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KwaMSIZA - The history and Architecture of an Ndebele VillageFranco Frescura
KwaMsiza is a village of 49 families located some 50km north of Pretoria. Its residents are Ndzundza Ndebele, and belong to three major family groups: the Msiza, the Bhuda, and the Skosana. They originally lived on the farm Hartbeesfontein, at Wonderboompoort, but when this land was expropriated to make way for an airport in 1953, they were relocated to the District of Odi, where they reside to the present day. The village exhibits a number of interesting features, including a number of dwellings built in the historical verandah style, probably derived from the baPedi, as well as a great number of walls painted in a polychromatic manner. The village is also well-known for the excellent beadwork artifacts made by its women. The history of KwaMsiza has its roots in the ZAR-Ndzundza War of 1882, when a commando of some 2000 Boers attacked the Ndebele capital of Namashaxelo. As a result of this war, the Ndzundza were dispossessed of their ancestral lands in the Middelburg-Grobblersdal district, and their king, Nyabele, was eventually banished to the farm Hartbeesfontein, just north of Pretoria. There he was joined by members of his family, as well as a retinue of followers, among whom were numbered the Msiza, a family who traditionally held the position of “shield-bearers to the king”. After Nyabele’s death in 1903, his family moved away, leaving behind one of their daughters, Nomatombeni Dina Mahlangu who had in the meantime married Kgalabi Msiza. The family remained at Hartbeesfontein until 1953, when they were forced to move to KwaMsiza. Although the origins of Ndebele wall decoration are still uncertain, there is good reason to believe that the practice may have been started by the Msiza when they were still living at Hartbeespoort. Today the practice has become widespread, and the use of Ndebele-style decoration has become a matter of national pride, influencing such diverse areas of design as women’s fashions, stamps, advertising, and the livery of our national airlines. Unfortunately the history of the Msiza at Odi has been one of conflict and hardship. Over the years its residents have had to deal not only with the oppression of the Apartheid government in Pretoria and that of its surrogate in Bophuhatswana, but also with constant economic hardship, and the breakdown of many of their traditional social values. Today the family is finally emerging from the hardships of the last 140 years, and through its own industry and creativity, is beginning to play an important role in the affairs of their region. ORIGINS OF THE NAME NDEBELEThe name, Ndebele, was probably derived from the Sotho-Tswana term “tebele”, meaning a stranger, or one who plunders. They share in this appellation with at least three other South African groups, the most famous being the amaKumalo, an Nguni-speaking group who, under the leadership of Mzilikazi, migrated from northern KwaZulu in 1823, and after a residence of some thirteen years on the highveld, moved to western Zimbabwe in 1837, where they became know by the Shona variant of Matabele. The name has also been applied to the North Ndebele, originally a Venda-speaking group who settled in the Pietersburg area and became acculturised by their Sotho-speaking neighbours; and the baTlokwa, a Sotho-speaking group who joined the British invasion of KwaZulu in 1879, and in consequence were awarded land in the Nqutu region of KwaZulu-Natal. The term is therefore consistent with the idea of being a stranger, an invader, or perhaps even a refugee into a region. EARLY HISTORY OF THE NDEBELEFew Southern African indigenous groups have so captured the interest of the world as have the South amaNdebele of the central highveld, an area previously known as the Transvaal but today incorporated into the Gauteng and Northern Provinces. Their highly colourful and intricately painted homesteads, their skilled and varied beadwork, their clear language of architecture, and their stately forms of dress have made them a popular field of research with artists, architects and social anthropologists. They have also become a major focus of interest for many visitors to this country. It is generally accepted today that the South Ndebele migrated onto the central highveld of southern Africa some four centuries ago. The exact date of their arrival is difficult to determine, but estimates tend to vary from 1485 by Fourie, through to the 1630-1670 period established by Van Warmelo. The latter dating is today regarded as the more reliable of the two. Both Fourie and Van Warmelo are in agreement that, despite the fact that the Ndebele settled in a predominantly Sotho-Tswana speaking area, they have retained their customs and Nguni language roots with “remarkable tenacity”. However some researchers have suggested a Sotho influence in some rituals and aspects of material culture, and more recent research into their architecture, settlement patterns, and methods of construction seem to indicate a definite Pedi-Tswana influence, even allowing for the adaptations one has come to expect of a culture moving from the grass-rich coastal lands east of the Drakensberge to the more extreme thermal variations found on the South African Highveld. Details regarding the Ndebele prior to their arrival on the highveld are scarce, and their recorded history only begins with the names of their first two kings, Mafana and Mhlanga. Following Mhlanga’s death the clan became embroiled in a protracted struggle which eventually brought his son, Musi, to the leadership. By that stage the group had already moved to Mnyamana, near Wonderboompoort, immediately north of the future Boer town of Pretoria. Musi, in his turn, had five sons: Manala, Masombuka, Ndzundza, Mathombeni and Dhlomu. Upon his death Musi was buried beneath a tree at Wonderboompoort, a location which is still visited by his descendants to the present day. Almost inevitably his sons quarreled over their inheritance and, as a result, the clan split into a number of smaller groups, the largest two coalescing under the leaderships of Manala and Ndzundza respectively. Masombuka left briefly but rejoined Manala later on, while Dhlomu and some of his followers are reputed to have returned to KwaZulu. For the purpose of subsequent Ndebele history the Manala were held to be the senior of the two groups. In due course Ndzundza was succeeded by his son Mxetsha who, in his turn, was succeeded by his son Magoboli. Magoboli was followed by his son Bongwe, who unfortunately only reigned for three years, and as a result of his premature death, his brother Sindeni was appointed as regent. At this time, for reasons that are not known, there was a shift in the line of succession, which allowed Sindeni’s son, Mahlangu, to follow his father. As a result the ruling family, which had previously been known as the Mdungwa, now became the Mahlangu. The last of these events probably took place in the latter part of the mid-eighteenth century. Mahlangu was succeeded by his son Phaswana, who was followed in his turn by Maridili, who was followed in rapid order by his four sons, Mdalanyana, Mgwezana, Dzele and