UMNTU NGUMNTU NGABANTU: ‘A PERSON IS A PERSON BECAUSE OF OTHER PERSONS’:
THE ETHOS OF THE PRE-COLONIAL XHOSA-SPEAKING PEOPLE
AS PRESENTED IN FACT AND YOUNG ADULT FICTION.

(Draft of a paper presented at the 29th Congress of the International Board on Books for Young People,
held in Cape Town, September 2004.)

Tanya Barben

This paper will be just a soupçon of what could well be a five-course meal. I hope, nevertheless, that the sample could tempt your senses and stimulate an interest among historians and literati in the rôle of historical fiction in creating a sense of historical reality in the juvenile reader. It is as a reader of history and historical fiction that I approach this topic, not as an historian or literary critic.  

Jorge Luis Borges believes that you are what you read. I would like to think that by that he means that what you acquire from the books you read gets absorbed by your every pore, becomes part of your very being and helps to make you the person you are. More particularly, it determines your view of the world, its past, its people, its places and even its future. The books you read socialize you, determine your attitudes and sensitivities towards the world around you, and hone your judgement. This can be multiplied several times over in relation to the child reader who in the book that he or she is reading is introduced for the first time to people, senses, sensations – to the whole world in all its complexities. Consider what Bob Dixon wrote as far back as the 1970s: `I 've become more and more concerned about how writers influence children. Much of the material in children’s books is anti-social, if not anti-human and is more likely to stunt and warp young people than help them grow’. He continued:  `Anyone interested in ideas – political ideas in the broadest and most important sense – cannot afford to neglect what children read’. (Dixon, 1977: xii, xv.) This dictum can be applied as easily, if not more so, to the books written in the past as to the books written today.                                   

Literature can and does play a role in offering children a picture of the society in which they live, but also of the wider world that they inhabit. Historical fiction gives them access to the world of the past, it perhaps excites an interest in that world’s historical reality. History is supposed to describe the past as it was. Historical novels describe history as it could have been, but their authors use the personages, politics and backdrop of the past as a device on which to hang the story. It is, of course, from the present that the authors produce a view of the past, in the sense that they can only use that information that is available to them to re-create the past.  Of course, what it is that they, in their present, know about the past has a bearing on what the past is that they are able to create. Furthermore, the views of their present also influence their own construction of the past. It is for this reason that it is necessary to look at both the past as it was as well as the past as it might have been in order to properly assess the literary history that is offered to the juvenile reader. 

 I learnt history through reading historical fiction, and I know that the books I read formed in my imagination my image of the world (or worlds) of the past. I was introduced to the works of Henry Rider Haggard as a pre-adolescent.  It irritated me somewhat that many of the main female characters were considered beautiful and desirable because of their fairness, a necessary ingredient was European blood - Nada the Lily being a case in point.   I read all I could by Rider Haggard, fully appreciating and sharing his admiration for the indigenous peoples of Africa, while at the same time sensing his underlying prejudice – and being not a little repelled by the bloodthirstiness of it all. His version of South African history did not always ring true, but certainly it was an improvement on the outright bias of Christian National Education’s South African history syllabus. 

As a research librarian in an academic environment I am very aware of the role played by reading in helping students to think critically – certainly the aim of a university education. I curate two collections of children’s literature, one historical, the other South African, and thus acquire and catalogue titles to be added to the collections’ shelves. I also mediate between the books on the shelves and the researcher. Some years ago I came across a South African book published in 1939, in which the life of a pre-colonial Xhosa-speaking tribesman was described.  (Kwane, by P.A.W. Cook, see below.) I was struck by the compassion and sensitivity with which it was written, and searched for other books describing the pre-colonial inhabitants of South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Unfortunately, those books that do not deal with folklore or mythology tend to describe contact between black and white, and/or portray the African as primitive, immature and childlike. Similarly, until the late 1960s historians were mainly concerned with the activities of the white community who settled permanently at the Cape in the mid-seventeenth century and tended to ignore, or to treat very summarily, the history of the African peoples before they were subjected to white overrule. (Thompson, 1969:1.) 

