The Magwaza Family- Potters of distinction

                                                               Juliet Armstrong

This paper intends to focus on the pottery produced by the Magwaza family living in the mPabalane district north of the Tugela River, who have a homestead on the banks of the Nsuze River, in the KwaZulu-Natal region. I shall discuss the different types of work that is made by this family, the different uses these pots have and their ritual context in Zulu rural living.

As pottery is a specialised craft in their community work is not only done for their own domestic use but it is also offered for sale to neighbouring communities, primarily on a commission basis, for weddings and festivities. Work is also made on a speculative basis for the visitors to the hot springs at Ka Shushu on the Tugela river, or for the nurses at the Ntunjambili Mission Hospital at Kranskop.

The art of pottery making by Zulu speaking people of Northern KwaZulu-Natal is usually done by the women in the community who have been taught the skills by relatives or friends. In the Magwaza family there are twelve women who have married into the family over the years who were originally taught the techniques of making and firing the work by their mother-in-law Ngcongoshe Magwaza whose isibongo or maiden name was Mahaye. She was responsible for teaching all twelve of the current potters working in the homestead.^[1] Their work includes all the pottery associated with the sorghum beer drinking ceremony all of which have been made by the potters in the homestead. These vessels range from the smallest pot or umancishane to the largest brewing pot or imbiza. Ngcongoshe died in August 1978.

Utshwala or sorghum beer, serves diverse functions in Zulu rural society. It is made from sprouted millet and sorghum and should  be considered as a whole food full of vitamins and carbohydrates, that constitutes a staple diet along with the infrequent eating of a slaughtered animal.Secondly it constitutes an important element in the everyday social and ritual contexts of Zulu rural living, as the beer ceremony is an important means of communicating with the ancestral spirits or amadlosi.  The drinking of this beer is also a means of endorsing social behaviour and commensalism at births, marriages and other rites of passage

To understand the use of this pottery it is important to have some knowledge on how this beverage is made. The malted millet and sorghum grain is mixed and boiled over the hearth in the indlunkulu or chief hut of the kraal, and then set to cool in a large ipangela or isikhamba in the umsamo area, behind the ubundu or slightly raised wall at the far end of the hut. When it has cooled, it is mixed with some sprouted and uncooked millet and put into the large imbiza to cool overnight. Following the fermentation of twelve to fifteen hours the liquid is strained through an ivovo or sieve into the smaller isikhamba and then poured into the imbiza for storage. The sieved and stored liquid is then  decanted into the smaller drinking and serving vessels for consumption.  This process of making utshwala would really only be used when there was cause to make a large amount of the liquid for a specific occasion. The same process would be used for the making of utshwala for everyday consumption. However, it  would obviously be on a smaller scale.

 During the brewing procedure it is noteworthy that  ash from the fire used to boil the brew is mixed with water and ‘painted’ with the forefinger and a cloth, around the outside opening of the imbiza.  This usually takes the form of a line with soft extensions or dots below it. Each time the vessel is used to make a new brew, this procedure is performed with the original ash never being wiped away, but painted over with each successive process. The reason for this procedure has not been explained, but it is claimed that their mothers did it and so do they.

The potters and children in the Magwaza family go on a joint exercise to collect the clay from the two different sites that they have identified. Although this is done jointly, each potter is responsible for the grinding and mixing of their own clay and the making and decorating  of the different forms. Once the pot has been formed and the interior and exterior  surfaces smoothed with a curved piece of calabash, to the desired shape,  the potter is ready to incise or apply the desired design onto the slightly wet exterior surface.   The only utshwala vessels that are decorated with motifs in the raw clay stage are those associated with serving and drinking. When the pot has reached a leather hard stage, it is burnished with a smooth stone and a small amount of water to achieve a glossy finish. The pot is then left to dry in preparation for the firing.

 Pottery vessels are containers of choice when beer is consumed by members of a family, demonstrating  to visitors and honoured guests, a family’s hospitality. In this respect, both beer and pottery provide a common focus at most social gatherings or commemorative occasions. Hence the serving and drinking  vessels are intended for public display and personal use. The decoration takes different forms depending on the embellishment that has been commissioned and is usually confined to the broad band around the shoulder of the pot facilitating a firmer grip on the vessel when it is picked up for drinking.

Two different types of decoration are done by the Magwaza potters on the serving and drinking vessels. The one is a sgraffito decoration done in different formations and the other is the pushing out of the exterior surface of the clay to form small lumps called amasumpa.

