Page Title

This article explores the concept of double marginalization experienced by women, arising from societal and economic constraints that threaten their professional and cultural identity. Specifically, it focuses on pottery-making's cultural and economic significance for women in the Horn of Africa. Using social inclusivity and identity theory, the article analyzes the interconnected social and economic roles pottery provided to women for generations even while it is an occupation that is considered the activity of the lower cast groups even within the marginalized women. The research used a qualitative approach, employing the case study method and involving potters from Ethiopia and Somaliland. These potters were identified using snowball methods due to the absence of a publicly accessible community. Data was gathered through oral history methods with structured questions. The study uncovered social labeling, discrimination, and stigmatization associated with the practice and its practitioners. Additionally, it highlighted the critical endangerment of this tradition, with only a few families still practicing it. Drawing insights from other communities in the region, the article suggests that revitalizing and commercializing pottery production could bring various benefits, including income generation for potters, rebranding opportunities, and preserving cultural heritage.

 

Rukia Abdillahi Hussein, an elderly woman in her 70s, is one of the last remaining potters in Hargeysa, Somaliland. Despite facing visual impediments, she continues to practice pottery to make income and preserve her identity and culture. Having learned the craft from her mother, Rukia feels a strong responsibility to uphold her family's legacy, fearing that the practice may cease with her. She expresses her belief that even in the past, when there were more potters, her community has been marginalized, emphasizing the disconnect between the appreciation for their products and the disdain towards the practitioners themselves. In her words, “they like our products but they detest us.”

 

Rukia emphasizes the stereotypical stories associated with her community, labeling them as the lower caste or minority group and attaching derogatory meanings to their profession as craftswomen. In most communities of the Horn of Africa, the occupation of pottery making is considered to be that of the "untouchables," marginalizing them by carrying implications of mostly spiritual impurity. Rukia and her sister produce cultural items such as the traditional incense furnace, Idiin, and the traditional stove, Girigire, which still hold functional value in certain areas among Somali communities. However, these items are now primarily viewed as aesthetic relics of the past, contributing to a sense of loss encompassing the objects, the practitioners, and their collective identity. The Hargeysa Cultural Center based in Somaliland observed in its community engagement that clay materials are not at the market being replaced by imported materials, and also the production is no more in place at a community level. Surveys conducted by the Center indicated that very few community members engage in the practice at a personal consumption level.

This paper explores the intersectionality of marginalization, encompassing aspects of gender, clan, and occupation within the context of women potters of the Horn of Africa. The research delves into the historical background of pottery, the status of practitioners in the Horn of Africa, and potential pathways toward dignified preservation and advancing the socioeconomic needs of women potters within their respective communities.

 

Pottery and potters’ historical background

Pottery is one of the early productions humans engaged in during the evolution of civilization.  Clay products have been an instrumental source of information about earlier communities, as explained in archeological excavation-related data. They usually make the majority of the items collected from such sites as a reference to trade relations between communities or as an element of cultural identity from early production. Early-day researchers have stipulated that ethnic groups’ identities are marked in their pottery cultures, though this archaeological lens today is considered shallow as it did not bring in the social environment. More recent anthropological research has gone beyond that and looked at the production from a wider scope by including culture (Dietler & Herbrich: 1993).

 

Frequently produced items in Ethiopia include ‘Jebana’ (coffee-making pot), ‘Diist’ (cooking pot), ‘Insera’ (water fetching and container pot), and ‘Etanmacheshia’ (the incense furnace). In Somaliland, similar items are produced, named locally ‘Jalxad’ or ‘Mardabaan’ (a water jar), ‘Dabqaad’ or ‘Idin’ (the furnace used to burn incense for frankincense used by the women), ‘Dheri’ (cooking pot), and ‘Girgire Xamari’ (traditional cooker used with charcoal). More recently, flowerpots and other household use materials have been introduced, especially in Ethiopia and Kenya, which have become more of home decorative tools than serving their original day-to-day functions.

