NDUKWANA KAMBENGWANA AS ANINTERLOCUTOR ON THE HISTORY OF THE ZULU

KINGDOM, 1897-1903

JOHN WRIGHTUNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL

UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND

I

In the six years from October 1897 to October 1903, Ndukwana kaMbeng-wana engaged in scores of conversations in numerous different locationswith magistrate James Stuart about the history and culture of the nine-teenth-century Zulu kingdom.1 In the 1880s Ndukwana had been a low-ranking official in the native administration of Zululand; at an unknowndate before late 1900 he seems to have become Stuarts personal induna orheadman, to give a common English translation. Stuarts handwrittennotes of these conversations, as archived in the James Stuart Collection,come to a total of 65,000 to 70,000 words. As rendered in volume 4 of theJames Stuart Archive, published in 1986, these notes fill 120 printed pages,far more than the testimonies of any other of Stuarts interlocutors exceptSocwatsha kaPhaphu.2 From 1900, Ndukwana was also present duringmany of Stuarts conversations with other individuals.

History in Africa 38 (2011), 343368

1My thanks go to my former research assistants, Skye Dillon, Steve Kotze, and SinothiThabethe, for tracking down archival sources on James Stuarts career, and to the NatalSociety Foundation Trust for financial support. This paper represents a substantialreworking of earlier drafts given at two workshops organized by the Archive and PublicCulture Research Initiative at the University of Cape Town. I would like to thank partici-pants for constructive critical comment.2The James Stuart Collection is housed in the Killie Campbell Africana Library andMuseum, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. Ndukwanas published testimonyappears in Colin Webb, and John Wright (eds.), The James Stuart Archive of RecordedOral Evidence Relating to the History of the Zulu and Neighbouring Peoples (henceforth

344 John Wright

In the editors preface to volume 4 of the James Stuart Archive, afterdrawing attention to the length of Ndukwanas testimony, Colin Webb and Iwrote as follows:

Since these were the early years of Stuarts collecting career, it is probablethat Ndukwana exercised a considerable influence on the presuppositionsabout Zulu society and history which Stuart took with him into his interviews.No less likely, however, is the reverse possibility that Ndukwana in turnbecame a repository of much of the testimony he heard while working withStuart, and that, increasingly over the years, the information which he sup-plied would have been a fusion of data and traditions from a variety ofsources.3

As I go on to discuss below, I would now be chary of seeing Ndukwanaunproblematically as a supplier of information, and of seeing the testi-monies which Stuart recorded from him as consisting mainly of tradi-tions. But the point about the reciprocal influence on each other of Nduk-wana and Stuart remains valid. If we want to understand more about the fac-tors which shaped Stuarts thinking about Zulu history and custom in theearliest stages of his career as a recorder of oral history, and if we want tounderstand more about how African intellectuals in rurally based communi-ties in Natal and Zululand in the early twentieth century expressed them-selves on the past, the point needs to be explored in more detail.The importance of the Stuart Collection and of the volumes of the James

Stuart Archive as a source of information on the history of what is now theKwaZulu-Natal region in the period from the mid-eighteenth to the earlytwentieth century has long been recognized.4 Stuarts career as a recorder oforal histories over the period from the late 1890s to the early 1920s has beenoutlined in a probing study by Carolyn Hamilton.5 From her researches we

JSA), volume 4 (Pietermaritzburg, 1986), 263-383. Socwatshas testimony, which willtotal about 150 pages, will appear in the forthcoming volume 6 of the JSA. (Volumes 1 to5 of the JSA were published in 1976, 1979, 1982, 1986, and 2001 respectively.)3JSA 4, xv.4Carolyn Hamilton, Bernard Mbenga, and Robert Ross, The Production of PreindustrialSouth African History, in: Carolyn Hamilton, Bernard Mbenga, and Robert Ross (eds.),The Cambridge History of South Africa, Volume 1, from Early Times to 1885 (NewYork, 2010), 6.5Carolyn Hamilton, Authoring Shaka: Models, Metaphors and Historiography, PhDthesis, Johns Hopkins University (1993), chapter 7 and chapter 8. A slightly abbreviatedversion appears in Carolyn Hamilton, Terrific Majesty: the Powers of Shaka Zulu andthe Limits of Historical Imagination (Cape Town, 1998), chapter 4.

Ndukwana kaMbengwana 345

get a clear idea of when and why he began to engage in this work, of whathis particular interests in the African past were, and of the assumptionsabout African culture and history that shaped his work. What we need noware detailed studies of the successive phases of his career and also of hisengagements with particular interlocutors in the changing contexts of thetimes in which he and they lived.This article seeks to examine, as far as the evidence allows, Ndukwanas

own background as an informed commentator on the history of the Zulukingdom, together with the nature of his engagements with Stuart during thesix years they discussed matters historical. For information on Ndukwanaslife we depend entirely on notes made by Stuart, partly of Ndukwanasanswers to specific questions on the subject, and partly of passing refer-ences made by Ndukwana when speaking of other topics. To understandNdukwana, then, we need to understand Stuart in an early stage of hisrecording career; to understand Stuart, we need to understand Ndukwana.Discussion of their respective careers as thinkers about the past in the periodunder discussion cannot be separated, hence the degree to which Stuart fea-tures in what is primarily a paper about Ndukwana.When Colin Webb and I wrote the passage cited above, like most schol-

ars working with recorded oral histories at the time we saw them primarilyas statements on the past that could serve as sources of information, ifsometimes very rich ones and often the only available ones on their subject,for academic historians. We certainly had some conception that among thesubjects they might shed light on was the intellectual history of precolonialsocieties, but we were attuned to seeing oral testimonies more as sources offacts than as specific intellectual productions in their own right. By thesame token, we tended to see the individuals who gave the testimonies asinformants, with greater or lesser degrees of factual knowledge of thepast, rather than as thinkers and as shapers of that knowledge.Ideas of this kind, which are rooted in the work on oral traditions (i.e.

