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Sheltering experience in underground places: thinking through precolonialChagga Caves on Mount KilimanjaroTimothy Clack aa University of Oxford,

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Sheltering experience in undergroundplaces: thinking through precolonialChagga Caves on Mount Kilimanjaro

Timothy Clack

Abstract

Questions centring on the significance, occupation and renovation of subterranean features haveremained largely unasked and unanswered by archaeologists. This is cause for great concernconsidering the importance of ‘underground’ elements in archaeological landscapes of diverse

periods. This paper examines how insights derived from ethnographic and ethnohistoric studyamong the Chagga of Mount Kilimanjaro, Northern Tanzania, who extensively utilizedunderground fastnesses in precolonial times, might be used to inform cave archaeologies. These

features were used to shelter people and provisions during episodes of conflict between rivalchiefdoms and patrilineages and were also ritually significant. Today these features have fallen intodisuse but they retain significance in local traditions. It is posited that cave archaeologies should

explicitly consider the meaningfulness of the ‘cave experience’ in their reconstructions of the past andalso take advantage of such reconstructions to challenge the primacy too often afforded the ocular.

Keywords

Cave; Chagga; experience; Kilimanjaro; memory; underground.

Introduction

Cave archaeologies present special opportunities and special challenges. Both are present

in the means by which the subterranean world forces us to re-assess our conceptualization

of the past. So let us start with the bad news that it is a challenge to see the archaeological

interpretation of cave occupation in anything but a pessimistic light. Interpreting past

worlds is problematic enough (see Insoll 2007), but there are certain things about the

multi-sensory experience of the ‘underground’ that makes it especially difficult to engage

with through our academic practice. Despite the inconvenience to the research agendas of

World Archaeology Vol. 41(2): 321–344 TheArchaeologyofCaves,Sheltersand theDeepKarst

ª 2009 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 onlineDOI: 10.1080/00438240902844434

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archaeology, such is the frustrating reality. Due to the extraordinary levels of preservation

that caves and other underground features afford they are often prime sources of evidence

for our reconstructions of the past. It is vital, though, that we recognize the problems

associated with understanding subterranean experiences for they are manifestly different.

After all, any archaeologist who has worked in a cave will know about the environmental

challenges: difficulties of access, confined and poorly lit conditions and exaggerated safety

concerns. What is more, highly specialized equipment and techniques are used. The way

archaeologists experience caves, therefore, differs from the way they experience open air

sites. These are simple but previously under-theorized points.

Caves have been significant features in diverse past and present landscapes and are very

much part of the inhabited world. In knowing the problems, even if this simply means

being aware of what is archaeologically unknowable, we are able to engage more fruitfully

with the available evidence. To better conceptualize past occupation of the underground

the sensory and experiential apprehension of these features needs to be reflected upon.

This paper intends to highlight several key elements of the subterranean experience

including sounds, spaces, impaired visibility and rituality. It is unlikely we can ever fully

comprehend the collective effects of these upon the senses of past individuals. Furthermore

caves form part of the landscape, even for those communities where they are no longer

‘used’. The state of disuse, for example, does not imply insignificance. There is something

extraordinary about the experience of caves that leads to their involvement in landscape

traditions, cultural memories and myths. These considerations can be best illustrated

through an ethnographic example. From the outset it should be made clear that this is not

to suggest that ethnography can be used to ‘fill in’ gaps in the archaeological record but

rather to highlight the kinds of understandings that are not informed through material

remains (Thomas 2004: 241). The caves, bolt-holes and caches dotted across the inhabited

lower slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Northern Tanzania, which have formed meaningful

parts of the Chagga world since precolonial times, can be used to demonstrate some of

these issues of experience and tradition.

Archaeology has recently, albeit slowly, begun to address the problem of the ‘Western

gaze’, the primacy that has historically been afforded to visual perception (Bender 1999;

Boivin et al. 2007; Devereux 2001; Hamilakis et al. 2002). In the main this has resulted

from developments in archaeology and related disciplines, such as anthropology,

geography, history and sociology, which have refined thinking on the body, bodily

engagement and sensory experience (Csordas 1990, 1994; Fowler 2004; Gosden 2001;

Hamilakis et al. 2002; Lakoff and Johnson 1999). Using experiential and phenomen-

ological approaches the ways in which the body both constitutes and is constituted by

social routines and practices has been illustrated (Classen 1993; Howes 1991; Jackson

1989). The simple but vital point is that we ‘make sense’ of the world through our senses,

singly and jointly (Jones and MacGregor 2002; Ouzman 2001; Rodaway 1994). The notion

of synaesthesia shows how individuals and communities exist in environments coloured by

all their senses, including but not limited to sight, sound, taste, smell, touch and

proprioception. These senses also ‘make’ environments and within a web of memory,

custom and language form the basis of cultural attunements. This is important for, as

Gosden has rightly noted, ‘the attempt to appreciate the sensory worlds of others, distant

in time and place, necessitates an unlearning’ (2001: 166). As archaeologists we must

322 Timothy Clack


scrutinize and un-educate our prejudices towards the ocular, and openly accept vastly

different haptic, olfactory, sonic and emotional environments in the past. This is not an

easy task, and a good starting point perhaps is to consider landscape features where

experiences and resonances are strikingly different.

Precolonial and contemporary Chaggaland

Rising to 5985m Mount Kilimanjaro is the world’s largest free-standing mountain. The

lower southern slopes of the mountain constitute a moist and fertile oasis surrounded by

semi-arid bush on the plain below. Despite the altitude and associated challenges of low

temperatures and cloud cover, this fertile zone seems to have been inhabited for a great

deal of time. Oral histories relate that those dwelling on the slopes today are largely the

descendants of migrants who arrived in the locale about 500 years ago. Yet for most of

that time these settlers were a permeable people, regularly absorbing groups of Akamba,

Dorobo, Kahe, Kwavi, Masai, Pare and Taita (Marealle 1952: 58). This seems to correlate

with archaeological data suggesting that the peoples of Kilimanjaro originated from early

first millennium CE ‘Bantu-speaking’ agriculturalists who were also responsible for

colonizing many other parts of present-day northern Tanzania (Odner 1971: 145–8). Prior

to this migration other inhabitants populated the slopes, most likely Wakonyingo or

Wateremba pygmies (Moore 1977: 5; Stahl 1964: 37). Some fashion of continual

occupation is also a possibility with pastoral Neolithic communities having been identified

on the western slopes dating to 1500–5000 BCE (Mturi 1986: 83). It seems likely that

inhabitants were attracted to the mountain because it provided protection from drought

and vectors of disease as well as opportunities to cultivate fertile soils.

