The Pre-Industrial Architecture Of The Eastern Cape

Published: January 1, 2025

THE PRE-INDUSTRIAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE EASTERN CAPE

A Historical Survey

Franco Frescura

“Port Elizabeth … is much like a small, English sea-port town, and contains about 100 houses, exclusive of huts; … The town is said to have been chiefly raised by the sale of strong drink. " James Backhouse, December 1838.

INTRODUCTION

Few regions of southern Africa can equal the eastern Cape’s cultural heritage for either its richness or diversity. Over the past five hundred years numerous indigenous and immigrant groups have made this area their home, bringing with them a variety of cultures and economic activities. Although many of them have since passed on into local folklore or were simply absorbed by other groups, all have left their mark etched indelibly in the social and historical fabric of local society.

Originally Khoikhoi migrant pastoralists intermingled with San hunter gatherers and Xhosa pastoralist farmers. However, by the time the first white settlers reached this region during the mid-eighteenth century, we find that extensive intermarriage had taken place between these groups and that, in many cases, they had begun to adopt aspects of each other’s economic activities. Thus Khoikhoi farmers could be found alongside lands used by San migrant pastoralists whilst the Xhosa used the territory as far south as Plettenberg Bay for their cattle winter grazing.

The first whites to settle in this region arrived here by accident and misadventure rather than by design, being the survivors of shipwrecks which occurred on the eastern seaboard with almost predictable regularity from 1552 onwards. Many seamen, Portuguese, Dutch and English, found their way here thus and although some perished in attempts to return to their land, a considerable number remained behind, were adopted by indigenous groups, took local wives, fathered numerous children and generally prospered. A group of settlers who were similarly marooned on these shores but whom history has generally tended to ignore were the slaves brought over as cargo on these ships. They originated from parts of Malaya, India, China and central Africa and were often the first to find shelter among local tribes, a life of freedom in a foreign land being immeasurably preferable to a return to bondage.

During the latter half of the eighteenth century the Dutch settlement of the Cape spread eastwards, in the process making increasing inroads into the indigenous pastoral lands of the eastern Cape. Not unnaturally, their owners resented this and increasingly resisted such encroachment. As a result the first of a long series of periodic border clashes took place in 1779. The position was aggravated after 1820 with the arrival in the eastern Cape of successive waves of settlers originating from Britain and Germany whose intention was to bring stability to the region but whose presence ultimately made it necessary to garrison it on a permanent basis.

A final component vital to the cultural mix of the eastern Cape was the Christian missionaries who arrived here from 1803 onwards. They must have discovered the region to be singularly godless for, over the next century, they established close on two hundred stations in this area alone. Although their activities were intended to be primarily spiritual, they nonetheless prepared the way for the arrival of traders and, subsequently, government agents, both of who were to have profound long-term influences upon local culture (Frescura, 1985).

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Although the architecture of the eastern Cape may be considered to be a direct reflection of the cultural patterns of its inhabitants, their buildings have also responded to their physical surrounds. Few parts of the region have ever encouraged permanent human settlement, being generally given to prolonged droughts, periodic flash floods, seasonal high winds and spreading desertification. The Rev Vanderkemp who founded the missionary village of Bethelsdorp in 1803 came under severe criticism from his colleagues for not encouraging greater industry and agriculture in the settlement. Yet when it was visited by Campbell in 1813 this gentleman found that the ground was rocky, the water brackish, the population transient and conventional agriculture almost impossible. He concluded that:

“…it has a most miserable appearance as a village. The houses are mean, … The ground on which it stands is barren in the extreme, so that nothing green is to be seen near the houses … all this arises from the total want of good water … In consequence of the miserable appearance of the village, the settlers are by many people reported to be extremely indolent. " (Campbell, 1815)

In spite of this the settlements of man not only managed to survive but, in many cases, also flourished. The resultant architecture was invariably functional, seldom picturesque, and always endowed with a regional flavour distinct to the eastern Cape. More specifically the eastern Cape may be said to fall into three major climatic areas:

