Traversing food landscape: Seeking a more intimate understanding of a people
Cultural Heritage
Pathisa Nyathi FOOD is the mirror of a community. There are many routes one can take to get some appreciation of a particular community. One such route is archaeology which is an exact science and concerns itself with settlements, among numerous other sites, some of which may have been abandoned. Even here food may be a pointer to a community’s way of life. Carbonised grain has been unearthed from some archaeological sites, eg at Mapela not far from the Shashane River. Researchers are able to analyse finds and arrive at some conclusion regarding the type of grain that the community consumed.
Structures used for grain storage may also be detected, for example at KoBulawayo (Old Bulawayo) stone cairns were identified in the rear section of the Royal Enclosure. Stones, depending on their chemical composition, will resist weathering. Stones are associated with solidity. The grass grain bins are more perishable and evidence of their existence is destroyed. Through both historical and ethnographic studies researchers are able to arrive at materials that no longer exist, provided finds give some clues.
Decay of clay is not as quick as that of grass and wood. While this is particularly true of fired clay, even unfired clay will endure a little longer than both wood and grass. Against the background of knowledge regarding village structure, it can be deduced whether surviving clusters of clay are indicators of granaries or not. Where wooden pestle and mortar were used these items, being fashioned from wood, are perishable. By and large, they will not be picked up by researches.
Where stones were used to grind grain, stones are invariably picked up whether by means of excavation or geophysical surveys. This was the case at KoBulawayo ( Enyokeni) where hollowed out and nearly hollowed out grinding stones were found. The presence of such stones is a pointer to the fact that the community at KoBulawayo used to grind their grain. We may not tell, merely on the presence of grinding stones, the sort of grain that the community cultivated. On this evidence alone, we may not even tell whether the grain was imported from elsewhere, through barter, raids or tribute. At the same time we should be alert to the fact that stones were used to grind tobacco. We know the Shangwe people ( Abasankwe) in Gokwe ( KoNyoka) were cultivators of fine quality tobacco which they brought to Matabeleland to sell but also as tribute.
Quite an assemblage of bones, both burnt and unburnt, was unearthed at KoBulawayo. Again, there are zoologists that are able to identify bones and link them to various fauna. Some faunal remains were traced to leopards, lions, vultures and wild dogs even. Where some were found burnt it may have been because the village was razed on the instructions of King Lobengula Khumalo when he relocated in 1881. Chief of chiefs Magwegwe Fuyane complied and had the town burnt down. Unburnt bones were mostly those that did not constitute the diet of the Bulawayans.
Perceptions are used as filters during the process of choosing what constitutes food and what does not. Bones that were burnt belonged, in the main, to the cosmological realm of the Ndebele people with regard to food. For a people who believed in “witchcraft,” it was important to destroy all links between people who had relocated and their material traces within the town. Items touched by relocated settlers bore their fingerprints or signatures. Such items, in the hands of malevolent people with requisite knowhow could be symbolically manipulated to bring about destruction to former settlers.
History records that King Lobengula Khumalo did, at some specific time of year, torch all gathered bones. The resulting bonfire destroyed material infused with signatures of former inhabitants. All these cultural practices that archaeological research brings forth should always be interpreted against the cosmological matrix of the community concerned. Both history and archaeology may not always be in a position to explain and interpret some cultural phenomena, especially cosmologies that spawn cultural practices.
Cattle products were an important source of food, food that should not always be understood as historical objects with economic value, but also as cultural objects with a perceptual property. Food thus brings together the arts, humanities and cosmology of a people. Food is a mirror of a community and is one aspect that when studied objectively with empathy, will throw some useful spotlight that enhances knowledge of the targeted community. For the Africans in particular, the cosmos is captured within food — especially with regard to the manner in which food is prepared, served and consumed. Knowledge of nature and the universe influences the various aspects of the food matrix.
For the Africans, this is true even of their hairdo, the patterns on their embroidery, decorative motifs on their hut walls, clay pots and other artefacts. Body art is no exception. The Ndebele who practised facial art, ukubhuda, executed designs that they inherited from earlier generations and they were not in a position to explain, let alone interpret, the meaning inherent in their artistic renditions. This is what has been referred to as embodied knowledge which may not be intellectually pinned down. Their rituals and ceremonies equally bore evidence of their knowledge and understanding of the cosmos.
There were many cosmic attributes that Africans gleaned from through observation. The universe represented harmony, endlessness, circularity in design, constant motion (both rotation and revolution along elliptical orbits) characterised by rhythm (predictability, seasonality and periodicity), mutual attraction (force of gravity) and clustering. These and other observed characteristics manifested themselves in many cultural aspects of an African community. Burials required some knowledge of the cosmos. The exiting spirits needed guidance to a particular constellation.
While for some south-eastern Asian people rice is regarded as their culinary icon infused with a lot of their worldview, for the Ndebele the counterpart of rice was beef. Cattle played an important role in the lives of Ndebele people. Beef was consumed for its nutritional value and yet its consumption was not wholly a biological activity. Protein and lipids (fats) were extracted from beef but also from blood-derived dishes and milk. Many dishes were prepared from these three basic components of cattle. This was in addition to the other roles of cattle such as in the economic, social and spiritual realms. Cattle were a measure of a man’s social, political and economic worth or status. Well to do men were able to marry royal daughters and in most instances were already chiefs who got a lion’s share of booty from raids, booty that included cattle and captives.
More importantly however, is the appreciation that food from cattle did not merely provide food needed by the body to function well and ward off diseases and boost immunity. Food existed in both the physical realm and equally, if not more importantly, in the cosmological realm. This realm is broad and diverse and leads to various taboos, with a bearing sex, age group and socio-economic and political status. It is within this realm that the worldviews of a particular community is unravelled. Operationalised worldviews and values define a people and give them their critical and unique identities.
Perceptions and thought, even in relation to food, are not independent of the cultural, but more specifically, the cosmological environment. The Royal Enclosure, isigodlo, was the abode of the royal elite, the king and his queens and their assistants. A study of faunal remains should confirm that. The Commoners’ Enclosure would not be expected to yield the same faunal finds. So, in the final analysis, whichever cultural route we choose to follow, it should provide some aspects of the cosmology of a people and help enhance our understanding of the people in question. Every community resides in their food wherein lies their unique signature by which they are identified.