ZANZIBAR'S VIRAL UNDERGROUND

by Martin Walsh

The walkway between caves at Mchekeni, Zanzibar (photo: Martin Walsh)

I worry about caves. I’ve been worrying about them ever since reading about the role played by Kitum Cave in the known history of Marburg virus disease. In the 1980s, two separate visitors to this “elephant cave” in Mount Elgon National Park were infected and subsequently died. Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) have since been identified as a reservoir host for marburgviruses, and it may well be that the inhalation of microbes from bat guano was the means by which these unfortunate tourists contracted the deadly disease.

I’m also fascinated by caves: they’re contagious in more ways than one. The islands of the Zanzibar archipelago, with their extensive limestone reef terraces, are riddled with caves and sinkholes. They’re a distinctive feature of the coral rag or karst landscape of both Unguja and Pemba, though often hidden from sight by thick vegetation, especially along the forested scarps in the south and east of the main island. Many of the caves have cultural significance as mizimu, the abodes of spirits that are regularly propitiated by the local guardians who have inherited this responsibility.

Entering one of the caves at Ufufuma (photo: Martin Walsh)

I wasn’t really aware of either the abundance of caves or the extent of this practice until Helle Goldman and I began researching knowledge and beliefs about the Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) in 1996. There’s a strong association between leopards and caves, because of the spiritual significance of both and the fact that leopards were believed to be often found in and around them. In some cases, leopards themselves are the spirits that subterranean offerings are made to. 

More recently, Maximilian Chami and others have begun documenting these and other sacred sites, though we’re far from possessing anything like an inventory or gazetteer. Following his father Felix Chami’s pioneering excavations, caves have also been providing us with remarkable insights into Zanzibar’s past, including the people and fauna of Unguja before it became an island. I’ve been a minor contributor to discussions about some of the emerging zooarchaeological evidence – and I look forward to more.

Unsurprisingly, some of the limestone caves on the eastern side of Unguja are now tourist venues. The impressive Mchekeni Caves, in the Kiwengwa-Pongwe Forest Reserve, have been open since 2006, though visitor numbers can be very low. Other caves have been developed privately. Kuza Cave in north Jambiani is more like a rock shelter or overhang (presumably exposed by an earlier collapse), with a beautiful turquoise pool that tourists are encouraged to swim in. The caves at Ufufuma, roughly halfway between Mchekeni and Kuza, are used by a traditional healer (mganga), who also entertains fee-paying tourists.   

Bats in the south cave at Mchekeni (photo: Martin Walsh)

Whenever I’ve visited Mchekeni, I’ve felt distinctly uneasy penetrating deep into the southern cave. This is not because there’s no path and it’s unlit, it’s because I’m thinking about bats. There are plenty of small bats clinging to the walls, harmless enough. But I can’t help but wonder about the viruses they might be carrying. Spillover events may be rare, but as the ongoing global pandemic has painfully reminded us, they can happen, and bats are, for better or worse, the reservoir hosts of numerous viruses, SARS-CoV-2 included.

Perhaps I should be more worried about the fruit bats hanging in the trees, and the fruit that they may have slobbered or defecated on. Or fretting about Pemba, where flying foxes (Pteropus voeltzkowi) and other bats have traditionally been hunted as bushmeat. Who knows what harms this may have caused in the longue durée of island history? Of course, Zanzibar has more pressing public health problems to deal with in the present. Sooner or later, though, Zanzibar and Tanzania will have to start thinking about the biosecurity of the growing number of caves on the tourist trail. Next time I go down there, I’m wearing a mask.

Further reading

Bardenwerper, Julie 2009. Spirits and Sacred Sites: A Study of Beliefs on Unguja Island. SIT Study Abroad, Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. Paper 759.

Chami, Maximilian F. 2019. “Sacred Limestone Caves”: Management and the Use of Sacred Heritage Places in Limestone Cave Areas along the Swahili Coast of Indian Ocean in Tanzania. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg.

Chami, Maximilian F. & Felix A. Chami 2020. Management of sacred heritage places in Tanzania: a case of Kuumbi limestone cave, Zanzibar island. Journal of Heritage Management 5 (1): 71-88.

From the Kuza Cave website, www.kuzacave.com

Faulkner, Patrick et al. 2019. Long-term trends in terrestrial and marine invertebrate exploitation on the eastern African coast: insights from Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 14: 479–514.