The equable, sub-tropical coastal region running in a narrow belt from Plettenberg Bay in the south through into the Transkei and Natal. This is a predominantly winter rainfall area characterised by large tracts of indigenous forest interspersed with savannah grasses.
The eastern plateau slopes running in a broad belt from the Burghersdorp-Cathcart region northwards into the Transkei. It is characterised by year-round rainfalls but is also liable to very low temperatures and severe frosts in the winter. Vegetation is a rich grassveld which tends to become sparse and is replaced with encroaching Karoo shrub as aridity increases towards the south.
The semi-arid plateau region running in a broad belt from Queenstown in the east through to Willowmore in the west and from the sub-tropical coastal region to the south northward into the western Orange Free State and northern Cape. It is characterised by low and unreliable rainfalls and great seasonal extremes of temperature. Vegetation is predominantly a Karoo or desert scrub with scant grass cover (Cole, 1961).

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

It is not easy to piece together a general picture of the architecture of the eastern Cape before the Difaqane. Because of the nature of the structures concerned, very little direct knowledge of indigenous architectural forms and building technologies has come down to the present day and much of what we do know is the direct result of archaeological research and interpretation. Unlike the historian, the architect is unable to draw upon the richness of local oral traditions to any great extent and thus much of the data at hand is open to many interpretations, some of these being conflicting. The major sources of early information available to us may be summed up as follows:

Archaeological reconstruction. Regrettably the amount of archaeological data available for this region is negligible.
The accounts of shipwreck survivors on the south-eastern African coastline.
The accounts of travellers into the region, which began to find publication in Europe during the first part of the eighteenth century and were to continue until the 1880s.
Field research into current building technologies and dwelling forms.

Ideally, the piecing together of a historical picture such as this should draw equally upon all three research components, archaeological, historical and current, in order to achieve greatest accuracy.

After the 1820’s the nature of data available to the architectural historian changes perceptibly. Archaeological sources play a decreasing role whilst greater reliance is made upon the writings of explorers, missionaries and settlers. The first was a small but distinguished group, often being men of letters and of means who came in the quest of knowledge, driven by a curiosity for new discoveries. Although their work of exploration overlapped and eventually merged with that of the missionaries, unlike them they came, saw, wrote, sketched and then returned to Europe. Missionary workers however came with the intent of establishing a permanent proselytizing presence in the region and what began as a small trickle at the turn of the last century became a veritable flood by the 1840s. Both these groups, explorers and missionaries alike, were generally well educated and highly eloquent, a fact testified to by the plethora of travel accounts and holy tomes which was subsequently to issue from their pens. It is largely to them that we owe our present knowledge of the architecture of the region at this time.

The third group, the settlers, was more concerned with the practical issues of survival in a land which was perceived to be alien and antagonistic to whites. Thus, although many of them were literate and some made small references in their journals to the architecture of the eastern Cape, their data usually only served to confirm what was already being published by other writers.

ESTABLISHING A GENERAL FRAMEWORK

Although a wide range of dwelling forms is known to have been built in southern Africa since prehistoric times, the pre- industrial architecture of the eastern Cape was dominated by two major dwelling types. Essentially similar in form, they nonetheless represent radically differing economic and cultural systems and, as such, were identified with diverse geographical regions.

The mat beehive dwelling was identified with the migrant pastoralist Khoikhoi and was built in an area which originally encompassed the major part of the Cape and southern OFS. By the early 1800s the rapid expansion of white settlement from the south had reduced it into three small enclaves: the north-western Cape or Namaqualand, the north-central Cape, and the Eastern Province. By 1925 only the architectural traditions of Namaqualand had survived, albeit in a much altered form.
The grass beehive dwelling was identified with Xhosa pastoralist farmers who originally inhabited the eastern Cape’s coastal belt. This area has undergone a steady reduction in size since the end of the nineteenth century when the growth of major population centers began to place increasing stress upon the rural environment, its economy and traditional social structures. As a result beehive structures began to be replaced by a cone on cylinder technology from the 1880s onwards and today only survive as initiation huts in parts of the southern Transkei.

