The Sunday News
Phathisa Nyathi
INDIVIDUALS perish, humanity is forever. Humans desire to live forever. There are folktales that help to explain this desire, such as the one involving a lizard (untulo) and a chameleon (unwabu) in Ndebele folklore. Humans gazed the cosmos and acknowledged that endlessness, beauty, movement, regularity and rhythm attended it. Therefore, humans sought to replicate the positive cosmic traits on the cultural front.
Through sexuality, humans are able to replicate their own kind. In order to achieve that, they are naturally endowed with certain body tissues that possess the capacity to replicate the human body. The result is the birth of children who grow to replace the aging human population. That anatomical ability to replicate allowed humans to attain eternity at the level of humanity. Though as individuals they perish, they are at the same time able to live relatively forever.
Humans knew the body tissues that were involved in replication, that is in sexual reproduction as a way of achieving eternity that they so desired. The two elements, male and female, are critically important traits that ensure the perpetuity of the human species.
Sexuality was thus embraced as one characteristic that humans possessed and used to ensure and guarantee endlessness, continuity, perpetuity and eternity in the context of human species.
Importantly, sexuality was resorted to in the material or biological form to replicate the humans. However, that was not all. The all-important biological process acquired relevance, application a and concepts of eternity and use at the level of symbolism, metaphor and imagery to bring forth the same ideas and concepts of eternity not just at the biological level but also at the cultural levels.
In that regard, sexuality, as represented by the biological and anatomical tissues, was infused into cultural actions and behaviours for the sole reason of representation and symbolisation of the ideas of eternity alongside other representations of the same elements, ideas and concepts. With regard to Stonehenge, there already were several representations of eternity, endlessness, perpetuity and eternity.
These were covered in earlier installations in the current series of articles. For purposes of reiteration and consolidation, we shall provide a quick rundown of some of these as relating to Stonehenge. First were the spirits associated with burials. Humans posited that a human being comprised the material component, the body that is perishable and the spirit whose life is eternal. This idea and role-played out in rituals associated with expressions of eternity. Duality of Being explains why burials assume an important role in ritualisation and veneration of the living dead.
Spirit is eternal. Sexuality complements the same idea that is already resident within the Stonehenge cultural and natural landscape. For the ancients, Stonehenge as a burial site was important within the context of their worldview to a point where the site, because of resident spirituality, was raised to the level of ritual veneration of religious and spiritual significance.
In addition to that, there was use of stone with its solidity and therefore symbolisation of the concept of eternity and endlessness. Rock is perceived as the rock of ages and has, on that basis, found life and currency in a song, “Rock of Ages.” Closely related to rock and wood was the idea of erection. The bluestones that were quarried in eastern Wales and transported to Stonehenge already existed as standing rock slabs found on the Preselli Hills.
San rock art depicts the same idea of erection where men’s sexual organs (penises) are painted and depicted as erect. Erection complements and is an integral part of sexuality. How feasible is sex in the absence of erectile strength?
The Law of Opposites applies in that context if sexuality is to effect human replication following sexual intimacy which relies on the Law of Opposite such as hard (read erect) and soft. We did, at the appropriate time; point out to the complementarity between spirituality and erection. Spirituality and sex were seen as linked and that was consummated within churches in days gone by.
The cave where King Mzilkazi kaMatshobana is buried has two vertical (erect) stones. The king’s eternal spirit is complemented by eternity of rock and the idea of erect rocks that symbolise eternity. The two concepts, spirituality and erection complement each other through reiteration to underpin and underscore the same idea- that of eternity.
We also referred to the language of stone as relating to its position relative to Mother Earth. In the initial stages of construction of Stonehenge, wooden poles were obtained from some distance for use in Stonehenge. The perfectly cylindrical wooden posts were dug into the earth (holes are implied) and the emerging overall picture is one of sexuality, between poles (males) and holes on earth (female) and therefore expression of eternity.
Even the stones that were used were arranged into a vertical (erect) design to express eternity through symbolised sexuality: male element represented by either vertical stone or vertical wooden post while the hole on earth represented the female element. It takes the two elements to effect the idea of eternity.
Free-standing and naturally occurring cylindrical stone pillars are found in many parts of the world and these assumed importance as representing and portraying sexuality, erect stone in hole (of the female Mother Earth.) This is a metaphor of sexuality and is associated with eternity.
These units of wood/stone-in-earth was repeated in a circular design. Stone or wooden circles were the result. Stonehenge had such circles, reiterated in the form of near-concentric circles. A circle has no end and no beginning and is thus a representation and symbolisation of eternity, the very same concept represented and expressed by sexuality.
Stonehenge represents reiteration and complementarity of related expressions, all pointing in the same direction, that of eternity, continuity, endlessness and perpetuity. Individuals perish; humanity is forever at the two tangible (material/physical) and intangible (spiritual) levels of existence.
Whichever way I try to perceive Stonehenge, I see veneration, ritualisation emanating from varied elements, both natural (cosmic and geological) and cultural. The phallic objects and representations of the female element belong in the combined biological/anatomical and cultural fronts.
Phallic objects represent human sexual tissues and that renders them biological. In terms of representation symbolic expression, they are rendered and derive meaning and interpretation within the cultural context, not in isolation but in a constant dynamically interacting relationship.
The Conical Tower at Great Zimbabwe is generally perceived in the same vein, as a monumental phallus built out of granite rock. The phallus is provided with anatomically and accurately positioned testes that complement and complete the picture of symbolised eternity, endlessness, continuity and perpetuity in a very vivid and explicit way in terms of mental/cognitive and physical/material senses.
The emerging picture from the presence of phalli and their biological counterparts is one of overall and overarching idea of sustenance which may be couched in terms of endlessness and related concepts. The idea and its application lives on in Africa and the emerging class of African entrepreneurs seek to traverse the sometimes-treacherous terrain of business growth, development and diversification. Faced with this type of challenge and steeped in African ideas of effecting sustenance, the business entrepreneurs revert to the traditional methods of attaining sustenance that may be viewed as fertility or sustenance.
Ritual killings are thus understood in the context of growing one’s business. Phalli grow the human population at the biological level, symbolically, and metaphorically at the cultural level to which business enterprises belong.
Ideas resident at Stonehenge still live on the African continent, albeit now applied to new endeavours, pursuits and fronts. What the phalli and their complementary female elements seek to achieve remains the same-attainment of fertility and eternity.
Nature is observed and identified for what it does and is then applied and given symbolic meaning and application at the cultural level.
Whilst sexuality may be viewed as a natural process this is not quite true. Different communities infuse culturally derived elements and perceptions that have a bearing on sexuality. In the last article, we observed that the Romans provided wings to the phalli that they interpreted as symbolising luck and fertility.
In the next article, we are going to interrogate the “wings” and look at them with perceptive eyes of the mind and unpack them within the African anatomical sexual behaviour. “Wings,” it shall be demonstrated, are an example of cultural intervention within the context of seemingly natural.
