by Peires, Jeff
6 GH 8/30 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 7 Dec. 1856; BK 86 F Reeve-J Maclean, 27 Nov. 1856; GH 20/2/1 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 25 Aug. 1856; ZP 1/1/217 (Microfilm) R Birt-G Grey, 3 Oct. 1856; Anglo-African, 1 Jan. 1857; GH 8/49 J Maclean-G Grey, 17 Nov., 22 Dec. 1856; BK 89 Communication from Lieut. Lamont, 2 Jan; 1857; GH 8/29 H Lucas-J Maclean, 27 Sept, 1856.
7 GH 8/30 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 7 Dec. 1856; BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 26 Jan. 1856; GH 8/30 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 7 Dec. 1856. For role of sacrificial cattle, see JH Soga (n.d.), p.322; Alberti (1810), pp.95-6.
8 BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 19 Oct. 1856; BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 19 Dec. 1856.
9 GH 8/30 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 11, 19 Dec. 1856; BK 89 John Ayliff jnr.-J. Maclean, 22 Dec. 1856; Grahamstown Journal, 15 Nov. 1856.
10 The fullest account of the story of Nxito is in CH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 Jan. 1857. See also GH 8/29 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 22 Oct. 1856; GH 8/30 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 19, 25 Dec. 1856; BK 14 Examination of Nombanda, 28 Feb. 1858; BK 14 Statement by Umjuza, 24 Feb. 1856. For Nxito’s rank among the Gcaleka chiefs, see Peires (1981), p.61. Nxito’s age is calculated from the fact that he was older than Sarhili’s father Hintsa, that is, born before 1785.
11 BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 21 Dec. 1856; GH 8/49 J Maclean-G Grey, 4 Dec. 1856; BK 89 Secret Information, 8 Dec. 1856; BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 19 Dec. 1856; GH 8/49 J Maclean-G Grey, 11 Dec. 1856.
12 CO 2935 WGB Shepstone-R Southey, 17 Dec. 1856; GH 8/30 Information from a person beyond the Kei, 25 Dec. 1856; GH 8/30 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 25 Dec. 1856. It should be noted that the exact sequence of events related in the following paragraphs is somewhat obscure. It is certain that Sarhili made two distinct visits to Butterworth in December, returning from the first on 17 December, and departing for the second about a week later. It is uncertain, however, when it was that Nxito made his ill-starred attempt to spy on Mhlakaza. Some of the sources also mention two unnamed messengers whom Mhlakaza threatened with death. It is not clear whether this is a garbled version of the mission of Ndima and Bhotomane, or whether it is a reference to a separate event.
13 GH 8/30 Information from a person beyond the Kei, 25 Dec. 1856.
14 GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 Jan. 1856; BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 25 Dec. 1856.
15 BK 89 Communication from Lieut. Lamont, 2 Jan. 1857; GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 Jan. 1856.
16 LG 410 J Warner-R Southey, 30 Dec. 1856; GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 Jan. 1856.
17 BK 89 Secret Information, 7 Jan. 1856; Grahamstown Journal, 17 Jan. 1857; Berlin Missionberichte (1858), p.38.
18 BK 89 Secret Information, 8 Jan. 1857; GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 11 Jan. 1856. Various colonial newspapers and certain colonial informants subsequently claimed that the story of Sarhili’s attempted suicide was false, but it was formally conveyed by Sandile to Brownlee, and fits in well with our other information, especially with Sarhili’s visit to Waters.
2. THE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT
‘There can be no recovery now,’ wrote Commissioner Brownlee on the last day of 1856.1 It was true. By January 1857, the time had long since passed for sowing and planting to be any use. So many cattle had already been killed that there was no longer any sense in holding the slender remainder back. It was this total absence of any alternative that drove the Cattle-Killing onwards during its last frenzied months. By this time, the possibility that the prophecies might be at fault was simply too horrific to consider and since the believers had no way back, they were compelled to go forward, stifling their doubts. Thus it was that the more the evidence mounted that they should give up hope the more the believers clutched at every straw, and the more that logic demanded that they slacken their pace the more they redoubled their efforts to slaughter every last beast that walked and to eliminate the small band of unbelievers who had refused to share their hopes and their tribulations.
