Could traditional pottery be coming to an end?

Saidati Mukankubana, the first born among 12 children, thinks she is at least 50 years old. She is a mother of six children and grandmother to three others, who all depend on her pottery skills she acquired since she was only around 10. “I was in my third year of primary school when I started. I would run after school and help my parents because I really enjoyed it,” Mukankubana said. The reason she has been doing it for decades is because her family has never lacked food or other needs like clothes and school fees for her children and grandchildren. “I love this vocation because it protected me from begging and stealing,” she added. These plant pots collections are for sale at the Kigali Modern Pottery cooperative located in Kacyiru Sector, Gasabo district. Photo: Dan Nsengiyumva. Mukankubana is part of the 53 people who make the Kigali Modern Pottery cooperative located in Kacyiru Sector, Gasabo district. She spends her mornings molding clay into plant saucers, and she does it effortlessly as she chats with her colleagues. “I am usually tired by 2:00 pm. Then I go home to see if my children have come from school or if they have already eaten,” Mukankubana said. While pottery was believed to be practiced by the “Batwa,”- one of the three tribes that people identified with before the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, historians strongly disapprove. “Not all the potters were Batwa, and vice-versa. For instance, people who lived in Kiyovu were called ‘Abayovu’ and they were regarded as some of the best potters there were. These people were not Batwa,” Maurice Mugabowagahunde, a historian, told The New Times. He added that the best entertainers of the king- Intore, were Batwa, just like the best soldiers there were. “Some battalions were only made up of Batwa,” he noted, adding that colonialists got it wrong when they divided labor like they did to the people themselves. Mugabowagahunde admitted that however, pottery was engaged in by families whose generation after generation took it over. In what is now Rwanda, it all started around 2,500 years ago. Pottery was mostly engaged in by women, who would then teach their children, and so the practice is still ongoing. Potters and their families mainly lived around wetlands so they can easily access clay, the main ingredient of ceramics. “Young children would imitate what their parents did, starting from small pots. They would later be great at the activity and then teach their children too, until now,” Mugabowagahunde said. The first ceramics to be made are known as “urewe”, which is defined as the culture developed and spread in and around the Lake Victoria region of Africa during the African Iron Age. What Mukankubana and her cooperative do is to mould the clay and decorate it, dry it and then burn it to make it look like how we buy the ceramics. The potters however, commonly referred to as the “historically marginalized” have had a rough past. The Rwandan community before the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi stigmatized them because of what Mugabowagahunde called civilization. “I would say they were more advanced when it came to food. They ate what the rest of the people feared to eat because they believed it would cause great harm like kill all the cows and other animals,” he explained. The stigmatization of the potters was majorly not sharing drinks or food with them. They would drink from their own beer pot and use their own straws, different from the rest of the people because they ate what everyone else deemed disgusting. “They ate Mutton which most Rwandans didn’t eat but now some have started enjoying it. They also ate pork, while hunters who had killed pigs gave it to their dogs. Now, people have even nicknamed it “akabenz” and “indyoheshabirayi,” among others because of how popular it is,” Mugabowagahunde said. Potters also ate mushrooms, which we are just learning how nutritious they are, and moles- but other Rwandans would also give it to children to cure malnutrition. One of the challenges traditional potters are facing now is the competition from substitute material. Although the Rwandan community depended highly on pottery- from water and food pots to stoves, it is not the case for now. For instance, women used to straighten their hair with broken clay ceramics, but now they use hair dryers and flat irons. People also have saucepans and other more advanced utensils which substituted what they used to buy from them. “They are now switching from traditional ceramics to moulding flower vases and other decorations,” Mugabowagahunde said. Another challenge is that their children called it quits! Mukankubana says that her children don’t want to do pottery at all because they hate it. “I understand them. Although this is a decent vocation, my children want to do something else. I also would if I got money to invest,” she said. She shares the feeling with Jonathan Gatera who has been doing pottery for around fifty years now. “One of my daughters sells flower vases we make, but she would never mold clay for a minute. My children wouldn’t even set their foot here where I work. Sometimes I think they feel ashamed and maybe fear that someone may refer to them as ‘children of the Batwa’”, the father of 11 and grandfather of three says. Nevertheless, both parents are optimistic because their children went to school and hence they have many career options. While the government of Rwanda, especially the City of Kigali beautifies roads with flowers and other plants, citizens have also been putting some in their houses, thanks to potters like Mukankubana and Gatera who make it possible. Despite the many benefits of having flowers in or outside your house- including purifying the air, they also beautify the place.

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Could traditional pottery be coming to an end?