Mxabule. The last, Mxabule, was murdered by his nephew Magodongo, the son of his older brother Mgwezana, who then became head of the Ndzundza. In 1823 the amaKumalo under Mzilikazi invaded the highveld, and in about 1825 they attacked the Ndzundza, burning their capital at Mnyamana, and killing Magodongo together with all his sons from his Right-hand House. The remnants of the Ndzundza fled from Mnyamana under the leadership of Mabhogo, a younger son of Magodongo and the only survivor of his Left-hand House, and settled at Namashaxelo, near the site of the latter-day Boer village of Roossenekal. At this time Mabhogo, who ruled until 1865, entered into an alliance with the neighbouring Pedi chief Malewa, and it seems probable that the alterations in Ndebele material culture can be dated from this time onwards. In 1847 Mabhogo was visited for the first time by groups of disaffected Dutch farmers from the Cape, better known as Voortrekkers, who rapidly came to know the Ndebele as either the Mapog, Mapogga, Mapoers, Mapoch or M’pogga. Although most Ndebele today find this form of address derogatory, many South Africans sadly still persist with this form of address. Almost from the onset sporadic skirmishes began to take place between these new immigrants, or Boers as they became known, and the Ndebele-Pedi alliance, who actively resisted the incursions which they were beginning to make upon their ancestral lands. In 1864 the alliance was attacked, and defeated, by a Swazi force acting at the instigation of the Boers, leaving the Dutch in the rear-guard to conduct a simple mopping-up operation of survivors. Soon thereafter, in 1865, Mabhogo died, leaving the Ndebele to sort out a complex and bitter inheritance struggle. As a result Ndebele leadership passed to the Masilela family. Soqaleni ruled until 1873, followed by Xobongo, a tyrant who ruled until 1879, when he was succeeded by Nyabele. THE ZAR WAR AGAINST THE NDZUNDZA NDEBELEThe leadership of Nyabele was to mark the final era of Ndzundza Ndebele independence. On 13 August 1882 the Pedi paramount chief Sekhukhune was killed, together with fourteen of his advisors. The assassins were acting at the behest of Mampuru, Sehukhune’s half brother, who had previously contested the Pedi chieftainship in 1861, and who, under the British administration of the Transvaal, had acted as chief during Sekhukhune’s imprisonment in Pretoria from 1879 to 1881. The ZAR Government, conscious of its newly-won independence from the British, was determine to exercise its authority over the Pedi and demanded that Mampuru be handed over for trial. Mampuru then fled and sought refuge with the Ndzundza, who had previously supported him in 1861 in his claim for the Pedi leadership. The Volksraad of the ZAR demanded his apprehension, but Nyabele not only declined to hand over Mampuru, but also refused to pay the customary Hut Tax to the new Transvaal government. Although largely symbolic, this gesture was also an open act of defiance which proclaimed Ndzundza independence from the ZAR and refuted Boer claims of suzerainty over his people. Given their precarious hold over their indigenous subjects, this was not a challenge which the newly established ZAR could afford to ignore, Consequently on 30 October 1882 a burgher commando under the leadership of Gen Piet Joubert set out from Middelburg and invested the Ndzundza mountain stronghold near Namashaxelo. In reality this was little more than a series of caves where Nyabele and his people had thought of making a tactical retreat. No records exist of the exact number of Boers engaged in this campaign but, judging from General Joubert’s letters, it appears that no more than 1000 to 2000 men were ever in the field at any one time. Certainly the Boers do not appear to have had much stomach for the fight, leading Joubert to complain to the Volksraad that the burghers “seemed to prefer looting cattle for their own account”. After a long campaign of nearly nine months, the Ndzundza, starved and dynamited into submission, capitulated and handed Mampuru, bound hand and foot, over to the Boers. Both Mampuru and Nyabele were taken prisoner to Pretoria where they were tried for insurrection and sentenced to death. The British, who had previously supported Mampuru’s claims to the Pedi leadership, attempted to intercede on their behalf with the ZAR, but their efforts were only partially successful, for while Nyabele’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, Mampuru was hanged in Pretoria Prison on 22 November 1883. At the same time the Volksraad declared the Ndzundza ancestral lands to be forfeit to the ZAR Government, which then proceeded to parcel them out to members of Joubert’s commando. The surviving Ndzundza were indentured for five years as labourers to the farmers in the district, thus effectively scattering them and breaking their power as a tribe forever. In retrospect the ZAR Government might appear to have acted in a somewhat precipitous manner in what was, after all, an internecine squabble which did not present them with an immediate threat. However, for the ZAR the question of Pedi succession was a sensitive one which needs to be read in conjunction with political conditions prevailing in the Transvaal at the time. Since the establishment of the Transvaal Republic in 1852, the region had remained in an almost constant state of anarchy. The wars against the Tswana in 1852 and 1858, and against Makapane in 1854; the rise of separate Boer republics at Utrecht (1854), Lydenburg (1856), and Zoutpansberg (1857); the establishment of a Boer revolutionary government in the Waterberg in 1860 and the four years of civil war which followed it; the Swazi attack upon the Ndebele, instigated by the Boers in 1864; the war against the Venda, the Boer retreat from the Zoutpansberg and the destruction of Schoemansdal by the Venda in 1867; and the disastrous war upon the Pedi in 1877, all depleted its resources, and by the time the British annexed the Transvaal on 12 April 1877 its government was bankrupt and on the point of collapse. Boer independence from British rule was only regained after a brief series of battles in 1881, and thus it was to be expected that any challenge made against the newly-established government of the ZAR would be met with harsh and immediate force. The newly-elected Volksraad must have been understandably anxious to avoid a return to conditions prevailing in the Transvaal five years previously while, at the same time, serving notice to British and Black alike that it was determined to maintain the independence it had regained only the previous year. MSIZA SETTLEMENT AT HARTBEESFONTEINDuring the years of Nyabele’s imprisonment, some of his family and personal advisers were allowed to settle on the white-owned farm of Hartbeesfontein, located between Wonderboom and Derdepoort north of Pretoria, in order to be near him. These were lands previously occupied by the Ndebele prior to their move to Namashaxelo, but which had since been annexed by the Transvaal government for white occupation. Shortly before the outbreak of the South African War of 1899-1902 Nyabele was granted a pardon. However he was not allowed to return to Namashaxelo but rejoined his followers