Zimbabwe

Once, On A Winter’s Day At Great Zimbabwe

This week at Lens-Artists, John’s theme is ‘History through the lens’. In my last post I was rummaging through our ‘old Africa album’, pondering on a long ago visit to Zimbabwe. And since half my mind is still lingering there, I thought I’d revisit Great Zimbabwe – those tantalising Shona ruins, whose 350-year history we’ll never fully fathom.

Now as I look through my photos, I see they too are becoming relics, documenting a July afternoon far away and long ago. The winter light was mesmerizing, the air thick and drowsy. Insects thrummed in the grass; all bathed in an amber glow. I recall pressing my palms to the stone wall of the Great Enclosure, absorbing the sun’s warmth, wishing for a portal back in time; to know the true story of this place.

Of course archaeological excavations have yielded some general context. The valley’s stone-built ruins extend over some 1800 acres, an area bigger than medieval London. The earliest date from c1100 CE with successive phases over the following three hundred years. There is also evidence of large houses built of daga or daub, and of an extensive system of water harvesting in so-called dhaka pits.

And as for the people who lived here, the reckoned population of 10,000 souls – the discovered remains suggest they were cattle herders, farmers, gold miners, merchants, iron and coppersmiths, potters, soapstone carvers, soldiers and courtiers, all living under the rule of some powerful organising authority.

Looking down the Great Enclosure (centre)

Inside the Great Enclosure with its conical tower of unknown purposes

Looking out from the Great Enclosure. No mortar was used in the wall construction. No sign either that this gateway was ever in any way defensive.

Among the finds were many luxury goods that indicated a long-standing trade with the Swahili city states of the East African coast (see map below). They included Arabian coins, glass beads, Chinese celadon ware, Persian ceramics, all doubtless exchanged for the city’s gold and copper. And yet their discovery only adds to the puzzle. Why did this seeming thriving city fall into decline from the mid-1400s?

Shona oral accounts say the city ran out of salt, and this prompted a shift to new territory. Salt would have been essential for both people and their herds. Other theories suggest an outbreak of disease, a prolonged drought, or the effects of deforestation. There’s no way of knowing. No burial remains have been discovered that might shed light on this.

In amongst the giant aloes, the tumbled remains of an African city that once extended over 1800 acres. It is not known why it declined after 1450 CE

But we do know that this was not the end of Shona rule. From the late fifteenth century it seems their centres of operations shifted north, leading to the rise of the Mutapa Empire. Soon afterwards, too, the name ‘Zimbabwe’ enters the historical record. The word itself derives from the Shona phrase meaning houses of stone, and from the early 16th century, it appears in various renditions in the written accounts of Portuguese conquistadores. They were busy scouring the East African hinterland in search of the mines that were yielding the gold they had seen in the Swahili city states along the Indian Ocean coast.

In 1531, Vicente Pegado, Captain of the Portuguese Garrison at Sofala has this to say:

Among the gold mines of the inland plains between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers there is a fortress built of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them … This edifice is almost surrounded by hills, upon which are others resembling it in the fashioning of stone and the absence of mortar, and one of them is a tower more than 12 fathoms [22 m] high. The natives of the country call these edifices Symbaoe, which according to their language signifies court.

In an earlier 1505 letter to the King of Portugal, one Diogo de Alcacova describes a city “called Zimbany…which is big and where the king always lives.” He says the houses are “of stone and clay and very large and on one level” and that there are many very large towns and villages within the kingdom.

Another Portuguese account describes the King of Mutapa’s great retinue which included the governor of the client kingdoms, the commander-general of the army, the court steward, the magician, the apothecary, and the head musician “who had many under him and who was a great lord”. It tells also of the vast territories over which the king ruled, the revenues and subject kingdoms of the king’s several queens.

These references to many large towns and villages and extensive territories ruled over, can be further backed up by archaeological remains. Great Zimbabwe might be the largest surviving ruin, but over a hundred similar sites of varying sizes have been discovered on the High Plateau between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. The Empire of Mutapa did once exist. It was only in 1888 that it finally fell to the Portuguese.

