by Peires, Jeff
Mhlakaza lost no time in communicating these instructions to the chiefs and the Xhosa people generally. The rapid spread of lungsickness seemed to prove the strangers’ words that existing cattle were rotten, ‘bewitched’ and ‘unclean’, and encouraged the people to destroy these in the hope of getting ‘a fresh supply of clean and wholesome’ beasts. ‘They have all been wicked,’ implied Mhlakaza, ‘and everything belonging to them is therefore bad.’ The old cattle were tainted and polluted and the new cattle would be contaminated by them. ‘The cattle [the new people] bring with them may not mix with those of men, and they themselves cannot eat the food of men.’ For this reason, all cattle had to be killed, all corn destroyed, and all magical charms given up. All their copper rings, all their clothes, all their cooking pots, all their hoes and other implements, everything they had, was contaminated and should be destroyed or sold. They themselves were impure and they should purify themselves by secluding themselves for three days and offering up certain sacrifices.5
Mhlakaza said that the new people had many cattle and horses, and wore blankets and garments made of the skins of wild animals. They knew all the Xhosa who came to see them, even those who came from far away. They brought with them a whole new world of contentment and abundance. ‘Nongqawuse said that nobody would ever lead a troubled life. People would get whatever they wanted. Everything would be available in abundance.’ ‘All the people who have not arms and legs will have them restored, the blind people will also see, and the old people would become young.’ ‘There would rise cattle, horses, sheep, goats, dogs, fowls and every other animal that was wanted and all clothes and everything they would wish for to eat the same as English people eat and all kinds of things for their houses should all come out of the ground.’6 It was a sharp contrast to the impoverishment and despair experienced by those who had lost their land, their livelihoods and, most recently, even their cattle.
The great chiefs of Xhosaland despatched high-ranking emissaries to investigate. King Sarhili sent his brothers Ndima and Xhoxho, and Sarhili’s uncle Bhurhu sent his sons Qwabe and Xhoseni. These chiefs did not actually meet with the strangers who, Mhlakaza assured them, were absent on an expedition against the Colony, but they nevertheless became convinced of the truth of the prophecies and immediately began to kill their cattle. Qwabe slaughtered two oxen on the day that he got home, and Xhoseni sent orders that cattle should be sacrificed for all his wives who had small children.7
King Sarhili sent four head of cattle as a gift to Mhlakaza. He sent his councillors Kinco and Gxabagxaba to officially notify the chiefs under British jurisdiction that, their existing cattle being all bewitched, ‘they must sacrifice them for others which will be obtained from the new people’. The response was immediate in the coastal areas, stricken by drought and lungsickness, which had listened to the wife of Bhulu and the other early prophets. Chiefs Phatho and Mhala sent men to investigate. The minor chief Tabayi visited Mhlakaza himself and returned greatly enhanced in reputation, declaring that he had seen the new people and believed the prophecies to be true.8
The great slaughter had begun but it was still very tentative. Wondrous rumours were heard of the marvels seen at the Gxarha, but many visitors were shown nothing at all, and returned in a state of uncertainty. Many homesteads killed some of their cattle, but then desisted pending further news. The fate of the Cattle-Killing movement hung in the balance until, on or about 10 July 1856, Sarhili arrived at the Gxarha to see the new people for himself.9
1 Description from a visit to the Gxarha in August 1983. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr N Webb and Mr R Hulley, who assisted me on this occasion.
2 There are three main sources for Nongqawuse’s vision. Gqoba (1888) is excellent, but suffers from the fact that he telescopes his entire narrative into eight days. The statements recorded in February 1858 by some of the key participants, including Nongqawuse, Nombanda and Nombanda’s brother, Nqula, are suspect because of the circumstances in which they were taken, and I have used them only to a very limited extent, mainly to elucidate the relationship between Nombanda and Mhlakaza. The third source is to be found in the reports made by police spies before the colonial authorities had grasped the magnitude of the movement or decided to turn it to their advantage. The most important of these is in GH 8/29 Information communicated to the Chief Commissioner, 4 July 1856. Where the statements conflict, I have relied on the spies’ reports. The text of the strangers’ message quoted here is taken from Gqoba (1888).
