Round African Mud House

My first memory of being in a traditional mud house was in my mother’s village, Navrongo. As a child, mud round houses with thatched roofs were a very common sight in the village. It was rare to see someone build a house with cement, and roof it with zinc ceiling.

My mother took me to the village during holidays, and some weekends. We sat in the over-packed public bus, with goats tied to the top of the bus, hens and guinea fowls under the seat, and the passenger beside us eating bread with fish, or egg with pepper.

I was very young but I vividly remember these trips to the village.

The scent of the mud house stayed with me, that beautiful smell of earth. It stayed with me like prints on my fingers, and I still remember stains of mud in my fingernails. My mother and I slept on top of the mud house in the cool evenings under a mosquito net, and if the rain was coming down, we would quickly go down inside one of the rooms.

The African mud house is one of the most brilliant pieces of ancient architecture that still exist today. They were built intentionally in harmony with the natural environment, to sustain communal living, to incorporate domesticated animals, and to honor all forms of life and living.

The mud house has various names depending on locality and ethnic group, and many descriptions such as the hut houses, thatch houses, earth homes, sustainable living, a cylinder style structure, dome dwelling, and so on.

Historically, all humans around the world have used the thatched roofing system to build homes, but the manner in which African ancestors built their made round houses stood out.

First, it had to be dome like, a cylinder structure, round. Secondly, it had to be built with clay or mud (mix with cow dung), straws, and medicinal herbs. Additional materials such as wheat husk and straws can be added to the mud or clay to keep the walls stabilized. The mixture is then formed into tiny mouldable bricks to build the round house.

And lastly, the roof had to be thatched. Not all thatched roofs across the globe are built on round houses, or use the mix of cow dung with straws in making mud and clay bricks.

In some mud houses, an animal pen and shelter is included in the design to house domesticated goats, sheep, cows, and etc. The faeces of the animals are used as compost to fertilize the field, usually two weeks before planting, to ensure the compost have properly decomposed into the soil.

Moreover, circular houses have a greater resistance to strong winds. The wind cannot hit the walls at a ninety degree angle as it would with a typical modern cement square houses. When built well with dung and twigs, they are disaster resistant. Thatched roofs also have a greater resistance to strong winds, whereas some zinc roofs, over time, are likely to be removed during heavy rains and storms.

Thatch is the name, or the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation, using local material, such as straws from rye, wheat, and reed; pal leaves, sugar cane leafs, tree branches, local leaves, sticks from millet and sorghum, and etc.

Globally, the African mud houses have been framed as inferior to other housing structures. When images of poor people are scattered across the media, there is typically a mud house in the background, or an individual or a group of people sitting in front or inside the round house living in abject poverty.

These images further equate poverty with mud houses, and construct the narrative of poor Africa as living in pre-civilization, not yet introduced to cement. This kind of image belittles rural life, and generally contributes to shaping the African traditional ways of living as backward.

Meanwhile, in many parts of contemporary North America, those living in thatched houses are associated with wealth, or as hippies, seeking for ecological and sustainable housing systems. Whereas, on the African continent it has always been ecologically and economically sound to build traditional round mud houses.

Thus, why change to buy cement, and expensive building materials, with aluzinc to demonstrate that the African continent is living in civilization?

Thatch round houses have always been beneficial as most Africans were farmers, herders, and nomads. People moved constantly from one place to another with their families, belongings, and animals. The purpose of the houses were made for functionality, and to serve the purpose of rural life.

Sadly, those who had intricate knowledge about constructing these houses, the thatch roofs, are not as prevalent as before. These were know how’s that were passed on from generation to generation. With migration to the city, many people have left these skilled labour. Finding these kinds of people are far and between, and is a great loss, not just as a knowledge asset but also to have the hands on skill for the future.

The value and purpose of many African traditional homes was to protect and include the extended family structure, community, traditions, animals, and to ensure inclusion of the natural ecosystem. They were built with communal and environmental functionality and purpose in mind.

The African round mud house is about preserving the Natural way, it is in fact, the African way. Nature has always been an integral part of the wellbeing and function of African communities, families, and wellbeing. The traditional house is an extension of nature temporarily lending us parts of its harvest to dwell in, live in, and thrive in, so when it’s time for us to move on, we leave behind exactly what we built with.

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