(d)urban(a)

Valley of a Thousand Hills and Apartment Wildlife

Yesterday J and I drove up to the Hillcrest AIDS Centre, which I have posted about before. I spoke with Julie, the Centre's CEO, about the craft collective that has developed there over the past eighteen years and the craft consignment shop, Woza Moya, the Centre manages. Beaded goods have remained the shop's longstanding and most popular merchandise, but I was really excited to see several sewn garments made from shoeshoe/ishweshwe, an indigo fabric here really popular for women's garments (especially for Xhosa dresses and skirts) - I'll write more about its history, fascinating starchy stiffness, and post some pictures of examples I've bought eventually.  After visiting the Centre, J and I drove through Botha's Hill, a town that overlooks the Valley of a Thousand Hills.  The view of the valley was beautiful even in the slightly overcast morning. 

The next three pictures I have posted are of "wildlife" from in and outside of my apartment.  Even though I'm in the city, my apartment sees its share of animals.  Timothy is my lessor's cat who loves to lounge outside my apartment and sneak in when I leave my door open when I'm home during the day.  Families of small monkeys occasionally chatter in the giant tree outside but have yet to invite themselves inside.  Giant cockroaches have no compunction about flying in my windows for a visit, although we seem to have reached a truce over the last few weeks (they don't tromp around in front of me anymore and I just assume they're "guarding" the apartment while I'm asleep).  There are also tiny, sandy colored geckos that I welcome into my apartment since they take care of stray mosquitoes.  This morning I was surprised to find a millipede crawling on my rug - it was during my barefoot and pre-caffeinated stage so I emitted a tiny yelp, quickly snapped a few pictures (including one of it in its defensive "ball" pose) and, after scooting it onto a piece of paper, banished it outdoors.

Within a Budding Grove

One of my dissertation committee members reminded me that a third of each day of fieldwork should be devoted to "self-care" and encouraged me to break up the routine I had fallen into of research/interviews/manual labor each day and then reading/writing when I returned in the evening.  So yesterday I upped my chocolate intake and watched a really interesting movie, Goodbye Bafana, starring Joseph Fiennes as apartheid prison guard James Gregory and Dennis Haysbert as Nelson Mandela.  It is based on the real relationship that Mandiba formed with the guard and traces Gregory's transformation from believing in the apartheid system to disavowing his earlier actions as a prison censorship/intelligence officer (although he problematically always worked for the prison system).  Joseph Fiennes and Dennis Haysbert also speak Xhosa during parts of the film which was pretty cool.  I spent this morning walking around the Durban Botanic Gardens and even though it is right near city centre, the large gardens drowned out the noise of the city.  There were a lot of birds gathered in groves of trees and searching for small fish in the artificial lake - I'm not sure what kinds of birds I saw so if anyone knows, please comment.

Isishweshwe: Threads of Colonialism and Global Exchange

Known as isishweshwe, shweshwe, or shoeshoe, this popular fabric here, now produced most famously in South Africa by De Gama Textiles, has a history in South Africa that reaches back to  the mid 17th-century and highlights the connections between global exchange, colonialism, textile production, and development. 

A spotty timeline of shweshwe:
- 1652:  indigo cloth arrives at the seaport established in the Western Cape.
- 1850s:  German Protestant Settlers bring printed indigo fabric known as German or Jeruman print with them to South Africa.  The cloth was popular with workers in Central Europe because of its relative inexpensiveness.
- 19th Century:  Indigo cloth imported primarily from India and Holland.
- 1890 German factory develops a synthetic indigo dye still in use today.
- 1930s:  Imports of indigo cloth predominately come from Lancashire at this point - the Three Cats brand comes out of Manchester.  The fabric is used for garments in South Africa that are worn by slaves, Khoisan, Sotho, Xhosa, and Voortrekker women.
- 1940s:  French missionaries  present King Moshoeshoe I of Lesotho of printed indigo cloth.  This is one of the "origin" stories for how the fabric got its name of "shoe shoe."  The other origin story attributes the name to the Xhosa name from the swishing sound it makes when the wearer walks.
- 1982:  Production of shweshwe begins in South Africa when UK company Tootal invests in De Gama Textiles, trademarking their version "Three Leopards," which was their version of Manchester's "Three Cats."  Two new colors, red and brown are added using the same design prints.
-1992:  De Gama Textiles purchased the sole rights to own and print the Three Cats range of designs.  It still produces the original German print.

