by Peires, Jeff
The literal meaning of the word amathamba, used by the believers to describe themselves, is ‘the soft ones’.29 Alternatively, it might be translated, ‘those who drill like soldiers’. The two translations are not as incompatible as they might seem. ‘Soft’ does not have the same connotation of weakness in Xhosa as it does in English. Rather ‘soft’ indicates the abnegation of self and willing submission to a greater duty than self-interest. One of A-I Berglund’s Zulu informants gave him an excellent description of the concept, which is equally valid in Xhosa:
[A successful diviner] must never think of himself. He must learn to kill his thoughts and desires and just think of the shades [ancestral spirits]. He must do what they tell him. That is to have a soft head.30
Similarly, when the historian SEK Mqhayi refers to Chief Maqoma as being ‘soft’ (ethambele) to the orders of King Sarhili, he means this as a compliment.31 This renunciation of self lay at the heart of the old Xhosa ethic of mutual aid and communal solidarity, now under threat.
[Xhosa] are hospitable by custom more than by nature. It is considered disgracefully mean to eat in the presence of any one not provided with food, without offering them some … Should a person be found dead from the effects of hunger near a kraal the headman or master thereof is held responsible, and has to pay the ‘isizi’ (death dues]. Children are taught habits of generosity as far as food is concerned from their infancy; and little creatures of two or three years of age may be seen handing their morsel from one to another, so that each may have a taste.32
It was precisely such behaviour, itself a manifestation of the deeper dependence springing out of the communal division of labour, which was under threat from the new market-orientated behaviour which chose to sell cattle and corn rather than share them out in community feasts. From the historical perspective, therefore, it is entirely appropriate that cattle and corn were the battlefield on which the struggle between the old and the new was finally played out.
The strength of the Cattle-Killing movement undoubtedly lay in its appeal to the ordinary homestead heads, reeling as they were from the blows of blight and lungsickness on top of the social pressures generated by military defeat and increasing landlessness. Commissioner Brownlee wrote at an early stage that ‘the movement seems peculiarly to have been one of the common people’. The missionary Bryce Ross reported that ‘when the people are reminded that their chiefs disapprove of this work, their answer is that they don’t care for their chiefs’.33 Chiefs who took a strong stand against the Cattle-Killing found that the majority of their subjects effectively deserted them in favour of pro-Nongqawuse members of the royal lineage. Thus Chief Kama lost most of his followers to his nephew Mate, Chief Siwani lost his to his nephew Bangayi, and the young chief Jali was challenged by his genealogically junior brother, Tabayi. Fadana, the disgruntled ex-Regent of the Thembu, recovered a prominence lost for over 20 years, as hundreds of Thembu abandoned their unbelieving chiefs and rallied to his leadership.34
The chiefs were more divided than the people because of their greater exposure to the pressures and temptations of the colonial government, but with the exceptions of Anta and Sigidi, every strong-willed, intelligent chief who perceived the threat which British Kaffraria and Governor Grey posed to the old order in Xhosaland finally backed the Cattle-Killing. Reliable figures from the seven most affected chiefdoms in British Kaffraria show that at least 85 per cent of Xhosa males adhered to the thamba party.35 It is thus no exaggeration to describe the Cattle-Killing as a popular mass movement of a truly national character, uniting both chiefs and commoners, the major social classes of the precolonial social order, in a communal defence of their way of life.
