(g) The made foundations of Makalanga walls are of common clay, those of ancient walls being of a splendid quality of granite cement.
(h) Nothing ancient or even approaching to antiquity is ever discovered on the levels of the bases of Makalanga walls, but round about their bases quantities of Makalanga articles may be found, some perhaps of better make and quality than now produced by them.
(i) Local natives can to-day build very fair stone walls, but these have straight joints and are without tie or bonding, the courses are most erratic, and the line of wall wavering. The common feature of Makalanga wall construction is to build the stones up exactly over one another, giving the appearance to the wall of being built on columns. Their stone walls of cattle kraals can be seen in many deserted villages, as well as other of their walls where there are no ancient ruins. The Makalanga graves in the passages, both in the Elliptical Temple and in the Acropolis, were very well built in with cross-walls.
(j) The Makalanga since mediæval times have always been known as builders in stone. Their circular hut and granary foundations of stone can still be seen in many parts of the country, especially on the clay floors of filled-in enclosures of ancient ruins of the terraced order. This art is mentioned by Mr. Selous and by almost all writers on this country before the Occupation, and pioneers and early settlers have affirmed this to be the case. Bent gives the names of Makalanga villages which he visited where these contained stone buildings of native construction. The names of other villages where such buildings are to be found are given by other writers. Bent actually saw their stone-building operations being carried on at Chipanza’s kraal. Professor Bryce describes a Makalanga village with stone buildings, but just as the arts of mining, smelting, wire-twisting, and cloth weaving are now fast disappearing on the advent of the cheap imported article, and on the natives finding other objects upon which to spend their time and labour, the art of stone building is becoming neglected. Old pioneers visiting the ruins are unanimous in affirming that such walls so built and so conditioned are of undoubted Makalanga construction. There are stone buildings at Cherimabila’s kraal, nine miles west from Zimbabwe. Mr. Drew considers the Barotse to be now the best stone builders in this district.
OTHER WALLS NOT ANCIENT[42]
But there are other walls in these ruins which are not believed to be ancient, and these have not been erected by recent generations of Makalanga, but possibly by mediæval Makalanga, or by Arabs, who had large influential colonies in this country, especially at the various Zimbabwes of the successive Monomotapas. The arguments against these walls being ancient are just as numerous and equally as cogent as those just enumerated, but the consideration of such walls is dealt with in detail in the description of the walls themselves.
REMAINS OF NATIVE HUTS FOUND IN THE RUINS
In many of the enclosures of the ruins at Zimbabwe are to be found on the present surfaces, and frequently, if the floor of the interior is not formed by the rock formation, on two floors beneath it, the remains of at least three entirely different descriptions of native huts. This is a feature constantly met with in ancient ruins throughout Southern Rhodesia, and in the early days of investigation these remains occasioned considerable perplexity to the explorer. In some ruins only one type of such structures is found, in others two classes of such dwellings, and in others three if not four different types of structure, all the three main types presenting different features in plan, construction, and material.
That these erections are not ancient is a matter of ocular demonstration.
(a) This is shown by their position on the clay floors laid over the débris which has been filled into the enclosure to the depth of from 3 ft. to 7 ft. above any ancient floor, hiding rounded entrances, passages, and smaller sub-divisional walls, and burying, as at some ruins, the ancient decorative patterns on the walls. The examination of the material employed, and the class of its make so similar to the remains of native huts in old deserted villages, all negative any suggestion of antiquity.