Over the centuries inhabitants formed the groups that are today known collectively as

the Chagga. Consequently the lower slopes are referred to as Chaggaland. The core of this

area is less than 250km2 (Tagseth 2003: 14). According to recent census information the

population of Kilimanjaro district is well over 1.3 million (Central Census Office 2003: 45)

and it is estimated that about 850,000 of these would consider themselves Chagga. The

primary economic activity of the area is farming (hoe cultivation and cattle rearing) but

land shortages and neo-liberal policies have forced changes to the local economic structure

and many Chagga are now wage earners in proximal urban centres. Today, the Chagga are

known throughout East Africa as well-educated and mobile business people. The Chagga,

though, are ‘not newcomers to economic and political enterprise’ (Pietilä 2007: 4), for the

group has long had a reputation for being ambitious, entrepreneurial and adaptable.

However, even though life for many may be elsewhere and the economic significance of

cash cropping has diminished, all Chagga retain strong ties to their ancestral lands (see

Hasu 1999, in press). While the locale continues to experience the challenges of

modernization, population growth and resource shortages pressure smallholders on the

slopes to persist with a unique form of agroforestry known as the kihamba (‘banana

grove’). This involves the cultivation of dense, wooded strata and provides materials for

fencing, fodder and medicine and crops for eating and market (Blot 2006: 51).

In many cultures it is common for the environment to assume cosmological significance

and such was the case in precolonial Chaggaland. The indigenous groups held ‘animistic’,

Sheltering experience in underground places 323


although the term is useful only in very general application, beliefs concerning the

landscape. For example, it was thought that the sacred spirit Ruwa was embodied in the

mountain and the sun (Dundas 1924). The area was divided into various petty chiefdoms

which were often in states of mutual hostility. Chiefdoms, as Moore (1986: 30) has pointed

out, had contact with the Mombasa trading centres from the early nineteenth century.

Moreover, only a few decades later many groups were involved in year-round exchanges

with ivory caravans from Zanzibar (Koponen 1988: 83). As Pietilä (2007: 4) has noted

women were very much part of these cultural contact events, extending their usual food-

exchanging activities in the local markets to barter with traders. Due to long-established

trade connections and the agricultural wealth of the area Chaggaland was a long-standing

focal point for prospectors, migrants, colonialists and administrators (Lenoble-Bart 2006).

The first mission station in the area, operational between 1885 and 1892, was an outpost of

the British Church Missionary Society. They were ousted by the Germans and missionary

enterprises continued through the Lutheran Leipzig Mission and the Catholic Holy Ghost

Fathers (Clack 2007: 19). With an assimilative agenda the Christianization programme

was remarkably successful; indeed, at the time of Tanzanian Independence over 85 per

cent of the Chagga considered themselves Christian (Iliffe 1979).

Today the Chagga call both their living and their dead watu wa mgombani (‘people of

the banana garden’). This notion refers ‘to a temporal connection between the past,

present and future generations, locality, and the most important staple food, bananas’

(Hasu in press). For centuries the kihamba has been the site of legitimate social

reproduction. It is customary that a man marries and acquires land from his father, builds

a house and has children. The eldest son is given kihamba next to that of his father, the

youngest is the primary inheritor and takes the father’s kihamba, and the middle sons are

given livestock and must find their own land. A host of ritual practices reinforce the links

between place and identity. The umbilical cords of newborns and the bodies of the

deceased must be buried in the kihamba in order to become ancestors (Hasu 1999). In these

and a variety of other ways everyone is attached to their ancestral lands (see Clack 2007

for fuller discussion). Thus the kihamba is the home of the ancestors as well as the living.

Spatial and temporal orientations are brought together through the focality of the banana

garden. The near and the distant, the past and the future, and the living and the dead are

endlessly cycled through the focal site of the landscape, with graves and shrines

objectifications of these processes of continuity and identification (cf. Weiss 1993: 29).

Rituals and beliefs about the kihamba involve both discursive and symbolic elements

through which home and belonging as well as agnatic and affinal relations are negotiated

and expressed. Christianity brought about considerable changes in the ritual practices

connected to death, social organization, cosmology and sexual relations. For instance,

many traditional rituals were deemed incompatible, including circumcision, initiation,

marriage, burial and sacrifice (Hasu 1999).

This history ensured that Chaggaland today is not a bounded, enclosed, culturally

homogeneous arena but rather a differentiated place, where some areas came under

Lutheran and others Roman Catholic influences. Further, many of the former chiefdom

boundaries closely relate to the political margins of contemporary ward units. This is due,

in part, to the many local, mutually unintelligible dialects of Kichagga (Hinnebusch and

Nurse 1981; Nurse 1979) which were instrumental in creating a patchwork of related

324 Timothy Clack


communities divided by cultural, linguistic and religious differences. These differences

mean we cannot accurately consider a homogenized ‘Chagga experience’ in the past or

present, as experience is, of course, culturally varied and corresponsive. In the interests of

being precise, then, this paper confines itself to considering certain underground landscape

features in the present-day Kaskazini and Uroki wards, both in Machame. This area is

predominantly Lutheran and the Kimashami dialect is spoken. The underground features

to be discussed are found within or near to the villages of Nronga and Foo. The village

notion, it should be mentioned, is not an adequate descriptor of indigenous settlement and

landscape dynamics. In fact in the densely populated Chaggaland even the socialist

‘villagization’ process, whereby arbitrary ujamas (village cooperatives) were formed during

the Cold War, had little effect and simply involved re-drawing administrative boundaries

rather than the disruptive relocation of people documented elsewhere (Pietilä 2007: 216).

In reality, then, despite being constructive in relating positions the village entity as a unit

of households is not locally relevant (Moore 1986).