This protracted agony was in a large measure due to the unwillingness of many genuine and sincere believers to kill all of their cattle. Even though Nongqawuse’s order that every last head of cattle was to be slaughtered was from the first clear and unambiguous, this did not extinguish the feeling among many Xhosa that a more restricted sacrifice would be enough to convince the new people of their commitment and their repentance. Many, especially on the Gcaleka Xhosa side, killed most of their cattle immediately in proof of their good faith, but decided to hang on to the rest until they received some concrete manifestation of the promised new cattle.2 Time after time, as every new moon approached its fullness, the orders went out to kill every last walking beast; and yet, every time, even the strongest believers held some back. King Sarhili himself did not complete the slaughter of his immense herds until the middle of January 1857, and convinced believers such as Phatho, Mhala and Maqoma all retained some cattle right up to the very eve of the Great Disappointment. As late as 5 February 1857, the average Ngqika believer still retained three or four cattle. Maqoma still had three and Sandile had ten.3
The waverers were caught in the middle. On the one hand they killed a number of their cattle to earn a share in the deliverance to come, but on the other they tried to retain some cattle in case the prophecies failed. The arch-waverer, Sandile, killed some of his cattle as soon as he received the formal order from Sarhili, but he was quite perplexed when the King demanded the sacrifice of the rest. In order to hedge his bets and keep in with all sides, Sandile ended up slaughtering half his cattle in secret for fear of the government and concealing the rest beyond the borders of Xhosaland for fear of the believers. As the numbers of their cattle declined, the believers slowed down the rate of slaughter for fear of starvation, leaving their milk-cows until last.4 But such pitiful delays and subterfuges could not resist the pressure of the movement’s internal logic. So long as the Xhosa held their cattle back, this logic insisted, they could not reasonably expect the rising of the new people or blame Nongqawuse and Mhlakaza for the failure of the prophecies. The Cattle-Killing could only come to an end when, as Magistrate Gawler sardonically put it, it finally ran out of victims.5
Sarhili’s message of 1 January produced a spate of slaughtering throughout British Kaffraria. Commissioner Brownlee, touring the country, found cattle killed at every homestead, with most people killing three or four. A man named Madayi killed nine cattle on the day he heard Sarhili’s message, and eight more cattle and 20 goats the following day. Cattle were killed furiously and recklessly with such speed that neither the hungry believers nor even the vultures had time to eat them. Their hides were carelessly stripped off and sold while the decomposing carcasses lay rotting on the ground, or hanging on the thorn fences of the kraals. The stink of putrefying flesh filled the air all the country round for days afterwards. When the full moon failed to rise blood-red on the night of 10 January, the believers were shattered and dejected. Many declared that they had given up hope but, in truth, it was all they had left.6
Meanwhile Sarhili, whose unbounded confidence had driven the Cattle-Killing forward when all others were filled with doubt, found himself hesitant and apprehensive just when all his people believed with the perfect faith of desperation. He often stated that he himself had seen the wonders that were shortly to appear, but it seems as if his words were meant more to reassure himself than to convince others.7 The missionary Waters, who saw him the day after his attempted suicide, described him as ‘unusually gloomy, but kind’. There was no news, he said, but ‘people were mad for following Mhlakaza’. Waters told Sarhili what the King already knew very well, that his people would starve; and added, in attempted sympathy, that his heart was very sore. Why should the missionary’s heart be sore? demanded Sarhili, flaring up briefly. He would not be hungry. With remarkable lack of tact, Waters suggested that Sarhili send some of his daughters to a charitable lady named Mrs Douglas. He mentioned Tangiza, ‘nine
years old and very pretty’. ‘No! No!’ cried the King, hugging his breast defensively as if he foresaw the ruin of everything he held dear, ‘She is the child of my bosom. I cannot part with her.’8
Stormy meetings followed at Sarhili’s Great Place. There seem to have been attempts by some of the foremost believers, including Sarhili himself, to throw the blame on others. There was talk of what might be done if the prophecies failed. There was mention of raiding cattle from the Thembu, the Mfengu, the unbelievers, indeed anybody who still had cattle. On 17 January, Sarhili loosened up a little at a beer drink, and his words do much to reveal his state of mind as the Cattle-Killing approached its climax:
I have undertaken a thing of which I now entertain certain doubts, but I am determined to carry it through … No one opposed me when I first undertook what I have undertaken, I consider therefore that they have approved of what I have done. I have sent to Sandille, Macoma, Pato and Umhala, and our views are one. I have now no cattle left, but I cannot starve, there are still cattle in the land, and they are mine. I will take them when I require them.9
‘I have done nothing against the British Government,’ he continued and, in a spirit of bravado rather than menace, added, ‘but should the Governor attempt anything against me, I have dogs that will bite.’ Little did he realise that this idle boast would be reported to Sir George Grey and little could he guess the uses to which it would be put.
