sexual division of labour in pre-colonial central africa

THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Name: Nalumino L. Namwanyi

Computer no: 512805891

Assignment One: To what extent would you argue that the historiography of

Central Africa demonstrates division of labour between men

and women during the pre-colonial period?

Due: 24th August 2012

Lecturer: Professor B. J. Phiri

Division of labour is the time saving arrangement giving parts of the manufacturing

process to different persons.1 To investigate the extent to which one might argue that

the historiography of pre-colonial Central Africa demonstrates division of labour, this

paper looks at what various scholars have written on how productive activities were

shared among various Central African peoples. It looks at what has been written on

activities like: house keeping; preparation of food; food finding activities like hunting,

gathering and agriculture; and craft making.

Chondoka’s work in general, shows that the division of labour among the Senga and

Tumbuka societies meant that men, women and children were expected to do specific

tasks in society. Of this paper’s interest are the tasks he mentions that were assigned

by gender. He lists among men’s tasks the following: acquiring and manufacturing of

agricultural implements; clearing virgin land and already existing fields for crop

production; building and maintenance of granaries; hunting; sinking of wells; and

many other tasks.2 Women’s tasks included mostly what Chondoka calls unpleasant

tasks like: collecting and heaping what the men had cut and left behind when clearing

the land; weeding rice and sorghum fields; fetching of firewood; drawing water for all

domestic uses; making of pots from clay; and cooking of food among many others.

Achim Von Oppen also acknowledges that there was a clear division of labour among

the Upper Zambezi ethnic groups. He explains that different economic activities and

consequently, the changes they undergo, are related to the different categories of the

producers. The most basic of these categories: gender, age and location, seem to have

been based on certain physical characteristics, namely, differential involvement in

procreation, differential strength and expertise, and differential access to natural

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resources.3 He therefore shows that the allocation of tasks to the sexes in any society

was not random but systematic so as to make the sexes compliment one another.

Von Oppen notes that women performed most housekeeping and all other tasks that

went with it. He points out that housekeeping included chores such as tidying up of

the huts and the surroundings, fetching water and firewood, and the preparation of

food. Writing on the housekeeping chore of fetching water, Roberts shows that it was

the task of the women. She notes that no man ever drew water for himself under

normal village conditions as it was reckoned an essential duty of a wife or women.4

This also included the provision of drinking water for men. Gelfand agrees with what

Chondoka writes by pointing out that it was the man’s duty to dig a well where

necessary but that only women took water from it.5

Reynolds’ work on the peoples of the Gwembe valley shows that the ever-recurrent

housekeeping task of cooking and preparing of meals was done by women. He

emphasises that the need to prepare meals compelled women return to their homes

from wherever they might have been.6 Gelfand singles out preparation of meals as one

of the women’s chief tasks and pointed out that no man ever cooked except on a

journey where food could not be brought to him or he could not carry sufficient food

with him.7 Every man expected his wife to cook for him and he had no right to

interfere or even make suggestions in those matters.

Gelfand notes that fetching of firewood was another female occupation among the

Shona. He observes that girls were taught the skill of collecting firewood at tender

ages. They were taught how to prepare a firewood bundle and how to select the best

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pieces, sizes and shapes of firewood. He however notes that even boys were also

reminded that it was their task to collect firewood for the Dare, the village male

meeting place, which no woman was permitted to prepare. He further writes that the

boys also had to carry logs that were too heavy for the women.8 However, the labour

of men was involved in some of the above chores on particular occasions and when

there was a good reason. For instance, men collected their own firewood for smelting

iron.9

Many works on pre-colonial Central Africa show that food finding as a whole was

conducted by both sexes. Under food finding were included tasks such as agriculture,

gathering, hunting and fishing. Posselt notes that among the Shona, the cultivation of

1 M. Burton, D. White and M. Dow, Sexual Division of Labour in African Agriculture, (American Anthropological Association) @ http: eclectic.ss.uci.edu

2 Y. A. Chondoka, Labour Migration and Rural Transformation in Chama District, NorthEastern Zambia1890-1964, P.h.D. Thesis, University of Toronto, 1992, p.26.

