TOPIC : SOURCES OF HISTORY

SUBTOPIC : TYPES OF HISTORY

OBJECTIVES

By the end of the subtopic, learners should be able to;

o Identify sources of History.

o Explain different types of sources of History.
o Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of these historical sources.
o Evaluate the contribution of historical sources in recovering pre-colonial history.

Introduction

Historical sources

 Historians use different tools or ways to recover historical information and to answer questions
about the past.
 Historical sources are materials that reflects the historical process and an extra opportunity for
studying human societies.
 These historical sources are in form of documents, newspapers, books, cartoons, pictures,
poems and videos that gives historical information which can be used to draw conclusions about
historical events, characters and political issues.
  Historical sources provides evidence created at an earlier date such as objects and written
documents and it enables an evaluation of culture, manners, customs and language of the group
understudy.
 Historians make use of both primary and secondary sources to recover historical information.

Primary Sources

 A primary source provides direct or first-hand information/ evidence about events, objects,
person, or work of art and these are basically records that survived from the past.
 Primary sources are a collection of historical and authorized documents, eyewitness accounts,
results of certain experiments, pieces of creative writing, audio, video recordings and
newsgroups.
 Primary sources enables the researcher to get closer to what actually happened during an
event and they become original records, information is collected from people who either were
involved in that event or witnessed such an event.

Secondary Sources

 Secondary sources involves documents that have been produced at a later time and these
involves information basically written by historians.
 Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret, comment upon, analyse, evaluate, summarize,
and process primary sources.
 Secondary sources includes edited work such as newspapers, magazines, books, reviews, or
articles found in academic journals that converse or assess someone else's original investigation.
 Primary and secondary sources work hand in hand to recover historical information.
 African history can be recovered through oral tradition, archaeology, written records and also
visual sources.

Oral traditions

 Oral tradition is the recording, preservation and interpretation of history based on storyteller’s
personal experiences and opinions are basically verbal testimonies by eyewitness purposefully
transferred from one generation to the other through word of mouth.
 Story telling

 Oral tradition refers to unrecorded historical information with the conclusions based on
available information which is passed through the word of mouth from one generation to
another.
 It is a practice which involves the use of songs, folklore, edicts, legends, tales and stories and the
knowledge of the past is preserved and transmitted to the next generation.
 The study of oral tradition records the origins, movements and the settlements of different
societies and it also goes on to record the genealogy and chronology of royalty, chiefs, priests
and the important landmarks and the political geography of a country.
 The use of oral tradition makes it possible for a society to pass knowledge across a society
without writing and they also help people to teach adults and children about important aspects
of their culture.

Advantages of Oral Tradition

 Oral tradition capture information that cannot be obtained by other sources such as
archaeology and written records. For example people who participated in the Anglo-Ndebele
can vividly narrate the events of the war and what exactly occurred during that period.
 Oral tradition is used to collaborate and corroborate other sources, it closes the gaps left by
other sources such as written records and archaeology.
 Considering the impossibilities of recovering all the past in writing, a large amount of
information continued to be carried in the memories of the participants.
 The use of oral tradition has originality and it is a primary source on which information is
collected from the eyewitness and events are based on true events for example the First
Chimurenga war.
 The use of dramatization and the use of folk-tellers enables both literate and non- literate
participants to understand and learn their history without the use of hardcopies
(textbooks)Every man is a historical animal and as such non-literate people cannot be left out
  Moreover oral tradition is interactive as historians’ carryout interviews, questions can be asked
and elaborations can be made for clarification

Disadvantages of Oral Tradition

 The greatest problem of oral tradition is lack of absolute chronology and the reason for the
unjust scorn that detractors hold it as a valid source of history. For example history deals with
issues and change in time.
 The same method also is problematic in regards to establishing accurate dates, oral tradition do
not provide exact dates but general periodization. There is a mix-up of events, early people had
not yet developed a clear and standard measure of time.
 Oral traditions is also affected by the issue of language and in narrating the events the
involvement of the third party might distort the given information.
 Oral tradition is subject to loss of memory yet its prominence depends on memory provided by
informants and it is believed that orature does not go back more than 600 years in terms of
memory.
 The narrations of the stories or events aims at giving propaganda and as a result sections of the
story which do not fulfil this obligations are ignored.
 Concentration on prominent historical agencies which is known as ‘one man’ determinism.
 Reliability can be a challenge: which refers to repeatability of information from different people
when researching on events which can be a challenge as information can be falsified.

Contribution of Oral tradition in recovering pre- colonial societies

 Oral tradition is also a significant domain in recovering pre-colonial states especially the Shona
states.

 As stated oral traditions are verbal recollections of the past which occurred before the existence
of the informants, it has been useful in reconstructing history of pre- colonial societies because
pre-literate societies left no written records to recover history.

