Liberation Heritage Route: icon site guide
- Authors: Rhodes University. Institute of Social and Economic Reseaerch , Mqingwana, G V , Peires, Jeffrey B
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Chris Hani District Municipality -- History Chris Hani District Municipality -- Liberation Heritage Route Political activists -- South Africa -- Heritage sites Thembuland Rebellion Eastern Cape (South Africa) -- Politics and government -- 20th century Eastern Cape (South Africa) -- History
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2401 , vital:20287
- Description: Calata Route: Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality : Calata House -- Cradock Four Grave -- Flame of Hope and Liberation -- Olive Schreiner House -- Skweyiya Church -- Middleburg Three. Inkwanca Local Municipality : Heroes Park -- Nomonge Graves -- Ethiopian Church -- Old Apostolic Church -- Esigingqini -- Higher Mission School -- Stone of Remembrance. Tsolwana Local Municipality : Home Isolation Circle and Old Zola Clinic -- Assassination of Headman Thembilizwe Dywasha -- Majola Mlungwana House -- Godfrey Ngqendesha House; Ndondo Route: Emalahleni Local Municipality : Graves of Qonda Hoho and Luvuyo Lerumo -- Maqhashu Village -- Queen Nonesi -- Wycliffe Tsotsi Law Offices. Sakhisizwe Local Municipality : The Elliot Five -- Batandwa Ndondo Assassination site -- Mnxe Location -- Phumezo Nxiweni -- Traditional Leaders, Stokwe Ndlela and Gecelo. Ngcobo Local Municipality: Ngcobo Traditional Leaders -- Walter Sisulu Birthplace -- ANC Veterans -- Dr A B Xuma Birthplace -- Clarkebury Institution; Sisulu Route: Lukhanji Local Municipality : Ilinge Resettlement -- Sada Resettlement -- Mongezi Feza -- Unathi Mkefa -- Queenstown Station Shootings, 1962 -- Zibeleni Resettlement -- Queenstown Massacre -- James Cooke, Peter Botha & Ashley Wyngaard -- Bulhoek Massacre, 1921. , The struggle for liberation in South Africa goes back a number of centuries from the earliest contact between black and white; and the centuries of struggle mainly against land dispossession. The struggle moved from armed resistance to the use of non-violent means. In the early 1960s, because of white herrenvolkist intransigence, the struggle reverted to armed resistance. The struggle was largely against racism and colonialism - and can therefore be regarded as a struggle for human rights. The icons of the struggle, that is, those individuals and physical and spiritual beacons which marked the route to freedom, identified by the people themselves, compose the Chris Hani District Municipality Liberation Heritage Route (LHR). The identification process involved community participation through the organisation of meetings, under the leadership of Local Municipality Steering Committees and Community Facilitators appointed by the LM specifically to facilitate the LHR project. It was important that each Steering Committee should be chaired by the Mayor. Meetings were representative of all stakeholders, and there was provision for the co-opting of people with special skills. The whole process was informed by the democratic culture of inclusiveness so that no person or organisation could feel left out. Facilitators were guided by political and community endorsement of the Liberation Heritage Icons. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 2010
The central beliefs of the Xhosa cattle-killing
- Authors: Peires, Jeffrey B
- Date: 1987
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6152 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006832 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700029418
- Description: The Xhosa cattle-killing movement of 1856–7 cannot be explained as a superstitious ‘pagan reaction’ to the intrusion of colonial rule and Christian civilization. It owes its peculiar form to the lungsickness epidemic of 1854, which carried off over 100,000 Xhosa cattle. The Xhosa theory of disease indicated that the sick cattle had been contaminated by the witchcraft practices of the people, and that these tainted cattle would have to be slaughtered lest they infect the pure new cattle which were about to rise. The idea of the resurrection of the dead was partly due to the Xhosa belief that the dead do not really die or depart from the world of the living, and partly to the Xhosa myth of creation, which held that all life originated in a certain cavern in the ground which might yet again pour forth its blessings on the earth. Christian doctrines, transmitted through the prophets Nxele and Mhlakaza, supplemented and elaborated these indigenous Xhosa beliefs. The Xhosa and the Christian elements united together in the person of the expected redeemer Sifuba-sibanzi (the broad-chested one). The central beliefs of the Xhosa cattle-killing were neither irrational nor atavistic. Ironically, it was probably because they were so rational and so appropriate that they ultimately proved to be so deadly.
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- Date Issued: 1987
Soft believers and hard unbelievers in the Xhosa cattle-killing
- Authors: Peires, Jeffrey B
- Date: 1986
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6153 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007064 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700023264
- Description: A substantial minority, perhaps 15 per cent of all Xhosa, refused to obey the prophetess Nongqawuse's orders to kill their cattle and destroy their corn. This divided Xhosaland into two parties, the amathamba (‘soft’ ones, or believers) and the amagogotya (‘hard’ ones, or unbelievers). The affiliation of individuals was partly determined by a number of factors – lungsickness in cattle, political attitude towards the Cape Colony, religious beliefs, kinship, age and gender – but a systematic analysis of each of these factors in turn suggests that none of them was sufficiently important to constitute the basis of either party. The key to understanding the division lies in an analysis of the indigenous Xhosa terms ‘soft’ and ‘hard’. ‘Softness’ in Xhosa denotes the submissiveness of the individual to the common will of the community, whereas ‘hardness’ denotes the determination of the individual to pursue his own ends, even at communal expense. Translated into social terms, the ‘soft’ believers were those who remained committed to the mutual aid ethic of the declining precolonial society, whereas the ‘hard’ unbelievers were those who sought to seize advantage of the new opportunities offered by the colonial presence to increase their wealth and social prominence. The conflict between the social and personal imperatives was well expressed by Chief Smith Mhala, the unbelieving son of a believing father, when he said, ‘They say I am killing my father – so I would kill him before I would kill my cattle.’ Certainly, the division between amathamba and amagogotya ran much deeper than the division between belief and unbelief, and the Xhosa, in conferring these names, seem to have recognized the fact.
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- Date Issued: 1986
Nxele, Ntsikana and the origins of the Xhosa religious reaction
- Authors: Peires, Jeffrey B
- Date: 1979
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6151 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006830 , https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700016716
- Description: 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.
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- Date Issued: 1979