Zaramo Sculptor Salum Chuma

Fadhili S. Mshana

Zaramo Master carver Salum Ali Chuma is creative and pro-lific. His skillful work reveals his status as a great sculptor, and his defined ethnic and cultural identity among Tanzanian artists. An in-formed grasp of issues related to art and culture also attests to this position. Chuma's reputation is largely the result of his highly developed creativity, inspired by years of enriching dialogue among fel-low creative artists in Tanzania. As well, his invigorating artistic ideas and knowledge of traditional forms appear to be generated by ex-tended stimulating and effective interactions with patrons and other individuals.

In the 1960s and early 1970s Chuma worked in Dar-es-Sa-laam among the renowned Makonde and Zaramo carvers under Mohamed Peera's patronage.2 Among this group of esteemed male carvers Chuma had to grapple with the subject and realities of his art and ethnic identity. Long recognized as original, inventive, and skilled, Makonde carvers enjoyed immense prestige over other carvers in Tanzania. Their fame is attributable to their carving skills, which are linked to a long sculptural tradition in the Makonde homeland In Mozambique. Political, economic, and social conditions in Mozambique in the 1950s led to large movements of the Makonde into Tanzania. These migrating Makonde carvers not only honed their carving skills in Tanzania, but developed the well-known carving style of their modern works (Kom 1974:9). Other Makonde carvers, however, were introduced to the art of carving in Tanzania.

In Tanzania the Zaramo were rated as second to the Makonde, basically because of skill. Even today, Makonde sculpture and its creator are given more attention than Zaramo sculpture. Hence, the latter artists have been left at the margins.3 Makonde artists are ad-equately illustrated in the literature including Stout (1966), Korn (1974), Grand Rapids Public Museum (1976), Hays (1977), Kasfir (1980), MoMA, Oxford (1989), Association Francaise d'Action Arstistique (1989), Mohl (1990) and Kingdon (1996). Though Chuma was identified with the modern Makonde styles at some stage of his long successful career, he is yet to be discussed as a Zaramo artist.

This state of affairs, however, has not discouraged Chuma. He strove early on to develop his an to high levels, thereby estab-lishing himself as a distinguished Tanzanian wood sculptor. Within Zaramo carving circles, his compatriots have often compared him with Makonde artists, remarking: "La, yule bwana kwa kweli Mungu amemjalia--ni hadari, anachonga kupita Wamahonde.4 Here, the Makonde are taken as the yardstick in carving excellence in Tanza-nia, even as the Zaramo rate their own as a superior artist. Aware of the implicit concession of superiority to the Makonde, Chuma ob-serves that he would have been happier had his fellow Zaramo art-ists remarked that he has no equal among the Zaramo. Even though some Makonde carvers acknowledge that he surpasses them in carv-ing, this comparative reference frame irks Chuma who strongly emphasizes his Zaramo identity. He wants to be recognized as a Zaramo artist, not as a Makonde artist, in spite of the potential for fame in being perceived as a Makonde artist or being associated with the widely recognized Makonde sculptural style.

In this essay, I will explore the issues of creativity, cultural identity, and history that is central to Chuma's sculptural work. In considering his identity both as a Zaramo and as a wood sculptor, I will ascertain his views and experiences in art production as well as the historical, social, and cultural dimensions of his products.5

Chuma was born in 1942 at Chang'ombe Chamfuru village in Kisarawe district to the south-west of Dar-es-Salaam city. He re-ceived his primary education at Kazimzumbwi primary school. In 1956, at the age of fourteen, he revealed his interest in carving when he began to learn to sculpt under the guidance of his grandfather Salum Chuma, who also lived at Chang'ombe. Chuma's grandfa-ther made traditional household items. They carved together after school. In 1960 he left his grandfather and joined other carving groups such as the Makonde who carved in a variety of styles. Pelrine (1991:139) reports that having recognized his son's talents, the "fa-ther sent him to study with a carver in Boga." Here, Chuma moved from the softwoods he had used with his grandfather to hardwoods. His teacher was Selemani Nassoro Dendogo who, according to Chuma, still carves in the traditional Zaramo style.

In 1963 Chuma joined Mohamed Peera's workshop. Peera had a curio shop on Acacia, now Samora Avenue in the tourist and commercial district of the city. Chuma first worked at Peera's work-shop at Simba Plastics in the Chang' ombe industrial area of Dar-es--Salaam. In 1970 Chuma and the other carvers working for the dealer moved to the yard of Peera's large business warehouse in Chang'ombe. This later housed the Handcrafts Marketing Corpora-tion (HANDICO) under SIDO, a government parastatal.

