by Peires, Jeff
He enquired minutely into a history of Our Lord, which I gave him through the Interpreter, and a large Pictorial Bible. He was most taken with the Crucifixion, Christ walking on the sea, and St Thomas’ unbelief.8
One can only wonder whether these strong visual images of Christ walking on the water and rising from the dead, and of doubting Thomas, flashed through Sarhili’s mind when Nongqawuse and Mhlakaza pointed to the sea, showed him the resurrected ancestors, and asked him to believe.
The anxieties arising out of Bomela’s death and out of the continuing colonial intrusion were compounded from the beginning of 1855 by the spread of lungsickness across the Kei and into Sarhili’s country.9 As in British Kaffraria, lungsickness was followed even before Nongqawuse by prophecies of a resurrection:
The Galekas firmly believe that Umlanjeni has risen from the dead – that the sickness among the cattle was predicted by the prophet and that he can bring all their cattle to life again.
Sarhili put more than 20 people to death for witchcraft or for breaking the quarantines established on the movement of cattle, but he could not check the spread of the disease. By February 1856, it was reported that many cattle had died of lungsickness in the lower part of Sarhili’s country where Nongqawuse lived. In April, the very month that she began to prophesy, lungsickness broke out among the homesteads bordering on Sarhili’s Great Place. By August, at the very latest, the king’s own herds were affected.
It must be said that despite all his admirable qualities, Sarhili was in some respects a very limited ruler. His tenacious attachment to the old Xhosa traditions which was the source of much of his strength was also the source of his greatest weakness. He had neither the will nor the ability to devise original solutions to the new problems which confronted him. In the depths of his perplexity, Sarhili was an easy mark for the prophecies which, although in essence radically new, were expressed in a familiar religious idiom.
Thus occurred one of the saddest ironies in Xhosa history, that a man who loved his subjects so dearly and by his good qualities so deserved their love became the chief instrument of the traumatic disaster which was soon to overwhelm them.
1 T Smith (1864), p.63. The only detailed treatment of Sarhili is in JH Soga (n.d.), Ch. 6, but like all Soga’s work, it presents only a partial picture. On Sarhili’s early life, see Peires (1981), pp.115-7. For Sarhili’s praises, see Rubusana (1906), pp.228-9.
2 Grahamstown Journal, 22 Oct. 1853.
3 Peires (1981), p.116. Also Brownlee (1916), p.158.
4 Rubusana (1906), p.228.
5 For details on the python, Cape Frontier Times, 12 June, 31 July 1845. The story of Bomela was recorded in great detail at the request of Governor Grey because he thought he might be able to use it as ammunition against the Xhosa King. BK 70 ‘Death of Bomella, Chief Priest of the AmaGalekas in 1856 as stated by Kaffirs of Kreli’s tribe’ recorded by HT Waters n.d. (1858). Valuable details are added by Grahamstown Journal, 26, 30 July, 2, 6 Aug. 1853. For Bomela’s curse, see Cory Library, Cory Interviews, Tanco and Somana, Kentani, 24 Jan. 1910.
6 For the death of Hintsa and the Mfengu exodus, see Peires (1981), Ch. 8 (1).
7 Peires (1981), p.116.
8 For the early years of St Mark’s Mission, see Journal of Rev. HT Waters, United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, Microfilm 96723/1/1 172/2, Reel 1, Cory Library. The quote is taken from the entry for 1 Jan. 1856. See also 14-15 Sept. 1855.
9 On lungsickness in Gcaleka territory, Anglo-African, 1 March 1855; Grahamstown Journal, 8 Sept. 1855; Merriman (1957), p.216; GH 8/26 MB Shaw-J Maclean, 3 April 1855; GH 8/49 J Maclean-G Grey, 31 Oct. 1856; GH 8/28 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 5 April 1856; GH 28/70 5 Feb. 1856; BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 25 Aug. 1856. The quotation is from GH 8/27 C Canham-B Nicholson, 30 Sept. 1855, enclosed in J Maclean-J Jackson, 16 Oct. 1855.