 

As it is for many historical productions, where and how pottery making started is not something that has a definite answer. The literature suggests it came during a transition from a ‘hunter-gatherers’ way of life to planting and cooking which accentuated the need for an item that fits these services (Barnet, 1999). Consistently mentioned communities as an early society engaged in its production and use are communities in the Middle East, Africa, China, and Japan.

The pottery history of the Horn of Africa has often focused on the sociology of potters which for most involves a story of discrimination across most communities (Arthur, 2006, 2014; Bazar Author & L Mallowan, 1947; Lyons et al., 2018). This line of research focused on the community, with the practice of pottery making predominantly being a skill transferred on a kinship basis.  Archeological research in the Horn, as elsewhere, has used pots as a central instrument and they have made also a large reference to the items being part of the trade relation the early East African communities had with the other side of the world (Mire, 2005; Fernández, Ruibal and Torre, 2022). The route of the Red Sea coast and the Indian Ocean brought several gift items that have been found in the graveyards of the prominent figures of the region (David and Kramer, 2001; Bahn etal, 1996; Fernández, Ruibal and Torres, 2022).

 

In the case of Ethiopia, pottery production is practiced among many communities in different parts of the country, such as in Gamo (Dorze ethnic groups) of southwestern Ethiopia, Amhara (among Falasha communities), and Oromo of Wollega at Dongoro district, as well as Tigray National regional state (Bula, 2011; Arthur, 2002, 2003; Gedef, 2011; Tilahun, 2016). There is also a relation between the practice in Ethiopia and Sudan as Kabangi (2013) presents it as a result of Mid-Holocene climatic desiccation, as "Pre-Nilotic" Eastern Sudanic-speaking populations migrated from Sudan into the highlands of Ethiopia, bringing with them their domesticated plants, animals and agricultural knowledge. Following that migration, the Eastern Sudanic populations began to adopt pottery to transport and store their food. Pankhurst (1992) has stated that pottery technology in Ethiopia was exclusively handmade. Barnet (1999) further explains that ceramic materials in Ethiopia are distinct morphologically compared with early ceramics of the surrounding region.

 

In Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, especially in the locality called Kechene where the potters live and work together, exists a mix of contemporary and traditional pot-making practices. Their products are among the traditional items placed in traditional artifact shops even though the social discrimination against the auctioneers is as negative as it always has been. The nationally celebrated coffee culture around the Jebana (clay pot) can be taken as a symbol of resistance and survival for potters in Ethiopia.

 

While there is a difference in type and decorative patterns, pottery practice in Kenya also shares some similar patterns to the others in the region. The oldest clay pots found in Kenya are said to be around 8000 years old, with a fragment of one of them recently ‘rediscovered’ deep inside the National Museum of Kenya’s collection by Freda Nkirote M’Mbogori. That fragment can today be seen in a fascinating, wide-ranging exhibition at the National Museum’s Creativity Gallery entitled “Pots and Identities.” The exhibited pots from all over Kenya had historically been used to identify which pre-historic Kenyan peoples were living where and when, as well as with whom they interacted. The reading also states that in the majority of Kenyan communities (apart from some Cushitic peoples), it is women who are the pot-makers. Nonetheless, her research work illustrates the techniques of pot-making as well as the decorative designs found on practically every piece of pottery, which are passed down from mothers to daughters and fathers to sons over centuries. Currently, contemporary Kenyan potters who are now known as ceramicists and artists dominate the production, challenging the traditional women potters’ status whose pottery had a more functional role in the past (M’Mbogori.F. N. and et al., 2020).

The practice has been affected in recent years by the increased importation of clay and ceramic products mainly from China which have dominated the market. There is still local production taking place at a very small scale, but the growing domination of imported pottery worries the practitioners as it both pushes them more to the margin in economic benefits and also fades their generations-long preserved cultural identity.

