Karanga culture lands on the tourism radar

24 Feb, 2017 - 00:02 0 Views
Karanga culture lands on the tourism radar Visitors enjoy sadza prepared from rapoko and black jack leaves during their recent tour of Chesvingo Karanga Village

The ManicaPost

Obert Chifamba
PERCHED on a hilltop that allows an eyeful of the picturesque, rocky valley below, Chesvingo Karanga Village was recently the terminus for a group of day-trippers on a familiarisation tour.The visibly excited and exploratory group comprised people from Chesvingo community under Chief Murinye, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority officers, representatives from Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry, journalists and a Japanese delegation under the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Yes, they had all came to experience a day in the life of a Karanga individual in a village setting and surroundings.

Their ambition was to get a feel of the Karanga culture, a culture that has survived nature and humanity’s vacillating madness, for centuries.

Dubbed the Daily Life Trail, the trip involved first converging at the model Karanga homestead built on atop a hill.

The choice of the hilltop was not coincidental and neither was it influenced by shortage of space in the valley below, but was designed to showcase the Karanga’s art of survival and general household management.

The Daily Life Trail is an experience of the Karanga people’s day to day activities, which are predominantly agro-based. Agriculture forms the bedrock of their daily undertakings and ultimately, the Karanga economy.

They practise subsistence agriculture though with an overwhelming slant towards the commercial, as they survive on proceeds generated from selling surplus agricultural produce.

Karanga homesteads are constructed in a horse-shoe style with individual housing units interrelated. The parents’ bedroom and boys’ quarters are adjacent to the granary and fowl runs to guarantee security.

The girls’ quarters are also strategically situated to guard against the occasional sneaking in or out of an intruding boy or the girl to a boy friend’s place. Also, the proximity of the fowl run allows the sleeping family to hear the cock’s crowing as their clock for getting up early.

There is also the dare where serious matters are discussed by elders. It is located at the village head’s homestead.

Since, this is summer, the core activities at the moment are field work- weeding, applying top dressing fertilizers, herding livestock and doing pest control, among others.

Back to our tour.

The end of the proceedings was marked by sumptuous feasting on traditional dishes that included sadza prepared from rapoko and sorghum relished with goat meat and road runner chicken.

Dessert was some lip-smacking home-made beer and sweet beer that saw almost everybody asking for more.

Some villagers were awarded certificates of attendance in preparing traditional dishes and receiving tourists, for, Chesvingo is a tourist hub, thanks to its proximity to the Great Zimbabwe Ancient City and Lake Mtirikwi.

Bordered by a scenic environment, Lake Mtirikwi is Zimbabwe’s largest inland lake and offers water activities that include fishing, boating and its famous sunset cruise.

Besides this, there are also ancient granaries in the Chesvingo Mountains and some rock paintings to give a hint at what the past was like for the Karanga people and Zimbabweans in general. The Karanga people are a clan of the Shona tribe, which is Zimbabwe’s largest indigenous group.

The Shonas are found in Zimbabwe, Botswana and southern Mozambique in Southern Africa and bordering South Africa and represent over 80 percent of the population.

The Shona tribe is culturally the most dominant in Zimbabwe.

Between the 15th and late 18th centuries, Portuguese observers made reference to the land ruled by Mutapa kings as Mukaranga (the land of the Karanga) while the inhabitants were subsequently referred to as the ‘vaKaranga’.

In fact, like the rest of the country, the Karanga’s most prized possessions are cattle, which patriarchs demand as lobola, bride-price (dowry), in return for the hand of their daughters in marriage.

The status of men in the villages in the province is assessed according to the number of cattle they possess – those with no cattle are not considered men.

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