De Klundert Site Visit

INTRODUCTION

In 2018, Nigel Gericke sent a photo of an unusual Early Iron Age pot that the owner, Nino

Burelli, had found on his farm De Klundert near Messina. The pot belongs to what is called

Bambata B and could date as early as AD 400. It may well represent some of the first black

farmers in South Africa. I visited the farm on 29 September 2019, with Dr. Justine Wintjes

(Kwa-Zulu Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg) when we were working at Mapungubwe.

Mr. Burelli took us to the Haddon Ruins where he had found the Early Iron Age pot.

HADDON RUIN #1

Although on De Klundert, this small Zimbabwe Culture ruin was called Haddon #1 in

Fouché’s Ancient Bantu Civilization on the Limpopo (1937: 21). It stands about 350m east of

the main lodge, facing west, on a low granite dome (22 13 44S 29 46 16E): it has the site

number 2229BB1 in the Archaeological Survey Files at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Archaeologists divide the Zimbabwe Culture into chronological divisions named after

the dominant capital. For the Limpopo region there are three: Mapungubwe (AD 1220–

1320); Great Zimbabwe (AD 1300–1420/50); and Khami (AD 1420/50–1640). Each has

different pottery and walling characteristics. The front wall of Haddon #1 originally bore a

‘check’ design, and therefore dates to the Khami Period. Europeans had dismantled this wall

for building stone sometime before 1934, but some foundations are still visible (Figure 1).

Fouché’s team excavated here in 1934, recovering Khami pottery, as well as Mapungubwe

(or Transitional K2) (Fouché 1937: 47, 99). Mr. Burelli also found a Mapungubwe pot, as

well as the Early Iron Age vessel. While on site, Dr. Wintjes found a clay pot-lid decorated

with a typical Khami design (Figure 2), as well as a blue opaque Indo- Pacific glass bead,

also typical of the Khami Period.

Zimbabwe Culture buildings such as this were palaces that provided ritual seclusion

for a sacred leader (Huffman 1996). Inside would have been offices for a messenger and

traditional doctor, as well as an audience chamber and the leader’s private sleeping hut. These

palaces varied in size depending on the status of the leader. Haddon #1 is small and therefore

housed a petty chief (Huffman and Hanisch 1987). Typically, a commoner population would

have lived in the west-front section of the settlement. The leader here would have been under

the authority of a senior chief somewhere else. A senior chief occupied the Machemma Ruin

near Waterpoort (De Vaal 1943) and it was probably the district capital.

Stonewalled palaces, regardless of size, were usually built on top of rainmaking hills.

To societies in the Zimbabwe Culture, God made it rain (rather than impersonal forces), and

it is to God one must turn through royal ancestor spirits. Palaces were therefore on top of

rainmaking hills to strengthen and to legitimate the leader’s role as an intermediary to God.

Before this time, rainmakers were specialists who tried to influence impersonal forces

through ritual and the manipulation of rain medicines stored in rain pots (Schapera 1971). In

normal times, traditional rainmakers performed their work in their own villages. In times of

severe drought (3 to 5 years long), however, they went up special hills ‘to call the rain down’.

Once an object has been used in such a ritual, it cannot be returned to a domestic context; and

so, rainmaking hills are covered in pottery of different periods. This is why Haddon #1 has

yielded Mapungubwe and Early Iron Age pottery predating the stone walls. Agricultural

homesteads dating to these periods must be somewhere in the vicinity. In this regard, several

Middle Iron Age sites (K2, TK2 and Mapungubwe) are on record in the Weipe area about

10km to the northwest and on Klein Bolayi about 10km to the southeast. We are particularly

interested in finding Early Iron Age sites with Bambata B pottery.

A second Zimbabwe Culture ruin is quite different.

HADDON RUIN #2

Haddon #2 (Fouché 1937: 21) on De Klundert (2229BB2; 22 13 13.8S 29 45 41.8E) stands

on the slopes of an ironstone hill (Figure 3). Rather than housing inside, two stone platforms

stand in the cleared area behind the walling and remains of daga structures are not evident.

Furthermore, in contrast to Haddon #1, the western slope in front is covered in stone cairns,

rather than commoner housing. Moreover, this site is in the bush, some distance away from

arable land and any contemporaneous population.

Another site with stone cairns in an equally isolated location is at the north end of the

property.

BURELLI CAIRN FIELD

Many dark-stone cairns (2229BB3), some ringed with white stone (Figure 4), stretch from

the road (22 11 40S 29 46 18E) to 700m west (22 11 50S 29 46 56E). This cairn field is huge.

Once again, the cairn site is in an isolated location. Furthermore, the land here is not suitable

for agriculture, and so the cairns were not the result of land clearance.

Similar sites elsewhere have been ascribed to male circumcision. A general

understanding of Sotho-Tswana schools (e.g. Willoughby 1909) puts the cairns and isolated

locations into perspective.

