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History of Bantu Metallurgy: Some Linguistic Aspects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

P. de Maret  and
F. Nsuka
P. de Maret
Affiliation:
Tervuren Museum
F. Nsuka
Affiliation:
Tervuren Museum
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Extract

Under the influence of certain conclusions in comparative linguistics, historians, archeologists and ethnologists have been led to believe that the diffusion of the Bantu languages could be linked to that of iron metallurgy. Yet from a purely linguistic point of view, the only indications of metallurgical knowledge by the Proto-Bantus are the reconstruction of terminology directly related to metallurgical techniques, reconstructions made on the basis of words gathered from the ensemble of present-day Bantu languages.

It is thusly that Guthrie was able to reconstruct certain terms such as: “iron,” “forge,” “hammer,” and “bellows,” which led him to the conclusion, as expressed in his last article on the subject, that “the speakers of the proto–language probably knew how to forge iron before the Bantu dispersion began.”

A conclusion of such historic import, however, was based on only a few words, the reconstructions and the original meanings of which were often confused. It therefore becomes necessary to re-examine on a larger scale the vocabulary related to metallurgy in the Bantu languages.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 4 , 1977 , pp. 43 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1977

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References

Notes

1. See, for instance, Oliver, R., “The Problem of Bantu Expansion,” JAR, 7(1966), pp. 361–76Google Scholar; Posnansky, M., “Bantu Genesis: Archaeological Reflections,” JAH, 9(1968), pp. 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hiernaux, J., “Bantu Expansion: The Evidence from Physical Anthropology Confronted with Linguistic and Archaeological Evidence,” JAH, 9(1968), pp. 505–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Huffman, T., “The Early Iron Age and the Spread of the Bantu,” South African Archaeological Bulletin, 25(1970), pp. 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark, J. Desmond, The Prehistory of Africa, (London, 1970), p. 216Google Scholaret passim.

2. Malcolm Guthrie distinguishes an original proto-Bantu language (PB-X), followed by a separation into western (PB-A) and eastern proto-Bantu dialects. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu (4 vols.: Farnborough, 1967-1971), 1, p. 89.Google Scholar

3. Guthrie, , “Contributions from Comparative Bantu to the Study of African Prehistory,” in Dalby, David, ed., Language and History in Africa (London, 1970), p. 29.Google Scholar

4. The systematic analysis of the ethnological, technical, and linguistic data relating to metallurgy in Africa by P. de Maret is in process at the Musée royale de l'Afrique centrale in Tervuren, Belgium.

5. Bastin, Y., Bibliographie bantoue sélective (Tervuren, 1975).Google Scholar The lexical data that have been utilized are unequal and lack semantic precision, especially for a field as specialized as metallurgy. See, too, the bibliography in de Maret, P., “Le forgeron dans le monde bantu--statut, technique et symbolisme,” Mémoire de license, Université libre de Bruxelles, 1973.Google Scholar

6. In Bantu linguistics Guthrie's designations for the various languages are generally used. These are composed of a letter representing a linguistic zone within which each language carries a particular number. In certain cases the classification used here (which is that of the Lolemi program at Tervuren) differs from Guthrie's. This is especially true for Zone J, which regroups the languages classed by Guthrie in Zones D and E. See Bastin, Bibliographie, and the appendix herewith.

7. Coupez, A., Evrard, E., and Vansina, J., “Classification d'une échantillon de langues bantoues d'aprés la lexicostatistique,” Africana Linguistica 6(1975), pp. 131–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows that the northwestern languages must have separated very early whereas the mass of Bantu languages remained unified for a longer period in the region of the Great Lakes of southeastern Zaire and Zambia. It is from this area that the languages diffused to their present locations.

8. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu, 1, p. 212.Google Scholar In the present paper the data of Guthrie have been systematically completed by adding new data and it is this new, larger corpus which is discussed.

9. Although a shift from “to cut” toward “iron” would explain why in Rundi (J62) the stem in class 11 was used for “chipped stone hoe” rather than for a metal one.

10. A root that could itself be related to that for “moonlight” or “moon.”

11. A33 -kedi, something that shines; B76 -mwelo, the whiteness; B93 -akεkεdy, to shine; K14 -kéjin, to shine (relating to iron), or to sparkle (relating to glass); K11 -keji, white.