 

The pottery-making practice and history of Somali communities are hard to find as there seems to be a huge gap in the literature. Even though the practice existed as some families still have items made of clay, showing clearly that it has been and still is part of the material cultures of the community currently there is no active production. Archeological excavations have provided clay items that are used in the description of the community profile (Mire 2005, 2007, 2015; Curle 1934). González-Ruibal et al. (2022) in their fieldwork at Xiss Somaliland have extensively described and presented the routes of the trade lines with the pots and other items collected from the site. The clay in Somaliland was used to produce products such as Jalxad, Mardabaan, Dabqaad, Idin, and Dheri; more recently flowerpot and other household use materials have been introduced, like Girgire Xamari (produced in Somalia and imported which is traditional cooker used with charcoal).

 

The women, their social status, and marginalization

In 2006, Tara Belkin, in collaboration with Steven Brandt, produced The Buur Heybe Potters (“The Hill of the Potter's Sand”), the sole existing documentary and anthropological account of pottery making in the Somali community. An interesting aspect of this community is that the pots were made only by men while the women helped in collecting the clay and making the preparations for the production. Nevertheless, my interviews and observation have illustrated a different case as it was only women who were engaged in it in the case of Somaliland and also most in the Ethiopian cases. Accounts about the practice in Kenya also demarcate it as a practice by women with a special meaning to the Luo community where it is considered a marker of womanhood.    

   

In many societies across Africa and the Americas, pottery was a woman-dominated craft, reflecting its role in daily domestic life and cultural practices. According to anthropologist Joan M. Gero, "In numerous cultures, pottery was primarily a female activity, with women not only producing essential household items but also imbuing their creations with cultural and symbolic meanings" (Gero, 1991:164). This perspective highlights how pottery has often been seen as a profession closely aligned with women's roles and responsibilities within these societies. In addition to the practice of being women-dominated, it also has a social casting practice of the groups considered minority in almost all of the countries in the Horn of Africa.

In the case of Somaliland, there are very few families still engaged in the making of the pots in a way of the pre-ordered system. This has left the practicing women challenged with livelihood income as well as the uncertainty of the continuation of the cultural heritage and practice. The occupational minorities in Somaliland consist of the Gabooye (Madhibaan together with Muse Diriye). They also live, in smaller numbers, in Ethiopia, Puntland and southern Somalia. Traditionally, Madhibaan and Muse Diriye were hunters, shoemakers, tanners, potters, well diggers, and water carriers for their hosts. Muse Diriye also traditionally worked as basket makers. Members of the Gabooye enjoy limited protection throughout Somalia (European Union Agency for Asylum, 2022).

 

As far back as the early 1900s, occupational minorities were considered outcasts by other clans, resulting in their segregation, even though their language, physical appearance, and customs were largely the same. This stigmatization is also partly rooted in a groundless myth that associates these groups with the consumption of unclean food like dead animals, inflicting harm from a visual power and labeling them as evil-eyed. Many women in this community worked on reproductive health as traditional birth attendants and also as FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) practitioners.

 

The sociocultural and religious landscape for Somali women presents a myriad of challenges, necessitating adept navigation of restrictive customs and norms. Somali women continue to strive for equitable and inclusive representation within a predominantly clan-based traditional system that purports to uphold a "democratic" governance structure, yet falls short of providing parity. This struggle is further compounded by the marginalized status of minority groups, such as those engaged in pottery-making, whose male counterparts also encounter barriers to inclusion within the overarching social framework dominated by "noble" clans. The resulting landscape is one characterized by intricate obstacles impeding access, economic opportunities, and inclusivity.