at Hartbeesfontein where he is believed to have died in about 1903. He was succeeded by Mfene, the second son of his eldest brother Soqaleni, who had preceded Nyabele as chief of the Ndzundza. Mfene is reported to have lived at Hartbeestfontein for a few years before moving with the bulk of his family and followers to a site on the upper reaches of the Wilge River, known as Weltevrede, near Vaalfontein. Mfene was followed by his son Maysha and, when he died in about 1951, he was succeeded by Mabusa David Mahlangu who continues to reside at Weltevrede. The contingent of Nyabele’s immediate family and followers included Kgalabi (also given as Umghalabi) Msiza whose family, the Msiza, traditionally enjoyed the high status of “shield-bearers to the Ndzundza king”. He settled at Hartbeesfontein where, in time, he became the patriarch of a substantial extended family. His first wife, Usmeshe, raised a family which included six sons, while his second, Nomatombeni Dina Mahlangu, bore him another five. The number of daughters in the family is not known. Nomatombeni was the daughter of Nyabele and his wife Sibiya, and probably met and married Kgalabi at Hartbeesfontein. When Mfene and the majority of his retinue relocated to Weltevrede, for reasons which are not clear the Msiza family chose to remain at Hartbeesfontein where they continued to farm their lands. By all accounts they flourished, and by the 1950s Kgalabi’s extended family settlement included the homesteads of nine sons, three of whom had two wives each. The settlement also included the home of Zondiwe Jacob Bhuda, who had married Umdundwana Amy Msiza, daughter of Kgalabi’s brother, who probably joined the Hartbeesfontein community after Mfene’s group had departed for Weltevrede. The date of Kgalabi’s death is not known, but can probably be assumed to have taken place during the 1930s or the early 1940s Leadership of the Hartbeesfontein community thereafter devolved upon Hlangane Speelman Msiza, his oldest son by his senior wife, Usmeshe. In time Hlangane became known to his white neighbours as Cornelius Speelman. THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE MSIZA AT ODIDespite the fact that the Msiza family continued to live and farm at Hartbeesfontein, the property remained in the ownership of a family called Wolmarans. At that time it was a common arrangement for black farmers living on “white” land to exchange their labour for a small piece of ground where they could build their homesteads and plant a small crop. However, they had no title to this land, no tenure or work contracts, and could lose their homes at the whim of the white owner. By all accounts Wolmarans was considered to have been “a good man”, and the Msiza remained at Hartbeesfontein for nearly sixty years. When Wolmarans died in about 1952, his son-in-law found it expedient to sell the property to the developers of the new Wonderboom airport, and the Msiza were forced to find new homes elsewhere. By this time the Ndebele had begun to decorate the walls of their homesteads with a variety of polychromatic designs, and at an early stage the practice had come to the notice of architects, artists and anthropologists. Among them was Prof AL Meiring, Head of the School of Architecture at Pretoria University. He appears to have begun visiting the Msiza at Hartbeesfontein early in the 1950s, and at one stage he and his students drew up a detailed record of the settlement. When the family found itself in the position of being evicted from their homes, Meiring interceded on their behalf with the authorities and made it possible for them to be resettled in an area known as Klipgat, in the district of Odi, located some 50km north of Pretoria. Meiring further facilitated the move by obtaining grants of building materials for the family, most particularly timber and thatch. By 1953 the Msiza, under the leadership of Hlangane, had rebuilt their homes at Odi and their old homestead at Hartbeesfontein had been demolished. They were joined in the move by members of the Bhuda and Skosana families, who had married Msiza women and now belonged to the extended Msiza family group. One additional family, also called Msiza but not directly related to the Kgalabi line, also made its home at Odi. Initially this move involved some 21 nuclear families, but as at least three of the men were polygamous, the number of families units was probably closer to eighteen. In the 1960s Hlangane Msiza died, and leadership of what had by now grown into a village passed on to his brothers. Today this rests with Hlangane’s last surviving brother, Maselwane Msiza who, despite his advanced age, still enjoys good health and clear thinking. His memories of events at Hartbeesfontein, and thereafter, form the basis for much of what has been related here. Although never given an official name, the village began to appear on road signs and various large-scale maps as either KwaMapoch, Speelman’s Kraal, or simply as The Ndebele Village. Its residents however, prefer the term KwaMsiza, which translates to “the place of the Msiza”. By the 1960s the village had become a popular stopping point for tourists, a factor assisted by the South African Tourist Board who placed it upon its itineraries of local attractions, and its residents had begun to supplement their income through the manufacture and sale of beaded artifacts. It did not take long for Msiza women to develop a name for themselves as excellent bead workers, and their handiwork was to inspire similar developments among other Ndebele families in the region. Articles about the Msiza and their colourful, polychromatic habitat began to be carried by numerous journals, both local and overseas, thus increasing their fame as a community of artists. Unfortunately the agricultural lands allocated to the Msiza were neither suitable for planting, nor were they large enough to sustain the growing community. As a result many of its menfolk, as well as some of the women, were forced to enter the migrant labour market. In most cases this took them away from home for eleven months of the year, and although their income helped to sustain their families, their absence from home for such long periods had a negative effect upon the quality of life now enjoyed in the village. Most of the responsibility for the raising of children now fell upon the women, and although this was not unique to the Msiza in the context of the Apartheid society which developed in South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s, the Ndebele reaction to this oppression had some unique and interesting results. This was most marked in such areas as wall decoration and codes of ceremonial female dress. During the 1960s and early 1970s the people of KwaMsiza were to enjoy a period of relative stability and prosperity. Assisted by grants of thatching grass and paint from the South African Tourist Board, they continued to maintain their homes to a standard which continued to attract visitors to their homes and clients for their beadwork. Work was also available, and although absent from their families as migrant workers, the men were able to earn money on a constant basis. However, by the mid-1970s the nation-wide drought had begun to have a