The Sunday News
Phathisa Nyathi
HOPEFULLY, we have sufficiently demonstrated the perversity of expressions of sexuality in the African world of culture. Our journey to Great Zimbabwe takes us to a colossal lithic cultural edifice of unique dimensions, making it second to the Egyptian pyramids also crafted out of stone.
Where the journey started there was one distinct theme, that of endlessness, eternity, continuity, perpetuity and immortality. The cosmos, thought to have been created out of a collapsed supernova, is no less than 14 billion years, making it look like, in human terms, eternity.
Upon viewing the location of the cultural edifice, near a river and located on a rocky mountain, we came face to face with the same cosmic theme at the level of physical landscape. The enduring theme was that of endlessness and eternity symbolically realised through images of a river (male) and the mountain (female).
This amounts to continuity concretised through sexuality or sexual reproduction. Nearer home, it would seem, the cosmic theme of continuity is realised through sexuality.
This is true at both the biological level but also symbolically or metaphorically at the level of physical environment. “As above, so below.”
However, it is important to realise that at home, that is on earth, the two forms of attaining continuity exist side by side. What is found at cosmic level is equally found at the level of earth. It is continuity that is attained through resistance to weathering and erosion and rhythmic movement. In addition, there also exists human sexuality as the basis of attainment of continuity.
The African, aware and desirous of the need to attain continuity for the human species, superimposed his biological attributes of sexuality on to the physical plane — thus seeing male and female elements in the physical environment around him. This is what we observed regarding the river and the mountain as metaphors of sexuality.
As we arrive at the intended destination of our journey, what we seek to identity are representations and expressions of the identified cosmic theme and the metaphors of human biological attributes of sexuality which lie at the root of continuity, endlessness, eternity and immortality. Usually, at the human level, we may apply the term fertility.
At the level of human endeavour, such as in business enterprise, we may use the term sustainability. Interpretation of ritual murder or ritual killing is possible only when we appreciate that sexuality lies at the root of fertility and eternity which amounts to sustainability.
Ritual killing, as we have stated before, hinges on the killing of mature reproductive individuals, not children or old people. Virility is of the essence.
This is to say it must be an individual with the biological capacity to replicate himself/ herself. In human bodies there are specialised tissues that are endowed with the capacity to replicate themselves — these are sex organs. By now it ought to be apparent why those killed for ritual purposes are found with missing genitals.
These are the organs endowed with powers of replicability, an attribute missing from all other human organs. We have, time and again, emphasised the need to get into the minds of Africans to begin to understand the cosmological underpinnings that inform condition and guide their cultural practices.
At Great Zimbabwe, are we going to see both forms of attaining continuity, as found in the cosmos and also in human beings and other forms of flora and fauna? We should, at this juncture, point out that we are going to rely on the work of archaeologists as their profession — archaeology, is an exact science.
In addition to the evident mammoth architectural structures, we are going to focus on some finds that archaeologists retrieved during their excavations. We have no doubt that some of these artefacts will complement the bigger and more visible architectural structures.
The micro-level, we posit, reflects the macro-level. Our experience has demonstrated that the outline and gendered sites of an African house replicate similar outline of the African homestead. This happens to be true at even higher level. Our own bodies are micro-replicas of the cosmos, representing its operations/ workings and replay of its origins.
There shall come a time when the generality of humankind will appreciate that the evolution of the cosmos is played out in the biological process from fusion of the sperm and ovum to form a zygote. The environment is liquid and after sometime, life exits the fluid environment to continue in the external environment. Does this not resemble the evolution of life on the planet?
Our reliance on archaeology is not going to enslave us to a point where we interpret Great Zimbabwe through western cultural interpretive paradigms. Interpretation is a totally different field which should be guided and informed by a thorough and intimate understanding of the African mind.
African Thought lies behind what has been created by Africans. African Cosmology has to come in at the level of interpretation after Archaeology has brought to the surface what lay below hidden in the stratigraphies.
We are very alert that initial archaeological research was undertaken by a people who did not share the same cosmology as builders of the cultural monument. We are aware too that the excavators did not end with retrieval of artefacts but went on to interpret the monument. We do not doubt it at all that their interpretations were masked by their understanding of the world and their cultural and cosmological backgrounds and world-view.
More importantly, their traditions of scholarship ensured their cultural spectacles were worn by their successors. This was achieved through literature review where a new generation of researchers has to read and cite their literature, more so if they are to get post-graduate university qualifications.
The past weighs heavily on the present and will continue to do so until a new generation of researchers emerges, a generation that will rebel against western traditions of scholarship and academy which are culture-specific and begin to see things from an Afro-centric perspective and be thoroughly unapologetic about their stance.
That time and that group of liberated researchers shall certainly come! Those shall be a new crop of researchers that will rid themselves of cultural blinkers and academic shackles and begin to see the Africa past in its true perspectives.
Before we delve into the perceived intricacies of Great Zimbabwe let us acknowledge that at the visual level Great Zimbabwe seems somewhat unique in comparison to other Zimbabwe type monuments.
The Great Enclosure, down below the Hill Complex structures, seems to dwarf the latter. If this monument represented a settlement with a king it would not be in line with known African ideas and dictates regarding settlement of royalty in relation to commoners.
The African King’s socio-political and economic status is expressed through altitude (physical height). Why is the Great Enclosure, the single largest structure in the complex situated below the Hill Complex structures which enjoy higher altitude? Elsewhere the top most structure is unrivalled by any other. This happens to be the case at the Khami Monument which is thought to be the seat of the breakaway Togwa/ Torwa State.
The presence of a monumental conical tower seems unique and not replicated at any other Zimbabwe type cultural edifice.
Why is this so? Quite a number of Zimbabwe Birds were retrieved from Great Zimbabwe and we are not aware that similar artefacts were retrieved elsewhere from among the several hundreds of Zimbabwe type monuments scattered at several places in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. Why is this so? Later we shall show other artefacts that were retrieved from Great Zimbabwe and do not seem to have been retrieved at other stone wall monuments.
For us the paramount question is whether or not these finds will reinforce the emerging theme resident at Great Zimbabwe.