oral histories passed on more or less formally from one generation to thenext) done by Vansina and others since the 1950s, are still common amongacademic historians, but recently they have begun giving way to more criti-cally informed perspectives. Thus oral histories in general, of which oraltraditions are one kind of genre, are (like written histories, for that matter)coming to be examined not simply as factual statements, of varying degreesof truth, about the past but as ideas about the past themselves produced inspecific historical contexts.6

6See the discussion in Hamilton et al., The Production, 5-6.

346 John Wright

And, as Hlonipha Mokoena has highlighted in a somewhat different con-text in her recently published study of the career of kholwa intellectualMagema Fuze, individuals often seen, especially by Western scholars, pri-marily as native informants need to be appreciated as producers of ideas(not just information) about the past within their own historically createdsocial and cultural milieux.7 By no means all Stuarts interlocutors, whetherblack or white, can meaningfully be described as intellectuals, but like peo-ple everywhere, all of them inescapably framed their ideas about the past interms of the intellectual currents flowing in the societies in which theylived. The term informant, as commonly used in discussion of oral histo-ries (it was often used by Stuart himself), does not capture this perspective:it remains tied to the notion of oral histories primarily as transmitted bodiesof knowledge. The word preferred in this article is interlocutor, one whotakes an active part in shaping knowledge in a process of dialogue.By the same token, we need to think critically about the notion of the

interview, a word commonly used to describe the situation in which aresearcher elicits and records information from an informant or intervie-wee. It carries overtones of the formal transmission of knowledge from oneto the other without the more informal interchanges of ideas and viewswhich are implied in terms like discussion and even more so conver-sation. Some of Stuarts meetings with Ndukwana may have been inter-view-like: others, the majority, to judge by Stuarts notes, were certainlymore by way of discussions of a succession of topics, with one thoughtleading to another in a less structured way than would have been the case ina more formal interview. In the period under examination here, Stuart him-self often used the words discussion and conversation, and sometimesthe word interview, to refer to his engagements with his interlocutors. Inthis article the first two terms are preferred.

II

From Stuarts notes we can learn something about Ndukwanas early life,and about the histories of the communities that he lived in. Beyond the peri-od of his boyhood, however, there is very little biographical information in

7Hlonipha Mokoena, Magema Fuze: the Making of a Kholwa Intellectual (Pietermar-itzburg, 2011), esp. 17-30. Until his death in 1922, Fuze was a leading writer and histori-an among the amakholwa in Natal.

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the record besides a few passing mentions, and we have to rely largely onconjecture. He was born in the Zulu kingdom in about 1838, towards theend of Dinganes reign, in the Ceza area near the upper black Mfoloziriver.8 His father, Mbengwana kaMatshotshwana kaNdaba, belonged to theabakwaMasondo section of the abakwaMthethwa people. His mother wasNomloya ka Maxalanga of people whom Ndukwana does not identify.9Mbengwana, for his part, had been born and brought up in the Mthethwa

country near the coast at a time when the Mthethwa were expanding theirauthority over neighbouring chiefdoms and becoming the dominant powersouth of the White Mfolozi.10 At this time the Zulu chiefdom, under Sen-zangakhona kaJama, was a small polity in the western borderlands of theMthethwa sphere of influence. Some time before the beginning of Shakasreign (c.1815), a group of Mthethwa which included Mbengwana movedfrom the coastlands to settle in the Ceza area.11 Ndukwana does not explainwhy this move took place, but fairly certainly it was part of a colonizingmove undertaken by the Mthethwa king, Dingiswayo kaJobe, to strengthenhis hold over the inland regions of his kingdom at a time when he wasincreasingly coming into conflict with the expanding Ndwandwe kingdom,under Zwide kaLanga, to the north.Soon afterwards, Dingiswayo was killed in war with the Ndwandwe, and

his kingdom fell apart. A short while later the rising Zulu power underShaka succeeded in driving away the Ndwandwe.12 At this point the groupof Mthethwa which had moved to the Ceza area gave its allegiance toShaka. The Zulu king permitted its members to remain in their homesteads,and their leader, Mkhosi kaMgudlana, was allowed to rule with a certaindegree of autonomy, as was the case in other chiefdoms which occupied

8On his age see JSA, volume 4, 285, 340, 373. Unless otherwise indicated, references cit-ing the JSA are to statements made by Ndukwana.9JSA, volume 4, 285, 326.10On the history of the Mthethwa kingdom in the late eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies, see Carolyn Hamilton, Identity, Oral Traditions and the Struggle for Power inthe Early Zulu Kingdom, MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand (1985), chapter 2;John Wright, The Dynamics of Power and Conflict in the Thukela-Mzimkhulu Regionin the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries: a Critical Reconstruction, PhD thesis, Univer-sity of the Witwatersrand (1989), chapter 4.11JSA, volume 4, 277, 326, 360.12Hamilton, Identity, 136-38; Wright, Dynamics, 180-87; John Wright, Rediscover-ing the Ndwandwe Kingdom, in: Natalie Swanepoel, Amanda Esterhuysen, and PhilipBonner (eds.), Five Hundred Years Rediscovered: Southern African Precedents andProspects (Johannesburg, 2008), 228-31.

