MZURI KAJA DEVELOPMENT SOCIETY
The Swahili House: An Insight to the Treasure in Swahili Culture and Tradition
What is a Swahili house?
A typical Swahili house is architecturally simple but it occupies a central part in Swahili culture. It is built with mud and makuti-roofed. Swahili people call it ‘nyumba ya udongo’ (a mud house) or ‘nyumba ya makuti’ (a coconut-palm thatched roof house). The simplicity of the house is well explained in one of the Swahili sayings: ‘Nyumba ya udongo haihimili vishindo’, which literally means a mud house doesn’t resist throbs.
A Swahili house is rectangular-shaped and built with the materials derived mostly from palm tree. It is windowless but yet it remains cool inside throughout the year as fresh air easily comes in through countless crakes that appear on mud walls after becoming dry. Under the tropical sun of East Africa, the Swahili house offers a very comfortable accommodation.
A good thing about a Swahili house is that it is environmentally-friendly, making it ideal for eco-village settlement. With regard to privacy, the house’s thatched back yard provides spacious shelter where domestic chores such as washing clothes and cleaning dishes can be done away from of public gaze.
Another good thing about a Swahili house is that it is affordable and can be repaired at minimum cost. It helps a poor country like Zanzibar to save foreign currency because it does not use imported materials to construct it. In addition, it helps in preserving local craftsmanship like rope-making and ‘makuti’-making, that is transferred from one generation to another. In the south of Zanzibar particularly in Makunduchi rope-making is the well-established local industry serving as the main source of income to many women. Makuti-making is predominately a male’s job.
Types of Swahili houses
Based on the size, the Swahili house can be easily classified into small and big house. A single-room one dubbed as ‘mtumbwi’ is normally occupied by unmarried young man, old men and women, divorcees and widows. A big Swahili house is usually a family house and contains two or three rooms.
One has to go through four phases when building the house; an exercise that can take up to two weeks to completion.
The First phase
Some people regard this phase to be the most critical. According to Swahili belief, a building site has to be protected against evil people or deeds before the house is erected. So, a ‘mganga’ (traditional healer/doctor) is consulted to provide protection to the site. A would-be house owner is provided with a charm to bury at the building site. The charm is believed to possess a powerful magical power that would act as a patriot missile in intercepting evil deeds directed to the house.
The Second phase
After the protection of the building site done, the house is erected. When it comes to measurement, the builders use an unconventional method to measure the size of plot or poles, for example. When measuring length, builders use their body parts like fingers, arms and feet as standard measures instead of using measuring tapes. The introduction of modern measurement instruments has thus not changed this original practice until now although they are available in Zanzibar.
The Third phase – ‘Kandiko’ day
In this stage the walls made up of criss-crossed poles are covered with mud. The day in which this work is carried out is called ‘Kandiko’ day and the exercise usually takes place in the morning on weekends. ‘Kandiko’ day is attended by both women and men. While men work on the walls, women fetch water and cook meals for the team. They provide free labour and in return are served with free staple foods such as cooked cassava mixed with peas, roasted cassava, and porridge to give them strength that will keep them going with the work, and as a gesture of appreciation rather than payment. This ‘free’ labour is intended to ‘free’ every member in the society from shortage of accommodation. In other words, ‘Kandiko’ day demonstrates a long standing traditional culture and spirit of self-help spirit and cooperation among Swahili people.
The exchange of jokes among men is common on this day. The jokes, which normally focus on village life in general, provide ‘Kandiko’ participants with vigour, a feeling of happiness, strength and commitment to finishing the work.
The Fourth phase
The Swahili house is regarded to be incomplete without a back yard made of ‘makuti’. So, the erection of the back yard is done in the fourth phase when building the Swahili house. During this phase, the doors made of woven coconut leaves are also fixed.
Traditional Swahili household objects
In the Swahili house one usually finds traditional household utility objects. When it comes to washing clothes, for example, one uses a ‘chano’ (a thick wooden washing tray). For drinking water ‘kata’ (a large scoop made of a coconut shell with a wooden handle) and a ‘mtungi’ (water pot) are used. Traditional baked clay cooking pots (‘chungu’) and pot covers (‘mkungu’), cooking spoons such as ‘upawa’ (a scoop made from coconut shell with a handle for serving porridge, soup, and curry) and mwiko (for cooking and serving rice, plantain, and maize meals) are some of the common items that can be found. If there is a place where Swahili household objects are used extensively, it is in the Swahili house.