The Lovedale Press: Literature for the Bantu Revisited

Abstract

The fact is that the mass of the vernacular literature published in the past emanated, and still to-day emanates, from missionary presses, and naturally such literature has sought to fulfil the aims of missionary societies.The special features of written vernacular history as a specific category of African historical documentation still await a general theoretical analysis. This article makes no attempt to remedy the deficiency, but considers two possible hypotheses from the relationship between Xhosa traditional historians and the Lovedale Press during the 1930s. First cf Vansina, that it is not only oral traditions which are affected by their mode of transmission. Second, cf Goody and Watt, that it is one thing to be literate, but quite another to find a publisher.Perhaps the first printed work in Xhosa was that of a stoic-looking cow bestriding the legend “All cattle come from God,” which appeared in 1823. The writer was Rev. John Bennie of the Glasgow Missionary Society, and the printing was done at the Chumie mission station, shortly to be renamed Lovedale. From that time, Lovedale remained the focal point of the literate Christian culture which emerged among the Xhosa of South Africa's Eastern Cape. This primacy was reinforced in 1915 when the South African Native College (now Fort Hare) was established nearby under the chairmanship of the Principal of Lovedale. The Lovedale Press flourished along with its host institution. The only available estimates indicate that up to January 1939, 238 books were produced in Xhosa, more than in any African language except Swahili.

Publishing in South Africa

“…On the other hand it has to be recognised that one of the most important effects of these early mission presses was to reduce a rich and diverse oral tradition to a few centres of literary patronage (Peires 1980). Apart from the literary and orthographical controls which missionary editors exercised, language standards were also instituted.…”

53 | Supplemento | 2019 Progetti per l’Umanità. Rivoluzioni, Utopie e Ingegneria Sociale

“…17 On Shepherd's rejection of Dhomo's plays and on the 'failed' novel Experiment in Colour see Couzens 1985, 176-7 and 181-2. 18 On Shepherd's management of Lovedale press and his activity as 'censor', see Peires 1979, White 1992, Couzens 1985, 181-2, Zander 1999, 116-19, and Duncan 2004 19 A prominent example is Benedict W. Vilakazi's poetry in Zulu; on the Dhlomo-Vilakazi dispute, which concerned also the language of Bantu literature, see Attwell 2002. On Dhlomo and 'modernity' see Masilela's monograph, entirely dedicated to highlighting how the Zulu writer "actually constructed the theoretical edifice of South African modernity" (2007,5).…”

“…For the history of Lovedale Institution see, among many other records, Stuart 1894 and Shepherd 1971. On Lovedale Press, see alsoPeires 1979 andWhite 1992. 3 James Stewart, second Principal of Lovedale (from 1870 to his death in 1905), stated that "When a man is Christianized -that is, when the great change has really taken place in him -he is generally civilized as well" (Stewart 1894, 10).…”

The Nine Lives of Semei Kakungulu

“…on how Semei Kakungulu would refuse to get off the road whenever a British DC came along and obviously wanted him to) that Peires reports were customarily edited out of comparable MSS in South Africa by the Lovedale Press around this time. 3 Apart from such details, it has a lot of epic material about the Baganda conquest of eastern Uganda, and also reprints Kakungulu's will.…”

“…Paulo Kagwa was an Anglican clergyman at the time, Temuteo Kagwa a Muganda Agent. Whether this dictation was partly inspired by Wajja's Munno articles ( [3]) is presently unknown though it is clear that Munno was widely read throughout eastern Uganda at this time. It has to be cited as the work of Paulo Kagwa (it is, after all, in his handwriting!…”