THE GWEMBE TONGA CRAFT WORLD
AND
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT INTERVENTION
Gijsbert Witkamp*
Original text: 2009. Edited unabridged version of 2025.
Published in 2013 in abbreviated form in Tonga TimeLine; Lusaka, Lembani Trust, edited by Lisa Cliggett. Tonga TimeLine is a collection of multidisciplinary research papers in honour of the late Professor Elisabeth Colson.
ABSTRACT
This text is about the impact of four craft development projects in the Zambian and Zimbabwean Gwembe Valley on its crafts world during 1980 to 2000. The interventions extended the Gwembe Tonga crafts world beyond the boundaries of Gwembe Tonga life to the national and international crafts business. The projects economically and culturally sustained, expanded and enriched that world; ironically by the introduction of exotic projects, which, (still) are alien to indigenous socio-economic organization. Especially the three donor aided projects created a disjointed Gwembe Tonga crafts world, that is, a crafts world populated by parties which lack mutual understanding and stable, durable relationships. Participation of crafts makers in governance was obstructed by lack of a corresponding indigenous organisation that could provide a model for such participation, by conflicting interests of dominating local elites, unfamiliarity of crafts makers with the kind of organisation a development project is, and sometimes sheer lack of interest.
INTRODUCTION
The rupture in the life of the Gwembe Tonga imposed on them by the construction of the Kariba dam at the end of the fifties also greatly affected their crafts world. British colonial rule, established at the beginning of the twentieth century, had not radically altered the Gwembe Tonga way of life. The Gwembe Valley was isolated, poorly accessible, unhealthy for Europeans, and of little economic value at the time. This all changed when in the fifties it was realized that the Zambezi river, quite literally the artery of Gwembe Tonga society, could be tapped to feed the energy requirements of Southern and Northern Rhodesian towns and mining industries. The area was opened up by the construction of roads, the colonial administration became a permanent rather than an incidental presence, and schemes were put in motion to enforce resettlement of some 57,000 people. The Kariba hydroelectric dam literally flooded the Gwembe Tonga into modernity. The natural resources of the valley no longer primarily served the Gwembe Tonga, but national and international economies. The incorporation of the Gwembe Tonga into the modern world subjected them to political and economic interests over which they had very little control, a situation that also prevailed after independence of the former Rhodesias in 1964 (Zambia) and 1980 (Zimbabwe).
Government, NGOs and development agencies moved in to bring what they perceived to be development for the Gwembe Tonga. One result of these extraneous concerns was the establishment of several crafts projects in the early seventies. Four projects came into existence: two in Zambia and two in Zimbabwe. The economic, social and cultural impact of these interventions on the Gwembe Tonga crafts world has been considerable. The projects introduced commercial crafts production, marketing by a specialized agency largely for external markets, professional association and training, increased exposure to regional and exotic crafts, and disseminated aesthetic concepts of the foreign marketplace rather than those grounded in locally-defined function. It also confronted the crafts makers with the vicissitudes of international development assistance and international markets.
All projects were primarily established to contribute to poverty alleviation for the Gwembe Tonga subsistence and peasant farmers by opening up an avenue for supplementary income generation by crafts making. This was to be achieved by skill development, optimization of local human, material and cultural resources, community-based organisation, and a marketing facility. The Gwembe Tonga are amongst the poorest populations both in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Commercial crafts production indeed facilitates the participation in a monetary economy on which the Gwembe Tonga have become dependent. The crafts are exported out of the Valley in return for cash, and the cash largely is used to pay for imported commercial commodities and modern services. The commercial production of crafts, ironically, builds upon a tradition the products of which often are less valued today by the Gwembe Tonga than the industrial commodities that have come to replace them.
The crafts projects typically fulfil an intermediary role: between indigenous production and an exotic market, between sponsoring development agencies and crafts makers, and by extension, between the Gwembe Tonga and the world at large. They are agents of change, linking and extending a crafts world beyond the boundaries of Gwembe Tonga life to the national and international crafts business within a framework of ‘development’. Today Gwembe Tonga crafts may be purchased in shops within the Southern African region, in Western Europe, the United States or Japan. The parties that make up the Gwembe Tonga crafts world are no longer exclusively local artisans and users, but include exotic crafts projects, craft shops, customers buying from these shops and international bodies promoting ‘crafts development’.
The successes and failures of the crafts projects are indicative of the difficulties confronting the Gwembe Tonga in the transformation from a relatively self-sufficient existence to a life which demands of them to adequately deal which larger and more powerful economic, political and cultural realities. They are also indicative of some problems within the development industry. A full discussion of the dynamics of these development interventions requires an investigation of the highly complex interaction between the Gwembe Tonga craftsmen, the projects, the donors and other affiliated organizations; all in their various and often discrepant cultural milieus. In this paper, the focus is on the Gwembe Tonga crafts world and the changes brought about in it by the crafts development projects.
One of these changes is the use of terms such as ‘crafts’, ‘crafts makers’ and ‘crafts world’ to describe and classify an aspect of Gwembe Tonga life in the English language. The Gwembe Tonga do not have a word for the English ‘crafts’ or ‘crafts maker’ and do not think of their ‘crafts’ as situated in a ‘crafts world’. It makes sense, however, to talk about the ‘Gwembe Tonga crafts world’ as there is a practical reality to which the term may be applied. The term crafts world refers to such a reality as a structured, coherent social, economic and cultural domain. This text is about the transformation of a crafts world once primarily diffused into the practicalities of daily life to an emerging distinct domain.
The crafts projects have been successful because their way of operation remains compatible with conditions prevailing prior to the interventions. All projects adopted the existing technologies and mode of production, including the gender bound division of labour as the basis of their operations. Three extensively donor-sponsored projects encountered problems in governance and management, signifying fundamental problems of institutional organisation and embedding. The institutional problems of these projects in no small degree have been caused by the very development perspective and modus operandi adopted by the development agencies. Donor ideals as regards participation of crafts makers in decision making were obstructed by lack of corresponding indigenous organisation that could provide a model for such participation and organisation, conflicting interests of local elites, unfamiliarity of crafts makers with the kind of organisation a development project is, and sometime sheer lack of interest. Economic and cultural compatibility was countered by organisational incompatibility.
The development interventions in the Gwembe Tonga crafts world sustained, expanded and enriched that world; ironically, this was accomplished by the introduction of exotic projects that – still - are alien to indigenous socio-economic organization. The donor-aided projects especially created a disjointed Gwembe Tonga crafts world[1]: one populated by parties that lack mutual understanding and stable relationships. Such instability is fed by the need to secure external funding to sustain programs and the erratic supply of such funding. What was built up during a period of plenty will be neglected during a subsequent financial drought signalling economic and organisational immaturity.
THE TRADITION
In order to understand the impact of development projects on the Gwembe Tonga crafts world we have to know how that world was constructed prior to the appearance of these projects in the seventies. That world, despite its apparent heterogeneity and local variations, is informed by underlying rules and conditions. These govern the technologies, the division of labour in production and use, the mode of economic exchange, the transfer of skills, the contexts in which the artefacts are used and the meanings attached to them. They also enable certain innovations and inhibit others. Today, though certain ‘traditional’ parameters prevail practically as dominant tendencies and culturally as normative rules and values, others have been supplemented by what have become accepted practices of fairly recent introduction.
Before sketching an outline of the Gwembe Tonga crafts tradition we must take a closer look at the concept ‘tradition’ and its associated notion of authenticity. Outsiders who buy crafts like those objects to be ‘authentic’, meaning that the objects are made according to ‘tradition’. But what is traditionally Gwembe Tonga and what is not? And for whom?