Warfare, shelter, protection

In considering the senses not only in relation to cultural identities, experiences and

attunements but also to specific material environments, it is crucial to note that the

landscape, made intelligible through conscious and unconscious perception, acts as a

priming device repeatedly expressing the past. This past is recapitulated in the myths,

narratives, memories and stories associated with places. This paper sketches out some of

the meanings of cave occupation in the precolonial period but also considers the resonance

of past meanings for contemporary populations. Underground shelters subsumed within

the mountain have historically held a privileged place in the cultural traditions of the area.

There are many different types of underground shelter (including natural, partially

modified and totally artificial features) and for reasons of simplicity these are collectively

categorized as ‘caves’. The local populace perceive these shelters as embodying the past

within them, thus they have an ancestral quality and mythic status. The caves are

considered protective and comforting and this could correspond to rock as a material

having a permanency and robustness beyond other natural and artificial types. Thus rock

is often perceived to transcend past, present and future.

Throughout Chaggaland underground features have long been associated with notions

of protection and security, the physicality of the rock endowing protection. The entire

locale was the stage for a long history of political instability. In precolonial times warfare

and raiding between rival chiefdoms and patrilineages was common. At the same time

petty chiefdoms were campaigning with each other for local dominance (Dundas 1924:

285; Moore 1970: 325). This usually involved the warrior age-set performing raiding

exercises for cattle, for women for breeding and for men to be sold into slavery. The

essence of this routine instability and apprehensive existence is captured in the following

patronizing remarks, ‘these silly savages [could] think of nothing but mutual extermina-

tion’ (Johnston 1886: 177). The negotiation of power relations through bloody force was

habitually played out upon the landscape. It is interesting to note how conflict from this

period features in contemporary myths for the exaggerating effects of memory and



storytelling have brought about narratives that stress the scale of the bloodshed. As

Fosbrooke (1954: 117) reminds us, some of the vivid traditions of battles, sieges and

campaigns should not be taken too literally considering the small numbers of protagonists

involved. The incidents are probably founded in actual events but details have been

embroidered. It has been estimated that petty chiefdoms in the precolonial period were

composed of between 500 and 2000 individuals (1954: 115). Hence, although chiefdoms

seem to have existed with perpetually hostile relations with neighbouring groups, it is

unlikely death rates could have been too high. Defensive fortification of chiefly spheres of

influence was an important factor in this regard. Conflict related to social and economic

organization.

In precolonial times each chiefdom was composed of many exogamous patrilineages

(often referred to as ‘clans’) of varying sizes and of these one was the chiefly lineage.

Patrilines tended to be localized and member households occupied contiguous but

disconnected, permanently cultivated plots, the boundaries of which were manifest in

planted fences of the dracaena plant (Gutmann 1926: 304). Residence was virilocal: after

marriage a woman moved from her natal lineage to live in her husband’s lineage territory.

Land was plentiful and productive and each wife had her own hut and garden (Moore in

press). According to the missionary Gutmann (1926: 14) it was the senior male, through

his ‘spokesman’, who controlled ritual and lineage matters. The chief is also said to have

had a council of lineage heads he could consult or mobilize at short notice (Dundas 1924:

287). Wachili (‘districts heads’) appointed by the chief were superior to the patrilines. The

chief was surrounded by a trusted group of kinsmen who supervised corvée work,

organized fighting men and performed administrative tasks (Gutmann 1926: 373–4). This

headship group was expected to provide ‘rain’ (meaning food, wealth and peaceable

relations with the ancestors). Its members were thought to possess the exceptional faculty

of prophetic knowledge and performed rituals to prevent hunger, disease and violence

(Gutmann 1909: 6). Colonial accounts corroborated with oral history note that three

categories of ancestors composed the spirit world, differing in their capacity to

communicate between planes of existence (see Hasu in press). The deceased held in living

memory were known as the warimu waischiwo. The warimu wa ngiinduka differed in their

being on the cusp of falling out of memory. These first two kinds of spirits could be

brought into dialogue with the living through offerings. The final category of spirit

consisted of those unable to take offerings known as the walenge (‘disintegrated’). These

spirits were harder to engage with but were no less potent (Gutmann 1909: 85).

The precolonial chiefdom was therefore structured into four hierarchical levels, each

progressively more inclusive: the level of the patrilineages, that of the districts, that of the

chiefdom and that of the localized ancestors. There was no centralized control arching

over the various smaller hegemonies. Some chiefdoms were more powerful than others.

This power imbalance precipitated the long history of small-scale wars in the locale (see

Stahl 1964). As Moore (in press) rightly notes, ‘the many chiefdoms fought, settled their

differences, and fought again’. The most likely cause of the conflict was wealth. Chagga

chiefdoms were competing to control elements of long-distance caravan trade and access

to the prized items available through it. It is known that Kilimanjaro was an important

stopping place on the route to the interior. In fact, when missionary Rebmann trekked to

the mountain in 1848, he found a coastal Swahili resident in the entourage of one

326 Timothy Clack


particular Chagga chief (Krapf 1860: 251). Moreover, at the encounter with Rebmann the

Chagga asked him what he had come to trade and to his annoyance persisted in doing so.

Thus precolonial Kilimanjaro is understandable only in terms of the wider trading region

extended eastward to the Indian Ocean and inland and north and south as far as Lakes

Victoria and Tanganyika.

The inter-chiefdom wars were not disputes over land, for each chiefdom had more land

than could be put to productive use. In fact, it was people (and more precisely their labour)

that was in short supply. Thus, rather than to seize territory, raiding was in the main

performed to take people, cattle and valuables (e.g. iron and ivory) and exercise forms of

political dominance. Thus it was in being organized for trading and exacting tribute that

the complex took on a momentum leading to the application of manpower for recurring,

destructive activity. It is important to note that, as captive humans and cattle were often

the objectives of raids, underground fastnesses were more than defensive features of last

resort. They were refuges protecting the assets of the chiefdom. The very existence of the

chiefdom depended upon the utility and functionality of the underground. The caves were

a means to disrupt external forces of fragmentation. They offered protection to the

women, children and livestock – the very things that ensured a future to the patrilines,

divisions and chiefdoms. Like the landscape in microcosm they connected the past, present

and future.