348 John Wright

strategic positions on the borders of Shakas kingdom. Mbengwana, Nduk-wana tells us, was one of Mkhosis senior men. As one of his moves tostrengthen his hold on the upper Black Mfolozi region, Shaka establishedthe ikhanda of iMpangiso (loc. eMpangisweni) in the area, and placed itunder the control of Nquhele, one of Mkhosis brothers.13 (An ikhanda wasan establishment occupied by one or other of the kings amabutho, or age-regiments.) Overall authority in the region seems to have been exercised bythe induna of the uMbelebele ikhanda, which was located nearby.14The people of iMpangiso were regarded as personal adherents of Shaka,

who had encouraged them to remain in occupation of the place whereDingiswayo had settled them. After the assassination of Shaka in 1828, hisrival and successor Dingane would certainly have kept a close watch onthem for any signs of disaffection. Towards the end of his reign probablyduring the times of uncertainty which followed the outbreak of war betweenthe Zulu and intruding Boers in early 1838 Dingane ordered the leadingfigures at iMpangiso to be put to death. Mbengwana was one of those exe-cuted. His wives and children scattered. For her part, Nomloya took herchildren, including the infant Ndukwana, to join her full brother, GijimikaMaxalanga. In turn the latter made off to take refuge with Mmama kaJa-ma, a sister of Shakas father Senzangakhona and a politically powerful fig-ure in the kingdom, who lived near Nhlazatshe, twenty-five kilometres tothe south. Soon afterwards, in 1840, Mpande overthrew Dingane with theassistance of the Boers and succeeded him as king. In the period that fol-lowed, Gijimi emerged as head of a cluster of refugees from the communitywhich had originally lived at iMpangiso.15Ndukwana grew up at Nhlazatshe among Gijimis adherents. When he

was about twelve or thirteen years old (i.e. in about 1850), Mpandereassembled the sons of the Mthethwa izinduna, Mkhosi and Nquhele, andresettled them and their people in their former territory at iMpangiso. LikeShaka before him, Mpande was presumably seeking to strengthen hisauthority in his kingdoms vulnerable and unstable western borderlands,from which he had recently driven the large Hlubi chiefdom, by revivingiMpangiso as a settlement of people personally loyal to him.16 According to

13JSA, volume 4, 277, 278, 285, 326, 360, 327.14JSA, volume 4, 277, 327, 360.15JSA, volume 4, 278, 327, 328.16John Wright, and Andrew Manson, The Hlubi People in Zululand and Natal: a History(Ladysmith, 1983), 32-36.

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Ndukwana, the king wanted to place iMpangiso under Mthethwa leadersagain, but backed down in the face of objections from Mnyamana kaNgqe-ngelele, chief of the abakwaButhelezi, and one of the most powerful figuresin the north-western regions of the Zulu kingdom, who claimed that theywere mere boys. In the event, Mpande appointed Majiya kaGininda of theabakwaNtombela people, who were closely related to the Zulu royal house,as induna of iMpangiso, and told him to regard the sons of Mkhosi andNquhele as his younger brothers.17Gijimi and his adherents were among the people who returned to settle in

the iMpangiso area. As one of his mat-bearers, the young Ndukwana trav-elled with him to eMlambongwenya, one of Mpandes imizi. He laterbecame mat-bearer to Magujwa kaNquhele, and accompanied him to sever-al of the kings other imizi.18 In his mid-teens, with other boys of his age-grade from iMpangiso, Ndukwana went off to kleza (literally, drink milkstraight from the udder) at the major ikhanda in the iMpangiso region,uMbelebele. This ukukleza, which could last for a year or two, constituted akind of apprenticeship, often undertaken voluntarily, before compulsoryincorporation into a new ibutho; it involved doing work like herding cattle,carrying mats, fetching firewood, and washing milk buckets. In due course(we are now in the mid-1850s) the boys from iMpangiso, known collective-ly as uMhlohlalanga, were called up to the kings principal umuzi, kwaNo-dwengu, at the time of the umkhosi or first-fruits ceremonies. Togetherwith groups of similar age which had klezad at amakhanda in other parts ofthe kingdom, they were formed into the uDloko ibutho, and sent off to thekwaGqikazi ikhanda.19 The chief induna of the uDloko was Ndumundumuor Ndungundungu kaNokhokhela Zulu.20 The great induna at kwaGqikaziwas Ntshingwayo kaMahole Khoza, who in 1879 was one of the comman-ders of the Zulu army in its victory over the British at Isandlwana.21From this point until he surfaces as one of Stuarts interlocutors more

than forty years later, we know very little about Ndukwanas life: the out-lines of it have to be conjectured from passing references in Stuarts notes.Why Stuart recorded only Ndukwanas youth in any detail is difficult tofathom: possibly it is because his later life had become better known to Stu-

17JSA, volume 4, 328.18JSA, volume 4, 328, 329.19JSA, volume 4, 335, 336, 337.20Statement of Baleni kaSilwana, JSA, volume 1, 24-25; statement of Maxibana kaZeni,JSA, volume 2, 242.21JSA, volume 4, 336.

