adminPathisa Nyathi
Continued from last week
Food security improved with increased acreage. In some communities the hoe assumed such high value that it was used as lobola.
The adze (isancele) was used to fashion various artefacts such as milk pails (amathunga or iziganu), stools and headrests, (imithiya), knobkerries (izinduku) and the trimming of shields done by abasiki bezihlangu. The trimming of shields and other leather items was called ukuncela. An awl (usungulo) was used by women basket crafters. Men used a pincer (udlawu) to pick up burning embers to place in smoking pipes. Iron was also used in ornamentation. Men wore iron bangles and anklets. A drawing of King Lobengula shows one such ornament on his ankle. With a metal of such use there had to be places where iron was produced. Iron ore was available in specific areas and was transported to iron making sites. In the case of Umvutshwa Paul Hubbard the archaeologist informs us that iron ore was available just east of the royal satellite settlement.
In addition to the iron ore or iron oxide there was charcoal produced by partially burning inondo tree, a type of brachystegia.
The designs of the forges, that is the furnaces and the bellows was such that the process of procreation was symbolized. The clay forges were the more lasting components in comparison to the bellows made from skin. The clay pipe leading air to the furnace, as a result of firing-it was close to the furnace-was not easily perishable. The molten iron issuing from the furnace was symbolic of child delivery between the two legs of a woman. Scarifications symbolised the scarifications etched on the belly of woman. Iron ore and charcoal, carbon in chemical terms, were crushed and mixed (ukuvuba) hence umvutshwa, and packed into the furnace that is shaped like the part of woman that contains the all-important womb where continuity of the human species is facilitated.
Africans, including the Ndebele people, were preoccupied with attaining continuity which they understood to be achieved through sexual reproduction. This was the application of their cosmology to a newly acquired iron technology. It takes male and female endowed with specialized tissues to effect continuity through sexual reproduction. Foreign technology was appropriated and indigenised. The two skin bellows and the clay pipe (read penis) constituted the male side sexual organs.
The two skin bellows (read testes) were worked in such a manner that they symbolised sexual movements of the man. Such an industrial process symbolic of the sacrosanct sexual intercourse had to take place in privacy as happens in human experiences. It thus comes as no wonder that there was a secluded area where the forges were located. Where technology was not fully grasped cultural assistance was applied to enhance the process. Sexual reproduction was known to have succeeded in ensuring the continuity of the human species and hence likening an industrial process to it was one way of ensuring the process was a success.
On the basis of the two royal satellite towns of Emganwini and Umvutshwa, it does seem as if each had a distinctive industrial process associated with it. Emganwini specialised in leather craft where the making of shields and other leather products took place. Umvutshwa, on the other hand, specialised in iron making and smiting. Could there have been other satellite towns characterised by industrial specialisation where pottery and basketry were pursued? Only archaeological research will tell as oral traditions divorced from their spiritual archiving are handicapped.
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