Restoration Of African South African Historical

Consciousness: Culture, Customs, Traditions & Practices

True African History From the African Perspective
"Black African culture set for the whole world an example of extraordinary vitality and vigor. All
vitalist conceptions, religious as well as philosophic, I am convinced, came from that source. The
civilization of ancient Egypt would not have been possible without the great example of Black
African culture, and in all likelihood, it was nothing but the sublimation thereof."(Diop)
There is this untutored arrogance displayed by some White South Africans today that they can relate
and write about African History, custom/tradition and culture of Africans without even considering
the present-day African contemporaries. The rebuilding of African History in South africa has to be
properly restored. If one were to seriously research and interrogate the structure of pre-colonial
African society and families, their design of a State and the accompanying philosophical and moral
concepts, and the like, one can find a consistent cultural unity, resulting from similar adaptations to
the same material and physical conditions of life right throughout Africa.
Once we understand, clearly, the custom and ways of the African culture, one will no longer see
"Darkest Africa" set up against a "deep dark past"; the African can clearly follow his evolution from
prehistory to our own day. Historical unity will become manifest. There is also a common linguistic
family, as homogeneous as that of the Indo-European tongues. Nothing is easier than to set down the
rules that allow transfer from a Zulu language to one of those West Africa (Serer-Wolof, Peul), or
even to ancient Egyptian. (Obenga)
It is very important to begin to put a serious and well researched timeline to the history of African
people in South Africa, and there is a lot that has been written about the Khoi and the San as the
original people of South Africa, and that the rest of the Africans in south Africa came later, and the
dates used are designed to coincide with the arrival of the settlers in 1492(Bartholomew Diaz), 1652,
(The Dutch Settlers), the arrival of the French Huguenots(1688) and the 1820 British settlers, that
an accurate historical lineage, timeline and narrative need to be re-calibrated.
So that, as the fictionalized historical account set down by the White settlers about Africans in South
Africa, they have come to even believe their lies that the existing nine(9) groupings of the Nguni
people are recent new comers to South Africa, and that they eliminated and decimated the Khoi, that
this rises a dire need for the history to be reset and written anew.
This is the starting point of the Historiography of the Colonists, namely, that Africans are not the
owners and inhabitants of South Africa, but the 'Trekked" down from north Africa, and arrived at the
same time that the settlers arrived in South Africa, within the timeline of 1492 to 1820, when the
Settlers from Europe arrived in South Africa. The French Huguenot were skilled farmers and
winegrowers who having fled to Holland to escape religious persecution, happily accepted the offer
for a free pssage to Cape Town.
By the middle of the the eighteenth century, there were perhaps five thousand Whites living in the
Cape, five time the number in the more developed Portuguese colonies of Angola and
Mozambique(Maputo).
Even those South African Whites who are ahistorical and have limited knowledge of the people they

have conquered, they have overnight became the spokesmen and historical mouthpieces for the
African masses in South Africa when it comes to their(African) history. The reason Afrikaners and
other European pseudo-African historians arrogantly insists that African South African history is as
they tell it, this is because the say that they found us as barbarians killing each other and were
Kaffirs(Islam for "infidel" or "unbeliever"), which the Boers(Afrikaners) used to refer to Africans in
South Africa who they considered uncultured, barbarians, backwards, savages, uncouth, and called
themKaffirs, which in another context was used as was the word "Nigger" was used to refer to
African Americans.
The present so-called African historians who are the descendants of the Dutch, French and British
Settlers, arrogantly play the role of telling the world,(today using the Internet) a very cockeyed,
uninformed and lacking-in-facts ahistorical history about Africans, their Culture, Customs, traditions
and practices of which they know nothing about, and also, they have never made it their business to
know Africans because they spent much of their 358 years trying very hard separate themselves
from the African society and its people. They even built "Native Reserves", "Bantu Homelands", and
"Independent 'self-Governing' States" , Townships(Ghettoes), and Slums, which have increased today
as we speak, for all the African people in South Africa.
Now that Africans are in some kind of political power in South Africa, it is time to wrie African
History in South Africa from the African perspective. Indeed, where Europeans scholars and lay-men
had argued that there were many cultures, what they are not acknowledging is that the varieties of
African Experiences and Cultures gravitate around a single matrilineal center like some massive
magnet pulling the pieces together into one coherent whole. This can be discerned by seriously tying
it up on the basis of linguistic, philosophical , and /traditional evidence. This does not mean that
specific variations do not exist, but rather that particular histories are nothing more than a part of
the grand flow of African Culture.
Dr. Williams fully realized that we, as African people, are at the crossroads. To rebuild and save our
Afrikan civilization, it has to be done holistically. First, he realized that culture is the primary basis
for the total successful life of a race of people, or nation. Williams asserts: "Culture is the way of life.
Culture therefore encompasses the way in which we educate and teach, share with, respect and care
for each other. It includes the way we eat, dress, and carry ourselves. The way we practice
spirituality and politics. Culture is all of this and Africans do this in practice of all that they do.(C.
Williams)
Those who have written and continue to claim their knowledge of Africans in South Africa and their
history without providing serious historical evidence are going to write it as they 'see', 'feel'' and
think about it' form an uninformed historical perspective; thus, they worked a biased, racist and
incomplete history and ahistorical account and picture about the Africans in South Africa. It
anything else, this history needs to be told from African holistically Historical perspective.
Of course, there are Europeans who write seriously and correctly about African History, but that
should not dissuade Africans in South Africa towards writing their African History as they see fit,
and do it in a correct manner without degrading other people's history. One thing these "professors"
of African history have to deal with is the fact that with their 'micro' studies that tend to view African
societies or civilizations as dis-embodied, disconnected, isolated, discreet, and detached entities with
no organic relationship to any other African societies or civilization, they are patently disingenuous,
arrogant, ignorant, propagandized in their disinformation,also misleading and need to be
challenged.
To those who already have formulated their perceptions and understanding of African history and

hold on dearly to these beliefs, it will be like having 'a dialogue with the deaf'. To this Obenga says:
"It is difficult to understand why they are so against the simple proposition that African History
should be examined and understood first by those who made it - African People."
Credo Vusamazulu Mutwa observed: "Few White people have ever bothered to study the African
people carefully - and by this I do not mean driving around the African villages and Townships taking
photographs of dancing "tribesmen" and women and asking a few questions, and then going back
and writing a book - a useless book full of errors, wrong impressions and just plain nonsense. Many
of the books written about Africans should be relegated to the dustbin."
Just as a lot of articles here on the HubPages that purport to tell the history of African people, and
written by those White in South Africa,claiming knowledge of African people, need to have their
works to be relegated to the dustbin of history, because most of what all these European South
Africans are talking about is just plain garbage and nonsensical stuff that does not square-up to the
history of African people in South Africa.
Credo Mutwa expands on this point by pointing out that: "There are doctors, missionaries and
scientists who have spent years and years among Africans - many of them can even speak the local
language better than the indigenous people - but what they know about them as 'human beings'
amounts to nothing. Many have studied the African only to compare him/her with the White
man/woman. - intellectually for instance. Many more have studied the African in order to find
justification for the ruling group they work for and support." Justice in any endeavor of life cannot be
founded on lies, and the same with human associations and contact.
Credo elaborates further by stating that: "The same is true between races in any country. There can
be no real understanding between them so long as neither has a clear picture of the other [italics
mine] what it really thinks, believes in, hopes for, and why. You cannot found friendship on faulty
guesswork because guessing breeds suspicion, hate and bloodshed, and there is much that is guess
work between Black and White about each other in South Africa.
"Many of the so-called problems facing Africa today can be traced back to foolish acts on the part of
one or other of the two races in the past: acts that were the result of lack of understanding. Only by
being presented with a full, clear and unvarnished picture of the African - seen from his worst as
well as his best side - can the White man hope to avoid repeating the incredible mistakes he made in
the past, blunders that have cost Africa a lot of suffering and close to three million human live in the
short space of ten years - and this will also help Africans understand themselves better."
The Education of African people in South Africa should be dictated by and written by them and from
their own perspective. The Education of African people in South Africa must have a purpose and
goal if it is to be meaningful and fulfilling. The purpose must be to instill values and develop skills
that will aid in meeting the needs and knowledge base of the masses of the African people. The
African youth must be brought to understand that they are being educated to build for all the African
people, so they must prepare themselves to provide for the needs of all the African people.
According to Dr. Williams," in Afrikan society, in formal education, the child was taught the classes
of soil and the kinds of crops appropriate to each. Soil culture, the role of the weather, the rainy
seasons and the work cycle, plowing, sowing, harvesting and pest control, both men and women,
boys and girls could concentrate on their respective crafts, such as furniture-making, basket waving,
pottery, sandal and dress making. The children were exposed to a variety of ways they could be
productive members of the society."