Peera's business was nationalized by the government in 1970 in line with the ujamaa (socialism) policies. The aim was to control the profitable trade in wood carvings and minimize the exploitation of sculptors by middlemen such as Peera (Kasfir 1980:68). Peera was subsequently appointed first manager of the company, then called National Arts of Tanzania (N.A.T). It is at these premises that the artist is still based. When Sidney Kasfir conducted her research in 1970, about thirty-five of the best Makonde carvers and ten Zaramo were working for Peera.6

Apart from exhibiting his work at the Saba Saba Annual Trade Fairs, at the Kilimanjaro Hotel and Africana Hotel in Dar-es-Salaam, Chuma has visited several countries in Europe to conduct carving workshops and exhibit his work. These are: Germany in 1974, where he stayed for eighteen months; and in Yugoslavia in 1979 and 1982, where he spent four months in each of the years. In 1993 he visited Sweden for eight months, and England for another three months. Serving also as study tours for the artist, these visits were not self-funded. Rather, since Chuma represented the country, most of these were supported by the government or its agencies.

Having seen Chuma's rise to national and international prominence, and before I examine his carving relationship with Peera, whom the artist sees as the person who helped him the most in his career, I shall briefly trace the history of Zaramo carving tradition. My aim is to situate Chuma within a relatively long tradition, which though not as colorful as the Makonde, nonetheless deserves a place in an historical accounts. I am not so much concerned with tracing a line of artistic origin as with the Zaramo tradition's transformations upon which connections can plausibly be unfolded and understood. In this sense, this historical overview may in part explain why most of Zaramo sculptors willingly reproduce the same forms, a practice shunned by other groups such as the Makonde (Kasfir, 1980; Chuma, interview 1997) and which many take to be a negation of individual creativity. This is not to say that the tradition has not been dealt with, but the treatment has generally been poor.

In 1942 the missionary of Maneromango, Walter Reckling, published an article on handcrafts in Uzaramo. In 1965 Lloyd Swantz conducted a study on the Zaramo. Marc Felix's 1990 book on rnwana hiti figurines, Diane Pelrine's 1991 study on Zaramo arts as well as Enrico Castelli's essay in Jahn (1994) all have information on Zaramo sculpture. Taking a different tack, Walter Elkan's 1958 article on the wood carving trade in East Africa provides insight into the histori-cal link between Zaramo and Kamba sculpture, stating the manner in which the former influenced the latter. None of these, however, provides a deep historical exegesis of the Zaramo carving tradition and its transformations, nor do they locate its roots at Konde in Uzaramo. As mentioned above, my focus here is on Chuma, hence I will deal at length with the history of the tradition in future publica-tions. Here I will provide only a frame to complement this discussion.

Within Tanzania, Zaramo cultural, political, and social life provide fertile ground for the use of carved objects. The traditional dances, rites of passage into adulthood, religious rituals, and politi-cal organizations, as well as family practices and values are some of the forces and contexts behind the production of the sculpture used in these domains. The carving tradition has been developing for a long period and is a vital link between these social institutions/prac-tices and the carved objects which form an integral part of Zaramo life. Kecskesi (1994:27) notes that it is possible the sculptural tradi-tions of the Zaramo, Kwere, and Makonde all had traditional roots. She submits, however, that there is not enough evidence to support this development idea since there is no written material from the eighteenth century or earlier. Kecskesi concludes that further con-jecture must await evidence from future archaeological research. She overlooks, however, oral literature as a source for providing answers.

Typically the Zaramo produced: carved dolls for tricking the bad spirit kinyarnkera, abstract forms such as rnwana hiti figu-rines for seclusion rites, embellished staffs for headmen called kome la phazi, elaborately patterned healing staffs called tambiko, posts used for hanging healing ritual paraphernalia, house posts and many other objects such as elaborately carved stools, thrones, flywisks (Figures 1 and 2), musical instruments (Figures 3 and 4) and beaded gourds with carved stoppers/dippers. Some of these incorporate carved human figures such as the rnwana hiti image, including a variety of carved grave figures and sculpted funerary markers manu-factured from the 1880s until today (Hartwig, 1978). A change has occurred regarding these wooden grave posts. Instead of the styl-ized examples depicting abstract rnwana hiti images at the top, those used today are naturalistic and portray the dead. The range of ob-jects mentioned here highlights the centrality of wood carving in Zaramo society.

Reliable information on Zaramo carving history relates it to the Mpilimo clan, and in particular to a man named Kolahili. Ac-cording to oral history, this clan lived at Konde in Uzaramo. Appar-ently, Kolahili was a talented carver who, having acquired these skills from his father, was commissioned to make objects for his society including those used by headmen. In light of this information, Dick- Read's (1964:43) assertion that the Zaramo carving tradition had no traditional base and began after World War I is misleading. The mis-representation must have come about because Dick-Read was either discounting traditional Zaramo sculpture or he did not know of its existence. Like the work of many Europeans artists of the period7 this dismissive attitude misrepresents Zaramo art and its basis in traditional Zaramo society. Its theoretical effect is that it hampers historical reconstruction and obscures the contribution of Zaramo artists to the carving tradition of the area and of other cultures they interacted with.

