Indigenous management of teak woodland in Zimbabwe, 1850–1900

Journal of Historical Geography 33 (2007) 816e832 www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg

Indigenous management of teak woodland in Zimbabwe, 1850e1900 Vimbai Chaumba Kwashirai School of History, University of Liverpool, 9 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7WZ, UK

Abstract African forests provide the focus for a growing body of historical research. This study draws on economic and environmental history approaches in exploring the exploitation and conservation of woodland, respectively. The main focus of the investigation is the consumptioneconservation relationship between pre-colonial African people and the forest zone, an interaction viewed by colonial foresters in Zimbabwe as wasteful and based on religious superstition. In spite of the open criticism of rapacious timber cutting by mining companies and poor farming techniques by settlers, colonial perceptions over time stressed the notion of ‘improvident Africans’ as the prime cause of environmental destruction, in particular, deforestation and erosion. Within the African context, historical forest literature is bound to reject colonial misconceptions regarding the scope of indigenous woodland management. Customary forest practice in the Zambezi teak or Baikiea woodland points towards a better understanding on the subject, informed by a wide range of sources; oral tradition, missionary records, travel accounts and colonial documents. In reconstructing pre-colonial resource use from interviews and archival data, this study adopts a multi-source approach, while guarding against an overly romanticised view of indigenous practice. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Indigenous; Food; Gusu; Hunting; Agriculture; Conservation

Teak or Kalahari sand forests were the largest commercial and most important indigenous hardwood forests in Zimbabwe, and indeed, in the whole of Southern Africa. Called gusu by the Ndebele people, they constituted an important natural resource in nineteenth-century North Western Matabeleland (Fig. 1). Gusu directly and indirectly provided food, medicine, water,

E-mail address: [email protected] 0305-7488/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2006.10.023

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Fig. 1. Indigenous Hardwoods of Zimbabwe. Source: National Archives of Zimbabwe, File NFP/476/69.

firewood, timber and ornaments. It enhanced soil fertility, sheltered game and was the site for sanctuaries and holy shrines. Various gusu inhabitants conserved woody species most significantly for food provision in an agriculturally precarious region, especially given the phenomena of unreliable rainfall, cyclical droughts and famine. Many nineteenth-century African communities would not have survived in an environment stripped of trees, bush and grass.

Pre-colonial population settlement State formation between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers may be traced back to the politically fragmented Mwenemutapa Empire, c.1450e1690.1 Built on mining and trading wealth, it dominated the entire Zimbabwean plateau and extensive parts of Mozambique but collapsed due to Portuguese interference and internal disputes. On its ashes, Changamire Dombo founded the cattle based Rozvi State, c. 1700e1800, which suffered the same fate as its predecessor. After breaking with Shaka the Zulu King in 1821, Mzilikazi established the Ndebele State 1

D.N. Beach, Ndebele raiders and Shona power, Journal of African History 15 (1974) 634.

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(1837e1894), succeeding the Rozvi at Inyathi.2 British imperial interest in the region accelerated in the mid-1880s motivated by speculation of a second rand. Cecil Rhodes obtained the controversial Rudd Concession in 1888 from Lobengula, Mzilikazi’s successor.3 The concession formed the basis of the 1889 Royal Charter granted to Rhodes’ British South Africa Company (BSAC) empowering the firm to occupy the country. The pioneer column occupied the area in 1890 and Matebeleland was provisionally brought under control through war in 1893. Both the Shona and Ndebele subsequently suffered defeat in the first Chimurenga or liberation war of 1896e1897. The countrywide uprising against occupation was staged separately in Matebeleland and Mashonaland. Britain took over present day Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) in 1923 from the BSAC. From the Mwenemutapa Empire to British rule, evidence exists of a long history of gusu occupation by various waves of African and European settlers. The Tonga, Kalanga and Nyai Chiefdoms were certainly the pioneer gusu owner-settlers, prior to successive Rozvi, Ndebele and British conquests. Njelele and Ndhlovu assert that Chief Somanyanga’s Tonga settlements were common in gusu areas drained by the major Gwai, Bembesi and Shangani rivers.4 In 1867 Thomas Morgan Thomas, a London Missionary Society preacher based at Inyathi from 1859 to 1884, travelled to the Zambezi River and noted that the gusu had long been thickly inhabited by the Tonga and Nyayi. Ndebele incursions of the 1850s caused uncertainty and political instability pushing the significantly diverse gusu ethnic communities north to the Zambezi Valley.5 However, colonial sources may exaggerate the extent of depopulation precipitated by warfare, drought, famine, tsetse fly and conflicts over natural resources like pasture, wetlands and forests. In fact, most early settlements appear to have been motivated by the need to find niches such as fertile river valleys and strategic groves suited to agriculture. Settlements were also selected for types of trees and shrubs as well as the absence of tsetse fly and poisonous plants in areas where cattle and game grazed and browsed. According to Njelele the availability of certain grasses and tree species (mghobampunzi, isihlangu, igonde, umvagazi and teak or mkusi) assisted farmers to select fields.6 The Tonga and Nyayi cultivated a staple bulrush millet (inyawuthi) on heavy, isidaka soils. On the other hand, the diversified Nyai economy consisted of permanent valley settlements, ownership of indigenous cattle, amanjanja, ploughing relatively larger plots that produced surplus sorghum and maize for local trade.7 Some European observers noted that most communities and fields were of small scale, with very few scattered villages. In 1878, the hunter-traveller Frederick Selous believed the gusu to be empty after failing to come across local people in the area between Shangwe and Inyathi. Twenty years later in 1898, Native Commissioner Carbutt toured the area between the Gwampa and Shangwe rivers under Chief Chireya and reported seeing few people

2

Beach, Ndebele raiders and Shona power (note 1), 634, 635. Beach, Ndebele raiders and Shona power (note 1). 4 Chief Kombani Njelele, Melusi Nyathi and Thembiso Ndhlovu, interview with author, 15 October 1999, Gwai Centre, Matabeleland (handwritten notes in possession of the author). 5 Bubi District Statistical Report, 1897, File NB6/2/1, National Archives of Zimbabwe (hereinafter NAZ); Bubi District Native Commissioner Report, 1899, NB6/2/3, NAZ. 6 Chief Kombani Njelele, Melusi Nyathi and Thembiso Ndhlovu, interview with author (note 4); T.O. Ranger, J. Alexander and J. McGregor, Violence and Memory, Life in the Dark Forests of Matabeleland, Oxford, 2000, 52. 7 Bubi District Statistical Report (note 5); Bubi District Native Commissioner Report (note 5). 3