It must also be borne in mind that hunter-gatherer San are also known to have inhabited the interior of the eastern Cape and are recorded, at times, to have employed mat dwellings very similar in nature to the Khoikhoi. Regrettably, because of the nature of their activities, relatively little is known of their architecture beyond a meagre stock of reports by nineteenth century travellers made at a time when the San were on the point of extinction in this region.

It will be seen therefore that the eastern Cape represents an area of cultural and economic overlap between Khoikhoi pastoralists and Xhosa farmers. Although their respective beehive building techniques appear outwardly to have been homogeneous, it is probable that a variety of technologies existed contemporarily in this region. Regrettably, because of the changing nature of its economic activity, neither beehive tradition survived the combined cultural, religious, military and material onslaught of immigrant whites.

THE MIGRANT PASTORALIST BEEHIVE REGION

This area originally encompassed the major part of present-day Cape Province up to southern Namibia, the northern central Cape, the southern Orange Free State highveld and the eastern Cape, although it is possible that migrant pastoralist farmers from this region may, at one time, have extended their activities up to the KiGariep or Vaal River.

As its name suggests, this is an area where beehive structures were built extensively and, at one time, were probably its predominant domestic form. However, an important component of the architectural make-up of this region is the economic system practiced by its inhabitants before 1800. Thus we find that although a small number of different dwelling types are known to have existed here, they all have in common the fact that they were either impermanent or transportable, a factor of migrant pastoralist society. Travellers commonly associated the mat beehive form with the migrant pastoralist Khoikhoi whilst the mat shelter was attributed to the hunter-gatherer San.

The indigenous dwellings of the region may be described under the following headings:

Temporary or primitive shelter. This could take the form of an unmodified cave or rock overhang, or a series of bushes in their natural state, their boughs bent inward and tied at a common apex, described by Lichtenstein as “an immense bird’s nest.” (1812 and 1815)
Transportable matting shelter. This was described by Barrow in c1797 as:

“…a small grass-mat bent into a semicircle, and fastened down between two sticks; open before, but closed behind with a second mat. They were about three feet high and four feet wide and the ground in the middle was dug out like the nest of an ostrich … One of these miserable huts served for a whole family. " (1801 and 1804)

The painting by Daniell of a similar structure in c1804 (1820) shows that the second mat Barrow refers to did not so much close the tunnel as create a wind shelter at the back for the residents. The work of other authors reveals that both the vaulted mat and the rear wind-break could be used independently of the other. The whole structure could be disassembled and taken to the site of the group’s next settlement. Although the San are normally associated with this type of shelter, the Khoikhoi are also known to have built similar if not identical structures.

Transportable beehive dwellings. A sapling structure was planted into the ground in a circle or oval of 3 to 4m in diameter and covered over with reed matting tied down with grass ropes. Animal skins could also be used instead of mats, but these were normally reserved for the lower skirt of the hut where this more flexible material was better able to seal off the hard edge with the ground. The doorway could be repositioned by the simple expedient of redistributing the matting. The height of the average beehive dome does not seem to have exceeded 1.2 to 1.5m, but, in some cases, the interior head-height was improved by partly excavating the hut floor. However it appears that the dwelling of a headman or chief was built to more generous dimensions. Campbell recorded in 1813 that Cornelius Kok’s dwellings at Silverfontein, in Namaqualand, were “much larger, so that a person can walk about them. " (1815)

However not all Khoi residences may have been circular in plan. As early as 1775 Sparrman originated the idea that some may have been oblong (1975) or oval.

Judging from a description given by Campbell (1815) in 1813, it appears that under certain circumstances, some parts of the beehive mat structure may have been used to provide the equivalent of a dismountable matting shelter. It would seem therefore that these two types of dwelling may have been interchangeable or even designed to be part of one and the same system.

The earliest records of beehive mat dwellings may be found in the accounts of survivors of the Santo Alberto, a Portuguese slaver which was wrecked on the east coast of southern African somewhere between Algoa Bay and the Buffalo River in 1593. Soon after the survivors began their journey north they encountered a group of agrarian pastoralists who may have been Xhosa but whose residences were round and low and covered with reed mats which were not proof against the rain, a description which matches that of the architecture of the Khoikhoi (Theal, 1927). Although this may well be viewed as the documentation of an early case of Xhosa-Khoi cross-cultural pollination, it is far more likely to illustrate the large degree of overlap and even interchangeability which is thought to have existed between the migrant pastoralist and agrarian pastoralist economies of that region.