There is another part of this positive outlook which is the opposite of all that has been mentioned
above. Even as of this day, The Europeans in South Africa continue to set up and destroy African
Organizations and people that speaks to the needs and aspirations of African people. Dr. William
advises: "An African university is a must, if we are to effectively educate our people. Mostly, all of
the so-called Black universities are carbon copies of European universities, and they teach our
African students to teach and think euro-centric. We must teach our youth through the eyes of
Afrika.
Our youth are the young Architects of Tomorrow." Anyone who wants to know and write about
African people anywhere, that person needs to be wholeheartedly be accepted by the African people
as a "true friend". This Hub's aim is to provide some information about African people in South
Africa from the the cultural, customary, traditionary and in the process help create a better
historical understanding about Africans in South Africa from an African perspective and
understanding.
Blueprint For African Education
The most urgent matter at hand is the education for the whole African continent and for all the socalled non-literate African masses. Education is the key, the only key, to the door opening into the
road of progress for Africans. And it's a key that can't be played with or taken lightly. The unusual,
not the usual, is the order of the day. Bold thinking is called for. Daring programs are demanded.
"Impossible" programs must be made possible.
What also must be added is that it is not only talking about education that's at issue here, but what
should this education be about, because education in any given area of Africa today is the education
of the colonial power that dominates that area or, in the case of a new nation, it is the system and
the philosophy of the ruling power before their independence. There is not African Educational
system as such - no philosophy of Education as such and in these circumstances, it could not be
otherwise.(Williams)
Fortunately, Africans know that they must develop their own educational institutions. British Africa
cannot remain British, French African cannot remain French; Belgian and Portuguese Africa cannot
remain remain Belgian or Portuguese. We might as well expect the Africans of South Africa to
accept the Boer philosophy of life since they are now free. Changes and more changes there will
always be. The main problem for Africa, however, is the choice of its own best foundation, the
foundation from which to develop and make change.
Decolonization Of African Culture, Customs, Traditions and Practices
In 1861, at one of their gatherings, The Distinguished Victorians of London's Ethnographical Society
invited a well travelled and learned French man, Mr. Du Chaillu. In discussing a horde of largely
naked 'savages' called Mpongwe, M. du Chaillu had appeared to suggest that these 'natives' might
be other than they seemed. He had gone so a as to argue for certain redeeming features. He even
spoke with some respect for their religion.
The Ethnographers felt that they should set matters right in the wake of such remarks, and they
called upon Captain Richard Burton, whom they knew could be relied upon to use is great authority
in the proper way. Captain Burton did not let them down. The already famous explorer began
offering a redeeming African feature to match M.du Chaillu's. He opined that 'an abnormal
development of adhesiveness, in popular language a peculiar power of affection, is the brightest spot
in the negro character'.

Yet this was about as much as could sensibly be said of natives he had known. M. du Chaillu, they
must believe, had been lucky; he had 'run into a better lot than usual'. Compared with them,
however, there was the 'superior degeneracy of the eastern "tribes", not to mention all the others
one could think of. No doubt the Mpongwe might have some sort of religious belief. It might also be
true that the religion of Africans is ever interesting to those of a "maturer faith", as the study of
childhood is pleasing to those of riper years'. But one ought not go too far.'
Not only, in Burton's view, had Africans failed to develop from the primitive to the less primitive:
"they had also reached a point of helplessness at which, if left to themselves, they would never do
any better. In that great schedule of hierarchical progress from 'Savagery' to 'Civilization' imagined
by the more conservative Victorians, with Europe at the peak and zenith of the line, the Africans
were simply not in the race.
Perhaps they had once set out, though this was more than doubtful: if so, they had long since
stopped running. Exactly why was not known. But the reason, whatever it might be, was generally
agreed to lie in some fatal deficiency of their nature. Some experts thought it was a matter of the
African's brain being too small for civilized development. Others argued that the root of the trouble
lay not so much in brain size as in diminished frontal lobes, or an insufficiently reliable
'supragranular layer of cortex'. The results, in any case, were understood to be deplorable. Once an
African had become adult, Burton opined in a view widely accepted, 'his mental development is
arrested, and thenceforth he grows backwards instead of forwards'."
Defended by their travelers, these Victorians held firmly to their hierarchies of racial progress and
found plenty of evidence to fortify them. Returning to the Upper Nile in 1866, Sir Samuel Baer
assured them that the African 'mind is as stagnant as the morass which forms its puny world', and
other explorers said much the same. It followed that the evolutionists had clearly got things wrong;
and there was quiet satisfaction among the more respectable members of the Ethnographical
society, in that same year of 1866, when the impetuous Dean Farrar proposed once and for all to set
the record straight by dividing humanity into three great classes, 'the Savage races, the Semicivilized races and finally the two Civilized races' - the latter categories, of course, including none
like the Mpongwe.
In 1896 a well-known teacher of philosophy at Durham University, F.B. Jevons, published "An
Introduction to the History of Religion" which became a standard work. Seventy years later a
modern Anthropologist of Africa, among the most eminent of his day, could summarize current
opinion on Jevon's book by describing it as a 'collection of absurd reconstructions, suppositions and
assumptions, inappropriate analogies, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations, and, especially in
what he wrote about totems, just plain nonsense'.(Diop)
Old views about Africa are worth recalling for another reason. Though vanished from serious
discussion, they still retain a kind of underground existence. The stercoraceous sediment of Burton's
opinions, and of others such as Burton, has settled like a layer of dust and ashes on the minds of
large numbers of otherwise thoughtful people, and is constantly being swirled about.
What this leads to, despite all factual evidence to the contrary, are endless suspicions that writers
like Lothrop Stoddard were or are just possibly right when they wrote or write about the 'natural
and inherent inferiority' of Africans; that 'in the negro, we are in the presence of a being differing
profoundly not merely from the white man, but also from [other] human types'; or that 'the negro ...
has contributed virtually nothing to the civilization of the world'.(Stoddard) However scientifically
mistaken, these notions apparently remain part of our culture.