Goldman, Helle & Martin Walsh 2019. Classifying, domesticating and extirpating the Zanzibar leopard, a transgressive felid. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift 30 (3-4): 205-219.

Prendergast, Mary E. et al. 2016. Continental island formation and the archaeology of defaunation on Zanzibar, eastern Africa. PLoS One 11 (2): e0149565.

Quammen, David 2012. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. London: Vintage Books.

Walsh, Martin 1995. Eating bats on Pemba island: a local innovation or cultural borrowing? Mvita: Newsletter of the Regional Centre for the Study of Archaeology in Eastern and Southern Africa 6: 15-18.

Walsh, Martin 2011. From green monkey disease to fruit bat viruses. East African Notes and Records, 26 December 2011.

Walsh, Martin & Helle Goldman 2007. Killing the king: the demonization and extermination of the Zanzibar leopard. In E. Dounias, E. Motte-Florac & M. Dunham (eds.) Le symbolisme des animaux: L'animal, clef de voûte de la relation entre l'homme et la nature? Paris: Éditions de l’IRD. 1133-1182.

A FALLEN TREE IN STONE TOWN

by Jonathan Walz 

Forodhani Gardens, Zanzibar (photo: Martin Walsh)

I

On July 9, 2020, a large tree fell in the Vuga area of Stone Town, Zanzibar.* Its collapse was sudden and loud. People quickly gathered. The tree’s meaning to different people emerged in the subsequent three days as the tree was discussed, disassembled, hauled-off, reflected-on, and mourned. Clarity about the tree’s meaning and social role emerged from its death.

II

Unique trees are essential to societies in eastern Africa and throughout the world. From mainland Africa to Seychelles, the baobab, coco de mer, fig, and mango play roles in story-telling and ritual practice, not to mention their contributions to sustenance and medicine. Common English names for other trees with distinct uses and cultural significance – all found in contemporary Zanzibar – include, but are not limited to, the bodhi, breadfruit, camphor, cassia, cinnamon, clove, coconut, date, ebony, euphorbia (succulent), false ashoka, ficus, frangipani, Indian almond, kapok, mahogany, mangrove, neem, peepal, saman, tamarind, and teak.

Trees serve a multitude of purposes. Particular species provide shade or windbreaks. Trees can be ornamental. Large or old trees serve as shrines, house ancestors, or, for some societies, they can represent the center of the symbolic universe (i.e. an axis mundi). Trees can obscure visibility and sound, facilitating secrecy. The wood of some species can be used to make objects: posts, flooring, utensils, beehives, weapons, watercraft, musical instruments, and carvings. Many trees produce edible fruits, seeds, roots, leaves, saps, or gums or are consumed as timber for construction projects or for firewood, charcoal, or animal fodder. Extracts from trees can be employed as latexes, oils, dyes, hunting poisons, or incense. The cosmetic cabinets of Swahili women contain an assortment of tree products revered for their affordances.

Trees in Stone Town (photo: Jonathan Walz)

Large trees are visible and prominent, with high crowns that mark places of importance on the countryside or in cities. In Stone Town, multi-story architecture often obstructs viewsheds. There are no natural features other than trees to distinguish places from a distance, especially when viewed from the perspective of a pedestrian in the alleyways. In parts of Tanzania, forests serve as sacred groves or identify ancient settlements (see the scholarship of Elgidius Ichumbaki (2015), who suggests reconsidering the meaning of “archaeological site” using trees). Trees have meanings that stretch beyond their immediate times and locations; they can live on in place names, for example throughout Zanzibar (Myers 2016). 

III

The tree that fell in Vuga had a social life. It was planted by Khamis Salum in 2000. The Ficus benjamina - Weeping or Java Fig - has an origin in India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. This species is a large evergreen tree, 10-20 meters in height with drooping foliage. Hardy and fast-growing, it has a strong root system and bears orange to red berries (Dharani 2002).

The Weeping Fig functioned as a shade tree for nearby offices. Taxi drivers wedged everyday items in the openings in its trunk and among its lower branches. It was an attractive destination for urban animals, including a pair of Broad-billed Rollers, a colony of Yellow-headed Dwarf Geckos, and a Great Plated Lizard that lived in a stone wall at the base of its trunk. When it fruited, the tree attracted Greater Galagos and two species of fruit bat.