The Cottage Dwelling. This is a domestic form which originated in the European “long house” tradition and came to be associated with white farmer and missionary settlement from the seventeenth through to the early part of the twentieth centuries. As such then it is also closely related to the development of a Cape Dutch architectural tradition. Although there are a number of documented cases where the indigenous construction of cottage dwellings took place from as early as 1775, it was found that this usually occurred at the instigation or under the guidance of missionaries. The structure was usually based upon a rectangular plan, having one or two rooms, and the roof was either hipped or gable ended. Entrance was gained through the long or eaves end of the building.
The Flat Roofed Parapet Dwelling. This is a residential form whose plan is based upon the Cape Cottage or “long house " tradition described above. Its origins may be traced back to Cape Town as early as 1717 although, during the next two hundred years, it also become associated with a number of different urban as well as rural environments further inland. However its spread into the local vernacular does not appear to have taken place until somewhat later. Sparrman, who in 1775 visited a Khoi settlement in the Outeniquas, noted that, apart from the usual beehive dwellings associated with this group, others structures “were built of straw in square form, with shelving roofs, like the cottages of the slaves. " (1975)

This is probably one of the earliest references to the use of a flat roofed cottage by Khoikhoi farmers although reports of such dwellings in an indigenous context only become more common after 1800. Most coincide with the establishment of mission stations such as Genadendal, Bethelsdorp, Sak River, Pella, Hardcastle and Griquatown. It becomes obvious therefore that the question of dwelling form at this time also becomes interlinked with issues of religious proselytizing, technological expertise and security of land tenure and must be considered in social and economic as well as cultural and aesthetic terms.

Although this dwelling form is largely associated with the interior of southern Africa, a few examples are also known to have been built in the eastern Cape, mostly in the larger urban areas. Its spread during the latter half of the nineteenth century was facilitated to a large extent by the introduction, in the early 1860s, of corrugated iron sheeting imported from Britain. The adoption of corrugated iron into black rural architecture was not immediate. Very little of it is evident in the photography of Duggan-Cronin in the 1920s and the 1930s and it only emerges as a force in indigenous building from about the 1940s onwards.

Mention should also be made of the fact that, since the early 1970s, the flat-roofed dwelling has become associated with the emergence of squatter settlements about southern Africa’s major urban and industrial areas. The basic lean-to shelter is quick and economical to erect and its modular nature lends itself to the core-house principle.

The Kapsteilhuis and the Hardbieshuis. The exact origins of the kapsteilhuis and the somewhat similar hardbieshuis are not known, but records have shown that their construction was known in the vicinity of Cape Town as early as the 1680s (Cape Archives). This would seem to confirm their immigrant, and probably Dutch, roots. They appears to have been popular among farmers during the early years of European settlement at the Cape, probably serving as temporary dwellings or produce sheds. By the 1840s their use had spread to the Khoi on Cape mission stations as well as missionaries and settlers further inland. Backhouse noted in 1839 that, in at least one instance at Groenekloof, the kapsteilhuis appeared to be serving an interim or transitionary function amongst Khoikhoi families who were in the process of evolving from traditional mat beehive structures to a more conventional cottage aesthetic (Backhouse, 1844).

The use of this structure however was not limited to the Dutch or the Khoi. Lewcock states that the English settlers of the 1820s employed it as an interim shelter in the eastern Cape (1963), while Lord and Baines in 1876 wrote that “The hartebeeste hut … mostly used by colonial (Khoikhoi), is simple and easy enough to make. It has one straight side, and one lean-to … " (1876)

The interrelationship existing between the indigenous Khoikhoi and immigrant Dutch farmers is well illustrated by the fact that the hardbieshuis was also to become identified with the trekboer movement into the OFS and Natal from the 1840s onwards, whilst at the same time becoming integrated into the Cape stereotype of Griqua and Koranna architecture. They continued to be built by Griqua farmers well into the 1870s and, in some isolated instances, possibly even later.

