The primitive thought and its impinge on the settlement layout

The settlement patterns in the so-called primitive world have many impacts on the layout and the rebirth of towns. Having observed many historical overviews of cities planning and the primary principles of urbanism in the primitive world, it is believed that the dimensions and variety of problems that face us today as citizens are mush greater than those of any previous civilization. In spite of that, it is obvious to observe town structures and ideals of other times and places and follows how they related to the functioning of the society that was being housed. This observation have been carried out to investigate the main concepts and principles that impinged the layout settlement and town planning among various parts of so called primitive world. Because of the differentiated patterns and approaches between various societies especially in the primitive world, the structural-functional method was the only alternative implemented to find out the vast, unexplored subject of planning in the primitive societies.

In the so called primitive world, a human must juxtaposes his dwellings and more specialized structures in some manner disregarding where and how he lives, whether he does it consciously or on tremendous scale. In his book village planning in the primitive world, Douglas Fraser pointed that it should be recognized that planning occupies a slightly different position in the primitive societies than it does in the so called high cultures. He started his observation by making some basic comparison between various primitive societies and industrial societies in terms of laying out a village or town and the characteristic of their design-schemes and the primitive thought behind them. Accordingly, it is revealed that in the primitive societies laying out a village or town was unessential and the formal design-schemes played little part in their thinking. Fraser, D, added that there was a kind of isolation between primitive societies that showed they had a little contact with their neighbors and seldom had any reason to adopt an alien planning system as they were individual. Whereas, in the industrial societies there was a constantly adoption plans invented for other regions.

Additionally, planning in among primitive societies was used to function primarily as mechanism of socio-political or religious control enhancing the power of various leaders and institutions by demonstrating their jurisdiction or political power over segments of domestic and ceremonial space. In the primitive societies; therefore; distributing power among social institutions that are hedged about with countless traditional forms of restraints avoided the problem of socio-political or religion control. For instance, primitive societies tend to oppose an arbitrary exercise of power by a single individual by encouraging cooperation rather than competition among their members. Therefore, planning in such groups is unlike that in the high cultures which is likely to be largely a matter of general agreement. Because of this insistence on consensus, the planning solutions chosen in primitive societies were usually traditional ones.

Furthermore, it is suggested that the innovation in the primitive world is likely to come about slowly, as in those societies it is generally believed that the scope of human knowledge is foreordained by a supernatural power and that the original stock of ideas cannot- and should not- be expanded, questioned or altered. Generally, some various paradigms can be observed in the following groups to illustrate that how their planning was organized and how they managed to adopt their solutions with their existed environment during that period of time.

GROUP ORIGIN SOLUTION

BAMILEKE CamerounThey used their village layout as a visible paradigm of their system

DOGON Western Sudan

They massed their dwellings and granaries in bewildering clusters that appear to have no connection with the simple ideal Dogon Village plan.

CLIFF DWELLERS American SouthwestThey were adapting the arrangement of their building to suit the site.

Plan of Batoufam village, Bamileke, Cameroun, Africa, Fraser, (1968)

Model of Batoufam village, Bamileke, Cameroun, Africa, Fraser, (1968)

Ideal Schema of a Dogon village, Mali, Africa, Fraser, (1968)

Plan of Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. The Circular chambers were ceremonial, the rectangular structures living quarters and storerooms.

Ground plan of Pueblo Bonito. Chaco Canyon National Monument, New Mexico. As in the Cliff palace, the circular chambers were ceremonial, the rectangular structures living quarters and storerooms.

In the primitive societies, the plans were morphologically resembling one another, but there were functioning differently. In terms of formal arrangement, the village planning in the primitive world was virtually meaningless, due to the considerable culture change.

Accordingly, there seems to be no system or rule that accounts for all cases, and approaching planning in the primitive world was somehow indistinct to as phenomenon. For instance, considering the scheme of an axial plan consisting of two parallel rows of dwellings is widespread among maritime people in the pacific islands and it is ancient there. But at Nato, Vigilo and Kumbun villages at the southwest tip of new Britain in Melanesia this scheme is also present, where the village houses are now arranged in two or more parallel lines, as aresult of government control. Additionally, others like the Gururumba in the upper Asaro Valley of the New Guinea highlands, the Koniagi of Guinea in Africa, and Karaja of the amazon basin in Brazil constructed their dwellings in two parallel rows.

The briefly approach to the vast, and the unexplored subject of planning in the primitive world can be summarized as follows:

- Examining the local attitudes that underlie the preferred plans along with the way the layout expresses and interacts with other aspects of the society, is the only alternative to the morphological approach, which is the structural-functional method now widely used in the anthropological circles.

- The aims behind the implementation of structural-functional method was to detect the unforeseen relationships between various institutions and to signal out underlying attitudes and value patterns behind various institutions.

- Structural-functional method provides a better perception and understanding into specific village plans than does any purely morphological approach.

- Having examined the villages’ plans of various societies from the structural-functional method perspective, these cultures were differing from one another and from the industrialized societies. Each provides a signal solution to the planning problem and cannot be used to classify other cultures or planning systems within the primitive world.

An arbitrary selection of various village plans were taken as a case study to find out what exactly were behind the primitive thought, how the method of structural-functional method should be employ, and in what way the settlement layout of those societies or towns was influenced by the primitive thought. In the following figures are the selected type plans of different village plans from different region which are namely:

MBUTI PYGMIES (North-eastern Congo), BUSHMAN (Southern and eastern Africa), CHEYENNE INDIANS (North America), HAIDA OF PACIFIC NORTH WEST, MAILU, NEW GUINEA (North of Australia), TROBRIAND ISLANDERS (NEW GUINEA), SOUTH NIAS ISLANDERS (INDONESIA, Southeast of Sumarta), YORUBA, NIEGERIA (Sub-Saharan Africa).