Production Process:
The process has remained the same since the 19th century.  First, cotton fabric is woven (plain weave) to a width of 90cm.  The fabric is dyed with an indigo paste (originally natural, now synthetic) and a discharge agent is applied with a copper roller (also with 90cm widths) to remove the indigo and reveal a pattern.  When De Gama purchased the exclusive rights to produce the fabric, the copper rollers were shipped over from Manchester.  The designs were often intricate small series of dots or geometric motifs.  Starch is applied to the fabric - originally used to preserve it on the voyages from the UK to SA. 

Because of the starch used, genuine shweshwe has a characteristic stiff hand upon purchase and a pleasant oily smell.  After you purchase the fabric, you wash it before your begin sewing with it.  Like indigo denim, the fabric will remain relatively stiff and gradually soften with each wash, eventually achieving a buttery hand but retaining its strength.  In the picture above, I've shown some samples I have already purchased:  the primary example in the  is a genuine piece produced by De Gama in one of the Three Cats designs.  The cost for a little over a meter (I purchased it by the amount of panels, as much of the shweshwe is printed with line guides, where four or five panels = an A-line skirt since that is one of the most popular garments made from it) was R30 (a little over $5 US).  The two patterns cutting across the top left of the photograph are actually imitations made from cheaper cotton and a standard cotton printing technique.  These two prints cost only R5 (less than $1 US) per meter, but will likely fade quickly upon repeated wear.  I suspect I will use these second two for quilting projects. 

The history of textile production and exchange is also the history of the industrial revolution and global exchange.  Economist Petra Rivoli, among others, identifies massive textile production as the key to first Britain and then the United States' industrial and economic development and even argues that Japan's textile production 100 years after the United States (in the early to mid 20th century) contributed to its development as an economic "powerhouse."  As much as my research interests align with textile production and conceptions of economic development, I'm reticent to believe this direct correlation and the simple causality it suggests is as  direct as Rivoli argues.  For example, the shift back to textile production in India in the 1940s forward hasn't necessarily translated into massive industrial development.  Over the past twenty years, cotton growth in the Eastern Cape here in South Africa, has helped the country begin to develop its own substantive textile industry.

There have also been fascinating connections made between the development of synthetic dyes in Germany and economic development (in particular in the work of sociologist Andrew Pickering).  My friend C, a chemist and researcher at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has agreed to fill in the gaps of my knowledge and provide some additional background on indigo - he will post it in the comments section.

Sewing Project 2

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I started the embroidery for the first project I posted about previously - I'm experimenting with some different smocking stitch designs and I topstitched the shredded fabric panels with a variety of basic embroidery stitches (I'm a big fan of cross-stitch).  I also started a new project this weekend - when I was at Woza Moya (at the Hillcrest AIDS Centre), I purchased a denim bag made by one of he sewers in the craft collective.  It is relatively simple and unadorned except for a zipper pocket on the side opposite to the one depicted.  Yesterday I started embroidering a design on the plain denim side.  It is directly inspired by a Zulu beaded bedspread I saw at the Phansi museum.  The insect, bright colors, and repetition of circles instantly attracted me to the large panel.  It was also one of the only examples of Zulu beaded embroidery on a light background I have seen - for the most part, the Phansi's holdings are nearly all beaded panels on indigo fabric.

