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This article relates to the Ndebele people of the Transvaal region of South Africa. For information about the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe and their language please see Matabele and Sindebele language.
The Ndebele people are three tribes or nations of people living in South Africa and Zimbabwe; there are three main groups of Ndebele:
The Northern Transvaal Ndebele have largely adopted the language and culture of their Sotho and Tswana neighbours. Their spoken language is sometimes mistakenly grouped under the Northern Sotho group of dialects, and is becoming extinct. The new generation mostly speaks Northern Sotho. [edit] The Southern Transvaal NdebeleThose who make the famous house-paintings and beadwork described as “Ndebele” - upon which the flag of the new South Africa is based - have often been portrayed as a people clinging to tradition. According to ethnologist van Warmelo, these people retained their custom and language “with astonishing tenacity", thus differing markedly from the Northern Transvaal Ndebele whose language and customs "have been largely superseded by [those of the] Sotho". SiNdebele-speakers’ forms of artistic expression have served to maintain a strongly-defined identity. But the – almost exclusively female – creators of these arts have for decades been borrowing elements from the social and cultural repertoires both of their neighbours and of modern industrial society. Paradoxically, it is with these hybrid elements that the Ndebele have fuelled their apparent conservative traditionalism. Their distinctive house-painting style, originally based on a similar but less colourful style originally developed by the Northern Sotho or Pedi, flowered and achieved its creative pinnacle within the almost slave-like conditions which the Ndebele endured on the white-owned farms of the south-eastern Transvaal during the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Ethnonyms: Amandebele, Mapoggers, Ndzundza, Ndzundza-Ndebele or Manala-Ndebele, Southern Ndebele
In the 17th century, the Ndebele broke away from their coastal Nguni cousins, who were to become part of the Zulu empire. They migrated inland under the leadership of Musi, establishing themselves north of present-day Pretoria. Musi, an astute ruler, concerned himself with the wellbeing of his subjects, protecting them against exploitation by more powerful neighbours. He is said to have relied on diplomacy rather than aggression, gaining the confidence of the Sotho-speakers among whom he and his people settled. When Musi died, his eldest son, Manala, was named as the future chief. This was challenged by another senior son, Ndzundza; the group was divided by the resulting squabble between the two. Ndundza was defeated and put to flight. He and his followers headed eastwards, settling in the upper part of the Steelport River basin at a place called KwaSimkhulu, near present-day Belfast, leaving Manala to be installed as the chief of his father’s domain. Two further factions, led by other sons, then broke away from the Ndebele core. The Kekana moved northwards and settled in the region of present-day Zebediela, and the other section, under Dlomo, returned to the east coast from where the Ndebele had originally come. By the middle of the 19th century, the Kekana had further divided into smaller splinter groups, which spread out across the hills, valleys and plains surrounding present-day Mokopane (Potgietersrus), Zebediela and Polokwane (Pietersburg). These groups were progressively absorbed into the numerically superior and more dominant surrounding Sotho groups, undergoing considerable cultural and social change. By contrast, the descendants of Manala and Ndzundza maintained a more recognisably distinctive cultural identity, also retaining a language which was closer to the Nguni spoken by their coastal forebears (and to present-day isiZulu). The house-painting, beadwork and ornamentation often spoken of as Ndebele are produced mostly by the Ndzundza Ndebele of Mpumalanga. By the 1820s, Nzundza homesteads were widely dispersed along the Steelport river. This scatter of homesteads was due in part to raids by Mzilikazi and his followers, but also to factional conflict after the death of Chief Magodongo. From the 1840s, white farmers (Boers) who had been migrating into the Highveld in growing numbers since the 1830s encroached on the areas occupied by the Ndzundza Ndebele. Boer settlements, established between the Olifants and Steelport rivers, were threatened by the proximity of the chiefly stronghold of Konomtjharhelo, established by the Ndzundza regent Mabhoko I. Boer attempts to subdue the chiefdom failed. Following three unsuccessful confrontations, some of which combined Swazi and Boer forces, some Boers left the area in despair, while