 

The case in Ethiopia is a bit better but not as far from the discriminatory and derogatory status for handcraft women. The particular group is called “Shekla Seri” which translates directly as “Clay Makers” and is sometimes used as a derogatory term. The group is marginalized in ways similar to the minority groups in Somaliland claiming they have an “evil eye” which is another element that has played in the group-specific ownership for production and also limited the engagement of the assumed Noble class in the production. “They like our products but they detest us” is an expression frequently used across occupational groups even though there is still a hierarchy within the group.

 

The scholarly lens of intersectionality theory offers a framework deeply rooted in the premise that an individual's lived experiences are shaped by the confluence of multiple social identities, such as race and gender. This theory posits that an adequate understanding of these experiences cannot be achieved by examining social identities in isolation. While intersectionality theory has been widely embraced in qualitative research, its incorporation into quantitative studies has only emerged more recently. This theoretical framework serves as a valuable tool for elucidating the complex interplay of various forms of inequality and disadvantage, often resulting in compounded barriers to full societal participation and advancement in ways that often are not understood among conventional ways of thinking.

 

It is members of these occupational groups who are engaged in pottery making in Somaliland currently living at two specific places in Daami and Sh. Madar. Through this research, two families were found practicing the production at a preordering system. The families got the skill as inherited practice coming down on a female member line of generation unlike that of the Buur Heybe. Hence, the Somaliland pottery production also has a gender element. The research participants clearly stated that they learned the practice from their grandmother and mother in their early days who used it as a means of income generation and cultural occupation.

By interviewing the community members who are still engaged in the production, the research has been able to learn that the family has now only three members who produce pot only on a request basis. Rukia Abdilahi is an elderly woman in her late 70s who is visually challenged and has the longest experience with the practice. She has stated that she has learned the production from her elder sister who herself learned it from their grandmother. The second person engaged in the practice is Safia Hussein who is also in her late 60s.  The third one is Nasri Caydiid, the son of Rukia who joined the production as a way to help his mother. Unlike the Buur Heybe community where the males are the only pottery makers culturally, the history of Rukia’s family indicates that they inherited from the female line of their family and even describes the practice as the activity of women’s responsibility.

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

​

​

 

​

 

The interview with Rukia Abdillahi Hussein indicated pottery-making was not something practiced by the majority of the community. It was practiced by the communities closer to the settlers that had access to the clay and water points. This, she stated, makes it a very group-specific practice for her community within the predominantly pastoral community. In addition to this, she has stated that pottery making initially was not market-oriented but grew out of household needs and later it became a source of income generation for her family. She is concerned with the future of the pottery-making culture as families have not transmitted as was the case for her family. She emphasized the need to make the transmission of knowledge a key priority in future efforts to revitalize pottery-making.  She states that young women are not interested in acquiring the practice as they see it work of marginalized groups and have no space in their future lives leaving very few objects saved but the practice fading. As Sada Mire (2007) wrote, factors such as the method of production, function, meaning, context, and significance are important to consider to preserve traditional knowledge and not objects.

 

Safia Hussein discussed how the social view of pottery making has changed over time mainly due to the importation of ceramic products. Accordingly, people saw the pots as less important and discouraged her and her daughter from carrying pots around the city to sell them. She insisted that pottery-making is part of the Hiddihii iyo Dhaqankii (cultural identity) as “the essence of our culture” and wished to carry on the legacy despite the challenges even with all the social discrimination she says their community face.

 

Nasri Caydiid, who is the only male potter in the family line, stated that he has practiced and learned pot-making as a way to support his mother and understands that the tradition is fully considered a women’s activity. He states if it wasn’t for the demand of not having alternative family income generation, he would not have learned the practice. In his words; “I saw my mother struggling to make a living from the profession and working hard to preserve her culture. I wanted to get her rest from this hard work that I learned the practice.”