The Zulu bedspread was specifically made by a woman to be used after her marriage, at a time in her when she would change bedding type (moving from a woven sleeping mat to a large, raised bed with beaded pillow shams and a large bedspread) and begin to sleep with her husband.  During apartheid, these married women's bedspreads gained a new function - apartheid's widespread installation of men's hostels during the institution of migratory/distance labor (mostly to the mines, but not exclusively).  Basically, married women were required to stay in the "homeland," and were not allowed to enter the urban areas in which their husbands worked and were even restricted from visiting them in the townships anchored around cities.  The women were allowed to visit their husbands only two weeks in the year and they had to stay with the them in the same hostel room where as many as seven other men also lived.  So the bedspreads were used to hang up and divide the tiny room to provide more privacy for the married couple.

Archival Moment of Joy!: Finding Connection Between US Bureau of Indian Affairs and SA Bantu Authority Policies on Craft Production

I am not embarrassed to admit that I grinned widely and even joyfully gasped aloud today when I found a concrete connection between the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bantu Authority's policies on craft production.  Since early 2006 I have been collecting research on craft production as a form of economic sustainability sponsored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs with a focus on the historical and contemporary production and reception of Navajo woven textiles.  This particular focus grew out of an August 2004 visit to a Navajo Craft Fair and Workshop in Flagstaff Arizona and after meeting Alisse Portnoy when the UIUC Center for Writing Studies sponsored her talk about her book, Their Right to Speak:  Women's Activism in the Indian and Slave Debate (2005).  I have written critiques of institutional archival practices for Navajo textiles in their tendency to devalue innovation in design and other contemporary practices not deemed "traditional," and also the related archival practice of periodization that effaces influential events on Navajo groups and textile production.  For example, most large institutional collections of Navajo textiles fail to mention the 1864 internment of Navajos and Mescaleros at the Bosque Redondo military reservation, which both limited access to standard weaving materials (such as the churro sheep used for home-spun wool yarn and plants used for dyes) and inspired Navajos to depict the conditions of their internment thematically (now known as the "Fort Sumner" motifs) with the crappy commercial yarns they had access to.  Instead, these very important and disruptive designs often get lost within the broader categorization of the "transitional" period (where I suppose "transitional" is supposed to stand in for and euphemize "forced removal/internment/marginalization").  I was also recently inspired by Jane Simonsen's amazing book, Making Home Work:  Domesticity and Native American Assimilation in the American West, 1860-1919 (2006). 

As I began to read about the craft policies advocated here in South Africa both by missionaries and later by Bantu authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries, I noticed strong similarities between the governmental and institutional rhetoric surrounding the function of craft, craft production and marketing for Native American groups and "Bantu" groups.  My concern in making an argument connecting them, however, was that it may wash over the very specific, local conditions and situation of two very large indigenous groups and two very different forms of settler colonialism..  So maybe you can understand why finding a concrete connection today to support my argument was a near-cartwheel-inducing moment for me.

I was rifling through the eight files the Killie Campbell collections holds of J.W. Grossert's papers and notes - Grossert was the Organizer of Arts and Crafts (Division of Bantu Education/Department of Native Affairs) in the mid-twentieth century.  In one of the files, on delicate pieces of onionskin, I found a typed report to the Carnegie Corporation Grossert composed upon the completion of his travel grant to the United States and Canada from July 1958 to January 1959.  In the report, Grossert describes and applauds the Bureau of Indian Affairs' craft programs and advocates the establishment of similar programs in "Bantu rural communities."  In the same file, there is even a typed speech that Grossert gave to the Pietermaritzburg Rotary Club on 26 March 1959 where he compares Bantu and Indian education practices and describes the burgeoning "big business" of "various Indian tribes" craft industries.  I can use this 1959 date (which represents a known point of intersection), then, to look at Bantu Authority's policies prior and subsequent to this date to consider the development of craft programs in South Africa and how the Bureau of Indian Affairs' programs may have influenced their development.

* Terms such as "bantu" and "Indian" and their use have been thoughtfully contested - my use of them in this post accords with their use by Grossert and other US and SA governmental authorities during the particular 20th century moment to which I am referring.