Captain Frederick Marryat’s The mission; or, Scenes in Africa (first published by Longmans, Brown in 1845) is not alone in this, but it also deals with an incident that was of supreme importance in the development of a literature about the South African experience. The  `mission’ of the title is the quest of the hero to confirm whether his aunt had survived the wreck of the East Indiaman, Grosvenor, on the coast of Pondoland in 1782. The book had an enormous following in South Africa and its Dutch translation was one of only two books for children published in the Transvaal between 1857 and 1902. (Jenkins, 2002:17.) 

I wanted to know how `historical’ these books were, so I read accounts of travellers and castaways in which the ethos and way of life of the pre-colonial Xhosa-speaking people before the white settlers invaded their pasturage are described.  Essential to the Xhosa-speaking people’s belief system and way of life is ubuntu expressed in the saying umntu ngumntu ngabantu translated as a person is a person because of other persons.  Ubuntu is a word existing in all black languages of South Africa, without an equivalent in any European language.  It can best be summarized as a philosophy of life that encompasses brotherliness, togetherness, hospitality, solidarity and mutual support of each other and the community within which one exists. It is a kind of insurance, with a man giving as much as he can on one day in case he is in need on another.  It also means having sound moral values. The individual is a harmonious part of society, but the society is nothing without the individual. This is perfectly expressed in the comments of Augusta de Mist, teenage daughter of Commissary-General J.A. de Mist of the Batavian Republic, who accompanied her father on a 1803 journey to the eastern border of the Dutch territory: `Love and friendship, those soft bands woven by nature for the happiness of mankind, link all members of the same family amongst the Kaffirs‘[1]. She continued: `The mutual attachment of blood relations amongst them deserves no small praise and can be held as an example to more than one European nation’. (De Mist, [1954]: 49-50.) 

The Xhosa-speaking people, contrary to what was presented in South African school textbooks up to a few decades ago, had been inhabiting that area of South Africa known today as the Eastern Cape from time immemorial, slowly making their way along the escarpment between the coast and the mountains until they were blocked by the advancing white settlers in the late eighteenth century.  They were pastoralists, living in countryside close to a water supply on ground generally more suitable for cattle-grazing than intensive cultivation, although sorghum (millet), pumpkins, beans and other greens were grown. Ludwig Alberti, a German in the employ of the Batavian Republic, travelled among the Xhosa in 1803 and 1804. He wrote a factual account of their tribal life. In it he described the relationship between a Xhosa man and his cattle: `cattle is the foremost and practically the only subject of his care and occupation, in the possession of which he finds complete happiness’. (Alberti, 1968:54.)  There was another factor in the equation: cattle, and cattle only, were exchangeable against a woman in the form of lobola or bride-price. Cattle, then, not only represented the accumulation of past labours, they also served as the key to all future production and reproduction.  (Peires, 1981: 4.) It was their existence as subsistence farmers on infertile soil, their attachment to their cattle, and their loyalty to their own community that tempered the extension of ubuntu towards European seafarers wrecked on their shore. Nonetheless, almost invariably ubuntu was employed in their interactions with Europeans until a natural suspicion and wariness set in because of the way that they were treated by colonists and sojourners alike. 

It is not for nothing that part of the coastline of the Eastern Cape is known as the Wild Coast. It is one of the most hazardous coastlines in the world, known for its giant waves. It is here that the first, albeit brief, recorded contact between Xhosa-speaking tribesmen (in this case, the Pondo) and survivors of the wreck of a Portuguese vessel (the great galleon São Joao) took place in 1552. The next meeting took place when the galleon São Bento was wrecked off the coast of Pondoland (the northern Eastern Cape) in 1554.   Local tradition referred to the 384 castaways as izilwanyane – wild beasts – who had come from the sea out of a huge wooden object like a giant umkhumbi, or meat tray. Iron objects were greatly desired by the metal-poor Pondo so they were willing to barter sheep, cattle, milk and millet for metal trifles such as nails and buttons.  Thereafter, as trade with the East increased, so did the frequency of shipwrecks along the south-east African coast. Contacts between wreck survivors and local inhabitants were on the whole good, there are many accounts of the Portuguese being impressed by the kindheartedness and generosity of tribesman who shared what little they had, even their precious cattle, with strangers. Certainly there was curiosity all round, the soft beards of the Portuguese men always being noted, they became known as abalumbi – the makers of wonders, gifts from the sea who could do much with their hands. Their clothing was much desired, perhaps the tribesman accustomed to living in a harsh climate did not realize that the garments protected the Europeans from the elements - there are many accounts of their fascination with European clothing.  Women and children were generally treated with compassion. However, there were many instances of cruelty on the part of the Portuguese, and misunderstandings on both sides, which led to unnecessary conflict. The locals, for example, were convinced that the Portuguese were cannibals who wanted to eat them as they had seen or heard of incidents in which the Portuguese had captured and roasted men! 