others recognized the authority of Mabhoko and even paid tribute to him. In the late 1860s and 1870s, Ndzundza power was at its height in the region. After 1877, with the British annexation of the Transvaal and the 1879 defeat of the Pedi by the British, the balance of power shifted away from African independent kingdoms in the region. In the autumn of 1883 war broke out between the Boers and the Ndzundza under Nyabela. A strategy of siege and attrition was staged by the Boers under Commandant Pier Joubert. For eight months, Nyabela, with those Ndzundza who had left their dispersed settlements along the Steelport to group around him, were besieged at Konomtjharhelo. A Boer myth has it that they were hidden in a centralized fortress of interlocking caverns, but recent evidence suggests that the well-armed Ndzundza were dug into a series of fortified settlements which spread over a much wider area. The destruction of Ndebele crops and the seizing of their cattle were largely the undoing of the chiefdom, whose people were gradually starved into submission. In July Nyabela surrendered and left his capital for the last time, as the victorious Boers torched it behind him. The conditions imposed by the victors onto the vanquished were very harsh. Nyabela and other members of the chiefly family were imprisoned, Ndzundza lands were confiscated and given to the Boers who had participated in the siege, and members of the polity were given to Boers as indentured farm labourers and servants. Nduzundza were thus scattered widely over the southern regions of the Transvaal Republic, including the districts of Lydenburg, Middelurg, Standerton and Wakkerstroom. The extended homesteads (umuzi) of the Ndzundza had been split into small, scattered family groups, but many began to flee the farms where they had been stationed and rejoined their families on others. There were strenuous attempts to reconstruct the chiefship (despite Nyabela’s imprisonment) and to revive institutions such as initiation. By 1886, several royals had escaped from prison, instructed by Nyabela to return and “look after his people”. They had also been charged with the duty of holding and initiation school (wela) which, to the amazement of Boer officials, they did on the farm, not far from the old capital, named - derogatorily by today’s standards - Kafferskraal. A chiefdom, allegedly destroyed and landless, was reasserting itself through the staging of an important ritual. This almost century-long diaspora, far from causing the annihilation of Ndzundza culture, provided the formative conditions for many social and cultural features now regarded as typically Ndebele. Some were borrowed from the neighbouring Pedi but shaped by Ndebele while they lived on white farms. Ndzundza boys’ initiation resembled its Pedi counterpart in being centrally controlled by the chief rather than being dispersed to separate homesteads like the more typical Nguni pattern. This allowed the chief to maintain his power despite great distance between his subjects, and hence countered the effects of their dispersal to white-owned farms. The Ndzundza painting style was likewise based on a Pedi original, but developed its characteristic colourful form in the 1940s during the period of Ndzundza dispersal on white farms.
With the move away from the white farms, many men started their own businesses as taxi drivers or builders, in contrast to working on the mines or in industry as their Pedi neighbours had been doing for many years. For Ndzundza women, their youth was often spent working in domestic service in Pretoria before returning home to marry, set up a homestead, and look after children. But some, driven by economic necessity, began to commute to Johannesburg at a later phase of life, sleeping rough in the station for a few nights at a time while selling their beadwork on the streets by day. Their entering the wage market in this way both showed these women's desire to help their husbands "build up the homestead" in both material and figurative terms, but it also represented a bid for a degree of automomy from the arbitrary controls exercised by the white farmer and the male household head. A complex process of domestic struggle led Ndebele women both to participate in the revival of apparently traditional gender relationships within the patriarchal household, and to challenge the strictures of these relationships by moving beyond the household to seek some independence within the broader domain of wage-paid domestic labour or street-selling. Making and selling beadwork, mats, dolls and other crafts have thus provided some Ndebele women with an independent livelihood: both those who have become internationally famous like Esther Mahlangu – who has been commissioned to paint her designs on BMWs and South African Airways jets - and those with humbler aspirations.