350 John Wright

art during the years of their acquaintance after 1888 (see below). Very soonafter Ndukwana was incorporated into the uDloko, a fierce contestationbetween two of Mpandes senior sons, Cetshwayo and Mbuyazi, over thesuccession to the Zulu kingship came to a head. In a major battle fought onthe north bank of the Thukela river near its mouth in December 1856,Cetshwayos forces routed those of Mbuyazi. Ndukwana states baldly thatthe uDloko fought in the battle; we have to turn to others of Stuarts infor-mants to learn that its members fought on both sides.22 Ndukwana statesthat he and seven others fled across the Thukela to the Natal side, followedthe river up its course, crossed back into the Zulu kingdom, and went backto iMpangiso.23 From this we infer that he was on Mbuyazis side, thoughwhether he actually took part in the fighting is not clear. He also tells us thatseveral of the sons of Mkhosi and Nquhele, leading men at iMpangiso, werekilled in the battle.24 As Mpandes people they very probably fought onthe side of Mbuyazi, who, as is well known, was favoured by the king.In the years that followed, Ndukwana seems to have been well placed to

observe public affairs in the Zulu kingdom at close quarters. He speaks ofmaking numerous visits to the isigodlo, or royal enclosure, at kwaGqikazi.25He speaks of being sent with a message to Cetshwayo.26 He speaks of beingpresent on particular occasions at kwaNodwengu, the kings capital.27 Hespeaks of being present at hearings involving men of high standing.28 It ispossible that he was an inceku, or personal attendant, to Mpande, though astatement that he made years later to Stuart, to the effect that the kingsizinceku had a greater knowledge of intimate court affairs than he did, sug-gests that this was not so.29 Was he perhaps an isilomo, one who frequentlyattended court without holding an official position? Or was he simply amessenger sent to court from time to time by his seniors at iMpangiso?There are unfortunately no further clues in the record.

22Ndukwana, JSA, volume 4, 273; Maxibana, JSA, volume 2, 242-43; Mayinga kaMb-hekuzana, JSA, volume 2, 246; Mvayisa kaTshingili, JSA, volume 4, 165; NkukhukaCangasa, JSA, volume 5, 135.23JSA, volume 4, 380.24JSA, volume 4, 329.25JSA, volume 4, 347.26JSA, volume 4, 362.27JSA, volume 4, 295, 303-04.28JSA, volume 4, 319, 354-55.29JSA, volume 4, 280.

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In 1876 Cetshwayo gave permission to the men of the uDloko to put onthe headring.30 This meant that they could now marry, but of Ndukwanasfamily life then and later we know nothing. When British forces invaded theZulu kingdom in January 1879, Ndukwana, then aged about forty, was withthe amabutho which visited the graves of the ancestral Zulu kings to bestrengthened for war.31 Labands and Thompsons researches into the mili-tary history of the ensuing war indicate that the uDloko fought in the battlesat Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift in January and at Cetshwayos capital,oNdini, in July, but there is nothing in Stuarts notes that tells us whether ornot Ndukwana was involved in any of the fighting.32When next we hear of Ndukwana he had begun a completely new phase

of his life, now in the service of the British colonial power in Zululand.After their victory over the Zulu in 1879, the British had exiled Cetshwayoand divided his kingdom into thirteen autonomous chiefdoms underappointed chiefs. The post of British Resident, which carried no executivepowers, was created to oversee imperial interests in the region. From March1880 the office was held by Melmoth Osborn.33 By at least mid-1881 Nduk-wana seems to have been on his staff, in exactly what capacity is not clear.34After the war, the iMpangiso people had fallen under the authority of HamukaNzibe, a half-brother of Mpande who had been a bitter rival of the latterand continued to be deeply hostile to his successor, Cetshwayo. He hadbeen the only senior chief to defect to the British during the war, and had nolove for supporters of the house of Mpande and Cetshwayo like the peopleof iMpangiso. By 1881 he was putting pressure on them and others of theuSuthu, as Cetshwayos supporters were coming to be called, to leave hisdistrict.35 It was in these circumstances that Ndukwana seems to have decid-ed to seek service with Osborn. It is probably no co-incidence that the lat-ters headquarters were at Nhlazatshe, not far from iMpangiso where Nduk-wanas people lived.36

30JSA, volume 4, 273.31JSA, volume 4, 291.32J.P.C. Laband, and P.S. Thompson, Field Guide to the War in Zululand and theDefence of Natal 1879 (Pietermaritzburg, 1983), 57, 59; John Laband, Rope of Sand: TheRise and Fall of the Zulu Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century (Johannesburg, 1995), 218,231, 314, 361.33Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London, 1980), 82.34JSA, volume 4, 355-56.35Guy, Destruction, 74, 84, 85-87, 115.36Guy, Destruction, 101; Laband, Rope of Sand, 348.

