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The Lists of Phalaborwa Rulers: A Comparison of Variant ‘Fixed’ Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

R.T.K. Scully
R.T.K. Scully*
Affiliation:
Hartwick College
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Extract

In this paper I discuss genealogical material documented in the past about the ruling families of Phalaborwa in the northeast Transvaal. Recent archeological research in Phalaborwa demonstrates a continuous Iron Age cultural complex in the area centered around Lolwe hill since the eighth century A.D. Subsequent investigations of Phalaborwa oral tradition clearly link the present BaPhalaborwa Sotho-speaking population with the Iron Age past, adding considerable specific detail for the historical reconstruction of this remarkable 1000-year old metalproducing and trading society.

Noble and royal genealogies among the BaPhalaborwa focus on the main line of Malatji clan rulers and in all of the Malatji lines the genealogies merge at one or other ascending levels. There is consequently a single ultimate prestige genealogy for all noble and royal families in Phalaborwa which has become fixed by the efforts of various of the tribe literates since the 1930s. Inconsistencies in oral tradition from diverse groups, however, suggest that this genealogy was not rigid in the past, but flexible, allowing certain direct lines of descent to become obscured and the collateral and even unrelated lines which have found their way into political association with the ruling house of Phalaborwa by various means to be added.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 6 , 1979 , pp. 209 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1979

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References

NOTES

1. van der Merwe, N.J. and Scully, R.T.K., “The Phalaborwa Story: Archaeological and Ethnographic Investigation of a South African Iron Age Group,” World Archaeology 3(1972/1973), pp. 178–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Scully, , “Phalaborwa Oral Tradition,” PhD dissertation, SUNY-Binghamton, 1978.Google Scholar

3. “Swalene-Boikhutsong bja Meoya ya Borakglohukhu ba Magosi a Phalaborwa,” Tswelopele, 12/2(1971), pp. 44–50.Google Scholar

4. Personal communication dd 24 May 1976 from E.J. Krige. I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Krige for searching her field notes and providing me with the unpublished genealogies she collected in 1937.

5. Ibid.

6. Toit, A.P. Du, “Die Materiele Skeppinge van die Phalaborwa,” PhD dissertation, University of Pretoria, 1968, p. 13.Google Scholar

7. Malatji, Jeremiah, “Ditaba Tša Kgale Tša Phalaborwa,” Department of Bantu Administration Ethnographic Archives MS. Series #124, pp. 1–18, Pretoria.Google Scholar

8. Personal notebook of Malatji, Jeremiah, ca. 1940, pp. 47–50.Google Scholar This leather bound ledger book was still in the possession of his family in 1976.

9. Richards, A.I., “Social Mechanisms for the Transfer of Political Rights in Some African Tribes,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 90(1960), p. 178.Google Scholar

10. Malatji, H.J., “History of Ba-Phalaborwa-Malatji Tribe,” in More, C.E. Collection, Department of Information, Pretoria.Google Scholar

11. Ibid, p. 17.