3 GH 8/29 Information communicated to the Chief Commissioner, 4 July 1856.
4 Ibid.
5 MS 9063, Cory Library. N Falati, ‘The story of Ntsikana’; Acc 793 J Gawler-J Maclean, 25 July 1856; GH 8/29 Information communicated to the Chief Commissioner, 1 July 1856; King William’s Town Gazette, 14 Aug. 1856. Berlin Mission Archives, Abt. III, J Rein-Berlin Missionary Society, 28 Aug. 1856.
6 SA Library, MSS African, uncatalogued, ‘The frontier’: anonymous, but certainly written by Dr J Fitzgerald; Interview with Masiphula Ngovane, Mahlahlane Location, Willowvale District, Oct. 1975; J Goldswain (1946-9), Vol. 2, p.191 (I have amended Goldswain’s eccentric spelling and punctuation); GH 8/29 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 29 June 1856; GH 8/29 Information communicated to the Chief Commissioner, 4 July 1856.
7 GH 8/29 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 29 June 1856.
8 GH 28/71 Information communicated by a trustworthy Native, 2 Aug. 1856.
9 GH 8/29 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 13 July 1856.
2. THE PYTHON THAT ENCIRCLES HOHITA
Sarhili, King of all the Xhosa, was at the height of his power. He was a tall, somewhat gangling figure, saluted A! Ntaba! (Mountain!) on account of his great height. Now 47 years old, Sarhili had reigned over Xhosaland for more than 20 years. He had survived three colonial invasions of his Gcaleka Xhosa territory and had managed to preserve almost all his lands intact without in any way compromising his political integrity or his duty to the other Xhosa chiefs. He had waged successful war against the neighbouring Thembu kingdom despite its alliance with the colonial government, and had established a new Great Place, Hohita, in the heart of the disputed territory. Immensely wealthy, he owned several thousand cattle scattered for their health and safety at stations and outposts throughout his huge domains. The praise poet sang:
His eyes are as the sun, his body is as large as the earth, his people are as numerous as the spires of grass; and the milk of his cattle is like the ocean.1
A master of the Xhosa style of oratory, etiquette and court ceremonial, celebrated for his knowledge of custom and precedent, Sarhili was respected by all the other chiefs, who were guided by him in matters concerning law and ritual, and who regarded him as the very epitome and model of Xhosa chieftainship. By the force of his personality and the subtlety of his diplomacy, Sarhili imparted a certain degree of unity and coherence to the vast, decentralised Xhosa kingdom, curbing the ambitions of his brothers and other important chiefs ‘who act’, wrote one colonial newspaper, ‘like the haughty Barons of old did in our own country’.2 The Rharhabe Xhosa chiefs, groaning under the political yoke of the British Kaffrarian government, were on that very account more inclined than ever before to heed the word of the Great House.
Above all, Sarhili was a king who was loved by his people. Unlike his father Hintsa, who had won respect through fear, cunning and manipulation, Sarhili enjoyed the spontaneous loyalty and affection of his subjects. He was an accessible ruler, unfailingly pleasant and courteous. His judicial decisions were renowned for their fairness and tact, and he made a point of softening a harsh judgement with words of humour and sympathy. Sarhili enjoyed his beer, he played simple practical jokes on his councillors, and his praises celebrate his prowess as an uninhibited lover of women. He was the last true King of independent Xhosaland, and the complete embodiment and personification of all that was best i
n the old order.
But beneath the polished surface of Sarhili’s royal persona ran deep scars which seriously affected his perceptions and his judgement. Since his early youth he had been in the hands of magicians and diviners. As a boy he had been so weak mentally and physically that he was not expected to live. As a youth, he was cut off from his father Hintsa by the latter’s quarrel with his mother. Shortly after the reconciliation of father and son, Hintsa was shot dead by colonial forces and the young King was left alone to face external attacks from the Thembu and internal challenges to his authority from the chiefs and councillors of his father’s generation. Sarhili leaned on the advice of doctors and rainmakers throughout these troubled years, though the relationship was often a stormy one and he had at least two of the doctors killed.3
Sarhili’s fortunes began to improve about the time that a trader named King shot a huge python in the Manyubi forest. This python was the first of its kind ever seen, and its skin and bones were sent to the Great Place, where they were ground into a powder with which the King and his closest relatives were doctored. Not long afterwards, Sarhili’s forces won a notable victory over the Thembu and his mounting success as a ruler was thereafter indelibly associated with the python, which is featured in the best-known lines of his praises:
He is the great python which encircles Hohita.