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thereby concluding that the gusu were thinly populated.8 The same year, the Native Commissioner for Bubi observed that ‘The natives huddle together in very small collections of two or three huts, without any fence around them, and usually unperceivable by reason of the surrounding thick bush which is never cleared away.’9 In the period 1850e1894, Ndebele sovereignty was imposed by raids, capture and incorporation into Nguni forms of polity and economy through which Mzilikazi consolidated his power over the Tonga, Kalanga and Rozvi. Ndebele over-lordship was also extended to other chiefdoms living inside or on the margins of gusu including the Nyai, Shangwe and San. Ndebele rule over small riparian habitats often produced larger and permanent settlements where the Ndebele culture became dominant. However, old identities survived mixing with the ever-changing new ones. Lobengula’s reign (1870e1894) created new ways of life of trade and general peaceful co-existence between the Ndebele and co-operating subject peoples. The Ndebele adopted some of the local customs and values, such as ceremonies of propitiating the land. Indeed, mutually beneficial socio-economic and political interactions, rather than wars, dominated relations among the diverse and often sparsely settled ethnic groups until the major shock of colonial intrusion in 1890.10 Settlements of relatively high population densities were common among the Ndebele but quite rare in non-Ndebele communities. While certain portions of gusu were certainly uninhabited and inhospitable for various reasons, such as the prevalence of tsetse fly and trypanosomiasis, notions of pristine wilderness, of ‘grotesque’ grand emptiness as described by Selous and deployed by other Europeans as they spoke of the challenges of settling the area, ought to be regarded with scepticism since they contrast with the evidence of historical movements of Africans across such areas. Claims concerning violent depopulation and Ndebele conquest were employed by colonisers to justify imperial occupation. Sweeping accounts of the emptying of the land are therefore generalisations of complex pre-colonial human settlement patterns. The image of late nineteenthcentury gusu as deserted, vacant and a place of fugitives and wild animals invented by some whites was overdrawn and inaccurate. The sparsity of human settlements was a response to localised unfavourable socio-economic, political and ecological conditions, together with the disinclination of indigenous peoples who did exist there to show themselves to Europeans armed with rifles.11 African images of gusu were as diverse as those of Europeans. Most pre-Ndebele settlers conceptualised woodland as a habitable place, a source of survival and livelihood. Rozvi metaphors, idioms and lyrics had a gendered and spiritual interpretation of the landscape. Muchuru mudumbu literally means ‘a grove is a woman’s womb, expect doves and hawks.’ Sango rinopa sango idema depicts forests as both generous and ungenerous while moyo muti equates the human heart to a tree. Africans understood forests as a source of various diseases and constant danger from

8

Bubi District Statistical Report, 1897, NB6/2/1 and NB6/2/2, NAZ; Bubi District Native Commissioner Report, 1898e1899, NB6/2/3, NAZ; Chief Kombani Njelele, Melusi Nyathi and Thembiso Ndhlovu, interview with author (note 4). 9 Bubi District Statistical Report (note 5); Bubi District Native Commissioner Report (note 5). 10 Bubi District Statistical Report (note 5); J. Cobing, Historical materialism and the nineteenth-century Ndebele, University of Rhodesia Political Economy Research Seminar 11 (1974) 1e23; N. Parsons, A New History of Southern Africa, Windhoek, 1983, 45; R. Edgecombe, The mfecane or difaqane, in: T. Cameron, S.B. Spies (Eds), An Illustrated History of South Africa, Pretoria, 1986, 77e79. 11 Chief Kombani Njelele, Melusi Nyathi and Thembiso Ndhlovu, interview with author (note 4).

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wild carnivores, lions and leopards, as well as attacks from elephants, buffalo and hippopotamus. The Ndebele viewed gusu as a dark and frightening place full of wild animals and evil spirits. Whites echoed Ndebele notions of the forests, imagining them as a wild, unoccupied and inhospitable jungle of violence, disruption and movement. Shifting images of gusu among both African and European immigrants were a consequence of the encounter with a strange environment exuding both good and bad. Despite the re-imagination of gusu by this heterogeneous late nineteenthcentury society, its chief function of providing multiple products for the sustenance of human life was not diminished.12 The multiple uses of gusu Chavunduka has noted that in pre-European Matabeleland and Mashonaland, trees supplied ‘firewood for cooking and heating; poles for building and fencing; bark for ropes and fabrics; leaves for browsing livestock; herbal medicines and food in the form of fruits, roots, nuts and honey for the family.’13 Gusu provided economic opportunities such as pasture for domesticated livestock and wild animals as well as bee keeping.14 These forest resources were easily accessible and generally free, a situation altered under colonialism. Although there was limited African barter trade in forest commodities, colonial foresters increasingly took possession and commercialised many of the previously free goods, such as timber, now to be bought from capitalist traders. Emphasising the critical importance of forest resources, Makuku tells us that: From the Adam and Eve story in the Bible (Genesis Chapters 2 and 3) and also by looking back to the beginnings of humanity some three or so million years ago, it is clear that in ancient times forest resources were the most useful resources to mankind as they provided him with all his basic needs and wants, which included many varieties of food items, fuelwood, timber and valuable medicines. Forests also harboured wildlife and insects, which humanity has always hunted and collected for food, relish and for market exchange.15 In other parts of Southern Africa, forests had similar significance. Lowore maintains that among the Chewa of Malawi, food provision headed the list of benefits derived from natural forests. Writing on Swaziland, Matsebula argues that from time immemorial indigenous woodlands were of tremendous value to the Swazi people. He contends that natural forests afforded fruits and also meat by virtue of being a wildlife habitat. The Swazi fetched firewood, building poles for huts, kraals, crop cribs, and fences and wood for carving as well as medicine. According to Makuku, about ten thousand years ago people weaned themselves from more direct dependence on nature by securing more reliable and readily expandable sources of food through

12

Bubi District Native Commissioner Report (note 5). G.L. Chavunduka, The social effects of the destruction of woodland, Rhodesia Agricultural Journal (hereinafter RAJ ) 78 (1981) 81. 14 F. Matose and J. Clarke, Who is the guardian of the indigenous forests?, in: G.D. Pierce and D.J. Gumbo (Eds), The Ecology and Management of Indigenous Forests in Southern Africa, Harare, 1993, 63. 15 S. Makuku, Community approaches in managing common property forest resources: the case of norumedzo community in Bikita in: G.D. Pierce and D.J. Gumbo (Eds), The Ecology and Management of Indigenous Forests in Southern Africa, Harare, 1993, 86. 13