The term tradition implies a customary way of doing things. It often is used in a static sense to portray an idealized, normative, timeless, neatly bounded, homogeneous and therefore fictive ‘pure’ culture. In that usage ‘tradition’ is evoked to justify how things should be done. Traditions, in reality, do change and, at a given point in time, may embrace a range of accepted practices. Innovations eventually become accepted practices, replacing, or co-existing with, older routines and values. ‘Traditions’ are not only composed of constants but include adaptive mechanisms as well. The importance of ‘tradition’ in the understanding of development processes is that changes, as these occur in time and space, are restrained or enabled by prevailing routines, rules, knowledge, conceptions and conditions. ‘Tradition’ allowed the Gwembe Tonga women to replace a clay pot for a plastic bucket, but inhibits men to practice the female art of pottery. Successful development intervention depends on compatibility between development agencies’ way of doing things and the population earmarked for ‘development’.
Once acknowledged that the Gwembe Tonga crafts world has always been in a process of change, the attribution of labels such as ‘authentic,’ ‘genuine’ or ‘traditionally Tonga’ to certain artefacts at the exclusion of objects that show ‘foreign’ features can be considered in relative rather than in absolute terms. Any definition of ‘authenticity’ can only be of temporary relevance, and the elevation of such limited temporal space to timeless truth creates a false image of a pure, normative and idealized cultural universe that denies the plurality and dynamics of the real world. ‘Authenticity’, like ‘tradition’ is transitory rather than fixed.
Many budima drums presently, for example, are painted in commercially available colours. The colours used are often those incidentally at hand. The ‘traditional’ colours are white (chalk), black (charred and crushed musikili seeds) and red (red oxide of iron). Ironically today many of the ‘purely’ decorated drums are made for an external market because customers enjoy their ‘authenticity,’ while in the Tonga villages many budima drums happily signify the successful penetration of an industrial product – canned paint. Today’s oil painted drums, in my view, may have more valid claims to authenticity in terms of the present as they reflect practical conditions that have been accepted by the Gwembe Tonga.
Gwembe Tonga material culture is, and always has been, evolving rather than static. Examples abound: Beadwork made of glass beads used to be of great importance to the Gwembe Tonga. Glass beads were introduced centuries ago by traders from the east coast. They became major objects of value and prestige. A second and quite spectacular development occurred more recently when a whole repertory of new beadwork objects became most of the Gwembe Tonga official dress. This fine beadwork is an outcome of Tonga-Ndebele interaction. Some beadwork probably replaced bodily decorations made of indigenous materials such as the seeds of certain trees. There is therefore both continuity and change. Deeply engrained patterns naturally last longer than their superficial expressions. Shopping baskets, a fairly new product, are made by an old weaving technology employed in making storage baskets. In this case the rules of the game have been applied in an innovative manner, but they have not been altered.
It is basic to the understanding of the crafts tradition that the things we now label crafts are a selection of objects placed in the larger context of the Gwembe Tonga material world: a world which was, and to a considerable degree still is, largely of their own making. The homestead was a highly self sufficient unit based on subsistence farming supplemented by hunting, gathering and fishing. The domestic production of objects mostly for own use fits a way of life stressing the economic independence of the homestead. All Gwembe Tonga men and women in varying degrees made and make the things they need and in this sense all Gwembe Tonga are crafts men and women. People still build their own huts, weave baskets, fire pots, construct sledges, and carve stools.
They make utilitarian and decorative objects, ritual or ‘magical’ artefacts and musical instruments. Many decorative objects are made of beads and these show a concern with aesthetics through patterning and shape. The beadwork, worn on the body, often combines ornamental and aesthetic functions with spiritual significance and social prestige. Certain artefacts were used in religious practice, in witchcraft and sorcery: they constitute the paraphernalia of healers, diviners and other spiritual leaders. Some objects gained special status by being associated with spirit ‘inheritance’: a person inheriting the spirit of a deceased relative keeps an object intimately associated with the deceased. The zimpangaliko zya mizimu, things of the ancestral spirits, were the tangible proof of having such spiritual association. These ‘heirlooms’ had to be durable and transportable in order to be taken to gatherings of the living where the presence of the ancestral spirits was required. Musical instruments, drums, flutes, rattles, the thumb piano and the bow are elements of the most important domain of Gwembe Tonga artistic expression: music, dance and song, both in ritual and secular contexts.
It was recognized that some people had better skills than others in the production of material goods. The basilunamba, the ones who have perseverance, obtained a reputation as specialists. Such people were (and often still are) considered to be gifted by the association of the spirit of a deceased skilled crafts maker to him or her. Typically a person would fall sick and upon divination it would be diagnosed that the spirit of a deceased crafts maker was seeking to enter the person, thus causing the illness (Colson 1960: 133, 144-6 and 1971: 210, 217). The Gwembe Tonga recognized the spiritual nature of art in their own way. They also recognized, as implied by the term basilunamba, that the mastering of a craft required persistent effort and had to be learned. Certain crafts were not generally practised and this applied particularly to smithing and canoe making. Also these extraordinary crafts men or women were spiritually endowed (Colson 1971: 217). Some artefacts were restricted in circulation, such as the paraphernalia of witchcraft, healing, and divination. Such objects were usually made by the practitioner but might be obtained by commissioning a person of greater ability.
Production and sale
The specialists, like their fellow Gwembe Tonga, are firstly subsistence farmers. They would occasionally, however, be engaged in economic transactions in which their products were exchanged for other goods. Such barter was restricted to the immediate vicinity of the producer (Colson 1960: 35, 37). Such barter was restricted to the immediate vicinity of the producer[2]. The buyer usually approached the producer, unless the producer went around to look for food in exchange for the crafted object[3]. Only as of the 1950’s did economic exchange take the form of a monetary transaction, but even today barter is not uncommon. The sale of crafts by a middle man was not practised, transactions were carried out directly between producer and customer.
Only as of the 1950s did economic exchange take the form of a monetary transaction, but even today barter is not uncommon. The sale of crafts by a middleman was not practised; transactions were carried out directly between producer and customer.
Gwembe Tonga artefacts were not involved in extensive internal or external economic exchanges. Natural resources for crafts production were distributed throughout the Valley. No local, unique technologies emerged, though some crafts were more developed or practised in certain areas than in others. The tendency towards economic self-sufficiency of the homestead and a concomitant low level of specialization inhibited the development of a significant internal trade. Low population density and the sheer dangers and effort of travel and transport must have been other negative factors. Crafts production also was limited by the absence of a system which put a premium on material culture as a way to articulate differences in status, or one in which excellence in the production of crafts led to significant economic or social rewards (Reynolds, 1968).
Neither do the Gwembe Tonga have rituals or ceremonies that require extensive objective choreography. Gwembe Tonga material culture generally is simple and the production of an extensive and elaborate range of material goods certainly is not a major project for them. Surplus wealth tends to be reinvested productively, i.e., in wives, cattle, medicines (Colson 1971: 158), or a plough and occasionally by purchasing a bicycle, radio, blankets, roofing sheets and other objects associated with modern life. The bodily adornments, the beadwork, the impande necklace, the kauri head pads, and the brass or iron bangles were prestige goods. Ownership of these prized (and truly costly) exotic objects was, however, not exclusively limited to a special class or group save for the gender-bound use of these objects. Many Gwembe Tonga have a limited tolerance towards private differentiation in wealth and have developed an extensive apparatus to ensure that individual wealth is redistributed into the family and community. Finally, the remoteness of the area negatively affected the prospects of external trade. We know that some trade has been going on - in slaves, ivory, and tobacco for cloth, beads and guns - but while such incidental trade did have considerable local impact, it surely did not provide the Gwembe Tonga with the range of skills and attitudes associated with an entrepreneurial society.
Crafts production was carried out individually at the homestead. Little of it was taken up in trade or exchange systems and most of it served practical domestic needs. Professional association was unknown, and transfer of skills informal and ad hoc. A child would see her grandmother make a pot and copy her labour.