He who wakes too late will have missed it.
For he will not have seen the python uncoiling itself.4
The name of the doctor who ground the python’s bones to powder and infused it into the incisions he made in Sarhili’s back was Bomela.5 Bomela became immensely powerful and wealthy on account of his magical skills but, being credited with the successes of the 1840s, he was unable to escape responsibility for the failures of the early 1850s. Even more bitter to Sarhili than the military catastrophes of the War of Mlanjeni was his failure to produce a male heir to his kingdom. He had at least five wives, but he seemed unable to beget a healthy son. First his son Gobandolo died, then Dabamfana, and then Feni. The greatest blow came last, in June or July 1853, when his Great Son Nonqano, a boy of 12, died as well. Such a malign series of sudden deaths was clearly the result of witchcraft and, instigated by Sarhili’s Great Wife Nohute, the councillors bypassed Bomela and called in a Thembu diviner named Janyawula.
Janyawula blackened the left side of his face and whitened the right side. He took five spears in his left hand and two in his right. Then he cried, ‘I see you, Bomela … ! You took the bones of the python.’ ‘No,’ returned Bomela, ‘I did not.’ ‘I’m not interested in your words,’ replied the diviner ‘but I want the people to hear [what you have done].’ At this point in the proceedings, Sarhili’s uncle Bhurhu intervened, and asked Janyawula whether he had actually seen Bomela taking the bones of the python. ‘I am not done yet,’ said Janyawula furiously and he stalked off and secluded himself in a small dwelling nearby.
When he emerged, Janyawula declared that he had ‘seen’ Bomela take earth from a patch of land struck by hail and he had ‘heard’ the sound of the ichanti (a malevolent water creature) which Bomela kept as a familiar. Bomela had mixed the earth of the hailstorm and the poison of the ichanti and the bones of the python and made medicine with which he had ‘cut’ each of Sarhili’s four sons. ‘Seize, seize Bomela,’ cried Janyawula, ‘and kill him. Bring him to his house and compel him to produce the three things … if he will not, call for me and I will find them.’
Bomela was taken a prisoner to his own place, but he denied he possessed any bewitching matter. He was tied to the ground near a fire, so that his flesh slowly roasted while cold water was sprinkled over him to prevent him actually catching fire. Nevertheless, he refused to confess. The next day the torturers broke up an anthill and threw black ants all over him. Still he maintained his innocence. On the third day he was again tortured with the ants, but equally to no avail. Then Sarhili arrived in person, accompanied by Janyawula. ‘Kill me,’ said Bomela, ‘for I have nothing to bring out.’ ‘We have been two days here,’ said the chief torturer, ‘and nothing has come out. Bring out the things yourself, Janyawula.’
Janyawula threw off his blanket and flourished his spear. He bit from a large root carried by his servant, spat on his chest and then rubbed the spittle all over his face. At the entrance to Bomela’s homestead, he found a small bundle containing, so he said, a piece of leopard skin, a piece of Hintsa’s blanket, some hair from Sarhili, some excreta from Sarhili’s dead children and other similar items. ‘That is not my bundle,’ said Bomela, ‘but Janyawula’s.’ Janyawula found various charms, including the skull of a British officer killed in the War of the Axe, hidden in secret places about Bomela’s dwelling. These were not unexpected, considering that Bomela was a publicly professed wardoctor and master of secret mediums. But where was the poison from the hail, the python and the ichanti so precisely described by Janyawula? After a last look under the gateposts, the Thembu doctor declared that these must have been removed by Tshono, one of Bomela’s councillors.
