The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi, Cultural Heritage
A century ago, a man, Herbert Thomas, wrote that he had spotted dolerite bluestones that originated in the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire in Wales where, he suspected, had formed a venerated stone circle. At the time the man was not taken seriously. Only now is archaeological research confirming what he had observed.
Recently, a stone circle has been discovered a short distance from the Preseli Hills bluestone quarries. The bluestones were later dragged more than 140 miles to the Salisbury Plain where Stonehenge was constructed. Carbon dating of charred hazel nuts indicated that the blue stones had been quarried 400 years prior to the building of Stonehenge. The older stone circle in Wales was at Waun Mawun and was built about 400 years ahead of Stonehenge.
As argued in the last article, the stones were dragged over a long distance at a time when technology was less developed. This points to the fact that the bluestones were special, hence my assertion that the transporters were transporting much more that material stones but heritage. Today we take the stone narrative further to see how in Africa stones were put to use and the meaning attached to same. We start with the Egyptian pyramids, arguably the biggest stone monuments on the continent. They were built as tombs for the Egyptian Pharaohs. Remains of Pharaohs were placed in a chamber with pyramid writings on walls that included the ankh symbolising eternity — a circle and a cylindrical rod.
There was also present a tunnel aligned to a star. For our purposes in this article is the existence of the idea of Dual Being — a human consists of spirit and material body. This belief is the cornerstone behind efforts to interpret pyramids. We shall not go into details regarding the geometric measurements attending the megalithic monuments. In the chamber there were artefacts that were provided for the Pharaoh in the afterlife. As we shall see later as we begin to unpack Stonehenge, we are going to find funerary objects that were interred together with corpses. Clay pots were used to contain provisions for the journey.
We are going to argue that the idea of funerary objects which is still practised in black Africa to this day is testimony to the belief in Dual Being and that death separates the two components — with the material body remaining behind and spirit proceeding to the spirit world. A material body’s life in marriage with the spirit is transient and ephemeral.
The spirit which is eternal is released so that it begins a journey to the spiritual world. What this entails is the existence of spirituality beyond death. It does not make sense to refer to spirituality where there never was death. Spirituality is about divine bodies which live beyond death and continue to show interest in the well-being of their human progeny.
Incontrovertible evidence shows Stonehenge to be a cemetery. What is not well known is what rituals were conducted there. That there were people who conducted rituals on the site is agreed upon. What must then be surmised are the underlying beliefs. The dead are dead and their material bodies do not count for much to a point of being venerated. Veneration implies worship, adoration, reverence, admiration and regard.
Existence of power is acknowledged. Usually, it is the presence of spirit, detached and separated from a human being at the time of death which attracts this kind of veneration. From the very outset if we are to make some meaningful interpretation of Stonehenge, we need to acknowledge the presence of the idea, concept, presence and operation of spirits.
Beyond death, so believed the ancients regardless of where they lived, there were spirits whose lives are eternal and never ending. Transience which was associated with a living person has come to an end. Eternity of the spirit has taken over. It is this eternity which is expressed as the never-ending cycle of life and within whose context incarnation is understood and effected. We shall, at the appropriate time, provide some understanding of the existential cycle of spirit from an African perspective.
For now, let us relate death to the release of spirit which is characterised by eternity, continuity, endlessness, and perpetuity. What can represent these ideas of ancients better than stone, the rock of ages, and sexuality which has guaranteed the existence of the human race for millions of years from primitive man to the Homo sapiens? The stone circle is a chronometer which monitors the movement of celestial bodies for the sake of informing supplicants when to commence rituals.
Science and technology have a tendency of distancing man from matters metaphysical and spiritual. We however, need to be ever alert that people who lived 5 000 years ago possessed a world-view that was totally different from ideas held by today’s Western societies. Africa, on the other, still embraces ideas that are older than 5 000 years. It is this argument that convinced me to glean African cosmologies and apply them to Stonehenge in order to get into the minds of the Welsh ancients who created, designed and built Stonehenge and its Welsh predecessor in line with their beliefs which we shall argue were essentially spirit driven.
Spirituality, as the primary applicable narrative, has secondary narratives within the same cultural landscape which complement and render a holistic narrative which should emerge when interpretation has been meaningfully advanced.
Let us take a look at Ndebele graves and see whether there is something they share in common with Stonehenge. Indeed, there is. Within the Stonehenge cultural landscape there are long barrows which are characterised by mounds of earth. There are also circular mounds which are closer to the set up found among the Ndebele. The existence of barrows is as a result of beliefs.
The Ndebele could have decided to flatten their graves. However, they chose not to. We do however, see them flatten a grave when one of the twins was buried. Identical twins are one person. The surviving twin therefore should not be provided with a grave for he/she is still alive. Some rituals calculated at pacifying the departed twin were performed. A mound carries some special spiritual significance. A mound has a concave and convex sides. A buried corpse is on the concave side which, it is believed, exhibits some power.
On the earth mound stones are placed, intaba, as the Ndebele will refer to the stones. However, intaba is, in reality, referring to both earth and stones that together constitute a mountain, a miniature pyramid with erect headstones and footstones that express the idea of eternity and endlessness of the departed spirit, and not the bones that have been interred. Veneration and related rituals belong to the spirit and not the bones, the divorced partner of the never ending, eternal and perpetual spirit.