Food Notes: Where Marmite and Margarine Reign

Marmite, at least the kind manufactured in the United Kingdom and widely available here, is a flavored spread made from yeast extract, salt, vegetable extract, niacin, thiamine, spice extracts, riboflavin, folic acid, and celery extracts.  It has a distinctive taste and by the 1990s its advertising played on the fact that when one tastes Marmite, one usually either loves it or hates it.  Today in Umlazi, Mrs. Gambushe fed M and me lunch while we worked on more sewing - I tried some Marmite with margarine on a cracker and I suppose I fall in the camp of hating it, but it was worth a shot. I liked its rich saltiness but didn't appreciate the oily consistency (it kind of reminded me of thick, dirty sewing machine lubricant).  I have noticed that much of the food I have been served in non-commercial establishments here at homes or centers has been heavy on the margarine.  M said the last time they sponsored a cloth workshop when they were in the Western Cape that all of the women wanted margarine and bologna sandwiches instead of the jam ones they had prepared.  It seems even more than mayonnaise, margarine is the standard spread used on most any kind of sandwich (including the cheese ones we had today for lunch).  Having been a savory/sour taste person most of my life, I have to admit I've been craving some really strong, vinegary mustard lately.  Here, however, the main ingredient of standard, non-imported mustard is sugar. 

Besides the strong reaction Marmite seems to cause amongst those who taste it, its recent acquisition by Unilever is fascinating.  This multi-national corporation has large stakes here in Durban in terms of employment (there is a giant factory off the freeway by Clairwood) and their products dominate several food, home, and personal care markets in Africa.  Besides Marmite, the large brands owned by Unilever that dominate here include Flora margarine, Knorr sauce/spice products, Heartbrand ice cream, Sunlight soap (a particular kind only available in Africa), and especially Sunsilk hair products.   This last brand has a history of being one of the first large hair care brands to create products and advertising with so-called specially crafted formulas to address the hair "issues" of particular ethnic or cultural groups.  Driving through the townships, especially in Umlazi, even the smallest hair salons boast large advertisements for Sunsilk above their doors.  I should probably admit I went for the "Curly/Frizzy" formula my first day here, although I suspect the largest difference in the product from its other formulas was in the packaging! 

Clairwood Senior Citizens Group Presentation

This morning M and I spoke to the Clairwood Senior Citizens Group - a group of South African Indian seniors who meet every other Wednesday from 10-2 at the Clairwood Tamil Insitute.  The group started twenty-three years ago and has always met in Clairwood even though it attracts many of its members from Chatsworth, a nearby township originally designated for Indians during Apartheid.  The community of Clairwood has been challenged over the last forty years - it is situated close to Durban Harbor and is one of the only large areas of flat land nearby, so the city council has repeatedly tried to edge out residents to expand shipping container storage space for the Harbor.  We met in a large hall and had some black tea (with lots of cream and sugar) and a sweet cake before E, who coordinates the group, started with announcements.  He introduced M and me and then we took turns speaking to the group about Create Africa South and its Amazwi cloth project.  After speaking for a while, we went around the room and showed them four examples of finished cloths with their accompanying narratives and the photographs of the women who had sewn them.  When I was going around the room I was trying to get a sense if anyone in the group sewed and what sort of sewing they did.  There is one woman in the group who has been giving hand sewing lessons to some of the other women - they were working on aprons later that day.  When M and I returned to the front, we emphasized that many participants in the Amazwi project have never embroidered before, but they are still able to produce cloths depicting events and history they have experienced.  I also mentioned the project currently has no cloths made by South African Indian women (or men for that matter) and encouraged them to contact E or me if they would be interested in participating in a workshop in April.  While we were there I met S, who coordinates a related group for seniors in the suburb of Phoenix - he invited us to speak to them on April 3 (since we will be away in the Mpumulanga and possibly Limpopo provinces in the next couple of weeks) and told me that many of the women in that group have an interest in sewing.

