Nyanga’s ancient pit structures
NYANGA District, the tourist destination, is popular for its unmatched natural beauty, amazing topography and the mystical Nyanga Mountain.
The district is also home to an intricate network of cultural heritage, dating back to the 16th Century.
From the agricultural terraces at Ziwa, forts, enclosures and a wide array of pit structures, the waterfalls and wild animals within Nyanga National Park, the district is a perfect all-in-one tourist destination.
The National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe has reconstructed an ancient pit structure with a model household within the park, and it is attracting visitors from all over the globe.
Hundreds of pit structures are found in Nyanga.
They are found singly, or more rarely, grouped in pairs in a single platform, or in groups of up to 12 or more.
The following features characterise all pit structures: they are mostly on sloping ground and they form the centre of an artificial platform, about 20 metres across, which is retained by a stone wall on the lower slopes of the hill.
On this platform is typically found six or seven stone circles of varying size linked by walls and forming the foundations of huts and granaries and they would have comprised the main kraal head’s hut surrounded by wives’ huts and grain huts.
From the upper slope of the hill, the pit itself is entered through a long, low and narrow tunnel, walled and roofed with flat stone slabs. The tunnels are
curved so that the exit is never visible from the entrance.
Halfway along, a gap in the tunnel opens under the centre of the largest hut on the platform. This roof opening provided a floor slot that enabled the tunnel passage to be blocked by the occupants of the hut to keep their animals in at night. The pits themselves are beautifully made of close-fitting stones laid without mortar and are generally about 5 to 10 metres wide and three metres deep. No traces of roofing have
ever been found, either round the tops of the pits, or as fallen fragments.
The floors of the pits were paved in stone, sloping down to a large stone lined drain, which ran under the platform and away.
Large ditches lead from the drain to small earthwork dams, or to the tunnel of a second pit, lower down the hill slope, and soak through the pit and drain away.
Livestock farming was an important part of the economy in both the
Nyanga Uplands (1500 to 1700 AD) and in the Nyanga Lowlands (1700 to 1800).
Local tradition says a small breed of hornless cattle was also reared. It is more likely that the pits housed goats, pigs and sheep.
The livestock was kept in the pit by wooden poles let into the tunnel from the floor of the main hut.
The pits are thought to have been constructed by the Saunyama people who came from the east of modern-day Zimbabwe and this points to modern
day Mozambique.
Oral evidence purports that the Saunyama people were looking for an ideal place to settle after running away from Makombe in Mozambique whose name came from the cow horn formation he used when fighting, which was literally translated to Makomberedze.
Having found most areas occupied by the Maungwe in the west, VaBarwe in the north and Mutasa in the south, the Saunyama people resorted to settling in the Nyanga uplands.
The pit structures were one of the tourism sites visited by President Mnangagwa and his family recently.
The First Family also visited one of the country’s major tourist attractions, World’s View in Nyanga and Trout Farm, among other areas, in a move that is set to boost the drive to promote domestic tourism.
President Mnangagwa expressed satisfaction with the growing number of both local and international tourists visiting the country.
“Investments in new tourism products and facilities which bolster the sector are a welcome development,” said President Mnangagwa.
Zimbabwe is targeting a US$5 billion tourism economy by 2025 as set out in the National Tourism Recovery and Growth Strategy.
This is expected to significantly contribute to the attainment of an empowered and prosperous upper-middle income society as envisaged by Vision 2030.