Such sad dramas were played out again and again. Both locals and survivors treated each other with necessary wariness, although the survivors were often overawed by the generosity of the people whom they described as barbarians - and whom they often shot and killed for no really apparent reason. One Portuguese commentator stated that one of the consequences of such force being used against people who `although barbarous, had not wronged us in any way' was `the state of open warfare that will be faced by the people on any carrack that experiences our misfortune and shipwrecks there, for the Cafres now remain outright enemies'. (Lockhart, 1984: 363.)  Inevitably shipwrecks occurred in the winter months (the ships having sailed from or to the East later than the proper deadline) when stock were low and these subsistence farmers on whose kindness they depended were struggling to look after the needs of their own homesteads. 

Portuguese dominance of the seas began to wane in the seventeenth  century, passing to the Dutch who, it appeared, were far better seamen, losing fewer ships to the hostile seas.  Nevertheless, the Stavenisse was wrecked south of Natal in 1686. Its survivors lived for a time among (but separate from) the Xhosa-peaking people, whom they called Macosse, on whose kindness they very much depended. They claimed that they were treated so well by people whom they described as docile, very ingenious and obliging that `the barbarians shamed the Christians by their charity and hospitality'. (Moodie, 1960: 86.) One is reminded of Montaigne's essay, On cannibals (1580), in which he writes that ` each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice'. 

A young French Huguenot, Guillaume Chenu de Chalezac, spent a year living as foster-son to a Xhosa chief until he was rescued together with the survivors of the Stavenisse by the English vessel the Centaurus.  His record of this experience (first published in German in 1748) described the day-to-day life and customs of the Xhosa. It provided readers with a kindly and warm account of his hosts: their manners and good behaviour; the respect they showed to their chiefs; their friendliness and hospitality towards each other and towards strangers; and the modesty of the women.  The French boy's story has formed the basis of an Afrikaans children's historical novel by Rensché Strijdom-Meij [2] which beautifully describes the human bond formed between him and his foster-father and a fictitious foster-mother. Historian Randolph Vigne had the following to say of it: `Books such as hers, and indeed Guillaume Chenu's original account, give hope that the best of the relationship between black and white such as Chenu and his contemporaries experienced it may come again'. (Vigne 1993: [xxii].) 

The East Indiamen Grosvenor was wrecked some 120 years later, on 4 August 1782, on the same stretch of coast. 140 men, women and children were on board. Of these, 13 (9 English seamen. 3 Lascars, or East Indian sailors, and an Indian maidservant) survived the arduous trek to the Cape, then ruled by the Dutch. Twenty-one people drowned during the stranding, the other 106 died, mostly of starvation, exhaustion and desperation, somewhere along the coast.   The Pondos offered no violence at the wreck-site, content to set fire to the ship's remains in order to extract the precious iron that they were desperately in need, for the manufacture of assegaai heads if nothing else. The survivors, however, were prevented from moving down the coast or from approaching homesteads  by tribesmen who stoned them or drove their cattle away from them. Even when not molested they were not offered food, except for barter. Women who had hidden baubles in their hair or about their person were roughly handled untiI the trinkets were found. 

I would like to conjecture as to why the experiences of the 119 Grosvenor castaways were so very different to those, for example, of the Stavenisse: the Pondos were wary of a large group of people marooned on their shore during the leanest season of the year.  The castaways’ leaders did much to compromise their well-being.  John Coxon, the captain, mismanaged the situation, using violence in dealings with the Pondos, who retaliated. There was no willingness on the part of the castaways to remain together as a group. Class and social tensions arose between the ship's officers, the passengers and the crew; passengers and officers insisting that only they could treat with the Pondo.  