3. SEEING IS BELIEVING
Saddened by the loss of his sons, guilt-ridden over the death of Bomela, helpless in the face of the lungsickness which was decimating his cattle, his imagination fired by the stories he had heard of the wonders at the Gxarha and also, perhaps, by the images in the ‘large pictorial Bible’, Sarhili undertook the long journey from the Hohita to the sea in a spirit of hope and expectation. On or about 10 July 1856, he arrived at Mhalakaza’s residence.1 What exactly happened over the next few days will probably never be known for certain. Our most reliable oral source informs us that ‘the same voices that spoke to Nongqawuse spoke to him as well’, and, given the King’s emotional state, this may well be true. In addition, Mhlakaza and Nongqawuse showed Sarhili certain things which he believed to be a fresh ear of corn, a fresh pot of beer, a favourite horse lately dead, and best of all his dead son, now alive and well. He asked whether the promises could not be fulfilled without the destruction of the existing cattle, but when he was told that this was impossible, he bowed to the prophecies, asking only for three months space to give him time to kill his immense herds.
He issued formal commands (imiyolelo) to the Xhosa nation, ordering them to obey the instructions of Mhlakaza, and as a public sign of faith he commenced the slaughter by killing his favourite ox, a beast renowned throughout Xhosaland.
After Sarhili’s declaration, hundreds more Xhosa made their way to the Gxarha. Here they were received by Mhlakaza, who urged all ‘who had any respect for departed relatives’ ‘to kill their cattle as they had heard the bellowing beneath the ground of thousands of cattle that will replace those that are killed’. The enquirers were introduced to Nongqawuse.
A girl of about 16 years of age, has a silly look, and appeared to me as if she was not right in her mind. She was not besmeared with clay, nor did she seem to me to take any pains with her appearance.2
Nongqawuse was still seeing the strangers often. Sometimes they came to her in the homestead after dark. Eventually she became too ‘ill’ (presumably too confused and disorientated) to talk, and her place was taken by her young relative Nombanda, who was preferred by many visitors, including the chiefs.
Many of the enquirers were anxious to see and hear the new people, and Mhlakaza and Nongqawuse were obliged to try and satisfy their wishes up to a point. Not all the visitors received the same treatment. The most privileged were taken to see the new people, though not to speak to them. Other visitors witnessed the sight of Nongqawuse or Nombanda talking to the spirits, though they saw and heard nothing themselves. A large number of visitors, probably the majority, saw and heard nothing at all and had to be content with assurances. Let us look a little more closely at the available evidence.
WW Gqoba, whose narrative of the Cattle-Killing is based on oral traditions collected from believers, conveys something of the emotional impact of Nongqawuse’s performance. He describes a party of chiefs following Nongqawuse towards the Gxarha river. Their throats are dry with fear, and when they reach the river, they kneel down and drink.
Then they heard the crashing of great stones breaking off the cliffs overlooking the headwaters of the River Kamanga [i.e. Gxarha], whereupon the men gazed at one another wondering for they were seized with dread for it seemed as if something was going to explode in the cliff. While they stood wondering, the girl was heard saying, ‘Cast your eyes in the direction of the sea.’
And when they looked intently at the waters of the sea, it seemed as if there were people there in truth, there was the bellowing of bulls and oxen, and there was a black mass coming and going, coming and going until it disappeared over the horizon, there in the waters of the sea. Then the people began to believe.
This army in the sea never came out to meet the chiefs. Even their speech was not heard by anyone except Nongqawuse.3
Gqoba’s account probably describes an actual visit paid to Nongqawuse during the early part of November 1856. Two independent versions of the same event s
urvive, both recorded shortly afterwards. The first is from Dilima, the Great Son of Chief Phatho, and the second is that of an official delegation from the Ndlambe chiefdom.
He … saw sundry black things in the water rising to the surface either singly or in numbers appearing as it were as a cloud in the water – these were playing in the water, rising and disappearing. He says he was anxious to go and speak to them but he was not allowed to do so … He never saw cattle but … he saw things he could not account for in the water – which he says are called these strange people who have risen from the dead.
