GETTING into a cultural landscape or built environment is like undertaking a learning and illuminating journey into the minds of its creators, builders and users. As pointed out in the last article, the said cultural landscape expresses and represents the ideologies of the people concerned.
This is not surprising as people create, build and use a cultural landscape as they believe. The emerging physical picture is underpinned and informed by several intangible factors.
Essentially, what they build translates to a material product (tangible culture), which is underpinned and informed by the more fundamental and intangible factors. Some of these include a people’s cosmology, worldview, perceptions, beliefs and philosophy.
In this article, we continue with the influences of domestication on a built environment, with special reference to the Ndebele people in the 19th century. In last week’s article, we concentrated on the domestication of animals by what previously had been hunters, the menfolk. For penned livestock, we saw that cattle byres, isibaya for example, found appropriately positioned spaces within the existing built environment. While that was taking place, there were conditioning and ordering factors by way of several applied factors. In the end, the spaces reflected several ideas so that the landscape became a kaleidoscope of ideological ideas for the community.
The spaces were not uniform in terms of factors that influenced the cultural landscape. For example power, be it cultural, social, economic, spiritual or political was unevenly distributed. There were spaces that represented greater power than others did. At Old Bulawayo, for example, the Royal Enclosure where the King and Queens lived, was a product of spatial distribution of power as expressed in terms of size of the cattle herd, material possession (e.g. ox-wagons, different architectural designs (the royal storeroom and royal palace embraced and expressed a different architecture.) The buildings were rectangular with walls of fired bricks, something that was novel and restricted to the King who possessed the greatest power.
Further, the size of the cattle pen was the biggest within the cultural landscape, pointing to the economic power of the king in comparison to other heads of households. The palisade defining the Royal Enclosure was a double wooden palisade that bore testimony to improved security resulting from considerations where the King was seen as the state and the state as the king.
The ox-wagons were sheltered under a roofed rectangular structure (shed) whose floor plan was rectangular. Once again, the walls were made out of fired clay bricks. King Lobengula had seen the making and application of bricks during a visit to the nearby Hope Fountain Mission. As a result, it is possible to identify the arrival of a new and exotic culture with regard to the build environment. This may be because of new immigrants who possessed a different culture from elsewhere.
Sometimes, new ideas were innovated and applied through independent movements of ideas. New ideas may be incorporated into the already existing and formative ideas that affect the built environment. New ideas hardly completely overhaul old ideas, practices and ideologies. It may also be possible to link new ideas to a particular group of people.
At Old Bulawayo, European missionaries had set up base at Hope Fountain, eMthombothemba. These men on a religious mission belonged to the London Missionary Society (LMS), now referred to as the United Congregational Church of South Africa (UCCSA). A new architecture was introduced. That marked the beginning of the loss of independence in terms of materials that were used but also with regard to the defining designs that were adopted.
These became associated with new socio-political realities, statuses and were embraced by the emerging built environment.
There were, in addition to the LMS missionaries, the Catholic Jesuits from Belgium who arrived under the leadership of Fathers Depelchin and Croonenberghs. They arrived in 1879 as part of the Zambezi Missionaries, as part of a thrust to neutralise perceived warlike tribes that stood in the way of missionaries’ proselytising mission. They, like the LMS missionaries, brought new religious ideas and beliefs pertaining to architecture. Their impact was not confined solely to the religious sphere, but extended to other social and economic spheres such as cuisine, architecture, material culture and attire, among others.
Now, let us turn to the incorporation of agriculture into the emerging architecture. Women were gatherers of food as pointed out in last week’s article. Therefore, there already existed gender-based differentiation in economic activities. Women, from being associated with food gathering, became associated with food production, food processing, food storage and consumption. Some plants, grasses, legumes and runners were cultivated within cleared spaces near homesteads.
Modes of economic production translated to changes that were wrought on the cultural landscape or the built environment. In deciding where to assign spaces for the above-mentioned utilities, already existing ideologies were applied. For example, the rear section of a homestead was, prior to domestication of agricultural crops, already associated with women. The entrances were in the front part of the homestead, a male domain where men assured security and defence.