There was a sharp contrast between the thamba ethos, one of receptive submission to the common good, and the unyielding self-interest of the unbelieving gogotya party. Gogogotya means ‘hard’, just as its opposite thamba means ‘soft’, but, significantly, gogotya is usually translated as ‘stingy’ or even ‘disloyal’.36 The amathamba regarded the amagogotya as selfish, greedy men, whose miserly determination to risk their own cattle prevented the entire nation from enjoying the fruits of the resurrection. Even those Xhosa who recognised that the amagogotya were correct to dismiss the prophecies had little positive to say about them. The historian WW Gqoba, himself a Christian and an eyewitness of the Cattle-Killing, defined the verb ukugogotya as ‘to sit still, not doing anything [for anyone else], to stand on one’s own side’.37
We may take two leading amagogotya, Soga and Ndayi, as exemplars of their party. Soga, the son of Jotelo, was a man of about 60 at the time of the Cattle-Killing. He was a convert to the form of Christianity preached by the early Xhosa prophet, Ntsikana (d. 1822), but he did not see this as incompatible with the magic of the wardoctor, Mlanjeni. Soga was a spearmaker and a smelter of iron, one of the few crafts practised in precolonial Xhosa society, and this may have paved the way for his enthusiastic adoption of mercantile principles of exchange as soon as contact with the colonial economy made this possible. The traveller, James Backhouse, provides us with this description of Soga 14 years before the Cattle-Killing:
The common custom among the [Xhosa] was to share their provisions with those who were not supplied; and by thus allowing the idle to live upon the industrious, exertion was paralysed; but Soga had had moral courage enough to break through this bad custom as well as some others; he would not allow the other [Xhosa] to work for him without wages, and when they came to beg of him, he told them that he paid them for his work, and they must pay him for his corn. In case he slaughtered an ox, he also sold its flesh, and refused to give it away, according to the common custom of his nation.38
It is here, perhaps, that we see the origins of selling meat, isimausi, that antithesis of communal slaughtering and feasting. Soga had eight wives, a sure sign of wealth during a period when only about 20 per cent of Xhosa men had more than one.39
We know comparatively little about Ndayi, except that he was a wealthy man, married to several wives. His praises, fortunately preserved, provide us with a vivid insight into his character.
Here is the great one of Tsora.
The wearer of the armband, the ox of Ziya.
The one who struggles for his home.
Here is the forest of the cowards who fear hunger.
The bird of prey which carries water in its wing.
The thing as large as the plough of Simpkins,
The great plough which cultivates potatoes.
Great pot, which cooks with salt water,
Why do you cause confusion among the people of your chief?
You are aiming to scold them.
You are aiming with a rough blanket.
He is like a snake of the river,
The thing of the old village with imituma bushes.
He wants to see the place where the sun rises,
Where it shines its rays and disappears.
He smokes from a pipe made of ox’s horn.
He does not eat the cattle of another’s homestead.
He eats the beast of his own home.
They are striped, those oxen like springboks.
The horns of the harrow are pointing upwards.
The rhinoceroses are following one another.
The one who does not flinch crosses even through rock.
The great one of Tsora.40
If we except a few local references and conventional praises, it is apparent that the poem revolves around three themes: Ndayi’s independent and self-sufficient spirit, his relationship with the commercial world, and his relationship with his fellow Xhosa. Ndayi is presented as a strong man in a dubious cause. He is a great provider, but he provides for the amagogotya, the ‘cowards who fear hunger’. He does not demand food from others, but – a very double-edged compliment this – he eats by himself. He is thirsty for knowledge, but he wants to
know everything, even what the sun is doing, more than he has any right to know. References to trade goods and agricultural implements recur constantly: ploughs, harrows, blankets, potatoes (not an indigenous crop) and salt (not used by the Xhosa before traders commercialised it).41 Ndayi’s actions sow discord among those who adhere to the old ways, namely ‘the people of the chief’. He stands accused of wanting to exalt himself above his fellows, and order them around.
Ndayi’s character stands out in even sharper relief if we digress briefly to consider the praises of Tobi, Chief Sandile’s father-in-law, one of the highest-ranking believers in the Ngqika district.
The great pot of Zimela.
The child of a chief who is truly a great loafer. He never milks the beasts of his home at Zimela’s.
The son of Qelo, who sews the rough blanket.
The child of a chief, who avoids meetings at the chief’s place.
The one who never carries anything difficult to grasp.42
Like Ndayi, Tobi is a ‘rough blanket’ (abrasive personality), but there the resemblance ends. Whereas Ndayi is ambitious of power and prestige, Tobi tries to avoid public gatherings. Whereas Ndayi will press on even through rock, Tobi will not undertake anything risky or unusual. Whereas Ndayi is a great provider, Tobi cannot even make the most of his inherited cattle. Although it would be unfair to suggest that the indolent Tobi is typical of all believers, yet the contrast between the driving activity of Ndayi and the unenterprising passivity of Tobi probably does reflect the real difference in outlook between the amathamba, hoping for the regeneration of an old world, and the amagogotya, grasping eagerly at the new.