Various other structures of a domestic nature are also known to have been built in the region during this time. De Beaulieu recorded in 1620 that some of the indigenous inhabitants of Table Bay “had no shelter other than bushes and some skins stretched on two crossed sticks, with another in the middle to thrust in to the ground like a parasol, … " (Raven-Hart, 1957)

In 1775 Sparrman visited the homestead of the Khoi headman Rundganger in the Riet Valley whose dwelling was built “so that altogether it had the shape of a cone.” (1975).

The structure was “three or four times larger than common “, and in view of the fact that Rundganger is known to have visited the southern African interior on numerous occasions previously, it is probable this construction was inspired by the cone on cylinder residences he must have observed inland.

Before 1820 the architectural picture of this region is therefore not a difficult one to describe, with the Khoikhoi beehive being almost universally built throughout from the 1550s through to the end of the eighteenth century. Although this dwelling form was to remain dominant here for yet another generation or two, by the end of that period the process of alienation of the Khoikhoi from their traditional grazing lands, their means of subsistence and hence also their architecture, was well advanced.

By the beginning of the Difaqane in 1822 the last of the migrant pastoralists had been driven to arid and more uninhabitable fringes of the region. Those Khoi who remained within the boundaries of the Cape no longer built beehive structures as of old but in many cases followed the example of local farmers and of missionaries and built kapsteilhuise, hardbieshuise and square plan cottages as part of an established economic cycle. Such examples were recorded at Groene Kloof (Mamre), Wupperthal, Zuurbraak, Shiloh, the Kat River settlement area and Griquatown to name but a few. It is also worthwhile to note that all of the above locations were also mission stations. The correlation in this case between dwelling form and missionary activity is therefore unmistakable.

Although the mat-covered beehive was, by now, firmly established in the public mind as a Khoikhoi architectural stereotype, these were now built mostly on the fringes of the Cape Colony, including Philippi and Shiloh in the eastern Cape.

Little is known of the San and their movements in the eastern Cape during this time and thus their matting shelters fade forever from the architectural picture of this area.

After the 1820s the historical architecture of this region virtually disappears. Scattered examples of mat structures or maantje huise, as they were now called, were still being built, but not as frequently as before. In the eastern Cape, Baines reported that some could be found at Seymour in 1848 (1961 and 1964) whilst Dower stated that Griqua immigrants into the Mount Currie area were using them there as late as 1869 (1902).

Hardbieshuise and kapsteilhuise were both being built by some Khoi during this period and Baines recorded a number at Shiloh mission station in 1848 (1961 and 1964). It is not known exactly when these dwelling forms began to be regarded as archaic and ceased to be built by the indigenous inhabitants of this region, but their mention in the accounts of travelers ceases soon thereafter.

THE EASTERN LITTORAL BEEHIVE REGION

This region is fairly widespread, running the full length of the southern African eastern littoral from Swaziland in the north to the Great Fish River in the south, although it is possible that it once may have stretched as far as Algoa Bay.

Although up to comparatively recent times the architecture of this region was overwhelmingly orientated towards the grass-thatched hemispherical dome, its technology was by no means homogeneous. Indeed, a number of interesting variants on the theme of the basic dwelling are thought to have developed. Unfortunately a scarcity of historical data makes it difficult to determine with any certainty whether these were examples of a typical regional stereotype, whether they were associated with some kind of group identity or whether they were unique unto themselves. It is however important to differentiate between the grass-covered hemispherical domes of this region and the mat-covered types found further south and west. The latter were temporary shelters, easily dismountable and transportable, more in the nature of tents than dwellings, and developed to meet the needs of a migrant society pursuing a pastoralist economy. The former were permanent and of substantial construction, designed to last for a number of years and although theoretically portable, seldom moved over any considerable distances. The people who built them were agrarian pastoralists with strong ties to their planting lands and although the removal of a household from one location to the next was by no means unknown, their settlements were of a generally more permanent nature. The implications of this are most important from a historical point of view: migrant settlement, by its very nature, has tended to leave behind few interpretable traces of its architecture; early agrarian settlement on the other hand tends to etch its presence somewhat more markedly upon the land it covers, although even such evidence is often too scanty to be conclusive.