          Many opportunities to acquire food and shelter and save lives were, therefore, lost. The weak, the young and infirm were abandoned and a number of breakaway parties were formed, many of them simply disappearing into the wastes of the Wild Coast, as did Coxon's.  The Grosvenor castaways were the victims of much more than the inhospitality of a generally hospitable land. The smaller the party, the greater was the likelihood of getting assistance from the locals. There were many instances, later, when tribesmen (and women) came to the assistance of the castaways, particularly young children. The few who were able to survive the journey through Xhosaland to the Dutch territory successfully were generous in their praise of their hosts, their only complaint being of an excess of hospitality. This was not surprising in terms of their host's ubuntu, but nonetheless unexpected, considering that a year before the first of many frontier wars between colonist and Xhosa-speaker had ended, caused by depredations of the frontiersmen on the cattle herds of their Xhosa neighbours and the ensuing retaliations. What really was at stake, however, was land and labour, those two commodities at the heart of race relations in that part of the Cape.  Land both wanted, and needed to graze their cattle on. The colonist certainly coveted the Xhosa's herd, but the labour of the Xhosa was what the frontiersmen also desired. 

          News of the loss of the Grosvenor reached London in April 1783. Wild accounts of blacks carrying off the women survivors appeared in the press.   Kirby  (1954: 1-24.) suggests that such stories can be explained as a self-rationalization by the men who survived and a defence for their having abandoned women and children. Although these inaccuracies were later disputed, particularly after rescue missions[3] dispatched from the Cape returned and some of the survivors arrived in England to be questioned by the Admiralty, the print descriptions and visual images that they engendered formed part of current popular culture, some of the fictional accounts reading like Robinsonades. This was even more so after the appearance of George Carter's Narrative in 1791, in which he quoted the French traveller, François le Vaillant's comments about the Grosvenor  as follows: "part of the crew and passengers, escaping  the turbulent element, unfortunately fell into the hands of the Caffres, by whom they were barbarously destroyed, the women excepted, who were reserved to undergo still greater hardships…" and  " How cruel a situation for women! Condemned to drag a painful life in all the agonies of despair ". (Carter, 1791:182-184.) 

          It was these works, as well as the report that a Dutch party searching for survivors had come across a group of half-caste peoples, that inspired Marryat (1796-1847) to publish his The Mission in 1845. Because it was written for young people he considered it trifling but amusing. He had become acquainted with the works of travellers and missionaries in southern Africa, of Stephen Kay’s among them in which was recorded a visit to one Daapa (Xhosa name Mdapa). Daapa's mother was a white woman, known a Quma, who with other whites, slaves of mixed descent and East Indians, had been marooned on the Eastern Cape coast many years before the Grosvenor.  She was `immortalized in the annals of Kaffir history, from the circumstance of her being taken to wife by a principle chief'. (Kay, 1833: 357.) One of Daapa's sisters was named Bess, possibly after her mother, Kay thought. 

          Marryat was one of those authors like Ballantyne, Henty, Kingston and Mayne Reid who wrote youth fiction aimed at improving the young mind while telling a stirring tale of adventure. He wove the story of the Grosvenor and the fate of its survivors (albeit briefly) into the fabric of his only work to be considered an artistic failure. The Mission is largely an account of hunting and travel adventures in South Africa, but is also filled with comment about the social and political situation on the frontier which he had drawn from the works of travellers and missionaries such as those mentioned above. 

          The story commences in 1828, with Alexander Wilmot, grandnephew of Sir Charles Wilmot, agreeing to travel to South Africa to establish whether his aunt Elizabeth, a child passenger on the Grosvenor, had survived the wreck almost 50 years before. Sir Charles in his old age needs to have his mind set at rest, for he imagines his  "poor Elizabeth, the wife or slave to some wild savage; her children… growing up as brutes of the field in ignorance and idolatry. It is torture". (Marryat, 1936:5.) His main concern is that his "poor girl" may be alive and "returned to a state of barbarism, the seeds of faith long dead in her bosom, now changed to a wild untutored savage, knowing no God". (Marryat 1936:10.) 