These notions arose essentially from an identification of categories of 'race' and 'class'. Outside their
comfortable windowpanes Victorian men of property saw the hateful Devil of a new proletariat,
hungry, abused, always liable to strike; and they feared what they saw. At another remove they
viewed the Africans in the same obscuring light: as beings of 'the lower orders' whom civilization, if
it were to survive,must keep sternly 'in their place'.
They accordingly tended to think of Africans not only as children incapable of growing up, but as
dangerous and potentially criminal children. All but a few agreed that these 'natives' could not safely
be admitted to the salons of human equality(H.A.C. Cairns) Yu-Yang Hsio, a Cinese writer in 1860
opined: "Africans are the worst kind of Barbarians". This mind set trickled down the ages as a belief
system among the Afrikaners in South Africa as they evolved their brand of separation of races and
imposition of their divide and conquer policy within South Africa for over 342 years.
The Anthropologists of the colonial period did not set the African reality within its historical context.
Largely under Malinowski's severely anti-historical influence, they deliberately looked upon African
societies as being timeless entities without past or future. "It did not occur to us' in the words of one
of them, 'to try to relate "tribal traditions" to a possible actual sequence of historic events in any
areas in which we worked.'
Nor, with this view, would it have done any good to try. 'We cannot have a history of African
institutions', taught the similarly influential Radcliffe-Brown, who for a long time took the same view
as he observed further, 'there was simply no means of making such a history, and therefore no point
in attempting such a history, and therefore no point in attempting one'.(A.L. Richards; Also,
Radcliffe-Brown, 1960)
This synchronized approach strengthened to impression of a 'complete otherness' of African
societies. Presented without history, as living in a perpetual vacuum of experience, these strange
peoples came to seem like the denizens of a Garden of Eden left over from the remote past. Logically
enough, they began to be called 'the undeveloped peoples'. For development supposes history, and
they were said to have none . After the second World War the historians at last got to work in Africa,
and the Garden of Eden mantra rapidly disappeared.
Soon they were joined by a new and sometimes brilliant school of Anthropologists. African societies
began to be studied diachronically, as happening in time, and then it was found that in fact a great
deal had happened to them. All this has helped to erase the impression of 'otherness'. It now
becomes clear that Africans have developed in ways recognizably the same as other peoples all over
the world. Individually or collectively, they have arranged their lives on the same basic assumptions,
whether of logic or morality, as everyone else. The forms have been as different as Africa is different
from Europe, Asia or America: but not the principles of intelligence and apprehension, not the
essential content.
What comes out is the picture of a complex and subtle process of growth and change behind and
within the technological simplicities of former times. The societies still partially observable
yesterday, and even today after the storm-driven erosions of colonial rule, were and are the terminal
structures on an ancient evolution. To borrow a phrase applied by Grotanelli to the arts of Africa,
'they are to be seen not as points of departure, but as points of arrival'. (V.L. Grottanelli, 1961) In
many ways this was a world of its own, a world of country values and beliefs, very much a rural
world.
Even the large exceptions of this rule, the crowding market cities and their kings and traders, only
help to prove it. Much the greatest number of tropical Africans lived in former times, as many live

today, in villages or scattered homesteads, having few material possessions, knowing nothing or
little of the written word, enjoying the present as a gift from the golden age of their ancestors, and
not much caring for a different future.

Yet, their technological simplicity was not guide to their social and cultural achievements. In truth,
they had tamed a continent. Below we will be taking an in-depth study and look into one case study
of the Nguni or Bakone in South Africa. The are nine groups presently forming the Nguni peoples of
south Afirca, and they are: Amampndo(mixed Mfengu and Xhosa people, and the Mpondos migrated
from Natal during the Mfecane(scatterings) wars and throughout the years as they migrated to the
lands of the Xhosas), Basothos(Who today occupy present day little Kingdom of Lesotho), Zulus,
Pedis, Tswana's. Vendas/Tsongas, Shangaans, Swazis, and Ndebeles.
It is the contention of this hub that these clans, nations and people are the same in the practices of
their culture, customs, traditions and languages. The past Apartheid regime and its adherents have
and are till spreading the false fiction that these people are "tribes" and are not the same, and they
are different and have always been warring with each other. This Hub will be utilizing studies in
archeology, history, economics, politics, culture and customs of the African people's earlier way of
life, and and will demonstrate that they also possessed an oral tradition which they used to pass
down their history from one generation to the next, thus able to inform future generations about
their origins and past.
A lot has been written for the world to know about the Zulus, which will be written about in one of
the next hub of this genre. In this hub, two case studies will be done on the ama-Mpondo(Eastern
Cape), as to their culture, customs, traditions and practices. It will be seen from exploring just thes
Pondos and the other eight(8) Nguni or Bakone peoples, that they are not different from one
another, but they are the same with slight differences affected by region rather inherent difference
amongst themselves, of which none really exist.
The Short History Pondo Earlier Way of Life
The institution of chieftainship among the Pondo, though of ancient origin, increased in power
during the nineteenth century. In the sixteenth century the chiefdoms of the Southern Nguni were
small: a Portuguese writer in 1589 referred to the Chiefs called "Inkosis(Kings), who are the heads
and governors of three, four, or five villages, and contrasted them with the 'kings' farther north who
were trading with the Portuguese. Already, the distinctive Xhosa word for King was in use, and of
course small chiefdoms were more widespread in Africa than kingdoms, many of which can be
shown to have developed since written records and external trade began.(G.M. Theal)
Contemporary journals journals speak of King Faku(who died in 1867) as the the most outstanding
Pondo King in the nineteenth century, as the one who really did an outstanding job on this tradition
when he extended his Kingship and authority during the period of danger from Shaka's raids. During
his reign there was a development of the ivory trade, and this trade increased the wealth and power
of the King's relation with his people.
A movement of population into Pondoland from the more crowded districts in Western Transkei and
Ciskei was going on. Land-hungry families moved east into Pondoland as their ancestors had moved
west from Natal(Zululand), a hundred years earlier, during the Mfecane(Scatterings). Most of the
immigrants coming into Pondoland in 1920-32 period were the clans from Dlamini, Zizi, and
descendants of other one-time refugee called Mfengu, who had been living for three generations

west of Mbashe river.

