highest part of a hill while commoners occupy lower ground. This is an important symbolic expression of hierarchy.
Not so long ago, I stumbled, during research, depictions of same. Khesari Sibanda of Bulilima District gave me the following rendition in Tjikalanga:
BoHe bagele dombo,
(Kings reside on a hill),
BoNthoyiwa bagele dombo,
(The Nthoyiwas reside on a hill),
BoTjibumba bagele dombo,
(The Tjibumbas reside on a hill),
Zwilanda zwigele pasi kuBambanalo,
(Slaves reside below on Bambanalo(Hill).
(Nyathi 2014)
The message is pretty clear. Kings reside on a hill. The hill referred to was Mapungubwe at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo Rivers.
Khesari’s ancestors Nthoyiwa and Tjibumba lived on the hill, but obviously lower than the king. They constituted part of royalty.
Their huts would have been built on some lower sections/ terraces, but on the hill all the same. On the other hand, commoners or slaves lived down below on the lower hill known as Bambanalo.
This was a very interesting piece of information as it had survived several centuries and to us served as a pointer to the connection between the BaKalanga people and Zimbabwe type stone structures. But the BaKalanga are not known to have carried out circumcision as part of their culture.
What then are we to read from this? We shall turn to Chirikure for a possible explanation. That the BaKalanga are associated with stone monuments is not in doubt, in our view. Equally not in doubt is the fact that the Great Enclosure had, as its theme, fertility or sexuality. An explanation is certainly called for here.
The idea of royalty may not be dismissed in terms of occupation of Khami. The hill is the single centre of power both in structural and altitudinal terms. Physically the residence of the king was the highest and also bore the heaviest concentration of huts.
The king had a strong contingent of people surrounding him — from praise singers to queens, soldiers and traditional doctors. Other observations within Khami point to the same conclusion. The well decorated section of a stone wall on the hill displays chess/ check board and chord decorative motifs. Interestingly, on the restored stone walls the chevron pattern, the central fertility symbol, is missing. This is the first pointer to the absence of fertility as an overarching theme at Khami.
This tallies with our expectations where privacy and secrecy were not considerations, such as at Khami. For royalty, defence is a prime consideration, even above privacy and secrecy. We shall see more of that when it comes to the zoomorphic “pot.”
The absence of a fertility-related chevron pattern is supported by the presence of non-fertility figurines within the site museum. The two tiny figurines on display are those of cattle and sheep. This is not surprising.
It certainly confirms the fact that occupants of the monument were pastoralists. We are quite alert to the fact that we may not reach finality on the matter as there is a possibility that fertility-related figurines were excavated but not displayed.
Be that as it may, for now things seem to add up. Soapstone carvings were more rare at Khami in comparison to ivory and bone carvings.
There is no soapstone in the vicinity of Khami but the area used to teem with elephants and bovine.
Information in the site museum points to the presence of a lion figurine which was retrieved from a sunken structure on the hill, the royal residence. The absence of a circumcision-related and fertility-related crocodile is not surprising.
This suggests Khami as unrelated to matters of fertility and sexuality. Instead, the lion, a symbol of African royalty, is found (see Nyathi: The
Big Five-An Afro-centric Perspective, 2018). For now the tentative conclusion is that Khami is about royalty which the Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe is not about.
Whereas the Great Enclosure has an overarching theme of sexuality/ fertility, Khami seems not display that theme.
Arriving at the top of the hill we were met with several hut floors. Some existing clay walls bear the red scars of burning as it is said there was a time when the monument was burnt-post settlement. The walls are made of clay. Certainly there was no evidence of houses of stone, the so-called dzimba dzemabwe.
Kalanga and indeed, Shona hut walls, either have wooden poles plastered over with clay or comprise clay only. Kalanga royalty and residence on the hill is not a farfetched proposal.
What remains is to link the stone architecture at Khami and that at Great Zimbabwe. We shall argue that the latter served as a site for the transfer of knowledge and skills, initially in situ that is at Great Zimbabwe between different peoples who occupied Great Zimbabwe prior to relocating to other parts of present day Zimbabwe.
Traditions of building in stone had been acquired, inherited and relocated with people moving away from Great Zimbabwe. For this as a possible theory, we shall turn to Chirikure et al.
