Ever wondered why traditional African huts were round and not any other shape, say, oblong?
At the height of the State of Emergency, the colonial government not only created ‘Emergency Villages’ in Central Kenya, but ensured the mud round huts were smoothened with white clay, with the whitewashed look serving as a nostalgic reminder of rural villages in Northern England.
The huts were built at breakneck speeds. Whips were cracked on sweating backs to accelerate the speed of delivering rafters, mud and thatch. Shortly, there were 230,000 mud-walled huts in over 800 Emergency Villages, which were established in 1954 with the blessings of the War Council and Kenya’s Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring - who had declared the State of Emergency two years earlier.
Emergency Villages could not have been erected had the British not realised Kikuyu women were the passive ‘eyes and ears’ of the Mau Mau - they supplied them with information, food, clothes, blankets, boots, stolen weapons, ammunition and medicine, besides hiding ‘terrorists,’ as the freedom fighters were labelled. Others encouraged their men to take the Mau Mau oath and fight for ithaka na wiyathi (land and freedom).
Emergency Villages were trumpeted as ‘community development’ that was part of Britain’s ‘civilisation’ and ‘Mau Mau rehabilitation’ mission. But in, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, which won her the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, Harvard historian Caroline Elkins notes that they were part of the colonial government’s attempt to wage war against the Mau Mau and “the villages served the broader function as detention camps in all but name.”
Back to our question: Why were traditional African huts round and not rectangular?
Well, most indigenous societies culturally sat in circles, round fires or elders. Circular huts rendered to this arrangement of no one being hidden in corners even during communal drinking of traditional brews or storytelling sessions.
The weather was another reason. Traditional African villages rarely had perimeter walls. Emergency Villages had walls, watchtowers, trenches and spiked barriers though. Rounded huts symmetrically saw strong winds being dissipated in the contours making round huts resistant to strong winds.
Construction was also easier: - the roof, thatched and all, was intricately woven with sisal and bark of trees and hard to lift off during bad weather with the singular centre pole providing support against gravity. The circular shape also saw smoke twirl up the vortex of the round walls and out of the ventilation at the rooftop. Talk of primitive air conditioning!
Even beyond Kenya, the South African kraal, the Greek tenemos, the North American teepees, to the Mongolian yurt, were all round. The rondavels used less or no walls besides being fashioned from locally available materials.
Then there was functionality - houses were for warding off cold nights and wild animals as Africans lived outside, thus eliminating the need for complicated designs.
