Journey to Great Zimbabwe: The chevron pattern, a snake that never was
WE continue to scrutinise and interrogate the chevron motif to see why we think it is not symbolic or expressive of a snake. The Great Zimbabwe crafters, accomplished artists, were indeed polished and elegant in their work. Looking at the Zimbabwe Bird, which will be a subject for investigation in future articles, we see the artists executing a bird with a head. We can thus surmise that when they did not produce a snake without a head, it was deliberate. They were not executing a snake but something without a head and without a tie. If they had wished to effect a representation of a snake, they certainly would have produced a tapering body towards the tail end. They did not do so because they were not drawing a snake but a part of the body of woman, one that is associated with sexuality and hence continuity, eternity and endlessness of life.
Further, in some drawings and fabric designs, the chevron pattern is produced with blobs directly above the down-facing apex. Once again, we see artistic execution of anatomical accuracy. One only needs to look at the body of a woman where her belly button is. Indeed, it is directly above the apex of her isosceles triangle or open-V. If the chevron pattern is a snake, how do we explain the presence of the blobs outside the body of a snake? We note that the Zanu-PF party fabric did have these blobs in their chevron designs, blobs which were accurately depicted and positioned. The question may be, “Did they fully comprehend the powerful Pan-African message that they were depicting, expressing and conveying?” We note that there are many designers such as those who designed the Zimbabwe national flag who are not conscious of the message inherent in their graphic designs. The same goes for women who produce exquisite designs on their hut walls. Virtually all of them have no clue of the expressed meanings. For them the motifs and patterns were passed down to them by their mothers and grandmothers. The beauty in the designs is appreciated, but not the inherent messages that are effortlessly conveyed.
As pointed out above, the chevron is a fertility symbol or motif or icon and has been reconfigured to effect variety and avoid monotony. It and its variants are all messages that are inspired by and expressive of the body of woman where sexuality is the enduring theme. Reconfigured motifs that express the same theme as the chevron symbols are the dentelle, the herringbone and chessboard (with an imaginary line running from one corner to another). All of them are expressions of female sexuality and carry the message of continuity, eternity and endless as expressed within the context of sexual reproduction. Individuals perish, humanity is forever. Presupposed in and underlying this statement that I crafted many years ago, is reliance and dependence on sexuality to attain the condition of endlessness.
The perversity of sexuality is not confined to nature. Its symbolic dimension is replicated within several media on the cultural plane. Embellished or decorated ilala baskets, hut walls, gourd calabashes, clay pots, leather skirts, eggshells, horn and ivory crafts and several other media all bear the chevron pattern. We have to pose the question, “Why this is so?” The chevron pattern, more than any other expression of sexuality, is dominant on the cultural front. Its variants are less pervasive but also prevalent all the same. The female variants are found at other Zimbabwe type cultural edifices. Male symbols are less prevalent, particularly in colossal structural forms as found at Great Zimbabwe. Can we not conclude that this is as a result of Africans’ recognition of the fact that women play a greater role in effecting the process of continuity considering that fertilisation of the ovum by the sperm takes place within their bodies? Are the growing zygote and embryo not fed within the specialised tissues, namely those found in the womb? Is the womb not adapted to absorb shock through the amniotic fluid? Is it not the womb that screens infrared and ultraviolet radiation? The growing foetus is nourished within the placenta in the womb. Certainly the role of women is undoubtedly greater than that of men. When the baby is born, it is the woman who suckles it.
What emerges is that so far, sexuality has been identified within the Conical Tower which is symbolic of the male sex organ provided with two testes in stone. Now we have just identified sexuality within a part of the Great Enclosure wall, the chevron pattern consisting of units of a chevron motif which is a fertility symbol. In both instances, the message is one of continuity, eternity, endlessness, immortality and perpetuity.
At the non-sexual level, we have identified the circle and its related circularity and posited that a circle has no beginning and no end. That way, it is expressive of the same concepts of continuity, eternity, endlessness, immortality and perpetuity. Stone underscores the same theme on account of its solidity. It is rock of all ages as it withstands rapid weathering and erosion. Thus so far, we have two instances at the level of sexuality where the messages of continuity and endlessness or fertility are expressed. At the levels of form or design and nature of material used, the same concepts of continuity and endlessness are expressed. There is thus beginning to emerge some common theme, that of continuity, endlessness and eternity. However, this is not all, as we still have a lot more issues to dissect analyse and interpret beyond form or design, nature of material, chevrons and the phallic object in the form of the Conical Tower which German geologist Karl Mauch mutilated in the vain hope of finding gold as he was totally blind to the identity of the mammoth lithic structure, let alone the underlining symbolism and its interpretation, much as we still can’t figure out messages that reside in artistic renditions and Great Zimbabwe.
The colossal dressed stone walls have been explained as symbolising political power and socio-economic status. In the intended tradition of exclusivity and primacy of literature review, we have all fallen for that. If researchers X, Y and Z have said it, who am I to go against the grain? What a beautiful way of controlling scholarship and academy? Did the mighty pyramids express power or they merely were structures celebrating transition from and transformation of life on the earth to the spiritual plane where the desired state of eternal life is effected? Have Africans not posited that life does not end at death? Life on earth is ephemeral while that on the spiritual plane is more eternal. Eternity and continuity are not confined to life on earth but these are concepts that embrace and extend to the spiritual plane which is “nonsensical” in the minds of those who claim science as the only methodology that adds knowledge. Life at spiritual level enters the earth or material realm where duality is effected-spirit and flesh strike a link which subsists till at death. Successfully exiting the earth is worth celebrating and, as a result, Egyptians celebrated it by building gigantic stone structures, the pyramids, Africa’s biggest monuments.
Those who have been successfully born cannot, before attaining biological maturity, power the eternal cycle of life. They have to be painstakingly and carefully nurtured while nature takes its course. Once they attain the all important stage of biological maturity, they are, for the first time since birth, in a position to power the eternal cycle life. Implied in the concept of eternity. This is the stage where sexuality translates to continuity, eternity, endlessness, perpetuity and immortality. Only now are they ready for marriage, that social institution within which continuity is concretised. The question is, “How did Africa deal with such an important stage. If the stage was not supported and attended to in a pedagogical sense, disaster would result with the eternal cycle of life threatened with discontinuity.
We still have to interrogate the narrow passage that leads into the Great Enclosure and pose the question, “Why is the narrow passage limited to the point of entry and not exit?” What are we to read of the short towers on the walls both on the Great Enclosure wall and also on the walls on the Hill Complex? What about the crocodile, does it carry some significant message? We may have to turn to the chiefly succession practices of the Bapfumbi in Beitbridge to learn something. The journey continues and, so it seems, is not about to end.