3 A. Von Oppen, Terms of Trade and Terms of Trust, (Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 1994), p.135.

4 A. Roberts, Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia, (Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 1995), p.103

5 M. Gelfand, Diet and Tradition in an African Culture, (Edinburgh: E & S Livingstone, 1971), p.17.

6 B. Reynolds, The Material Culture of the Gwembe Valley, (Manchester: Manchester university Press, 1968), p.29.

7 M. Gelfand, Diet and Tradition in an African Culture, p.32.

8 M. Gelfand, Diet and Tradition in an African Culture, p.34.

9 K. Rennie and A. Mubita, ‘Pre-colonial Economy and Society Around Itezhi-tezhi’ in R. Derricourt, Man on the Kafue: The Archaeology and History of the Itezhi-tezhi Area of Zambia, (London: Ethnographica, 1985), p.37.

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the land, sowing, weeding, reaping and threshing were jointly performed by both

sexes but that ground breaking was under the sphere of work of men.10 Arrghit citing

Ranger agrees that cultivating, sowing, weeding, reaping and threshing among the

Shona were tasks jointly performed by both sexes, though with probable

predominance of female labour. He however, notes that it was different among the

Ndebele who exhibited a more marked division of labour compared to the Shona. The

Ndebele high caste men concentrated their energies on hunting, raiding and various

martial pursuits, leaving many of the productive activities to women.11

Von Oppen’s observation concerning agriculture, is that men only helped with the

clearing of the land and rarely, hoeing while the women did the planting, weeding,

and harvesting. This observation is also made by Roberts12 whose work in northern

Zambia demonstrates that men rarely engaged in more than just clearing the land.

Colson observed that among the people of Gwembe, each the husband and the wife

had separate fields. She notes that men cleared fields; built field shelters; and fence

gardens where it was done. They also helped with planting and cultivation of their

own fields though many men did little in their wives’ fields.13

10 F. W. T. Posselt, Fact and Fiction: A Short Account of th e Natives of Southern Rhodesia, (Bulawayo: The Rhodesia Printing Press, 1942), p.102.

11 G. Arrghit, ‘Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective: A Study of the Proletarianisation of the African Peaantry’ in C. Cooper and E. V. K. Fitzgerald, Development Studies Revisited: Twenty Five Years of the Journal of Development Studies, (London: Frank Cass and Company, 1989), p.247,

12 Roberts, Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia , p.130.

13 E. Colson, The Social Organisation of the Gwembe Tonga, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967) p.91.

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According to Beach, women undertook gathering, which provided food for relishes

and standby in emergencies.14 He notes that women gathered wild fruits, insects, herbs

and vegetables. This is collaborated by Gelfand who also observes that gathering was

done by small groups of women among the Mashona people.15 Von Oppen makes a

similar observation that outside of agriculture, gathering was a classic form of

production for women on the Upper Zambezi ethnic groups just as hunting was for

men. He explains that women were more closely tied to the village but that they also

went to the forest for day long gathering trips which could even include catching of

small birds and mammals using snares, traps and digging.16

Rennie and Mubita agree that gathering was the province of the women but observe

that this division of labour could change according to different circumstances.17 The

circumstances could be; famine; nature of the gathering process; quantities of the

materials being gathered; or the distances to the collection point. They explain that in

famine season, both sexes would collect fruits like the Muntamba since the quantities

required were large. Similarly, the collection of Mbula also required men’s

participation since the distances to the collection points were often too great that the

collection party would arrive after dark. Lastly, men were required for t he collection

of Mankolongwa which grew on thick bushes and whose collection was an arduous

task.

14 D. Beach, ‘The Shona Economy: Branches of Production’ in R. Palmer and N. Parsons (eds.), The Roots ofRural Poverty in Central Africa, (Berkeley: University of Califonia, 1977), p.40.