 The use of oral tradition have been extremely useful in addressing the controversies oh the
origins and the construction of the Great Zimbabwe state.

 The Shona traditions reveals that the Great Zimbabwe Shona ancestors were responsible for the
foundations and the building of the stone structures at Great Zimbabwe. The European settlers
and the white colonialists disputed the Shona origins of the Great Zimbabwe State and
attributed its origins to the Arabs, Egyptians and the Phoenicians.

 The origins and the organisation of the Mutapa State and the Rozvi state are all known through
orature. Under the foundation of the Mutapa state oral traditions have given the version of the
conquering army from Great Zimbabwe under Nyatsimbe Mutota thus overpowering Tavara and
the Tonga in the north in search for salt. Its basis was a gradual process through assimilation of
the conquered groups in the Dande area. Thus, ecological factors like availability of good
 grasslands, ivory, good fertile soils, adequate rainfall and weak societies attracted this intruding
group from Great Zimbabwe to settle there.

 The histories of the Ndebele and the Shona have been transmitted and orature have been able
to distort European claims on hostile relations of the Ndebele and the Shona.

Archaeology

 Archaeology refers to a scientific method of systematically studying the past by excavating the
remains in order to examine the past. It is basically the study of scientific artefacts such as
weapons pottery, tools and waste products such as grain, used by people from long ago.
 Archaeology is a scientific because it employs different scientific methods such as carbon dating
and that in carried out carefully following procedures and are not done in a haphazard manner.
 The archaeological records consists of artefacts, architecture, bio facts and historical landscapes.
 The use of archaeology enables the archaeologist to study the way of life of different societies
through the use of these artefacts.
 Archaeologist therefore are detectives/ specialists (the study requires specialists) who study
early humans and early civilisations, they search out for physical clues such as tools, pottery to
solve the mysteries of the past.
 Archaeologist use different methods to date fossils that is:
(a) Chemical dating which is in form of radio- carbon dating and Potassium- Argon. Radio-Carbon
dating measures organic substances and the rate of decay of carbon-14 in fossils while
Potassium-Argon method measures the amount of potassium and the amount of Argon-40 to
assist in dating ashes and minerals.
(b) Fission Track dating is a method that is used to date Pleistocene samples such as glass and other
mineral objects.
(c) Stratigraphy deals with the interpretation of different layers of rocks that are deposited in on(e
place and it is used to determine dates especially in areas affected by sedimentation.
(d) Statistical dating involves the estimation of dates for events associated with a certain
generations.
(e) Lexico Statistics dating deals with the study of vocabulary of languages to determine their age
and their historical link with other languages for example the Bantu languages. This belief is of
the view that languages have a basic vocabulary that changes at a common rate.
(f) Glotto-Chronology establishes that languages are historically related and it basically deals with
the chronological relationship of languages.
 Archaeologist at work

Advantages

 Scientific methods are believed to provide reliable information but archaeology can only be
reliable if conducted by professional archaeologist.
 It complements other methods of finding history: The Final analysis of historical artefacts not
only complements other methods of finding history but can enable the reconstruction of the
past from zero.
 Through radio carbon dating the method can establish accurate date and time and it gives
precise details, dates on settlement, architecture and material culture through the use of carbon
14, far from bias and distorting depicts reality about lifestyles of the inhabitants through
artefacts
 Archaeology explains best the economic and social activities of different communities such as
burial systems, pottery making, religion and farming.
 The use of archaeology furnishes documents that cannot speak for themselves such as the
history of pre- colonial societies in Zimbabwe.
 Archaeology can be precise in dating as long as artefacts are available.
 It also enables the investigator or the researcher to directly observe the site under study and to
classify artefacts.
 When studying the way of life of different societies archaeology provides diversified information
depending on the information found, for example archaeology reconstructed the history of
trade at Great Zimbabwe
Disadvantages

 When using archaeology one cannot study present materials or even historical events such as
wars.
 Archaeology is based on conclusions, and constructions and this basically leads to inaccuracy of
the information given.
 Regarding to the fact that archaeology consists of estimates it does not provide precise dates.
 The preparation of excavation and the transportation of artefacts to the laboratories for analysis
is time consuming.
 Archaeology neglects political and cultural aspects, it does not provide the hierarchy of
dynasties. Moreover it does not give the names of the people under study such as rulers unless
if there are labels on the artefacts. For example Colonial archaeology was manipulated to suit
the government agenda and underestimated the Shona, believing that they had no capacity
such a monumental structure like the Great Zimbabwe monument.
 Archaeology is based on comparative or background knowledge in order to interpret evidence
accurately: For example in the process an archaeologist discover a grinding stone interpretation
is based on that available material and the current knowledge of the past.
 The use of archaeological records depends on the ability of the remains to resist decomposition.
There are certain things that do not have remains like language and beliefs this explains that
some historical issues such as norms cannot be explained through archaeology.
 Artefacts cannot tell the story themselves but they need to be interpreted resulting to
misinterpretation or manipulation of findings for other purposes.
 To produce reliable reconstruction of the past the methods depends on professional excavations
for example Randal Maclver an archaeologist did not only excavate at Great Zimbabwe but also
Nyanga, Nalatale Dlodlo (Danangombe) and Khami in Mutare to try and find out the identity of
the Great Zimbabwe. He was the first professional archaeologist to recognize the harm which
had been done to the stratigraphy of the sites by gold seekers.