serious effect upon the already meager crops they could grow. Their economic well-being was aggravated after June 1976 when a national student revolt made international headlines and heralded the beginning of a more intensive resistance against white Apartheid government. Although the district was not directly involved in the events of 1976, many whites were deterred from entering black residential areas by both the threat of violence as well as the ominous presence of South African security forces, and the number of visitors to the village dropped dramatically. Added to this was the fact that many men, previously employed in the migrant labour market, lost their jobs and returned home to their families, thus increasing their financial burden. THE MSIZA AND BOPHUTHATSWANAThe final blow to the Msiza’s depleted finances came on 6 December 1977 when the South African government proclaimed the “independent” state of Bophuthatswana, and the district of Odi was incorporated into one of its six scattered fragments. The idea of creating a number of rurally-based independent Homeland states based upon the white government’s perception of “ethnic” divisions in South Africa’s black population was intended to be the culmination of Apartheid’s policy of social engineering. It was based upon Verwoerd’s vision of a balkanized South African society where each of the country’s nine “tribal” groupings was to be allocated its own homeland area to govern independently. The inadequacies and contradictions of such a policy were self-evident to all but their originators, and it never achieved much meaningful recognition either in South Africa or overseas. Nonetheless the existence of a Tswana ethnically-based state was to create untold hardships for the Msiza for the next sixteen years. This hardship took many forms. The first came almost immediately when the South African Tourist Board cut off its subsidy of paint and building materials to the village, and took KwaMsiza off its tourist itineraries, claiming that tourism to the area was now a matter for the Bophuthatswana government to manage. The next arose when the Bophuthatswana government refused to allow its Ndebele subjects the right to educate their children in their mother tongue, siNdebele, a Nguni dialect, claiming that all education in the Tswana state must be conducted in seTswana. Then Bophuthatswana demanded that all its Ndebele subjects swear loyalty to the Tswana state, as a pre-condition to being given state or state-subsidised jobs, and being issued with travel documents. As, for the purposes of Apartheid policy, South Africa was now a “foreign state”, all Ndebele were now disenfranchised, legally prevented from traveling in their own country, and rendered stateless. Driven to the point of exasperation, a number of Ndebele leaders visited Pretoria in about 1981 and requested permission to establish their own independent state of KwaNdebele in the Dennylton-Groblersdal region. Delighted Apartheid bureaucrats saw this as visible justification of their “ethnic” policies and quickly made arrangements to add a tenth puppet state to the nine already in operation. Fortunately a popular uprising in 1986 brought these plans to an end, and the Ndebele had to wait until 1994 to have their civic rights restored fully to them. One of the results of this struggle, however, was that the village of KwaMsiza began to run out of residential land, and not wishing to impinge upon their already meagre agricultural resources, the Msiza opened negotiations for a fresh allocation of state land from Bophuthatswana. Although a stretch of open common was available alongside their village, not unexpectedly these requests were denied. One positive development during this time was the establishment during the 1980s of the new industrial suburb of Rosslyn immediately north of Pretoria, some 20km from KwaMsiza. This increased the level of employment in the village and allowed its men to return to their homes each day, thus reasserting the structure of the nuclear family. Despite this, the historical role of tourism in supplementing the economic base of the village appeared to be beyond repair. To make matters worse the village’s water delivery system was driven by an ageing single-stroke diesel-powered water pump which, at best, could only deliver 5 litres per minute through a single water tap. By 1986 it had begun to break down to the point that, during the nation-wide drought, it could take up to 4 hours to fill a 25 litre container. As a result the community had begun to lose some of its younger families. It was found that, as their elderly parents had begun to pass away, so then the children’s links to the settlement had grown more tenuous. At the same time the prospects of better education and a higher quality of life in the city had also begun to override traditional family loyalties. At its height in 1980 KwaMsiza had been the home to some 49 families, but by 1994 this number had dropped by 20% and the village had begun to take on a run-down appearance. Few wall paintings were being maintained, and gaps had begun to appear in its architectural fabric as the homes of deceased family members were abandoned to the elements. KwaMSIZA IN THE POST-APARTHEID ERAKwaMsiza appears to have reached a turning point in 1993 when a local NGO, funded by a grant from the Canadian Government, put in place a new water reticulation scheme which upgraded the village’s water delivery to 21 litres per minute and gave every two households access to a shared water tap. More recently, in 2001, plans have been unveiled for the opening in the village of a tourist center and a marketing facility, which will give its residents greater access to the national tourist market. SOCIAL AND ECONOMY CHANGES AT KwaMSIZAThe location of KwaMsiza near Pretoria has made it possible to document their transformation from a land-based agricultural peasantry to an urban and industrialized proletariat. Prior to their move in 1953, their prevalent economic activity was one of mixed farming and cattle grazing. Small amounts of cash were earned by the men working as farm labourers, although they were generally expected to provide their time for free to the owners of Hartbeesfontein in exchange for the land they occupied and farmed on their own behalf. After their move to KwaMsiza, however, they began to rely increasingly upon the income earned by their men, working as migrant labourers in the nearby towns and on the Witwatersrand gold mines. Some of the women also entered the service of white families as domestic workers, although these jobs were generally poorly paid. As a result, from the 1950s through to the 1970s, the demographic composition of the village began to be transformed dramatically, with an increasing bias towards women and children below the age of 16. Although the men did return home, on a regular basis, this was only for a month of every year on their annual leave. The adverse effects that the migrant labour system of Apartheid brought about upon the personal lives of rural families have been widely documented and need not be detailed here. In the case of KwaMsiza one of its more noticeable effects was an increasing focus upon the role of women in their