CIRCUMCISION

Whenever a chief’s son reached puberty, boys of similar age in the surrounding districts

assembled at the capital at the beginning of winter. After certain rituals, the initiates were

then taken to the circumcision lodge outside the capital. Settlements in general and the capital

in particular represent the centre of cultural order; and so, activities representing great

disorder must take place in the ‘wild bush’, away from normal society. Up to 200 individuals

could be involved. ‘Shepherds’, the young men who had passed through the previous school,

took the boys to the isolated lodge. The boys first had a stick fight to establish status (other

than the chief’s son). Then a ritual specialist performed the circumcision, often on a special

stone platform like those at Haddon #2. Once the wounds had healed, the initiates hunted for

food, practicing military tactics used by that society. For Tswana and Shona speakers, it was

the horn formation. In fact the school was a type of military induction, and it was not

supposed to be easy: some may even die. Besides military aspects, the initiates learned what

society expected of them as well-behaved men. Various lessons were taught through songs

and proverbs, and many ordinary objects had special names and symbolic referents. A long

fire down the middle of a Tswana lodge, for example, was called the ‘elephant’ (Hammond-

Tooke 1981). The physical organization of the lodge was supposed to reflect the society’s

social organization, whatever it was. In keeping with status divisions, the shepherds usually

slept on one side of the lodge and the initiates on the other. At the end of the school, some

three to four months later, the lodge and other paraphernalia associated with childhood were

burnt and the initiates received their adult names. The new age set then returned to the chief’s

settlement as young adults. Later, the shepherds returned and erected stone cairns to mark the

birth of a new regiment. These cairns (called ‘hyena’) were supposed to look like graves (as

they do at the Burelli site) and yet symbolized birth: such reversals are common world over at

rites of passage. The white border around the dark core most likely had symbolic meaning,

too. In the Venda Vhusha School, a girl’s puberty initiation, initiates are painted black and

white to represent zebra stripes (Blacking 1969: 12). These stripes in turn refer to the way

men and women lay together, while the ashes represent ‘male medicine’. Perhaps something

similar was meant here. To complete their training, the young men attended another

ceremony about a year later at the capital. Afterwards, they could participate in court

proceedings. Once the son became chief, this age set was his personal regiment.

This brief outline explains why the two initiation sites are located ‘in the bush’, why

they lack residential structures and why they are marked by stone cairns. In Historic times,

the number of cairns was related to the number of groups attending a school. In some cases,

one cairn marked a school, while in other cases each clan (mitupo in the Shona world) had its

own. It is thus not possible to calculate the number of schools from the number of cairns, but

it is nevertheless clear that the Burelli site was used numerous times over many years. The

location of the lodge for the Burelli site is as yet unknown.

The initiation sites were ‘in the bush’ because of the rough topography. Geologically,

the topography is due to extensive folding and ironstone outcrops that created metasediments

unsuitable for agriculture. Certainly, this rough terrain would have been isolated from normal

villages throughout the Iron Age.

The chief’s site associated with the De Klundert initiations may well have been

Haddon #1. It is within sight of Haddon #2 (Figure 5) and is the closest Zimbabwe Culture

palace for several kilometres. Normally, such low-level headquarters are near their associated

commoner populations so that the chief can provide access to a law court and other services.

In this case, however, it is not clear where the commoners lived. The Haddon headquarters

then may have been established specifically to provide the administrative infra-structure

necessary for the initiation schools.

Thomas N. Huffman

University of the Witwatersrand

REFERENCES

Blacking, J. 1969. Songs, dances, mimes and symbolism of Venda girls' initiation schools.

Part 1: Vhusha. African Studies 28: 3–35.

De Vaal, J.B. 1943. 'n Soutpansbergse Zimbabwe. South African Journal of Science 40: 303–

27.

Fouché, L. (ed.) 1937. Mapungubwe: Ancient Bantu Civilization on the Limpopo. Cambridge:

University Press.

Hammond-Tooke, W.D. 1981. Boundaries and Belief: The Structure of a Sotho Worldview.

Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

Huffman, T.N. 1996. Snakes & Crocodiles: Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe.

Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

Huffman, T.N. and Hanisch, E.O.M. 1987. Settlement hierarchies in the northern Transvaal:

Zimbabwe ruins and Venda history. African Studies 46: 79–116.

Willoughby, W.C. 1909. Notes on the initiation ceremonies of the Becwana. Journal Royal

Anthropological Institute 39: 228–45.

Figure 1. Haddon #1 on De Klundert.

Figure 2. Early Iron Age pot left and pot lid right found at the Haddon #1 Ruin: scale = 9cm.

Photos J. Wintjes.

Figure 3. Haddon #2 on De Klundert.

Figure 4. Stone cairns at the Bruelli site: note white borders.

Figure 5. Looking southeast from Haddon #2: Haddon #1 in upper centre, above main lodge.