Criteria for the appreciation of crafts centred on functionality and effectiveness: a well-made stool was a stool that lasted. Crafts therefore tended to be sturdy. A properly made witchcraft item or object used in divination was an object that worked. A good drum lasted and produced a good sound. A proper basket was a basket that did not leak the flour put into it. Many utilitarian and decorative objects, however, show a concern with form that exceeds functional requirements. The aesthetic appreciation of an object just for the sake of its visible beauty clearly informed the production of beadwork, but also is evident in pottery, basketry, stool and drum making.
Crafts, except for clay figurines made by children, rarely were vehicles of representative imagery, though certain objects could take on symbolic and ritual meaning or function. Neither did they demonstrate the readily recognizable sophisticated craftsmanship of, for example, Kuba or Chokwe material culture. The Gwembe Tonga did not create a range of objects which met Western conceptions about ‘African art’ or that could be easily appreciated by Western aesthetics. Barrie Reynolds, author of the only monograph about Gwembe Tonga material culture[4], speaks of:
"the poverty of the material culture of the Valley Tonga,’ in which ‘the emphasis is always on function rather than form. Products, though clumsy and crude, are sturdy and satisfactory for the purpose for which they are intended. Graceful lines are rarely to be seen; decoration, if applied, is geometrical, careless and dull; colours are too boldly used and the effect is usually garish. The only exception to these criticisms is the pottery."
Today, while acknowledging the merits of his research, we do not accept his harsh judgement based, as it is, on a personal interpretation of Western aesthetics. Western aesthetics are neither universal nor one of a kind and there is no reason to elevate them to that position or reduce its variety to ill-defined singularity. While a sense of the aesthetic is common to all societies, there are no universal, objective aesthetic standards. On the contrary, we live in a world that offers a plurality of aesthetic orientations and expressions which, more than ever before in history, interact with each other. Gwembe Tonga aesthetics in the realm of material culture combine concepts of ‘outward beauty’, as informed by their appreciation of sensory qualities, with the appreciation of functional adequacy and other types of meaning. That kind of aesthetic is radically opposed to an approach that analytically separates these various aspects in order to create the notion of a formal, but otherwise meaningless, beauty. When criteria of formal aesthetics are applied to Gwembe Tonga crafts - and when the formal criteria themselves are culturally biased - many of these crafts are bound to score low simply because they are from a different and unfamiliar world. A genuine appreciation of Gwembe Tonga artefacts requires an understanding of the environment in which these objects are made and used. It also requires exposure and familiarity. It may then be that these ‘crudely made objects’ are felt to be charming: reflecting improvisation, spontaneity, and a straightforward relation between raw material, end product and functional destiny. These aspects render the ‘Gwembe Tonga crafts’ a down-to-earth quality that stands in sharp contrast to most present Western-applied arts.
Categories
The Gwembe Tonga did not have a cultural domain labelled crafts. Until recently terms like ‘crafts,’ ‘crafts making’ and ‘crafts maker’ had no meaning for the Gwembe Tonga. There were and are no chitonga equivalents for these words. A consideration of Chitonga crafts-related terminology and classification helps us to understand ‘crafts’ in the context of Tonga culture and practice. We shall briefly consider the relation between classifications based on technology, the gender-bound production of material goods and the context of use of these artefacts.
The closest Tonga concept for the English ‘crafts’ is zimpangaliko, meaning things made by man. The verb ku-panga is to make. Zimpangaliko in English could be taken to mean ‘artefacts,’ or ‘objects of material culture’ if the term material culture is used in a broad sense. Zimpangaliko is opposed to zilenge. Zilenge are all things found in nature, that is, things made by Chilenge, the Creator or God. These terms signify a distinction between things natural and things cultural or man-made. The making of an artefact, ku-panga, is to transform a natural thing into a cultural product by human action. Artisans, aided by the spirits of their predecessors, are quite literally the producers and reproducers of material culture.
In Chitonga a number of named categories are subsumed under zimpangaliko, which in English label various kinds of crafts. The names of these categories are based on the raw material, its properties or the technique of making a finished product and therefore correspond to a technological order also current in the Western crafts world.
The main technologically defined categories are woodwork, metalwork, pottery, fibre work and beadwork - i.e., techniques and associated artefacts that were basic to the development of human culture. Woodwork in Chitonga is bubezi, things carved, and is derived from kubeza, which is to carve. Metalwork is butale, which literally means things hard and strong. The related verb is kutale: to be strong. Pottery is bubumbi, from kubumba, which is to mould or model. Fibre work is quite a general term that in this context embraces techniques such as weaving, cordage, plaiting and wickerwork. The Chitonga approximation is buluke, things woven or plaited and these include basketry, mats and bracelets or ‘necklaces’ made of grass. Buluke is related to the verb kuluka that means weaving and apparently also captures plaiting (as of grass bangles). Beadwork is bulungu. The noun is probably related to the verb kulungula meaning to twist (e.g., the baobab fibre to thread) and to thread (the beads onto a string); and to the verb kulunga, which means to pay for a case. Certain payments of fines used to be done in beads.
Most categories are composed of several named sub-categories, and each sub-category has a number of specimens. Spears, masuma, are a subcategory of butale, iron things, and are differentiated into fishing spears (ing'umba), hunting spears (isumu) and harpoons (coowe).
Many objects combine several techniques and materials. The fibre skirt or insete is made of musante strings adorned with beadwork. Objects often are decorated by applying colour (chalk or lime, ground iron oxide, and graphite or charred musikili seeds), by incision (pottery, woodwork), by charring (woodwork) or by dyeing (basketry and other fibrework).
In some cases the mixed media aspect precludes a straight forward technological classification: female pipes are made of a gourd with a clay pipe head and are often decorated with beads or other materials, the bow string is made of a gourd acting as a resonator, a bent stick and (presently) metal wire. The Tonga, unlike art historians, do not use the concept ‘mixed media.’ From their point of view such objects are more readily classified according to purpose, function or domain of use. The indigenous classification of ‘crafts’ purely by technique therefore does not comprehensively cover all objects, but certainly a large number of them. Neither is the technological classification exclusive of other modes of ordering.
The classification of Gwembe Tonga crafts by raw material or by method of working the raw material makes vital sense in Gwembe Tonga material culture because of a socio-economic-ideological praxis in which the production of goods is almost fully gender bound. The production of crafts was and is structured by a division of labour in which specific technologies are almost exclusively allocated to either men or women. Men work in wood and iron, women work clay, fibre and beads. Incidentally, men and women use the same material resource, but rarely to produce identical objects. Both man and women make reed sleeping mats (malo) and floor mats (masasa). Men make clay pipe bowls (intale), but these are different in shape from the female pipe heads. The female pipe head is called the mwana wa ncelwa, or child of the gourd of which the female bubble pipe is made. T Women make storage baskets but men make the fishing baskets or scoops used by women in fishing[5]. The case of beadwork is more complicated and requires further research. Practically today beadwork is made by women. My main informant (Mr. Syabbalo, see endnote) said, however, that in the past men also made beadwork and taught their wives the techniques and models they had found in Bulawayo as migrant labourers.
Gender
One way to extend this analysis is to relate the gender-bound production to context of use, purpose and function. The combination of these various orders provides considerable insight in the structure of that part of Gwembe Tonga material culture labelled crafts. This paper can only outline dominant tendencies. Classifying objects by domain or context of use is feasible because of an observable praxis. A central domain deals with the provision of food, either by its cultural production through cultivation and animal husbandry or by natural acquisition through hunting, gathering and fishing. Other important domains are the metaphysical aspects of life (religious practice, witchcraft, sorcery, divination, healing), the domestic environment, bodily ornamentation and music.
