Broken River Tent

by Mphuthumi Ntabeni

  “No, it’s something he does when demanding my attention. He has never done this before when I was in company. I suppose he’s getting used to you. He wants to show and tell me things related to his life. He says …

  ‘We now need to go back a little to the year 1835 in the white people’s calendar.’

  Goosebumps stood up on Matswane’s smooth arms, but she said nothing, just listened.

  ‘We, as amaNgqika, were entering what really was our first war with the colonial government. You would remember that we had not been part of the Nxele war, and in the other wars we had been non-active allies of white people until when coming back from raiding amaNdlambe the white government attacked our people, basically declaring the first war between us. They were still in desperate need of our cattle, but they couldn’t find them, or not enough to satisfy their needs. And so they crossed iNciba.

  ‘When it proved difficult to catch our cattle, the colonial forces turned to Hintsa, the king of amaGcaleka here. It was that devil’s whetstone, Smith’s idea. Harry Smith was little more than a commander of their soldiers then, but somehow he convinced the then Governor of the colony, Benjamin D’Urban, to come with him. They found Hintsa already buckling under the pressure of the Mfengu revolt and Thembu skirmishes. What induced them to cross the river was to follow the vast numbers of cattle we had sent to Hintsa for safekeeping, away from their rapacity. They claimed the kine belonged to their farmers, and everyone they came across. Hintsa warned his people to take their cattle beyond the reach of white people by taking them across Mbashe River to Pondoland. Those treacherous Mfengus became bold in their daring when they saw colonial forces. They started filching the cattle of amaGcaleka they were tending. And then, in formed units of amabutho, totalling about seven thousand, excluding women and children, they presented themselves to the Governor, seeking the protection of the Queen of Britain as subjects. These doings put Hintsa in an awkward position. For one, amaMfengu were his subjects and servants. He was compelled to meet up with the Governor, in demand of his cattle and subjects.

  ‘Hintsa met the Governor, with his head councillors, his son Kreli, and his brother Bhuru, on the bank of the Izolo River. He wanted to reach some understanding. D’Urban, prompted by Smith, demanded fifty thousand head of cattle from Hintsa before peace and understanding could be reached. The Governor went over the wrongs he considered Hintsa guilty of. After that, while instructed to bring half of the demands within a week as a first instalment, Hintsa was given presents to appease him: saddles, bridles, spades, blankets, duffle, brass wire and beads, and made to promise to do his best to improve the relations between his people and the colony.

  ‘They dined, attended by bagpipes and bugles. Kreli was also offered gifts of beads, brass and duffle, and presented with a scarlet cloak ornamented with blue buttons. They drank soup, ate biscuits, potatoes and coffee with sugar like friends. Just when they were starting to be at ease, laughing and drinking – Ha! Ha! Ha! the fire blazed.

  ‘The Governor tore away all pretence of friendship and demanded that Hintsa, as paramount of amaXhosa, order the surrender of amaNgqika, and compensate the settlers for their loss of cattle and horses. He was ordered to pay, on top of fifty thousand cattle, a thousand horses, one half of which were to be handed to the colonial government as soon as they could be collected, and the rest within a year. Hintsa, who all along had been shaking his head, eventually succumbed on condition that he collected the cattle himself as, “Kaffirs would not dispense with such a great number of their cattle unless the order comes from the king personally.” The Governor refused. He told him to find another way to communicate the message to his people. Hintsa despatched a secret message, warning his people to drive all their cattle as far as possible from the British instead of delivering them for payment, and never to trust the white people’s peace initiatives because they imprisoned a person. “White people shower with presents those they wish to imprison,” he said as he was taken prisoner by Smith.

  ‘Hintsa had entered the white man’s camp under peaceful assurances that he was there to talk peace. He woke the following day to the shock of being a prisoner. He sent similar messages to me and to Thyali, urging us never to stop the war on the colonial government.