society, and the leadership roles they began to play in their social structures. As the focus of agricultural labour fell increasingly upon the shoulders of women, so then their families became increasingly reliant upon them, where mothers not only exercised greater controls over food production and their homesteads, but over other resources as well. This was in sharp contrast with the historical values of Ndebele society, where the men are the heads of the family (patrilocal), and give their names to the family line (patrilineal). Thus, the migrant labour system also placed traditional family and social values under severe stress. The result was that the women continued to pay lip service to the principles of patrifocality but effectively established matrilocal controls over resources and began to develop a visual system of symbology, centered on their use of beadwork and painted wall motifs, to signify a growing matrilinearity. It does not appear that this growing polychromatic decorative movement was intended to supplant the historical symbols of their men, but merely to give Ndebele society an added social dimension parallel to its traditional established order. In 1976 a country-wide drought followed by riots and an economic downturn caused widespread unemployment, and the men of KwaMsiza began to return home, resulting in many of the older patrifocal patterns of family life being re-established. This was assisted from 1979 onwards, when the availability of employment in the nearby industrial suburb of Rosslyn, made it possible for a semblance of normality to return to this community. However many of the cultural patterns, social and material, initiated by the women in the post-1953 era have been maintained, whilst some older symbols of patrifocality have suffered a concomitant reduction in status. This has been most noticeable in the marked shift in the location of the cattle byre. Originally this was a central circular space which acted as the focus of the community, and provided the men with an area to gather, drink beer and discuss the affairs of the village. Many of the community’s rituals were centered about the byre, and the space in the upper part of the circle given over to the cattle also acted as a burial ground for their deceased. The link between the byre and their ancestors is therefore inescapable. It is nearly twenty years since any one in the village has kept cattle, and its byre has lost its central status. Instead it is now a small and neglected space displaced to one side of the village, and used only for the occasional beer drink and major ritual functions. Many of the men now prefer to gather under the trees in an area closest to the home of the family’s patriarch, Maselwane Msiza, and burial is now conducted in a more conventional manner in the nearby cemetery. GENDER ROLES IN NDEBELE HOME-MAKINGFrom the 1940s onwards the settlement at Hartbeesfontein began to be visited increasingly by researchers, including Barrie Biermann, Constance Stuart-Larrabee, Dick Findlay, Alexis Preller and Prof AL Meiring who, together with architectural students from the University of Pretoria, conducted a survey of its architecture. Their subsequent home at KwaMsiza proved to be similarly popular among academics. Thus, barring a brief hiatus during the 1920s and 1930s, some aspects of their built environment, most particularly their wall decorations, have been particularly well documented. Consequently the village of KwaMsiza is an important example of Ndebele architecture, for it not only does provides a strong and unbroken link to the built environment of the Ndebele during the nineteenth century, but also because it has retained its homogenous social make-up, being composed entirely of Ndzundza Ndebele families originating from the farm Hartbeesfontein. The creation of a built environment in southern Africa's rural areas is not merely the provision of shelter: it represents an opportunity for the community to collaborate on a project, turning what is outwardly a social occasion into a display of solidarity between the larger group and the individual family unit. This process not only lays stress upon role-playing and the individual's perceived status in society, but it is used to reinforce a sense of self-identity through participation in group activities. Thus all members of the community are considered to have a role to play in the creation of an architecture. This is often predetermined by historical conditions which allocate tasks to various gender and age groups. In a general sense, many of the heavier tasks such as the erection of walls, the construction of a timber roof frame and the creation of a grass thatch cover are considered by the Ndebele to be the work of men. Women will assist with some of this labour, such as the mixing of clay mortar, the preparation of thatch bundles and the manufacture of sun-dried bricks. Children will often assist their mothers in such work, as well as the manufacture of grass ropes and the gathering of materials like cow dung. The plastering of walls, the creation of homestead floor areas and any subsequent light maintenance of the structure however falls directly upon the women as the controllers of household space. This includes any subsequent application of decorative motifs to the walls. The men, on the other hand, will build and maintain those areas connected with cattle folds and male gatherings, these being considered to be "men's" spaces. In more recent times, however, the absence of men from rural communities has forced the women into the position of having to fulfill many of the building tasks historically associated with men. This, effectively, has removed the latter from the processes of the built environment, thus reinforcing the role of women as controllers of "place" as well as "resources." GENDER SPACES IN NDEBELE HOMESTEAD PLANNINGHistorically the control of Ndebele domestic space has been subject to a number of checks and balances which regulated not only relations between the genders, but also their respective access to food resources. Although many of the resultant distributions may, over the years, have been awarded metaphorical and cosmological significances, their origins may be seen to lie in a pragmatic recognition that fundamental differences exist between the life of man and that of woman. As a result the Ndebele concept of space control is subject to a number of seemingly conflicting interpretations. For example, the titular leadership of the homestead, whether this be monogamous or polygamous, may be seen to fall upon the husband and father, and it is generally he who represents the interests of his family in any community disputation. On the other hand, the control of the physical domestic living space falls upon the wife. This concept is of particular importance in cases of polygamous marriages where the husband is expected to rotate his residence between those of individual wives. The definition of domestic space includes the cooking area thereby also giving woman control of food resources. Any potential conflict on this issue, however, is offset by locating surplus grain in the cattle byre or the area of men's gatherings, ostensibly to be kept in reserve for