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Ndukwana was still in Osborns service in the late 1880s.37 We have noidea of what roles he played in this capacity during the troubled history ofZululand in the intervening years. Violent conflicts had taken place in 1882-1884 between the uSuthu and the rival uMandlakazi, who were activelysupported by British officials, including Osborn. The British had repar-tioned the former Zulu kingdom and restored Cetshwayo to authority over asection of it in 1883. At the same time Osborn was established as ResidentCommissioner in the autonomous southern Reserve section, with his head-quarters at Eshowe. Cetshwayo had died in 1884, and had been succeededas head of the uSuthu party by his son Dinuzulu. Soon afterwards theuSuthu were helped to defeat their uMandlakazi rivals by Boers from theTransvaal, who then proceeded to carve out the independent New Republicfrom much of the old Zulu kingdom. In 1887 the British had finally annexedthe rump of the kingdom as a separate colony in an attempt to restore orderto the region. Osborn became the senior official in the colony, with the titleof Resident Commissioner and Chief Magistrate.38 Ndukwana seems tohave remained on his staff, and we can surmise that it was in this capacitythat, in 1888, he crossed paths for the first time with James Stuart.

III

To turn now to Stuarts parallel career.39 He was born in Pietermaritzburg,the capital of the colony of Natal, in 1868, as the son of a colonial magis-trate. He grew up in the villages of Greytown and Ixopo, and at an early agelearnt to speak isiZulu. After the death of his father in the Anglo-Transvaalwar of 1880-1881, his mother sent him to senior school in England. In 1888he was appointed clerk and interpreter to the magistrate in Eshowe, the mainadministrative centre of the newly annexed colony of Zululand, where Mel-moth Osborn was the senior official. Over the next decade he rose through

37JSA, volume 4, 289, 292.38On Zululand in the 1880s see Guy, Destruction; Jeff Guy, The View across the River:Harriette Colenso and the Zulu Struggle against Imperialism (Charlottesville / Oxford /Cape Town, 2001); Laband, Rope of Sand, chapters 27-34.39For biographical information on Stuart, see Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, chapter 4; JohnWright, The making of the James Stuart Archive, History in Africa 23 (1996), 333-50;John Wright, entry in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, 2006;John Wright, entry in Oxford Dictionary of African Biography (forthcoming). An oldersketch by B.J. Leverton appears in the Dictionary of South African Biography, volume 3(Pretoria, 1977).

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the ranks of the native affairs administration in Zululand, becoming magis-trate in the newly annexed district of Ingwavuma in the far north of thecolony in 1895, and spending two brief spells as Acting British Consul inSwaziland. In 1899-1901 he held short appointments as acting magistrate ina number of centres in NatalPietermaritzburg, Umzinto, Stanger, Durban,Impendhle, Howick, and Ladysmith. In March 1901 he began a new phaseof his career when he was appointed assistant magistrate in Durban, thecolonys biggest town.Stuart had no doubt had a good bookish education at Hurstpierpoint, the

public school which he had attended in Sussex. This may in some measurehelp account for the interest in the written word that he showed early in hiscareer. He combined this with a growing interest, unusual among Natalcolonists, in the language and customs of the African people among whomhe lived, and whom, from 1888, he helped govern. He kept diaries from1887 to 1889; he took down four pages of Melmoth Osborns praises asgiven by Socwatsha kaPaphu, a member of the Resident Commissionersstaff, in February 1889;40 he recorded a genealogy of Biyela chiefs fromMabele kaMagidi in January 1894.41 Though he shared many of the racialprejudices of his fellow colonists, by the mid-1890s he seems to have beendeveloping a questioning attitude towards aspects of native policy in Zulu-land and Natal. By the late 1890s his interests were beginning to firm upinto the beginnings of a serious research project.In January 1897 Stuart recorded a list of Mpandes amabutho from

Socwatsha at Ngwavuma. Then in October and November of that year, inthe same locality, he turned to Ndukwana as a source of information andmade his first written notes, all of them relatively brief, of conversationswith the latter on Zulu history and customs.42 Soon afterwards he madenotes of discussions with seven or eight other individuals on history andcustoms in Swaziland and Tongaland.43 Clearly he was developing a newfocus of interest at this time. This is confirmed in a letter which Stuart wroteto his mother from Ladysmith in Natal in December 1900, in which he indi-cates that he had been engaged in closely reading and enquiring into Africanaffairs for nearly four years.44 During his second stint in Swaziland in 1898-

40James Stuart Collection, Stuarts diary for 1889, entry for 9 February.41JSA, volume 2, 1-3.42JSA, volume 4, 263-67.43See the records in the JSA under Mahungane and Nkomuza, Mkakwa, Mqayikana,Mtshelekwana, Mtshodo, Ndaba, and Sibindi.44Cited in Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 136-37.

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1899 he recorded information on the history of the royal house and on localcustoms from a dozen or so individuals,45 and in 1899-1900, in the very dif-ferent political and social environment of Natal, made brief notes relatingmainly to public affairs in the colony as discussed with another fifteen peo-ple.46 In the last months of 1900 he held intensive discussions with Nduk-wana and also with a small group of amakholwa notables in Ladysmith.Soon afterwards, he took up his appointment as assistant magistrate in Dur-ban, but, presumably owing to pressure of work in a new post, was unableto resume active research until the end of 1901. From the middle of 1902,and onward into phases of his career which do not concern us here, he wasable to engage in more systematic discussion and reading, and now alsowriting and lecturing, on history and custom in Natal and Zululand.47A comprehensive study of Stuarts early historical and ethnographic