In addition, there were practical considerations that influenced the location of structures relating to the domestication of crops. Harvested crops were stored within the fenced rear section of a homestead. Within the built enclosures, izihonqo and iziza were provided with platforms where harvested crops were stocked. The structures were known as ingalane.
The domesticated grasses were sorghum, amabele, pearl millet, inyawuthi and finger millet, uphoko. Each type of crop was stocked separately on a wooden platform. These grain crops, which were cultivated on the African continent have been around longer than 5 000 years. An archaeological site known as Nabta Playa in Egypt, close to the border with Sudan, yielded carbonised seed remains for some of these crops. Some of the crops were taken across the Red Sea and introduced in India.
Isihonqo referred to the enclosure made out of cut tree branches. The spaces within izihonqo (the term is now associated more with the Seventh Day Adventist worshippers) are what are known as iziza. The created spaces have izingalane, the wooden platforms and spaces where threshing was done. These spaces were provided with central depressions on the floors to collect grain that had been separated from chaff and stalks. The process separated grain from chaff. Winnowing baskets, inkomane or izitsha, easy transport for witches and wizards, were used for the purpose.
Beyond this stage, the clean grain was stored in grass grain bins, izilulu. These too were located in the rear, ezibuyeni but nearer the line of kitchen huts, imikulu. Where the grain was stored was nearer the spaces where food was processed, within or just outside imikulu.
Imikulu were special structures for wives. Allocation of kitchen hut spaces was informed by the wives’ seniority that was not necessarily determined by order of marriage. A wife’s social and political status was determined by the political status of her father. Where royalty was concerned, such arranged marriages played other roles beyond mere child production. Marital arrangements were used to foster positive relations among nations. That resulted in the negation of conflict and wars amongst powerful tribes.
King Lobengula of the Ndebele people married one Queen Xhwalile Nxumalo a daughter of King Mzila, the King of the Shangani people in Gazaland (koGasa). Of course, ethnic affinity was an important consideration. At the same time, the marriage was to prevent clashes between Ndebele people and their fellow Nguni kith and kin originating from KwaZulu-Natal originally. Chief Xukuthwayo Mlotshwa of eNtembeni and Lotshe Hlabangana (uMdengehatshi) of Induba were dispatched to get the queen. Several head of cattle were driven there and presented to the Gasa King Mzila as amalobolo.
To further, cement the relationship of the two nations and their monarchs, Princess Mhlumela a daughter of King Lobengula was reserved for the Gasa queen. Unfortunately, Chief Gampu Sithole, chief of iGabha Village, eloped with the beautiful Princess to South Africa. Chief Gampu lived at Ndikimbela (eMagogweni) the administrative and political centre for the iGabha section of the Ndebele State.
Our interest here is how they reflected Ndebele ideas relating to the built environment. Considerations relate to allocation of spaces as depicted above and the reasons behind the allocation. In addition to spatial distribution, design had to be in line with known and pre-existing designs. For example, the grass grain bins were pear-shaped, that is essentially circular. Circularity was the characteristic of African design informed by the cosmos.
The adage, “As above, so below” was applicable. The stars, planets and moons are all circular in design and Africans sought to replicate these on earth, within the built environment and other arts genres. Besides, all the mentioned bodies rotated around their own axis. They also moved in circular or elliptical orbits. Indeed, the circular design is the basic building block, not only for our planet earth but also, the entire universe.
Where harvested crops were stored, other factors were considered in terms of avoiding spoilage. The wooden platforms were rested on large stone boulders. At the bases of the boulders, ash was added. Flowing water was kept at bay. At the same time, the new structures added to or altered existing social ideologies. This was an important consideration. In order to avoid spoilage, the platforms were raised above ground level with wooden pillars.
In the next article, we shall seek to unravel the role of African cultural astronomy in the context of a built environment. That will be done with regard to both forms of domestication. The heavens seem not to abandon us. In most cultural activities, they continue to play significant roles.