Vapfuri Vemhangura – Limited Edition Print

Literally, iron smelters. Figuratively, the artisans of old Zimbabwean societies. The painting recalls craft, labour and innovation. It situates metallurgy as heritage, linking human creativity to elemental transformation. The Soko Vhudzijena clan are acknowledged as iron smelters who migrated from Hwedza, in their praise poem. The Lion Totem clan are also said to have migrated from Mutoko via Hwedza, to Chivi. It is believed that they may have been Soko people who changed their totem to Shumba for strategic purposes. Inspired by the history of our people’s migration during the spread of iron age farming from the north to the south of what is now Zimbabwe, three men leave the iron smelting scene, accompanied by a protective Chapungu, the Bateleur eagle.

Iron ore was broken up and placed in a smelting oven, together with charcoal. Air was pumped into the oven with goatskin bellows. When the heat in the oven reached a very high temperature, the iron leaked down to the bottom. When the iron cooled into a lump, the furnace was broken open. The iron, was then ready to be heated again and ‘smithed’ or hammered into tool shapes.
Neil Parsons, Focus on History Book 1, 1985 p52

“The clay furnace is in the shape of a womb and has symbolic breasts. Possession, dance and mbira music accompany the process.”
Gillian Atherstone & Duncan Wylie, Zimbabwe Art, Symbol and Meaning, p65