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domesticating and breeding crops and animals. Nonetheless, forest resources have continued to play a prime role in providing not only a base for development but also in providing food and other requirements. With modernisation, peoples’ dependence and reliance upon these resources has continued to increase. In fact, the diverse extraction activities from gusu produced balanced diets and incomes for the indigenous inhabitants of Matabeleland in particular and Southern Africa more generally.16 A close examination of the foregoing shows the centrality of the food provision variable from teak woodland. Gusu carried a wide variety of trees from which Africans picked or gathered fruit, fibre, roots, seeds and leaves for their daily food needs but different communities depended on forest resources to varying degrees.17 The San survived mostly on forest produce, gleaned from an assortment of more than fifty fruit trees, in addition to meat and other foodstuffs. Indeed, gusu resembled a ‘Garden of Eden’ full of widely distributed trees that directly contributed to household food baskets for the Kalanga, Nyai, Tonga and Rozvi. Indirectly, certain tree barks were used in beehive making, thereby further contributing to family food requirements in honey. Among the famous Shangwe hunters, some tree and grass substances were used to poison or trap game, fish, birds and insects, adding protein to make a rich and balanced diet.18 Indigenous peoples managed the grysappel, umkuna or muchakata tree as a key famine food relief producer. The Shona, Ndebele and Tonga survived on its edible juicy fruit called chakata. These and other communities also collected large quantities of bunched fruits from species like wild loquat, lihobohobo or muzhanje, umlugulu or mutsamviringa, donkey berry, indaba tree and umkozombo. The Kalanga and Shona may have relied on rivers and springs for water supply but also chewed the sweet inner fibre of iminyela or mfuti, and igumundu to quench thirst. Tonga and Ndebele men skilfully utilised the bark of mfuti and mkusi in making beehives and corn bins.19 They also hollowed out the stem of Borassus palm to make food storage containers. Tonga fishermen and women made a powder out of pods and seeds of umpumpu and isitatambga, respectively, for fish poisoning and fishing purposes while the presence of the mudzinodzi tree was believed to indicate that streams contained lots of trout.20 In addition to the starch, vitamins and proteins obtained from fruit and fish, edible harati worms surviving on leaves of the wild syringa provided natural minerals for many communities. Indigenous people used bark rope to tie round such trees laden with harati as a sign of their temporary ownership of both the insects and tree by virtue of being the first to find them. Other insect gatherers not only respected that mark but also observed the taboo of not cutting wild syringa for food production.21

16

T.D. Lowore, Problems with management of natural forests in Malawi, in: G.D. Pierce and D.J. Gumbo (Eds), The Ecology and Management of Indigenous Forests in Southern Africa, Harare, 1993, 45; N.S. Matsebula, The management of indigenous forests in Swaziland, in: G.D. Pierce and D.J. Gumbo (Eds), The Ecology and Management of Indigenous Forests in Southern Africa, Harare, 1993, 25; Makuku, Community approaches in managing common property (note 15). 17 A. Pardy and A. Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia, RAJ 48 (1951) 263; Bulawayo Forestry Commission Archives (BFCA), (single series under the same title published 1947e1960). 18 Bubi District Statistical Report (note 5). 19 Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 17), 263, 400 and 265; 53 (1956) 430 and 619; 52 (1955) 334; 9 (1952) 16, BFCA. 20 A. Pardy and A. Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia, RAJ 50 (1953) 325, BFCA. 21 A. Pardy and A. Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia, RAJ 49 (1952) 170, BFCA.

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Other trees preserved for food requirements were the Cape holy and sweet thorn, also believed to signal the availability of rich soils for crops. Sweet thorn also yielded a gum chewed by children.22 The Shangwe cooked and ate the red skins from seeds of Rhodesian mahogany or mtshibi. Both the Shona and Kalanga brewed a refreshing acidic drink from water and the white pulp of baobab fruit that contained tartaric acid while the Nyai and Shangwe cooked baobab tree leaves, Borassus palm fruit and new seedlings when making a staple vegetable relish. According to Blocker and Sim, two South African foresters tasked to assess the commercial potential of gusu in 1898 and 1910, respectively, the Nyai also used the baobab fruit case as a snuffbox and for storing liquids. People, birds and monkeys enjoyed figs from the Cape wild fig tree. The so-called Kaffir orange, hwakwa, was extensively eaten and often used to make tasty and nutritious porridge among the Shona and Tonga. The pulp of the fruit was also edible but the seeds were poisonous. The tree was left standing when the land was cleared for crops. Seeds of umpumpu, marula and mnondo were boiled several times to remove poison and then eaten, with many Tonga people surviving on them in times of drought and famine.23 Beer and wine complimented the food harvested from gusu. Beer was primarily brewed from cultivated grains, such as finger millet, rukweza, rapoko, mapfunde and bulrush millet, mhunga. Wine beverages were made from wild grapes, the marula fruit, borassus fruit and vegetable ivory palms. The marula fruit was chewed when ripe but also used as goat feed. Shona women used ripe marula fruit to brew a special wine called mukumbi. Fresh sap from borassus fruit made a pleasant drink and fermentation provided wine rich in sugar.24 Early missionaries and colonial observers like Meredith state that vegetable ivory palms were tapped to produce an alcoholic drink. Each palm produced about fifteen gallons of palm wine that was sweet and slightly intoxicating. Male and female brewers distilled half a gallon of spirits, sikokiaan from five gallons of palm wine.25 Clearly, gusu provided food directly for immediate domestic consumption but also indirectly for agricultural food production. In addition to conserving and enriching soils, forests preserved water sources vital for human, livestock and game needs.26 Early missionaries, travellers and hunters recorded descriptions of African traditional agriculture in Matebeleland. Crop production comprised a diverse range of grains and other plants such as maize, sorghum, millets, rice, beans, groundnuts, melons, sweet canes, vegetables, cotton, tobacco and cannabis or dagga.27 These domesticated plants, some of which formed staple diets among gusu cultivators, originated in forests. Reid

22

Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 21), 170 and 317; 53 (1956) 960, BFCA. 23 Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 21), 171; 52 (1955) 334; 50 (1953) 5, 325, 463 and 464; 51 (1954) 271; BFCA. 24 A. Pardy and A. Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia, RAJ 52 (1955) 334, BFCA. 25 Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 24), 330, BFCA. 26 J. Sim, Report on Forestry in Southern Rhodesia, Salisbury, 1910, 6, GF3/2/1, NAZ. 27 T. Morgan Thomas, quoted in M.G. Reid, The early agriculture of Matabaleland and Mashonaland, RAJ 74 (1977) 101; R. Palmer, The agricultural history of Rhodesia, in: R. Palmer and N. Parsons (Eds), The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa, Los Angeles, 1977, 224; I. Phimister, Peasant production and underdevelopment in Southern Rhodesia, 1890e1914, with particular reference to the Victoria District, in: Roots of Rural Poverty, 259; Beach, Ndebele raiders and Shona power (note 1), 634.

