The Sunday News
Beyond the megaliths at Stonehenge, there are minor artifacts that demand explanation and ultimately interpretation. What would be considerably important is where the less monumental structures and artifacts complement the languages and meanings inherent in the megalithic structures. So far, we have been concentrating on the monumental stones with regard to their solidity, orientation to Mother Earth, emerging designs of the structures made out of these stones, the geological make-up of the stones and other attributes.
These colossal stone structures persuaded me to arrive at the conclusion that Stonehenge was essentially a ritual site linking the living and the spirits of the dear departed.
As we move on to identify, explain and interpret other materials on a lesser scale we shall keep our mind alert to intercept messages being projected by the lesser structures, including the artifacts and household items. Our interest lies in identifying commonalities in terms of primary messages and the inherent worldview that are represented through various artistic attributes such as decorative motifs, icons and symbols.
We shall seek to identify the symbolism, metaphor, representations, and meanings that they underpin. Our perspective and perception are that we do not expect contradictions on the operation of different structures to be at cross-purposes. On the contrary, these should promote and bring out the overarching theme for the broad cultural landscape.
Soon and very soon, we shall be interrogating the pottery excavated on the cultural landscape with a view to identifying and interpreting the designs that are carried by the ceramic pots. We are also interested in the funerary objects that were found on graves or tombs. The various artifacts that were excavated by the Riverside Archaeological Project are used to arrive at the possible cultural practices and through that process to decipher the messages inherent in material items.
In the end, material items, including stones, be they big or small, express some ideas or meanings. The concept of materiality comes into play where tangible items express intangible messages or meanings. This is what we have been engaged in all along. Material items are not an end in themselves. They help bring to the fore the intangible messages which are the more critical considerations and essence.
The worldview or beliefs identify items from the physical world and consider how to arrange the tangible items in such a way that they bring out the meanings and messages that are expressed and underpinned. In the built environment, a community’s cosmology and worldview find expression.
However, not just material items bring to the fore materiality. Cultural practices too, in their various manifestations, equally bring out underlying beliefs. Our argument is that a searching and objective scrutiny of a built environment provides some entry point into that community’s belief systems. Materiality resides in material items such as statues.
In this article, we look at one cultural practice and seek to show what the attendant death rituals and practices bring out.
More specifically, we shall deal with what are termed funerary objects. These material objects are placed on a deceased person’s grave. In Africa, clay pots were common as funerary objects. By observing a range of these objects, we are able to figure out the underlying belief systems. Where funerary objects are found on graves or tombs we are quick to conclude that the community being represented by the grave is of a people who posited the idea of Duality of Being.
In simple terms the community-embraced spirituality where an individual comprises material body and spirit. This is the idea of Duality of Being. Through the idea, death is not viewed as the end, but the beginning of eternal life in a spirit form in a spiritual realm. It is within this conceptual expression that Africa speaks of returning rather than dying. Death is a transformative process through which body and spirit separate.
Communities that embrace this belief system place emphasis on the role of departed ancestral spirits who abandoned their abode in human flesh. A journey is posited which a spirit undertakes. The journey has to have provisions in the form of food. The food or drink is that which part of a community’s culinary traditions. At
Stonehenge, traces of lipids were found in clay pots. Milk, especially in coagulated form, would have been placed in the grave together with the corpse.
It is important to realise that the material body is at that stage represented by bones that have some enduring attribute. It has been stated that Stonehenge was a burial site which made it a ritual site. The bones may be cremated or interred through inhumation. The burial practices at Stonehenge compare with those found in some parts of black Africa. We are thus able to work backwards and figure out the belief systems of the creators, builders and users of Stonehenge.
It was not a community guided by modern scientific principles. Instead, the community held a belief system that posited the existence and dependence on ancestral spirits.
It is precisely adherence to spiritual beliefs by the Stonehenge communities that present challenges in interpreting their beliefs and the megalithic structures that they built to underpin and inform their critical belief systems.
Modern scientists and archaeologists are schooled in scientific principles. In practical terms that means Africa is better poised to interpret Stonehenge.
The African Mind is easy to identify within the material, and by extension, the belief systems that are diametrically opposed to those of the ancestral ancients. On the other hand, Africa is still closer in terms of beliefs, to the ancient belief systems that were existed at Stonehenge just over 5 000 years ago.
Even today, funerary items are an integral part of Africa’s burial rites. Belief in the Duality of Being is still very much alive. A visit to their cemeteries in both urban and rural areas will provide evidence of belief in the Duality of Being.
Dishes, cups, mugs and other material items used by the deceased in life may be placed on the grave for use along the journey or at the final destination.
It becomes clear that the material items, both in black Africa and in Stonehenge, were used as provisions during the journey to the next world and as items that the dead used in life. New items get access to the profane world. It is only when the spirit of the dead returns that the items used in life are demanded and provided, this time as sacred items.
This is what has happened with trade goods such as tobacco, calico and beads. Ordinary people acquired them and when they died and were incarnated, they demanded those items that now assume a sacred character.
Spiritual essence excludes these new additions, initially to the material and later spiritual worlds. Material items do not constitute the essence of spirituality. They merely act as catalysts of spiritual potency. It should never be assumed that calico, beads and tobacco snuff are at the core of African Spirituality.
If anything, these reflect and testify to the dynamism within African Spirituality. When culinary traditions change, the spiritual level will reflect the change. Snuff, more than cigarettes, was used at the time of colonisation.
When a ZPRA or ZANLA guerrilla returns as a spirit, it is perfectly in order for him to demand an AK rifle. Would I not demand a typewriter or laptop that I have used for a very long time? These are ideas and practices rooted in a people’s worldview.
Africa and the Stonehenge people were no different in this regard. In fact, it was my identifying the African Mind at Stonehenge that persuaded me to take a keen interest in the iconic and enigmatic English World Heritage Site (WHS). My interest lay in seeking some better understanding of the operation of an African Mind. I have not regretted my taking that decision.
Before going any further, it might be prudent to observe and seek some explanation why black Africa has not had comparable megalithic structures as found in Europe, South America, Asia and Meso-America. That will be the focus of next week’s article.