researches would place them in the context of contemporary developmentsin imperial and colonial thinking about the native peoples of southernAfrica, past and present. The period from the 1890s to the 1920s was theheyday of amateur investigation in this field, as conducted primarily bymissionaries and administrators.48 Stuarts work needs to be set alongsidethat of figures like Theal, Junod, Ellenberger, Bryant and others if its fullsignificance is to be grasped. The focus here is on understanding the specif-ic interests that were driving his research project in its earliest stages, thestages during which he held his conversations with Ndukwana.Carolyn Hamiltons researches into Stuarts recording career centre on

an in-depth study of the development of his commitment to this project.49Her work indicates, in brief, that he was driven primarily by his growingconviction that Africans in the colony were being misgoverned, and that themain solution to this misgovernment lay in educating the colonial govern-ment and the white public more generally into an understanding of howAfrican law and custom had operated in the traditional tribal system. This

45See the records in the JSA under Falaza, Gama, Gedle, Giba and Mnkonkoni, Kunene,Mabola, Mgoqo, Mnkonkoni and Giba, and (forthcoming) Thring, Tikuba, and Zulu.46See the records in the JSA under Antel, Gedle, Ginga, Makewu, Mdepha, Mhlanimpo-fu, Ngabiyana, Ngangezwe, Mini, Qalizwe, and Rangu (Hangu), and (forthcoming) Sije-wana, Teteleku, Tritton, and Tshonkweni (Shonkweni).47Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 144-50.48Saul Dubow, Illicit Union: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Johannesburg,1995), chapter 1, chapter 3; Patrick Harries, Butterflies and Barbarians: Swiss Mission-aries and Systems of Knowledge in South-East Africa (Oxford/Harare/Johannesburg/Athens OH, 2007), chapter 8.49Hamilton, Authoring Shaka, 363ff.; Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 130-56.

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system, in his view, had been successfully used in the time of TheophilusShepstone, successively Diplomatic Agent to the Native Tribes and Secre-tary for Native Affairs in Natal from 1845 to 1876, to administer Africanaffairs in the colony, but in recent years had been breaking down. Stuart sawthe white settler governments which had ruled the colony since the grantingof Responsible Government in 1893 as increasingly indifferent and evenactively hostile to the interests of the African population, and as largely outof touch with African opinion. The laws that they passed were often incom-prehensible to Africans, and were implemented by mostly unsympatheticofficials and police who could not speak isiZulu and knew little or nothingof African laws and customs. The powers of the chiefs, who formed thelynchpin of tribal institutions of government, were steadily being under-mined, with consequent erosion of the authority of homestead heads overtheir families and of the whole social fabric of tribal society.What was needed, in Stuarts view, was a revival of the centralized sys-

tem of government which had been established in the Zulu kingdom byShaka, which had operated under his successors, and which, with somemodifications had been implemented in colonial Natal by Shepstone. Thiswould be successful only if colonial opinion-makers had a clear andinformed notion of how tribal government had operated in the past and ofhow it was failing in the present. This in turn would come about onlythrough detailed and ongoing research into current African affairs and intoAfrican history on the part of a thoroughly qualified and officially recog-nized official. This, in brief, was what by late 1900 Stuart was calling hisIdea, with, it seems, himself as the proposed intermediary.50Stuarts position was an ambiguous one. At one level, his view of the

tribal system was essentially that of a colonial administrator, one unusuallysympathetic to the opinions of Africans, but concerned primarily with themaintenance of settler domination and of the white civilization whichEuropean colonialism was supposed to serve. At another level, he wasinformed enough about African opinion to see that in the hands of colonialadministrators the system as it operated in Natal was becoming oppressiveand urgently needed reforming if challenges to white civilization were to beavoided. The relevant point here is that, whatever their precise roots, hisconcerns were strong enough to generate the intellectual energies thatinformed the research project whose emergence we are here concerned with.

50He was calling this proposal his Idea by at least December 1900: see the extract fromthe letter which Stuart wrote to his mother in that month cited in Hamilton, TerrificMajesty, 136-37.

356 John Wright

In the early years of his career Stuarts prime concerns with researchingthe African past were to develop an informed understanding of how govern-ment had functioned and social order been maintained in precolonial tribalsocieties in Zululand and Natal. By grasping this, we can better understandwhy, from the start, he came back over and over again in his questioning ofhis interlocutors to the same range of themes: how kings and chiefs hadcome to power and how they had ruled, stories of war and conquest, succes-sion issues, how the amabutho system had functioned, the exploits of indi-vidual warriors, life in the kings amakhanda, the roles of izinduna, theimportance of cattle, marriage arrangements, ukulobola, control overwomen, control over young people, religious beliefs, the roles played bydiviners, the social and political roles played by taboos. There was compara-tively little on economic life, on life in homesteads, on cultural and intellec-tual life. His main focus was on the Zulu state, but from the start he wasconcerned to learn what he could about the histories of its predecessor statesand of the more important subordinate chiefdoms within the Zulu kingdom.Much of the information he recorded at this stage was by way of anecdotesand answers to specific questions: there were few passages of sustained nar-rative as compared with the records he made in later stages of his career,when his main objectives had shifted.51

IV

As indicated above, Ndukwanas first encounter with Stuart probably tookplace in Eshowe after the latters appointment to the Zululand administra-tion in 1888. However, the first mention of Ndukwana in Stuarts notes isdated a good nine years afterwards, when, in Ingwavuma, the first of theirrecorded conversations took place. The next such conversation took place inImpendhle and Howick in mid-1900,52 but it was not until the last few