At this, Sarhili rounded on Janyawula. ‘You have smelt out Bomela not Tshono,’ he pointed out. ‘Shall I kill all my people?’ The other chiefs were, however, impressed by the number of charms and magical devices which Janyawula had found and they told Sarhili to heed the doctor’s words. ‘Why should I keep still?’ asked Sarhili, ‘Shall I kill all my men?’ ‘But,’ the chiefs said, ‘we have long told you that you cannot keep children.’ Unable to respond but unwilling to take direct responsibility for Bomela’s death, Sarhili rode silently away. The next day, he was told that Bomela had died of his wounds. In fact, he had been strangled by the chiefs, who feared to release him lest he take revenge for his sufferings.
Sarhili was deeply affected by the death of Bomela, a man who had served him well and whom he had abandoned in the face of the opposition of the other chiefs. He returned a portion of the confiscated cattle to Bomela’s children as a sign of his belief in Bomela’s innocence. It was rumoured that while Bomela was being burned he had cried out, ‘Don’t burn me alive, but kill me outright. If you continue to torture me thus, a great misfortune will befall you.’ Sarhili was to have cause to remember these words.
Nor could Sarhili ever forget that terrible day more than 20 years previously (April 1835) when he had accompanied his father Hintsa as he rode proudly into the camp of Governor Sir Benjamin D’Urban.6 Hintsa was given assurances of his personal safety, but he was never to leave the camp alive. D’Urban disarmed Hintsa’s retinue, placed the King under heavy guard and threatened to hang him from the nearest tree. Hintsa was held hostage for a ransom of 25 000 cattle and 500 horses, ‘war damages’ owed to the Colony. He tried to escape but was shot down, and after he was dead his ears were cut off as military souvenirs.
This was Sarhili’s first introduction to his colonial neighbours. He never forgot and he never forgave. ‘Where is my father?’ he asked his councillors when the War of the Axe broke out. ‘He is dead. He died by the hands of these people. He was killed at his own house. He died without fighting … Today we all fight.’ The Gcaleka Xhosa were not as battle-hardened as the Rharhabe, and the open country around Queenstown (the only place where Sarhili’s territory adjoined the Colony) was not conducive to the Xhosa style of guerrilla warfare, but Sarhili committed all his resources to the Wars of 1846-7 and 1850-3. The Gcaleka were heavily savaged by colonial firearms – over 200 killed at the battle of Imvane (1851) – and they were forced to pay heavy war indemnities but their geographical position to the rear of the Rharhabe preserved them from the huge territorial losses suffered by Sandile and his people.
Even worse than the colonial enemy at the gates was the colonial enemy within. Even before the death of Hintsa, Gcaleka suspicions of British intentions had been roused by the activities of the Reverend John Ayliff, the Wesleyan missionary at Butterworth. Ayliff had espoused the cause of the Mfengu refugees, clients to the Gcaleka, whom he saw as potential converts
to Christianity. Ayliff sheltered Mfengu refugees from their Gcaleka masters and when the Imperial column crossed the Kei in 1835 he encouraged them to switch their allegiance to the British Crown. This seemed to Hintsa, and to Sarhili after him, to be an act of rank treachery on the part of a man living on his land, by his permission and under his protection. This double betrayal of Xhosa good faith by both the secular and the spiritual arms of Western civilisation left a deep mark on Sarhili. He became implacably opposed to the colonial presence and he instinctively shrank back into a fierce attachment to the old Xhosa methods and the old Xhosa beliefs.
It was partly to get away from the Wesleyan mission that Sarhili moved the Gcaleka Great Place up north to the Hohita.7 Butterworth Mission was burned down in the War of the Axe and again in the War of Mlanjeni. Indeed the Wesleyans regarded their prospects in Gcalekaland as so hopeless that they did not replace the Reverend Gladwin who fled for his life in 1851. This left the field clear for the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and in September 1855, St Mark’s Mission was established near Hohita with the Reverend HT Waters as its first missionary.
Sarhili was reluctant to accept the mission and his first response to Waters was to tell him that there was no ground to spare, that he had come too near the Great Place, and that he must fall back. ‘The horrible suspicion that I am a government agent annoys me at every step,’ wrote the missionary. But when Sarhili called at St Mark’s to pay a courtesy visit, he was struck despite himself by a picture of the Crucifixion:
