Cultural Heritage with Pathisa Nyathi
SOME of us seem to enjoy engaging in vexatious and sometimes contentious philosophical issues. Through such intellectual engagements and discourses, we push back the horizons and vistas of knowledge and understanding.
A young Marima who I was meeting for the first time seemed to strike me as a liberated African with a deep and incisive understanding of African philosophy and thought. He was sprucing up his book with Blessing Chirandu on marriage and sex within a Christian context.
I chipped in with the observation that sex in Africa is fast becoming purely and wholly a natural and biological phenomenon as exemplified in a bull-cow relationship. It was not so in days gone by.
There were strong elements of a cultural dimension, some of which dimensions will explain and interpret what we have come to perceive and understand as the Zimbabwe Bird.
The absence of understanding and comprehension of these cultural dimensions within the sexual field will leave many engaging in futile debates regarding what we know as the Zimbabwe Bird, arguing whether it is a hungwe (a fish eagle) or a chapungu, another eagle specie.
In this article, we shall not delve into the intricate and art-inspired arguments relating to a bird that never was and still never is. The mind of an artist is complex and perceives what average persons visualise with physical eyes. Mental eyes see beyond the horizons and through thick walls.
The identity of the Zimbabwe Bird is dealt with more definitively in my book, “Journey to Great Zimbabwe” within the context of the initiation and puberty processes and procedures of the secretive BaRemba people who today are found among various ethnic groups such as the Karanga, Manyika, Venda, Kalanga, Nambya and Ndebele, inter alia.
Of relevance and significance in this article is what Marima referred to as the orange fruits in an orange seed. He was expressing in a different vein what I have, for a very long time, been espousing. I thought that was profound and resonated well with some concepts that I have unpacked in the past: continuity, eternity, perpetuity and endlessness.
A seed caries the future, pushes a given specie into the future, and increases its population both in the present and the future. Somehow, I began to link that with the theme that I am dealing with-domestication of plants and animals.
It is thought that domestication of both plants and animals began about 10 000 years ago between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia.
Modern countries in the said region include Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Domestication was an economic and social revolution whose repercussions on society was deep-seated and wide ranging. Plants and animals were domesticated for food, work (beasts of burden) clothing, medicines and, indeed, many other utilities.
When some of the domesticated species were brought home and tamed, they lost independent existence that they used to enjoy in the wild. Instead, man had to take care of the domesticated species, feed and water them. Further, the animals in particular required housing. The homestead-scape required modification to incorporate new arrivals.
New ideologies were created and fashioned in such a way as to dovetail seamlessly with existing or living ideologies. African thought had its horizons and vistas extended. Its operation was observable through the conduct of cultural practices, which stood on the pillars of thought, cosmology, worldview, perceptions and values. When these pillars begin to wobble, the centre can no longer hold. Things begin to fall apart.
Housing that was constructed, for example, tallied with living architectural traditions of the community. Circularity reigned supreme. It was a concept inspired by the heavens-the cosmic bodies in terms of their design, elliptical orbits and cyclicality.
The influence of cosmic bodies on earth’s cultural designs, movements and rhythms (seasonality, periodicity and regularity) endured. “As above, so below” as an Africa-wide adage had its relevance and application persisting. There was thus relevance in terms of African cultural astronomy.
Emergence of heightened agricultural practices demanded more intimate knowledge of seasonal cycles and, therefore, the onset of the rains. For an orange seed to sprout, it must grow, develop and mature to a point of production of orange fruits with their own seeds, water has to be available. Watering and irrigation were embraced and both depended on rain coming from the atmosphere.
The green chlorophyll in the leaves linked the heavens and earth in terms of sustenance of life on the planet. It always strikes me that at one point the heavens and earth were united.
Despite the separation that later took place, some critical links were retained. As a science teacher, I knew and taught secondary school pupils about chlorophyll and that it trapped energy in the form of light emitted by the sun. However, I was not as alert to the phenomenon as I am now. With age, insights develop and our understanding of issues increases.