Between these two groups, I genuinely hope I can organize a workshop to make cloths before I leave at the end of April.  The history of ethnic Indians in the Durban area is so important, and to have their contributions to the archive - if they are interested in participating - could be so amazing.  Ghandi spent twenty-one years in Durban and it was in Pietermaritzburg that his ejection from a first-class train compartment (even though he held a ticket) inspired his activism and sarvodoya (service to the community).  One of the Clairwood senior group's mottoes is "care, share, and serve" emphasizing their commitment to each other and their community.  E told me today how the democracy of 1994 did not mark unqualified progress for Indians in the area.  Under Apartheid they were not-White, so they were subjected to similar oppression and segregation as Blacks and Coloureds.  However, the post-1994 reforms, under the banner of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has not benefited South African Indian citizens.  They were never considered White, but will never be considered Black in terms of benefiting from a program like BEE, which attempts to rescind past discriminatory hiring practices, amongst other objectives.  I hope to write more about BEE when I read more about its history, function, and efficacy.   

Food Notes: Chicken Licken

Not much I can say about Chicken Licken except that it is South Africa's own fried chicken fast food restaurant and, according to their website, the "biggest non-American owned fried chicken franchise in the world."  Their hot wings are really good, although they appeared to have come from the world's smallest chickens.  You get packets of "soul't" - seasoned salt - rather than table salt.  Groan.  My miniature meal (seriously - I think they were wings from Cornish game hens) was R20.  A few weeks ago, this would have been a little shy of $3 US, but, unfortunately for South Africa (and lucky for me as a visitor), their currency has been creeping down in exchange value with all major currencies.  Now my meal cost about $2.50 US.  There doesn't seem to be a foreseeable end to South Africa's economic downturn.

Shweshwe Skirt Examples

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Here are two examples of skirts made with shweshwe.  R is modeling both of them - the first is one that M brought in, which she said is characteristic of a Sotho shweshwe skirt.  The shweshwe cloth is from De Gama's "Three Cats" series, and the brown applique accents were created by using the reverse side of the print.  In some areas you can make out the Three Cats proprietary imprint.  B, who I have been sewing with at the Zamu center, made the second skirt.  It is also made from Three Cats shweshwe, but is an example of a two-color print (yellow and brown) that is really popular.  Again, the reverse of the fabric has been used for accents on the hem, waistband and tie, and the patch pocket tops.  The  bias tape trim tends to be popular, especially on the full-length dresses made with shweshwe.  Sometimes the skirts or dresses will have ric-rac as an accent instead of bias-tape.  The movement of this skirt is lovely -  the bottom portion of the skirt has been softly pleated into the skirt's yoke giving this skirt a different sense of movement and fullness from the first one.

Unrest in Umlazi as the Main Road Burns with Fires and Student Protest

The township that I have been spending two days during the week, Umlazi, has been the site of student rioting since Tuesday.  When R picked M and me up on Tuesday at 1:30pm we saw a lot of people gathered outside on the Mangosutho Buthelezi Higheway next to Mangosutho University of Technology, but it wasn't until later that night that I heard it was students protesting about the dearth of lecturers (the new semester started at the beginning of February), the dismissal of three Student Representative Council members, poor facilities, laboratories, and bus/transportation services.  Teaching at the university has stopped completely.

The situation grew worse today - the police arrested over one hundred students on the charges of public violence and malicious damage to property.  This was after the police fired rubber bullets on the crowds and the students responded by throwing rocks and bottles, and setting roadside debris and tires on fire in the middle of the highway.  The local informal trading posts and tuck shops along the road closed down when the police and students began fighting.  The police eventually closed the highway off.

Tomorrow morning I'm supposed to go to Umlazi to continue the sewing project but the television news reports haven't said whether the road has been opened.  Most of the reports attribute the student action to student members of the Inkatha Freedom Party Youth Brigade.  This party, founded by Mangosutho Buthelezi for whom the University in Umlazi is named after, formed in Northern Kwa-Zulu in 1975.  It developed in South Africa after the apartheid government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa.  Violence between the IFP and ANC occurred in the 1980s, even though they both ostensibly resisted the Apartheid government.  KwaZulu-Natal has always been the location for the largest concentration of IFP members, but its membership has waned over the past decade.