By Elliott Siamonga

THINK about the humble gourd, also called a pumpkin calabash.
Once you have scooped the flesh out, you are left with a thin rind which dries hard and watertight.
These calabashes and an assortment of other earthenware and wooden containers have become ideal in a remote place like Binga where there is a scarcity of bottles, cans or plastics.
The BaTonga carved different green gourds in intricate patterns, or they left them to dry out and different designs are painted onto them.
Different gourds seem ready made for different uses – snake gourds with long necks make excellent dippers and cups with the neck for a handle.
The large ones can store anything from powdered herbal medicines to special oils, and most of them take on a rich and beautiful dark brown shiny surface, especially if they have been smoked over a fire to discourage boring insects.
Gourds are used in Africa, and especially in Binga they are used in a profusion of shapes, sizes and functions.
According to the BaTonga elders, special gourds such as the ndombona smoking pipe and bottles are still used to this day, and what makes them distinct from other containers is how they are decorated and revered by their owners.
Elders say there are five special gourds and containers used for different purposes. These range from beer gourds, snuff bottles, herbal containers, preservation containers and special oil containers.
These are uniquely painted and decorated with beads to make them more sacrosanct.
Beer gourds (gate) are usually huge calabashes or earthenware pots used for the fermenting of traditional sorghum and millet traditional beer, BaTonga elders say these pots are not washed after the beer has been emptied as this increases the rich flavour of the brew.
They are also not allowed to be taken outside the hut.
The main calabash which ferments the first special brew is decorated with black, white, red and navy blue beads at the neck.
Only a selected few are allowed to touch it, similarly if it is an earthenware pot it is decorated and painted with similar colours at the neck.
The only people allowed near these pots are brewers, who in most cases are elderly women.
Snuff bottles (nhekwe) also come in different shapes and sizes and these are expertly crafted from special wood, or from tips of animal horns.
The horns used are from animal such as impala, cows and eland or the special ones are carved from ivory.
The bottles are also ornamented with special beads and other decorations depending on the owner’s taste.
Witchdoctors have special ones made from horn tips of sheep, goats or eland; these can also be used to store other herbal powders of traditional medicines and snuff. The special bottles are also used to protect homesteads where they are buried underground; usually at the entrance of huts or the Nganda (the BaTonga stilted huts).
These special bottles are loaded with different concoctions.
According to the BaTonga elders, herbal urns (Makona) are the most popular and each homestead has some kind of gourd or container which is specially crafted from a certain type of wood, horn or calabash, these are used to store certain traditional medicines.
The containers are heavily decorated in black, white and red beads, while similar paint colours are applied to calabashes and earthenware containers.
Special family herbs that are passed from generation to generation are kept in these containers which are hidden inside bedroom huts of elders or kept in caves or other sacred places such as family grave yards.
Those containers crafted from animal horns are buried underground at the family homestead, where they are perceived to protect the family from any form of evil that might befall it
For hundreds of years the BaTonga also valued food preservation, and to do this they had special containers made from goat skins that they used to preserve certain foods and medicines.
They also made bitter archer from roots of certain trees in these special skin containers.
The containers were also used for preserving traditional cheese and fermenting sour milk.
Goat and cattle herders as well as fishermen also used the containers as water bottles.
The leather containers were not only used by the BaTonga, but by other nomadic tribes in some parts of Southern Africa because of their durability.
Perhaps the most feared of all decorated containers among the BaTonga are oil containers commonly known as Chinu in Shona.
Elders said these bottles that are also made from materials ranging from gourds, animal horns and special mahogany wood are used to store special oils that are used for traditional purposes and as protective charms.
The containers usually small in size store fat that is boiled into oil.
The fats are derived from animals and reptiles such as lion, hyena, elephant and duiker while reptiles such as rock lizards, pythons, crocodiles and other small snakes are also squeezed for oil.
Each container is decorated with fur or skin from a respective animal or reptile whose oil is in the container.
BaTonga elders say these oil containers are used by traditional healers who store the oils for the treatment of the patients, while an ordinary family can use the oil container for their own other uses.
However, the more innovative BaTonga have also turned to decorating old beer and wine bottles that they are now selling to tourists in line with their old tradition of how much they valued containers, bottles and gourds.