They sought land for cultivation and grazing, and were welcomed by chiefs held in tradition(so
widespread in Africa) that power depended on the size of a man's following, and new adherent were
welcome provided they recognized the King's authority.
In 1936 information about the Nguni people was limited to the reports of missionaries,
administrators and travelers, and these, though they provided much valuable information, did not
touch on many of the questions which the Anthropologists sought to answer. Since then, professional
studies have appeared on the Zulu. Swazis, Xhosas and Bhacas, and the varying forms of the old
chiefdoms began to emerge. Development in Anthropological theory has proceeded hand in hand
with field studies made in Africa and elsewhere, and hypotheses formulated about lineage systems,
political systems, kinship systems, and symbolic systems gave significance to facts previously
overlooked or little understood.
Around the 5th century A.D. there was iron smelting in the Transvaal(South Africa) and there was
also the stock-keeping iron workers at Ntshekane, south of the Drakensberg Mountains in what is
now Natal in the ninth century. There was also pottery found along the coast as far west as the
Chalumna river indicate early iron-age settlement, typical of the Pondo and distinct from that at
Ntshekane, and was dated back to around the eleventh century.
In 1688, survivors from the Stavenisse wreck on the Transkei coast and those who were shipwrecked
around the 1500s describe a population and a way of life of Xhosa-speaking people has been like that
for many centuries,which demonstrated that the Xhosas who had lived there before t they came into
contact with in from the 1500s to the 1600s and beyond, were the ancestors of the present
occupants of Xhosa People they met and those that presently lived there for eons to date.(M. Wison
and L. Thompson(eds) Survivors of Stavenisse referred explicitily in 1668 to 'Maponte' on the coast
they now occupied(Moodie)
The detailed accounts given by these survivors suggest that change in the way of life of the Xhosaspeaking people was very slow for very many centuries(Credo Mutwa gave the earliest account of
this in his book "Indaba My Children," 1966). What the shipwrecked men described was not very
different from the domestic life as will be described below, despite the fact that the people had by
now lost their national/political independence and economic self-sufficiency.
One other change that was observed in 1881 by Bishop of St. John's in his evidence to the
Commission on Native Laws and Customs was an increase in polygyny amongst the Pondos during
the colonial period. The Bishop noted that: "The recent change in the law of marriage in the
Transkei, which allowed those who had married by Christian and civil rites to have more than one
wife (previously legal only for those who married by customary law), calls for acid comment from
many women, who claimed that men nowadays could not even maintain one wife and educate the
children."
Before contact with Europeans, the Pondo provided food and shelter for themselves by breeding
cartle, growing grain and pumpkins, hunting, and making huts, clothing, house hold utensils, and
weapons from materials at hand. They also had cattle and goats, horses, sheep, pigs hens, ducks and
geese. Stock was enclosed at night in circular stockades, or kraals, built within the semicircle of
huts.(Kay/ G. MacKeurtan)
Pondo Customs, Culture, Traditions and Practices

Family Life - Umzi(Imizi, plural)

Each umzi(homestead) had a man with his wives, married sons with their wives and children, and
unmarried daughter. In the earlier times, as many as twenty married men related to the male line
lived together in one umzi .(A. Steedman) Now an average umzi contains four or five adults, and
several children.(Census of 29 imizi was taken) Members of Imizi in one small area - often those on
one ridge - recognize one of their members as a petty headman, and they fight together, and sit
together at feasts.
They also recognize a chief who had administrative and judicial powers, and they fought as a unit in
clan wars. A number of districts made up a clan controlled by a paramount chief. Marriage was
polygynous and patrilocal. Each woman in the umzi who has been married a year or more had her
own hut, and also a store-hut. Huts were arranged in a semicircle, which, if the nature of the site
permit, faces east. The open segment of the circle was filled by a cattle kraal. The senior male of the
umzi was the owner of the umzi.
The hut of his mother, or if she is dead, and that of his first wife(the 'great wife') are built opposite
the gate of the cattle kraal. His second wife is the 'right-hand wife' and her hut goes to the right of
the great hut; the third wife married is a 'rafter' (igadi ) of the first wife, and her hut goes to the left
of the great hut; the fourth wife is a rafter of the right-hand wife and if other wives are married they
are alternatively 'rafters' of the great house or of the right-hand house. (See the 'A' hand-drawn
housing designs from the picture gallery)
Huts are built for them below the the house to which they are attached. The hut of the eldest son's
wife is usually built below that of the great wife, the hut of the second son's wife below that of the
right-hand wife. Store huts were built next to the huts of the owners. There is no prescribed position
for the kraal for the small stock, but it is usually built either adjoining the cattle kraal or immediately
to the left of the great hut.
This arrangement was frequently modified according to the convenience and the nature of the site.
Each hut and each umzi has its own name, given by the owner. Each house (indlu) has a group
consisting of a woman and her children,has its own property in cattle, and the right to till certain
fields; but all the members of the umzi eat together and work together. The women take it in turns
to cook. A bride spends a year or more cooking for her mother-in-law. She sleeps with her husband
in a store hut-hut and within a year of her being married, a hut is built for her, but she continues to
cook in her mother-in-law's house.

Even when a woman has 'gone out of he mother's hut'. she does not cook only for herself, but her
own husband, and children, and always sends a dish of what she has prepared to her mother-in-law.
Food is put aside for members of the family who are away, but expected to return that day, and
guests are invited to share in whatever dish their status fits them to eat from.

Only important guests will be served a special dish, and the owner of the umzi has a special dish.
Children never take food unless they are given it by an older person. Women are expected to feed
their children and those of umzi equally. There are jealous and stingy women and the Pondos
recognize the difficulties of attaining harmony in the umzi, but great emphasis is laid on the virtue of
generosity , and this is attained to a great extent. Children from neighboring imizi are also fed.
The principal delicacies, meat and beer, are not eaten or drunk everyday within the family, but when
an animal is killed, or beer brewed, neighbors gather to share in the feast, and when beer is being
brewed or a beast slaughtered, the fact is always made known to the nighbors and it is expected that
they should come to feast. the members of an umzi feed, work and play together. The children sleep
together in their grandmother's hut.
As the umzi grows it splits up. A brother or son of the head of the umzi builds his own umzi, and
moves with his wife or wives and children to it. The suggestion that a son of bother should build his
own umzi comes from the son or brother himself, and in some cases it's when the wife had behaved
badly or has been accused of witchcraft, may he be ordered to build his own umzi.
The location of the umzi is not prescribed by custom, it is largely a personal choice. Children are
often left with the paternal grandparents if they live in another umzi. Fathers were often devoted to
their children, and make much of them when small, carrying them about their arms, fondling them,
playing with them and teaching how to dance. As the child gets older, he is taught respect and
obedience which are particularly due to his father.
Children usually carry out the order of the father much more quicker than those of the mother. The
child fetches and carries for his father, performing whatever of his tasks he is capable of performing.
There is no age at which he is regarded as being free of parental control. His father may veto his
choice of a marriage partner, but in practice a man usually marries the girl he wants. Even when he
has an umzi of his own, he must still consult with is father in all important matters. Father and son
have mutual economic obligations.
An unmarried son lives with his father and is maintained by other produce of the milk from his
father's cattle and the grain form his mother's field. The unmarried son is expected to work for his
father, as a boy herding cattle, and later helping in the men's share of the garden work and hut
building. The son's prizes of war and hunting were brought to the father, and is supposed to consult
with his father in all economic transactions. A father is responsible for his son's health as long as he
remains in his umzi.
A good son listens to his father's advice; also, a father is advised by his sons. It is all apiece with the
a general custom in law courts and clan meetings, that no vote is taken, and the matter is thrashed
out until some compromise is reached. There is a proverb, Isala kutyelwa siya ngolophu( He who
refuses to take advice hears by a hot wind.') A father is also responsible for burying a on living in his
umzi, and the eldest son in the umzi is responsible for burying his father.
A boy has the right to share in the communal dish of the umzi because his own parents contribute to
the food supply of the umzi , and not because of of any obligation of his father's brother to him. He is
aware that he will inherit nothing from his ubawokazi (or ubawo (father), or uyise (father), or uyihlo
(father). As a close relation an ubawokazi is a person from whom to ask gifts(ukubusa) , and of grace
he might assist his brother's son to ukuLobola (pay dowry) The grandmother who is known as the
inkosikazi(chief woman) is a person seen by the children to have authority and the most respected
by their mother. The grandmother is par excellence the recounter of iintsomi (folk-tales)