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maintains that pre-European agriculture was equally applicable to Matebeleland and Mashonaland. The farming practices fit Vaughan and Moore’s description of Zambian chitemene, the frequently studied Bemba form of shifting cultivation known locally as gombomakura, that aimed to provide sufficient goods for people’s short-term needs. According to Reid: Pre-European agriculture in Rhodesia was an example of classical cut and burn shifting agriculture for subsistence. The system was adequate and produced a wide range of products but could not withstand unfavourable conditions .. Crop production was the most important single economic activity of all people of Matebeleland and Mashonaland and attracted a greater input of sustained effort than any other activity.28 Palmer, Bannerman and Phimister also maintain that crop cultivation was at the heart of Ndebele, Nyai, Tonga, Shangwe and Shona economic activities prior to colonisation. The Ndebele more than the other groups have usually been categorised as pastoralists, and cattle undoubtedly played an important role in their society. They regarded wealth as the possession of large herds of cattle and other domesticated livestock originally acquired through raiding both neighbouring and far away communities. In fact, the Ndebele probably elected to settle on the Matabeleland plateau precisely because it was free of tsetse fly and was ideal cattle country, and by the 1880s they had built up an enormous herd of cattle in the region of a quarter million head.29 Wealth was also equated with the domination of many people. The Ndebele customarily incorporated large numbers of enslaved young men and women into their polity to augment its strength. Such strength was important not only in military terms but also in agricultural production because like the Shona, the Ndebele were basically agriculturalists, their state having succeeded the Shona-speaking Rozvi and other chiefdoms which influenced them in many ways and much of the cultivation work was performed by the incorporated Shona.30 Early missionaries like Thomas Morgan Thomas who vainly endeavoured to convert the Ndebele to Christianity, described the Ndebele agricultural process as follows: With such abundance of land from which to choose the patches, they require for cultivation, the Amandebele gardens are very productive, but the soil, although naturally fertile, soon becomes poor, unless it is manured e a process which is not known in Central South Africa. So the old garden, after a few years’ cultivation, is abandoned, and a new one selected. Thus the whole neighbourhood is run over, and then forsaken for a new spot.31 The Reverend Carnegie, who lived at Hope Fountain Mission near Bulawayo for a decade from 1882 to 1892, also commented on the selection, preparation and management of cropland: Now let us view the garden .. The spot selected, the husband begins to fence it round . the wife, shouldering her six or eight-pound pick . labours under the scorching sun all day, and

28 Morgan Thomas, quoted in Reid, The early agriculture (note 27), 97; H. Moore and M. Vaughan, Cutting Down Trees: Gender, Nutrition, Agricultural Change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890e1990, Portsmouth, 1994, 57. 29 Palmer, The agricultural history of Rhodesia (note 27); J.H. Bannerman, The land apportionment act; a paper tiger? Zimbabwe Agricultural Journal 98 (1982) 100. 30 Palmer, The agricultural history of Rhodesia (note 27), 100. 31 Reid, The early agriculture (note 27), 98.

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returns in the evening. This is repeated day by day for a month or more, until the persevering woman has actually broken up the whole patch of new or fallow land. The time of sowing having come, she goes over the same ground carefully again, while her husband is chopping down branches of the large trees .. The seed may be of one kind, as the amabele, umumpu, upogo, unyawuti, or of three or more different sorts .. In any case, pumpkin, calabash, water melon, amatjoto, and other seeds, are stuck into the ground here and there and running along the ground the plants are much protected by the embowering blades of corn .. Before the sowing is over . the ‘inkalana’ (watch tower) must be made .. Very similar are these watchtowers to those referred to in both the Old and New Testament Scriptures (See Isaiah v.2) .. The weeding is done with small light picks .. Harvesting having begun, the reapers, taking a two-edged knife each . begin to cut the ears of corn . with a staff in each hand, the Ilindebele beats out his corn, and with a small round flat basket for a sieve, and the breeze for fans, winnows it.32 Partly for ecological reasons, the settled existence of the Ndebele was shattered in 1860 by a great drought, smallpox and measles while lung-sickness, brought in by the infected cattle of missionaries and hunters, killed many Ndebele herds. In 1863, prosperity returned to Matabeleland, rains fell and harvests were plentiful. However, by the late 1880s, continuous cultivation had exhausted the shallow Kalahari sand soils. The demographic overload upset the ecological balance enjoyed by pre-Mzilikazi communities and the consequent economic decay undermined the wealth and position of the Ndebele aristocrats by the 1890s. Raids now aimed at looting grain because land at home was becoming less and less capable of feeding people adequately. The Ndebele heartland was becoming impoverished through deforestation and soil erosion, two key themes noted by Agnoletti, Richards and Tucker as dominating forest history discourses within the global context.33 According to Vail, a similar process took place among Mbelwa’s Ngoni who settled among the Tumbuka in Southern Malawi. Ndebele farming technology comprised axes and short handled hoes as well as a few ploughs, spades and wagons acquired from a tool trade with Europeans, a combination of which denuded trees and soils, notably in core areas of Ndebele settlement. Extensive crop cultivation in the arid, semi-arid, highly erodable low production region of Matabeleland initiated environmental degradation on Ndebele heartland.34 Gusu further away from core Ndebele settlements suffered less from human interference and significantly contributed to livestock production through pastures. Forests beyond Ndebele homes contained royal pasture, after which they formed grazing ground for commoners. The Tonga, Ndebele and Nyayi kept various livestock; sheep, goats, pigs and cattle. Besides abundant summer forage, indigenous tree crops and pods were invaluable fodder reserves in maintaining livestock husbandry over the long dry winter season. According to West, gusu was rich in flora of pod-bearing