Almost all pottery products are made by women to be used by women domestically. Pots are used in cooking, in storage of food and water and are generally associated with female activity in the household. Pots play a significant role in ritual contexts. The rain maker (sibuvula) uses two small pots (the tulongo twa mvula or the pots of rain) to divine damage of crops by insects). Pots are also placed at the malende or grave of the mwami, the leader of the ritually defined neighbourhood called cisi. Pots are used to make libations to the ancestral spirits by offering them beer at the threshold of the hut. In marriage a small pot (kalisukulwido) filled with water is given by the bride to the husband to clean face and hands. A similar pot filled with water from the main container with drinking water is placed in the grave next to the head of the deceased. At later stages of the funeral rites a pot is used for purification and the pouring of beer over the grave by making a hole in its bottom after which it is placed on a stick or knobkerrie on top of the grave. Pots in these contexts are vessels associated with purity, appeasement, nourishment and ‘breaking points’ in human life.
In basketry and other fibrework it also holds true that these female-made objects are used dominantly in female activity. Baskets are used in the domestic sphere, mostly as containers. The grass bangles and ‘necklaces’ are female ornaments. Basketry features much less prominently in ritual than pottery. A cisuwo (large storage basket) is used at the malende at the burial of a mwami to ‘put down the wind,’ i.e., prevent storms/pre-empt disaster. Women dance holding the basket in an upside down position and make vertical movements with it.
While pots are associated with earth, water and fire, baskets are associated with vegetation and wind. Both are containers. In ritual, pottery is handled by men and women, while baskets in ritual are female paraphernalia.
Beadwork was worn by men and women in ceremonial context, to present them attractively and dignified, indicating the social status of the bearer and to mark the importance of the occasion. As the Gwembe Tonga were quite scantily dressed, beadwork made up a considerable part of the attire and included nose plugs, head bands, necklaces, bracelets, armbands and hip strings. Women would also wear head pads decorated with kauri shells, and invisibly, beaded strings around the waist. In some areas of the Gwembe Valley girls used to wear a beaded veil (kampalamba) at initiation. Beadwork was used spiritually by the rainmaker, in mashabe (a collective cleansing ritual) and in spirit inheritance. The rainmaker, male or female, uses black beads to decorate the dancing stick, wears a black beaded string around the waist and has a hand rattle with a handle decorated with black beads. Black, in this context, is associated with (agricultural) fertility as dark clouds have rain. In mashabe, beaded black, white, blue and red strings are used and its paraphernalia (divining sticks, hand rattles, tails and dancing stick) may be decorated with beads. The ritual specialist performing the mashabe, the simashabe, may be male or female. The cidanda is the typical object in spirit inheritance. It is a single line of white beads worn around the neck, both by men and women. Beadwork, in conclusion, is used by men and women, in ceremonial and ritual contexts, except for a few exclusively female objects.
The typically male techniques are wood carving and smithing. Spears are used by men in hunting and fishing; and male-made adzes and axes are used in woodcarving. Women use male-made metal products in cultivation (the hoe), in domestic work (knife, axe), or in bodily ornamentation (iron and brass bangles). In this instance there is a clear crossover from male-made utilitarian artefact to female application in productive and domestic contexts. Several smithed objects were used for special occasions. The bukaano, a short handled axe, was ‘worn’ by men at funerals. The kanomba is a long handled ‘social’ axe used in dancing (but also in fighting) by men. The same axe could be an object of spirit inheritance. A small variant of this axe is used by men and women in mashabe dances. The igale spear and a hoe, furnished by the family of the bridegroom, were presented by the bride to her father and mother at the marriage ceremony. A ‘non-refundable’ hoe was given by the family of the aspiring groom to the parents of the girl sought in marriage at the onset of the negotiations. Smithed hoes, now extinct, were valuable objects and used as pride price in marriage. At the malende a hoe representing the spirit of the mwami is used when praying for rain. The hoe is kept at the house of the first wife of the simalende, the keeper of the shrine, in a suspended position. If it fell it spelled forthcoming danger.
The most important carved objects are pestles and mortars, wooden bowls, spoons, stools, drums, canoes and doors. The mortars and pestles are instrumental in the female activity of pounding. Also, the wooden kitchen implements belong to the female domestic domain. Stools furnish the domestic setting and are used both by men and women. Men play drums, though incidentally, women also play. I have not come across ritual usages of carved objects save for the budima drums.
Musical instruments are usually made by the gender that plays them. The context of use of musical instruments is social and involves the gathering of people for pleasure or for ceremony and ritual. Men make and play the string bow. Drumming by women is exceptional. Leg rattles are made by men and women and worn/played by both sexes and the same applies to hand rattles.
Pottery and basketry, made by women, is also dominantly used by women in profane, domestic contexts. Pottery in ritual contexts is used by both men and women. Women use male-made carved objects in domestic contexts associated with food preparation and serving. Metal objects, male-made, are used by both men and women in practical situations. The metal object typically associated with women is the hoe. In marriage ceremony hoes move(d) from men to women, highlighting the value attached to women as cultivators. In ritual iron objects primarily associated with male activity are also handled by men. The miniature axes used in mashabe are carried both by men and women. It may be speculated that it is their very smallness, turning them into symbols rather than in practical objects, which facilitates this usage. The position of beadwork is special. Lacking practical applications, it has largely ideological significance. Today, women make the beadwork, but it is said that these skills were disseminated by men to women. Both men and women use(d) beadwork as part of the formal costume, though women possessed some exclusively female objects (head pads and waist strings).
The gender-bound contexts of production and application show crossovers in the practical and ritual domains. Male-made iron work is used by women in productive and domestic situations. Reversely, women are producers of cultivated food while men are consumers. At the ritual level female-made pottery is also used by men. The extraordinariness of ritual, it seems, is to some extent demonstrated by a choreography in which female practical objects are handled by males and vice versa.
Meanings
The Gwembe Tonga are no great philosophers having elaborate verbal conceptual and classification systems about life and death and all things in-between. Embedded in their practices are, however, conceptions that in some way underlie their order of the world. Some of these implicit meanings in pottery and smithing are outlined below.
In pottery, a logical constellation exists in which women, water, purity, cooking, beer and pottery are key elements. This constellation may be placed in a larger context that includes the cultivation of food crops (i.e., the acquisition of food by cultural means) and the acquisition of food by natural means (gathering vegetable bush products, insects and ‘small’ forms of fishing), as these are the ingredients provided and cooked by women in pots.
Pot making itself is associated with the earth, water and fire. The earth delivers the raw material. The making of pots requires water to turn the raw material into a plastic mass which then is moulded and shaped. The dry raw product, called green ware in English, must be fired to be durable, hard and functional. The making of pots therefore requires a double transformation: the first transformation is effected by water, the second by fire. Pots combine the opposing and antagonistic forces of water and fire, and this combination can only be achieved by a temporal sequence in which water firstly is introduced to make the raw pot that subsequently is hardened by fire. These sequential transformations render the pot suitable in use for the simultaneous application of both fire and water in cooking. The way pots are made, and their subsequent ability to harness both water and fire, explains not only their practical utility but endows them (at least theoretically) with conceptual, symbolic and ritual significance. It may be noted that pot making itself is some sort of cooking as a natural material is transformed into a cultural product by the application of fire.
There is also a relation between pot making and wind but this relationship is negative. Wind endangers the proper firing of the pot. Pots should be fired at dusk and the reason given is at that time the wind has laid down. The control of wind in pottery is by taking advantage of a natural phenomenon. In contrast, women ‘control’ wind symbolically using baskets at the malende. Excessive wind damages the female-cultivated food crops. Wind, at least in these contexts, is an antagonistic force for women.
The association of elements between the sexes is dominated by women in the case of water. Women draw water, take care of water storage, use water in cooking, wash in water and offer water for washing, thus delivering purity, food and drinks. Women use fire in smoking and pottery, and sustain fire domestically for cooking and beer brewing. Women are the masters of domestic fire.