  ‘When the party sent to collect the cattle from amaGcaleka did not return in five days, Smith – who was eager and determined to commence hostilities against amaGcaleka – urged the Governor to go back to the colony and leave him to conclude the situation with amaGcaleka. Hintsa proposed again that he be allowed to go and persuade his people to hand over the cattle. As a sign of good faith he promised to leave his brother Bhuru and his son Kreli for insurance. This arrangement was agreed on. Hintsa set off with a small patrol under the command of Smith. The company in all was made up of five hundred troops and fifteen members of the invidious Corps of Guides. Hintsa had designs of luring the party deeper into Xhosaland where he’d be in a stronger position to negotiate the release of his son by taking the white party hostage. The party marched on, covering up to fifty-two miles a day, with Hintsa always under the strict eye of Smith and KhoiKhoi bodyguards. The Southey brothers, who were the members of the Corps of Guides I loathed most, were the ones helping them track the cattle spoors. Naturally, Hintsa looked for every opportunity to escape. The Governor took Kreli and Bhuru with the main troops and marched from Izolo to Ndabakazi, the mission station close to the present town of Butterworth.

  Matswane looked at the road sign before them; it was pointing to Ndabakazi. Phila’s eyes were closed.

  ‘Hintsa and Smith’s party camped for the night at Gwadana Hills before marching again from the morning until evening. When there was no sign of cattle Hintsa feigned a complaint to Smith. “You see how my subjects treat me. They drive the cattle away from me, in spite of being their king. I’ve no control over them.” At about ten in the morning of the following day Hintsa made a request. “Allow me to send Mthini, my principal councillor, to tell my people I’m here, so that they must not drive away their cattle.” Smith agreed on condition that Mthini returned by dusk. Hintsa was in good spirits when Mthini was allowed to set off, which he did at high speed. “It’ll not be necessary now to go as far as Mbashe,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll find all the cattle at Nqabarha.”

  ‘When they reached the foot of Mbongo Hill, near Nqabarha, Smith, who was growing suspicious because the cattle spoor seemed to be keeping a day’s march ahead of them all the time, wanted to climb the hill to survey the area. He was not prepared to let Hintsa out of his sight so he took him and a few of his scouts and bodyguards up the hill with him. Hintsa, who rode a remarkable horse, led the way up the hill on foot, to spare the animal from fatigue, while Smith rode his. At the heights they paused to look at the hollows and knolls, valleys of dense bush and rocky mountains all around them. At the foot of the other side of the hill a wooded stream emerged from precipitous heights, beyond which rose the Mbongo Mountain. Smith noticed that the cattle spoor divided as they crossed the river. One branch took steep ascent to a hilltop that sloped away to the right, down to a bend in the river where there were several kraals. The other branched towards and disappeared on entering the Mbongo Mountain. His KhoiKhoi scouts told him as much also.

  ‘“We must follow the track to the right; the cattle that have gone to the left up the mountain are lost to us,” suggested Hintsa. The suggestion made sense to Smith even though he was suspicious of Hintsa’s motives. Having crossed the river they proceeded slowly up the steep track. That was the moment when Hintsa took the gap. He rode quickly towards Smith, the only man who was in front of him, and passed him, aiming to disappear into the small but thickly bushed terrain ahead. Smith and the guides called out to Hintsa not to go so fast. When he ignored them they called on him to stop or they’d be compelled to shoot. The area was covered with thick bush, the effect being that instead of assisting the chief’s escape the bush hemmed him in.

  ‘Seeing there was no way of escaping, Hintsa smiled and
turned back to Smith, who by then was galloping to intercept him with pistols drawn.

  ‘Beyond the bushy area the bald brow of the Mbongo Mountain was visible and the terrain opened up, parallel to the wooded bed of Nqabarha River on their left. There was a village nearby at the tongue of land where the river bent a few miles further down. Smith took out his spyglass to have a better look at his troops still scrambling up the steep ascent. Hintsa, who all the time had been edging away from Smith, bolted away again, this time making a dash for the village. The guides shouted to draw Smith’s attention to the escaping Hintsa, who had gained a head-start of about fifty yards before anyone noticed. Throwing his spyglass away, Smith and his party set off in hot pursuit, but only Smith’s horse was up to racing with Hintsa’s splendid dark bay.