Male initiation (wela or ingoma) is conducted roughly every four years. Boys between 15 and 18 years of age must have their names registered with the paramount chief/king, after which the initiate wears a grass headband (isonyana) indicating that he is an initiate in preparation. At this stage, he performs various ritual tasks for three weeks. Before leaving for the chief’s residence, where the abakhethua from nearby homesteads meet, each is given an isititirimba (loincloth, from the Afrikaans stertriem), made for them by their grandfathers from an animal skin, and a single blanket. The rites are arduous and represent an ordeal, given that initiation usually takes place during the coldest part of the winter, on the Highveld, and given that initiates are circumcised. The initiates remain in an umphadu (initiation lodge), deep in the bush, for two months, being instructed on the lore of the group and their responsibilities, duties and rights as men. After their period of seclusion, feasts are prepared at the abakhethuas' homes, and the presents they receive from family members, to celebrate the attainment of manhood, are displayed. When the abakhethua leave the umphadu, it is set alight with the blankets and garments they wore during initiation, signifying the completion of their rites of passage and the closing of a chapter in their lives. After this, they return at sunset to the chief’s residence, tightly wrapped in new blankets, with their eyes downcast in an obvious display of humility, similar to when they departed for the initiation lodge. Beneath their blankets the boys are naked with the exception of the isititirimba, which symbolises manhood. That night they sleep in the enclosure and at dawn the next morning all initiates are publicly paraded (ukupalala) and receive their regimental names officially from the chief. The members of the group return to their homes and a to long round of celebrations, after which the processes of betrothal and marriage may be initiated.
In earlier times, the elaborate personal adornment worn by Ndebele women owed much to the wishes of Ndebele men to have their status as wealthy husbands displayed by their wives’ elaborate ornamentation. The range of ornaments worn by Ndebele women, which became increasingly spectacular after marriage and with age, was probably greater than that of any other group in South Africa. The iirholwana, beaded wire hoops of various sizes, were once worn by women around their wrists, arms, ankles, legs, necks and stomach. In earlier times, once her home was built, an Ndebele wife would also wear copper or brass rings (iindzila) around her neck. These were believed to have strong ritual power, although wearing them on a permanent basis is no longer common practice: many adult women were persuaded to remove them by doctors or nurses when visiting clinics or going to hospital. Traditionally the husband provided his wife with iindzila; the more rings she wore, the greater was her husband’s wealth reputed to be. Iindzila were considered by a wife to be a token of her bond with and faithfulness to her husband. Only on his death would she remove them. Among both the Manala and Ndzundza, girls wore ornaments from early childhood. These comprise beaded anklets, wristlets and necklaces. At this age, they traditionally wore loin coverings (iinrhabi), little cascades of leather thongs attached to waist-straps and tipped with beads, which cover the upper part of the thighs. In adolescence, instead of the iinrhabi, the isiphephetu was worn: a small, rectangular and stiffly beaded fore-apron. After marriage, this was replaced with the umaphotho, a large, goat-skin apron, which often reached the ankles and was intricately decorated with white beads. On her wedding day, the bride wore a veil of threaded beads which completely hid her face. The colour of the beads had special significance, reflecting the stages of development in a person’s life, from infancy to parenthood. The combination of colours also reflected the mood of the maker: joy, happy expectations, sorrow, or insecurity. More recently, women in Ndzundza society have come to be thought of as the custodians of isikhethu (lit. "that which is ours") - the relationships, beliefs and practices on which the very essence of Ndebele identity is centred. Alongside the care of ageing in-laws and the socialisation of and inculcation of values in children, this role includes women's clothing of their bodies in various ceremonial contexts. In the 1940s, Isaac Schapera pointed out that "the men ... all wear European clothing and go out in large numbers to work. But most of the women have retained the old national dress". But by the 1990s Ndebele women were hardly ever wearing isikhethu dress except on ceremonial occasions or when commercially engaged in the propagation of a self-conscious ethnic image for the benefit of tourists, at museums such as the one at Botšhabelo near Middelburg. Even if it occurs only in ritual or other special contexts, women's wearing of "traditional" ceremonial dress constitutes a symbolic statement. The ritually- or ceremonially-clothed female body represents the continuity of the patrilineal family into which the woman was born or into which she is marrying, and of the broader Ndebele collectivity. The ritually-clothed female body, although situated within the domestic context of the homestead (imizi), thus carries a meaning for the broader public realm as well. One of the