          During the course of his travels in South Africa Alexander and his fellow-travellers come across a man called Daaka (the Daapa/Mdapa of Kay's narrative) whom at first sight they think to be related to Alexander for,  "although a Caffre in his habits and manners, his countenance and features are strikingly European". Alexander supposes that Daaka’s mother is his aunt, Elizabeth. He learns that  she had 'produced a numerous race of the European blood who were celebrated in the Caffre land for their courage' and consequently had nearly all died on the battlefield. (Marryat, 1936:136.) What a relief it is when, after some arithmetical calculations and further conversation with Daaka and one of his countrymen, it is established that not only had Daaka's mother been marooned in another shipwreck years before that of the Grosvenor, but that none of the Grosvenor women and children had survived. (Marryat,1936:138-140.)  Ubuntu in practice is described, for although Daaka complains that he is very poor, his cattle dying and his children without milk, he offers Alexander and his party accommodation and sends him an old cow as a present. After many adventures Alexander returns to the now bedridden Sir Charles to notify him of this. Sir Charles's response is "Gracious Lord, I thank thee that this weight has been removed from my mind". (Marryat, 1936: 303.) 

          Throughout the book the reader is given information about the inhabitants of South Africa: the colonists, the aboriginal San (formerly known as Bushmen) and Khoi (formerly known as Hottentot) and Bantu-speakers[4]. Marryat is critical of the colonists' land-grabbery, and his portrayal of the Xhosa-speaker is generally sympathetic. They are, to him, `noble' savages. A missionary, Mr S., when asked what he thinks of the Xhosa responds thus: "They are for heathens, a fine nation, bold, frank…scrupulously honest…They have no religion whatever; they have no idols; and no idea of the existence of a God….They believe in necromancy , and have their conjurors who do much harm, and are our chief opponents, as we weaken their influence and consequently their profits".  (Marryat, 1936 :81-82.) 

The above view, that the Xhosas had no religious beliefs, is something that appears in the works of writers of fiction as well of those who sojourned among them like Alberti and Chenu. The latter suggested that they might have had beliefs at one time, as he saw them prepare shrines and make what appeared to be a sacrifice, and curse the heavens when a storm broke. (Vigne, 1993: p.39-40.) John Henderson Soga, the first amateur Xhosa historian, was in complete disagreement with Alberti’s view that the Xhosa knew no God, asserting that they had a monotheistic conception of a god who controlled and governed all and was the rewarder of good and the punisher of evil. Known as u-Dali (more correctly uMdali), he is the Creator or Supreme Being.  (Soga, [1931?]: 150.) Their elaborate cattle-cult was associated with the veneration of ancestors, and at times of great stress, this supreme being who was never worshipped directly, but through the intercession of the ancestoral spirits, from whom they seek atonement for any offence committed. (Harinck, 1969: 147.)  Worship was generally carried on under the influence of superstition. (Soga, [1931?]: 154.) Because, as the Creator, uMdali, never takes away life, death and sickness is never seen to be the result of natural causes, but always of the evil influence of a malevolent being or a malefactor, whose intention it is to upset the harmony within a family or community by bringing death to its people or to the other thing of most importance, its cattle.  The role of the diviners or amagqirha (referred to as witchdoctors or conjurors in fictional works and travellers and missionaries accounts) is to seek out the source of the malevolence. The intention of these religious practices and beliefs, and of tribal law itself, is to maintain the stability and unity of the community. They are communicated to the community via a rich storehouse of idioms, proverbs, metaphors, folklore, legends myths and songs. 

A reverence for the ancestors and their spirits and a belief in magic lies at the heart of Kwane: an African saga.  This young adult novel was written by a South African native’ administrator and educationalist, P.A. W. Cook. He was steeped in the ways of the Xhosa-speaking people and had also written about the Bomvana, the Xhosa-speaking tribe to which Marryat's Daapa belonged. 

