Posted August 2000
Whilst most rural sociologists limit their studies for rural saving to accumulation of money, recently some scholars have shown that while it is true that rural peasants save money, they do not limit saving to this commodity alone. In fact, most of the time rural people spend their time saving in-kind, including grain.43 In this chapter, I show that rural peasants meticulously and elaborately save food and they do this to cope with the risks of local drought and famine, both believed to be caused by powerful spirits as a chastisement for wrong social action. I show how villagers store grain in concrete structures and subject these to management and control strategies that, according to them, maximise their savings. I also show why villagers elect to save food rather than cash.
The chapter is organized into four distinct sections. The first section examines the local concepts about saving grain or food. The second explains why people save food while the third examines how people save food, in particular their use of duras. The final section examines why people prefer saving food than money.
When they talk about saving, people use the term kuchengetedza. This terms means to keep goods, usually through self-denial, for future use. The term does not mean purposeless conservation. Another term they often use in relation to saving is kufimbika. This means to hide in a secret place. It does not mean keeping for present use. The final word is kuviga which simply means to hide goods for future use. But the term carries with it connotations of hiding food, mostly from relatives or friends. The fourth term normally used to denote saving is 'kubangisa' which means to spare something for future use. The fifth term is kusiya which means to leave or abandon for future use.
These five terms are used interchangeably although each may be used frequently for specific contexts. Kufimbika, for example, is used mainly for saving sweat potatoes underground whereas kubangisa is used mainly for saving liquid food stuff. Whatever, specific contexts to which they may be used, the terms describe actions by humans to set aside certain goods for use by the saver. The stored goods are not for permanent storage but rather for consumption at a particular and expected time in the future. But what are the problems which make people want to save goods?
Without exception, villagers say they save mainly in anticipation of makore ezhara or gore rezhara:
Makore ezhara are extended periods of chronic food shortage where people are constantly hungry (kuva nezhara) and have very little food to eat. These times are not momentary lapses in food supply (chirimo) which people say are common and are to be expected in this world. Makore ezhara are marked by the general absence of local places where one can buy food (kokushuzhira). During this period, households modify their feeding patterns: I was told of cases where households lived on a single meal of porridge where they used to eat two meals of sad (thick porridge made from either maize or small grain). Brought about by a prolonged period of food shortage. gore rezhara. Gore rezhara, is a time of diseases and suffering particularly for children. In a recent gore rezhara, children suffered from kwashiorkor and some old people, are known to have died of hunger. It is a also time of death, particularly for cattle. In the last makore rezhara, the village lost over three- quarters of its cattle. But it is not just a time of suffering for people and their livestock. Spirits area also affected. They get thirsty for beer, and their hunger for cattle blood and meat intensifies and they become restless, causing illness and death among their own lineage's.
The last 20 years have experienced three such prolonged periods of chronic food shortage; 1983/4; 1992/93 and 1996. Objectively, these have been caused by a variety of related factors, mainly insufficient rainfall. In all these three periods, rainfall averaged below 400mm, an amount unable to sustain agriculture, especially modern crop varieties that are not drought resistant. But chronic shortages of food are compounded by two additional factors - both stemming from government. First, government encourages people to grow export-oriented crops at the expense of food crops. Secondly, government forces communities to sell even their meagre agricultural commodities to the state so that it can manage to feed its restless urban dwellers.
People in the village have no problem in demonstrating that makore ezhara are linked to insufficient rainfall. 'What we need in this area to survive is not an economic reform programme' remarked Shoko, adding that 'We only need rain and we will have food.' His remark show that people are fully aware of the relationship between good rain and food security. Villagers are also aware that makore ezhara are often aggravated by government policy which underpays farmers produce in order to solve its own problem of feeding urban communities. The government, according to Mr. Jodias, is 'is crooked and wicked, because it sets low prices for our produce as if they are the farmers.'
Where locals have problems concerns the explanation of why gore rezhara occurs in the first place. They also cannot understand why only they should experience food shortages while others in far away countries continue to throw away food to dogs and cats. It is this contradiction that gives rise to religious explanations among them. While some believe that makore ezhara are caused by a supreme God working through the hand of Satan, the devil. They say that gore rezhara is caused by an angry god who is upset by the revolting lifestyles, especially homosexuality and gender equality. The majority see gore rezhara as nothing more than a punishment by territorial spirits. Because these spirits allegedly induce food shortages for which rural people try to save I describe them in detail in the section below.
