Consuption of enduring evidence of Africa’s migration from martriarcy to patriarchy
Inhloko:
A COW walking past invokes many images to the traditional African. On the one hand, it is meat on the hoof. On the other, it represents a myriad of mobile cultural expressions. It bears a cultural scape which is closely linked to a people’s socio-economic and political cosmology. Its various body parts or cuts represent social sectors which are an ideological construct.
In its complete wholeness, the beast is perceived and differentiated as either male or female. The common practice when a head of household, invariably a man dies, the beast that is slaughtered is male. Further, the male is a bull. The deceased is seen as symbolising a bull, the head in the cattle pen. A bull accompanies its counterpart-the human bull. With the cattle byre being the most important cultural landscape within a home on account of its attendant spirituality and economic importance, the human bull had his remains interred either within the cattle kraal or very close to it. The theme of headship is being reinforced.
On the other hand, when a woman dies, a female beast, or cow is slaughtered for consumption as ingovu. Like a woman, like a cow, seemed to be the idea among the traditional Ndebele. A female beast accompanies a female human being. Equally, the site for burial is female. A homestead is a gendered space. The front, which includes the cattle byre is, regarded as the domain for men — hence the burial of the family head within that male site.
Women’s area within a homestead was the rear part where kitchen huts and granaries were located. Here a woman’s labour id stored and, within the same site, she will process the grain and prepare food for her family. That was her area in life and also in death. The feminine theme was not only expressed in the sex of the animal that was slaughtered but also in terms of gendered space — the rear, which she used as the ablution area. Her place in life became her place in death.
Beyond the sex of the beast the various cuts expressed ideas concerning one’s age, sex, socio-economic status and indeed, political standing in the community. Those who were tasked with the responsibility of coming up with socially recognised beef cuts were expected to be precise on the job: ukwehlukanisa imbambo lomgogodla, for example. Elderly men lament the fact that these days a beast is butchered without adherence to known and accepted practices.
Today we begin with inhloko, the head of a beast. Normally a head is referred to as ikhanda, but when it is to be consumed; it assumes a new name — inhloko. In days gone by inhloko was disaggregated in a special way, unlike today when the skull alone is considered as constituting inhloko. There was an obvious link between this particular cut and those who consumed it. Inhloko was solely reserved for the male folk — the elderly ones at that. These were men who were heads of families. This is to say heads (of families) ate heads of beasts.
When the beast was slaughtered for some ritual purpose, the horns still stuck to the front part of the head, isiphaqa, were placed on roofs, directly above the entrance, umnyango. One of Queen Lozikeyi Dlodlo’s kitchen huts had some horns placed above the entrance, indicating spirituality that still obtained during her time. It was regarded as taboo for women to eat inhloko in those days. They were not heads of households or families and there were no womenheaded households (imizi yabomazakhela) at the time. An unmarried woman lived in her father’s home or that of her brother.
Consumption of inhloko by men represented the migration of Africa from a matriarchal worldview to a patriarchal one. “Belief in and worship of the universal Virgin Mother is the basis of the African matriarchal worldview, which was uprooted by the colonialist religions, and substituted with the patriarchal worldview. This patriarchy now dominates modern Africa. The Book of Horus Khem records that everything came from the One, and that the Mother is the Moon (Ma/Maia) and the Father is the Sun (Ra), the union (Mara/Maria)between the moon and the sun resulted in the formation of the earth, which is of the same substance as the universal Virgin Mother, and therefore also referred to as Mother Earth(Kumara or Tamera),” writes Dr Mathole Motshekga of the Kara Institute in Pretoria, South Africa.
The area where African matriarchy was practised covers Sudan, Abbysinia (Ethiopia, including Axum and Nubia) and Egypt. These were the areas that were invaded by both Christianity (the Coptic Church) and later Islam. Interestingly, African decorative motifs still bear evidence of a matriarchal worldview. These motifs are found on utility and aesthetic objects and architectural structures such as houses. The circle, the chevron and its variants such as chessboard, herringbone and the dentele, represent femininity and are the dominant motifs at Great Zimbabwe and other Zimbabwe tradition settlements such as Khami, Natetale, Zinjanja and Danangombe.
At the time when these monuments were built men were already the ones that exclusively consumed inhloko. Men had become bosses and there is structural and/or architectural evidence for that. The conical tower at Zimbabwe, and replicated at the Harare International Airport, stands high testimony to overarching patriarchy, it being a symbolism of a phallus or male sexual organ. That it is located within the massive circular royal enclosure (female) was no accident! Further, men or rather chiefs and kings, adopted scepters as items symbolising royal power and authority. They held these in their hands.
All this is symbolic language. Men assumed that their newly acquired power resided in their male sexual organs. The scepter, being cylindrical like the man’s phallus, represented migration from matriarchy to patriarchy. When chiefs hold scepters, they are in actual fact wielding symbolised organs or the bases for their power. This is how Africa makes use of symbolism, in particular when dealing with issues morally and ethically taboo.