emergencies, but in reality to give men access to food resources in their own right. The spaces internal to the homestead may also be seen to be subject to the same definition of gender values. The courtyards as well as those spaces given over to children's residences and cooking functions, are considered to be the specific concern of the wife and mother. The internal living space of the parents, on the other hand, is divided equally into an area for the woman and one for the man. This division, being the subject of "left hand" and "right hand" considerations, may be perceived to be the result of larger cosmological concepts affecting the settlement as a whole. On the other hand the creation of such a strictly-defined area for the man inside what is essentially a woman's enclave, may also be seen to be part of the same reciprocity as that governing the symbolic control of community food resources. The channeling of the men into the migrant labour system has had important repercussions upon Ndebele homestead architecture as well as many of their social patterns. There has been, for example, a reduction of emphasis upon those areas historically considered to be the preserve of men. The Skosana and Bhuda cattle byres at KwaMsiza all but disappeared during the 1960s, and today only the Msiza one survives, albeit in a smaller format. Even so, it now acts as a gathering space for the men of all three families, although it is possible that rationalisation may have taken place for symbolic and political as well as practical reasons. Also to be considered is the fact that today cattle play a negligible role in the life of the community whose economy has changed almost entirely to a cash base. It is also true that grain surpluses are no longer stored, symbolically or otherwise, in the men's gathering place. Instead these are now lodged in the cooking area of the woman concerned. This may now be done for reasons of practicality, or to reinforce the growing power of women in the group, or perhaps because the community functions that this act of communality once represented, are no longer relevant. The reduction in the size and importance of the men's areas has not been met by a concomitant expansion of women's household space. Instead their emphasis has been a visual one, relying upon the use of complex, polychromatic graphic elements painted upon the perimeter walls of the homestead as well as those of individual dwellings. THE ROLE OF DECORATION IN NDEBELE SOCIETYThe beginnings of Ndebele painted wall traditions do not appear to predate the land war of 1882-3. Up to that time their architecture made extensive use of grass and reed - materials which preclude painted decoration. The origins of their wall art appear to lie with the Pedi, a neighbouring group whose architecture and decorative motifs they adopted after 1883, both of which they employ to the present day. These consist of a simple set of chevron or "Union Jack" patterns rendered in white or black upon a plain grey background. Although Ndebele polychromatic wall art today bears scant resemblance to Pedi patterns, its roots ought to be seen to rest in the practice of rendering walls for ritual and social purposes, rather than in their actual style of decoration. Since the late 1940s Ndebele painted wall tradition has focused increasingly upon a stylisation and rendering of the patterns and images of nearby Victorian small town architecture as well as the graphic elements of an urban consumer and industrial society further afield. The result has been the development of a complex code of images based upon colour and form which have been used to convey messages about the fertility, political rights, territorial boundaries, family lineage and regional identity of their originators. All of these elements must be seen to play a strong role in the large pattern of Ndebele gender politics. Normally the walls outlining the perimeter of an Ndebele homestead will not be built, and hence decorated, until approximately two years after the birth of a woman's first child. Thus wall decoration is symbolic of women's fertility and serves to indicate her status in the community as a mother, head of homestead and responsible adult. By giving birth to a child a woman also gains for her husband full participation in the community's council of men as a family head. Her work therefore is symbolic of how her fertility has given her family a voice in the public affairs of the group. The application of wall decoration is usually also indicative of times of transition in the life of a woman, such as the marriage of a daughter, or the period when her son attends initiation school. Wall decoration plays a strong symbolic role in the creation of living areas among those southern African groups who define their exterior living spaces. The act of painting or smearing a wall has direct links to a cosmological belief which perceives women to be inherently "hot" and men inherently "cool". Homestead boundaries are seen to be similarly "hot", most particularly where two women share the same division wall; these then need to be "cooled" by a process of wall smearing and decoration which, presumably, might also imply a degree of cooperation between the two parties concerned. Thus wall decoration not only serves to create statements of territorial control but, by implication, suggests that women are more than just passive partners to their menfolk in the control of rural household space and food resources. A measure of heraldry is also implied in the designs of rural wall art. The act of painting is conducted either by the mother, or by her teenage daughters under her direct guidance. The complex patterns are thus part of the young girl's training and are reinforced when, upon marriage, she is presented by her mother with a partly-finished beaded apron, the mapoto, bearing the essential elements of this design. The daughter is then expected to complete the apron after her marriage. Although in theory the young bride may choose to decorate her walls in whatever pattern she wishes, in reality, her first design seldom strays far from that which she learnt at home as a child and which she carried away with her in a shorthand form as part of her wedding dowry. A clue as to the more fundamental reasons underlying the development of a wall decorating tradition among the Ndebele may be found in the struggle for land which has taken place in southern Africa over the past two centuries, between indigenous black and immigrant white groups. The ZAR-Ndzundza war of 1883 must therefore be seen in the context of the fact that, since 1811, the South African region has seen 24 major conflicts and over two score smaller localized conflagrations. This means that, on average, one major rebellion, war or uprising has taken place here every third year for the past 179 years. The reasons recorded for these conflicts are many and varied. The majority however may be seen to have been the result of competition for land between white and black rural groups. The single most important source of friction between these two therefore must lie in the control, or lack of, that each exercises over agricultural land. It may be argued that the aesthetics of wall decoration