Villagers make a distinction between family and territorial spirits. Family spirits are immediate ancestral spirits. These are mostly concerned with the welfare of the family, protecting members against poor health, poverty and death. They bless household agriculture, making their descendants prosper in the background where all other lineages fail. But family spirits can also cause suffering on descendants particularly when they sense wrong behaviour. These spirits cause food shortages among their descendants. When the spirits strike, this is the time for descendants to come together, recognise their errant ways and pledge to co-operate once more under the leadership of the senior member of the group and the spirit medium of the village. If nothing changes, household members may conclude that the ritual procedure was erroneous. Or they may consider the problem as caused by territorial spirits.
Territorial spirits are those which are in charge of a whole group or clan living in one territory. They are normally the spirits of the "pioneer" group or the founders of the territory. Their function is to protect the whole group against the external intrusion by other groups or more recently by the state and other agencies of rural development. But they also safeguard the fertility of the land, providing rainfall in due season and preventing invasion by pests, such as locusts, worms and crickets. The spirits, however, offer these service on condition that the whole clan continue to observe the rules of the land, namely, co-operate internally with one another, maintain proper social conduct, shun integration within the state. When a group fails in any one of these, the territorial spirits unleash, usually without warning, their most effective punishment, closing all the outlets of rain or curse the clouds so that they never yield rainfall. During these times, religious leaders appear on the scene and mobilise people to forsake their ways and turn to the way of their ancestors. When the people agree and repent their ways, a communal ritual is called, always at the onset of the wet season, where the territorial spirits allegedly agree to stop the punishment and promise rainfall with immediate effect, to put an end to the gore rezhara.
Clearly, it is the belief that territorial spirits will unexpectedly strike on their agriculture that causes villagers to put aside or save food. It is not the condition of hunger and famine alone that encourages saving among the rural people. In the section below, I move from the issue of why people save food to how people save food, focusing on the dura.
One major way of saving grain is through the dura.
The Dura
Each household has two or more duras, which are small structures packed with grain. They can be either built from pole and dagga or from bricks. Nowadays people prefer duras made from bricks. Whatever material from which they are made, they are always suspended on 4 giant rocks or a concrete foundation. This is done for a number of reasons. First, it is meant to prevent contamination of grain by moisture from the ground. Secondly it is done to protect grain from ants (mujuru) which are common in the village. Third, and most important of all, the elevated foundation is meant to reduce accessibility into the dura by professional thieves (mbavha) and those who genuinely seek to prevent their children from starving (vanoba zvokuzviraramisa).
| Table 7 Distribution of duras in Mazoredze |
|
| Number of granaries/duras | Household reporting ownership |
|
0 1 2 3 |
3 19 4 2 |
Total | 28 |
A dura always has a mud or concrete ceiling which villagers say serves two important functions, namely it separates the grain from contaminating objects that might fall from thatching grass. Secondly and most important of all, the ceiling protects the grain in the event of a fire that may be started by children or as is mostly the case, hostile people. While fights and disputes may start during the day, usually at beer parties, they are frequently finished at night when the aggrieved person, in the company of his own brothers and friends, secretly invade the home of their opponent and burn down huts and granaries. This is why people insist that a granary must have a concrete ceiling to protect the grain from fire.
In addition to the two features mentioned above, a dura has a very small opening (usually 30 cm by 30cm) that is located high up, near the ceiling. Entry is only by way of small children who are lifted and shoved inside the little hole. The small entry is obviously meant to reduce incidences of theft, although nowadays daring thieves make use of their own small children to steal grain from others people's duras. In a nearby village, an alerted thief fled, leaving his aide, a small child trapped in the dura. It was only when the owner was trying to ascertain the extent of the theft that he found a small boy trapped inside. The little entrance is fastened by a piece of metal bonded by mud or some strong bonding material.
