Journey to Great Zimbabwe: Identifying expressions of what lies at the centre of clitoridectomy
Cultural Heritage
Pathisa Nyathi TODAY we take a joyride on the curious Zimbabwe Bird as we seek to land on the stone wall of the Great Enclosure and figure out what builders and sculptors were up to. However, what we surmise and figure out should be in line and congruent with the overarching theme so far identified-fertility/ sexuality. Our observation so far has been that virtually everything at the Great Enclosure has to do with expressions of sexuality/ fertility. It is therefore, most unlikely that we may find ourselves face to face with built or sculpted lithic features that have nothing to do with what the Great Enclosure represent and expresses. If we have to make some conjecture, speculation, assumption and speculation, these need to be couched within an appropriate context to lend both plausibility and credibility. Essentially, these need not be wild, unfounded and blatant.
What we have to start with is objective identification of the features that we find at the top of the stone walls. There are two features, one sculpted and another built out of stones. Let us begin with the sculpted stone features. What emerges in the first instance are stone structures which have been identified as monolithhs. Monolith is derived from two words, monoand lith. The prefix mono implies one, while -lith suggests stone. Indeed, the monoliths or stellae were made to stand erect on top of the stone wall. The monoliths, without doubt, required great skill to sculpt. The monoliths are wedge-shaped. A single granite block was used to fashion each monolith.
Elsewhere we have encountered undoubted skills of the artists (sculptors) in atone masonry. The Zimbabwe Bird points to such skills. The diagnostic circular dish is another pointer to the skills possessed by stonemasons. What they sculpted with its resulting design was as a result of conscious decision. They could easily have made the monoliths circular. They chose not to. What was being represented and expressed is something not circular. Further, whatever is being represented and expressed has isolated placement. The monoliths are not placed side by side. Each has isolated location and separated by what have been identified as mini conical towers.
Given the overarching theme within the Great Enclosure we are persuaded to search within the context of male and female elements. The dual opposites as human anatomical parts that represent sexuality seem a real possibility, being in line with the ubiquitous theme within the Great Enclosure. With a bit of hard thinking and soul searching within limits of sexuality and anatomical design, it is possible to come up with some interpretation. We are tempted to argue against the monolith being a male element, or phallus. Elsewhere the conical tower has been identified as symbolic of a male sex organ — the phallus. Why would sculptors design two different phalli within the same context? We are forced to look elsewhere for a possible and plausible interpretation.
If the meaning and symbolism behind the monolith does not point to a male element, then it can only be female. Some serious search has to be undertaken. Our search starts and ends with female genitalia. It is both the isolated position and the wedge-shaped design that persuades us to see one important anatomical object which approximates a monolith. Our limited knowledge of the Shona language leads us to IsiNdebele. Both languages belong to the Bantu stock. We are of course mindful of their common symbolism, common metaphor and common Cosmology/ thought. There is a small plant which appears in the summer period and has one leaf only. The Ndebele name for the plant is usimayedwa, one who stands alone. Already, we begin to see some common denominator between the plant and the monolith which we argue is expressive of a part of female genitalia.
Going further, but remaining within IsiNdebele language, we come across a term that places emphasis on the isolated nature of a part of female genitalia. Taking the theme of usimayedwa there is some qualification which to some people is pornographic and too sexually explicit. The term is usimayedwa njengomsunu, one who stands alone like a clitoris. Earlier on we did allude to family praises and how they sometimes relate to male and female genitalia, or simply to sexuality. The one we cited referred to the Masukus: uMbombosh’ omnyama njengomsunu osempankeni, Mbomboshe who is as black as a clitoris in a crevice.
Interpretation of such phenomena requires a very Afro-centric thrust and a knowledge how black Africa uses images, in words or the visual art forms that traverse the treacherous terrain of vulgarity and obscenity. The language used in this instance does not cope with the dictates of African morality. The sculpted Zimbabwe Bird ably did that, so does the monolith. In a sense therefore, we are saying the monolith on top of the stone wall represents a clitorisstanding firm, erect and isolated. It is the same idea that has been expressed in language and is being expressed here in an artistic form, as sculpture.
We submit that for people who are strangers to African ideas and how they camouflage or conceal immorality, obscenity and sexual vividness, it is well nigh impossible for them to perceive beyond stone and begin to see the deep-seated representations, expressions, metaphors and symbolism within a sublime language. There is time when a stone goes beyond being a solid object and symbolises something more fundamental and one that embraces culturally engineered stone’s intangible cultural heritage (ICH). We are quite satisfied with our interpretation as it is within the broader context of sexuality and fertility which are embedded within the Great Enclosure.
It has become abundantly clear that the Great Enclosure was associated with an important rite of passage where boys and girls who attained puberty were culturally introduced to the next stage in their development which was initiated by biological maturity. The initiation process sought to produce individuals that were culturally educated so as to belong to their communities. For the mature girls, it was the clitoris which was cut off, in a cultural process referred to as clitoridectomy. The practice is still in vogue in the Horn of Africa. If, in biological terms, this was the centre piece and equivalent of the cutting of the foreskin among boys, it was to be expected that the targeted anatomical part should be featured prominently within the Great Enclosure. The phallus was represented and expressed on a large and prominent scale as the Conical Tower. The same happened to the stone clitoris — tall, imposing and isolated between the mini-towers of stone.
If the monolith is part of female genitalia, then its counterpart has to be found close to it too. What we end up with are two opposite sexual elements that are not engaged in some erotic sexual act. This is in contrast to the Zimbabwe Bird where sexual intercourse was expressed as closely as possible to reality. We thus have a situation which is a replica of a gigantic phallus, Conical Tower, standing in isolation but with equally isolated female genitalia. The Zimbabwe Bird, is the highest artistic rendition of the ideas of sexuality and fertility and hence continuity, endlessness, eternity and perpetuity. All other expressions are of a lower degree by virtue of coming nowhere close to erotic encounters of a sexual nature.
Next week we shall attempt to balance the equation of sexuality and fertility. This we shall do by identifying the opposite sex element, also located above the wall. The ambience, from ground floor right to the top of the stone wall, matches with the overall theme at Great Zimbabwe’s Great Enclosure.