occasions on which isikhethu is enunciated through beaded and decorative clothing is iqhude (girl's initiation), which occurs at puberty. This ritual, like male initiation, was revived during the period when Ndebele lived on the white farms of the south-eastern Transvaal, providing a focus of emerging Ndebele ethnic identity. It was completely decentralized and could be held in individual homesteads at any moment throughout the year, rather than being restricted to a particular moment in the yearly cycle as male initiation was. During seclusion at iqhude, when a young woman was in contact only with her mother and other female elders, she learned the arts of wall-painting and of beadwork. At different stages of the ritual the initiate would be clothed on successive occasions in different types of ceremonial garb, in order to mark her change in status from immature girl to marriageable woman. At a wedding there is a similar clothing of the female participants in elaborate ceremonial clothing. Here, the bride and her female relatives and attendants are dressed in beaded aprons and necklets. For both these rituals, the financial provision for a young woman's finery is made by a male relative. In the case of initiation, although the girl's mother must make the beadwork for her daughter to wear and must ensure that all preparations are done correctly, her father is obliged to buy the materials and to meet the considerable expenses incurred during the holding of the ritual. In the case of a wedding, brides are given brass neck-, arm-, and leg-rings by their husbands, and their fathers-in-law are responsible for providing the characteristic and colourfully striped "Middelburg blanket" which since the 1940s has tended gradually to replace some of the beaded skins. At both these rituals, the costly elements of a young woman's dress reflect the social status of her male relatives, either those related to her by blood or those to whom she is about to become linked by marriage. But these colourful clothes also bear vivid testimony to the distinctiveness of Ndebele culture within the broader world of inter-ethnic politics. From the farm era through to the present day, women's ceremonial clothing has also been a statement of defiance in the face of the conditions which were shaping Ndebele lives, in part by attempting to establish a relationship with the pre-colonial past, drawing on the symbolic power of a time when the Ndebele were able more actively to challenge the disruptive forces of colonial contact. Women, as crucial players in the creative manipulation and reinvention of "traditions" which draw on forms and skills they have learned within the household, were and are well placed to offer this subtle kind of resistance. They are maintaining an arena of autonomy, free from the onslaught of capitalist and industrial relationships.
[edit] References
Delius, P (ed) 2007 Mpumalanga: history and heritage Pietermaritzburg, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press. Delius, P and R Cope 2007 ‘Hard-fought frontiers: 1845-1883’ in P Delius (ed) Mpumalanga: history and heritage. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. P Holden and S Mathabatha 2007 “The politics of resistance” in P Delius (ed) Mpumalanga: history and heritage. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. James, D 1985 Family and household in a Lebowa village, African Studies, 44(2). James, D 1990 A question of ethnicity: Ndzundza Ndebele in a Lebowa village, Journal of Southern African Studies Makhura, T. 2007. ‘The Pre-colonial History of Mpumalanga Societies until the 19th Century’. in P Delius (ed) Mpumalanga: history and heritage. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. McCaul, C 1987 Satellite in Revolt: KwaNdebele—An Economic and Political Profile. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations. Milner, S 1991 The role of Ndebele beadwork in reinforcing the patriarchal household, unpublished Honours dissertation, Anthropology Dept., University of the Witwatersrand. Morrell, R 1983 Rural transformations in the Transvaal: the Middelburg district 1919-1930. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand. Phatlane S N 2002 The Farce of Homeland Independence: Kwa-Ndebele, the Untold Story Journal of Asian and African Studies, 37(3-5), 401-421 Schapera, I 1949 The Ndebele of South Africa, Natural History, November. Schneider, E 1985a Paint, pride and politics: aesthetic and meaning in Transvaal Ndebele wall art, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand. Schneider, E 1985b "Ndebele Mural Art." African Arts 18(3). van Vuuren, CJ. 1991 Historical Land and Contemporary Ritual: The Innovation of Oral Tradition in Understanding Ndzundza-Ndebele Ethnicity. in Oral Tradition and Innovation. New Wine in Old Bottles, ed E. Sienaert, N. Bell, and M. Lewis. Durban: University of Natal Oral Documentation and Research Centre. Van Vuuren, CJ 1994 The king, the comrades and the grinding-stone: Ndzundza Ndebele ethnicity and the unrest of 1986, unpublished paper. Van Vuuren, CJ 2000 Exhibiting the Ndebele: myths, stereotypes and identity, Southern African Journal of Demography 4(24)2000 Van Warmelo 1974 The Classification of Cultural Groups in WD Hammond-Tooke (ed) The Bantu-Speaking Peoples of Southern Africa, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul. [edit] External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
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