About the middle of January 1857, Sarhili summoned all the believing chiefs or their representatives to a Great Meeting in Butterworth. Some Xhosa thought that the King was trying to force the issue, determined either to see the new people or to abandon the movement. But in public, at least, Sarhili brimmed with confidence. He announced that Mhlakaza had sent for him, saying that the moment had come for the chiefs to fix a date for the final destruction of all cattle and goats, so that a definite time could be set for the rising of the new people and the new cattle. All the unbelievers were to be finally cast off. None might communicate with them, and they were forbidden to attend the Great Meeting. The infidel Nxito was expelled from the neighbourhood of the Gxarha.10
On 18 January, Sarhili’s confidant, the Gcaleka chief Bhotomane, arrived at Butterworth to make the arrangements for the Great Meeting. Sarhili came down slowly, accompanied by Maphasa, the Great Son of his uncle Bhurhu. As they proceeded, they were joined by large numbers of believers, giving their leisurely six-day journey the air of a triumphal procession. At Butterworth, they were joined by the remainder of the great chiefs and councillors of the Xhosa nation, 5 000 men in all. Mhala sent his brother Nowawe. Phatho, Maqoma and Bhotomane sent their Great Sons. From Thembuland came Maramncwana and Philip, the Great Sons of Fadana and Qwesha, who led the Thembu believers. Unbelievers were strictly excluded.11
On 30 and 31 January, the assembly considered accusations of unbelief levelled against some of their number, and three of Sarhili’s brothers were among those hounded out of the Great Meeting. On 1 February Pama, the believing son of Nxito who now acted in his father’s place, arrived hotfoot from the Gxarha. He announced that he had seen men down by the sea, some clothed, some on horseback with new saddles and guns. All the believers were to return home immediately and kill their cattle, even the cattle they were retaining to provide milk for their children, and they were to use the hides to make doors to keep out the thunder and lightning which would precede the great day. There would be two days of darkness, said Pama. The sun would rise in the west, the sea would dry up and recede, the sky would descend until it might be touched by the head, and then there would be a great earthquake during which the new people and the new cattle would appear. Pama declared that he was prepared to stake his life on the truth of his assertions. The chiefs might kill him if they did not believe him for, if they did, he would soon be rising with the others. Sarhili alone should remain with a few of his followers, such as had no witchcraft about them. He should seclude himself for four days, and on the fifth go down to the Gxarha where Mhlakaza would show him all and everything.12
The ordinary believers were disappointed and not a little suspicious at being sent home so abruptly. Sarhili himself was ‘somewhat dispirited’: he had clearly hoped for something more than another delay. Nevertheless, he put a brave face on it. He announced that he was staying on to see his father’s Great Place and his father’s cattle rising again at Butterworth, where once they stood. He asked the local traders to sell his people candles to light up during the great darkness, and he secluded himself as instructed.