51These later phases still need to be delineated and explored in detail. For examples ofextended narratives that Stuart recorded, see the testimonies given by Hayiyana kaNdikila(JSA, volume 1, 161-65) and Nsuze kaMfelafuthi (JSA, volume 5, 151-80) in the period1908-1912 when Stuart was working on his History of the Zulu Rebellion (published in1913), and those given by Lugubhu kaMangaliso (JSA, volume 1, 284-90), MandlakazikaNgini (JSA, volume 2, 177-94), Ndlovu kaThimuni (JSA, volume 4, 218-30), andMshayankomo kaMagolwana (JSA, volume 5, 106-48) in the late 1910s and early 1920s,when Stuart was recording stories for inclusion in the Zulu readers which he published inthe mid-1920s.52JSA, volume 4, 267-69.

Ndukwana kaMbengwana 357

months of 1900, when Stuart was assistant magistrate at Ladysmith, thatNdukwana began to feature in his notes as a frequent interlocutor.In what capacity Ndukwana stood in relation to Stuart in these years is

not known with any certainty, but a passing comment made by another ofStuarts interlocutors in December 1900 suggests that by this time he mayhave been in Stuarts personal service. This was a statement to the effectthat I [Stuart] have an induna, viz. Ndukwana, whom I take about with mefrom place to place.53 The roles played by izinduna, or headmen, in Natalcolonial society have not been a subject of academic research, and it is notclear exactly what the commentator meant. At this time magistracies inNatal had izinduna attached to them to serve as intermediaries for the mag-istrates in their dealings with Africans under their jurisdiction, but they wereattached to specific courts rather than to particular magistrates, and it isunlikely that Ndukwana was serving Stuart in an official capacity.54 Morelikely is that he had for some time been in Stuarts personal employment.This is also indicated by the fact that Ndukwana was available for Stuart toturn to for historical conversations during the Christmas-New Year holidayperiod in 1900 and again in 1901,55 and is more or less confirmed by Stu-arts note, made in November 1902, when he was living in Durban, thatbecause he (Stuart) was moving house, Ndukwana was obliged to remainat home.56 The term induna in this context suggests that Ndukwana servedas a head retainer, with authority over servants employed at this time byStuart in his own and his mothers households. Some of these individualswere numbered among Stuarts other interlocutors and informants, in partic-ular Dlozi kaLanga, his wife Nombango, his son Qalizwe, and Nhlamba. Atwhat point Ndukwana had left the Zululand native affairs administrationand at what point he had entered Stuarts service are facets of his life whichare unrecorded. But the salient point is that he seems to have stood in adegree of intimacy with Stuart which, even if it was the intimacy of masterand servant, placed him in a situation which was different from that of thegreat majority of the other interlocutors with whom Stuart worked at thisstage of his recording career.To understand Ndukwanas testimony in depth, and to hear his own

voice with any clarity, it would be necessary to read Stuarts record of it

53JSA, volume1, 246, statement of Solomon Mabaso, 30 December 1900, in record ofconversations with John Kumalo and others.54My thanks to John Lambert for discussion on this point.55JSA, volume 4, 344-48.56JSA, volume 4, 198, under Ndlovu kaThimuni.

358 John Wright

with a close knowledge of the testimonies of the other individuals withwhom Stuart had important discussions in these years, especially in 1902and 1903: Socwatsha, Mkhando kaDlova, Ndlovu kaThimuni, MhuyikaThimuni, Jantshi kaNongila, and Thununu kaNonjiya. All came from dif-ferent backgrounds; all had different things to say about history and custom;all provided testimonies that fed into Stuarts specific research interests indifferent ways. We would need too, a finer understanding than we have atpresent of the range of factors that shaped the nature of the written recordsof his conversations that Stuart produced. Engaging in detailed textualexamination is beyond the scope of this article: what it aims to do in theseclosing pages is to outline the main themes in Ndukwanas testimony, andbriefly to discuss their provenance.In Stuarts first interviews with Ndukwana in Ngwavuma in 1897 we

find the two of them discussing Shakas personality and the nature of hisrule, the regimental system under the Zulu kings, and the exercise of controlover young men, young women, and wives.57 In his discussions with otherinformants in Ngwavuma, Stuart enquired into this latter theme as well asthe history of the Mabhudu royal house and the extent of external trade andmigrant labour in Tongaland, issues which for Stuart represented markers ofthe spread of civilization.58 A year later, this time in Swaziland, hereturned to similar issues: marriage, polygyny, ukulobola, conduct ofwomen, circumcision, and local political history, with the origins, line ofkings, succession disputes, methods of government, imizi, amabutho, andwars of the Swazi royal house featuring prominently. For the first time heenquired in some detail into matters pertaining to religion, witchcraft,ancestral spirits, rainmaking, and the work of diviners. The impact of whiterule on Swazi custom also drew his attention.59After Stuarts return to Natal early in 1899, the brevity of his successive

magisterial appointments made it difficult for him to develop close contactswith potential discussants. On the other hand, his frequent moves enabledhim to develop a knowledge of local affairs that he might otherwise nothave been able to do,60 and it was on local affairs that he tended to focussuch discussions as he was able to hold.

