A discussion of magic and medicines in East African iron working: actors and artefacts in technology

Abstract

Through an inquiry into locally constructed, pre‐industrial Tanzanian iron smelting practices this article looks beyond social representation of technologies and suggests a more nuanced perspective than the more familiar rituals of transformation and gendered procreative paradigm. It is demonstrated that among the Pangwa and Fipa peoples iron smelting symbolism was not merely a social representation of “something” else and of something of greater significance such as religion, economy and politics, rather there were no real distinctions between technology and other spheres of life; there was no (ontological) difference between humans and non humans. Drawing on inspiration from phenomenology and semantics, as well as Actor Network Theory, I will argue that among Fipa and Pangwa iron workers the use of magic and medicines, as well as an overall thermodynamic conception of the body, was transferred from personal and collective lived experience by metaphorical imagination to the iron smelting furnaces.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Permission to conduct fieldwork among the Fipa and Pangwa peoples was granted by research clearances from the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology and I acknowledge the assistance I have been given from Dr Seth Nyagava and Dr Felix Chami at Archaeology Unit, History Department, University of Dar es Salaam. I am deeply indebted to the many assistants I had with me in the field, especially Dr Emanuel Kessy, also at Archaeology Unit and Mr Billham Kimathi and all the former iron smelters and blacksmiths who left their daily tasks in order to carry out iron smelting together with me. I am particular grateful to Professor Bjørnar Olsen who has introduced me to ANT and STS literature and for his comments on an earlier draft. I also want to thank Professor Lotte Hedeager and an anonymous referee for their helpful and careful readings of earlier versions of the manuscript.