Prior to the First World War, the Lutheran Church opened a carpentry and crafts school in Dar-es-Salaam and Kisarawe which was reopened at Maneromango in 1926 (L. Swantz 1965:134). In addition to carpentry, the German missionaries introduced hardwood carving, but this development, however, should not be taken as the origins of Zaramo carving as Dick-Read did. In fact, Elkan (1958:314) states that Reckling introduced carving in the school to keep alive and foster the carving tradition of Kolahili. It is not ap-parent how benevolent this action was. According to Reckling (1942) they admired his work and had commissioned him on several occa-sions. Though impressed by Kolahili's carving they had ulterior motives: the missionaries took him to the school to teach Zaramo students who already had a background in carving.

Instead of carving for their Zaramo society, Kolahili and his students carved for the church and other groups on a commercial basis as orders were placed to them. Castelli (1994) asserts that the missionaries' strategy was geared towards initiating figural carv-ings for the foreign market at the mission and areas close to Dar-es-Salaam. But to what extent did the school stimulate creativity among these artists? Both Reckling and L. Swantz stated that missionary organized training did not influence the carvers' style. Yet Reckling would make corrections on proportions and lines which he felt were not in order. Pelrine (1991:132) emphasizes this when she writes that the carvers "were first taught by the missionaries to do carving in a relatively realistic style" which is manifest in today's produc-tion. Is this how the missionaries fostered local style? Swantz (1965) points out that Reckling invited a few Makonde sculptors as well, perhaps to inspire the Zaramo. It appears that these were strategies aimed to manipulate and influence the Maneromango carvers. This may explain why the Zaramo began to carve for sale outside of their society including to tourists beginning in the 1930s.

Once the Zaramo began to carve for others, their influence spread beyond Tanzanian borders to the Kamba of Kenya by way of the Kamba carver Mutisya Munge who served in the Carrier Corps in then Tanganyika (now Tanzania) during World War I. Munge collected Zaramo models, and upon returning to Kenya, took up carv-ing as a full-time occupation. Following Munge's efforts, a boom-ing trade in carvings developed at Wamunyu in Kenya. From the1950s on the Kamba, and later Indian traders, converged at Maneromango to purchase and ex-port blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon) carvings made by skilled Zaramo carvers and sold them in Dar-es-Salaam. Themes for these objects included wild animals such as elephants, lions, reptiles, and birds. From the 1960s on the themes included human figures such as Maasai figures, masks and heads, women carrying water-pots, peasants, elders, and so on. In this way, Kamba involvement with the carvings trade also contributed to the expansion of Zaramo carving.

The visual popularity of Zaramo sculpture in turn led to the move of Zaramo artists (including Chuma) to Dar-es-Salaam to carve. The shift enabled them to sell their work directly to the dealers or to customers instead of to the Kamba or other exploitive middlemen. Yet, it is claimed that the Zaramo do not have market strategies for their work (Pelrine, 1991 ) and prefer not to sell in the streets like the Kamba (Elkan, 1958). Pelrine and Elkan seem not to know the occurrence of this shift or its signifi-cance. It is clear that the move to Dar-es-Salaam was economic, and Chuma acknowledges that this applied to him and other so called "tourist carvers" in Dar-es-Salaam (Chuma, interview 1997), but there are other reasons for the move to the city.

It is important to look at patron Mohamed Peera's yard for insight into Chuma's artistic development, especially since the art-ist singles out the dealer as the one person who most profoundly encouraged him. Peera's engagement with a group of Makonde and Zaramo carvers from the 1950s to the early 1970s is already re-corded. Kasfir (1980) particularly sought to examine Peera's rela-tion with the carvers and their work to discern his influence in sty-listic shifts such as the evolution of the shetani style in modern Makonde sculpture. Because Makonde carvers occupy a central position in wood carving in Tanzania, the literature has mainly tended to ignore Zaramo carvers. As a result, Miller (1975) does not in-clude Chuma in her coverage of carvers working for Peera despite his locally recognized presence. Mohl (1990) does, however, though the catalogue is on Makonde masterpieces. Chuma questions this inclusion as there is a real danger of mistaken (ethnic) identity. Pelrine (1991) briefly mentioned the artist, although more should have been written given the subject of her study and Chuma's work.