Contribution of Archaeology in recovering pre- colonial societies

 Archaeology determines effectively the economic activities of a people and the artefacts found
for example at Great Zimbabwe such as jewellery, beads and china plates shows clearly the
existence of external trade within the Great Zimbabwe society. On the other hand hoes, axes
and spears reveal the agricultural economy of the people.
 For example in trade there is remarkable piece of archaeological evidence for trading contacts
between the Zimbabwean plateau and the coast, consists of a coin minted in Kilwa .This coin
was extracted at Great Zimbabwe and archaeology appeared to be the only source to recover
such history. The most important evidence of trade, however comes from the so called Render
Ruins a hoard of material induced glazed Persian Bowls, Chinese celadon dishes, iron spoon, iron
lamp holder a copper box etc. This extraordinary evidence of exotic objects demonstrates that
about the trading cities of east African coast.
  Different Early Iron Age societies such as the Ziwa, Gokomere, Mapungubwe, Musengezi Zhizo,
Malipati and Great Zimbabwe have been studied through the use of archaeology because oral
tradition could not stretch up to that far.
 Different styles of pottery and styles of building, terracing also reveals the economic activities of
these societies.
 Ziwa, is regarded as one of the earliest known Iron Age sites in Zimbabwe which over extended
from Nyanga mountain on the eastern frontier of Zimbabwe.
 Ziwa pottery was already in existence in the 11th century and this supports that Ziwa people
were already living at that area during 300AD.
 The archaeological discoveries of objects such as bones, hill terracing pottery is a clear witness
to their agricultural economy.
 Carbon dating has also revealed that Gokomere people were the first people to occupy the
Great Zimbabwe.

Written Records

Unpublished and published written records

 Written records are historical narratives based on written records or documented

communication produced by making letters of any other symbols. These are therefore
documentary historical evidences.
 Written records includes pieces of information that were written down a long time and these
records include both published and unpublished works.
 There are two types of written records namely primary and secondary written sources. Primary
sources includes unpublished sources such as diaries, letters and memoirs. Secondary written
sources consists of documents that have been modified and produced for the public, these are
basically inform of books, newspapers and magazines.
  Written records are mainly used by historians to write the history of a certain group of people
and it can be used with other sources.
 While written records have the advantage that dating is not a problem this sources also suffer
from the problem of lack of objectivity

Advantages

 Written records are more reliable for they combine in them information gathered from other
historical sources such as oral tradition and archaeology.
 Written records are created for a larger number of spectators and are widely distributed.
 Written records provides useful information such as the colonisation of a country and even pre-
colonial states.
 Events recorded have chronology and give details to events for example the Portuguese who
visited the Mutapa state such as Father Gonzalo Da Silveria, it also goes on to give major details
about pre-colonial societies.
 Written records compliments other sources for example they complement archaeological
findings and thus through this historians come up with a better picture of early history.
 Written records evidence last as long as the documents last also and this minimizes problems of
memory failure.
 The evidence provided can stretch back to the ancient past such as the period of the Slave trade.
 Information produced can be tested and verified. Documentary information can survive dangers
of alteration and distortion hence in reliable and useful.
 Provide accurate dates and time and is descriptive with pictures.

Disadvantages

 Written records depends on one’s subjectivity and objectivity, the writer way decide to write
what he/ she wants living out the major aspects of a certain event or relations for example the
Ndebele Shona relations which were misinterpreted by the European settlers.
 Written records, like the other sources may be disposed to misuse by the writer or the historian.
 Thus due to its weaknesses, written records can be used together with other sources so as to
bring about valid evidence about the past.
 Written records are flawed by ignorance and racism for example Africa is regarded as a Dark
Continent with satanic beliefs and moreover African leaders are regarded as hostile leaders as
compared to white heroes like Napoleon Bonaparte.
 There misconception of African healers such as Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi who were
viewed as witches and wizards.
 Interpretation of some written sources such as diaries and memoirs is needed since by nature
they lack detail.

