Dr Godfrey Mahachi
It is a very striking physical landmark. It is also visible from many kilometres away, and from practically all directions.
When you see it, know you are approaching Mvuma, one of Midlands Province’s very early colonial settlements, located a hundred kilometres away from Masvingo along the highway to Harare.

Mvuma gives the impression of a sleepy and uneventful place and people might wonder how it came to be in the first place.
One gets tempted to think the place has no pride of its own and that it is devoid of a history that is worth telling.
The impression might also be created that during its growth in years gone, no one noticed and that its development was as uneventful as to have no consequence for the rest of the country.

Standing at 40,2 metres high on a prominent kopje on the southern perimeter of this little town, the Mvuma chimney is indeed a distinctive architectural construction that also boasts a long history that defined mining development in Southern Africa.
It was constructed by Falcon Mine in 1913, then the largest gold, copper and silver mine in the country. During those years, Mvuma was a hive of activity.

The three minerals were found together as an ore.
It was, therefore, necessary to separate them by smelting. However, the minerals have different densities and, consequently, different melting temperatures. The process of smelting the ore was therefore extremely complicated at the time.

The mine authorities finally designed a method of smelting the ore that involved lots of chemical reactions.
The reactions unfortunately also produced a lot of toxic gases which were harmful to life. A system of emitting the gases at a height level that lessened the possibility of human contact with the gases was developed, hence the chimney.

The chimney stack was constructed by well-fired bricks, from the base to the top.
The base itself is squared but takes the shape of a cone from a height of about three metres, which shape is maintained to the top.
The base now shows an opening on its northern side. It was from this open end that a ground tunnel to draw fumes from the smelter was connected.

The smelter itself was located some few metres north of the chimney itself.
At 40 metres high, the chimney emitted high into the atmosphere the dangerous gases created by the smelting process. 
To protect the construction from lightning strikes, a copper conductor was fitted at the top of the chimney and stretched all the way down to the ground. Also at the top of the chimney was fitted a cast iron ring that stabilised the construction, securing and protecting it from the different hazards that nature could pose.

It is reported that the smelting technology employed by Falcon Mine was exceptionally efficient.
This made Mvuma some kind of regional hub for minerals that required more complex processing methods.

For example, the Otavi-Tsumeb Mine in Namibia and several other mines in South Africa transported their ores to Mvuma for processing. All this made Mvuma an exceptionally busy mining and minerals processing centre during those days.
For reasons that are yet to be fully understood, the smelting plant became disused from around 1925.

It is, however, reasonable to assume that newer and more efficient methods had been developed to process ores of the type that the Mvuma smelter had been specifically created to handle. The health and general environmental risks that the smelting process posed could also have discouraged its continued use.
It was from about this time that the deterioration of the structural integrity of the chimney started.

Initially, the deterioration was slow and visually less obvious. Serious challenges to the survival of the structure, however, emerged from about the end of the Second World War.

One theory is that Italian prisoners of war were for some time held in Mvuma. This was during the Second World War. Running short of match boxes, the prisoners resorted to stripping pieces of the chimney copper conductor to light cigarettes. By the time their period of captivity in Mvuma ended, a considerable length of the conductor had been lost. This exposed the chimney to lightning strikes, some of which were and continue to be very severe.

Over the years, repeated lightning bolts have been knocking off bricks from the top section of the chimney. The lightning strikes have also created holes into the structure. These have made the top section of the structure very fragile and unstable.
Although some of these holes have been there for many years now, and the structure has maintained a semblance of stability, there is no doubt that the weakening of the chimney remains progressive.

Under the circumstances, the decay and deterioration is almost inevitable. The vagaries of nature will one day triumph over this very spectacular construction, one of the more interesting man-made landmarks in this part of the country. Without the chimney, Mvuma will not, for a very long time to come, be the same again.
This chimney, this eminent structure is now part of the physical and historical landscape of the country in general and Mvuma in particular. The construction clearly has immense architectural, social and historical significance.