The conceptual system surrounding pottery, as elsewhere in Africa, stands in a complementary relationship to smithing by a number of oppositions and reversals. Smithing and ironworking are exclusively male activities. Both pottery and ironwork commence by the collection of an earthy material (iron ore) that has to be transformed into a plastic state, then is moulded and finally made into a durable, solid object. In contrast to pottery the change from initial raw solid to plastic mass in smithing is effected by fire. The subsequent hardening is achieved by cooling rather than by heating, and may involve submersion in water to enhance the strength of the object. The temporal application of fire and water is therefore reversed. In smelting wind is generated and introduced into the kiln by cultural means, while in the firing of pottery wind is avoided by taking advantage of a natural phenomenon.
The products also are logical opposites. Pottery is fragile, metal work is durable. Pottery products are made to be vessels having an opening by means of which they function as containers. Smithed objects tend to be pointed (knife, adze, spear, hoe) and serve to cut or penetrate. Also, pottery and iron work contrast in value: pottery is low and metal high. We can extend the analysis to the context of use. Women use male-made iron objects of which the hoe is the most outstanding. This fits in with female cultivation of food crops outlined above. The importance of women as cultivators was expressed in the symbolic equivalence of male-made hoes and women in marriage when hoes were ‘exchanged’ for the future bride.
The female usage of iron objects in cultivation and preparation of food contrasts the male applications. The men engage metal objects in the acquisition of food primarily by hunting and fishing with spears. Women focus on cultivated plants, men on wild animals. Men do, however, contribute to agricultural production by clearing bush employing their axes. Women also use axes, but on a lesser scale. They cut firewood rather than whole trees. The bifurcation of male and female use of metal objects contrasts female-used hoes for the cultivation of food crops to male-used spears and axes used in hunting and fishing in nature. Men culturally complement their hunting activities by keeping cattle (mostly a fairly recent extension), which also complements the female preoccupation with food plants. Men, furthermore, use metal weapons both in aggression and in defence.
Finally, while men hunt in the bush, women gather. The gathering of wild food by women, of crucial importance in the frequent years of poor harvest, complements their cultivation of crops. Women also gather insects and catch small fish with scoops, turning them into ‘small hunters.’ Men are ‘small cultivators.’
Those are some basic aspects of Gwembe Tonga ‘traditional’ crafts. (Certain) crafts are embedded in a crafts world which includes not only the artefacts, but also their production, use, the relationships between producers and users, the transference of skills, ideas and values associated to these objects, their place in explicit economical practice and implicit ideological conception. This crafts world thus is embedded in the larger context of Gwembe Tonga life – a world that was acted upon by external agencies of change concerned with crafts development.
THE INTERVENTIONS: FOUR CRAFTS DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN GWEMBE VALLEY
Today a discussion of the Gwembe Tonga crafts world has to address the role of crafts development projects, as these have significantly altered that crafts world since the early seventies. Several hundreds of crafts makers in Zambia and in Zimbabwe are (or were) affiliated to these ventures. The projects market most of the commercial crafts production of the Valley. The discussion below covers the period 1980 – 2000. The ethnographic present is used even though the thing presented may no longer exist.
The four Gwembe Valley crafts projects have in common that they primarily have been designed to provide income for a poor farming population living in an area with insufficient arable land and erratic rainfall[6]. The projects fit sensible economic strategies stressing the spreading of risks by diversification of activities and (better) utilization of local natural and human resources. Other concerns (skill development, natural resource management, the appreciation of crafts as an element of culture, preservation of traditional skills and knowledge) were secondary to the clearly economic purpose of creating a source of cash income for subsistence or small peasant farmers. These economically defined projects were to facilitate the participation of the poor Gwembe Tonga in the monetary economy by the commercial marketing of locally made products. The profit on the sale of crafts, furthermore, was to cover the costs of the operation and hence sustain the projects. The markets for the crafts were exotic - i.e., beyond the Gwembe Valley - thus creating a genuine inflow of money.
The interventions promoted and effected major, innovative changes in the Gwembe Tonga crafts world. All projects started out as exotic organizations, as they were not an outcome of a model of Gwembe Tonga socioeconomic formation, a condition that largely prevails today. They are externally introduced agents of change having dominant institutional affiliations with bodies beyond Gwembe Tonga society. They introduced commercial production for an external market: crafts are bought in cash to be marketed by a specialized agency outside the local community, serving national and international markets. All projects have, in various ways, organized crafts makers to provide training, to facilitate purchase of their products and to encourage regular production. These organizational activities have introduced an element of professional association and enhanced the emerging economic and social status of ‘crafts maker’ (i.e., potter, smith, weaver). Crafts makers, through workshops and field visits by employees of the development projects, have been exposed to other area’s crafts and their conceptions about crafts as these issue from the exotic marketplace. These conceptions tend to stress aesthetic qualities rather than locally defined function. The projects have introduced a cultural category of ‘crafts’ - in Chitonga also often called crafts - which crosscuts through the indigenous classification based on raw material or technology, but is less broad than the generic zimpangaliko, or ‘things made by man’. Finally, these various aspects in combination result in the emergence of a distinct social, economic and culturally-defined crafts domain within Gwembe Tonga life.
The Projects
Three out of the four Gwembe Valley based projects have been specifically designed as donor-supported development projects. These are the Omay Crafts Centre and the Binga Crafts Centre, both in Zimbabwe, and the Choma Museum and Crafts Centre in Choma, Zambia. Substantial financial assistance and technical support has been provided to establish these projects. The position of the Munyumbwe crafts activity on the Zambian side of the Gwembe Valley is unique because it did not come into being as a typical fully-fledged development project. External assistance rendered to Munyumbwe, while of vital importance, is insignificant in comparison to the support received by the donor projects. All centres had to start nearly from scratch, though both the Choma and Binga-based projects developed out of modest pre-donor beginnings. Physical, organizational and institutional infrastructures had to be established, management, supply and marketing systems had to be put in place and a productive base had to be built up.
The first development venture into Gwembe Tonga crafts was by the German Gossner Mission which in 1972 ran an operation known as ‘Tonga Crafts.’ It was based in Gwembe South (now called Sinazongwe district) in the Zambian Gwembe Valley. Crafts purchased mostly in the Siabaswi area were mostly sold at the Gossner Mission Office in Lusaka to Europeans stationed in the national capital. Initially quite successful, it ran into deep waters by the early eighties. It lacked professional management and the readily marketable ‘authentic’ (used) crafts had been depleted.
In 1988 ‘Tonga Crafts’ was adopted by Dutch agencies as a development project named the Gwembe Valley Tonga Museum and Crafts Project. Consequent to conditional donor funding, the venture developed from a local activity into a regional project having its headquarters in the neighbouring Choma district on the plateau. The financial donor rightly reasoned that the Gwembe Valley was too remote to viably sustain the project. The organization was formally restructured in 1995 and renamed the Choma Museum and Crafts Centre Trust Ltd (CMCC for short). Since then its activities are separated in three semi-autonomous divisions: museum, crafts trade and crafts development. The CMCC from the very beginning was designed as a combined museum and crafts project having cultural and economic objectives related by a common concern with material culture. It developed into a regional project addressing culturally varied settings of many populations. Its crafts activities in Gwembe Valley, while a major concern, are now part of a considerably larger package. The project has received a longer period of continuous support by a single donor than any of the other donor-funded crafts project and is an independent institution.
Gwembe South (the present Sinazongwe district) was the main locus and focus of the crafts program until 1995. At that time about 200 Gwembe Valley artisans were associated with the program. Of these people about 150 producers are members of semi-formal clubs. The level of crafts purchases in the Valley in 1996 was about USD 5,000 or about 1/3 of the entire intake of the CMCC crafts business. The main items are basketry, stools, drums and pottery. Unlike the Zimbabwean projects or Munyumbwe activity (until its incorporation in the Monze based Home Crafts centre activities in the nineties), the CMCC did not initially have a staff member who could effectively set up a training program. The crafts activities commenced in 1989 by the provision of economic stimulants and the creation of an organization. An intake system was established. Crafts were bought monthly or bi-monthly at various locations: Sinazeze, Lusinga, Siabaswi and Kafwambila. Permanently staffed stations were opened at Sinazeze (1989) and Siabaswi (1993). During the buying sessions quality aspects were discussed with the producers. An initial period of rather indiscriminate buying was followed by an increasingly strict regime that stressed quality of production in accordance with indigenous notions of craftsmanship and external marketing requirements. This approach succeeded in creating regular commercial production and considerable improvement in quality, but failed to arrive at productive levels of marketable crafts which would make the operation cost-covering and render substantial economic benefit to a large group of producers. The spectacular initial growth of the venture was followed by a slump caused largely by deficiencies in management both on the marketing and training side. The situation improved only as of 1995 when competent Zambian crafts training management finally became available.