Contribution of Written records in recovering pre- colonial societies

  Written records according to different historians provides useful history about different pre-
colonial states and these written records mostly have been produced by Portuguese, Swahili and
Arab traders and early missionaries who interacted with African in the early ages.
 In recovering pre-colonial history written records give a detailed account of economic and social
activities of Zimbabwean societies such as trade between the Mutapa people and the Swahili,
Portuguese and Arab traders.
 Political figures such as Mavura, Gatsi Rusere and Matope are all known from the writings of the
Portuguese.
 Most historians have extracted information from the Portuguese written records, for example
the political structures of different states such as the Mutapa and the Rozvi state where the
king, advisors and the army were responsible for the day to day running of the state.
 The Portuguese, missionaries and the traders like Frederick Selous played a pivotal role in
shedding light on Ndebele/Shona relations and these relations are identified by raiding which
was one of the important activities of the Ndebele state.
 Moreover among the written records produced by early missionaries such as John Moffatt,
Charles Helm are letters which give accurate dates on the establishment of Missionary
stations(schools) which includes Hope Fountain(1870) and Inyathi (1857).
 These missionaries took advantage of King Lobengula’s trust and they influenced him in signing
draconian treaties which led to the occupation of Zimbabwe.

Visual sources

A photograph of the capture of Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi

 Visual sources are basically collections of non-verbal and verbal acoustic materials such as
photographs, films, videotapes, historical paintings, drawings and prints.
 They may record styles of dresses, street scenes, architecture and the historical public events
such as the Signing of the Global Political Agreement between Robert Mugabe and Morgan
Tsvangirai.
 Visual documents, such as art works, capture a particular moment in time and they go to an
extent of providing evidence of the characteristics of that period of time. Art and visual records
 can present evidence about a culture at a specific era in history for example the Ndebele
customs and beliefs.
 During the late stone period hunting and gathering societies (The San and the Khoikhoi) resorted
to cave paintings to increase their feelings and expressions and they also depicts group activities
such as hunting, sacrifices and funerals.
 In Zimbabwe rock paintings are found in Chinhoyi caves, Domboshava and Matobo hills among
others.

Advantages

 The incredible expressions on the rock paintings enrich an understanding of societies along with
their tools, bones and fossils.
 They also convey a variety of details about adult people, places, objects and events that took
place to shape up the political history of the society.
 Visual sources conveys material about everyday life and behaviour that is best communicated in
visual terms such as hair and clothing styles, interior design and sometimes they portrays the
attitude of the photographer.
 Visual records also works as stimulators on the memory of oral history informants.

Disadvantages

 Not a complete or objective source: the image that serves as the lasting record may not equate
directly with the reality of the event itself.
 The relationship between the photographer and painter to his subjects is not always clear.
 A picture is worth a thousand words and moreover it can have a thousand meanings about an
actual event. For example the traditions of the San rock paintings may mean a different story to
the historians.
 Dates, places and the people are no easily identified and moreover the emotions and thoughts
are not evident.
 Information from visual sources is often suggestive rather than definitive that is photographs
and paintings should be studied in conjunction with other evidence such as documents and oral
histories, to determine the reliability of the information.
 Visual sources such as rock paintings cannot reveal other activities that were practiced by the
early societies (San) such as the religious activities, social activities such as marriage and social
gatherings.

Anthropology

 This is the study of human beings along with their culture and the development of their
societies.
 Anthropology describes, analyses, interprets and explains the activities of the human beings,
thus anthropologists are expected to live with the informants and participate in their economic,
political and social activities so as to gather more information about the society under study.
  Anthropologists investigates every aspect of human life and what exactly makes a particular
human being and it is well concerned with behaviour, views and the life style of people.

Advantages

 The researcher may experience the informant’s way of life and making easy for him/her to
collect reliable information.
 The anthropologist can explain in detail the aspects of the economy on which a given economy
depends on.
 One can deeply understand the culture of the group under study.

Disadvantages

 Conducting the research is very expensive as it involves relocation of an individual to carryon on

the study/research.
 Failure for the researcher to adapt to new environment may also falsify the information
collected.
 To please the researcher people may behave differently this may lead to the omission of vital
information.
 Loss of own culture on the side researcher as he would be forced to adapt the culture of the
group under study.

Visual sources

Rock painting that depicts hunting

 There is a lot of evidence that proves the existence of African history before the coming of white
settlers (Europeans) and the use of visual sources have been able to distort claims of African as a
Dark Continent.
 Rock paintings have played a major role in revealing the history of the pre -colonial societies in
Zimbabwe, for example, history of the San is known through these rock paintings.
 Rock paintings have revealed the economic activities of the San such as hunting and fishing, they
even reveal the social life of the San hat playing of games within their society.
 They also reveal the San as a hunting society and the type of animals they hunted such as
elephants, kudus, elands among others as well as the type of weapons they used for hunting.
For example in fishing their main tool were long arrows.