32

Reid, The early agriculture (note 27), 99. Reid, The early agriculture (note 27), 98; M. Agnoletti, The development of forest history research, in: M. Agnoletti and S. Anderson (Eds), Methods and Approaches in Forest History, Cambridge, 2000, 7; J. Richards and R. Tucker, Introduction, in: J. Richards and R. Tucker (Eds), World Deforestation in the Twentieth Century, London, 1988, 1. 34 L. Vail, The making of the ‘dead north’: a study of the Ngoni rule in Northern malawi, c. 1855e1907, in: J.B. Peires (Ed), Before and After Shaka, Grahamstown, 1981, 230; Matose and Clark, Who is the guardian of indigenous forests? (note 14), 62. 33

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leguminous trees, mainly acacia, producing edible pods superior to the common veld hay. Early European ranchers in Matebeleland, Tredgold and Steedman, noted that both game and livestock sought out, and consumed, pods from trees such as utungabayeni, mwohlo, mhala dwai, singa mtshatshatsha, isangawe, ugogu and ihabahaba. The pod and spongy tissue were easily digestible but the seeds were hard and difficult to digest, and passed out in the dung as organic fertiliser obtained through putting animals to graze the crop stalks and residues certainly contributing to efficient seed distribution. Also, leguminous trees exercised beneficial effect on the grassland and increased the protein content and soil fertility in the herbage.35 Other principal species of fodder value included ulugalu, white thorn, umlaladwayi, muwunga and minyelenyele.36 Much wider wild flora and fauna existed in dense expansive ridges of gusu, home to diverse species of fishes and birds. Game such as elephant, eland, rhinoceros and kudu flourished in areas drained by the Gwai, Shangani and Gwampa Rivers. Game filled the bush. Hunting was the chief male occupation and source of prestige among the Shona, Nyayi and San. Hunters competed and took pride in a culture of killing dangerous animals such as lions for skin trophies and bringing meat to their families. San knowledge of gusu, hunting and herbal medicines against tsetse fly and carnivores was adopted by other ethnic groups. In addition to the use of traditional weapons like spears, axes, knob-kerries and traps, trade and then wages enabled the indigenous hunters to acquire rifles and guns for effective hunting expeditions. After 1890, firearms proliferated and produced a class of gun hunters among the Tonga and Ndebele called amagotsha. The Rhodesian state employed the amagotsha in game elimination campaigns targeting predators like lions, hyenas and wild pigs in an effort to eradicate tsetse fly. These hunters were paid twenty shillings per month in addition to the meat and skins.37 Apart from being a source of food as well as maintaining soil nutrients and providing pasture and water, gusu were a source of medicinal requirements. Ndebele and Swazi traditional healers used the leaves, roots and barks of certain trees for curing sick people. Various medicinal gusu species demonstrate that forests were viewed as a kind of ‘pharmacy’. The inner and soft layer of yellow wood bark was a potent in the treatment of headache among the Tonga and Nyayi. Roots of the violet tree were an effective anti-malarial ‘quinine’ for many communities. Also, boiled down mukwa roots were used to treat common diseases like malaria and black water fever affecting the health of the population. A similar prescription was used to treat the fontanel. Old Shangwe women used mukwa bark in vaginal alterations purportedly to enhance sexual pleasure, and in stopping stomach pains and backaches. Baobab fruits were used to treat deformity in male sexual organs. Swartzia pods, a fish poison, were widely used in the control of bilharzia. The bark of umsalati and ndwatwa ripe fruit were used as an anthelmintic and purgative to treat stomach worms.38 Many gusu communities used chewed and macerated roots of the violet and ulugalu trees

35

Ranger, Alexander and McGregor, Violence and Memory (note 6), 37; O. West, Indigenous tree crops for Southern Rhodesia, RAJ 47 (1950) 204, 205, BFCA. 36 Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 21), 317; 50 (1953) 152; 51 (1954) 274; 52 (1955) 334; 53 (1956) 438, BFCA. 37 Ranger, Alexander and McGregor, Violence and Memory (note 6), 25; Matsebula, The management of indigenous forests (note 16), 27. 38 Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 21), 254; 50 (1953) 5; 48 (1951) 322; 51 (1954) 274; 53 (1956) 963, BFCA.

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to cure snake bites by removing the poison, and also to treat scorpion bites. Among other trees with medicinal qualities were the mudzinodzi, muonya, marula, kaffirboom and ubande.39 However, community health was fostered through both herbal administration, the varied and often medicinal foodstuffs; honey, roots and fruit collected from gusu. Also, abundant firewood from hardwood trees was ideal energy for various village fires, for body warmth notably in winter. Mubalebale wood was used to produce fire by friction. Fireplaces had social importance among many African societies. The young were taught customs, values and history at fireplaces. Visitors were entertained at fireplaces often made and used along gendered lines such as the dare or court for elderly men. According to Chavunduka, wood gathering trips were important social occasions for women ‘providing an opportunity for frank discussion and gossip away from men.’ Women brought home slow burning wood ideal for cooking particular foods and the brewing of beer. Particular firewood trees were utilised for specific needs. Among the Tonga and Shangwe firewood from mnondo, ishungo, Chinese lantern and ulugalu trees was used for cooking meals especially meat. Mupangara, isiqalaba or mubonda, msasa or igondi, white thorn and mfuti firewood was used to brew beer, cook and provide light. The wild syringa, yellow wood, violet tree, sweet thorn and mopani provided firewood for religious festivals, hunting and beer parties among the Ndebele. Additional useful firewood tree species included the African beech, swartzia, snake bean, umsasane and reukpeul. The ordeal tree typified species considered as taboo for use as firewood.40 Firewood and medicine were part and parcel of the physical and spiritual health derived from sacred forests or rambotemwa, in which the cutting down of trees was considered taboo. Gusu communities built wider connections through religious rituals for hunting, fertility of the land and woman, the protection of people against illness and crop pests, all focusing on tree shrines. Mtolo shrines for rainmaking ceremonies, mukwerera, established at particularly striking trees and founded by first generation settlers, were by far the most common and most important local religious sites on teak woodland. The Tonga named their area after an immense sacred baobab tree shrine. Other ritual centres among the Rozvi, Tonga, Nyayi and Ndebele included wetlands, pools, rocks and mountains. Some tree shrines under the guardianship of hierarchical spirit mediums, eventually linked to higher level religious centres like Njelele and Matopos where God, Mwari was worshipped.41 In certain instances, shrines and mtolos were contested by different claimants legitimising their power from religion. Apart from their religious significance, gusu trees were also prized for the purposes of ornament and shade. Among the Tonga and Ndebele, the mubalebale, kaffirboom and pod mahogany provided good shade for people, stock and game. The Shangwe used the isiqalaba to make unique ornaments for brides. Beans of the pod mahogany too were very popular among Tonga and Ndebele women for making brooches and beads. Other trees provided raw material for ornament making, including the umshabunga, reukpeul, ubande, raphia palm fruits and wild false dates.