Natural resource management was initiated in 1993 by the cultivation of the malala (palm species, Hyphaene petersiana) at a pilot scheme and the subsequent promotion of its cultivation at individually-owned gardens. Its leaves are used in basketry. Over 3,000 seeds have been planted of which several hundred have grown into harvestable trees.
The operations persistently faced three main problems. One limiting factor, still, is on the supply side: the productive base is inadequate in terms of production volume and marketability. Unlike Binga or Munyumbwe, Gwembe South has not developed a high quality marketable speciality. The second and probably most significant factor is mere cost of operations, especially transport. This posed a major restraint on purchasing, training and field visits. Crafts need to be procured in the Gwembe Valley to be marketed at Choma. The third complicating factor has been the general economic decline that, especially as of 1993, negatively affected wholesales of crafts to Zambian businesses. The solution might be a higher degree of social organization of production - such as the formation groups working together part-time in a common shelter. The basic idea is to change the peripheral position of crafts making into a regular and established part of the domestic economy under semi-formal conditions.
The CMCC crafts activities have greatly benefited from their association with the museum. The combination of museum and crafts makes the CMCC an attractive place to visit and this promotes sales of crafts. Several workshops have been stimulated and assisted by the museum: a bead workshop served to revitalize an old tradition and other workshops have been organized in relation to museum exhibitions.
The other Zambian Gwembe Tonga crafts activity is based in Munyumbwe and was initiated by an Irish Catholic sister in the early 90’s. Sister Andrea felt pity at the poverty of the Munyumbwe women and started buying and selling their baskets. On her departure, the activity was fully incorporated into the Monze Home Crafts Centre at Monze, which is part of the extensive Roman Catholic establishment, which has its headquarters in that district capital. Munyumbwe, in the neighbouring Gwembe district, gradually developed to a prominent centre of basketry in Southern Province. It never received a great deal of outside support. Assistance initially was limited to the Catholic Church which took care of the sister and provided transport through her services. The same Church offers the Monze Home Crafts Centre modest accommodation and contributes to the upkeep of its principal. The Centre hardly owns any property and its main institutional association is with the Church.
Monze Home Crafts Centre is a simple operation. It occasionally organizes workshops and regularly buys baskets. The Munyumbwe women, about 200 of them, are well organized in several producers clubs. Over the years the quality of the unique baskets has improved from poor to good and sometimes very good. Presently they have a reasonably stable and substantial export market, with purchases in the first half of 1996 being about USD 3,000.
Munyumbwe is a remarkable example of what dedication can achieve. Its very simplicity is an asset. Each participating crafts maker understands what is going on and there are no interested parties outside the producers and the Monze Home Crafts Centre involved in the activity. The administrative work load, other than in the donor-sponsored projects, is largely restricted to the financial administration. It is a low-cost operation that developed on its own strength. While the management of the activity is hampered by a lack of resources - there are chronic transport problems, there is neither a fax machine nor photo copier - it is the same lack of resources that, ironically, saved Munyumbwe from some problems the donor funded projects ran into.
The term ‘ethnographic present’, in the discussion below about Zimbabwean crafts, takes on a particular meaning due to the great changes that have taken place in Zimbabwe. Yet in the eighties and nineties Zimbabwe was thriving. Both Zimbabwean projects are or have been closely affiliated with district councils and thus linked to the government structure. The advantage was that the projects had a clearly defined status and their establishment was supported by government. The councils, furthermore, took care of administrative matters, thus reducing the work load of project personnel. The same construction, however, created rather common problems once the projects were well established.
The Binga Crafts Centre became fully operational in 1990. It was established with Danish technical support (by DVS, the Danish Volunteer Service, now called MS). Funding has been supplied by various parties of which Danida is the most prominent. The Omay Crafts Centre, which opened in 1988, was established with Dutch technical assistance (SNV) and has received financial support from various quarters.
The donor-supported development trajectory of both projects is highly impressive. Three major reasons account for this remarkable record: good personnel, good programs and a ready market. Both centres were blessed during their establishment stage with exceptionally competent development workers whom had good rapport with the producers, were accepted by the communities in which they worked, understood crafts, were able to provide effective training, had business sense, were hard-working and dedicated to the success of the ventures entrusted to them. Both managers worked for prolonged periods of time rather than the standard three-year contract. They gained the necessary familiarity with the environment and were in a position to build up indispensable personal and institutional networks.
The projects started out with a clear and limited focus on crafts development and crafts development only. Omay developed a modest museum activity, but only after the crafts program had been well established. Omay and Binga initiated regular training programs from the very beginning of their operations. An adequate productive base has been created, particularly in Binga, which had about 1,500 affiliated crafts makers in 1992 and a membership of over 3,000 artisans in 1996.
The rapid growth and subsequent survival of the projects has greatly been aided by macroeconomic circumstances. Zimbabwe had a very well-developed tourist industry and tourists buy crafts. Omay Crafts Centre is adjacent to a major tourist lodge, Binga also attracts tourists and both projects have outlets in tourist shops. Binga had the added advantage of having a local craft that, almost from the start, had very good marketing prospects. The Binga isangwa is distinguished from all other Gwembe Tonga basketry by a particular fineness of weave and appearance that appeals to Western aesthetics. Customers buy this basket because of its beauty and not because of its practical utility or presumed authenticity. Finally, Zimbabwe has a national handicrafts centre that promotes and exports crafts. Binga particularly benefited from this facility, as the Binga isangwa, by far is its main item of trade, has excellent export qualities. Omay, lacking a highly marketable specialization, developed a broad range of products including some non-traditional crafts (carvings, textile work).
In Binga, the malala palm leaves became a scarce commodity as a result of the incredible increase in basket production. Wrangles over harvesting rights emerged especially when the palm was harvested by non-residential crafts makers. Attempts to readdress the situation occurred only in 1996 when about 3,000 seedlings were planted. It took Omay seven years and Binga five years to be established, following several years of preliminary work. Both projects constructed attractive accommodation and developed a training program. The organization of producers was put into place, the business became more or less cost-covering and Zimbabwean successors were identified and trained according to the counterpart system.
Did the Projects Work?
The projects were to promote regional crafts production, market the crafts and become sound businesses substantially benefiting the crafts makers. They also took it upon themselves to promote the production of quality crafts - i.e., production of crafts was informed by cultural standards rather than by purely commercial criteria. In order to do these things the projects had to be viable institutions.
All projects show that real and economically sustainable development in Gwembe Tonga crafts can be achieved, provided the institutional and management issues are addressed. Each of the four projects under conditions of good management has delivered a substantial cultural and economic contribution to their respective operational areas.
Concerning the economic returns for the producers it should be understood that many crafts makers make crafts because of the lack of a more rewarding economic activity. Average income for a skilled, regular part-time producer under optimum conditions is in the order of USD 10-15/month, with women being at the lower end of the scale. The majority of producers, however, make much less than that. Most participating artisans are women, probably indicating that women have a smaller range of options to earn cash income then do men. Men, furthermore, tend to make the more expensive items such as drums. They do, however, also tend to make more money than women in equal time.
