Savouring culinary delights normally comes with an understanding of the complex etiquette required, but these notes deal specifically with the utensils involved.
Customised eating spoons were carved by sons, as gifts for siblings and parents, by the Northern Nguni and Zulu people. The choice of appropriate wood, like umcaka, and a knowledge of timber and its properties would have proved essential as some wood, like the tamboetie is toxic.
Differentiated by function, 2 forms of spoon developed, one shorter version (ikhezo iwamasi) for eating amasi, (curdled milk) and a longer more elegant shape ukhelo, for the main meal.
The latter spoons generally had a round or oval flattish bowl and a long handle of about 30 cm in length and were blackened with pokerwork or soot. Fat from the food and smoke generally denote a faint odour to the piece and a shiny patina. Today reproductions are covered with black shoe polish to simulate the real thing.
The shape evolved and changed over time. In certain areas of Zululand in the1920/30s eating spoons had a bag shaped shallow bowl and a flat rectangular handle with a straight or cut-off top. Today one can only speculate if this utensil was the result of appropriation from European flatware or developed independently. The shallow bowl is sometimes reinforced by a flattened pokerwork rim. Small squares or rectangles of pattern occurred on the front of the handle.
In other regions of Zululand, spoons with a directionally straight or slightly arced handle developed, superseding the other design. These had a circular shaft surmounted by a small rounded or pyramid shaped apex resembling a phallus. (I speculate that the circular shaft proved a stronger product over time). These spoons had the direct, strong, (bold) simplicity of design associated with Nguni visual heritage.
Decoration on the shaft takes various forms: repetitive horizontal incised lines, chevrons, zig zag patterns or spirals. Amasumpa, a collection of small raised nodules, vary in shape according to regional aesthetic and preference. Sometimes they are pyramid shaped or formed from crosshatched squares. The carving of amasumpa is either in shallow relief, or the shaft of the spoon can become transformed into a knobbly 3 dimensional form.
Comparing the patterns on a spoons handle to those on another functional object, a beaded flywhisk handle, one notes after 1950, a similar aesthetic. Although the treatment is different: incised carving done by men on the spoon and the beading of ritual objects done by both genders, they both demonstrate a preference for stripes and zig-zags on the handle. One may argue that historically, examples exist showing the prevalence of decorative wire work done on the shafts of canes, kerries, and weapons, therefore contemporary interest in shaft decoration, with geometric patterns, is an extension of an existing metal weaving tradition dating back to the mid-1800s or older.
Woven grass spoonholders, Zulu people, KwaZulu-Natal, 1940-1960s
Each spoon is used by a specific person, and women make an impontshi/ spoonholder, densely woven from grass to house the spoon when not in use. These pouches are rectangular in shape. They are decorated using a variety of treatments: woven geometric dyed grass designs, cotton or nylon thread wound around the grass stalks to create the design, or encrusted with glass beads in the colours and designs pertinent to the clan or region. The top and bottom border was generally reinforced with a double rows of beading. Loops were attached to the side of the imponshi and the spoonholder hung neatly on the interior walls when not in use.
After the 1950s, wirework spoon holders were occasionally made by men. This particular photo also shows a beautiful wire work strainer used for scooping flies out of homemade ushwala/beer.
wire work spoon holder and scoop
Examples of other spoons, made of different materials, were:
Bone, horn and ivory spoons made by the Nguni, mostly the Xhosa and Zulu people for taking snuff. These were small, with the bowl up to 2.5cm in size and the scale of the spoon ranging between 10 and 20cm in length. As advertised by this spoon maker, they were sometimes worn conveniently in the hair as pins, head scratchers or ornaments.
Ivory snuff spoons served a dual purpose in the 1800s when the bottom was carved with teeth and used as a comb. They sometimes display circular black decoration.(similar to the Lega visual tradition), or linear striations.
Besides enjoying clearing the sinuses with a good hefty sniff and sneeze, snuff would also be offered to guests as an act of hospitality when visiting. With some ethnic groups, it was also a requisite gift for the mother in law for lobola (marriage arrangements).
Small carved snuff containers were made by the Zulu men in the early 20th century, several examples existing in collections.
As seen in photographic documentation from the late 60/70s, commercial round plastic snuff containers inventively served as earplugs in KwaZulu- Natal, allowing the owner to be hands-free.
Snuff is still used in association with ritual functions, as the act of taking snuff facilitates communion with the ancestors. Originally each person had a snuff container, made from wood or a small calabash with stopper, worn about their person, but today only traditional healers and their initiates carry this type of snuff container, as part of their craft, in the front of the body, or alternately it is kept in the ndumba, (architectural structure used to house the equipment related to traditional healing),. Snuff containers were custom made and often decorated with beads or wire. Today some are coloured with enamel paint.
Other forms of spoons were:
The hand: used originally for scooping up maize meal and sheba (relish).
In the 1800s, leaves were folded under the thumb creating a scoop for drinking water from a stream, in the Transvaal. Also Large flattened stirring spoons, more like a small paddle, was used by women to stir maize meal in the Transvaal area in the 1940s/50s..
The BaTswana people used a small scoop made from a cut calabash to dispense or drink milk in the 1950/60s.
The Himba of Namibia carve a large oval scoop from wood as a spoon.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
DUBE.H.2009. Talking with beads.