While the social isolation and denigratory name-calling for the potters is still in place, especially in the rural areas of Ethiopia, the urban potters seem to be in a better position with the rise of back-to-the-roots initiatives with valuing items considered indigenous becoming aesthetical presentations. There is an initiative that is teaching children traditional handcrafting practices with storytelling that readjusts the discriminatory and marginalizing identification of the practice and practitioners. Mama Pottery is a social enterprise in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that is working towards revitalizing the practice and structuring it as an alternative livelihood for woman victims of Gender Based violence. Along this novel mission, the founder Brikti Twolde set a mission to change the wrong assumptions towards the practicing women and the practice. The stereotypical perception still exists, though. When I went for my research conversation with the potters and had a one-day pottery-making training some of my friends considered it bravery sub-texting that I could have been a victim of the evil eye.

 

 

Emama Pottery (Emama Shekla) sessions P1 children training sessions with Story telling while the second one is the Auter having a one-day training on pottery making with Brikti Emmama Shekla. (Photo Credit @Emama Pootery social media 2023)

 

​

​

​​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

These are the lived realities of women potters across the region now with the modernization and limited capital access for marginalized women their cultural identity and their livelihood are threatened more than before. With the emergence of spaces like the Mama Pottery, the Kenyan ceramic and artesian groups, and even the wider change in the reimagining of culture as a decolonization process, there is an opportunity to revitalize the practice and adjust the double marginalization of the women potters.

 

Conclusion

Women potters are navigating through a complex and multi-layered margin. Discriminated due to ill-informed derogatory perceptions towards them from their profession, within the wider ethnic marginalization they face for being a minority compounded with the modernization push that is giving priority to imported items and modernized technology that they have challenges to access due to gender norms are aspects that have made the practitioners lose their livelihood and also the traditional pottery culture fade. Heritage, be it built, intangible, or material culture, is the instrument of identity, the path to trace back self-awareness, and the mode of livelihood. Without romanticizing it, preserving and adopting the cultural production of tools inherent to the identity and social development of these women is pertinent.

 

The case of the potter community of the Horn of Africa is very concerning as its fading out is taking the livelihood generation means for the community. It is also concerning because similar items are being imported with much more money spent benefiting other communities instead of capacitating the practitioners with advanced skills while preserving tradition. Caly production is an element the younger generation in the region especially in Somali communities hears about as a fictional story with almost out of their reach. Accordingly, it is important to give a critical observation and plan of action to revitalizing the practice before it completely dies out. Regional practices in neighboring countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya revitalization efforts both in terms of inclusivity and respect for the practitioners and income generation programs are getting attention. Somaliland should similarly use the very few practicing members of the profession so that it preserves the culture and revitalizes it among the younger generation as it can assist the community cohesion beyond social discrimination faced by the minority groups who are for now the sole owners of the dying practice. 

 

​

 

 

References

1. Arthur, J. W. (2006). Living with pottery: Ceramic ethnoarchaeology among the Gamo of southwestern Ethiopia. University of Utah Press.

2. Arthur, J. W. (2014). Pottery uniformity in a stratified society: An ethnoarchaeological perspective from the Gamo of Southwest Ethiopia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 35, 106–116.

3. Bahn, P., et al. (1996). Archaeological survey as optimal search. University of Toronto Press.

4. Barnet, T. (1999). The emergence of food production in Ethiopia. Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology. Archeo-Press.

5. Belkin, T., & Brandt, S. (2008). The potters of Buur Heybe, Somalia. African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, 11(3). Available at https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol11/iss3/24

6. Bula Sirka, W. (2011). The technical style of Wallaga pottery making: An ethno-archaeological study of Oromo potters in Southeast Highland, Ethiopia. African Archaeological Review, 28, 51–76.

7. David, N., & Kirame, A. (2001). Ethnoarchaeological action. Cambridge University Press.

8. Dietler, M., & Herbich, I. (1994). Ceramics and ethnic identity: Ethnoarchaeological observations on the distribution of pottery styles and the relationship between the social contexts of production and consumption. In D. Binder & F. Audouze (Eds.), Terre cuite et société: La céramique, document technique, économique, culturel, XIVe rencontre internationale d'archéologie et d'histoire d'Antibes (pp. 459–472). Editions APDCA.