Where Marima and I seemed in agreement was the realisation and recognition that our planet and indeed the multiverse are essentially about energy. When it is said, “In the beginning there was the word,” it makes more sense today than in the years of my youthfulness. Word is sound. Word is message. Word is power. Word is force. In fact, it is pulsations of patterned energy.
This awakening only got to my mind this year when I was working on a traditional dance called Mhande of the Karanga people. It is this year’s national dance.
In fact, I soon realised that what matters more is energy rather than things material and physical. The latter store energy. They will also transform energy that is indestructible. Things material affords us to access energy, such as when energy flows through metal conductors. That way, we are able to control energy and have it do work for us. Technology and techniques ought to be perceived against such realisations.
I am all the wiser and more informed and ready to tackle Ancient African Science (AAS) from which both the so-called witches and traditional healers draw their inspiration, power and professional practices. I was pleasantly intrigued to learn that the so-called witches and wizards draw on the energy of a whirlwind that is imparted on the leaves that were airborne and later settled on the ground.
There is energy in moving air. It is kinetic energy. The leaves that have been lifted high are symbolically imbued and endowed with that strong power that it will blow away roofs of buildings.
This form of energy is complemented with energy from the spirit of a witch. Further, words are uttered and these are ritually imparted with energy from numerous sources. Ritual songs are sung and the collected leaves are treated in a manner that seeks to infuse their acquired energy into a winnowing basket or any chosen vehicle that meets the requisite design. Aeronautical qualities are important in flying. For me, it was a good start in terms of unearthing the laws and principles applicable in the science and craft of witchcraft.
Once agriculture is embraced as a pursuit, theory and practice, cultural astronomy comes in with greater emphasis. Both plants and animals thrive on water that is perceived as life.
The component of water in plants and animals is no less than 90 percent. Agricultural enterprises influenced the location of settlements. Guaranteed and regular supplies of food negated sedentary life styles. Civilisations grew where there were food supplies. No wonder therefore, locations of agricultural settlements were near water bodies, such as big rivers.
The Nile, Niger, the Indus and Ganges rivers are examples of rivers where human settlements sprouted and were sedentary because of the availability of water for irrigation of crops. Inevitably, population densities increased.
Trade with areas of deficit food production was stimulated. Where life was no longer precarious because of availability of food in the wake of domestication, other fields of human endeavour increased. Metallurgy, Alchemy, Mathematics, Geometry, Astronomy, Philosophy and Astrology received greater emphasis and impetus. It was time for discoveries and innovative and creative citizens had time to devote to experimentation.
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New ideologies led to the questioning of hitherto existing myths as Science was taking hold. Rationality was the way to go. Goats were the first to be domesticated and were closely followed by sheep (Ovis aries). Chickens (Gallis domesticus) were domesticated in South East Asia.
Later, the bigger animals were next to be domesticated. Oxen (Bos taurus), horses (Equus ferus cabalus) were domesticated for use as beasts of burden. The horses and other big animals required housing and their domestication inevitably wrought changes in the homestead’s physical and cultural scapes in terms of considerations such as gender, political power, age and spirituality in terms of the built environment.
Herbivores were preferred. Whatever the traits of a domesticated animal, the interests of humans were paramount. Their temperament was an important consideration too. Ability to breed in captivity equally applied when it came to choosing a particular specie. Some animals were chosen for domestication because of their adaptation to climate, availability of their food and their temperament.
The dog (Canis lupus familiaris) were domesticated to assist humans (in particular the menfolk) in hunting. However, hunting and gathering were on the wane. The dog soon began to assume a new role. It became a pet. Further, the dog entered the spiritual dimension and featured prominently in myths and spirituality in areas such as Egypt.
Tools have always been handy when it comes to the practice of agriculture. Hand tools predominated in the early days. When iron smelting and iron working were innovated, new agricultural tools emerged.
The tools, for example the hand hoe, were no longer wooden ones. Instead, they were fashioned out of iron. Later, ploughs were innovated and domesticated animals such as horses drew these.
Horses played an important role in the colonial projects of Africa. Colonists rode on horses and thus were faster and outpaced African foot soldiers. Horses were ridden to mark the boundaries of farms during pegging. The colonial project minus the horses would have assumed a different character.
