The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi, Cultural Heritage
“They were not transporting stones. Rather, they were transporting heritage.”
I wrote these words in relation to the bluestones that were transported over a distance of 140 miles from Wales to Wiltshire (UK) in where Stonehenge was constructed over 5 000 years ago. It did not make sense to me that a people would arduously transport heavy stones from that far unless the stones were already imbued with some cultural or spiritual meaning.
Indeed, it has now been established that the stones had been part of a stone circle in Wales located about three miles from Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire where quarrying was undertaken. The bluestones were removed from a small monument to a bigger second hand one, the Stonehenge. I was right. The stones were more than mere material items.
They bore some cultural elements, materiality and the signatures of the stonemasons, spiritual individuals and supplicants at the stone circle. Only four stones remain at the original site in Wales.
The most prominent aspects of the colossal circle that is Stonehenge are the gigantic stones. It is thus appropriate that we begin the exercise of seeking interpretation and, at the same time, locating and identifying the African mind within the ionic monument.
There are several considerations regarding stones that we need to take on board if we are to meaningfully interpret the uses to which the stones had been put. Underlying ideas, concepts, beliefs, perceptions and knowledge have to be taken on board. When this is done, we are in a position to arrive at the general principles which we can apply to the Stonehenge cultural landscape and, indeed, other megalithic monuments.
The one attribute of stones to take into consideration and include during interpretation is physical magnitude. A similar structure resembling Stonehenge may be on a smaller scale and built using smaller stones. The type of stone may also count. Communities attach different meanings to different types of stones. It may all be about perceptions, but these count when it comes to choice of stones to use.
The stones may differ on the basis of how they were formed. As a result there are igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks, inter alia. These will differ in terms of visual appearance, aesthetic appeal, hardness and resistance to weathering and chemical degeneration processes such as oxidation.
Stones derived from rocks are natural and possess natural attributes as understood and appreciated by a given community. At a different level, stones may bear cultural attributes or traits which human beings have imbued them with. This happens to be the case with regard to the bluestones that were transported from Wales to England.
When human beings carve stones, transport them, position them, or turn them into a structure or sculpture as part of a built environment, their meaning and significance get altered. They become cultural items. They may, for example, be imbued with ritual or spiritual values, meaning, significance and importance.
Among the BaPfumbi of Beitbridge District in Zimbabwe, a stone was obtained from the belly of a crocodile, the community leaders’ totem of Ngwenya/Ngwena. The stone became imbued with the idea of continuity, eternity and endlessness on account of residing in the belly of a crocodile which, on account of its design, form and shape, exhibits the chevron pattern which is symbolic of perpetuity and continuity at the level of sexuality.
Each succeeding chief must swallow that original stone and retain it within his stomach. That way the ruling lineage acquires eternity derived from the stone which in turn derived it from the belly of a chevronic animal, a reptile. When a stone is extracted and hauled with immense difficulty over a long distance, its character is altered. Humans have inputted their energy and cultural signatures into the stones.
The bluestones were transported over 140 miles through challenging terrain over waters or land or both. This idea is observed when a patient receives some medicine from a traditional healer.
The two engage in some symbolic tug-of-war where they hold and pull the medicine in different directions. High spiritual potency has been transferred to the medicine and from the doctor to the patient.
An important consideration too is whether the stone lies on the ground or is standing upright. In nature there are single stone pillars that are found at different places. Such stones, upright or erect have a different meaning from similar stones that are lying flat on the ground. As will be expanded upon when we interpret the stone circles, a lone erect/standing stone pillar(approximating cylindricality) is associated with expressions of masculinity and patriarchy. More importantly the pillar, being cylindrical, symbolises a phallus, a male sex organ. The erect stone pillar is pushed into the ground.
There is a hole, albeit natural, that has been filled by the base of the stone pillar. A hole in the ground takes a different meaning altogether. Mother Earth is regarded as female. A picture of sexuality should emerge. And yet sexuality lies at the centre of the continuity of the human and other life species.
At the cultural level humans may obtain perfectly cylindrical wooden poles and insert then in circular holes that they have dug in the ground. The picture is pretty clear. We are going to find this when we interpret Stonehenge.
The symbolic arrangements described above may be termed as expressions of fertility/sustenance or representations of continuity and eternity. Already two forms of expressing eternity and endlessness have emerged: solidity of stone and symbolised sexuality. When we look at Stonehenge with the eyes of an African mind, we are going to see a lot of this type of symbolism that has to do with expressions of sexuality and hence continuity, perpetuity, endlessness and eternity.
The vital question is eternity of what? Whose eternity is being expressed or what is it that is being imbued with attributes of eternity within the stone circle?
The Law of Opposites is relevant here regarding holes (circular) and the stone or wooden pillars(cylindrical). Cylinder and hole are opposites. The cylinder must be hard, firm, strong and erect (ready to penetrate) while the hole must be soft (sometimes moist) and ready to be penetrated.
ChiShona language expresses these ideas well. When we superimpose ideas of circularity on what we have already pointed out, the ideas of eternity, continuity and perpetuity are reinforced and enhanced.
And yet this is what we are going to find at Stonehenge which is no more than stone circles with associated wood circles. Stones, standing stones in holes and circles speak the same language, the language that the African mind knows too well about.