The earliest evidence of hemispherical dome building found to date on the eastern littoral was documented by Maggs in the Tukela basin in Zululand (1980) where dwellings are thought to have consisted of a framework of saplings partly plastered over with clay. A carbon-dating analysis of their remains has set their date at about 600 AD. Further south however, the earliest domestic structures recorded were those reported by the survivors of the Santo Bento, shipwrecked in 1554 near the mouth of the Mtamvuma River, and by those of the Santo Joao Baptista, shipwrecked in 1622, who encountered what must have been Nguni settlements on the banks of the Bashee River (Theal, 1927).

Thereafter accounts of hemispherical dome dwellings in the eastern Cape become more common, reports being made by Le Vaillant in 1781 (1790), by Holtshausen’s party searching for survivors of the Grosvenor in 1790 (Theal, 1927), by Barrow in 1797 (1801 and 1804) and by Campbell in 1813 (1815). These are generally assumed to have been thatched in a more conventional grass technology but other building methods are also thought to have been in use at that time. Alberti writing in 1803 described the construction of a Xhosa hut as follows:

“…, thin poles of a pliable wood are stuck in the ground along the planned circumference at a distance of sixteen inches (400mm) from one another. These are bent together and joined in the middle to form a framework, which is then covered with reed, and finally faced with a mixture of clay and cowdung on both the inside and outside. "

He further tells us that:

“In the area which is further removed from the borders of the Colony, and where the tribes less often leave or change their abodes, these habitations are usually double in such a way that two huts stand opposite each other and enclose an intermediate space, apart from the inner chamber, which then serves as a sleeping place for the children as well as a storage place for many other requirements. " (Alberti, 1968)

This account was confirmed by Lichtenstein who traveled through this part of the country in the same party as Alberti in 1803. He also stated that “The spaces between the poles are filled up with twigs, or rather faggots and then the whole is covered over to a certain height with a mixture of clay and cow-dung, the remainder being thatched with rushes. " (1812 and 1815)

Judging from their respective accounts, both men were quite obviously describing the same kind of building technology, yet the resultant forms are quite different. Alberti’s would have presented a smooth hemispherical shape which, although feasible, would not have been too practical in terms of rainwater exclusion and internal smoke ventilation. Despite their probable structural shortcomings however, such dwellings must have quite obviously existed in this region at that time. Alberti’s description was supported by the accounts of both Von Winkelman in 1788 and Phillips in 1825, the latter claiming that the Thembu covered their huts with “mud and manure " in order to prevent their cattle from consuming the thatch. On the other hand, other authors writing in the same period, such as Vanderkemp in 1800 and Smith in 1824, are in agreement that it was only the inside surface of the dome which was coated with daka, the outside being thatched with grass.

Lichtenstein, in his turn, described a dwelling whose structure was substantially the same as those presented above but whose final form would have been somewhat different, possibly something like a squat mushroom. This was confirmed by Bonatz, who, writing in 1834, provided a description of Thembu and Mbo dwellings of a similar nature. After the 1850s, pictorial evidence of such dwellings becomes more readily available and continues through and well into this century.

During the Difaqane the architecture of this region becomes particularly difficult to assess. Not only was this a time which saw the large scale migration of populations, but their resettlement brought about extensive changes to the cultural map of southern Africa. Although the eastern Cape was not affected directly by invasions from the north, the Difaqane was responsible for the introduction of both Thembu and Mfengu refugees in the region. Also, increasing white settlement and an ensuing series of border clashes had the effect of forcing the Xhosa off what were essentially their winter grazing lands and pushing them back over the Great Fish River. Scattered hemispherical dome construction appears to have continued in this area, particularly in the vicinity of mission stations and newly established centres of urban growth.

The period immediately after the Difaqane was marked by a large influx of both missionaries and travellers into the eastern littoral beehive region. During the course of their journeys these men, and sometimes women, were able to document local architecture in some detail.

They found that the patterns of change established by the Difaqane continued at an increasing rate as, on the one hand, the region settled down to its new population distributions and tribal mix, and, on the other, contact with missionaries and other white settlers became more commonplace. The picture was also simplified to some degree by the disappearance of the migrant pastoralist mat dome tradition.