MBUTI PYGMIES

Plan of Mbuti pygmy camp in Epulu village. Ituri forest, Northeastern, Congo, Africa

Plan of Lega (Werega) Village. Northeastern Congo, Africa

Plan of Mbuti Pygmies huts, campon lio river, Ituri forest, northeastern, Congo

Plan of Mbuti Pygmies huts, campon lio river, Ituri forest, northeastern, Congo

BUSHMEN

Bushman scherms near Bethany, South Africa, C.1839

Plan of Bushman werf. Kalahari, Africa.

CHEYEMNE INDIANS

Plan of Cheyenne camp circle, Western Plains, United States.

Plan showing four different arrangements of camp circles, Plains Indians.

Plan of ancient Cheyenne camp circle, Western Plains, United States.

Plan of Cheyenne Camp Circle, Western Plains, United states. Numbers indicate positions of different tribal divisions. A=lodge of medicine arrows, B=lodge of the Buffalo Cap.

Plan of Cheyenne camp during election of chiefs, Western Plains, United States.

HAIDA OF THE PACIFIC NORTH WEST

Plan of Ninstints village. Haida, queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada.

MAILU, NEW GUINEA

Plan showing the disposition of the four village clans and their subdivisions. Mailu Island village, Papua, New Guinea.

Mailu Island village street. Papua, New Guinea.

Street with clubhouse. Möu village, Papua, New Guinea.

TROBRIAND ISLANDERS, NEW GUINEA

Plan of Omarakana village, Kiriwina, Trobriand islands, New Guinea.

Schematic plan of a Karo Batak village, Sumarta, Indonesia.

Schematic plan of a Toradja Sa’dan village. Central Celebes, Indonesia.

SOUTH NIAS ISLANDERS, INDONESIA

Schematic plan of Bawamataluo village, south Nias, Indonesia.

Schematic plan of Bali Aga village, Bali, Indonesia.

Schematic plan of Tenganan village, Indonesia.

Schematic plan of Toba Batak village on Samosir Island, Sumarta, Indonesia.

YORUBA, NIGERIA

Plan of chief’s village, At the place of Rumours, Swaziland, south Africa.

Plan key

Ambo Kraals, South West Africa.

Pit Circles, Rhodesia, Africa.

Pit Circles, Rhodesia, Africa.

Nuba Ring homesteads, Kordofan, Sudan, Africa.

Elevation and plan of Massa hoestead, Yagoua, Cameroun, Africa

The investigation findings:

The main points and thoughts that can be summarized from the given cases regarding to the planning in the primitive world are:

1- It can be clearly seen that in the primitive societies the priority was given to the social relationships rather than to the geometrical order in the placement of their buildings. In other words, the layout in the examined villages or cultures was determined as irregular. By demonstrated the existence of planning thoughts, the analysis is more appropriate to anthropological study than to a volume on town planning.

2- The mutual relation between the level of economic development and the complexity of planning schemes was also indicated in the studied examples and clearly evolved. The uncomplicated societies, such as the Pygmies and Bushmen, employ a maximum of design flexibility, as their economic and social systems persist upon physical mobility and relatively free interpersonal relationships.

3- Social and religious authorizations were necessary in the most complex groups of the primitive world. Besides, the frequently motivated placement of meetinghouse, marketplace, or important chief’s dwellings revealed that an excessive economic combined with increasingly hieratic social and political distinctions.

4- The religious concepts also took a major part in the planning among the primitive societies, however, the role was often difficult to categorize. For instance, the identification of east with the renewal of life was identified in the Bushmen, Cheyenne, and the Nias Islanders fundamentally as different cultures.

5- The concept of center is also spread out over in several societies finding expression in Haida, Mailu, Nias and Yoruba as well as many other areas. Another example, the sacred ceremonial structures was often centrally located in the villages of Indian such as Pueblo Indians as well as the main places for celebrations were held in the center of their villages, and this was likely happened in the Great Plains, and South America.

6- The centralization of houses was observed in many villages such as Dongson, Indonesia, and other conservative areas. Also the linking between ship, ancestor, and center was clearly observed in those societies and their towns’ combination.

7- Other factors were apparently gaining importance in the primitive world, which are the military and political factors with the growth in wealth and prestige of individual centers.

- Defensive strategy against enemies was a primary consideration in western villages of Africa and they were protected by palisades or hedges. This was generally considered in diverse areas as central and eastern Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea, New Zealand, the Northwest coast of America, and Florida.

- Religious concepts and political considerations might involved in the defensive sitting. The location of mountain villages were located miles away from water and were revered customary such an example can be observed in Sumba Island. The system of water storage used in Onondaga of New York, on the other hand, was developed with ponds or small lakes and gutters for putting out fires within their palisaded or (boundaries) villages that were thirty-foot in high.

- Finally, planning approach in the primitive world was a matter, but fundamentally diversified from society to another. Since, each of them has figured out a proper solution to its own particular circumstances, and by doing so they achieved their needs and necessity.

Prepared and paraphrased by:

HATEM HADIA

Ander supervision of Assoc. Prof. Dr. M. Adnan Barlas