15 Gelfand, Diet and Tradition in an African Culture, p.105.

16 Von Oppen, Terms of Trade and Terms of Trust, p.131.

17 Rennie and Mubita, ‘Pre-colonial Economy and Society Around Itezhi-tezhi’, p.37.

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Von Oppen writes that niyala wubinga; namumbanda lusemu, meaning that, for man,

huntsman ship; for woman procreation.18 He explains that this was a classic Lunda –

Ndembu description of gender roles and that hunting was a man’s province among the

Upper Zambezi ethnic groups. Other scholars like Roberts19, Colson20 and Posselt21

write in agreement that hunting was a task that was performed by men. Gelfand

further explains that this division of labour started during childhood when the boys as

young as eight or nine years were taught the art of hunting by their fathers or any

senior male relatives. He points out that the boy was given hunting weapons like a

spear, bow and arrows while he was still young.22

Scholars’ written work on Central African history also demonstrates division of

labour in the making of crafts. Colson asserts that crafts were primarily subject to the

sexual division of labour where work with wood and metals was assigned to men, and

the making of pots, baskets and mats, was assigned to women among the Gwembe

Tonga.23 Aguilar observes that women did the making of ceramics (pottery). She

explains that women mined the clay, cured and prepared it for pottery making.24


19 Roberts, Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia, p.348.

20 Colson, The Social Organisation of the Gwembe Tonga, p.35.

21 Posselt, Fact and Fiction: A Short Account of th e Natives of Southern Rhodesia, p102.


23 E. Colson and M. Gluckman (ed), Seven Tribes of Central British Africa, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), p.103.

24 L. B. Aguilar, ‘Metaphors, Myths and Making Pots: Chewa Clay Arts’, African Arts, vol.40, 2007, p.66.

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Doke, in his works on the Lamba, also agrees that all the pottery making was

performed by the women with the exception that men made their own pipe bowls

from clay.25

Written work on pre-colonial Central Africa also exhibit the division of labour in the

craft of iron smelting. Rennie and Mubita mention that iron smelting was a male

activity from which females were ritually excluded. Iron smelting and working was

conducted by small parties of four to six men working in at night in isolated camps.

They point out that even the firewood they used for smelting and working iron, the

Mubanga and Mopane hardwood logs, was collected by the men themselves.26

Chondoka adds on to explain that among the Tumbuka and Senga societies, women

were excluded from iron working sites for fear that they would leak the secrets to

other tribes. The other reason he gives is that men were scantily dressed due to the

heat from the furnaces during iron smelting.27 Von Oppen also explains that iron

working, like most male activities, required periodical, relatively short but intense

input of labour. It also involved male absence from homes for sometimes-

considerable periods.28

Also writing on division of labour involving crafts, Colson points out woodworking

as another craft in which only men specialise. Male specialists were carvers of

25 C. Doke, The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia: A Study of Their Customs and Beliefs, (London: George G. Harrap and Company Ltd, 1931), p.117.


27 Y. A. Chondoka, The Tumbuka and Senga in Chama district, 1470-1900, (Lusaka: Academic Press, 2007), p.46.


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wooden articles like bowls, stools and mortars. They were also the builders of canoes

and the makers of drums.29

Rennie and Mubita agree with Colson’s assertion that there was division of labour in

the craft of basket and mat making. They write that basket making was a province of

the women among the people of Itezhi-tezhi area.30 Von Oppen also notes that it was

the same among the Upper Zambezi ethnic groups. He further notes that the southern

Lunda women specialise in mat making.31 Writing on different societies, some

scholars have different observations concerning the labour allocations in the craft

making industries. Gelfand observes that among the Shona, men and boys made

baskets and reed mats.32 Doke makes a similar observation that among the Lamba

people, the making of mats and baskets was carefully divided between the men and he

women according to the materials that were used in the manufacturing process.