Chiefly power enabled the appropriation of labour and materials for construction

projects (Moore 1970: 325). The most conspicuous of these defensive structures were stone

fortifications, the best preserved being found at Kibosho (Fosbrooke 1954: 116–17; Wynn-

Jones 1941: 11). Dundas (1924: 96) also notes that the landscape ‘was secured by war

trenches which were everywhere’ and describes other ditches and earthworks. However,

little evidence for these trenches seems to remain (Fosbrooke 1954: 120; Clack 2007: 37).

In addition to providing the materials for such defensive constructions the mountain also

provisioned the aforementioned underground fastnesses. Wynn-Jones (1941: 11) claims

that, prior to the European imperial presence, ‘the Chagga were accustomed to falling

back into their mountain fastnesses when raided by outsiders’. These subterranean refuges,

used to protect and hide people and livestock, have been detailed elsewhere (Clack 2005;

Fosbrooke 1954; Wynn-Jones 1941). According to Wynn-Jones (1941: 11) these dug outs

were located near to the dwellings usually within the ‘ancestral bounds’.

Most caves, dugouts and bolt-holes were comparatively small and were able to

shelter only a small number of people while others were more elaborate affairs

designed to hold numerous people and heads of cattle, and incorporated underground

water furrows and ventilation shafts (Wynn-Jones 1941: 12). Some features were so

elaborate that they were an inter-generational inheritance and, in fact, many human-

made features were never completed (Fosbrooke 1954: 126). Wynn-Jones’ (1941: 10; see

Fig. 1) illustration of underground tunnels and enclosures in Marangu, for example,

clearly exaggerates size and complexity. In terms of the experience of being

underground it is interesting to note that Wynn-Jones’ account was written during

the Second World War and is actually prefaced with allusions to ‘modern air raid

precautions’, making an immediate, cross-cultural and ahistorical connection between

these subterranean chambers and the contemporaneous Blitzkrieg. People experience

feelings of physical security from being-in-the-shelter, albeit filtered through cultural



pre-understandings. The rock is resistant, strong and hard and when occupied possesses

a protective, shell-like quality. The properties of certain materials are unconsciously

known through routine encounter. However, ‘knowing’ about the fabric of structures is

enhanced through occupancy and construction. Many of the Chagga refuges, for

instance, were constructed using a simple hand-held tool resembling a hoe with blades

smaller than 3cm in breadth (Fosbrooke 1954: 124). Indeed the hoe marks can still be

observed on the walls of some chambers and caves. None of these hoe-like instruments

have been found, although they have been described as ‘a single tool in the form of a

crow bar’ (Willoughby 1899: 214–15). Most Chagga dugouts, unlike Gweno and Pare

examples, have a flat floor, vertical sides and an arched roof (Fosbrooke 1954: 124). It

is clear that considerable effort must have been expended in digging out certain

features but such would have proved worthwhile for those involved in the digging

would naturally possess a greater appreciation of the protection offered.

Wynn-Jones (1941: 12) makes the point that hiding places were rarely discovered

because the secret of their location was so vehemently guarded. It is clear that some of the

bolt-holes were utilized in times of conflict, for some of the earliest recorded oral traditions

incorporate these constructions in the unfolding narrative (Fosbrooke 1954: 126–7).

Indeed, in most of the chiefdoms it was an offence punishable by death for adult men to

take refuge rather than making efforts to repel the attack. Moreover strategies to besiege,

flood and smoke out those occupying underground fortifications were developed (1954:

126–7). There is even a local proverb, manya ulamine upanga ulemuowa, ‘do not neglect the

cave that shelters you’ (1954: 127), that suggests the importance attributed to these

features. These fastnesses allowed Chagga communities to maintain the levels of

permanency required to exploit the agricultural potential of the fertile slopes. Thus,

whether modified from existing caves or totally artificial in construction, they were

Figure 1 Section of village showing underground defensive tunnels and enclosures (after Wynn-Jones1941).

328 Timothy Clack


elemental parts of the landscape’s bounty, which over time were attributed with memories,

extending their significance and potency.

The Laban caves (73811’ 37814’) near Uduru village are one such complex which,according to oral tradition, was used during inter-tribal conflicts. The caves occupy a

position below a ridge-line on a riverine valley cliff and are hidden from view from all

directions. The site was also strategically sound. In the past the area was heavily forested

so visibility would have been impeded (see Fernandes and Nair 1986). The nearby river

would have been useful in disguising noises and discarding construction spoil. Similar site

considerations seem to have informed the location of the Nkowoyo Kyalia bolt-hole

(73812’ 37813’) near Foo village. The dugout is positioned on a steep rock face with anentrance overgrown with thick vegetation. As one elder informed me, ‘Our women and

uninitiated men went there when outsiders attacked. Often they would live in the cave for

many days while the men would fight and harass invaders’ (R. Swai pers. comm.). These

remarks highlight how cultural memories become exaggerated and confused over time.

The Laban caves would certainly have been able to provide refuge for many people and

the considerable supplies necessary to withstand a prolonged besiegement but, even

allowing for the accumulation of detritus, subsidence and partial collapse, the bolt-hole at

Nkowoyo Kyalia would have been too small for multiple people and goods. Rather than

being a natural feature the bolt-hole was bored or at least partly integrated through

modification of the volcanic rock (Clack 2005: 103). There is also evidence of instrument-

made markings within the cave similar to those identified elsewhere in Chaggaland

(Fosbrooke 1954: 124) and the Pare Mountains (Fosbrooke 1935: 5).

Ritual, prophecy, rain

Another important dimension to precolonial Chagga underground features not mentioned

in the colonial accounts is that they were often ritually significant. Therefore they should

not simply be considered as depersonalized refuges but rather as multi-layered

underground spaces. This can be well illustrated through the example of two caves in

Sieny (73810’ 37812’; see Plate 1), near the villages of Nronga and Foo. Inspectionsuggests that these are natural features, with little or no human modification. In the

cultural perspective integration related to sacredness and thus the entire Sieny landscape

was ritually significant. Stahl even comments, ‘of all meeting places none was more sacred

and regarded with greater awe than the first main conjunction coming up from the plain,

harbouring the shrine Sienyi’ (1964: 83). This is because the area links four neighbouring

settlements and these are separated by a deep valley gorge. The striking natural path

known as Daraja la Mungu (‘God’s Bridge’) joins the areas of high relief by bridging the

Marire River. Sieny has an ancestral potency, with oral traditions linking it to the first

settlers in the area. This potency is best illustrated by the fact that less than a decade ago

stones were taken from Sieny and used in the construction of the local church Sheny Kwa

Kkira (‘Come to the Saviour’), recycling the religious forces (Clack 2007: 65). This

‘powerful’ stone was used primarily for foundations and wall filler with more conventional

materials used for facing. Although one could pragmatically suggest that the stone was

used merely for its abundance and masonry qualities this seems unlikely for there were



Plate

1PhotographofNkyekucave(note

contrastinglightanddark

markingsaboveopening).

