Page 22 - FWG Issue 5 June 2024

Travel

To the left of the hilltop is an impressive reconstructed stone wall
structure; to the right is the main settlement. It gradually dawns on
us visitors that we’re looking at the king’s palace. This is where he
would have resided with his wives.

Walking around these ruins, we observe different partitions that
have been walled off: some were residential areas; others were
demarcated spaces for various activities. Pieces of pottery from
cooking and mixing pots show that this was a busy village.

Professor Delius says that in looking at the layout of the stone walls, Entrance to royal hilltop
one can see a clear distinction between the governing group who
lived on the hill and the population, who lived on the floodplain
and around the river down below.

Godfrey Baloyi lives and works in the Pafuri Triangle. His family
are direct descendants of the Makuleke clan. These are the people
who have lived in this region for centuries and can date their
descendants back to the time of Thulamela.

In 1969, the South African apartheid government forced the
Makuleke people to relocate to other areas of the Kruger Park. In
1996, the Makuleke submitted a land claim. Two years later, the land
was returned to them. They chose not to resettle on the land, but
rather, to re-use it as a concessionary conservation area.

Baloyi explains how special the area is: “This is a unique place
because it contains 75% of the Kruger Park’s biodiversity. Kruger
covers an area of 20 000 square metres, while Thulamela makes up Walled areas on-site
only 1% of the park – and yet 75% of the things that you see in the
park, you can only see here in Thulamela.” volumes of cotton were coming in from India and elsewhere. We’ve
found exotic cotton plants which are not indigenous, but we also
Thulamela existed for over 400 years. Trade was an integral part of discovered lots of iron needles and clay spindle wheels on site. This
life at Thulamela and trade networks extended though the interior evidence of weaving and sewing shows that at Thulamela people
of the continent to include Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and were growing and making cotton, not just importing it. The cotton
Central Africa. The trading system linked Thulamela not only to industry was flourishing here 800 years ago.”
neighbouring societies, but also to the world economy of the time.
The Makuleke were skilled artisans who forged gold and iron,
The lush floodplains of the Luvuvhu and Limpopo Rivers were the which were traded as currency in exchange for ivory, beads and
perfect farmland for these early traders, who were excellent at grain from merchants closer to the east coast.
growing crops and fishing. The Limpopo River was instrumental
in establishing Thulamela as an important trade route. From Various beads, such as glass beads and ostrich egg beads, and
Thulamela the river runs directly to the East African coast, where it glazed ceramics from the Middle East and India have been
empties into the Indian Ocean, thereby facilitating trade with both found at the Thulamela site, indicating international trade.
Arabic and Portuguese merchants. “Glass beads were never produced locally,” says Dr Forssman.
“We can tell this from conducting mineralogical studies of the
The people of Thulamela were trading primarily with East African glass. The glass and porcelain came from far across the ocean,
ports such as Chibuene – which is close to modern Vilanculos, as far as China.”
a coastal town in Mozambique – and, later on, Chiveve, which is
close to what is now modern Beira. These were important trading The trading system was dominated by the export of ivory as well as
ports that connected Thulamela to the whole Indian Ocean trading rhino horn, leopard skins and turtle shells. African ivory was sought
system. after because it was particularly good for carving into ornaments.

Thulamela was not only an important trading hub, it was also a Thulamela has not been fully excavated yet, but what the
well-used production site. Skilled workers would extract iron ore archaeological work shows so far is a mass of ivory goods and ivory
from nearby mines and convert it into iron for trading purposes. shavings, suggesting that this was a major arterial route. In 1770,
“People also worked with ivory, copper and more than 85 000kg of ivory was removed from this area – that’s
gold, and would cultivate cotton for making cloth. It was like a the equivalent of 2 000 elephants being killed.
huge production centre, which is not often the way we think about
African kingdoms,” says Professor Delius. Today the Pafuri area has an abundance of game, thanks to the staff
at Kruger Park and the Makulele people, who have gone to great
There is lots of evidence of cotton at Thulamela, he adds. “Huge lengths to protect the animals and the existing environment.

Fourways Gardens • 20 • June 2024