have played an important role in reinforcing (or perhaps even creating) a unique regional identity for the Ndebele whose land is currently in the holding of descendants of the very farmers who defeated them over a century ago. The chronology of Ndebele wall art therefore places it firmly into a time when formal resistance to white political dominance was at a low; when the effects of the rural land acts were beginning to become evident; when rural poverty was beginning to spread; when rural women began to find their men being channeled in increasing numbers into a system of migrant labour; when whites across the virtual spectrum of political opinion saw blacks as being voteless, dispossessed and landless in perpetuity; and at a time when formal black resistance was limited to an ANC which had but recently adopted a more confrontational stance. It was during this time that Ndebele women took up the cudgels of their people's struggle and began to decorate their homestead walls, making statements about their social conditions and creating images of regional and political identity. It is also significant to note that the Ndebele use of wall decorations is not limited to the outward facades of their perimeter wall and their dwellings but, in most cases, have also been located inside and at the back of the parent's unit, above the umsamo. Historically in Nguni society, the umsamo has been regarded as a male area and the residence of the family's "shades" or ancestral spirits. In current Ndebele society however, it has been converted into a seat and the wall behind it is decorated with the major components of the wife's heraldic patterns. The internal hearth, another ancient symbol of woman, has been moved away from its old location at the centre of the dwelling, and has been relocated closer to the umsamo. GENDER ELEMENTS OF NDEBELE SETTLEMENTA metaphor which has been used by some Ndebele to describe their built habitat likens the spaces of the homestead to the body of a woman. In their terms the front courtyard, generally an area of "clean" activities, is likened to the mapoto or beaded apron worn by married women as part of their wedding finery; the parents' dwelling is the womb, for it is here the mother resides and hence it is the origin of the family's fertility, its children and hence its wealth. The rear quarters which house the cooking areas as well as the children are the breasts whence all nourishment originates. This symbolism is reinforced during the wedding celebrations when the men dance through the front courtyard of the bride's family homestead, thereby ritually defiling it to the accompaniment of ribald jokes from their womenfolk. A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLYGAMY IN SOUTHERN AFRICAOne of the preconceptions more popularly held by both academics and lay public alike in regard to southern African rural society is that the indigenous family unit is polygamous in nature. This is only partly true. A broad survey of homestead patterns in the region reveals that whilst a number of polygamous settlements may still be found in the rural countryside, these are in a distinct minority, and monogamous marriages appear to be the general norm. It could of course be argued that this is a recent development brought about by the work of Christian missionaries, but the validity of such an assumption needs be questioned. Not only do the Christian churches which enjoy the largest following in southern Africa, the so-called Independent Churches, permit their followers to practice polygamy, but although the practice of polygamy was indeed more prevalent during the last century, its presence was not as widespread as various missionaries way have wished us to believe. Lichtenstein wrote of the Xhosa in 1812 that "Most of the Koossas (Xhosa) have but one wife; the kings and chiefs of the kraals only have four or five." This was reinforced by Alberti who stated, also of the Xhosa, that “Those with least resources, must be satisfied with one woman, others have two, and rarely more.” Contemporary visitors to other parts of the country have come to similar conclusions. Livingstone went one step further and in 1857 estimated that approximately 43% of Tswana men practiced polygamy, and then only a very small minority of these had more than three wives. By 1946 an official census revealed that this figure had dropped to 11% with only 1.3% having three wives or more. The practice of polygamy may, in most cases, be explained in terms of a levirate, a social practice, used to ensure the continued status and survival of widows and orphans within an established family structure. While it is true, therefore, that every rural family is potentially polygamous in nature, we need to question whether such polygamy was the result of "male sexuality and lust", as the missionaries would have it, or merely the enforcement of social obligations intended to reinforce ties between family or clan groupings. Recent data would seem to show that some 27% of rural households are currently headed by widowed or single women. If we were to assume that in the 1850s an equivalent number of women could have become widows and were thus absorbed into the monogamous households of family members, thus making them polygamous, then it will be seen that this form of union could have accounted for most of the polygamous marriages recorded by Livingstone among the Tswana. The remaining group, those with three wives or more, were a distinct minority and their polygamy may be explained in terms of group leaders creating political alliances and gaining control of resources for their own communities. The general trend away from polygamous unions evidenced since 1900 could therefore be explained in two ways. The growth of urbanisation and the establishment of urban-based political structures has brought about a decreased emphasis upon both regional group identity and the power of the traditional and inherited rural leadership. The need for making unions based upon political expediency has thus lessened considerably. The economics of obtaining a bride in the rural areas has also changed substantially over the past five generations, as women also began to enter the ranks of an industrialised and urban proletariat in increasing numbers after the 1930s. One conclusion, therefore, is that the practice of polygamy may have been common in southern Africa up to the end of the last century but that it was never as widespread as has been popularly represented. When these findings are applied to the settlement architecture of the South Ndebele, their implications can be seen to be quite extensive. NDEBELE ARCHITECTURE AND SETTLEMENT PATTERNSCurrent archaeological evidence indicates that, up to the late 1800, South Ndebele homes and settlement patterns were very similar in both form and construction to those found in their old homeland in northern KwaZulu. Their dwellings were probably built in the form of a thatched hemispherical dome, and were set in a circle about a central cattle byre. During the 1860s they came under increasing pressure from immigrant white groups who were attempting to force them off their ancestral lands. As a result they entered into an alliance with their more