Brothers and Sisters

The sons of the same mother and father grow up feeding together out of a common dish, playing
together and working together, herding and ploughing. From childhood there is a distinction
between younger and elder brother. A younger brother is ordered about by his senior. He is a
replacement for his elder brother, herding cattle while the elder hunts and going on errands while
the elder lies in the shade, and even after they are grown up, the relationship is maintained.
The difference in behavior towards a younger and elder brother is marked by a linguistic difference,
an elder brother brother being referred to as umkhuluwe (the older one) and the younger one as as
umninawe(the younger one). The distinction is also shown in the behavior of the wife who must show
respect towards her husband's elder brothers in speech and behavior, but is on familiar terms with
his younger brothers. Orphaned minors are the responsibility of the their father's senior brother of
the same house. A child always knows to what house it belongs. Children are warned not to tell what
they hear in one house in another house
Between father and daughter there is often the same affection and familiarity in early childhood that
there is between father and son. As a girl grows older she is more and more with her mother, but he
is never segregated from the menfolk of her umzi , her father and brothers, and need observe no
taboos towards them except when menstruating. As a small girl before puberty, she may even run in
and out of the kraal. A girl owes respect and obedience to her father in all things, and should
according to the social ideal, submit to his wishes regarding her marriage.
Customary public opinion favors and acknowledges the right of the father to choose his daughters
husband, and hold before her the ideal of obedience, unless (the public) does not approve of a father
who forces a distasteful match. A girl's marriage is not only the concern of her father, but her
father's, and her own brothers, her mother, and the women of the umzi are all to be consulted. A
father protects and supports his daughter before and after marriage. He is also responsible for
providing beasts for the sacrifice for carrying out the ceremony before her marriage and when she
receives her ikhazi.
The father is responsible for burying her if she dies in his umzi. The father defends his daughter, if
he determines that her complain about ill-treated is true and demands and uswazi( beast for
payment) in compensation. Brothers and sisters play much together as small children, and although
from about six years, when boys go to herd the animals, and both boys and girls begin to about in
gangs with those of their own age and sex from other imizi (homesteads), they do not see much of
each other; nevertheless they live on intimate terms in the umzi.
Umakoti(daughter-in-law)
A bride must show respect towards her husband's umakazi as she would his mother when she meets
her, but the occasions on which she encounters her are few. The home names of a bride's sisters are
abided by the groom and his parents, as is the name of the bride herself. The first virtue demanded
of a a bride is that he should be-like "ukhuthele" (Hardworking, energetic and eager). She must care
for her husbands comfort.
Everyday she should go and fetch wood, and in the winter she fetches wood, and in the winter she
gathers wild spinach from distant fields. Customary law requires that a bride must show respect
(Ukuhlonipha) towards all senior relatives of her husband, particularly his male relatives. The bride
must never go near the cattle kraal in which her husbands father of grandfather is buried, and she
must avoid the inkundla(courtyard between huts and kraal) in which men sit. When entering a hut of

a senior relative of her husband, male and female, she must turn sharply to left ad circle around the
back so as to avoid the men's side(Ukuceza).
A daughter-in-law disdains her husband's umzi if she does not avoid every place bout where her
fathers sit. The avoidance of the right of huts, the inkundla, and the cattle kraal is extended to those
imizi (homesteads) of her husband's seniors into which a woman might have married. In her
husband's mother's hut a bride is expected to take a retired position. She may approach the hearth
to mend the fire or see to the pots, but cannot sit up to the fire.
A bride avoids the name, and words, of which a principal syllable is similar to the principle syllable
of the name of her husband's father, his brothers, her husband's elder brothers, and his father's
father, whether they are living or dead. She also avoids personal names of her husband's mother,
paternal aunts, and elder sisters, but does not avoid words similar to them. When she arrives, she is
told(by her husband's sister, or a co-wife) what words are avoided in the umzi (homestead) For the
first few days after her arrival she wears a hand kerchief tied low on the forehead. She can never
bare her head, or until she has a child to feed, her breasts, in the presence of a senior relative of her
husband, male of female.
So long as she lives in her mother-in-law's umzi , a wife, no matter how long she has been married, is
responsible to her other-in-law, even more than her husband. If she want to visit her homestead, the
wife must get permission from her mother in law and then she can tell her husband that his mother
has given her permission to go visit with her people. Impoliteness to her mother-in-law may result in
a bride being sent back to her people.
Nevertheless, a mother-in-law is expected to be an ihlathi(Bush shelter) to her daughter-in-law
against her husband. If a husband beats up his wife, she run to her mother-in-law to seek refuge
there, and the son, because he respects his mother, will not pursue her there. Even, however, when
a woman becomes the inkosikazi of an umzi , she remains subject to her husband(Inkosikazi literally meaning female chief); Inkosikazi ka- ---(the principal wife of----); Inkosikazi yomzi , the
principal woman of the umzi (homestead)
Premarital conception is forbidden by custom, and a married woman is forbidden relations with any
but her husband. A man may have as many wives and amadikazi(loose women) as he chooses or can
afford. There is somewhat a double standard about this issue because some women commit adultery,
but when caught they are prosecuted through the customary law. The sanction for behavior is
primarily public opinion. Custom lays down very definitely what the behavior of the wife should be,
and breach of the code would be sign of bad breeding or upbringing.
The Clan
The patterns of behavior towards the immediate kin, mother, father, child, brother, sister, are
extended towards other persons than the direct biological relatives. The clan(isiduko) is a group of
all members of which trace patrilineal descent from a common ancestor. Members of a clan as such
have no mutual economic responsibilities. Even when a man has no relatives of his own living near,
he does not consult a fellow member of his clan about sacrificial killing for the ancestors or the
disposal of property.
If however, a traveller happens to call at the umzi of one of his own clan he will be be well specially
be well received, and membership of a common clan may be adduced as a reason for persons not
closely living together. Unwanted advances with fellow members of a clan and members of the
mother's, and both grandmothers' clans are forbidden on the ground that all are related.

In theory and practice, most will not drink milk of cattle other than those belonging to their own
grandfathers' and although they will avoid milk if they hear of the death of a member of one of these
clans, they do not observe any other mourning rites for him. The Pondo believe that they cannot
drink the milk at a non-related umzi because some day they might want a bridegroom-in-law(Makoti)
in that umzi .
The taboo of drinking milk from non-relatives special utensils, usually clay and wooden spoon, are
kept in in which to serve milk and food. Many times there tends to be a shortage of dishes at a beer
drink, a milk pot if used for beer, but only the owner of the umzi may drink out of it. The milk of a
cow loaned(ukunqoma) is drunk by the people whom it is loaned, even though the one is of a clan
whose milk they do not own; the customary belief in this case is that the loaned cow that has been
loaned to other people, belongs to those people to whom it is loaned.
All the clan members call upon one common ancestor when they make their sacrificial offering and
some clan share in a common sacrificial act. The clan name(isiduko) is used as a polite mode of
address, and as an expression of thanks. Frequently, the clan of a district is known by the clan name.
Every clan recognizes a senior male of their line as their clan chief, and usually such a chief has
authority under the government as a headman. All this makes for clan solidarity.
In a clan, a junior cannot use the personal name of a senior old enough to be his father when
addressing him, or her, but should say "Father of so-and-so", or "Mother of so-and-so", or use a
relationship term. Bawo is a common form of address to and older man, and Ma or Makhulu to an
older woman. An elder speaking in a friendly fashion to a junior will say, mntanam, [my child)
mntakabawo, [my father's child] mnt'kwethu, [my sister, or brother] or ntombi (girl).
In the photo gallery one can study and view the summary of kinship system and it should be noted
that the use of the same relationship terms to different persons does not necessarily imply identical
customary behavior. For the purpose of this part on the clan, one should look, study and view the
Article labelled TABLE OF KINSHIP TERMS[#1], and those pages with the heading THE CLAN[#2],
and the other page with the heading FAMILY LIFE[#3], and the shorter page titled THE CLAN[#4]
and all these can be viewed and read in the photo gallery section of this hub.
Since members of one clan can trace their descent from a common ancestor, therefore a members of
any clan may trace their relationship to a still more remote ancestor, and each clan being a branch
of one main stem, for e.g., the Khonjwayo, Citwyayo, and Nyawuza clans all trace their descent from
Hlambangobubende; the new clans consist of all the descendants in the male line of one chief. Jange
an Mose were houses of Ngomane, father of Gwadiso, and descendants of Khonjwayo.
The recognition of separate "houses" within a clan was marked by the use of a name of an ancestor
junior to the progenitor of the clan as a greeting for those who are his descendents. A stranger is
oftern asked a question, "Who are you?" and he or she would reply by giving his/her clan and family.
Men in particular, take pride in being able to recite the genealogies of their own families, and the
chiefs of their own and other clans. Some can give genealogies for fifteen or more generations
although the order of the names may vary, that does not make them inconsequential or unreal.
There are two proverbs that sum up the views on kinship. "Ukuzalwa weddwa ngumuntu we nyama"
(To be born alone by a real human being). To one who favors strangers above relatives it is said,
"Uzi-phembel'emoyeni (you are kindling your fire in the wind(instead of on the hearth)). But kinship
is not the only basis of grouping in the Pondo social systems. Imizi are often close to one another,
and neighbors who are not necessarily related see a great deal of one another.