Its story is also multi-faceted. It is about, on the one hand, the technological developments that took place earlier on in the mining history of this country whilst on the other it is also about the use and abuse of indigenous labour and the perennial exploitation of Zimbabwe’s mineral resources from the colonial period, among other things.

There is no doubt that local indigenous labour would have been extensively used in the construction of the chimney. These were the days of the infamous forced labour. Through the “chibharo” system, African men were routinely conscripted to work in the mines, railway lines construction, farms and other colonial enterprises, at rates of pay that bordered on free labour.
In many other cases, the labour our ancestors provided was for free. It was, in a very practical sense, a close version of slavery. My own great grandfather was a victim of this system and met his death in Shurugwi where he had been conscripted to build the now spectacular Boterekwa road pass just outside the mining town

of Shurugwi as one drives towards Zvishavane.
The story goes that he just failed to cope with the unreal demands of the “chibharo system” and wasted away, like many others who had been unfortunate enough to

be brought here, to die among strangers in what for him and others was a foreign land.
He had been conscripted for the Boterekwa project from his home in Gutu, at that time regarded as a faraway place because transportation was not in those days as easy and rapid as we enjoy today.

He never received a descend burial for none of his kinsman was there to conduct the funeral rites.
In fact, it was only some months after his death and burial that the family received the news about his passing on.
He had also left his young and recently wed wife who was later inherited in terms of our customs and traditions by his eldest son by his first wife, my grandfather.

My great-grandfather is not part of the Mvuma chimney story but there is no doubt that the men who provided labour for the chimney construction project suffered in much the same way as did my own ancestor in Shurugwi.
Put differently, there probably are many lives of our grandfathers that were sacrificed to put up the Mvuma chimney. Whilst the construction can be viewed as a product of colonial adventurism in mining technology development, there is absolutely no doubt that the indigenous people of this country made it possible through provision of their labour even though it was not freely and willingly given. The chimney is now part of the Mvuma social and physical landscape. The association of

the chimney with the town is very strong.

In Shona, people refer to it as “mupon’oro weMvuma” and often use it in light hearted slur such as referring to a tall and slender person as being as tall as “Mupon’oro weMvuma”.
The town of Mvuma has equally developed an attachment to the chimney, it being the one feature that residents are visually confronted with on a day to day basis.

It is therefore not surprising that one of the local schools uses the chimney to brand itself. The chimney dominates its logo, this being recognition of the inseparability of the town, its residents and the chimney.
Other sources say that the chimney is also a distinctive aide to air navigation.

The landmark is used by the Air Force of Zimbabwe pilots training out of the nearby Thornhill Air Base in Gweru. Other pilots also use the landmark as a directional guide.

When one looks at the chimney today, it gives the impression that it is intact and almost permanent.
That impression is easy to create from a distance. A closer inspection will most definitely create a different impression. Whilst the chimney has stood the test of time, the evidence of structural stress is now evident and obvious. There are gaping holes into the construction and these appear to be enlarging all the time.
This progressive disintegration and collapse, although for now apparently confined to the top section of the structure is gradually moving down the plinth.

With time, the entire structure will be affected and similarly weakened. It will then only take one or several sharp lightning strikes to bring this national heritage icon down to the ground, as rubble.

The collapse of the chimney will be the collapse of much more. For Mvuma, the landscape that has given it character and identity will be no more.
The thousands of people who pass through the shadows of this icon as they travel through the town will experience disorientation or shock as they will be at a loss as to what place they will be passing through.
This is because Mvuma has, for as long as most people know, been the chimney. Seeing the chimney is experiencing Mvuma.

The Mvuma chimney is a significant landscape feature, has historical and social values that are significant because they contribute to our reconstruction and understanding of elements of our past.
The imperative for its preservation as a component of our national heritage therefore exists, the high costs for doing so notwithstanding. That imperative must be shared by all of us in a very practical sense so that clearly important chapters of our history and legacy are not allowed to simply vanish right before our eyes.

We owe it to future generations to preserve and pay tribute to such legacies for not only are they physical reminders of our national experience, but are also critical national resources important in building our consciousness, education and tourism.

• Dr Godfrey Mahachi is the executive director of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe and is an archaeologist by training.