Frothy and nutritious, local beer called utshwala is much beloved by the Zulu people, and besides mere recreational enjoyment, it also serves other functions.
Utshwala (or umqombothi), basically comprises sorghum, maize meal and water as the main ingredients. This is fermented over three days and when opaque and frothy, (roughly 3% alcohol), it is served in a communal terracotta pot and passed from one to another in the assembled throng, as a form of refreshment, respect and bonding.
Beer is also used during rituals and ancestral rites. It is dispensed at celebrations including, lobola negotiations, weddings and coming of age festivities. It is an integral part of funerals, poured as a libation to the ancestors and for communication with the spirit world. In short, beer signifies complex cultural meanings within the life of Zulu people
There are historically 4 types of vessels used for making and serving beer:
IMBIZA : large pot up to a meter in height.
UPHISO: large spherical pot with a short circular upright neck used for transporting beer.
UKHAMBA: beer pot (20-35 cm in height) used for communally dispensing beer to male relatives and elders.
UMACISHANA: small round pot used for libations.
This article deals only with the third type, the Ukhamba or beer vessel.
The time and sense of ceremony involved in the production and offering of beer can in an abstract way be equated to a rite on the other side of the world, using tea, by the Japanese. In Both cases, the preparation and ceremonies are conducted by women, with the attitude of respect or hlonipa in the case of the Zulu. A specific set of utensils is used for the procedure, and the beverage in both instances is served in a preconceived terracotta receptacle used only for that purpose. Whilst the makers of Japanese tea bowls were men, often fulfilling an elevated role in society, beer pots are made by Zulu women living a humble existence in remote areas.
Known as ukhamba, these vessels are made by potters collecting clay at river banks and constructing the form using the coil technique. With a lot of elbow grease, izinkamba (p) are heavily burnished at the leather hard stage, with a smooth pebble or piece of agate, compacting the surface and imparting a glossy, almost reflective sheen. (similar to the beautiful surfaces by potter Maria Martinez, New Mexico.)
The dense dark colour of this pot is achieved from a reduction atmosphere when the izinkamba are fired twice in an outside pit containing bark and aloe leaves, which creats a smoky firing, colouring the pot black. At between 600-850 degrees C, pots have a low fired porous body, perfect for keeping beer cool.
Beer pots have a concise clarity of form characterized by flat bottoms, thin walls and cut off rims. The shape varies from spherical, bi-cone to bag-shaped, or a combination of these depending on the particular geographical region. For me, some of the most beautiful examples come from the Pongola area where decoration is secondary to the tension of the interior space. One might speculate that the thin walls and cut off rims of the ukhamba were originally inspired by the calabash, which over time, was also used for dispensing beer. (In fact, the name ukhamba besides implying notions of replenishment and regeneration, also means calabash).
Decoration, done at the leather hard stage, is an additive or reductive process: Incising, cross hatching or raised bands of texture are added. Sometimes a combination. More recently figurative imagery is used.
Regional stylistic tradition influences the motifs. The designs are inspired by fauna and flora, bead work patterns and traditional amasumpa motifs, (examples featured above. The raised nodules that occur as decor on wood carving such as headrests and milk pails)
This decorative technique also occurs on the oldest examples of pots (1920s) and bronze bracelets from the late 1800s. The origin of amasumpa has been lost in time but it has been thought to have originated from body modification practices in the 1700s. These were inspired and used as a deterrent to slave raiding in the North and along the East coast of South Africa and Mozambique. Raised scarification (keloids) were made in decorative patterns on young girls torsos, and over time became an important right of passage, signifier of identity, status and an enhancement to beauty.
There are metaphors drawn between beer making, pots and the body of women. The process of fermentation is akin to fertility, pregnancy and the continuation of lineage. Amasumpa are usually placed on the waist (or body) of the vessel, like they were on the female form in historic times.
From a practical point of view, amasumpa are placed where the pot is held, to prevent slippage when it was passed from one person to another.
In Mpumalanga, beer pots have another role. Traditional healers use them for display, ritual practice and medicinal containment, changing the context and function. The pots decoration also differs from that of Zulu ukamba. These pots are displayed in the ndumba (shrine hut) forming part of the symbolic paraphernalia, for designating the site as a sacred space. Traditionally beer is poured from ukhamba as a libation during ancestor rites therefore by association, the inclusion of these vessels in the construction of an altar, endorses this location as one of ancestral habitation.
Historically, not many examples of beer pots exist before the 1920s. One could argue that this was due to the incessant political strife and upheaval in Zululand in the 1800s, during the years of Shaka's reign, detailed by Frank Jolles, 2005 in his article “The origins of the twentieth century Zulu beer vessel styles”.
Another reason could be that beer pots were not collected by European collectors at this time as they preferred to collect heroic artefacts like Zulu shields, clubs and spears. They perhaps considered beer pots/ baskets too fragile or uninteresting to transport or maybe puritanical Victorian perceptions shied away from collecting vessels associated with the demon drink.
Another reason could be that comparatively, they didn't appeal to the conventional taste of collectors as both Europe and the United kingdom already had an entrenched vibrant history of polychrome glazed ceramics dating back several centuries.
Beer pots are usually covered with an mbenge when set aside and this photograph from the 1930s depicts a man on the left, making an mbenge from grass or ilala palm.
Mbenge or the lid placed over the pot's aperture changed over time and became more decorative, embellished with beads, or recycled string from agricultural bags or later nylon and telephone wire.
By the 1990s, this humble item had become a decrorative genre for collectors and also increased in scale.
For me, a study of the chronology and development of pottery styles is at best a random one, as besides the disruptive history of warfare and movement, female potters from one area, marry and move to other areas always establishing themselves with the husbands family, so perhaps a more logical method, would be to concentrate on the most dominant and talented potters in a particular area and see how they influenced others rather that attempting to piece together a linear progression of stylistic development.
After the rise of apartheid in 1947, some Zulu people were also frequently shifted from one area to another, making dissemination and a stylistic study problematic.
Jolles estimates that about 800 examples of clay beer vessels dating from the 1930s to 1970s have survived, collected by enthusiasts in the 1970-90s.
These were private individuals and also gallery owners, who realized the importance of indigenous crafts, like Helen de Leeu, Ivys curio shops and Vittorino Meneghelli of Totem galleries. Also Durban art gallery, Phansi Museum and Juliette Armstrong who assembled collections for Pietermaritzburg University to name a few.
But beautiful vessels are still made in Kwazulu-Natal today. The Nala and Magwaza family being renowned for their outstanding work.
Today, other potters work to satisfy changing market tastes. Certain modifications are due to expedient short cuts or fashion. For example, an adapted way of blackening pots for those seeking a traditional look is with shoe polish. On the other hand, brightly coloured stripes of oil paint imitating beadwork patterns, are popular with some but are considered garish by others. izinkhamba are also painted white for the interior decorating trends in Johannesburg. So one may say that whilst the universal form is retained, its purpose is changed and aesthetically sanitized for contemporary living.
But two contemporary ceramists (both male) are blazing a trail and taking traditional form to another level of aesthetic splendor. In Johannesburg, Madoda Fani uses the ukhamba form as inspiration. He also draws on the importance of cattle in Nguni culture as a repetitive concept, often reflecting stylized images of cattle on his pots, as does Clive Sithole who works in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Both experiment with traditional firing techniques to achieve beautiful surfaces on their pots as they reinvent the ukhamba, amongst others.
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Further reading:
Jolles. F. 2005. The origins of the twentieth century Zulu beer vessel styles. S.A. Humanities, vol.17. pg 101-151. Pietermaritzburg.
Perrill. E. Zulu Pottery.