39

Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 21), 254; 50 (1953) 186 and 365; 51 (1954) 491; 53 (1956) 438; 52 (1955) 152 and 416; BFCA. 40 Chavunduka, The social effects (note 13); Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 20), 186, BFCA. 41 Ranger, Alexander and McGregor, Violence and Memory (note 6), 56.

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Ubande beads were very popular and widely used in village barter trade. The witsering violet tree was conserved especially for the sweetly scented flowers. The wild syringa, mopani and African beech were important in the making of small carved ornaments. Most African women also used sukuchuma twigs with ripe berries to decorate homes.42 Fruits from the rare and attractive onceba spinosa shrub were tied to arms and ankles in African religious and non-religious dances.43 In addition, gusu were a source of timber for constructing homesteads and raw materials needed for a thriving indigenous timber craft manufacture. Village wood carvers and blacksmiths made a wide range of items such as kitchen utensils, furniture, hunting and farming equipment. Tonga and Ndebele craftsmen and women were knowledgeable specialists on timber types for manufacturing particular products. Besides beehive and corn bin manufacture, teak wood was important in hut and kraal construction.44 Ndebele artisans used the straight shoots of the donkey berry tree to make bows. Also, ulugaku timber made durable bows and spear or assegai shafts. The sihlangu and sukuchuma were commonly used to make curios, brooches and walking sticks, tsvimbo. The walking stick was one of the many prerequisites of manhood and a necessity in old age for both male and female. Walking sticks were made in different fashions; as religious, ceremonial, status and social symbols.45 The marula and kaffirboom trees were important in the manufacture of mortars, maturi, used in pounding various grains into a semi-flour. A pair of grinding stones, guyo and huyo, ground such flour into the final product, mealie-meal, hupfu used to make the staple diet, sadza. In addition, the marula tree was used to make dishes, plates, spoons, stools and drums. The umgugutu provided perfect timber for the manufacture of cooking sticks, tool handles, sledges, war and hunting weapons. Also, borassus palm, wild date leaves and mountain grasses were exploited for mat and basket making.46 The seeds of Natal mahogany, dicerocaruum, zanguebarium, seso and fruits of minyelenyele tree yielded oil suitable for soap making and lighting. Raphia palm stocks were ideal for rafters and fibre. Ebony hardwood was of considerable value in making wind musical instruments and ornamental trinkets. Umpupu and sausage trees with large boles were predominant in the Zambezi valley and used to make canoes. The inside of the log was hollowed to make dug out canoes used in crossing major rivers and in trade.47 Gusu was also a place of physical shelter in the 1890s, providing protection from European inspired violence that was coupled with land alienation for white settlement, African, game and forest reserves. In 1893, Lobengula and his entourage sought out the protection of gusu that had long been a place of refuge from oppression including his own.48 The latter part of 1896 was a period of 42

Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 24), 333; 49 (1952) 170 and 172 and 256; 50 (1953) 152 and 324; 53 (1956) 965; 52 (1955) 415; BFCA. 43 A. Pardy and A. Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia, RAJ 53 (1956) 62, BFCA. 44 Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 43), 62, BFCA. 45 Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 20), 187; 52 (1955) 330, BFCA, Chief Qcelle Mzola, Ntabeni Ncube, Bhekezile Ndhlovu, interview with author, 19 October 1999, Gwai Centre, Matabeleland. 46 Chief Qcelle Mzola, Ntabeni Ncube, Bhekezile Ndhlovu, interview with author (note 45); Pardy, RAJ 48 (1951) 265; Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia (note 20), 463; 53 (1956) 63 and 957; 52 (1955) 334, BFCA. 47 Pardy and Pardy, Notes on indigenous trees and shrubs of Southern Rhodesia, RAJ 51 (1954) 492; 52 (1955) 333; 49 (1952) 10; 50 (1953) 325, BFCA. 48 Ranger, Alexander and McGregor, Violence and Memory (note 6), 26.

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crisis and famine over most of Matebeleland where harvests had not only failed, but the revengeful BSAC soldiers torched granaries. Moreover, locusts and the continuing war delayed early planting. The Native Commissioner of Inyathi, Val Gielgud, reported a ‘very terrible’ situation in January 1897 when whole families perished from starvation. According to Gielgud, the ‘population was floating and wondering about in the veldt living on roots, berries, locusts etc. because of drought and locusts which for two years caused the entire failure of crops and rinderpest destroyed cattle.’49 Created in 1898, the Gwai and Shangani Reserves experienced a high mortality rate prompting the death and departure of more than a fifth of the population of the gusu. Colonisation also ushered in the destruction of gusu for logging purposes as forests were commercialised and no longer treasured for their multiple uses especially benefits sustaining lives. Commercial species like mkusi and mukwa were identified and ravaged to levels hitherto unknown.50 The commercial value of indigenous hardwood trees superseded both the religious and dietary significance of gusu. Indigenous forest conservation Considerable work has been done on the role of local institutions and communities in the management of Africa’s natural resources. Such research focused on the part played by tenure rules in resource use and conservation, generating controversy which has divided supporters of indigenous tenure systems and advocates of private property and radically new forms of resource management. In the African context, the dominant conservation theme has been that of protecting habitat and species, though this is now giving way to a broader debate linking conservation to the process of rural development and the survival of agrarian societies on the continent. Grove and Anderson observe that European interest in conserving African wildlife and wilderness has a long tradition, most of it entirely ignorant of the long-established and successful ways in which Africans ensured their own survival and that of the soils, plants and creatures essential to sustain livelihoods. Writing on East Africa, Little and Brokensha case doubt on the evidence of either deliberate indigenous conservation practices or any systematic, widespread management of the forest resource. They characterise mechanisms of managing critical forest resources as accidental, arguing that conservation was not the primary goal.51 On the contrary, gusu inhabitants consciously evolved conservation measures prompted by their environmental experience, economic needs and religious beliefs. Individuals holding political and economic power invariably exercised religious authority but even where there was separation of powers, rulers and priests formed the dare (council) entrusted to make and enforce various regulations regarding resource use and conservation. Found at the neighbourhood, clan and ethnic level, this institution incorporated elderly commoners in the decision making process on wider socio-economic and political issues but generally excluded the participation of women and young people. Male and female village spirit mediums, masvikiro and ethnic spirit mediums, mhondoro 49