Nor was it the only city state. There is another impressive ruin at Khami, near Bulawayo to the west of Great Zimbabwe. It came to prominence at the time of Great Zimbabwe’s decline, and for two centuries the ruling dynasty there oversaw a thriving trading centre, importing luxury goods that included 15th and 17th century Spanish porcelain, Rhineland stoneware and Chinese Ming porcelain.

The later European occupiers of African lands would ever assert that local people could not be the builders of these cities. Phoenicians, Arabs, Ancient Egyptians and even the Queen of Sheba were the claimed originators. For a brief account of some of controversies attached to the interpretation of Great Zimbabwe, there’s a fascinating BBC Witness History clip with Zimbabwean historian, Dr. Ken Mufuka.

But in the here and now, looking back on that afternoon at Great Zimbabwe, it seems more dream than reality. But then, courtesy of the Olympus-trip, we do have historical proof we were actually there.

P.S. If you want a brilliant, if brief, virtual visit to Great Zimbabwe, go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art page here. The film, posted last year, is only seven minutes long and shows Zimbabwean stone masons at work, repairing and conserving the dry stone walls. It gives an inkling of the extraordinary endeavours of their ancestors.

Lens-Artists: History through the lens Please see John’s post for some fascinating slices of American history.

Roadside Creations

It’s back to the old Africa album for Cee’s ‘made by humans’ theme because it was while I was thinking what to post, that I suddenly remembered here was something I really missed from our years living in Kenya and Zambia: the roadside artists and artisans who, day in and day out, made some truly wonderful creations. In fact we did most of our best shopping on the pavement – from the decorative to the solidly functional.

The header photo is a young soapstone sculptor in downtown Harare, taken during a road trip to Zimbabwe from Zambia. Meanwhile in Lusaka, here are the furniture makers who made beds of every kind, including ours, from repurposed air freight cases:

And while I’m here, a more recent shot of one of my favourite baskets, made by the Tonga women of Zambia’s Southern Province. I use it for storing sewing and knitting bits and bobs.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Human-made

Dreaming Upstream Zambezi

There were many things we saw and did while living in Zambia and Kenya that were hard to process – even head on; even when fully present. It was as if the actuality dial in one’s brain kept sliding out of tune, sparking dissonance: am I here or am I simply observing myself here, courtesy of an imagined translocation from the pages of some hyper-real travelogue. I mean to say, how could I possibly be taking a sundowner boat ride up the Zambezi. How had I come to this place where I never expected to be?

We were living in Lusaka, Zambia, at the time. That posting had been unexpected too, notice given only on the day we exited Kenya after ten months there. Suddenly Graham was on another short-term attachment, this time to the EU Delegation, managing the distribution of food aid to drought-stricken villages. Then one day an old school friend, en route from the UK to New Zealand, wrote suggesting he and partner make a visit, but he could only get incoming flights to Harare. OK said G. We’ll drive down and pick you up.

And so began a fantastic make-shift safari – out of Zambia into Zimbabwe – crossing the border (and downstream Zambezi) at Chirundu then heading south for Harare. Then on further south through Masvingo to Great Zimbabwe. After that a loop west and north through Bulawayo, the Matopos and Hwange National Parks and back to the Zambezi and the Zambian border at Victoria Falls. And so one evening we found ourselves on a sundowner cruise, ambling upstream between Zimbabwe and Zambia. But then again perhaps that wasn’t really me.

I couldn’t end this final ‘up’ post in Becky’s inspiring month-long challenge without a downstream view too. Look out! Here we go – up and over the knife edge – Victoria Falls – Mosi-oa-Tunya – The Smoke That Thunders. Way-haaaaay…

Square Up #31 A big big thank you to Becky for helping to keep our spirits up all through January

WP Challenge: In the Background (MMBA in Zimbabwe)

Weekly Photo Challenge: In the Background

There’s always a lot of background in Africa: MMBA as the colonial British frequently referred to it – Miles and miles of bloody Africa. The origin of this expression is variously attributed to Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway and Robert Ruark. In any event MMBA is always difficult to capture in a photograph.