Not all of the rich and prominent councillors were to be found on the unbelieving side. Much of the wealth in pre-capitalist Xhosa society was distributed by chiefly patronage, and its recipients quite naturally attached themselves strongly to the fortunes of their chief. In the case of Sandile’s chiefdom, it would seem that the younger Great Councillors, such as Vena (who was circumcised with Sandile), were strong supporters of the Cattle-Killing, while Soga, Tyhala, Neku and Nxokwana, the leading members of the gogotya faction, were all sons of the councillors of Sandile’s father and hence inheritors of wealth accumulated independently of the chief. Commissioner Brownlee informs us that ‘in many cases, the indigent adherents of heads of kraals have been either compelled to destroy their little stock or quit’.43 The point is not, however, that all wealthy councillors were amagogotya; but only that wealthy councillors made up the backbone of the amagogotya faction. Of this there can be little doubt. Tyhala and Soga, the two leading unbelievers in Sandile’s chiefdom, had thirteen and eight wives respectively.44 At least six out of the twenty-eight second-ranking councillors were unbelievers, a high percentage (21 per cent) when one considers that only 5-10 per cent of the Xhosa in Sandile’s chiefdom opposed the movement.45
In Mhala’s chiefdom, Magistrate Gawler predicted that ‘all large cattle owners will be of opinion that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, and, initially at least, he seems to have been right. The ‘old counsellors’ and the ‘big swells’ opposed Mhala’s orders to kill, and the chief was forced to turn to ‘young, second-rate counsellors’. Later, however, the enormous pressures brought to bear by the believers caused seven out of ten great councillors to slaughter, though one of these only succumbed in the final months of the movement. Another strong unbeliever in Mhala’s chiefdom, Bulungwa, is described as ‘a great beggar, and over-ambitious’.46 Makaphela, the leading unbeliever in Feni’s chiefdom, was a wealthy man with eight wives. Koka, an unbelieving councillor of Chief Oba, had six. Gxabagxaba, one of the old unbelievers among Sarhili’s councillors, was possessed of ‘large flocks’. Mgwagwa, the old councillor who kept young chief Jali out of the Cattle-Killing, owned fourteen cattle and ten calves. ‘A considerable number’ of Chief Siwani’s old councillors ended the Cattle-Killing period ‘well-off’. Like Sandile’s unbelieving councillors, they invested their capital in ploughs, waggons and oxen.47
Conclusion
It was the great lungsickness epidemic which initially suggested cattle-killing, and the first chiefdoms to be affected by lungsickness were also the first chiefdoms to kill. But lungsickness alone was not enough to drive people into the movement as the examples of the Mfengu and of Chief Toyise demonstrate. Political commitments played their part, but while these were enough to ensure that heavily implicated colonial clients such as Chiefs Siwani, Toyise and Kama adopted the colonial line against cattle-killing, they were not enough to carry the vast middle ground, and men like Anta, Mjuza and Soga, who fought on the same side as the believers during the War of Mlanjeni, fought against them over Nongqawuse.
The Cattle-Killing split every chiefdom and, indeed, many homesteads from within. Religious attitudes are difficult to disentangle, as the believers clearly accepted significant elements of Christianity while the vast majority of unbelievers remained fully convinced of the validity of divination, prophecy and magic. Inter-generational conflicts between fathers and sons pulled sometimes one way and sometimes the other, and produced a thorough mix of young and old on both sides. Women, however, seem overwhelmingly to have supported the believers.
This leaves the factor of social and class attitudes, which the Xhosa themselves used to characterise the two parties as ‘soft’ and ‘hard’. The ‘soft’ party of believers saw themselves as properly loyal and submissive adherents of the old order, who put their nation first in giving up their cattle for the good of all. They viewed the amagogotya as selfish and even despicable ‘cowards who fear hunger’. The unbelievers probably thought of themselves as sensible men, who realised that one could not eat grass, but their unbelief was probably sustained by a deep unwillingness to slaughter their cattle.48 Their sense of priorities was aptly expressed by Mhala’s unbelieving son, Smith, when he said, ‘They say I am killing my father [by refusing to slaughter] – so I would kill him before I would kill my cattle.’49
The little evidence we have strongly suggests that the amathamba were a party of the common people, whose material subsistence was largely eroded by conquest, drought and lungsickness, and for whom Nongqawuse’s prophecies were probably the last chance to avoid migrant labour and the final disintegration of the old way of life. The amagogotya were largely a party of men who had benefited from the new opportunities offered by the colonial presence, and whose anti-social behaviour stemmed from the fact that they had broken free from the trammels of the precolonial order. Certainly, the division between amathamba and amagogotya ran much deeper than the division between belief and unbelief, and the Xhosa, in conferring these names, seem to have recognised the fact.