Women are constantly dropping in to neighboring imizi to gossip, to borrow a stamping block, or ask
for tobacco. If they happen to arrive when women of the umzi are eating, they are invited in to share
the dish. Their fields are usually in the same valley, and when one makes a work party her neighbor
try to attend it. When one umzi is grinding beer, neighbors come to help; when an animal is killed
they help to draw wood and water and cut-up the carcass
. At big feasts they sit together sharing a portion given in the name of their petty headman. When a
man has a case, or is going to consult a diviner, most times he summons neighbors to advice and
accompany him. One can observe and see between neighboring imizi paths that are well worn, and
full of shadow-holding hollows, made by the thumping of the bare toes in the dust for eons.
Pregnancy
The Pondo People have knowledge of the physiology of conception. They state that conception
cannot take place without the copulation of male and female. They point out that the sperm of the
man meets the blood of the woman. They offer an observation that then there is a white a white
string that is formed and the woman ceases to menstruate, and what blood she does not discharge
goes into that string. At the end of two months it is like a a big clot of blood, and then movement
begins during the fourth month.
They then explain that the leg and arms are formed, and then the sex is distinguishable. The Pondo
clearly explain that when the man and woman copulate, the sperm(intlaka) of the man meets the
ovary(iqanda) of the woman and this becomes mixed in her blood. The Pondo inform us that it forms
a clot. In their explaining pregnancy, they state that when the menstruation stops in a woman, the
blood goes into making the child. And they quickly point out that they know that at this stage that tis
is not a person at once.
They explain that the body is first like a clot of blood, then dangling things come that are
recognizable as the beginnings of the arm and the legs, and thereafter, the head is formed. They
point out to the fact that that the eyes are not really formed at first, but just slits, where the eyes
should be. If a miscarriage takes place at six months there is hair, but nails are hardly visible.
They clarify that that there is no life until the fourth month, and they say that for three months there
is just a clot of blood. Although a lot of midwives amongst the Pondo people have already worked
with and for Europeans, but their knowledge was not supplemented by contact with Europeans. The
Pondo people desire many children and a barren woman is pitied by all but is not rejected nor
abused. They also believe that if a woman marries late she is going to bear few children.
There is debate about whether the Pondo or other African people have any knowledge about
contraception. Well, this part has many answers to it, and it will be discussed in later hubs about the
Nguni/Bakone people when they are discussed as one National group. The Pondos deny that there
was ever any abortion in their customs and culture, or the killing of infants and newly born babies
with defects.
During pregnancy a woman leads a normal life, and she is expected to carry on all her duties hoeing,
fetching wood and water, and grinding until the birth-pains begin. The woman as a bride works hard
and the manual work done in the first weeks of her pregnancy is very strenuous. Birth-giving takes a
long time among the Pondo women since their pelvises are very narrow and smaller than those of
the European woman, so that that is why in the fifth month, a bride is given isihlambezo (from
ukuhlamba , to wash), and this is a plant that grows in water.

Instead for a pregnant woman to drink ordinary water when she is pregnant, she drinks that which
is from the plant when it is boiled. Different clans use different plants for isihlambezo and most clans
use the Agapanthus , but this is entirely depended on the traditional isihlambezo . A woman must
always use the isihlambezo of her husband's umzi , and it must be picked by an 'old person', male or
female, of the umzi. It often happens that the isihlambezo of her husband's family is the same as the
isihlambizezo of her own family, but even though she knows it, she cannot pick it for herself or have
it picked for her at her parents home.
When she is ready to receive an isihlambezo, she is sent to her home to get a clay pot or tin can. On
her return,beer is made for her at her umzi . She is then made to kneel down in her hut, naked to
her waist; the pot containing the isihlambezo plant is set before her, and she is told to
confess(ukulawula) . She must confess if she has committed incest(umbulo ), i.e., if she ever had any
sexual relations with any man of her own clan, all her dreams and evil deeds. After her confessions
she is made to drink the water in which the isihlambezo .
Relatives and friend are present at the ceremony. If she does not confess fully, the isihlambezo
growing in her pot and the child she is bearing will not flourish, and the child when born will not
suckle. If she confesses about incest, nothing is done and it is finished. If the woman does not
confess, the child will not suckle and will just look at her. Some Pondo, people dispute this fact and
claim that the child will suckle no matter what has happened in regards to incest. The jury is still out
on this issue.
The isihlambezo is drunk for various reasons: to avoid the child being weak-minded; to make the
child well so it grows strong; to make afterbirth to come away easily; so that the child comes out
without the rash(ihafe) ; to prevent constipation and to clean the blood of the woman, and it is used
for its therapeutic value. Besides the isihlambezo , the woman is given other medicines(amayeza)
and some doctors(igqra) uses certain medicines to massage the woman stomach. There is a
customary belief that if a pregnant woman sees a corpse, or her husbdnd touches one, she ran the
risk of having a miscarriage.
Women give birth either at their husband's umzi or at their own home. when the pains of labor and
the discharge happens, she tells her mother-in-law, or the 'big woman' of the umzi. The umbilical
chord is not cut off until the afterbirth comes away. It is then cut with the blade of umnqungu(
Tambookie grass) As soon as the child is born, women gather grass and prepare a couch in the hut
floor for the mother.
Every morning and evening from the morning after the birth the baby is wahed in warm water, and
if the sky is lear, the mother skews some embers from the fire in the middle of the hut, throws herb
or a piece of the skin of a goat on the embers, holds the child over them, passing it to and fro
through over the smoke. As she passes the child through the smoke, the mother chants - 'Hotshi,
Malisela liphume ngomnyango', or 'Hotshi!,Isela maliphume ngomnyango.'(Let the thief go out by
the door or 'The thief goes out by the door", 'Linga mtshontshi umntwana"( let him not steal the
child)
Reasons are given for the ceremony (ukuphela or ukufutha) vary. Others say that it is to bring out
the rash(ipita) Which the Pondo believe that it must come out if the child is to be healthy; others say
it is to make the child stop crying and sleep easily. Various other medicines are given to all babies.
An infusion of is given of ichaphazana (Chlorophytum comosum Baker), as long a necessary, to
prevent constipation. The child is washed with an infusion of the root of ikhilika or umhlakothi and
given it to drink, to bring out the rash(ipita) Women at the coast eat amasenene(rock bait) to give
them much milk.

