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Creolisation on the Nineteenth-century Frontiers of Southern Africa: A Case Study of the AmaTola ‘Bushmen’ in the Maloti-Drakensberg

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 38; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057070.2012.666905

1465-3893

Sam Challis,

South African History and Culture

Abstract This article explores the formation of mounted frontier raiding groups of diverse origins in the mountains of the north-eastern Cape Colony. It addresses concepts of creolisation, identity formation and image making (rock art) with special reference to nineteenth-century frontier conditions, and examines the ways in which ‘contact period’ rock art has been perceived until now. Certain frontier raiding groups often referred to simply as ‘Bushmen’ are revealed to comprise members from many formerly distinct ‘ethnicities’Footnote2, and include the progeny resulting from subsequent inter-marriage. Cultural and ‘ethnic’ mixing, the advent of the horse and the need for identity to adapt to these changes, results in a creolisation process probably more common to South Africa than has previously been allowed. This article is part of the following collections: Terence Ranger Prize Notes *I acknowledge Peter Mitchell for the supervision of the thesis from which this article is derived, John Wright, Jeff Peires, Simon Hall and Shula Marks for invaluable conversations and correspondence regarding the material, and the continued support of my colleagues at the Rock Art Research Institute. 1 I retain the original spelling as it appeared in the colonial record. In the modern orthography it should be amaThola, yet in the case of the Thola, the plural prefix is too easily dropped in English and serves to conceal, whether consciously or not, the group's part Nguni origins. See S. Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse on the AmaTola “Bushmen”: New Identity in the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of Southern Africa’ (D. Phil thesis, University of Oxford, 2008). There is a reference by Coenraad de Buys to a ‘yellow-skinned nation with long hair, named Matola’ living north of the Thembu, but unfortunately this spelling and strand of evidence stand alone. See W. Blommaert and J.A. Wiid (eds), Die Joernaal van Dirk Gysbert Van Reenen 1803 (Cape Town, Van Riebeek Society, 18, 1937), p. 167. 2 The term ‘ethnic’ is problematic, and nowhere more so than in nineteenth-century southern Africa. It has been problematised by anthropologists and archaeologists for decades, with perhaps little resolution. Here I use the term to mean those who identify with each other through common heritage, language and culture. It should be noted that ‘ethnicity’ is fluid and permeable, prone to shift and difficult to define, hence the repeated use of inverted commas in this article. 3 J.B. Wright, Bushman Raiders of the Drakensberg 1840–1870 (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1971). 4 Cape Archives (Government House [G.H.] 23 1850), p. 417. Statement of William Lochenberg at the Inquiry Held by the Crown Prosecutor Walter Harding and the British Agent in Mpondoland, Henry Francis Fynn, 29th March 1850. 5 Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse’, pp. 179–222. S. Challis ‘Taking the Reins: The Introduction of the Horse in the Nineteenth-Century Maloti-Drakensberg and the Protective Medicine of Baboons’, in P. Mitchell and B. Smith (eds), The Eland's People: New Perspectives in the Rock Art of the Maloti-Drakensberg Bushmen, Essays in Memory of Patricia Vinnicombe (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 2009), pp. 104–107. 6 See J.B. Peires, in this volume of JSAS, pp. 333–354. In Natal the name was probably in use much earlier, by the 1850s and perhaps the 1840s (Wright pers. communication.). 7 P. Jolly, ‘Sharing Symbols: A Correspondence in the Ritual Dress of Black Farmers and the Southeastern San’, South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 9 (2005), pp. 86–100; P. Jolly, ‘Nguni Diviners and the South-Eastern San: Some Issues Relating to Their Mutual Cultural Influence’, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 12 (2000), pp. 79–95. 8 G.M. Theal, (ed.), Basutoland Records, 5 (Cape Town, Richards and Sons, 1883), pp. 87–88. 9 J.B. Wright, ‘Bushman Raiders Revisited’, in P. Skotnes (ed.), Claim to the Country: The Archive of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek (Johannesburg, Jacana Press, 2007), pp. 118–29, esp. p. 120. 10 P. Vinnicombe, People of the Eland: Rock Paintings of the Drakensberg Bushmen as a Reflection of their Life and Thought (Pietermaritzburg, Natal University Press, 1976). 11 Wright, ‘Bushman Raiders Revisited’, p. 120. 12 Wright, Bushman Raiders, see p. 38; Vinnicombe, People of the Eland, pp. 23–24. 13 J. Bird, The Annals of Natal, Volume 1 (Pietermaritzburg, P. Davis & Sons, 1888), p. 647; See Wright, ‘Bushman Raiders Revisited’, p. 125. 14 Vinnicombe, People of the Eland, p. 24. 