Marginalized Knowledge: An Agenda for Indigenous Knowledge Development and Integration with Other Forms of Knowledge

Early Kalahari trade

Wilmsen (1989) notes that from the 7^th to the 11^th centuries a large number of sites in the eastern Kalahari were established by pastoralists, the earliest containing ceramics similar to those distributed widely in Zimbabwe and the northern Transvaal by 600 AD. Iron and copper tools were abundant, most made locally. Cane glass beads made in India or Arabia and cowrie or conus shells, some from species living only in Indian Ocean estuaries were found at four of the largest sites. Divuyu in the Tsodilo Hills in the eastern Kalahari, occupied in the 6^th and 7^th centuries, is an early Iron Age site rich in ceramics, iron and copper tools and ornaments and ivory. Divuyu ceramics are similar in design to those contemporary in central Angola and Mandinga-Cayes near the mouth of the Congo river. Marine shells from the Atlantic ocean and two iron pendants, similar to some of the same age found in Shaba province, Congo were found at Divuyu. These archaeological finds provide evidence that during the first centuries AD the northern margins of what we refer to today as the Kalahari desert were already actively part of a wider sphere of production and exchange, extending throughout a large portion of the Angolan and Congo river systems. In these trade exchanges relatively small groups of Bantu speakers and Khoisan appear to have mixed on generally equal terms.

The largest site on which we find evidence of both crop growing and pastoral activities between 700 and 1000 AD in this part of the Kalahari is Nqoma, situated on a low plateau on what has become known as the female Tsodilo Hill.^viii An elaborate variety of iron, iron and copper ornaments, with many iron tools were made on the site. Cane glass beads and marine mollusc shells, including the money or ring cowrie provide evidence that Nqoma was an important centre in local intercontinental trade networks extending from the Indian coast by the 9^th century. Matlapaneng, north east of Maun was contemporary with Nqoma but while Matlapaneng was as large as Nqoma, it was not nearly as rich in ornaments or trade goods. Wilmsen writes that it appears an elite was established at Nqoma that was able to exercise sufficient hegemony over the inhabitants of secondary settlements to appropriate most imported goods (1989: 73). Local products possibly exchanged for ceramics would have included ivory, rhino horn, ostrich feathers and egg shells, gum Arabic, aromatic wood (Cape sandalwood, Spirostachys Africana), red dye woods (Pterocarpus angolensis) and limonitic red pigments. The pigments could have been the source for red slips on bowls and dishes and for the rock paintings at Tsodilo. Dye woods are known to have been prized trade items at least as early as the 16^th century when they were used in dressing leather goods. In addition, both pigments and woods are used o make cosmetics and are in demand for this purpose (Wilmsen, 1989: 75). Salt, ivory and cattle from the Lake Ngami area were probably traded with Angola/Congo and shells, metal and dried fish received in return.