The other is fed on watery porridge, then boiled maize made very wet. She avoids milk at least for
ten days, same say for any time up to two months, and she remains in her hut for about ten days.
After ten days the new mother chops up the grass on which she has been lying scatters it on the
veld, clears the ashes from her fire, smears her hut, chews a root and spits it on her hand. During
her confinement the mother, when she has to go out of the hut, is rolled up in blankets as a girl
being initiated. After ten days the mother comes out of confinement and the father slaughters a goat
to make an imbeleko(ukubeleka , to carry a child on the back) in which to carry the child.
The is no calling on the ancestors,neither the gall or bladder is used, and the goat is neither killed in
the kraal. If a child is born at its mother's home, nothing is killed there, but when the mother returns
to her umzi , accompanied by women from her home, something is killed to welcome them, and later
the imbeleko is killed. There is no ceremonial connected with the naming of a cild.
A name may be chosen by the father, or one of his elder relatives, or by the mother herself. The
name given usually relates to some characteristic of the baby,or to some event which happened at
the time of its birth. The name of a relative, except one dead for several generations, is never given
by Amaqaba (School people). The School people sometimes named their child after a grandfather or
grandmother and they also use the name of a mamale ancestor as a surname(Ifani )
Initiation
Initiation came during adolescence and the Pondo formerly had circumcision schools through which
every boy between 17 and 20 passed. King Faku(who died in 1867) during his reign prohibited these
schools. His heir, Mqileka, was not circumcised. During the wars that the Pondo people were
engaged in, circumcision incapacitated possible fighting men for a period, and in this way,
circumcision schools virtually disappeared from Pondoland.
Only a small Pondo clan, the AmaNqanda, which at the time of the stopping of circumcision lived in
Thembuland(Mandela's Xhosa clan)and only returned to Pondoland after the annexation, and a few
Pondomise and Fingo groups living in Pondoland, retained it. Scatered Fingo clans sent their sons to
relatives in other parts of the Transkei when time came for them to be circumcised. But the schools
were no longer an important factor in the life of most adolescent Pondos(P.A. W. Cook)
For girls, initiation was still an important factor in the their lives. After puberty and before marriage
a girl should be ukuthombisa . Ukuthomba means 'to put forth shoots, to bud, to sprout, to
menstruate for the first time'. Ukutombisa is the causative form, and means the performance of the
initiation rites(Kropf). In many cases, women were not at ukuthombisa until after their marriage.
The reason given for the delay was the poverty or parsimony, of the girl's father. This is not done
because the father is poor and he would be waiting for the cattle of the ikhazi when she marries.
The ceremonies are performed during the winter months after reaping, when the community has
leisure and there is sufficient grain to make beer for the festivities. One evening the girl,or
girls(Often two sister, or the daughters of two brothers, are initiated together), to be ukuthombisa
they are rolled up in blanket, which completely cover them, and their head and faces are covered
with handkerchiefs.
The women of the umzi and women neighbors, contemporaries of the mothers, gather around
singing. The party walks through the inkundla to one of the huts, where the girls are to be secluded.
Any hut of the umzi which can be spared is set aside for the initiate(intonjane). The girls enter and
sit behind a screen of mats stretched across the back of the hut. The day on which the intonjane
(initiate) is first secluded soon after the occurrence of first menstruation. In customary practice, the

seclusion often takes place several years after her first menstruation.
When the intonjane is secluded her mother, and the other women of the umzi and the mother's
friends, rush about the umzi shouting, ululating and dancing . They are at liberty on this particular
day to slaughter any small stock in the umzi they can lay hands upon. Theoretically the women may
themselves kill it, but usually the head of the umzi selects a pig of goat and slaughters it for them.
The women present and the men of umzi then feast on this meat. No special part is given to the
intonjane . The following day, or two days later, the father of the intonjane slaughters another goat
or sheep called isibande , In some cases the intonjane (initiate) is given a special piece of meat,
intsonyama , from the right fore-leg, which she has to eat before anyone else touches the meat.
Others say that when they were in ukuthombisa, they were not given no special part of the goat
killed as isibande. Custom varies from one umzi to another, but in some case at least the intonjane is
ceremonially given this special portion.
The mother, her co-wives, sisters and intimate neighbors of about the same age as herself, who
together are known in western Pondoland as amazibazana, cannot eat of the meat of the isibande,
although it is sometimes 'stolen' for them. A rich man will kill a goat, or pig, or sheep as meat for the
amazibazana. Relatives of the intonjane's father cannot be among the amazibazana . On the day on
which the intonjane is secluded, all married women present, including the amazibazana , perform a
ritual dance (umgquzo), which is repeated morning and evening for the whole period during which
the intonjane is secluded.
Any married woman, even though barren, and any girl who has borne a child, although she may have
never been married, is eligible for the dance. The dancers form a circle, carrying a stick or wand, in
their right hands, an chanting the special umgquzo chant. They walk slowly in a circle, swaying
slightly to the time of the chant, then increase their pace and circle with a skipping step, then face
inwards, stamping their feet rhythmically, swinging their hips, and quivering their muscles all the
way up their bodies. Individuals may break from the cirle and perform their private solo dance.
The dance itself is an essential part of the ritual and unless it has been been performed, the girl will
not have been ukuthambisa. On the final day when the animal has been slaughtered, the mother of
the intonjane goes about urging women who are sitting out to join in the dance.
During her seclusion the intonjane sits behind the mat screen with a big blanket round her and a
black handkerchief on her head. When she has to go out and relieve herself, the handkerchief is
drawn over her face and the blanket over the top of her head, as on the day she entered. If the
mother wants to communicate she must come to the door and shout. Men are prohibited from
peering into the hut where the intonjane is sitting and interned nor are men allowed to enter the
section screened off.
Also, the intonjane is attended by a younger girl, preferably a sister, as ikhankhatha (nurse) who
cooks for her and sleeps with her. The intonjane cannot drink milk and must not touch food with her
hands. She eats meat with two wooden pegs and dry food with a spoon, used only by her. She spears
a millie cob on the end of a spoon. Only the scraps of meat which she eats ritually she might touch
with her hands.
The initiation ceremonies are spoken of as an umvuyo (rejoicing). On the day on which the intonjane
i s secluded, and again on the day of he final sacrificial killing, he women rush about, giving
ceremonial expressions of joy, as they do on no other occasion. Pondo girls and boys are given
names of youth by their contemporaries,which are used by contemporaries and juniors. The giving of