Bubi District Statistical Report (note 5). Matose and Clarke, Who is the guardian of indigenous forests? (note 14), 63. 51 D. Anderson and R. Grove, The scramble for Eden: past, present and future in African conservation, in: D. Anderson and R. Grove (Eds), Conservation in Africa: Peoples, Policies and Practice, Cambridge, 1987, 1; P. Little and D. Brokensha, Local institutions, tenure and resource management, in: D. Anderson and R. Grove (Eds), Conservation in Africa: Peoples, Policies and Practice, Cambridge, 1987, 202. 50

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closely advised the Ndebele monarch, Shona and Tonga chiefs at their dare. Ignoring the role of power in traditional gusu management would be na€ıve but indigenous knowledge, spirit guardians and holy shrines have yet to be fully appreciated as a means through which ritually controlled ecosystems functioned. The ownership, allocation and control of land, forests and water resources all fell within the spiritual realm.52 Several gusu phenomena; trees, rocks, mountains and pools were made holy and conserved by cultural and spiritual design. Gusu was managed on a common property basis, either community or ethnically based. Boundaries between ethnic groups were vague but were known to follow prominent geographical features like rivers and hills. Forest resources were preserved both under stable conditions but specifically with recurring shangwa in mind, the cyclical droughts and famines experienced throughout Southern Africa. Land was communally owned by all people but vested in the king or chief who held it in trust of the people. The dare allocated land to individuals for homesteads and plots. Pasture was communally owned and used equally by all under a common property regime. Individual families retained usucruft rights on allocated land provided they did not display political disloyalty, migrate, commit a legal offence or violate conservation laws. Likewise, all trees belonged to the community. Forests were viewed as sango or wilderness, where all had equal access to collect the multiple gusu products on which indigenous material culture was based. In addition, hillside cultivation was rare regardless of the availability of flat lands. Core Ndebele settlements were the exception since population pressure made common property management vulnerable. The resource shortages associated with high population densities created competition and tensions that local institutions and mechanisms failed to resolve and often led to a breakdown in local resource management. Certainly, the authority and sanctions of the dare were critical for resource conservation. Peasants generally observed cultural values, fears and superstitions that deterred them from breaching laws pertaining to the collection or damage of forest resources without proper politico-religious sanction. Collective action was taken against individuals settling or herding in reserved gusu pastures. It was believed that ancestral wrath inflicted punishment on offenders defying chieftaincy laws on resource conservation. The system of forest management operated on clear taboos, miko, bearing strong conservation value.53 However, investing a lot of power in the hands of a chiefly ruling elite meant that the sharing of available resources was not always egalitarian. Accumulation was possible, but generally few people were excluded from resources.54 Although the sources for the study of traditional management systems are necessarily incomplete, it is clear that indigenous institutions and practices were maintained through colonial and independence eras. Indeed, they were to be re-appropriated in the late 1980s in Zimbabwe’s Community Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (Campfire). Traditional regulations prohibited the cutting down of fruit and large trees. The dare prescribed methods of harvesting fruits and other tree by-products as well as access to sacred groves and mountains. It was inconceivable under traditional beliefs to cut upaca kirkiana, muzhanje or 52 D.J. Gumbo, Is there traditional management of indigenous forest resources in the communal lands of Zimbabwe?, in: G.D. Pierce and D.J. Gumbo (Eds), The Ecology and Management of Indigenous Forests in Southern Africa, Harare, 1993 (note 14) 83:4. 53 Chief Kombani Njelele, Melusi Nyathi, Thembiso Ndhlovu, interview with author (note 4); Gumbo, Is there traditional management (note 52); Matsebula, The management of indigenous forests (note 16), 26. 54 D.M. Chavunduka, African attitudes towards forests, Rhodesia Science News 13 (1972) 61.

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mushuku without the express permission of land guardians since it provided essential food relief in famine years. Rules governing fruit harvesting and gathering were very straightforward. People were discouraged from picking up mashuku, Upaca kirkiana fruit with both hands because it was considered disrespectful and a sign of greed. Upaca kirkiana trees had to be shaken as a way of dislodging fruit to guard against the tapping and wasting of unripe fruit as well as damage to trees. It was taboo to curse or express delight on the quality or quantities of fruit, for instance by commenting on their rotten condition. Fruits, mushrooms and bulbous roots were harvested for home consumption and not for exchange. If offence was committed, it was believed the perpetrators would disappear in the forest of Upaca kirkiana or jiri. Where consistently enforced, miko or laws helped conserve gusu. The Sclerocarya birrea, marula and Parinari curatelli, muchakata were directly linked to ancestral spirits and rituals and therefore protected by a standing penalty system enforced by chiefs with the assistance of their subordinates.55 Cultural leadership also enforced compliance with local laws governing the harvesting of various edible caterpillars such as Encosterum delegorguei or harurwa, a popular relish among the Tonga, Ndebele and Shona. Strategies were put in place so whole communities and their neighbours knew and respected the culture relating to locusts or mhashu harvests. The dare strictly monitored such harvests, allowing minimal cutting of branches laden with catepillars of trees like upaca kirkiana and brachystegia speciformis also valued for famine food relief. Hooked sticks were used to lower branches on which caterpillars settled so as to limit but not rule out the severing or breaking of trees during fruit, locust or firewood collection. Taller trees bore scars from stones used to shake off fruits and caterpillars since felling for these and other products was not permissible. Such harvesting procedures were consecrated by a beer ceremony where a ram was killed as thanksgiving to ancestral spirits and God. However, infringements of rules by certain villagers occurred in times of famine and shortages and were difficult to detect and control.56 Gusu management was also enhanced by the rambatemwa system in which communities were forbidden from cutting any tree in especially revered sacred groves. Most gusu communities believed certain natural forests were inhabited by ancestral spirits and were therefore sacrosanct. No one cut down trees or disturbed such forest in any way. Communities living close to sacred gusu met their forest requirements from elsewhere. As a result, many natural forests were preserved in their wilderness state, a function of both sparse population and effective enforcement of forest rules. Some holy sites started as royal burial places for the original and subsequent chiefs of the area. Once established, such areas usually enhanced the political position and status of some lineages. However, knowledge of these units was either lost or so scant leading to the gradual demise of the tradition and consequent loss of the groves.57 In East Africa similar sacred groves were used for ritual sacrifice. A few of these groves in the Matopos survived colonialism providing excellent sites for examining rare tree species of a century ago. Also, fruit and shrine trees, some large trees in both fields and forests enjoyed a certain level of holiness. The marula 55 Gumbo, Is there traditional management (note 52); Chief Qcelle Mzola, Ntabeni Ncube and Bhekezile Ndhlovu, interview with author (note 45). 56 Makuku, Community approaches (note 15), 87. 57 Chavunduka, African attitudes towards forests (note 54); Gumbo, Is there traditional management (note 52); B. Mukamuri, Rural environmental conservation strategies in south-central Zimbabwe, in: R. Grove, (Ed), Conservation and Rural People in Zimbabwe (1989) 298.