The book's eponymous hero is Kwane, an historical figure who lived in the late seventeenth or early to mid-eighteenth century. Although born a commoner he was elevated to a chieftaincy because of his commitment to the great Xhosa chief Tshiwo. A number of versions of Kwane's life exist [5] it seems likely that Cook drew the facts from Soga’s sketch   where he is presented as a member of a clan of largely mixed Xhosa-Khoi clients of Tshiwo living under his protection. (Soga, [1931?]: 11-12.) Clearly a man of considerable sagacity, courage and talent, Kwane, as councillor to Tshiwo, was tasked with the execution of those individuals pointed or `smelt-out’ by the tribal diviners as witches or wizards. Instead of carrying out the Chief's commands, he spared lives of the poor unfortunates and hid them away in a secret valley where their numbers grew when they intermarried with local Khoi. When Tshiwo was hard pressed in battle with a treacherous insubordinate Kwane brought his people before him, asking forgiveness for his disobedience. Tshiwo was delighted to have this addition to his forces, and conferred on Kwane the chieftainship over the Gqunukwebe tribe which he had founded. 

 Cook alters this history a little and embellishes the tale with accurate details of Xhosa laws and customs. He weaves a rich tapestry of Xhosa traditional practices such as burial rites, initiation, courtship and lobola, polygamy, the deference shown by a bride to her husband's family, the levirate, respect for one’s elders, a fear of magic and witchcraft, and a complete communion with and understanding of nature and its forces. The ancestors are represented as benevolent spirits "who remain as they were on earth, protective and loving towards their children" (Cook, 1939: 87.)   

 Kwane is portrayed as the corporeal spirit of ubuntu. He is an outstanding warrior, known and loved for his courage and ingenuity. He is a respectful and loving son, a devoted husband and father, hospitable, generous and just. He respects his elders, accepting their counsel within the context of vigorous debate. Above all, he is loyal to his ancestors and completely unselfish in his devotion to his people. When the diviners accuse his mother of being a witch he unflinchingly performs his rôle as executioner as the arm of the chief.  He accepts the existence of witchcraft and magic, accepts that witchcraft is a terrible thing, and that women are much addicted to it. "Witchcraft", Kwane tells his friend and counsellor, Nuka, "is like a spear, good to kill enemies but not to be used against friends". (Cook, 1939: 87.)  His rival, Wata, who is also Tshiwo’s councilor, sets out to destroy Kwane and his people, the Gqunukwebe. When Wata plots the smelling out of Kwane's Great Wife, Nolala, as a witch, Kwane is determined to save her and to use medicine to cleanse her of the evil within her (which he accepts that she has) that prejudices the safety of his people. Nolala is the first of many witches and wizards, condemned to die by being thrown over the Execution Rock, whom Kwane and his supporters save by breaking their fall with a tightly drawn oxhide. All are cleansed, all are secreted away in a concealed valley, the Valley of Dreams, and all become loyal followers of Kwane. 

Wata turns Tshiwo's heart against Kwane, but when he is defeated by Gaza, a rebellious chieftain on the border with the Pondo, Tshiwo has no choice but to entrust to Kwane the command of his warriors. Kwane summons his people from the valley and under his leadership they overthrow Gaza.  Tshiwo is filled with a mixture of gratitude towards, and hatred of Kwane, as well as fear of the wizards whom he thought had been thrown to their death and who are now standing before him. He confers on Kwane the feathers of a Blue Crane (isithwalandwe), the insignia of independent chieftainship and highest honour awarded to a great warrior. Kwane had succoured his people and given them independence and freedom from Xhosa rule, Cook is neither prejudiced nor judgmental in his telling of this tale. In his Foreword to the first edition of his book, he urged his readers to look afresh at the African: `people who speak of the Native as immature, not yet grown up, fail to realize the rich experience of life and human struggle which lies behind him, because, instead of cluttering up the landscape with ruined palaces, he has absorbed these experiences into his philosophical outlook on life'. Kwane, he believed `was in every way a noble man, and it is in his own environment that he must be judged'. (Cook, 1939: [v].) 

Robert Jacob Gordon (1743-1795) was one of the most humane and tolerant travellers to meet with the Xhosa-speaking people on the eastern frontier. His first encounter with them, specifically the Gqunukwebe people of Kwane, took place on 4 December 1777. Gordon considered them `the freshest, merriest people I have ever seen', with a ready wit and strong, healthy, attractive appearance. (Cullinan, 1992:40.) He entered into a warm friendship with the greatest of the Gqunukwebe chiefs, whom he called Coba. Gordon learnt  Xhosa  form Coba and his companions, they sang to each other and walked about leaning on each other,  and he joined in their dancing. An acute observer, Gordon was impressed with everything that he saw, his only complaint being what he considered begging on the part of the Xhosa-speakers, one shared by settlers and travellers alike. I conjecture once more: perhaps what was considered begging was simply an expectation that ubuntu would be extended by the Europeans to their Xhosa-speaking neighbours, as neighbours should, and as they had done generally when Europeans were passing through their territory.

