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Shona

Ancestors of modern day Shona built Great Zimbabwe and hundreds of other stone walled sites in Zimbabwe.

The Karanga people ruled a great inland African empire from about AD1000 to AD1600. The Karanga smelted gold and traded it on the shores of the Indian Ocean for glass beads and porcelain from China. European explorers discovered the vast stone ruins of the Karanga in 1867. The site was called Zimbabwe, which means “stone dwelling” in the native Bantu language.

The ruins of Great Zimbabwe still stand near the modern town of Masvingo in present-day Zimbabwe. They are three hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide. The walls are thirty feet high and, in many cases, twenty feet thick. They are the symbol of important political and economic developments among the Shona-speaking peoples in the twelfth century.

Among the gold mines of the inland plains between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers [there is a]...fortress built of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them.... This edifice is almost surrounded by hills, upon which are others resembling it in the fashioning of stone and the absence of mortar, and one of them is a tower more than 12 fathoms high. The natives of the country call these edifices Symbaoe, which according to their language signifies court.--Viçente Pegado, Captain, Portuguese Garrison of Sofala, 1531

Shona are primarily agricultural. Their main crop is maize, but they also grow millet, sorghum, rice, beans, manioc, peanuts, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes. They raise some cattle, sheep, and chickens. Women may supplement their income by selling pottery and handwoven baskets that serve primarily as utilitarian objects. Men may work as blacksmiths or carvers by commission. Although cows are milked, they are most often used for bride price. Cows are considered taboo for women, so men must do all of the milking and herding. Men and women both participate in farming.

Sculptures made today are not very different from those made more than 1000 years ago; they achieve the same delicate balance and employ similarly masterful lines. After quarrying the raw stone with hatchets, the sculptors use crude chisels to "release" the spirit trapped in the stone. Next, they polish the stone with sand and beeswax. Finally, they heat it on a fire to bring out the brilliant colors

Gods, spirits, ancestors and totems are popularly interpreted in stone or wood sculptures, whilst animals, birds and reptiles are often stylised to reveal their characters. Deep human emotion and relationships are also very powerfully portrayed in Shona carvings.

Pablo Picasso was influenced by early Shona Art and noted collectors of Shona include Whoopi Goldberg, Queen Sofia of Spain, Lou Rawls, Jimmy Stewart, Cecily Tyson, Harry Belafonte, the Prince of Wales, the Rockefeller Family, Danny Glover, and some of the world's leading museums.

Shona sculpture is part of permanent collections of the Rodin Museum, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Mankind, London; National Gallery of Zimbabwe; and the Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt.

Shona artists do not plan or pre-draw their sculptures. Instead, the image is inspired by the stone itself or the ancestral spirits. "The sculpture is already hidden in the stone, I just let it out," says Henry Munyardzi, an internationally acclaimed sculptor. The art is primarily based on animal, mythical and spiritual themes intrinsic to Shona life and mythology.

Shona Mbira

The traditional musical instruments of the Shona include the drum (ngoma), thumb piano (mbira), wooden xylophone (marimba), rattle (hosho), kudu horn (hamwanda), panflute (ngororombe), mouthbow (chipendani) and voice (kuimba).