All of this ended when the tree fell. When it collapsed across a dirt road it landed without injury to people or property. Community members in the area gathered, taking photos in awe.

(photo: Jonathan Walz)

IV

After the tree’s collapse, three entities were contacted because each has purview over the trees of Stone Town, a World Heritage Site: the Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority, Urban Municipal Council, and Department of Forests and Non-Renewable Natural Resources. Discussions with the authorities documented the details of the tree and offered guidelines for the removal of its remains. Photographs were taken by authorities and its species confirmed. Then, clearance began. A representative from the Urban Municipal Council arrived on-site to observe a hired worker with a permitted chainsaw disassemble the tree. At 12 meters in height and almost a meter thick at breast height, the removal process of the tree spanned two days. This species produces soft wood useful as firewood (not charcoal), so its trunk and branches were carried away by community members. 

V

During subsequent days, two individuals independently visited the site of the tree fall and performed rites. The individuals were older men who discretely left items at its stump and spoke inaudible words. They stayed in the vicinity briefly. The Weeping Fig was a shrine to a spirit. The two visitors each left an offering (sadaka), including a small white cloth. This interpretation also explains the appearance of eggs and vials of rosewater at the base of the tree in previous years. The rite maintains harmony for an individual or community by preventing evil or pollution as a result of the demise of the mzimu, the Swahili name for a spirit dwelling.

Trees have specific meanings and uses to different stakeholders. This event should inspire conversations about the roles of trees, their socio-nature, urban environmental histories, and the symbolic and spiritual character of cities (Myers 2016: 83). Trees are physical and metaphysical anchors. Western perspectives on trees delimit and can erase other cultural meanings and uses of trees. While the built environment of Stone Town may be “of elsewhere” (Meier 2016), trees and green spaces in Zanzibar still yield deep significances that draw heavily from the African and Indian Ocean cultural intersections in Zanzibar. For instance, the words jini and shetani have Arabic roots, but pepo and mzimu have Bantu roots. These terminologies are variously used to indicate spirits or spirit dwellings among the Swahili. The cultural significance of these terms and the context of use are obscured when trees or green spaces and districts on the island are framed simply as areas of public enjoyment (or “parks”), which embraces a Western concept of nature and green spaces for urban Africa.

(photo: Jonathan Walz)

VI

The words, performances, and objects associated with special trees are essential for comprehension of their significance as heritage. The material approach to the fallen Weeping fig and its consumption (as firewood, and so forth) is understandable in a comparatively impoverished setting that has been culturally degraded by tourism. Yet, the performance of rites shows that even under these less than ideal circumstances, or, better yet, because of the circumstances, meaning persists. Using a case from Transkei, Throop (2003) articulates that from on-the-ground treatments of trees there is the potential to distil the surrounding power relations. In Zanzibar, this postulate applies to trees as central places of social practice that respond to colonial experience, the intersection of town-and countryside, and environmental change. Contradictions exist in the “heritagization” of Stone Town (Sheriff 2019). One everyday tension is the disproportionate emphasis placed by conservators on architecture (already questioned for its “authenticity”) as compared against, for example, intangible practices that surround trees that endure at prominent points or in place names in Stone Town.

*Note that the tree that is the subject of this post is not shown for ethical reasons. All of the images included here are of other trees in Zanzibar.

References

Dharani, N. 2002. Field Guide to the Common Trees and Shrubs of East Africa. Cape Town: Struik Publishers.

Ichumbaki, E. 2015. Monumental Ruins, Baobab Trees and Spirituality: Perceptions on Values and Uses of Built Heritage along the East African Coast. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Meier, P. 2016. Swahili Port Cities: The Architecture of Elsewhere. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Myers, G. 2016. Urban Environments in Africa: A Critical Analysis of Environmental Politics. Chicago: Policy Press.

Rival, L (ed.) 1998. The Social Life of Trees: Anthropological Perspectives on Tree Symbolism. London: Routledge.

Sheriff, A. 2019. Contradictions in the heritagization of Zanzibar ‘Stone Town’. In B. Schnepel and T. Sen (eds.) Travelling Pasts: The Politics of Cultural Heritage in the Indian Ocean World. Leiden: Brill. 221-245.

Throop, J. 2003. The python and the crying tree: interpreting tales of environmental and colonial power in Transkei. International Journal of African Historical Studies 36 (3): 511-532.