9. Dietler, M., & Herbich, I. (1998). Habitus, techniques, style: An integrated approach to the social understanding of material culture and boundaries. In M. Stark (Ed.), The archaeology of social boundaries (pp. 232–263). Smithsonian Institution Press.

10. Dietler, M., & Herbich, I. (2008). Ceramic traditions and social transformations in the late Bronze Age: New perspectives from Central Europe. In S. J. Smith (Ed.), Archaeological approaches to socioeconomic transformation (pp. 45–67). Routledge.

11. Gedef, A. (2011). An Ethno-archeological investigation of pottery making among traditional potters of Gondar. MA Thesis, Addis Ababa University.

12. Genderlithics: Women’s Roles in Stone Tool Production. In: Engendered Archaeology: Women and Prehistory, edited by Joan M. Gero and Margaret W. Conkey, pp. 163–193. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

13. González-Ruibal, A., de Torres, J., Barrio, C. M., Fernández, M. A. F., Fernández, A. F., Juberías, P. G. D. L. J., de los Terreros, J. Y. S., Gaudiello, M., & Dualeh, A. J. (2022). Nomads trading with empires: Intercultural trade in ancient Somaliland in the first to seventh centuries CE. American Journal of Archaeology, 126(1), 103–138. https://doi.org/10.1086/718184

14. Huysecom, E., et al. (2009). The emergence of pottery in Africa during the tenth-millennium cal BC: New evidence from Ounjougou (Mali).

15. Irvine, A. K. (1970). Review of Gus W. Van Beek: Hajar bin Humeid: Investigations at a pre-Islamic site in South Arabia. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 33(3), 605–606. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x0012662x

16. Kabangi, R. W. (2013). An Ethono-archeological study of pottery in Evuore Divison, Mbeere North District. MA Thesis, EMBU County, Kenya: Kenyatta University.

17. Lyons, D., Ferguson, J., Harlow, D. & Casey, J. (2018). Marginalized Potters and Ceramic Compositional Groups: Neutron Activation Analysis of Contemporary Pottery from Tigray, Northern Highland Ethiopia. African Archaeological Review. 35. 10.1007/s10437-018-9311-5.

18. Mire, S. (2005). The future of Somali archaeology: Rethinking cultural heritage (Unpublished BA dissertation). School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

19. Mire, S. (2007). Preserving knowledge, not objects: A Somali perspective for heritage management and archaeological research. African Archaeological Review, 24, 49–71.

20. Mire, S. (2015). Mapping the archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, art, script, time, urbanism, trade and empire. African Archaeological Review, 32(1), 111–136.

21. M’Mbogori, F.N., Gakii, K., Ochieng, P.N. (2020) Pottery Chaîne Opératoire among the Mbeere People of Mt. Kenya Region: Continuity and Change. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 35 (1) 160-171

22. Pankhurst, R. (1992). History of Ethiopian handcraft workers. In P. Dieci & C. Veizzloi (Eds.). Franco.

23. Tilahun, A. (2016). "An Ethno archeological study of pottery production in Tigray: The case of Saharti- Samere and Hintalo-Wajerat Districts". MA Thesis, Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa University.

24. Wayessa, Bula. (2011). The Technical Style of Wallaga Pottery Making: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Oromo Potters in Southwest Highland Ethiopia. African Archaeological Review. 28. 10.1007/s10437-011-9103-7.

 

Websites

1. European Union for Asylum. (2022). European Union for Asylum report 2022. Retrieved from https://euaa.europa.eu/country-guidance-somalia-2022/291-low-status-occupational-minorities

2. Tomorrow’s World Today. (2018, August 1). A brief history of pottery. Retrieved from https://www.tomorrowsworldtoday.com/2018/08/01/a-brief-history-of-pottery/