By Zulumathabo Zulu © 2015

Abstract

An African village of Matamong possesses a design theory of letanta an artifact used to catch small animals like nogwaja. Letanta is designed within the confines of a set of irreducible invariants and the requirement to venerate the spirits. The premise of this design philosophy is to reduce and possibly eliminate the prohibitive cost of survival through an iterative process of infinitesimal changes which eliminate extraneous material so that the final artifact engenders a survival maximizing experience. After globe trotting as a result of my exile which enabled me to observe other societies, I am in a unique position to report about letanta a long-term undertaking I continue to pursue as a research project. Analytical and interpretive findings show that an indigenous artifact like letanta provides an empirical evidence of the superiority of simple design concepts which deliver compact solutions to the great question of survival adaptation.

The Theory

The design theory of letanta is comprised by a set of axioms, irreducible invariants, spirituality, the collective and simple design.

Excerpt from the scholarly paper Design Theory of Letanta