15 P. Jolly, ‘Symbiotic Interaction Between Black Farmers and South-Eastern San: Implications for Southern African Rock Art Studies, Ethnographic Analogy, and Hunter-Gatherer Cultural Identity’, Current Anthropology, 37, 2 (1996), pp. 277–305; Jolly ‘Sharing Symbols’; P. Jolly ‘Dancing with Two Sticks: Investigating the Origin of a Southern African Rite’, South African Archaeological Bulletin, 61 (2006), pp. 172–80; G. Blundell, ‘Nqabayo's Nomansland: San Rock Art and the Somatic Past’ (PhD thesis, University of Uppsala, 2004). 16 N.R. Spitzer, ‘Monde Créole: The Cultural World of French Louisiana Creoles and the Creolization of World Cultures’, Journal of American Folklore, 116 (2003), pp. 58–9. 17 Descent, here, is the operative word. San-speakers, Nguni-speakers and Khoe-speakers were not ethnic blocks, but were themselves the result of a fluid politics of splitting and amalgamating and a fluid politics of identity making. Although they were as ‘mixed’ as any societies, they were not, however, necessarily creolised. 18 F. Haines, ‘The Northward Spread of Horses Among the Plains Indians’, American Anthropologist, 40, 3 (1938), pp. 429–37; P. Hämäläinen, ‘The Rise and Fall of Plains Indian Horse Cultures’, The Journal of American History, 90 (2003), pp. 833–62; S. Marks, and A. Atmore, ‘Firearms in Southern Africa: A Survey’, Journal of African History, 7 (1971), pp. 517–30; S. Ouzman, ‘The Magical Arts of a Raider Nation: Central South Africa's Korana Rock Art’, South African Archaeological Society, Goodwin Series, 9 (2005), pp. 101–13; R. Ross, Adam Kok's Griquas: A Study in the Development of Stratification in South Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976); M.C. Legassick, The Politics of a South African Frontier: The Griqua, the Sotho-Tswana, and the Missionaries, 1780–1840 (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2010); Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse’, pp. 228–66; Challis, ‘Taking the Reins’, pp. 104–107. 20 Stein, The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters, p. 25; C. Gosden, Archaeology and Colonialism: Cultural Contact from 5000 BC to the Present (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004); Stein, The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters, p. 26. 19 G.J. Stein, The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives (Oxford, James Currey Ltd., 2005), pp. 23–8. 21 Stein, The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters, p. 27. 22 K.G. Lightfoot and A. Martinez, ‘Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24 (1995), pp. 476 & 487. S. Jones, ‘Historical Categories and the Praxis of Identity: The Interpretation of Ethnicity in Historical Archaeology’, in P.P.A. Funari, M. Hall and S. Jones (eds), Historical Archaeology: Back From the Edge (London, Routledge, 1999), p. 220. 23 Lightfoot, and Martinez, ‘Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective’, pp. 477–78. 24 Lightfoot, and Martinez, ‘Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective’, p. 474. 25 There is some debate as to whether ‘ethnogenesis’ can be used if the word ‘ethnicity’ itself is problematic. I use the term here in the context of cultural, not necessarily ethnic identity making. 26 K.G. Lightfoot, ‘Culture Contact Studies: Redefining the Relationship between Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology’, American Antiquity, 60 (1995), p. 206. 29 Lightfoot, ‘Culture Contact Studies', p. 201. 27 Jones, ‘Historical Categories and the Praxis of Identity’, p. 266. 28 H. Lamar and L. Thompson (eds), The Frontier in History: North America and Southern Africa Compared (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1981). 30 Stein, The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters, p. 28. 31 Lightfoot, and Martinez, ‘Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective’, p. 485. 32 Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse’, p. 31; Challis ‘Taking the Reins’, pp. 104–107. 33 L. Thompson and H. Lamar, ‘The North American and Southern African Frontiers’, in Lamar and Thompson (eds), The Frontier in History, p. 35; J. Alexander, ‘Early Frontiers in Southern Africa’, in G. Avery et al. (eds), Frontiers: Southern African Archaeology Today, Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology, 10, British Archaeological Reports International Series, 207 (1984), pp. 17–21; A. Mazel, ‘People Making History: The Last Ten Thousand Years of Hunter Gatherer Communities in the Thukela Basin’, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 1 (1989), pp. 133–34. 34 Lightfoot and Martinez, ‘Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective’, pp. 476 & 487. 35 J.B. Wright, ‘Beyond the Concept of the “Zulu Explosion”: Comments on the Current Debate’, in C.A. Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1995), pp. 107–21. 36 J.B. Wright, ‘Turbulent Times: Political Transformations in the North and East, 1760s to 1830s’, in C. Hamilton, B. Mbenga and R. Ross (eds), The Cambridge History of South Africa, Vol. 1, From Early Times to 1885 (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2010), pp. 21–52. J. Press, New York, 2010), pp. 211–252. 37 Wright, ‘Beyond the Concept of the “Zulu Explosion”’, in Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath, p. 107. 