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and muchakata were especially protected due to their food value and linkages with rainfall patterns and worship. The linkage explains why people never removed large and fruit trees from fields, a concept which was criticised by colonial agricultural extension workers.58 Like forests, the conservation of wild fauna was steeped in community-based rules, beliefs and taboos. The cultural practice of totemism, mitupo promoted game conservation. In each ethnic group, clans or kinships adopted an animal or bird as its totem. The totem acted as a ‘tag’ that identified and bound the group together in one large related family. The adopted species was neither harmed nor eaten by members of the group who believed it had been used to cure a chronic illness among their ancestors. Common totem animals included, elephant (nzou), eland (mhofu), buffalo (nyati), fish (dziva), and zebra (mbizi). Totemism was also the result of the intense admiration of wild game by Africans generally. Superstition played a role in game preservation. The hyena, owl and snakes were feared and viewed as agents of witches and sorcerers. Some revered lions (mhondoro) acted as vehicles for spirits. They did not harm people and neither were they harmed. Certain customary hunting laws were observed by hunting parties. As with forests, it was against custom to use fire to drive game or hunt during certain periods like the breeding season when animals raised their offspring.59 Conclusions If indigenous methods of resource conservation were effective, they were not of course perfect. As historians have pointed out, conflict was endemic in indigenous forest management.60 Like modern-day politicians, rulers often used their control of key resources to further their own power, prestige and economic well being. The allocation of the best and highly productive land reflected a degree of monopolistic bias towards chiefs and the ruling elite. Institutional conflicts over resources often undermined the authority of rulers regarding common resources. However, such problems did not significantly interfere with the enforcement of traditional rules, regulations and rights.61 The holistic traditional method of resource conservation yielded a number of benefits and successes. Many trees were conserved for a variety of reasons such as fruit, fodder, shading and soil fertility management. Under the shifting cultivation system, wood and branches were burned and the ashes spread over the land. Old lands, makura were rested and left fallow for new fields, gombo. Grass, bush and trees grew on old lands allowing nature to revert back to something akin to the original state of forests. Cultivation was believed to damage or scar the face of the earth. Land was rested as a restitution of the wounds inflicted on the soil. Similarly, the Bemba of Zambia rested fields allowing them to regenerate.62 Clearly, under sparse population conditions, shifting cultivation was useful in conserving the land and forests.

58

Gumbo, Is there traditional management (note 52). Chavunduka, African attitudes towards forests (note 54). 60 Gumbo, Is there traditional management (note 52); J. McGregor, Conservation, control and ecological change, Environment and History 1 (1995) 258. 61 Moore and Vaughan, Cutting Down Trees (note 28), 57. 62 Chavunduka, African attitudes towards forests (note 54); McGregor, Conservation, control and ecological change (note 60); Mukamuri, Rural environmental conservation strategies (note 57). 59

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Ndebele and Tonga cattle owners practised the transhumance system, moving herds from one place to another in search of water and new pasture. As in shifting cultivation, these periodic movements allowed pastures to recuperate and grass to seed and grow. Available pastures were evenly utilised and generally grazed. Mukwerera sites were successful strategies and models of tree preservation. It was usual to leave riparian vegetation undisturbed providing a positive impact on water preservation especially water sources of vital necessity for plant and animal life. Forests protected springs, streams and rivers by reducing evaporation and controlled soil erosion. However, the arid conditions in Matebeleland imposed a seasonal flow of watercourses forcing people to dig sand beds for water collected from protected holes.63 In addition, some communities often considered livestock too valuable to slaughter for daily needs. Domesticated animals, particularly goats and cattle, had numerous socio-spiritual roles to fulfil. In spite of their significance, Africans routinely slaughtered stock for consumption. Certainly, there was no stock complex shrouded in mysterious ritual and taboo. To the outsider, the Ndebele and Tonga appeared to treasure cattle beyond their practical value if only because game, birds, rodents, fish and edible insects adequately supplied the daily and regular meat requirements of households.64 The evidence discussed here highlights those influences favouring both sparse and dense human settlement in gusu during the pre-colonial period, patterns manifested by the Tonga and Ndebele, respectively. Customary authorities managed the multiple value indigenous forests through the traditional dare institutions and religious beliefs, miko. Colonial and post-colonial administrations in Zimbabwe and throughout Southern Africa usurped local rights to woodland resources as state laws suspended customary communal use rights, regarded as inconsistent with national forest management. Forest officers with Indian and South African experience were instrumental in establishing western notions of conservation and resource management that placed emphasis on commercial forestry and exotic species but with little interest in indigenous species, especially when they had no commercial potential. Yet there were also some similarities between indigenous and colonial forms of resource conservation. Colonial regulations forbidding Africans from cultivating on hillsides and near water sources were reinforcing longstanding pre-colonial practices. Where colonial foresters managed forest and game reserves to preserve habits and wildlife, the dare made and enforced rules with regards to tree usage, mtolo, rambotemwa and hunting. But most colonial regulations were very unpopular, especially under conditions of land alienation and deprivation. Bullying and corrupt agricultural and forestry instructors often enforced regulations in arbitrary ways, causing local resentment of conservation measures. Indeed, forest departments in Africa and Asia were a part of the administrative structure reflecting colonial policy, generally excluding locals from forest resources. Foresters expressed minimal enthusiasm for the impressive forest knowledge of local peoples, usually regarded as ignorant about forestry and conservation and spoilers of the environment. Both the contemptuous dismissal of indigenous knowledge and policing function of the forestry personnel, as with post-colonial donor-funded natural resource management programmes, failed to build upon, or even to acknowledge, local practices and knowledge.

63

Chavunduka, African attitudes towards forests (note 54), 62; Gumbo, Is there traditional management (note 52); K.B. Wilson, Trees in fields in southern Zimbabwe, Journal of Southern African Studies 15 (1989) 282. 64 Chavunduka, African attitudes towards forests (note 54), 61; Chief Qcelle Mzola, Ntabeni Ncube and Bhekezile Ndhlovu, interview with author (note 45).