the new name does not necessarily coincide with initiation. Older people usually continue to use an
individual's birth name. Some do not have a name of youth. Others have several.
The Function of Ukulobola
Ukulobola influences sexual relations and the passage of cattle helps to stabilize the union. When a
man deserts his wife, or sends her away without good cause, he loses his cattle. Where a woman
leaves her husband without good cause, her father or brother has to return at least some of the
cattle given for her. The fact that economic loss is entailed is a deterrent to desertion.
It is not only the individuals but also their respective groups are involved in the loss, and therefore
they use their influence to prevent the dissolution of a marriage. If a man abuses his wife she may
leave him and he suffers by losing his cattle. The woman has refuge to each umzi to which a beast of
her ikhazi was loaned to. Just like Europeans do not understand the custom of ukulobola amongst
African peoples, the African folks cannot fathom the European societies who do not practice this
custom of ukulobola.
Cheik Anta Diop has this to say about lobola( dowry): "In reality, nowhere among the African people
is the woman considered to belong to the husband's family; she continues to belong to her own
family after marriage, but he is separated temporarily from it for the benefit of the husband and
consequently for the benefit for the latter's family.
This is why the custom as universally acknowledged in Black Africa, makes exigent, for there to be a
valid and regular union, the payment of an indemnity by the family of the husband-to-be to that of
his wife, as compensation for the wrong caused to the latter family by the taking away of one of its
members. There is no purchase of the woman by her husband, as has been wrongly alleged, since
the wife does not legally cease to belong to her own family and in no way becomes the chattel of the
man she has married; there is simply the payment of an indemnity or, more exactly, of a bond, which
moreover varies enormously with different countries and with the status of the future couple ranging
from several hundreds of pounds to an object which is only worth a few pence; in the latter case, it is
only the fulfillment of a simple formality required out of respect to traditional customs."
Synergy
It is at this point that this Hub wraps up the discourse on African Culture, Custom, Traditions and
Practices. There are several Cultural/customary-traditional practices of the Pondo people that have
been left out in this Hub. The few that have been touched upon here have as their aim to show the
civility of the Pondo people and the terms they use for their cultural process and material cultural
practices.
It also shows that they are not "savages" or "backward", and they have their own laws, social
functions and laws and modes of behavior found in other cultures around Europe and other parts of
the globe; the Pondos also have terms, names and language for every facet of their lives and exist
like any other culture throughout the world. It is therefore unconscionable that other races should
dub them as 'monkeys', 'savages', 'backwards' or nothing better than the animal kingdom.
Some of these races who are not African, do not know in-depth the ways and sayings of the Africans
in South Africa, but that does not mean to say that they are not there and that they are not part and
parcel of the African reality that has been constantly misconstrued and misinterpreted.
Although it is fast disappearing(African Culture, customs, Traditions and Practices), the colonial

intrusion has also shaped the search for identity. In some instances and places it was considered the
height of success to cultivate an Oxford accent, while in others to obtain the Legion d'Honneur
served a similar purpose. To a significant degree this phase has passed. The generation now
reaching adulthood in many African countries grew up entirely in the postcolonial period.
But wisps of this peversity remain, even though much of Africa is well into the fourth decade of
independence. In many states, for example, the national language is still the language of the colonial
power(Afrikaans and English in the case of South Africa). Unknown to much of the populace and
only a second language to most of the rest, linguistic patterns thus constitute an aspect of the
identity that keeps many African nations cut off from their past and tied to their former colonizers.
By paying attention to the languages of Africans in South Africa, as in the case of the Pondos, and
their Xhosa language, we are able to begin to reconstruct a history of African people in South Africa.
Peoples whose pre-colonial societies were already in the form of centralized states generally have
traditions of statecraft, diplomacy, administrative skills, and political ideology that can be looked
back upon not only with pride, but as a source of of inspiration . And where even much organization
was lacking, the quality of past social relations rather than complexity of organization can be looked
to as a guide to the future . The emphasis of this hub is on translating much talked-about value, such
as the spiritual-moral and brotherhood into practical training program for an actual day-by-day way
of living.
The Core of this program will be the "New Humanities". In the case of South Africa, this should
begin to develop its system according to the prevailing actualities in a form of cultural heritage and
customary practices and traditional patterns. This work on the Hub is presenting certain guidelines,
and an actual blueprint for the South African African community's development of their
Historiography.
African history is part of world history. It is a very old part and it is a very important part. There is
no way to understand world history without an understanding of African history. We need to call for
a total reexamination of African history. Considering the old approach to African history and the
distortion and confusion that resulted from these approaches, a new approach to African history
must begin with a new frame of reference.
We need to be bold enough to reject such terms as "Black Africa" which presupposes that there is a
legitimate "White Africa". We must reject the term "Negro", "Kaffir" and all that they imply. These
words , like the concept of race and racism, grew out of the European slave trade and the colonial
system that followed. It is not African originated and it as not a legitimate application to and for
African people.
In a speech on the "Significance of African History," the Caribbean-American writer, Richard B.
Moore observed:
"The significance of African history is shown, though not overtly,in the very effort to deny anything
worthy of the name of history to Africa and the African peoples. This widespread, and well nigh
successful endeavor, maintained through some five centuries, to erase African history from the
general record, is a fact which of itself should be quite conclusive to thinking and open minds. For it
is logical and apparent that of such undertaking would ever have been carried on, and at such
length, in order to obscure and bury what is actually of little or no significance.
"The prime significance of African history becomes still more manifest when it is realized that this
deliberate denial of African history arose out of the European expansion and invasion of Africa which

began in the middle of the fifteenth century. The compulsion was thereby felt to attempt to justify
such colonialist conquest, domination, enslavement and plunder. Hence, the brash denial of history
and capacity for "civilization" to the indigenous peoples of Africa." This hub is about the
reconstruction of African history from an African perspective utilizing Culture, Customs, Traditions,
Linguistics and practices to anchor and retell it anew.
There are Afrikaner people in South Africa who are dead-set against the corection and rewriting of
African history. They tend to want to write African history as they beleive and see fit to do so from
their own perspectives. Well, they try to write on these blogs like HubPages what they say is African
South African history without the Africa perospective and fail to utilize all the apsects of culture,
customs, traditions, languages and practices of Africans in Africa to give it more authenticity; and
these bogus post-colonial-pseudo-historians know nothing about Africans and their history. There
are a few white people who can write a decent hisotry of Africans, but ultimately, African people's
history in South Afirca can be written by Africans form an African perspective."
This is a first installment of the eight more to come concerning Africans in South Africa. This is in an
effort to reconstruct and rewrite anew from the actualities of present-day and past
cultural/customary/traditions of Africans in South Africa with a historical eye of demonstrating their
humanity(roughly called Ubuntu ), civilization and accurately reconstructing African history more
realistically and acceptable to African and world historiography.
Those White people in South Africa who still call africans Monkeys, Chimps, Baboons and nonhumans, are going to have to deal with a reconstructed and rebuilt, new way of learning and
knowing about African history and historiography from the African people in South Africa's
perspective and all those throughout the Diaspora's perspectives. It will no more be enough for the
white supremacist in South Africa to present a pejorative account of the history of Africans, they will
have to be reminded of Hubs like this one which actually goes into serious research and uses African
linguistics, culture, customs, traditions and practices to aid in its reconstruction of African history.
Using tired and ahistorical racist racially promulgated assertions about Africans and their history,
culture and customs and traditions will no longer suffice in this day and age. As this hub and others
of this genre will subsequently demonstrate, the Cultures of the ama-Nguni/Bakone will distinctly
show the cultural unity of the Africans in South Africa is real, and the phony delineation of them as
separate and different and as tribes as espoused by the Apartheidizers, will be proven to be false
and poorly misinforming and seriously misleading and biased.
http://hubpages.com/politics/-Restoration-Of-African-South-African-Historical-Consciousness-CultureCustoms-Practices