12. Johnston, Harry H., A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages (2 vols.: Oxford, 1922), 2, p. 330n1.Google Scholar

13. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu,1, pp. 138–9Google Scholar; 2, p. 86.

14. Ibid., 1, p. 124.

15. de Wolf, P., The Noun Class System of Proto-Benue-Congo (Paris, 1971), p. 54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu, 4, p. 206.Google Scholar

17. Ibid, 1, p. 124.

18. Meeussen, A., Bantu Lexical Reconstructions (Tervuren, 1969).Google Scholar

19. Grégoire, C., Les Locatifs en Bantou (Tervuren, 1975), p. 140.Google Scholar

20. Wolf, De, Noun Class System, p. 51.Google Scholar

21. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu, 1, p. 124.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., 1, p. 122, and topogram 19, ibid., 1, p. 132.

23. It should also be compared with “mortar” reconstructed as *-dudo in proto-Benue-Congo. De Wolf, , Noun Class System, p. 57.Google Scholar

24. See note 18.

25. Maquet, E., Outils de forge du Congo, du Rwanda et du Burundi (Tervuren, 1965), p. 6et passim.Google Scholar

26. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu, 4, p. 208.Google Scholar

27. Mukarovsky, H.G., “Kissi und Bantu,” Archiv für Volkerkunde, 13(1958), p. 162.Google Scholar

28. Mukarovsky, H.G., Die Grundlagen des Ful und das Mauretan-isahe (Vienna, 1963), p. 37.Google Scholar

29. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu, 2, p. 238.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., 2, p. 29.

31. Meeussen, Bantu Lexical Reconstructions.

32. Mukarovsky, , “Kissi und Bantu,” p. 162.Google ScholarDoneux, J.L., “Hypothèse pour la comparative des langues atlantiques,” Africana Linguistica, 6(1975), pp. 41–129CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows the proximate relationship between Atlantic proto-language and proto-Benue-Congo. However, from the examples given for “to forge,” it seems that *-tap can be reconstructed, for which the authors noted an attestation in Diola. If this reconstruction is accepted it would imply a clear difference for these words between the two proto-languages.

33. Leo Frobenius and von Wilm, R., “Atlas Africanus. Belege zur Morphologie der afrikanischen Kultur,” Auftrage des Forschungs-Instituts für Kulturmorphologie, 1(1921), p. 4.Google Scholar See also Cline, W., Mining and Metallurgy in Negro Africa (Menasha, 1937), pp. 102–08.Google Scholar

34. Johnston, , Comparative Study, 2, p. 334.Google Scholar

35. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu, 3, p. 25.Google Scholar

36. Bradshaw, A.T., “Vestiges of Portuguese in the Languages of Sierra Leone,” Sierra Leone Language Review, 4(1965), p. 20.Google Scholar Bradshaw refers here to Koelle, S.W., Polyglotta Africana (London, 1854), pp. 64–65.Google Scholar Johnston was doubtful about derivations from Portuguese because “this -paka root, nasalized as -panga, extends over all Bantu Africa, and is even found in the most recondite and isolated Bantu language, No. 151a of the Bahr-al-ghazal, [Homa or northern Ababua]. Even if this should be a fundamental Bantu root the possibility of the Portuguese term ‘faca’ being borrowed in some languages is not excluded. One wonders if perhaps the word was borrowed from Bantu by Portuguese; certainly the term is peculiar to Portuguese among Romance languages (it appears in Spanish only as a recent loan-word) and seems to have no plausible origin,” Johnston, , Comparative Studies, 2, p. 334.Google Scholar That the word was loaned from a Bantu language to Portuguese seems unlikely.

37. Generally speaking, the smelting of iron was the most specialized aspect of metallurgical activity and was also the first to disappear when contact with western techniques was established. This helps to explain the lack of readily accessible data.

38. The conclusions of this study, already announced in Nyame Akuma, No. 5(1974), pp. 36–37Google Scholar, seem largely confirmed by Dalby, D., “The Prehistory Implications of Guthrie's Comparative Bantu, II, Interpretation of Cultural Vocabulary,” JAH, 17(1976), pp. 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which appeared after the completion of this paper. The authors wish to thank Drs. A. Meeussen and A. Coupez as well as all the members of the Lolemi program for their aid and counsel.