The Central Beliefs of the Xhosa Cattle-Killing

Abstract

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.

(Vho) Abel Mphagi – The Barefooted Native 'Prophet' and 'Evangelist' of Vendaland: A Transition of Indigenous Belief Systems and Christianity

“…Engenas Lekganyane is said to have received enormous miracleworking which made him pray for a dead dove -and the bird came back to life (De Visser, 2011). In cases such as that of Nongqawuse, the daughter of Mhlakazi of the Gealeka, who initiated the historical great Xhosa cattle-killing spree of 1856 after some strange prophesies obtained from "people who died long time ago" (Peires 1987), observations are that such characters are influenced by encounters with 'supernatural' visions, dreams, miraculous recoveries from dreadful diseases, or personal encounters with supposed supreme beings who deliver prophecies to be taken to people. Except in a few cases of figures such as Engenas Lekganyane of the ZCC who was Christianised during the missionary work of John Alexandra Dowie of the Zion City movement of Illinois in the United States of America (De Visser 2011) and others such as Emmanuel Milingo of the Roman Catholic Church in Lusaka, Zambia (Mildnerová 2014), most of the African http://scriptura.journals.ac.za indigenous prophets' Christianisation through Church or the European missionaries is blurred.…”

Rights and responsibilities in rural South Africa: implications for gender, generation, and personhood

“…Historian Jeffery Peires defines lunga as a combination of ‘order’ and ‘justice’. Drawing on a range of historical texts, he explains that misfortunes such as cattle sickness, poor harvests, and personal injury were historically interpreted as ‘evidence of divine displeasure … due to one's own shortcomings and derelictions of duty ’ (Peires : 48, emphasis added). Such misfortunes could be corrected through acts of ukulungisa (‘to make it right’).…”

Afrika – Kontinent der Extreme

“…54 Xhosa prophets like Makanna and Ntsikana were therefore important intermediaries between Europeans and Africans in spite of their 48 Peires (1987), 57. For various accounts of Makanna's life, see Pringle (1989), 149-156;Pringle (1966), 279-288;Majeke (1952), 20-21;Peires (1979), 56-58;Peires (1987), 5-9. 49 Majeke (1952 (1834) and Bronze Napoleon (1940) set out to recapture this spirit of Makanna as intermediary by foregrounding the multiplyentangled human relations constitutive of a transcultural society.…”