330 Timothy Clack


plenty of more accessible and proximal sources of stone available at the time of

construction. Hence this is an example of traditional potency being appropriated in the

Christian worldview in such a way that unconscious cultural intelligibility is maintained.

Ritual potency is similarly attached to the Nkyeku and Kyumbe caves, both of which

are conceptualized in female terms. Nkyeku, which translates as ‘old woman’, was

historically a place of divination (see Fig. 2). In precolonial times local chiefs would send

specialists to leave libations, perform rituals and ‘read’ indicators (marks and colours on

the rock face above and within the cave). According to custom these readings were sent by

the ancestors to inform about future events, time being conceptualized as cyclical rather

than linear and thus the past seen as connected to the present and future. Black markings,

for instance, seem to have been associated with disease and misfortune. Moreover, the

cave was used in the prediction and choreography of the rains. It was believed that some

elders were able to prevent or ‘bind’ the rain, and these individuals, who publicly

performed most of their rituals, were called upon during periods of hardship

(Wimmelbücker in press). The chiefly line was, of course, well aware that their power

rested on the contentment of the male elders and warrior-age grades, many chiefs being

unseated during times of economic distress (Stahl 1964).

The sister cave of Kyumbe (‘barren’) is located nearby. In the past this cave was

believed to influence fertility and consequently offerings of banana beer and meat were

Figure 2 Sketch plan of Sieny places of power showing the intersection of three villages and river-cut

valleys and the position of the Nkyeku and Kysumbe caves in relation to Daraja la Mungu and theSieny forest (not to scale).



deposited inside to enhance agricultural returns. What is more, as a local informant

confided:

Women who were unable to have children went to Kyumbe so that they could be made

more fertile, often for many days. They would stay inside for all this time and only eat

and drink what was permitted by the clan. After about three months the woman would

be with child.(J. Meena pers. comm.)

It is worth noting that children would also have been considered ‘rain’ in the sense of

wealth and prosperity. With labour in such demand and the affluence of the patrilineage

and chiefdom corresponding to ‘people power’ the childless were regarded negatively.

Thus the sister caves were connected to each other in their shared capacity to endow

fertility and secure the future.

The caves were sites for ritual performances and at least one clear piece of associated

sacred material culture has been identified. Outside the opening to the Nkyeku cave sits a

mostly complete pot of a type not used today but relatively common in the archaeological

contexts of the southern slopes (see Plate 2 and Fig. 3). Classified ‘Kilimanjaro Group E’

as part of the Bantu Studies Project’s 1970 Kilimanjaro expedition, it is described as a

‘necked pot with an inverted rim, a globular body, and a rounded bottom’ (Odner 1971:

143). The type has a lip that slants from the inner toward the outer profile and the top and

interior of the rim is decorated by a band of multiple and horizontal and wavy lines, often

intercepted by vertical lines. Elsewhere this type is often found in association with similar

sherds decorated by grooved and crossed lines. Odner reported of the Sieny vessel that it

was ‘considered sacred and must not be touched unnecessarily; removal would

bring misfortune and is foolish besides, as the vessel will return to the cave by itself’

(1971: 143).

Even in the 1970s the cave was considered a shrine embodying powerful forces which

could be engaged with through potent ritual objects. Due to the time periods involved and

lack of archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence it is difficult to investigate the Nkyeku

pot and depict its powerful properties. However, similar ritual pots have been described

and these can be used as analogues to highlight potentially similar characters.

Wimmelbücker (in press) makes reference to vague historical claims concerning ‘a certain

kind of earthen pot filled with magic which was turned towards the sky to set off the rain

and put upside down to prevent it’. Moreover, cursing pots were described more fully by

colonial sources. These enchanted vessels were part of a supernatural system of

enforcement used to protect property, crops and land (Gutmann 1926: 659–61).

The cursing pots were reported to have been in stable demand and could be loaned by

their owners (Gutmann 1926: 631). Their shape was regular and the size varied but was

never cumbersome (1926: 620). The pots were normally publicly deployed although

illegitimate private uses were not unknown. The curser would conspicuously swing the pot

at a series of marketplaces while verbalizing their hate (1926: 652–3). According to

Gutmann (1926: 620) the most striking feature of the pot-shaped cursing instruments was

a wreath of wart-shaped protuberances below the rim. This, together with the fact that the

pots were made of unfired clay, suggests the Sieny pot was not a cursing instrument. It is

332 Timothy Clack


interesting to note, however, that in the precolonial worldview clay and stone could be

used as instruments of malediction for they manifested broad philosophical conceptions of

cosmic causality and order (S. F. Moore pers. comm.). The stone of the cave and the clay

of the pot were certainly brought together in ritual union at the Nkyeku cave and have

remained so for considerable time. It is also fascinating to note that in the body of the

Sieny pot ‘two holes had been drilled, apparently for magical purposes’ (Odner 1971: 143).

The pot could well have been swung to release ritual energies.