Women used grass and rushes while the men used palm leaf and bamboo. Both used

reeds.33

The craft of bark cloth making also showed division of labour. Gelfand mentions bark

cloth making was a task for men.34 Doke explains that the bark cloth making and the

preparation was no small undertaking. It usually took a party of men who went

29 Colson, The Social Organisation of the Gwembe Tonga, p.35.




33 Doke, The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia, p.118.


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together to sleep (camp) in the bush at a place where there was plenty of suitable

Lwenshi trees.35

Reynolds notes that house building was a craft that normally required the joint efforts

of both the husband and the wife or all the men and the women of the homestead,

though the assistance of work parties drawn from the whole village or from the

neighbourhood was necessary for certain tasks.36 Rennie and Mubita also observe that

house building was performed by both sexes. Women cut the grass for thatching but it

was the men that carried it to the building site. This he points out was probably

because of the quantities involved. Men cut and carried the poles for hut

construction.37

Gelfand also shows that women performed the task of flooring the huts. He continues

to mention that girls were shown how to make mud floors for a hut at as tender ages

as six years.38 However, Posselt stresses that the building of stores for agricultural

produce was done one by men.39 Von Oppen also observes that men among the Upper

Zambezi ethnic groups built the granaries.40

In conclusion, it can be said that the paper has brought out what scholars have written

on various groups with the aim of assessing the extent to which one may argue that

the historiography of Central Africa demonstrates sexual division of labour. It has

been shown in the paper that various scholars demonstrate that people in pre-colonial

35 Doke, The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia, p.120.

36 Reynolds, The Material Culture of the Gwembe Valley, p.29.


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Africa performed various tasks according to their sex. It has to be mentioned however

that some scholars are silent on sexual division of labour in their work. I can therefore

argue to a considerable extent that the historiography of Central Africa demonstrates

division of labour between men and women in the pre-colonial period.


39 Posselt, Fact and Fiction: A Short Account of the Natives of Southern Rhodesia, p.102.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aguilar, Laurel Birch. ‘Metaphors, Myths and Making Pots: Chewa Clay Arts’, African Arts, vol.40, 2007.

Arrghit, G. ‘Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective: A Study of the Proletarianisation of the African Peaantry’ in C. Cooper and E. V. K. Fitzgerald, Development Studies Revisited: Twenty Five Years of the Journal of Development Studies, London: Frank Cass and Company, 1989.

Beach, ‘The Shona Economy: Branches of Production’ in R. Palmer and N. Parsons (eds.), The Roots ofRural Poverty in Central Africa, Berkeley: University of Califonia, 1977.

Burton, L. M., White, D. and Dow, M. ‘Sexual Division of Labour in African Agriculture’, American Anthropological Association @ http:eclectic.ss.uci.edu

Chondoka, Yezenge. Labour Migration and Rural Transformation in Chama District, NorthEastern Zambia1890-1964, P.h.D. Thesis, University of Toronto, 1992.

Chondoka, Yezenge. The Tumbuka and Senga in Chama district, 1470-1900, Lusaka: Academic Press, 2007.

Colson, Elizabeth. The Social Organisation of the Gwembe Tonga, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967.

Colson, Elizabeth and Max Gluckman (ed), Seven Tribes of Central British Africa, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959.

Doke, Clement. The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia: A Study of Their Customs and Beliefs, London: George G. Harrap and Company, 1931.

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ENDNOTES

Gelfand, Michael. Diet and Tradition in an African Culture, Edinburgh: E & S Livingstone, 1971.

Oppen, Achim Von. Terms of Trade and Terms of Trust:The History and Contexts of Pre-colonial Market Production Around the Upper Zambezi and Kasai, Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 1994.

Posselt, F.W.T. Fact and Fiction: A Short Account of th e Natives of Southern Rhodesia, Bulawayo: The Rhodesia Printing Press, 1942.

Roberts, Audrey. Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia, Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 1995.

Rennie, Keith and Austin Mubita. ‘Pre-colonial Economy and Society Around Itezhi-tezhi’ in R. Derricourt, Man on the Kafue: The Archaeology and History of the Itezhi-tezhi Area of Zambia, London: Ethnographica, 1985.

Reynolds, Barrie. The Material Culture of the Gwembe Valley, Manchester: Manchester university Press, 1968.

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sexual division of labour in pre-colonial central africa

Documents

roots ofrural poverty

central british africa

development studies revisited

rhodesia printing press

bark cloth making

chewa clay arts

manchester university press

central africa