  ‘When Smith was about forty yards from Hintsa he drew his pistol and fired, but it jammed. He tried a second time and the same thing happened. Hintsa was getting away. Tossing his pistol aside, Smith spurred his horse to go faster. He caught up with Hintsa and struck him with the butt of his rifle, which flew out of his hand in the scramble. Hintsa took the bundle of assegais that were tied to the saddle of his horse, and furiously jabbed Smith with it. But Smith rode Hintsa down, desperate to prevent him from making it into the thick vegetation on the river bank, all the time trying to seize Hintsa’s reins and being dissuaded by Hintsa’s stabs. By then Smith was riding too close to Hintsa for the parrying jabs to have any serious effect. He grabbed Hintsa by the kaross and hurled him headlong to the ground. Hintsa was on his feet instantly. He flung an assegai, but it fell between the legs of Smith’s horse.

  ‘Smith’s aide-de-camp, whose name was Balfour, along with the Southey brothers, had by then caught up with the two scuffling men. When he saw that the fallen chief was about to run for his life into the thicket, George Southey fired at him. The shot caught the chief in the left leg while he was still looking around for the best way to escape. Hintsa fell down on his hands, got up again and ran towards the river bank. Southey sprang from his horse and called upon the chief not to escape, but to no avail. Smith shouted at Southey to fire again, and he did, this time striking the chief under the ribs on his right-hand side just as he reached the river. The chief fell and rolled but, being a strong man, he was up in no time again, desperately scrambling down the steep clay bank and stumbling into the water.

  ‘Smith, by now standing up in his stirrups, shouted that they must not let the “kaffir king” escape. As the ground was too precipitous for horsemen to follow, some of his men, among them Bisset, Driver, Balfour and Shaw, dismounted and pursued the chief on foot, firing shots at him all the time. Hintsa tried to swim across the Ngqabara River. Southey, Driver, Bisset and Balfour were the first to reach the place on the river bank where Hintsa had seemingly disappeared. When they didn’t see him they knew he was still on their side of the river. Southey and Balfour entered the bush with Driver and Bisset doing the same on the other side, all working their way towards each other with Hintsa somewhere in the middle.

  ‘Southey was the first to come upon the chief, who was not wading through the river but running along the reeds in faltering steps. As Hintsa tried to shelter under a shelf of rock Southey came up behind him. By then the chief was bleeding profusely, and he was very tired. He pleaded for his life. In cold blood Southey blew off the top of Hintsa’s head. Hintsa collapsed into the water and died. He was in his fifty-sixth year.

  ‘The ball had entered the forehead and completely smashed his skull. When Smith came up he collected the jewellery of ivory and gold Hintsa loved to adorn himself with and put it in his bag. Bisset took the chief’s assegais and charm to put around his own neck. When others could no longer find any more valuables to take from the chief they cut his ears off as memorabilia. They bragged among each other when they got to their military camps. Shaw cut the skin of the king’s shin. Others dug his teeth out with bayonets after they had cut off and cooked his head. To date, no one knows what happened to his skull afterwards.

  ‘Some KhoiKhoi soldiers, disgusted by the behaviour of the white soldiers, traced where the body of the Xhosa king had been left to be eaten by hyenas. They carried it to the first Xhosa village, enacting what had happened the previous day.

  ‘Thus did the sweet tall grass of Khala, Xhosa’s royal blood, arms ringed with ivory, nails black with digging for his nation, ignobly perish for trusting the honour of the British Governor. Awu, Madoda! When they fail to return they are lost.

  ‘We were flabbergasted by such insolence. Perhaps you now understand why my resentment for Smith ran so deep. Hintsa kaKhawuta was the paramount of the Xhosas. The depth of the paramount’s humiliation was too much for most of us. It fired us up to more courageous resistance. We heard the real story of Hintsa’s death from Mthini and others who were the first at the scene of the tragic debacle. They rallied their followers and came to join us with intentions of avenging their chief. The day they came I said to my brother Thyali, “The Gcalekas are starting to feel the hardness of our lot and the bleakness of the situation our future is under.”’

  Phila opened his eyes and looked around him.