The day of their arrival and the next two days, the prophetess would not talk to them. On the third day, they were told that they should see all that they should see. There was a mist over the water – the girl went from them to the distance of about a mile and a half – they presently saw figures but of what they could not tell. They requested to be allowed to talk to the people and see them closer, but they were told to go home, destroy their corn and their cattle and then they would be allowed the privilege of speaking with the new people.
These three accounts agree on the main points, namely that the chiefs saw black shapes in the water, rising and falling in the distance but so far away that it was impossible to see them clearly. A similar experience was described by other eyewitnesses, who saw ‘the lower parts of the bodies of these men [the new people] but … the wizards raise a mist about their bodies which conceals their heads and the upper parts’. Many Xhosa who saw such sights attempted to get closer, but were pushed back by Mhlakaza on one pretext or another.
Other enquirers, although not privileged to see the new people, were permitted to watch Nongqawuse conversing with them. Even Mhlakaza depended on the prophetess as a medium of communication.
She [Nongqawuse] withdraws to a distance from others in her spiritual operations, and there seems to hold converse with the unseen under the ground. She reveals it to [Mhlakaza] who announces it again to the nation. He says ‘Usifuba’ and ‘Unopakade’, the two great chiefs in the unseen world, have commanded him to tell the people, high and low.
Mhlakaza went with a party of men, but these [strangers] did not appear. They spoke with Nongqawuse, and were heard only by her and the other girl, who interpreted what they were saying.4
Similar proceedings were also reported by Commissioner Brownlee, who wrote that ‘though no sound is heard in answer to the questions put, she gives forth the responses of the oracle’. Oral tradition places much emphasis on the auditory and visual qualities of the prophetic scene at the Gxarha. The oral historian Ndumiso Bhotomane, whose father was often Sarhili’s personal emissary to Nongqawuse, was positive that both Sarhili and his father actually heard voices coming out of the reeds and he explained this as follows:
The place was close to the cliffs, and when people spoke there, the cliffs echoed. Thus it was that people believed.
In addition to the thickly vegetated banks of the Gxarha, Nongqawuse also took visitors to a cave and to aardvark holes where lowing sounds might be heard. Another favourite location remained the bush adjoining the cultivated field where she first met the strangers.
The party retired to the haunted bush, the chiefs, counsellors, sight seers and newsmongers sat outside. Miss Umhalakaza [Nongqawuse] entered and after a short absence returned and said she had been to a great hole in the bush and looked in and she had seen there numbers of people long since dead quite alive and an incalculable number of new cattle for the true Believers.
Nombanda has left her own description of what occurred.
I frequently accompanied Nonqause to a certain bush where she spoke with people – And although she frequently informed me when I was with her at this bush, that she saw people and heard them speak to her – I neither saw them nor did I hear them speak till after I had constantly visited the bush with her.5
The confidential nature of Nongqawuse’s communications with the new people might have disappointed the enquirers present, but would not have surprised or disillusioned the majority of them. Spirits often manifested themselves in the form of imilozi (voices), which spoke a strange whistling kind of language that only the privileged could understand. Most Xhosa who were ‘called’ by the ancestors to become doctors underwent experiences similar to Nongqawuse’s, as this account of a doctor’s initiation makes clear.
[The initiate’s] whole manner becomes strange and like that of an insane person, and his speech is often incoherent and ambiguous … This is the period of inflation. He is indulging strange ideas and indescribable fancies; and sometimes startles the people by seeming to converse with invisible and unknown beings on some strange and incomprehensible subjects.6
There is much in this description which fits Nongqawuse, and other aspects of her behaviour, such as her dishevelled appearance, likewise resemble that of an initiate undergoing thwasa. To question Nongqawuse’s methods would have been to question the entire Xhosa system of divination and thus, by extension, the whole of Xhosa religious belief. In 1856 very few Xhosa were prepared to go that far. The most common response of Mhlakaza and Nongqawuse was, however, to turn the enquirers aside without showing them anything at all.