The Sieny landscape also includes a local area of forest in the ravine, known as the Foo

Forest Reserve. This forest sits outside the Kilimanjaro National Park boundary but falls

Plate 2 Photograph of the Sieny magical pot outside the Nkyeku Cave.



within the surrounding protected area. The forest was considered sacred in precolonial

times and even today is associated with a complex set of myths and beliefs. There are lots

of commonalities with the beliefs concerning the sacred forests of the neighbouring Pare

(see Sheridan 2002; Sheridan and Nyamweru 2008). In Sieny many myths concern ‘big

trees’ that are as old as the mountain. These are linked to another interesting feature in the

forest: the ‘iron hut’. In the past this hut was believed to generate the strength of the

patrilineages. When it is being described it seems to encompass many attributes associated

with the caves already discussed. For instance, it is believed to offer protection from

danger and bestows strength and insight. The hut is not locatable, however, being a

metaphor linked to the ancestors. It is transient and ethereal. The hut is thought to be

large and is variously described as being composed of ‘iron rock’, ‘walls of strength’ and

‘natural stone’. It may be a myth based on an actual place (perhaps even a cave) but it

probably never existed. Many of the historic caves and bolt-holes have been lost,

overgrown with vegetation or destroyed through erosion and collapse. When some of

these features have been re-located associated descriptions have been found to have been

embellished by cultural memory and tradition (Clack 2004; Fosbrooke 1954; see also

Küchler 1993 for discussion of the ‘forgetting of place’).

The iron hut myth, like those associated with caves, features in the mythic environment

of the local populations (both past and present) in the sense that protection, refuge and

safety is integral to all perceptual knowledge of the landscape. In precolonial times

indigenous groups recognized the immanent, animist powers of the environment and

certain features assumed greater cosmological meaning. For the contemporary indigenes

the environment is still significant although the area has clearly witnessed a complicated

process of syncretism between traditional and missionary religions. Nonetheless the

potency of caves and myths, concerning features with similar properties, still resonates in

various places. We can perhaps never fully understand past meanings because the cultural

attunements which filtered them are too distant but we can still explore certain facets of

Figure 3 Profile of Sienyi magical pot, designated Kilimanjaro type E ware (after Odner 1971: 144).

334 Timothy Clack


meaning-making. These facts relate not only to the experience of being-in-the-landscape

(which is culturally subjective) but also to the way meanings are constructed or found (see

Ingold 2000 for discussion). So how might the Chagga experience of caves refine

archaeological thinking?

Meaning, sensation and being-in-the-cave

In the obvious sense caves and other underground features ‘shelter’ experience in their

sheltering of the human body. Yet the underground also shelters experiences, protecting

them from the processes of decay (e.g. fragmentation of individual and culturalmemory) and

the changing character and feel of situational context. It would perhaps be prudent to try to

describe certain experiential facets of being-in-the-cave to better illustrate some points.

Admittedly this could be seen as an attempt to colonize the past with present-day experiences

and I am in noway proposing that there ismuch commonality of experience.However, based

onmy personal experiences and understandings of the indigenous worldview, it is possible to

suggest potential experiences to situations. Rather than using analogy and empathetic

projection to be ‘read off’ against the past it makes sense to utilize such a description as a

dialogue of sorts between the past and the present (see Thomas 2004: 240–1). Thus the

speculative nature of this phenomenological engagement requires recognition.

As in Chaggaland the physical properties of underground places see them extensively

utilized as sites of ritual action. Many archaeologists have shown caves often take on

central importance in cosmologies and religions (Brady and Prufer 2005; Prufer and Brady

2005). Something about the underworld – the inaccessibility of the dark recess, the safety

of the shelter and the uniqueness of the soundscape – makes it a thriving repository of

meaningfulness. This meaning is manifested and articulated in beliefs, myths and

traditions. Much recent archaeological thinking has related how places can become

constitutive of the person. Thomas (1996: 78–81), for example, has shown that the world

can never exist in isolation from being-in-the-world. Thus places, monuments and

artefacts become bound up within identity. Just as neuroscience has shown that striking

events feature prominently in memory (e.g. flashbulb memory; see Schacter 1997) so too it

may be the case that striking landscape elements feature prominently in cultural memory

and traditions. Our sensibilities are such that certain landscape features resonate more

strikingly with the human subject. Perhaps in this regard we should think in terms of an

inner topography of mind which can be variously stimulated.

Sacred potency and cultural memories relating to place are never spread evenly across a

landscape. Certain features, in particular those that might be considered ‘striking’

(although we should be aware that our modern Western sensibilities would inform such

designation), seem to be inscribed with more significance than those landscape features

which might be considered more routine. What is it about caves, for example, that makes

them more likely to be ascribed with ritual potency and means they are better at

maintaining relevance in local cosmologies? Despite the effects of colonialism, missionary

activity and cultural permeation many underground features have maintained significance

in the Chagga worldview since precolonial times: the underground sheltering experience

and informing tradition. Although we cannot detail a full answer to how this has come



about we can propose candidate explanations. Theorizing the experience of the

underground offers some insight into this issue for certain locations can endow religious

revelation through, as Bradley (2000: 32) notes in An Archaeology of Natural Places,

‘experiences [are] rooted in nothing more arcane than the nervous system’.

Understanding the ritual dimensions to caves is crucial and hermeneutic phenomen-

ology facilitates a level of comprehension. In ‘The origin of the work of art’ Heidegger

(1971) explains that an entity that manifests and glamorizes the style of cultural practices

will manifest for those same people what they share and will consequently be regarded as

holding authority over their lives. These cultural paradigms or entities create and sustain

people’s worlds and as such will be ‘adored’ as sacred and through their power to enthral

are experienced as having divine agency. In this sense the sacred is personal and thus living

(Heidegger 1969) and possesses the power to affect relations with nature, work, others and

ourselves and in doing so elicits reverential and respectful behaviour. The sacred is

sympathetic to the way of life and, in having moods, passions and voices, is experienced as

embodied. In the Heideggerian scheme the sacred gives situations their mood or

attunement and encompasses those places, people and entities that give things and

situations their feel.

Potency has to do with the way things appear rather than how material-physical things

are caused to exist. It is the sacred that gives things the feel of their look (Heidegger 1992:

104). This means they impart to us the feel of the look that something has. For example,

when one looks at some things, one sees meaningful equipment instead of mere objects.

Thus, just as money is seen as valuable, tools as useful and weapons as threatening, for the

precolonial Chagga the underground was seen as sheltering and life-enhancing. So the feel

of the look imposes attitudes appropriate to the thing they are, or what their meaning is,

and these affective or attitudinal looks derive from categories of being that are neither

objective (in the thing) nor subjective (in psychological stances) (Spinosa 2000: 214–16).

This has to do with common meanings which dispose those who share them to act in

accordance with them, i.e. those that are embodied in archetypes or exemplars. Within

cultures these common meanings can be celebrated and thrilling.