 Elwyn Jenkins has remarked that far too often white writers view black culture as still being `synonymous with witchdoctors and tokoloshes'.[6]  (Jenkins, 1993:141.) Historical fiction should not ignore the existence of tribal culture and customs, but such beliefs and practices should be described in terms a number of rules of conduct designed to help man `adapt to the change that resulted from the passing from the state of nature to a civil society', and to ensure the stability of the community. The folk tales and myths that so often give non-African readers access to the life of an African, played an important rôle in the education of the community and in meeting its aesthetic needs. (Zotwana, 1993:38.) Such tales need to be told to all children so that they learn them together with great myths and legends of other nations. 

South Africa, however, has a rich, albeit contested, history of its own that our children need be able to relate to and to learn. What better way to do so than by reading an unsentimental, unprejudiced, historically correct historical novel in which characters and the environment in which they live are fleshed out and the words fly from the page, enthralling the child reader and exciting his or her imagination? Perhaps one can say that writers of juvenile historical fiction when writing of the past which might have been have a responsibility to their readers to produce books which are nonetheless fully grounded on the past that was.  What better way to become acquainted with ubuntu and learn to extend its philosophy to all South Africans? I am not suggesting that such a literature does not already exist, but rather that there is room for much more.  If this Congress can stimulate an interest among young readers in South Africa’s past, the future of the book in the country will be assured, and we will become a nation of perceptive and curious readers.

References

Alberti, Ludwig.1968. Ludwig Alberti’s account of the tribal life of the Xhosa. Cape Town :Balkema.

Carter, George.1791. A narrative of the loss of the Grosvenor, East Indiaman, which was unfortunately wrecked upon the coast of Caffraria, ... on the 4th of August, 1782, compiled from the examination of John Hynes, one of the unfortunate survivors.  London: J. Murray and William Lane.

Cook, P.A.W. 1939. Kwane: an African saga.  Cape Town: Masker Miller.

Cook, P. A. W. [193 -?]. Social organization and social institutions of the   

          Bomvana. Cape Town: Juta.

Cullinan, Patrick. 1992. Robert Jacob Gordon, 1743-1795: the man and his travels at the Cape. Cape Town: Struik Winchester.

De Mist, Augusta Uitenhage. [1954]. Diary of a journey to the Cape of Good Hope and the interior of Africa in 1802 and 1803. Cape Town; Amtserdam: Balkema.

Dixon, Bob.1977.Catching them young 1: sex, race and class In children's fiction. London: Pluto Press.

Haggard, Henry Rider. 1898. Nada the Lily. London: Longmans, Green.

Harinck, Gerrit. 1969.Interaction between Xhosa and Khoi: emphasis on the period 1620-1750. In African societies in southern Africa: historical studies. London: Heinemann. 145-169.

Lockhart, Donald. Tr.1984. The Itinerario of Jerónimo Lobo.  London: Hakluyt Society.

Jenkins, Elwyn.1993. Children of the sun: selected writers and themes in South African children's literature. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Jenkins, Elwyn. 2002. South Africa in English-language children's literature, 1814-1912. Jefferson,N.C.; London: McFarland.

Kay, Stephen.  1833. Travels and researches in Caffraria:  describing the character, customs, and moral condition of the tribes inhabiting that portion of Southern Africa. London:  Mason.

Kirby, Percival R. 1954. Gquma, Mdepa and the Amatshomane clan: a by-way of miscegenation in South Africa. African Studies, 14 (1): 1-24.

Marryat, Frederick. 1936 repr. The mission; or, Scenes from Africa. London, Phoenix Book Company,

Moodie, Donald. 1960. The record; or, A series of official papers relative to the condition and treatment of the native tribes of South Africa.  Cape Town, Amsterdam: Balkema.

Peires, Jeffrey B. 1981.The house of Phalo: a history of the Xhosa people in the days of their independence. Johannesburg:  Ravan Press.

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