Four days later, the King again went down to the Gxarha.It was a disconcerting and disappointing experience. Maqoma’s Great Son Namba, who accompanied Sarhili, said later that they were called to see something, but neither he nor anyone else had seen anything. The Gcaleka chiefs were taken over the hill to see something, but he and the other Rharhabe chiefs were not allowed to go. Mhlakaza was disclaiming responsibility for the whole movement, and the management of everything was in the hands of Nongqawuse. Dilima, the son of Phatho, arrived a little later. He said that he heard the new people speak, though he and his companions were not allowed to go to the spot where the new people were. Only Nongqawuse and two or three young men went there.13
As for Sarhili, he left his retinue at a quarter of an hour’s distance from Mhlakaza’s residence. They waited there, while he went in. The King spoke for a long time to Mhlakaza and Nongqawuse ‘and when he came back, one could read the annoyance on his face’. Nevertheless, he told the assembled people that he had seen wonderful things and had heard men talking under the earth. The new people ordered that the Xhosa must kill all they possessed, except one cow and one goat, within eight days of his return to Hohita. On the eighth day – certainly before the end of the ninth day – the resurrection would take place. The sun would rise late, blood-red, and set again, upon which it would be as black as night. A terrible storm would follow, with thunder and lightning, and then the dead would rise …14
But in his heart Sarhili knew that it was all a lie, and that nothing was going to happen on the eighth day, nothing at all. He told a trader named Conway that he had been deceived, and that he was anxious to explain the whole thing to the Governor personally, as he did not want a war.15 Despite these internal misgivings, the King pressed ahead with preparations for the great day. He drove his unbelieving brothers out of the Great Place. There was more killing than ever: cattle, goats, even chickens. All who had not killed were accused of some crime and forced to save themselves by slaughtering.16
The intense pressure on the unbelievers during this final climactic period of the Cattle-Killing finally cracked the resistance of those chiefs and people who had tried to hold to a middle course, notably Chief Sandile and his close associates, Chiefs Xhoxho and Oba. Still a young man in his early twenties, Oba had initially followed the lead of his neighbour, the strongly unbelieving Anta. Five of his leading councillors were strong supporters of the movement, however, and they did their best to persuade the chief to change his mind. In the middle of January, his mother and his wives packed up their belongings to return to their paternal homes for fear of the consequences of his unbeliefs. Oba killed two cattle to persuade them to stay, and from then on his fall was irreversible.17
The position of Sandile, as senior chief in British Kaffraria, remained crucial to believers and unbelievers alike. He had been forced to move to a site near Brownlee’s post and, with the help of the unbelievers and the threat of military action, the Commissioner had managed to keep some semblance of cultivation going at Sandile’s Great Place. Sandile was trapped between two devils. He was too afraid of Brownlee to attend the Great Meeting in Butterworth, but when he received messages that the assembled chiefs had seen immense flocks of cattle and sheep waiting for the true believers, he was too afraid of the consequences of unbelief to deny the prophecies any longer. Maqoma’s son Namba sent to say that two deceased councillors of Sandile’s late father Ngqika had appeared and w
arned the chief to ‘rise out of the dust’ and return to his Great Place. The spirits were angry with Sandile for hesitating so long. ‘He was a fool and throwing away his authority and chieftainship … He was holding with both hands [at once] instead of adopting a straightforward and decided course.’ Sandile should immediately rid himself of the influence of the unbelievers and kill the rest of his cattle. That very day, Sandile killed ten of his remaining 35 cattle, and within a week he had killed 20 more.18 Brownlee was met with fear-stricken silence, as Sandile haltingly explained that he wished to leave his new residence as ‘his mother and his wives would no longer stay at the village, and were determined to return home because the huts they occupied were uncomfortable and small, and there was a scarcity of firewood’. That night the chief fled from Brownlee’s neighbourhood, and resumed possession of his old Great Place, finally and after many twists and evasions an open believer.
The ensuing confrontation between the believers and the unbelievers, now expelled from the royal presence, has been recorded by Commissioner Brownlee. Although Brownlee probably exaggerates his own role in the deliberations, his account is a vivid depiction of the final scene in the eight-month battle for Sandile’s allegiance.
On arriving at [Sandile’s Great Place] I found between four and five hundred people assembled, all armed, under the leadership of Umlunguzi and Baba, two councillors. I was received in solemn silence and scarcely saluted. On the hill just above Sandile’s village, Tyala and his party were assembled and joined me immediately on my arrival, taking up their position about twenty paces from Umlunguzi and Baba’s party.
After I had spoken to Sandile, reproaching him for having brought this trouble upon his country against my advice, Soga arose and pointing to Umlunguzi and Baba said:- ‘There are the men who have brought this trouble into the country. Sandile is not to blame; he has been misled by them.’