According to Chuma, Peera let the carvers create on the basis of their skills and imagination. He would tell them what type of sculpture he wanted, thinking of what would sell, but he did not interfere with their creativity. The dealer did not suggest any stylis-tic innovations among them. It is clear, however, that Peera's pa-tronage was important to these artists and to the development of modern wood carving in Tanzania. Peera was not a sculpture teacher, but he could tell a good sculpture from a bad one. At the end of the day he had a practice of asking all his carvers to assemble and show him the best carving of the day. Since the carvers were paid for what they turned out, the creator of the best piece was paid twice as much of the agreed price. Peera would announce the price change at the gathering. The Makonde had the lion's share of these bonuses. In this way, Peera both sought and inspired the artists' best in creativity and thus influenced trends and styles.

Although Peera had the best of Zaramo and Makonde carv-ers, some well-known Makonde sculptors did not work in his work-shop. His arrangement was to supply the carvers with wood and pay them for the pieces he chose. The carver was then allowed to sell rejected works to anybody. Now, given the price of the logs and considering Peera's successful business and dealing connections, it was indeed a privilege to be linked to him. Chuma must have won Peera's confidence for he was assured that what he produced would be bought. Such encouragement must have been significant to Chuma in view of the intense competition among the sculptors to create good pieces that would sell. And, at the same time, their status among the group was also enhanced.

Certainly, Peera's inspiration and good advice have a place in Chuma's artistic development, but we should also consider the rich dialogue among these carvers in shaping individual works. These fertile interactions contributed to innovations among carvers, result-ing in the production of differing sculptural pieces even though the style Peera ordered was simply binadama.8 Success and exchange hinged for the most part on the carver's industry and the will to utilize such positive elements to enrich his work. In a nutshell, what Chuma was exposed to at the artists' workshop in conjunction with his overseas travels, enabled him to push away the boundaries set on his work and situate it in "a space of his own."

Chuma is self-employed and has never been engaged in any other occupation. He works for various patrons, including tourists. Occasionally he is commissioned by Zaramo women to carve rnwana hiti (Figure 5). Although he works in a cosmopolitan city, like most contemporary Africans, he has not severed ties with his village and traditions. Today, Zaramo carvers tend to specialize in certain types of sculptures, but this does not necessarily reflect mastery. Rather, this specialization can indicate the carver's limitations. Most make sculptures depicting wild animals with no variation on this theme. Chuma is among the few who work outside of this norm. Apart from the need to earn a living through carving, Chuma left his home dis-trict because he wanted to expand artistically. Having mastered carving within the limits of the local tradition, he felt the move to Peera's workshop offered new challenges and avenues for artistic expansion.

Regarding his creative process, Chuma emphatically asserts that he can carve anything he desires. Typically, the subject comes to him after he has seen the log. He prefers to carve the face of a human figure in the morning when he is fresh. Even when carv-ing standard types of sculptures, Chuma injects personal elements. For him, his creations have a distinct characteristic which facilitates recognition. This constitutes his carving signature. Chuma decries the trend of being driven by money to the point that the artist is caught up in copying the same types over and over. In his view, such practices stamp out the artist's inherent creative ideas. As one who survived Peera's pressure school, Chuma emphasizes originality. He believes that it is because of his individual creativity, hinged upon his quest to innovate and experiment with new forms, that he was recognized by the nation and has represented it abroad. There is much more Chuma envisages to accomplish in his art and his work continues to develop as he searches for new, challenging avenues of creativity.

 

Endnotes

1 I am grateful to Dr. N. Nzegwu for her pertinent comments on this paper and her editorial assistance. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the Sixth Annual Graduate Student Symposium on African Art, University of Iowa, Iowa City on March 16, 1997. Many thanks are due to the organizers as well as participants for an enriching conference.

2 Mohamed Peera was an Indian curio dealer. Kasfir (1980) points out that by 1970 Peera was the most successful in the trade in Dar-es-Salaam. According to Korn (1974:4), by 1953 Peera had established a carving workshop and supplied Makonde carvers with tools and wooden blocks as well as a steady market for their works. His profitable business also involved in sending carvings to department stores abroad.

3 The present author is not aware of any published profiles of Zaramo artists. As for visual material there are two short films: one features sculptor Kondo Mirambo.

4 This is the Kiswahili version of how Chuma was described by Zaramo carvers-- that he is highly gifted and carves better than the Makonde. (Salum Chuma, interview in Dar-es-Salaam, January 7, 1997).

5 These aspects are part of a large research project I am working on which focuses on Zaramo wood sculpture.

6 For a detailed account of Peera's patronage over these carvers see Sidney Kasfir;'Patronage and Maconde carvers." African Arts 13, no.3 (1980): 67-70,91-92.

7 Robert Dick-Read was a curio collector and art dealer.

8 Binadamu sculpture is primarily the genre type of figures described earlier in this paper.

 

Works Cited

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