The people who have come from the sea are invisible, being the spirits of departed brave men.
Pato’s men have returned and say that they should each bring a head of cattle before they could be introduced to the new people.
People recently returned said Umhlakaza told them that the army had gone to attack the amaBai [whites of Port Elizabeth] but would return shortly.
I asked Umhlakaza for a sight of them but he said that lately none were privileged to see them, except the Gcaleka royal family. I saw the place where they were in the habit of appearing, but not the new people themselves.7
These refusals did not rouse the suspicions of the disappointed visitors. On the contrary, they reinforced the prestige of Mhlakaza, Nongqawuse and all who were said to have met the new people. Most of the enquirers had come prepared to believe and were, in any case, afraid to go to the place where the strangers were said to be seen.8 The journey to and from the Gxarha was usually sufficient in itself to generate experiences which seemed to confirm Nongqawuse’s prophecies. Many of the visitors came from very long distances, often on foot. Some had never seen the sea. We may imagine that they were excited and buoyed up by the stories they had heard and the marvels they expected to see. We may further imagine that their anticipation mounted as the journey progressed and reached fever pitch when they finally arrived at the very place where, every night, the spirits came to meet their chosen ones.9 There were many enquirers at Mhlakaza’s place and they passed the time feasting, drinking and swopping rumours. Finally, the prophets would appear in person and exhort them to kill their cattle so that the good time might come. In some cases, Mhlakaza would actually present his visitors with cattle, saying that these were a gift from the new people. There would have been noises in the bushes, wind in the reeds, shadows in the water, sounds from the sea, murmurings at night, memories and dreams of long-lost loved ones. Is it surprising that many people also heard the lowing of cattle, the clashing of horns and the voices of their forefathers?
At Mhlakaza’s place one might see wonderful things. Hundreds had heard there at night, in the air, the old Xhosa heroes parading by in a wild army.10
We do not have any first-hand accounts by believers of their experiences at Mhlakaza’s residence, but the following unique description of an all-night vigil in British Kaffraria by a young girl who actually participated, conveys something of the atmosphere of such occasions and provides a vivid illustration of the power of suggestion.
They were to go down to Phatho’s land to a place which she pointed out, where there were two little hills – one a little higher than the other. On the one there were some thorn bushes and a few other bushes. The other rise was clear. It was on the bare hill that they were to go …
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br /> We ate and danced till after midnight until we were all quite tired and sleepy. When one of the Chiefs said that the hour was come, we were all to get up. We got up and as we were sitting and looking in the direction of the hill where the bushes were [we were told that] we would see the Cattle moving about in the bushes. So we sat looking for some time when the men began one and then another to say: ‘Do you see them?’ Others would say: ‘That is them.’ One could see one thing and another thing. My father scolded me and said, ‘Now do you believe it … Can you not see the things on the side of that hill?’ ‘No. I can see nothing but thorn bushes.’
He said it was not bushes but I thought that the men had eaten too much corn and meat and drunk too much of [Xhosa] beer to know what they saw. But the [Xhosa] would see whether there was anything to be seen or not. I could see nothing but bushes. So my father got very angry with me: he told me if I dared to say it was bushes again he would kill me. But I saw nothing else. But some of the men ran for their horses and galloped off to the spot to see what they were: for some of the people could see their old friends that had been dead for so many years. So some of them galloped off to see and before they got there, they said that the things had disappeared.11
Nongqawuse’s demonstrations were only effective when shown to those already converted in their hearts. They completely failed to convince sceptics such as Sarhili’s first cousin, the powerful Chief Ngubo who went down to the Gxarha specifically to confront the prophetess.
[Nongqawuse] went to the place, and said they refused to see him [Ngubo] as he had not killed his cattle or destroyed his corn … This did not satisfy him, so he went to the place and said that he insisted on seeing them and talking to them himself. The girl told him he would die if he did, on which he beat her and called her an impostor.12