powerful neighbours, the Pedi, whose territories were likewise threatened. It is probable that at this point their architecture began to adopt increasingly the forms, textures, construction, and even the decorations of the Pedi. It may be that this was an inevitable result of social interaction between the two groups, but it is also possible that this was a conscious decision taken by the Ndebele for political reasons, as the Pedi were never defeated by the Dutch and had managed to steadfastly retain control of their lands in the face of a strong white settler presence. After the 1880s the Ndebele began to build their dwellings in the form of a central drum, some six to eight metres in diameter, surmounted by a conical thatched roof. The front of the unit was faced by a narrow enclosed verandah about 150cm wide, which ran from about 4 o’clock to 8 o’clock on the floor plan. This was used as a storage area as well as a sleeping space for young children. The central circular space was used by the parents as a sleeping area, with the left-hand side being deemed the side of the woman, the right the side of the man. Thus the left was called the side of life, where a woman would give birth, while the right was the side of death, where a body might be laid out prior to burial. At the back of the dwelling, on axis with the doorway, was the umsamo, a residual feature from the Ndebele’s ancestral architecture. Among the Nguni of KwaZulu the umsamo consists of a semi-circular raised shelf located at the back of the dwelling. It functions primarily as a storage space for food and household utensils, but is also reputed to be the home of the family’s ancestral spirits, or shades, and thus also serves a spiritual space for the men. It appears that during the transition from the Nguni thatched dome to a Pedi cone-on-cylinder structure, the original function of the umsamo was lost, and although its name remains, it no longer functions as a household storage space. Instead it has now been converted by the Ndebele into a formal seat built in clay against the back wall. This change in function was further emphasized by a move of the hearth off its central position and to the rear of the dwelling, closer to the umsamo. The dwelling was accessed through a walled front courtyard, which was used by the women of the household for a variety of social and household functions. Additional units, usually a kitchen and sleeping quarters for the children were located off a rear courtyard, which was accessed via a side passage. The practice of decorating the walls of the Ndebele home probably originated from their Pedi neighbours whose monochromatic “union jack” pattern survives among the Ndebele to the present day. The similarities existing between the domestic architecture of the Ndebele and that of the Pedi was also extended to their settlement forms. Historically the larger Ndebele settlement was built in the shape of an open fan, with a large circular space containing the cattle byre and the gathering place for the men being located at its center. The dwelling of the first wife of the senior man was located at the head of the settlement, on axis with the main entry to the central space. Other wives of the senior man were then allocated homes on either side of the first wife, on a left-and-right basis By the 1940s most Ndebele settlements had changed to a linear pattern. The homes of individual family members were still laid out according to their status in a left-and-right hierarchy, but the homestead now followed the land’s lines of contour, an arrangement which made better use of their farming resources. The cattle byre, although still central, was now in a square shape, and was located opposite the home of the senior member of the family. This was the pattern followed by the Msiza at their home at Hartbeesfontein, which they then reproduced when they were relocated to KwaMsiza in 1953. In time, however, the village began to develop along new and innovative lines, quite different from those followed by the Ndebele previously. The original settlement at KwaMsiza was laid out in a shallow V-shape, with the Msiza family setting out their homes along one arm, while the Bhuda and Skosana took up residence along the opposite arm. The settlement was north facing and located out roughly parallel to the main road some 200m to their north. Their agricultural lands were situated behind their homes, downhill and towards the river. Consequently, when their male children began to marry, they could not be settled on land behind their mothers, as this was too valuable a resource to be used as residential space, but rather were given land north of the original settlement, opposite their parental homes. The land between the two sides was left empty, to be used in common. As a result, the two parts of the settlement come together to enclose a village common, giving rise to a space unique in Ndebele architecture. Although the developments recorded in Ndebele architecture over the past century are in themselves exciting, they also need to be read in the wider context of socio-economic and political changes in the southern African region. They took place at a time when this group saw the loss of its military and political power; the dispossession and occupation of their lands; the placing of whole families into indentured employment on white-owned farms; and the channeling of their men-folk in to a migrant labour system which separated them from their families for years at a time. The latter began to establish some of the preconditions for the undermining of Ndebele patrifocal patterns and their replacement with some elements of matrifocality. Ndebele women thus responded to these forces threatening the survival of their families and of their larger Ndebele polity. They established firm controls over local resources and family structures, and reinforced the identity of their group by devision and promulgating a language of decoration which has since become identified as being uniquely Ndebele. Their architecture therefore stands as a denial of white racist and colonial preconceptions which saw Ndebele society as being governed by “indolent, lustful and sexist polygamous males” to be broken up and channeled into a labour market for their purported "common good"; it stands as a tribute to the ability of Ndebele men and women to come together and combat the combined threats of colonialism, capitalism and apartheid; and it stands as a symbol of their spirit and their political power, their ability to take the initiative and, in a pacifist manner, reconstitute Ndebele group identify. POSTSCRIPTThis report has never been made available for public consumption. Today the survey is dated and largely irrelevant, except, perhaps, as a historical text. Its drawings, however, detailed by students of architecture, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, document an architectural and artistic heritage which has long since disappeared, and thus warrants publication. Interested readers may also quote the following publications: FRESCURA, Franco. 1981. KwaMapoch: An Ndebele Village. Johannesburg: Transvaal Heritage Committee, ISAA, 1981.
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