The shot above was taken from the hilltop ruins above Great Zimbabwe. The original negative has degraded a little, but the photograph was also taken in winter-time when the landscape of southern Africa anyway takes on the aspect of an ‘old master’ oil painting.

As ever when Team Farrell go travelling, Team Leader Graham was striking out in front – ‘Our Man in Africa’, while Nosy Writer was busy being nosy and fumbling with the settings on her Olympus Trip. Inevitably, TL ended up walking into NW’s line of sight. Here, though, I’m glad he did. He may be in shadow, but he provides a handy foil for the backdrop. It could be a stage set, couldn’t it? There’s definitely a sense of unreality.

And here’s another painterly ‘in the background’ view: the Great Enclosure of Great Zimbabwe with giant aloes in the foreground. Of course, when it comes to the history of this World Heritage site, ‘in the background’ could well have another and wholly insidious meaning. When geologist, Carl Mauch, first visited the site in 1871 he was convinced that the massive dry-stone granite walls were the remains of the Queen of Sheba’s lost city of Ophir. (See also my post on The Swahili). For some decades this view persisted. It was not in the interests of pioneer imperialist Cecil Rhodes for it to be known that Africans had a sophisticated historical heritage. He financed the first excavation by James Theodore Bent whose brief was to ‘prove’ that the complex had been built by the Phoenicians or the Ancient Egyptians. In 1928-9 British archaeologist, Gertrude Caton-Thompson refuted this conclusion, pronounced it African-built but “the product of an infantile mind.”

Some people may be surprised to know how often archaeology is used as a political tool, but it was, and still is.

In the 1960s-70s when Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia, was under the white rule of Ian Smith’s regime, history was again re-written. Any historians who dared to state that Great Zimbabwe was built by indigenous Africans put themselves at risk, and their work was censored. This led to the departure from the country of many prominent Rhodesian archaeologists including Peter Garlake, both an expert on the ruins, and Rhodesia’s then Senior Inspector of Monuments. His excavations in the 1960s, and those of Paul Sinclair in 1986 fully demonstrate that from around 1200 AD to c. 1500 AD when it was abandoned, the Shona-speaking Karanga people built and lived in this extensive settlement.

Estimates for the population over this period range from 5-30,000. It was a wealthy centre for cattle rearing and for cereal and cotton growing. Gold from mines further inland was brought into Great Zimbabwe, its rulers acting as middle-men in the trade that extended to the Swahili city of Sofala on the Mozambique coast. In return for gold and ivory, the Karanga imported luxury goods – fine textiles, Persian and Chinese wares, including Ming porcelain.

So much for Cecil Rhodes and his racist agenda. Although even in death this man manages to still make his presence felt. He chose to be buried in the Matobo Hills, territory of Ndebele people, and at a place known as Malindidzimu, Hill of Spirits. From here, also known as World’s View, I imagine that he thought he could continue to ‘rule’ Africa. The locals find the presence of his spirit here in their own sacred place quite offensive.

View from Cecil Rhodes’ grave in the Matobo Hills, and his stated aim: “I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence, look again at the extra employment a new country added to our dominions gives.”

From his 1877 Confession of Faith

And as an antidote to that dispiriting diatribe here are some more ‘in the background’ views in Zimbabwe:

Gateway in the Great Enclosure, Great Zimbabwe

The mysterious tower inside the Great Enclosure

Me looking small and very young inside the Great Enclosure. The walls are dry-stone granite – not a lick of mortar.

A roadside soapstone artist in Harare. This bust of a Shona elder is a common subject. Zimbabwe has produced some of the world’s outstanding sculptors.

Looking down on the Great Enclosure. For decades many Europeans refused to believe Great Zimbabwe was an African settlement.

Victoria Falls through a misty spray of mighty Zambezi.

Victoria Falls from the Zambian side. Most of the water on this side of the Zambezi is abstracted. My wet kanga wrap nearly took me hang-gliding off the knife edge in a rainstorm, but that’s another story.