1 On the spread of lungsickness, GH28/70 J Jackson-G Grey, 5 Feb. 1856; GH8/28 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 6 Feb. 1856; E Robertson-J Maclean, 30 July 1856; Acc 793 J Gawler-F Reeve, 7 July 1856; Grahamstown Journal, 24 March 1855; MS 7639, Cory Library, Grahamstown, B Ross-J Ross, 8 May 1854; NJ Merriman (1957), p.215.
2 GH 8/27 C Canham-B Nicholson, 30 Sept. 1855, enclosed in J Maclean-J Jackson, 16 Oct. 1855.
3 Merriman (1957), p.216; Grahamstown Journal, 4 Aug., 8 Sept. 1855; GH 8/49 J Maclean-G Grey, 31 July 1856; GH 8/28 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 5 April, 1856; GH 28/70 J Jackson-G Grey, 5 Feb. 1856.
4 BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 18 Aug. 1856.
5 BK 373 J Maclean-W Liddle, 4 Aug. 1856.
6 BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 1 May 1857.
7 Grahamstown Journal, 29 Sept. 1856; BK 24 J Douglas-J Maclean, 21 Oct. 1856.
8 GH 8/34 J Ayliff-J Maclean, 23 Jan. 1858.
9 Acc.793 J Gawler-J Maclean, 28 July 1857; H Smith-Earl Grey, 10 May 1851, Imperial Blue Book 1380 of 1851, p.19; CO 4386 Information received from Toise, 18 March 1852.
10 CO 4386 Statement by Manquidi, 17 Dec. 1851; Interview with M Soga, Kobonqaba Location, Kentani
District, 25 Aug. 1983. Sarhili’s unbelieving councillor, Gxabagxaba, was also a leading hostile during the war. BK 431 J Maclean-G Mackinnon, 21 March 1851.
11 Merriman (1957), p.218; BK 14 Statement of Umjuza, 24 Feb. 1857; 1/KWT W Fynn-Colonial Secretary, 15 March 1873; Interview with M Soga (note 78 above).
12 Interview with M Soga (note 78); Interview with M Kantolo, Kantolo Location, Kentani District, 22 Aug. 1983; WW Gqoba, ‘Isizatu sokuxelwa kwe nkomo ngo Nongqause,’ Part 2, Isigidimi samaXosa, 2 April 1888. Gqoba’s actual word for ‘relatives’, imizalwana, means ‘people of the same descent.’
13 C Brownlee (1916), pp.170-1.
14 BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 23 Nov. 1856; BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 May 1857; GH 8/49 J Fitzgerald-J Maclean, n.d. (Dec. 1856); Brownlee (1916), p.134.
15 CO 3122 C Brownlee-J Warner, 24 Jan. 1867; Interview with R Tshisela, Mncotsho Location, Berlin District, 23 Aug. 1982; Interview with A Nkonki, Ngcizele Location, Kentani District, 7 Jan. 1976.
16 GH 8/29 J Gawler-J Maclean, 14 Aug. 1856; BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 20 June 1857; GH 8/32 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 23 May 1857; ‘Nzulu Lwazi’ (SEK Mghayi), ‘Umfi Wm. C Mtoba,’ Umteteli waBantu, 28 Jan 1928.
17 See, for example, IM Lewis, Ecstatic Religion (Harmondsworth, 1971), esp. Ch. 3 and 4.
18 Interview with Masiphula Ngovane, Mahlahlane Location, Willowvale District, Oct. 1975.
19 Interview Bomvane Fikile Anta, Teko Location, Kentani District, 8 Jan. 1976.