Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (3.1976/1979)

NOTES ON THE AFRICAN SPADE
By
O. F. Raum

Dr.O.F.Raum, author of the article “The
Culture Historical Significance of the Xhosa
Spade” in Tools and Tillage vol. Ill: 2, 1977
p. 99-110 has sent the following note on spades
in their various forms. The note is, as he says,
culled from the literature and does not repre-
sent an independent piece of research, hut per-
haps it contains references which are unknown
to the readers and may inspire others to have a
closer look at the simple agricultural tools
which does not necessarily mean that the tilling
processes were simple.
In response to Grith Lerche’s appeal (Lerche
121) to collect and collate information on
wooden spades I submit the following list
which could, I am sure, be extended. It is
perhaps advisable to distinguish between
double paddle spades with a long handle and
dumbbell-shaped spadoons. The former is
worked in a standing position, the latter in a
squatting one.1 For purposes of comparison
tools which resemble paddle spades and
dumbbell spadoons even if they are not of
wood and of one piece are also included.
In my 1977 article the spadoon has been
noted among Xhosa, Thembu and Zulu who
are classed by ethnologists among the South-
eastern Bantu. Its use among Kalahari, Ambo
and Damara was also listed; they live in
southwestern Africa. However double pad-
dle-spades and dumbbell-spadoons are also
known in Eastern Africa. Placing the evidence
H. Baumann gathered in 1940 and 1944 to-
gether and noting some additional occurren-
ces we find, proceeding from south to north,
the following instances:

Lozi (?), Zambia: “The women plough (sic)
with a short spade of native manufacture”
(Decle 160; Turner, 22).
Nyanja, Malawi: used a digging stick of
bamboo as substitute for hoes; presumably
this tool resembled a scooped spade (Werner
181).
Pogoro, Tanzania: used a shovel-like tool
for tilling; a similar tool from Mahenge dis-
trict was called chipandu (spade) and was of
ebony or grenadilla wood. “This only agricul-
tural tool” was dumb-bell like in shape. Its
illustration (cf. Tools and Tillage 1977, p. 101
fig. 2) is strongly reminiscent of the Nguni
u-hlakulo (Baumann 1944, 252 nr. 8; Berlin).
Makonde and Rovuma, Tanzania are men-
tioned by Werth (128 f) as representing the
transition from digging stick to spade proper;
their tool had a narrow blade or a point insert-
ed or pronged into the handle. Werth credits
the Ruanda, an ethnically quite distinct peo-
ple, with a similar tool.
Burungi employed a kind of wooden scoop
(Grabscheit) (Kannenberg).
Nyaturu, Tanzania used a double pad-
dle-spade for making seed holes for millet and
covering it in (Sick). The diagram in Reche
(33) shows what is called a Saestock with two
blades, ca. 1.60 m long.
Chagga, Tanzania had a flat, sharp-edged
spadoon (Grabscheit). It was used to dig up
colocasia and yams (taro) (Holst after Volkens
238). The worker was in a hunched position.
This tool was quite distinct from the stone-
weighted digging stick called kisimany which
Gutmann (1926, 660f) derives from the San
(Bushmen); it is more likely linked to a similar