The Magwaza potters are particularly partial to a sgraffito design made up of lines and curves called umkhxofoso. This consists of a band of sgraffito indentations made in a specific formation using the end of an umbrella spoke and the corner of a ruler for the broader indentations. The potters claim that this is a very popular design that is usually commissioned from them by their patrons. Other designs include separate motifs set about the shoulder of the pot in formations of three four or five cameos. I asked Esther, one of the potters, whether there was any significance in the number of motifs around the pot and she replied that it depended on the size of the motif and the pot, as to how many motifs were set about the shoulder of the pot. The single motifs include the ugqebhe or heart( taken from the heart in a pack of cards), the stylised uvevane or butterfly which is taken from the beadwork prototype, or other motifs which have been described as indwebo or simply just a drawing. A recent innovation has been the inclusion of stylised plant motifs usually on either side of the pot with another motif drawn in between. This design was started by the potter, Bonisiwe, who has been in hospital in Durban and came home with a pot with a similar design. This has been copied and further developed by the potters especially in the work of  Shongazipi.

The other motif that the Magwaza potters make are the amasumpa or the soft wart like addition to the clay surface where the clay has been pushed out from the inside of the pot to form  a small bump with no additional clay being used.^[2] This type of amasumpa is unlike the wooden counterpart used on meatplates, headrests, spoons and milk-pails, which is very like the ingxotha or brass arm bands^[3] used during the reign of Shaka and his 19th century successors. Sandra Klopper claims, the use of  these amasumpa  was  probably given to the leaders of tributary chiefdoms in what was an affirmation of the kingdom’s wealth and power. However the etymology of the word amasumpa seems significant in relation to the origins of the type of amasumpa that the Magwaza potters use. Amasumpa translates directly as ‘warts’ a word that  emphasises the anthropomorphic connotations of the small protuberances and as Carolee Kennedy claims, these motifs share close affinities with body scarification practised by young Zulu women up until at least the late nineteenth century.^[4] The Magwaza potters claim that this is a particularly Zulu motif which they do not remember as ever being used as a form of body scarification^[5]. However, the different formations of the amasumpa are closely related to cattle and their care. Esther claims the circular motif is called isibaye and is representative of the cattle byre closely linking the lineage of the ancestors and cattle to the pottery^[6].  This form of decorating is only done if a particular patron requests it, as it is time consuming and makes the pots cost more than similar sized ones with sgraffito decoration.

It is the serving and drinking vessels that are subjected to a second, blackening firing or ubukufusa. During  this firing, the vessels are carbonised over a smoky fire of old thatch grass, tamboti wood, or an old rubber shoe sole producing a brilliant black sheen which is then rubbed with beef fat, after which the wares are made available to customers.  This process is not merely aesthetic but originated as  a respectful  hlonipha custom that stems from rites of ancestor-communion. It is this attribute of blackness that imbues a vessel with accessibility for the amadlozi. These enhancements involve costly resources, such as extra fuel, as well as symbolically or culturally loaded processes and materials, and are therefore not used for the production of tourist wares that I shall speak about later.

The umsamo pots are never decorated but are finished in the leather hard stage with a worn down maize cob or ihleza. This cob has been worn down in such a way that the roughened areas do not cut into the surface of the pot but rather lend a striated and roughened texture to the form. Khonzeni Magwaza, one of the potters, claims that this texture on the wares associated with the ^[7] umsamo is an important one as the  pots should never in any way be smooth. When they have been through the firing process they are further treated before they can be of use in the homestead.

It is an established fact that cattle in the homestead are of crucial importance to the communications between the patrilineal amadlozi and their living relatives who are the heads of the homestead or abapilayo. A link is made between the cattle, the abapilayo and the amadlosi through the imbiza being covered with a thin film of cow dung mixed with water. This mixture is smeared by the women over the exterior surface of all  the umsamo vessels and once it has been done the procedure is not repeated. Khonzeni Magwaza claims that “ it makes the pots strong, imbues it with dignity by ensuring that the pot is not shiny, and prevents the pot from leaking.”^[8]

In those vessels made for the tourist market by the Magwaza potters one must realise that these wares are dependent almost entirely on those received traditions of domestic ware production. Those vessels destined for the tourist market are superficially similar in production and technique particularly in relation to the form and decoration of the vessel. This tourist genre, destined for the campers at Ka Shushu and the nurses at Ntunjambili mission hospital,  are particularly interesting in catering for both black and white clients. These wares have specialised transformations which manifest themself by means of  dramatically proportioned forms in exaggeratedly smaller versions of the ukhamba shape, flared necks and the lack of the use of a second firing to blacken the wares. Tourist considerations must be taken into account, which include that the work must be small enough to be easily transported home. This includes the tourist’s desire for the diminutive and that the work must not to be blackened in a second firing but rather the natural firing colours be left undisturbed.