Finally a dura is located far away from the kitchen, to minimise fire-related incidences; nevertheless, the dura is strategically located near the main hut or house which it must face, to enable the household owner to catch any funny sounds or discern any suspicious objects at night. At the base of the dura, there is a place set aside for vicious dogs to sleep. Dogs are kept to maul and not just scare away those who target duras for invasion.
Clearly people do not just store grain. They take measures to ensure that their savings remain secure. The features they add to the duras are meant to enhance and secure savings.
The control of duras varies with households. Three typologies can however be discerned in the village. The first type is where the wife controls the granary. Husbands prefer this situation because it takes away from them the worry that comes from managing evermore-dwindling grain reserves. The situation also allows then to blame women when grain runs out. One woman reported that her husband always criticised her for poor management when food stocks ran out and when she suggested that they swap roles, he refused saying that it was not his natural role. But husbands find this arrangement also useful. Husbands expect wives, who are strangers, to use their status to refuse or deny excessive demands of grain from their brothers.
The second type is where the husband is in charge and keeps a very close eye on it as is illustrated by the case below.
Shoko is in his early fifties and is married to one wife. He has a family of six. Each year after harvest he packs his granary with maize, making a careful count of how many kilograms are stored before he seals the small entrance. Whilst he does not himself withdraw grain for use, he insists that each withdrawal be made in his presence. He takes the responsibilities of closing the entrance and sealing it.
Husbands who take these steps do not do so simply because they lack faith in the ability of their wives to manage the granary. In my view, they do so because they realise the vulnerability of their wives who customarily cannot refuse to grant any requests of food from their husband's brothers with whom they share space.
The third category, which appears to be the most common, is where both the husband and the wife share management responsibilities. Both of them regularly take a look at stock level stock and suggest ideas on whether to cut or maintain present levels of consumption. My data do not permit me to infer the characteristics of men and women who are in these marriages. I suspect that Christians and educated couples dominate this group. But more research is needed to substantiate these claims.
The control of the granary is clearly not a fortuitous matter. Couples choose to follow strategies of granary management and control that they think safeguards their savings from kinsmen, friends, neighbours or colleagues.
But why this insistence to keep or save food? Why not transform the wealth into cash and solve storage problems? Why is the dura attractive as a saving strategy? In the sections below, I examine, in a rather schematic way, why saving food remains the most ideal ways of dealing with anticipated food shortages.
In explaining why they prefer to save food rather than put aside money for use in critical times, villagers say that money does not always assure its holder access to food or grain. They cite cases of people who could not get any food even though they had some cash with them.
Secondly others say that it is more affordable to have one's own food than buy it. This is true, in this village as in the rest of the country. In Zimbabwe, traders sell a 50kg bag of maize at double the price that they buy it from farmers. Even government also sells maize at one and half times more than the price it buys it from the farmers. This is why most farmers prefer to store their grain in the dura and prepare their own food.
Thirdly, people say that money depreciates, compared to grain which remains constant or even appreciate in some instances. Villagers say that in Zimbabwe, products continue to rise month after month, diminishing the value of money.
Fourthly, people say that it is embarrassing for one to be seen buying food especially grain from others. They say that a person who does this, is despised and regarded as lazy and a poor manager of household resources. And there are other villagers who say that any person who buys food is not fit to be given a position of authority since he shows himself to be unable to run `smaller things like a household.' Thus in a bid to safeguard their public image some villagers store their food in the dura.
People save food. Duras are always vehicles for such saving. When they save, people do so in anticipation of prolonged periods of chronic food shortages, caused by insufficient rainfall and inappropriate agricultural policies. But locals also believe that famines constitute punishment from territorial spirits. Theoretically, saving is not a random activity but rather a function of agro-ecological and religious considerations. Secondly, saving is an instrument by which individuals and communities triumph over those agro-ecological factors that have the potential of causing death, in the real sense of the word.
This chapter, and to some extent Chapter 7 treated saving as a practice of accumulation of visible goods like cattle and grain. I showed people investing in these visible items. It is, however, not accurate to limit investment by rural people merely to concrete assets such as grain and cattle. This is because most of the time rural people are also investing in labour. They are exchanging their labour in order to be able to command the support of whomever they assist. In the next chapter, I examine how rural people agriculturally and ritually assist people with a view to mobilising the support of those they target for assistance.
Saving to death: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Bibliography
 
|