The relationship between the projects and the crafts makers differed somewhat in the four cases and these relationships themselves changed over time. Crafts makers relate easiest to the projects as buying agencies and as vehicles for training. The first aspect directly appeals to economic interests. The procedures followed in the purchase of crafts are by and large understandable and acceptable in their own terms. The prices of items are fixed by size; selection in buying is by quality preference of the buyer and to some extent by the presence or absence of an existing relationship. The differential pricing of crafts by quality is incidentally practiced and at times disputed. Size or volume provides a tangible measure, while quality assessment is based upon criterion that are not necessarily shared and may be subject to manipulation. The crafts makers know the projects have to market their products, as they themselves are unable to do so. They do have, from time to time, difficulties in comprehending or accepting that trading costs money and may suspect the projects of exploitation. Such suspicions are fed by the relatively low returns crafts production yields financially and the ever-increasing need for more cash. A transaction itself, however, is clear and accepted by both parties, provided payments are made immediately and are directly between project and producer. Sales via middlemen (‘group representatives’ or coordinators) are resented. Either party in direct trade may accept or reject, though indeed crafts makers are usually in the weaker position due to lack of alternative buyers.
Workshops and training sessions, provided they are given by a suitable instructor, always meet enthusiastic response. Again, a clear economic interest provides a major motivation, but also the social aspects of these formal courses appeal strongly to the crafts makers. People from various villages are brought together, meet each other and socialize. The workshops focus on the technical and aesthetic improvement of the crafts and in that sense create a link between producers and the requirements of the exotic market. Aspects of smooth and neat finish and regular shape are of little importance in the local domestic environment as long as practical functionality is not impaired. The workshops also help to associate the crafts makers to the institutions and to create a sense of professionalism.
None of the projects introduced or imposed wholly new technologies, neither did they interfere with the existing gender-bound division of labour. All projects adopted therefore a strategy of limited productive innovation and this certainly is a major reason why crafts makers tended to respond well.
The participation of crafts makers in management and governance has been addressed differently by the various projects. At Munyumbwe the issue was irrelevant as the activity is not governed by a board or sponsored by a donor which insists on ‘community participation’ at that level. The issue did matter, however, to the donor-sponsored projects, ‘empowerment’ being one of the ideological hobby horses of development agencies. Initially the interests of crafts makers associated to the CMCC were to be looked after by founding board members. These community leaders - none of them crafts makers - in reality were more interested in the museum than in the crafts program. In 1995 the crafts makers were requested to elect two representatives to become board members. They elected two non-crafts makers. Binga, until its restructuring in 1995, had two crafts producers on its board but these were no party to the big people who effectively controlled it. In addition Binga had an advisory committee where executive management and crafts producers discussed the daily running of the Centre. The board, however, had the final say. Omay was managed by a management team under final authority of the district council.
In all donor-sponsored projects the Gwembe Tonga crafts makers had little say in policy and governance, particularly after the withdrawal of the expatriate development workers, who, in practice, were their most effective and dedicated representatives. Producers were organized, but the organization centred on training and production rather than participation in governance.
The issue of producers’ representation was complicated by a near-absence of a tradition in which a (professional) group could elect a ‘representative’ who would truly act as a representative of that group, rather then representing him/herself and immediate associates. Furthermore, crafts makers’ unfamiliarity with development projects’ particular form of organization made it nearly impossible for them to function as proper board members. Crafts makers are no party for local big shots. These factors resulted in poor, if any, direct participation in policy matters by the target group the projects specifically had been set up to benefit.
Weaknesses
The common weakness of the donor sponsored development projects was their institutional set-up. All of them experienced problems in management and governance. The CMCC, established in 1987 as a Gwembe Valley-dominated society, had a serious crisis in governance in 1994 when the original ad hoc board had to make way for a more appropriate form of governance. Part of the crisis was caused by the scaling up of the project from a local Gwembe Tonga setting to a culturally plural regional venture. Another problem was that some board members regarded themselves as ‘owners’ rather than ‘custodians’ of the project and preferred a position in which they could exercise the privileges of their ‘ownership’ without being restrained by donors or expatriate staff. The organization, being an alien body, either had to be appropriated or expelled.
At Binga, problems in governance date back to 1990 when it had become evident that the project was going to be successful. The project became a battle ground for conflicting interests in which the developing agency and its development worker defended what they conceived to be the interests of the producers against local big men who, in conjunction with the ‘counterpart’, promoted interests of their own. DVS pulled out of Binga in 1992 only to return in 1995. By then the Binga Crafts Centre had been run down. The Centre has been reorganized and now is a producers rather than a council dominated organization. Its present board is composed of representatives of the various associations of producers. It now is what donors conceive to be a genuine ‘grass roots’ level organization. It is still too early to say whether this construction is going to work in the long run. It is already clear, however, that a whole new range of problems is emerging.
The Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) withdrew from Omay 1993 when it felt that Omay could and should now stand on its own feet. Unlike Binga, the relationship between project and district council had been free of serious conflicts, though also in Omay the desirability of district council or political control over the Centre was questioned.
For both Zimbabwean projects, the termination of donor support created a number of problems springing from the membership of their governing bodies or caused by deficiencies in management. The councils, in both cases, became claimants on the resources of the projects, perhaps considering these claims justified due to the assistance they had rendered. The Omay Crafts Centre lost its donor-given vehicle when it was commandeered by the Nyaminyami district council and crashed. The Binga district council expected project revenue of the apparently booming Centre to be redirected to meet its own financial needs rather than those of the producers. Politicians conceived of the Centre as a way to gain political footage. Council claims could not be countered as the withdrawal of the donor placed the councils in a controlling position. At Binga, the ambitious Zimbabwean successor, while adequately trained and qualified, eventually was dismissed. Omay suffered a general loss in drive and quality. The decline of the Zambian economy and tourist industry eventually spelled its doom.
The Donors
The donor-aided projects made perfect sense to the development agencies that supported them. The Gwembe Tonga are a deprived people, the intended beneficiaries poor, the projects tied in with an existing productive activity, the crafts makers would be provided with an avenue to badly needed cash, traditional skills and knowledge would be preserved, and last but not least, the operations were envisaged to be cost covering within a fairly short time span. In order to achieve these objectives it was necessary to establish an organization, build infrastructure, provide facilities, train producers, and find markets. Furthermore, within donor ideology, these altruistic works were to be given away to parties that in a similarly devoted manner were to carry on serving the poor crafts makers. The interest of the producers were to be guaranteed by their participation in the decision/policy-making instruments attached to these projects, or otherwise by community leaders who would ensure that the intended beneficiaries indeed benefited as they should.
It is clear that the development agencies only partially understood what they were getting into. For the Gwembe Tonga crafts makers none of the things the donor (via the projects) intended to do had a familiar quality, no matter how consistent the package. In fact, as described above, the donor projects introduced a great many structural changes in the Gwembe Tonga crafts world. The donor agencies underestimated, ignored or were perhaps even oblivious to the problems inherent in the institutional set-up and the associated difficulties of proper governance of the crafts development projects. The representational structure of the boards of these projects in fact were avenues for the promotion of interests of local elites and politicians who could not be countered after termination of donor support. The development organizations also clearly underestimated the difficulty of identifying, recruiting, training and employing competent indigenous staff. Both craft training and marketing are specialized skills that are exceedingly scarce in Zambia. Finally, the development agencies, certainly in Omay and Choma, greatly overrated the short-term economic potential of craft production and marketing, a matter that directly affected the economic base of the projects themselves.
The development agencies have quite generously supplied the projects with the material, logistical, institutional and technical support they require. As a result, each of these projects has achieved what it set out to do, sometimes in quite a spectacular fashion given the prevailing circumstances. It turned out, however, that the main problems facing these economically-defined crafts projects were of a non-economical nature.