38 Wright, ‘Beyond the Concept of the “Zulu explosion”’, in Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath, pp. 107–21. 39 N. Etherington, The Great Treks: The Transformation of Southern Africa 1815–1854 (Edinburgh, Longman/Pearson Education, 2001), p. 345. 40 W.D. Hammond-Tooke, Bhaca Society (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 6; J.B. Wright, Bushman Raiders of the Drakensberg, p. 179; P. Jolly, ‘Strangers to Brothers: Interaction Between South-Eastern San and Southern Nguni/Sotho Communities’, (MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1994), pp. 52–63. 41 Amamfengu was a term in use before their arrival. 42 J.B. Peires, ‘The British and the Cape 1814–1834’, in R. Elphick and H. Giliomee (eds), The Shaping of South African Society 1652–1840 (Cape Town, Maskew Miller Longman, 1992), p. 241. 43 P. Kallaway, ‘Danster and the Xhosa of the Gariep: Towards a Political Economy of the Cape Frontier 1790–1820’, African Studies, 41, 1 (1982), p. 144. 44 A. Webster, ‘Unmasking the Fingo: The War of 1835 Revisited’, in C.A. Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1995), p. 256. 45 Webster, ‘Unmasking the Fingo: The War of 1835 Revisited’, p. 247; but see J.B. Peires, ‘Matiwane's Road to Mbholompo: A Reprieve for the Mfecane?’, in Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath, p. 231. 46 E.D.H.E. Napier, ‘Excursions in Southern Africa: Including a History of the Cape Colony, an Account of the Native Tribes etc. (London, William Shoburl, 1849), p. 226. 47 D'Urban's first attempt to annex this land after the 1835 war was disallowed by the British government. 48 Ouzman, ‘The Magical Arts of a Raider Nation, pp. 101–13; Jones, ‘Historical Categories and the Praxis of Identity’, p. 226. 49 Ouzman, ‘The Magical Arts of a Raider Nation’, p. 110. 50 J.H. Soga, The Ama-Xhosa: Life and Customs (Lovedale, Lovedale Press, 1931), p. 173. 51 For example, see J.M. Watt, and M.G. Breyer-Brandwijk, The Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern and Eastern Africa (London, Livingstone, 1962), p. 733; M. Ngwenya, Acridocarpus Natalitius KwaZulu-Natal Herbarium, South African National Biodiversity Institute, available at http://www.plantzafrica.com, retrieved on 29 April 2011. 52 But see Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse', pp. 146–71. 53 J.B. Peires, The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856–7, (Johannesburg, Ravan, 1989), pp. 10–11; J.W. Macquarrie, The Reminiscences of Sir Walter Stanford, 2 (Cape Town, The Van Riebeek Society, 1962), p. 5. 54 J.C. Holleman (ed.), Customs and Beliefs of the /Xam Bushmen (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press and Philadelphia, Ringing Rocks Press, 2004), pp. 10–13; J.M. de Prada-Samper, ‘The Plant Lore of the /Xam San: //Kabbo and ≠ Kasiη's Identification of “Bushman Medicines”’, Culturas Populares Revista Electrónic, 4 (2007), available at http://www.culturaspopulares.org/textos4/articulos/deprada.pdf 55 Holleman (ed.), Customs and Beliefs of the /Xam Bushmen, pp. 300–301. 56 Hollmann (ed.), Customs and Beliefs of the /Xam Bushmen, p. 301. 57 I. Schapera, The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa: Bushmen and Hottentots (London, George Routledge and Sons, 1930), p. 355. 58 Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse', pp. 146–78. 59 D.F. Bleek. ‘Customs and Beliefs of the /Xam Bushmen, Part 1, Baboons’, Bantu Studies, 5 (1931), pp. 167–70. 60 Holleman (ed.), Customs and Beliefs of the /Xam Bushmen, pp. 10–12. 61 W.D. Hammond-Tooke, ‘The Symbolic Structure of Cape Nguni Cosmology’, in M.G. Whisson and M. West, Religion and Social Change in Southern Africa: Anthropological Essays in Honour of Monica Wilson (Cape Town, David Philip, 1975), pp. 26–7. 62 Bird, The Annals of Natal, p. 147; A.T. Bryant, Olden Times in Zululand and Natal, Containing Earlier Political History of the Eastern-Nguni Clans (London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1929), p. 358; The amaTolo (as opposed to AmaTola, the term I have used hitherto) were, and are, an Nguni group from the southern KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg who were largely broken up during the early nineteenth-century disturbances of that region, and migrated southward, some becoming constituents of the Mfengu on the eastern Cape frontier. I use the lower case ‘a’ to comply with the orthography and to show that they are Bantu-speakers in contrast to the mixed AmaTola. 63 Spitzer, ‘Monde Créole’, pp. 58–9. 64 J.D. Lewis-Williams and S. Challis, Deciphering Ancient Minds: The Mystery of San Bushman Rock Art (London and New York, Thames & Hudson, 2011). 65 Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse’, pp. 284–85. 66 Named ‘Horse Site Dancing Groups’, in Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse’. 67 Soga, The Ama-Xhosa, p. 174. 68 J.B. Peires, The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of Their Independence (Berkely, University of California Press, 1981), p. 64. 69 Jones, ‘Historical Categories and the Praxis of Identity’, p. 266; Spitzer, ‘Monde Créole’, pp. 58–9. 70 And to a lesser extent, though probably increasingly, the horse, Challis, ‘The Impact of the Horse', Challis ‘Taking the Reins’.