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Nxele, Ntsikana and the Origins of the Xhosa Religious Reaction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

J. B. Peires
J. B. Peires
Affiliation:
Rhodes University
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Extract

The sudden expulsion of the Xhosa across the Fish River in 1811–12 created a practical and conceptual crisis which the traditional political authorities were unable to resolve. Two commoners, Nxele and Ntsikana, emerged in this vacuum, each proposing his own solution to the problems posed by the white irruption. Although these responses were religious responses, they were neither irrational nor incomprehensible. Xhosa religion had long functioned as an instrument for the control of the material world. By incorporating selected Christian concepts with the Xhosa world-view, Nxele and Ntsikana were able to provide the Xhosa with acceptable explanations of past events and prescriptions for future action.

Nxele urged resistance and Ntsikana preached submission, but an examination of their personal histories shows that these final conclusions were more the product of exterior pressure than interior revelation. It may be suggested that the future reputations of the two men, like their past actions, will be determined more by the popular mood than by anything they themselves did or said.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 1979 , pp. 51 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 I am indebted to Dr C. C. Saunders for this term. For general background on the Xhosa and the Frontier see Wilson, M. and Thompson, L. M. (eds), The Oxford History of South Africa, I (Oxford, 1969), chs. iii, viGoogle Scholar; Marks, S. and Gray, R. in Gray, R. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Africa, iii (Cambridge, 1975), 454–8Google Scholar; Peires, J. B., ‘A History of the Xhosa c. 1700–1835’ (M. A. Rhodes University, 1976).Google Scholar

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26 We are indebted to Read's account for our knowledge of Nxele's early beliefs.

27 The most satisfactory account of how Nxele extricated himself from this difficulty is in Shaw, W., Journal of William Shaw (Cape Town, 1972), 103.Google Scholar‘ Makanna ordered them all to enter the water and wash, with which the people complied, but as they entered the water en masse they could not refrain from bellowing forth the usual war yell. Makanna now informed them they ought not to have done so, and since they had thought proper to follow their own headstrong will, and not listened to his directions, all was now over, and every man might return to his own home.’

28 There is something of a problem in establishing the chronology of Nxele's actions and attitudes, as most accounts of Nxele were written after his death, and none of them traces the changes in his behaviour. The very exact account left by Read of Nxele's Christian phase enables us to infer such changes.

29 For a fuller account of these events, see J. B. Peires, ‘Ngqika’ in C. C. Saunders (ed), Black Leaders in Nineteenth Century South Africa (London, forthcoming).

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33 ‘Ntsikana rose up from his bed, and went to the door, and just as he came out, the ox walked on towards the gate of the kraal. Ntsikana followed and as he himself reached the gate, Hulushe (the ox) … was already standing looking at him, as if wondering and in sorrow … Ntsikana approached and, stretching forward his arms, Hulushe bent his neck. For a while Ntsikana leaned his body with outstretched arms between the horns and on the neck of the favourite ox.’ Bokwe, , Ntsikana, 29.Google Scholar

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37 Kaye MS.

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39 Kaye MS.

40 The official version from which this is taken is printed in Bokwe, Ntsikana, 26Google Scholar. I prefer my own translation. The earliest printed version of this hymn is in Rose, , Four Years, 136–7Google Scholar. It is noteworthy that the specifically Christian lines of the official version do not appear in Rose's rendering, and are attributed (in another context) by Wauchope (whose grandmother was converted by missionary Van der Kemp) to der Kemp, Van. ‘A native minister’, 21.Google Scholar

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