The real problems are ultimately of an ideological nature. Remarkably, the very development perspective of the donor agencies caused fundamental problems in management, governance and organization. Projects had to be handed over to bodies which had not invested in them, counterparts had to be appointed in the absence of competent and dedicated indigenous staff, representational and participatory structures had to be established in an environment that played the game by rules quite different from those of the sponsoring bodies. In short, none of these projects was adequately embedded in local society. In that regard Munyumbwe stands out as a remarkable exception. Its development agenda is restricted to the production of quality crafts, the participation of the crafts makers is limited to economic transaction and skill development, and there are no parties claiming control, authority or ownership over the venture apart from the body that actually established it.
CONCLUSION
The crafts projects have been and are agents of change by linking local communities to national and international markets. They also are intermediaries between widely different cultural systems involving the Gwembe Tonga crafts people, local elites, development agencies and modern political or economic organizations. They introduced elements of professional training, association and specialization, exposure both to local and foreign crafts and concepts, and created a concept of crafts as an emerging distinct domain.
The projects introduced commercial crafts production that, in local terms, is of considerable importance. The projects economically and culturally have been successful inasmuch as their way of operation is compatible with conditions prevailing prior to the interventions. The production is carried out within the framework of traditional village economy, meaning essentially that labour is not truly expensed. All projects accepted the existing technologies and mode of production, including the gender bound division of labour, as the basis of their operations. Product development mainly consisted of the adjustment of a selected range of objects to exotic market requirements. This entailed the enforcement of indigenous standards of craftsmanship and a shift in appreciation from practical functionality in the context of village life towards (aesthetic) values of the exotic market place. The shift in economic transaction from barter to monetary transaction has been readily accepted and facilitated the participation of the Gwembe Tonga in a monetary economy on which they had become dependent. The role of the projects as ‘middlemen’ in the economic chain was accepted, largely in the absence of alternative marketing opportunities. The organization of producers succeeded particularly in relation to training and sometimes in joint production, but was less or not successful in terms of representation or common economic action.
The development interventions in the Gwembe Tonga crafts world indeed sustained, expanded and enriched that world; doing so, ironically, by the introduction of exotic projects that (still) are alien to indigenous socioeconomic organization.
All three donor-sponsored projects have experienced serious problems in governance and management, signifying fundamental inadequacies in institutional set-up and embedding. The donor-funded projects did not, and could not, create producers associations which effectively participated in the governing bodies attached to the projects. The projects, in particular after the termination of donor support, were prone to mismanagement as claims by interested parties associated to these projects via their boards could not be countered. Board membership, at times, was an avenue for the pursuit of interests that definitely did not feature on the donor agenda.
The institutional problems of the donor-supported projects in no small degree have been caused by the very development perspective and modus operandi adopted by the development agencies. Projects had to be handed over to parties that had not invested in them and were not truly or fully representative of the craftsmen, yet these same bodies were to be the ultimate owners and authority. Indigenous staff (‘counterparts’) had to be appointed in the absence of dedicated and competent candidates, expectations of ‘community participation’ in policy development and management were not based on a tradition of genuine group representation (and practically was non-existent). The time trajectory required for the establishment of a substantial, sustainable and dependable productive base has been seriously underrated in two out of the three donor-sponsored development projects, reflecting an adopted time perspective in which a scheduled handing-over apparently was more important than lasting benefit for the intended beneficiaries. The one activity that has not been designed and supported as a major development project, in contrast, resembles most closely a regular business. The Munyumbwe Crafts Centre did not encounter the institutional and management problems of the typical donor funded projects by its very lack of its assets, its clearly defined ownership of whatever property there was, unambiguous authority over the activity which could not be contested by other parties, and by the simplicity of its operations. Ironically the same resources that enabled the donor projects to succeed are also the cause of a whole range of problems: conflicts over staff positions, ownership, and control over material and financial resources are normal rather than exceptional.
Development cooperation, rather idealistically, can be defined as the stimulation of adaptive behaviour of a defined population serving to increase the ability of that population to cope with its environment. When considering Gwembe Valley crafts projects as instruments to that purpose, the assessment is ambiguous. The Gwembe Tonga crafts makers responded well to the projects and indeed improved their skills, derived an economic benefit and sustained their culture, yet this benefit is fully dependent on the effective functioning of an agent over which they have little control and which by itself is not necessarily motivated to optimize profit for the sake of its proper functioning or to benefit the crafts makers.
Paradoxically - and paradox seems to be a major characteristic of development agencies - the interventions in the Gwembe Tonga crafts tradition, at this point in time, have created a disjointed Gwembe Tonga crafts world: that is, a crafts world populated by parties which lack mutual understanding and stable relationships. The tradition, before the intervention, was largely based on direct relationships of people living in one and the same world. The interventions opened up this universe and linked it to external economic, political, social and cultural realities. As agents of change, however, the projects were and are no part of Gwembe Tonga life itself. The development projects are still, to a considerable extent, strangers in a strange land and treated as such.
* The author is a cultural anthropologist who from 1988 to 2008 was involved in craft development projects in the Gwembe Valley. Engaged by the Netherlands Development Organisation SNV he is the founding director of what now is the Choma Museum and Crafts Centre, presently Zambia's fifth national museum.
NOTES
The research data concerning ‘traditional’ crafts are mostly based on practices of the Southern part of the Zambian Gwembe Valley. Within the context of this paper it was not possible to extensively deal with regional variation and the effects on the crafts tradition by interaction with neighbouring peoples (Goba, Shona and Ndebele).
Much of the original research data has been provided by the late Mr. E. Syabbalo, former Senior Gwembe Valley officer of the Choma Museum and Crafts Centre. He lived in the Mweemba chieftaincy. I have used his Chitonga terminology. Crafts-related terminology is not standardized amongst the Gwembe Tonga, neither is the Chitonga (or ciTonga) language. There is, for example, considerable variation with designations employed by Reynolds (1968) and the Chitonga names featuring in the catalogue of the Omay Crafts Centre at the northern part of the Zimbabwean side of Lake Kariba.
Developments as of 2000 must only have reinforced Gwembe Tonga scepticism about ‘alien bodies’ in their midst. The collapse of Zimbabwean tourism and economy has made life for crafts makers very hard. Omay Crafts Centre no longer exists. Binga Crafts Centre still is operative but desperately seeking to survive. The Choma Museum and Crafts Centre has scaled down its operations in the Gwembe Valley due to costs not covered by income. Positively, the Munyumbwe women clubs have continued to grow. There are now many of them and Munyumbwe has developed into one of the three prominent Zambian basket making centres. Most of the trade at production base is informally. Yet these baskets are now found all over the world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Becker, Howard S. 1984. Art Worlds. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Colson, E. 1960. The Social Organization of the Gwembe Tonga. Kariba Studies Volume I. Manchester: Manchester University Press, published on behalf of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute.
Colson, E. 1971. The Social Consequences of Resettlement. Kariba Studies Volume IV. Manchester: Manchester University Press, published on behalf of the Institute for African Studies of the University of Zambia.
Reynolds, B. 1968. The Material Culture of the Gwembe Tonga. Kariba Studies Volume III. Manchester: Manchester University Press, published on behalf of the national museums of Zambia.
Scudder, T. 1974. The Ecology of the Gwembe Tonga. Kariba Studies Volume II. Manchester: Manchester University Press, published on behalf of The Institute for African Studies of the University of Zambia.
Further Reading:
Colson, E. and Scudder, T. 1988. For Prayer and Profit: The ritual, economic, and social importance of beer in Gwembe District, Zambia, 1950-1982. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Reynolds, P. and Crawford Cousins, C. 1991. Lwaano Lwanyika (Tonga Book of the Earth). Harare: Baobab Books.
END NOTES
[1] See for example H.S. Becker for the related sociological concept of ‘art world’ in Art Worlds (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984.
[2] Colson, The Social Organization of the Gwembe Tonga, p. 35 and 37.
[3] Colson, personal communication.
[4] Reynolds 1968: 91-2.
[5] Colson, personal communication
[6] See T. Scudder, The Ecology of the Gwembe Valley, 1974.