Certain places, individuals and things gather beings around them and these beings come

to inhabit the attunement that derives from the ‘act of congregation’ with greater effect as

one becomes progressively more in tune with things. The practices of the everyday include

the affective solicitation of things. This solicitation happens unconsciously but determines

our moods and dispositions (Spinosa 2000: 217). Attuning is thrilling. Thus in the

hermeneutic scheme when one responds to art one is not interested in the meaningful

expressions of the artist but rather the changes the artwork makes in one’s own

attunement. In the same way attunement is linked to the sacred. In the classic example,

Heidegger noted that wonder counts at least as much as order and highlighted the ancient

Greek religion. In this context he showed that, when a god brings his or her energies to

bear on something, the god changes the force of that something’s affective character. Thus

the agency of the god illuminating a situation in a certain way so that everything is seen

through common meanings is called the look of the look. This power of illumination can be

contemporarily discerned if one considers places or things as being, for example, official,

erotic, valuable or threatening. In their look they are more than or exceed the realm of

simple/mundane situations or things (see Dreyfus 1993; Krell 1992). Feelings which are

336 Timothy Clack


shared consciously are enough to warrant a sense of being beheld by the sacred. Further,

those subjects that embody the common meaning so utterly that their look entrances are

sacred in ‘pouring energy’ into a situation (Spinosa 2000: 221).

This gathering of meaning, affective illumination and collectively recognized attuning

can be observed in the case of Chagga cursing pots for, as Gutmann (1926: 642) reported,

the cursing pot was most effective. On the basis of missionary descriptions Moore

(in press) relates:

The moment anything went wrong in the household of the victim, the moment one of

his children or his animals fell ill, the moment that he or one of his household stumbled

on a root or a stone, he was sure to think of the Destroyer, the power of the cursing pot

that had been awakened against him. He would begin to worry about what worse thing

might happen next, and about the cost of giving in. Usually the victim would eventually

present himself to the curser and ask to have the curse removed, indicating his

willingness to finance the ceremony with a sacrificial sheep and beer.

The power of shared cultural outlooks ensured individuals responded to the cursing

encounter with fear. The cursing pot is supernaturally potent only so far as it embodies the

powers of affective common meanings. For the Chagga the world of the cursing pot

made sense for the affective aspect of common meanings always takes over whatever

perceptual material is available in order to express the power of a feeling of a particular

situation.

It is vital to note that caves were perceived and experienced in more than simply the

visual field for they often embodied sacred and emotional qualities. It is not, however, just

in the ritual dimension that cave experiences may be differentiated. Being-in-the-cave

involves an occlusion of view, a lack of daylight and the interplay of light and darkness.

Moreover, in the past the inside of the cave would have been seen by the flickering light of

torches and lamps. In the case of prehistoric rock art, for example, the penetration of the

darkness by artificial light would have animated the images (Lewis-Williams 2004: 227).

This animation effect could also have characterized encounters with undecorated rock

surfaces. Another dimension that makes caves experientially different is space. Most caves

order and restrict movement. As Parker Pearson and Richards (1997) have admirably

pointed out, structures choreograph movement and agency. Crawling rather than walking,

for instance, changes the experience of place, after all every space is both situated and

contextual (Tilley 2004: 11). The physical engagement of bodies with the world is central to

experience. Again, as Tilley (1994: 73) describes, bodily progress through spaces makes

them meaningful because ways of encountering are availed. Furthermore, such bodily

movements evoke other culturally conditioned responses and meanings. The act of

kneeling, of course, means vastly different things when done by a Catholic and by a

Hadza. Additionally, then, as most caves are spatially restrictive all individuals have the

propensity to feel cramped and claustrophobic. Caves also have different micro-pressures

inside and outside which exchange moisture and heat. This has the effect of creating air

flow, which can easily be understood as the inhalation and exhalation of breath.

In relation to this we can note that recent attempts to survey caves through computer-

aided visualization are somewhat misguided (e.g. Robson Brown et al. 2001; Sellars and



Chamberlain 1998; Sellars et al. 2001) for, in allowing us to see through the dark and into

the deep, they move beyond the limits of the senses (both past and present) and in so doing

misrepresent the qualities of the recess. Of course, what are of interest are not the

universals (we are all human, have similar bodies and sense apparatus and thus cannot see

in the dark) but rather the way in which ‘universals’ are conditioned and mediated by

cultures in the production of perceptions and experiences. Nonetheless we must recognize

that through such visualizations the experience of being-there is reduced inasmuch as

meaningful place is transformed into disembodied space. There is something about the

cave experience which makes it inimitable and this is why the notion has also received

attention in media and performance studies (Haykin 1994; Knudsen 1999) and why, for

example, a simple online search for ‘cave experience’ in the Google engine returns upwards

of 19.3 million hits, mostly advertisements for adventure tourism. The cave makes an

evocative site for performance.

The closed environment heightens the non-visual senses, particularly sounds, and, as the

contributors to the Archaeoacoustics volume (Scarre and Lawson 2006) make clear, the less

appropriate it is to think in terms of the ocular the greater the importance afforded to sound.

Cave conditions amplify and distort sounds.All soundscapes are composed of diverse noises,

some of which are afforded greater significance. In the West we give primacy to verbal and

musical forms of noise at the expense of routine sounds. Yet the sounds of everyday life, e.g.

clacking of keyboards and throbs of refrigerators, also constitute a fundamental part of our

sonic environment (Boivin et al. 2007: 270). Although heard unconsciously and largely

ignored, these other sounds constitute in part the context for experience. The subjective

baggage filtering our perceptions ensures environments are sensorily diverse. Past

constituted environments have been shown to enmesh bodily engagement, technological

activity, cultural knowledge and social identity into a seamless whole (2007: 271). The

soundscape is part of this immersive environment composed of interlocking sounds

embodying a multitude of meanings, feelings, sentiments (Feld 1996: 100; see also Oliveros

2005) and even sights (Porath 2008). Meaning acquired through all the senses centres space.

