Nongqawuse
Encyclopedia
Millennialist movement
Millenialist movements have frequently been found through history among people who rally around often-apocalyptic religious prophecies that predict a return to power, the defeat of enemies, and/or the accumulation of wealth. These movements have been especially common among people living under...
that culminated in the Xhosa cattle-killing crisis of 1856–1857, in what is now the Eastern Cape
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...
Province of the Republic of South Africa.
Spiritual experience
In April or May 1856, the teenaged Nongqawuse and her friend Nombanda went to fetch water from a pool near the mouth of the Gxarha River. When she returned, Nongqawuse told her uncle and guardian Mhlakaza, a Xhosa spiritualist, that she had met the spirits of three of her ancestors.She claimed that the spirits had told her that the Xhosa people should destroy their crops
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
and kill their cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
, the source of their wealth as well as food. In return the spirits would sweep the British settlers
1820 Settlers
The 1820 Settlers were several groups or parties of white British colonists settled by the British government and the Cape authorities in the South African Eastern Cape in 1820....
into the sea. The Xhosa would be able to replenish the granaries, and fill the kraal
Kraal
Kraal is an Afrikaans and Dutch word for an enclosure for cattle or other livestock, located within an African settlement or village surrounded by a palisade, mud wall, or other fencing, roughly circular in form.In the Dutch language a kraal is a term derived from the Portuguese word , cognate...
s with more beautiful and healthier cattle. During this time many Xhosa herds were plagued with "lung sickness", possibly introduced by European cattle. Many cattle had died.
Obeying the prophecy
Mhlakaza repeated the prophecy to Paramount ChiefParamount chief
A paramount chief is the highest-level traditional chief or political leader in a regional or local polity or country typically administered politically with a chief-based system. This definition is used occasionally in anthropological and archaeological theory to refer to the rulers of multiple...
Sarhili. Sarhili ordered his followers to obey the prophecy, causing the cattle-killing movement to spread to an unstoppable point. The cattle-killing frenzy affected not only the Gcaleka
Gcaleka
The Gcaleka are a major sub-group of the Xhosa found in the Transkei area of the Eastern Cape. Their counterparts in Ciskei are the Rharhabe.The Gcaleka kingdom was founded by Gcaleka kaPhalo, who became chief in 1775....
, Sarhili's clan, but the whole of the Xhosa nation. Historians estimate that the Gcaleka killed between 300,000 and 400,000 head of cattle.
Aftermath
Nongqawuse predicted that the ancestors' promise would be fulfilled on February 18, 1857, when the sun would turn red. On that day the sun rose the same colour as every other day, and the prophecy was not realised. Initially, Nongqawuse's followers blamed those who had not obeyed her instructions, but they later turned against her.In the aftermath of the crisis, the population of British Kaffraria
Kaffraria
Kaffraria was the descriptive name given to the southeast part of what is today the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Kaffraria, i.e. the land of the Kaffirs, is no longer an official designation...
dropped from 105,000 to fewer than 27,000 due to the resulting famine. In at least one case, people were reportedly forced to resort to cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
. Nongqawuse was arrested by the British authorities and imprisoned on Robben Island
Robben Island
Robben Island is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island". Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a...
. After her release, she lived on a farm in the Alexandria district of the eastern Cape
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
. She died in 1898.
Both Chief Sarhili and Sir George Grey, governor of the Cape at the time, have been accused of engineering the crisis through Nongqawuse. Those who blame Sarhili claim he intended to manipulate the famine-struck into attacking the British settlers. Grey's accusers, most Xhosa people today, believe he used Nongqawuse to deliberately weaken the Xhosa people.
Some historians have looked beyond individual actors and toward the structural influences that caused a desperate and penned-in set of people to embrace a millennialist movement, as many oppressed people have in many other situations. To support this case, historians have cited the devastating epidemic of lung-sickness and the increasingly successful expansion of white power.
Today, the valley where Nongqawuse met the spirits is still called Intlambo kaNongqawuse (Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
for Valley of Nongqawuse).
See also
- History of South AfricaHistory of South AfricaSouth African history has been dominated by the interaction and conflict of several diverse ethnic groups. The aboriginal Khoisan people have lived in the region for millennia. Most of the population, however, trace their history to immigration since...
- The Ghost DanceGhost DanceThe Ghost Dance was a new religious movement which was incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. The traditional ritual used in the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, has been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times...
was a millennialist movement which called for a return to a pre-colonial era amongst Native Americans in the West of the United States. It was inspired by a prophetic dream. - Millennialist movementMillennialist movementMillenialist movements have frequently been found through history among people who rally around often-apocalyptic religious prophecies that predict a return to power, the defeat of enemies, and/or the accumulation of wealth. These movements have been especially common among people living under...
- Zakes MdaZakes MdaZakes Mda , legally Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda , is a South African novelist, poet and playwright. He has won major South African and British literary awards for his novels and plays.-Early life and education:...
's novel The Heart of Redness