Mfengu surnames definition

Mfengu-Rharhabe Rivalry and the Rise of Lennox Sebe

Conventionally, one distinguishes between two folk groups in the Ciskei: the Rharhabe Xhosa, who are descended from say publicly first Bantu-speaking people to inhabit greatness area, and the Mfengu, a all-encompassing name for several distinct groupings presentation associated clans who fled from Zululand during the time of King Shaka (1818–1828) and settled in the Cape.^[18] It is important to highlight that members of both these aggregations are to be found in character Transkei as well as the Ciskei: they cannot be characterized as of course Ciskeian peoples. Initial cultural differences mid Rharhabe and Mfengu—for example, that integrity Mfengu pierced the ears and distinction Xhosa did not—have long since washed out into insignificance. They have been overshadowed by the cataclysmic events of say publicly year 1835, when the Mfengu were persuaded by the missionary Ayliff discriminate against desert their Xhosa patrons and search for aim Colonial protection.

On the 14 May 1835, the Mfengu gathered under an back milkwood tree in Peddie district jaunt swore a great oath to act upon the Queen, to accept Christianity, remarkable to educate their children. This word of honour was to have momentous consequences. Significance Mfengu fought alongside the Colonial put right in all the Frontier Wars obtain were rewarded by extensive tracts ship Rharhabe land. As the better-educated title more European-oriented group, they naturally tied the bulk of elite positions similarly clerks, teachers, peasants, and petty traders that were available to blacks patent an elective system based on payment and achievement, as opposed to justness pre-colonial Xhosa pattern of strong genetic chiefs. They viewed themselves as description bearers of a great universal Religion Civilization, and tended to regard interpretation Rharbabe and other Xhosa as earlier and uncivilized. Every 14 May because 1907 has been celebrated as Fingo Emancipation Day, with a ceremony set aside under the old milkwood tree locale the Mfengu oath was sworn.

The Rharhabe, for their part, resented Mfengu predominancy in the professions and salaried posts, their hold on the headmanships become more intense other organs of local political authorization, and their control of land which had formerly belonged to the Nguni. S.E.K. Mqhayi, the Xhosa national rhymer, accused the Mfengu of celebrating Fingo Emancipation on the anniversary of righteousness very day that the revered Nguni king Hintsa was murdered and maimed by Colonial forces in 1835. Amuse 1909, the Xhosa responded with dinky memorial celebration dedicated to Ntsikana (d. 1821), the first local prophet quite a few Christianity, who was a Rharhabe Nguni. The rivalry between Rharhabe and Mfengu, originating in Frontier Wars and prolonged by economic and social competition at any time since, thus found institutional expression style far back as the turn position this century.

The National Party's policy reminiscent of retribalization, first expressed in the African Authorities Act of 1951, aimed finish pulling down the remnants of justness old Cape liberal tradition and fraudulence concept of universal equality grounded din in common Christian and democratic ideals station replacing it with a tamed weather deformed version of pre-colonial political province hinging on chieftainship. This development clearly threatened the Mfengu, who had anachronistic the main beneficiaries of the Neck tradition, and offered opportunities to rectitude Rharhabe whose ancient rights and survive discarded chieftainships had been fully verifiable in the old books and file that government ethnologists now rediscovered. Keen new spirit of

― 399 ―

self-assertiveness entered the Rharhabe ranks, and the go back of the Rharhabe Paramountcy from cardinal years of exile beyond me Kei became the occasion of deliberate become public insults directed against the Mfengu.

Ironically, become was the Mfengu attempt to take over their Rharhabe rivals which precipitated their downfall. Justice Mabandla, who was both a Mfengu hereditary chief and hoaxer educated man, seemed to accommodate both government and Mfengu aspirations. Uncomfortably rise that the new dispensation played fascinated Rharhabe hands, in 1968 Mbandla endure his associates issued a 'Fingo Manifesto', in which they requested that righteousness Mfengu be regarded as entirely disconnected of the Rharhabe, and that likeness in the coming 'New Deal' transit outlined by the Proclamation R143 pleasant 1968 should be structured along ethnical lines. The South African government was not averse to stirring up traditional hatreds and the Commissioner General flat a public attack on the Nguni during the Fingo Emancipation celebration business 1969. The New Deal Executive was explicitly made up of two Mfengu, two Rharhabe, one Sotho and look after Thembu. With the excision of Stargazer and Glen Grey districts, which became part of the Transkei in 1976, the latter groups lost their public significance.

Mabandia was Chief Executive. Sebe, influence leading Rharhabe, was Minister of Upbringing. They did not work well gather. Mbandia accused Sebe of holding privilege meetings and plotting against his create. Sebe accused Mabandla of ethnic partiality and of blocking the applications perfect example Rharhabe chiefs for government recognition. Conj at the time that Sebe was dropped to the barren glamorous Agriculture portfolio, he began offer organize his own political party, character Ciskei National Independence Party (CNIP), perform the upcoming 1973 elections. The CNIP was backed by almost all those Rharhabe who were prepared to take on Bantu Authorities. The other Xhosa affiliate of the Executive Council, L.S. Mtoba, stayed with Mabandla, as did honesty Rharhabe Paramount Chief, Bazindhlovu Sandile. Nevertheless the presence of such prominent Rharhabe in his ranks did not assistance Mabandla. 'Why should we be ruled by a Fingo?' the CNIP willingly, and by persistently beating on grandeur ethnic drum, they awakened the sequential and material grievances of the Rharhabe and rallied them to Sebe's cause.