Although the eastern Cape as a whole was to remain the undisputed preserve of the beehive dwelling form up to the turn of the century, areas of change were already becoming evident in the 1840s and possibly even earlier. Ultimately, over the next four generations, the whole face of the built environment underwent a total transformation as the hemispherical dome gave way to the cone on cylinder.

It is difficult to determine today exactly what the mechanics of such change could have been. Certainly there is some evidence to show that the cone on cylinder was being used by both missionaries and military personnel in this region long before it was to become widely associated with local indigenous architecture. It is possible that missionaries at the Blinkwater station had built such dwellings as early as 1839 (Backhouse, 1844); and the military establishment at Umtata in c1862 had included one within its fortified earthworks whilst an entire village of them could be found outside it (Anonymous, 1932), but this in itself is not conclusive evidence. We also know that both the military and missionaries had a habit of borrowing existing indigenous forms and technologies to suit their own short-term needs, and it is therefore not impossible that this was precisely the case in the examples given above. When Baines visited Butterworth in 1851 he recorded that it consisted:

“…, besides the chapel and mission premises, of three or four thatched houses, a considerable number of huts - and rondheuvels, a kind of dwelling scarcely superior - and an immense kraal ...” (1961 and 1964)

It is therefore probable from this description that the cone on cylinder (or rondawel) form was by that time already an integral part of the local vocabulary of architecture.

The claim that the cone on cylinder is the indigenous product of this region is further supported by other sources. The hut form described by Lichtenstein in the southern Transkei in 1805, discussed earlier, could best be described as a dome raised on a drum or a cylinder (1812 and 1815). According to him, this type of dwelling was widespread further north, but this claim was not substantiated in other records until after the 1860s. These included reports from Wartburg in 1867, Ibeka Fort c1877, Gonubie in 1878 and King William’s Town in 1876. Thereafter its presence is supported by abundant documentation until the 1940s when its construction becomes less common.

The 1840 to 1925 era can therefore be seen to represent a period of decline and, ultimately, extinction for hemispherical grass dome dwellings. While their presence was reported on a regular basis by travellers from 1840 to 1860, by the 1880s very few of these structures appear to have been built. By the time Duggan-Cronin visited these districts in the late 1920s the “pure " beehive form had quite clearly been relegated, in local thinking, to the realms of the archaic and its construction associated with the practice of initiation rites (1939, 1949 and 1954). On the other hand the building of cone on cylinder structures appears to have begun at about the turn of the century and to have been well established by 1925. From the 1940s onwards those districts which, a century earlier, had been a stronghold of hemispherical grass dome technology, had crossed over to the cone on cylinder dwelling, a tradition which has been sustained through to the present day.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the eastern Cape could have laid claim to a degree of cultural homogeneity during the early part of the nineteenth century, the pastoral nature of Khoi society and the fragmented political system of Xhosa-speakers effectively encouraged the large scale infiltration of this area by white settlers, missionaries and traders. These groups shared in the mutual objective of bringing about radical changes in indigenous economic patterns and, at least in the case of missionaries, made a point of encouraging alterations in local architectural styles. Although their degree of success in this self-appointed task is debatable, there is no doubt that their presence, the imposition of a hut tax, and the spread of urbanisation in later years were all to wreak havoc in the people’s traditional value systems, thereby paving the way for subsequent changes in local architectural practices.

This work was strengthened by a growing availability of modern roofing materials, such as corrugated iron sheeting, and the spread, through the agency of missionary trade schools, immigrant farmers and a growing migrant labour system, of new roof and wall building technologies. The resultant mix of traditional and immigrant building techniques enriched the architectural tradition of the eastern Cape and gave its vocabulary greater depth and variety of expression.

POSTSCRIPT

This paper was published in a book entitled “ Introducing Architecture ”. (Frescura, Franco. 1989. The Pre-Industrial Architecture of the Eastern Cape. “ Introducing Architecture ”, Editor Gavin McLachlan. Port Elizabeth: Eastern Cape Heritage Committee, 1989. 16-31)

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