The distortion and resonance of noises inside the cave means they have the capacity to

create compelling soundmarks (Brandon 2006; Schafer 1977). This is why in many

instances percussive noises are likely to have been part of the rituals that accompanied the

social use of the underground. For instance, the sound features and rock gongs of the

Sanganakallu-Kupgal granitic hills of prehistoric south India have been well documented

(Boivin 2004; Boivin et al. 2007). Likewise some caves from the foothills of the French

Pyrenees where Upper Palaeolithic cave art has been found, such as Réseau Clastres,

contain stalactites within the cave structure which appear to have been repeatedly struck,

presumably for percussive effect (Hodgson 2003). These sounds would echo, boom and

reverberate and in so doing offer meaning to and describe the characters of the cave itself.

This is a re-articulation of a classic Heideggerian point: just as the act of hammering

informs as to the properties of the hammer, the engagement with the cave informs us as to

its properties. The soundscapes of caves are likely to be clear, powerful and distinctive to a

community. Thus, as Schafer rightly contends, ‘soundmarks make the acoustic life of a

community unique’ and in this sense ‘outline a character of the people’ (1977: 27). In the

case of the precolonial Chagga underground features were endowed with numerous vivid

soundmarks relating to the audible elements of occupation.

338 Timothy Clack


At the same time other distinctive sensations were no doubt particular to the

underground environments of Chaggaland. Being-in-the-cave would involve obscurity.

This darkness might not have been perceived negatively as it is by outsiders today. Rather

than the deep being associated with danger the opposite was the case: danger existed

outside in the open and in the light. Nonetheless being-in-the-cave was not wholly

pleasant. Dust and sweat would cause the eyes to sting and sandy powder would have

caked the tongue and filled the nostrils. The skin may well have itched in anticipation of

the touch or bite of various non-human cave dwellers (e.g. bats, rodents and insects). This

would have exacerbated the disorientation caused by physical effort, conditions and

adjusting senses. The smell would, of course, have become more pungent the longer the

cave was inhabited. The greater the number the more crowding, cramped and

claustrophobic the experience would become. The confinement would cause the adoption

of crouched postures, making muscles ache through exertion.

As it is likely that a good deal of the ‘outside’ worldview was transcribed ‘inside’ the

cave there are numerous more speculative interpretations forthcoming. For instance, were

underground features media of monumental forces? Certainly the features possessed a

permanency linking the ancestors to unborn community members. Did the power of the

ancestors animate the underground? It is possible that the soothing air, echoes and rock

surfaces could have been made intelligible as breath, voices and strength respectively.

Moreover, was the underground comprehended as a womb? The material and protective

qualities of the cave likely had ramifications for its conceptualization. On one hand these

speculations could be considered as mere diversions (albeit entertaining ones) that do not

get us further forward in terms of knowing concrete things about the past, being in the

main largely impossible to assess against the archaeological record. On the other hand

these speculations are important in broadening the archaeological imagination. Under-

standings of ethnographic places (even speculative ones) help archaeologists conceptualize

how space was used, perceived and experienced in prehistoric contexts. Ignoring these

interpretative opportunities is irresponsible, ensuring only that the past is modelled

uncritically on the present.

Conclusion

The notion of ‘sheltering experience’ is useful for it appositely describes how the unusual

multi-sensory experience of being-in-a-cave can ensure enhanced longevity and potency to

related memories. The ‘strikingness’ of an underground feature can also impact upon the

gathering of meaning. Thus, when we investigate underground features with evidence of

human agency, occupation or proximal inhabitation, we must recognize them as being

meaningful although probably accept that we will be unable to decipher the meanings

themselves. This is because when archaeologists try to use their bodies to mediate between

past and present experiences results are highly speculative and often rather autobio-

graphical (see Bender et al. 1997; Hodder 2000). As Brück (1998, 2005) has pointed out,

the idea that the embodied experience of the archaeologist can mirror that of people in the

past is suspect. Nonetheless those phenomenological archaeologies which have demon-

strated how routine (Edmonds 1999; Pollard 2000) and monumental (Cummings 2002;



Richards 1996) places might sediment themselves into our being, rendering them part of

the person, are useful. These accounts offer insight into how caves could have featured in

past expressions of personhood for, as Schama (1996: 32) has surmised, landscape is

invested with the ‘inescapable obsessions’ of humankind. It is not difficult to see how –

through being-in-the-cave – the cave can become animate. It has the potential to interact,

mediate the sacred, make noise, move and impact on experiences.

The relationships between experience, memory and place are involved in the making of

the individual. Many places in the past were considered sentient and active in the social

realm (see Fowler 2004; Ingold 2000) and, because of such, caves offer the archaeologist a

needed opportunity to challenge their ocular biases and limitations. In understanding

them we are forced to unravel the meanings of many forms of past and present social

behaviour (Bull and Black 2003). Noting how and why these non-visual places take on

prominence allows us to better understand the distribution of personhood in the

landscapes of others. Meanings associated with caves were socially produced, i.e. it was

communities rather than individuals that used the features. In consequence there must be

some fashion of cultural structure imposed. Thus a community would have held malleable

beliefs about the cave that would have been consciously or subconsciously drawn upon for

embellishment. As noted, however, whether these beliefs and understandings are ever fully

interpretable is another matter. It all comes down to thinking through experience and

meaning. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric evidence, such as that relating to the Chagga,

does indicate that, just as caves amplify sounds and other sensations, they also resonate

past events and agency. This resonance translates into the ‘re-living’ of such events in

traditions and myths.

Acknowledgements

Fieldwork seasons on Mount Kilimanjaro were funded by the British Institute in Eastern

Africa and the Royal Anthropological Institute. I would like to thank Mel Giles, Chris

Gosden, Tim Insoll, Paul Lane and Julian Thomas for various discussions linked to this

research, the BIEA for permission to reproduce Plate 2 and Figure 3, and the editor and

two anonymous reviewers for their insightful guidance. All mistakes and oversights remain

my own.

University of Oxford

[email protected]

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Timothy Clack is an anthropological archaeologist and is currently Lecturer in

Archaeology at Christ Church and St Peter’s colleges, University of Oxford. Prior to

taking up these posts he completed his doctorate at the School of Arts, Histories &

Cultures, University of Manchester, concerning memory and experience in human

evolution. His recent books include Memory and the Mountain and (co-edited with M.

Brittain) Archaeology and the Media.

344 Timothy Clack

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