  Matswane did not know what to say, her forehead was pleated in furrows with sweat pearls. The landscape was still the same but everything had utterly changed also. From being Aladdin’s cave of wondrousness, now, at the storyteller’s plenitude, it was a land of shame. She felt a two-thousand-foot drop to the valley of shame. By and by she said: “I’m feeling deep-seated anger.”

  Phila didn’t say anything as they drove into Butterworth. Then, as she was parking the car outside a supermarket, he broke his silence. His face drawn and drained of energy, he said, “KwaXhosa, Hintsa’s death is the wound that has not healed, probably shall never heal. His shameful death is a symbol that foretold the nation’s calamity. The search for his head has become a quest for the recovery of the nation’s dignity. And like the dignity, it has not yet been found.”

  “I remember reading something about the search in the newspaper,” said Matswane, feeling as exhausted as Phila looked, knowing that words, any words, were inadequate.

  “Almost in every decade, a diviner or witch-doctor rallies the Xhosas around this cause by claiming that the ancestors are not happy with the fact that Hintsa’s skull has not been found. Western historians dispute this but there is a strong belief among amaXhosa that after Hintsa was beheaded, the British took his head, together with his traditional mace, to Scotland. But nobody knows for sure, or where in Scotland they might be.”

  Phila got out of the car for a smoke while Matswane went into the supermarket.

  Everything falls according to how it bends. Everything falls according to how it bends.

  Walking barefoot, Phila repeated these words, over and over. The ground felt warm and prickly.

  Brother, Brother

  THE TOWN OF BUTTERWORTH SWARMED WITH people going about their daily business. Some when they passed the car gave it admiring glances – Matswane’s Saab had a striking out of place feel around the bakkies and Toyota Corollas – mostly Xhosa peasants with stiff crude gaits, excitedly confused by traffic in crossing the streets. Occasionally, a puffed-up municipal worker, or a clerk, or a teacher, crossed with more assurance, in ill-fitting woollen cardigan and shirt with a worn collar, and alcohol-induced bloodshot eyes. Phila found himself having to keep a permanent apologetic smile on his face in polite greetings to everyone who made eye contact with him. It wearied him but he felt compelled since he had no defined position in the structure of things in that place. He wished Matswane would hurry up.

  At that moment he saw her shoving her way through the throngs at the supermarket entrance. Watching her wait for the traffic lights to change before crossing the street, he felt guilty he had not gone with her. Her face, with an expression of irritation, changed into bliss when their eyes met. There was something of Schopenhauerian Wille zum Leben, will-to-life, about how she carried herself.

  “Oh, the floorshow of frogm
arching to the till!” she exclaimed as she opened the door.

  “What happened?”

  “Over and done with. I got us some rosemary focaccia, it looked fresh and appetising. Some ham and cheese too.” She gave Phila a kiss as she put the plastic bags on the back seat.

  “Good! I’m starving. There’re some picnic areas outside town. We can park and eat.”

  “Fine by me.” She put on her seatbelt and shades and then fired up the engine.

  After driving for about twelve kilometres they pulled over into a shady picnic spot to eat. There was a calm, imperturbable silence in the air, occasionally interrupted by the blast of bulleting traffic. Cows with soiled flanks grazed in quiet bovine studiousness on the fields beyond the barbed-wire fence.

  “The bread is good.” Phila nodded after taking a bite.

  “How long until Coffee Bay?” Matswane asked, busy with her food.

  “An hour or two because of the gravel road once we branch off the main.”

  “Super! I’m getting wiped out.”

  “I’ll drive. There’re just too many animals in the road anyway from here. It needs someone who understands the area. It takes some getting used to.”

  The fissured ochre land bristled with thorn bushes interspersed with yellow grass. The austerity of the place encouraged thought. Could that be why Transkei, more than any other black area in South Africa, produced so many thinkers and political activists? Phila suspected the truth lay in the fact that the Eastern Cape had borne the brunt of colonial encounter through the cursed blessing of its long littoral.

  Phila took the wheel and Matswane relaxed beside him, gazing out of the window. “So this is Gcalekaland. How posh!” she declared, as they passed a sign pointing to Willowvale. Her exclamations felt out of place, thought Phila to himself. He was impressed that she was determined to ‘slum it’, in her garb.