57JSA, volume 4, 263-67.58See the references in note 43 above.59See the references in note 45 above.60Stuart makes a similar point himself: see his reply to a question from Solomon Mabasoas to why he took so deep an interest in native affairs, JSA, volume 1, 249, notes dated 30December 1900.

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It was not until Stuart was posted to Ladysmith in August or September1900 that he was able to resume recording in depth. He turned first to Nduk-wana, with whom he held discussions on no fewer than forty-five days inthe period from the middle of September to the end of December.61 Thiswas the most intensive conversing and recording that he had yet done. Ingreater detail than before, he focussed again on what he saw as the centralinstitutions and customs in the governing and the maintaining of politicaland social cohesion in the Zulu kingdom. In the sphere of governance, hetapped into Ndukwanas knowledge of the sisa-ing (or loaning-out) ofcattle by the Zulu kings, the umkhosi festival, the royal inkatha (an emblem-atic grass coil), the settlement of disputes in the kings courts, the influenceof the izikhulu or great men of the kingdom, ukukhonza, or the giving ofallegiance, and the shifts of identity that it might entail, and the nature ofrights in land. Questions of control of women, and of relations between menand women again came up frequently: the formation of womens amabutho,the regulation of marriage, ukuhlobonga (sexual relations between youngmen and women), the ukuphukula rites carried out by young, unmarriedwomen to ensure the fertility of the fields, prohibitions and taboos involvingwomen. Other topics discussed were the roles of diviners, ceremonies at thekings graves, rainmaking, the rituals surrounding death and burial, andobservances connected with the ancestral spirits.Much of this was to do with custom and the workings of institutions,

sometimes accompanied by anecdotes, in the times of Mpande andCetshwayo. Ndukwana had much less to say on the times of Shaka and Din-gane. He was not an intimate of the Zulu royal house and was clearly not anexpert in the history of the Zulu in olden times. And, as he admitted him-self, he knew little about the history of the main or coastal section of theMthethwa people under Dingiswayo, for he had grown up among theMasondo people, who, though an offshoot of the Mthethwa, lived a longway inland and quite separately from the main house.62 Notably, as com-pared with certain others of Stuarts informants, Ndukwana seems not tohave been a great declaimer of praises, whether of important political fig-ures in the kingdom or of his own forebears. All this is not to say, though,that he did not have a sharp sense of history, for at a number of points Stuartrecorded comments that he made, probably on his own initiative rather than

61JSA, volume 4, 269-345.62See Ndukwanas own comment implying his lack of knowledge of the history of theMthethwa main house: JSA, volume 4, 285.

360 John Wright

in answer to questions, about changes over time that had taken place in cer-tain customs and practices in the Zulu kingdom: the ukusisa practices of thekings, the forming of womens amabutho, the location of specific subjectpeoples, the practice of ukukhonza, the occupation of land.63Stuart described Ndukwana at this time as my chief informant, and as

one of the most perceptive commentators on native affairs that he hadencountered.64 It should be said here and it is a point which needs muchbroader discussion than can be given in this article that he would not havebeen able to provide the detailed, insightful answers to Stuarts questionsthat he did unless he had had a prior interest of his own in the same kinds ofissue that concerned Stuart: governance and the maintenance of social orderin African society. Here the interests of the young European colonial admin-istrator and of the subjected African male elder overlapped. Both wanted tosee the tribal system in Natal maintained.65 We should bear in mind thepoint that social order and tribal system may not necessarily have meantthe same thing to African rulers and to colonial administrators.66 We alsoneed to consider that in many ways Ndukwana may already have beenprimed for Stuarts line of questioning by his years in the service ofOsborn and later of Stuart himself. Early on in his career in the colonial ser-vice he would have learnt what kinds of issue, past and present, administra-tors and magistrates were primarily concerned with. He would have mulledthem over and very probably conversed about them with other African offi-cials, before eventually coming to the point of being, if not necessarily awidely recognized authority on these issues, then certainly an individualwho, in the eyes of a colonial official like Stuart, could make informed com-ment on them.As background to the unfolding of Ndukwanas conversations with Stu-

art, we should note the salient features of Natals political and social historyin these years. The conferring of Responsible Government to the colony in1893, with an electorate consisting overwhelmingly of salaried and proper-ty-owning white males, had been followed by measures to bring chiefs morefirmly under official control, and to tighten up the authority of government

63JSA, volume 4, 269-70, 271-74, 285, 298, 299, 312, 315.64JSA, volume 1, 265; JSA, volume 4, 326.65For Ndukwanas opinions on the tribal system see JSA, volume 1, 229, 232, 238, 246,under John Kumalo.66On this point, see Igor Kopytoff, Introduction, in: Igor Kopytoff (ed.), The AfricanFrontier: the Reproduction of Traditional African Societies (Bloomington/Indianapolis,1989), 20-21.

Ndukwana kaMbengwana 361

and of white employers over African farm tenants and labourers in thetowns. The annexation of Zululand to Natal at the end of 1897 in effectbrought that territory under the domination of Natals white settler popula-tion. In the African reserves of both regions, the economic autonomy ofhomesteads was eroding rapidly as the land became overcrowded. Chiefsand homestead heads found that their authority over their adherents andfamilies was weakening as numbers of people shifted off to the towns tofind waged employment. For their part, the small but politically vociferousclass of westernized and Christianized Africans, the amakholwa, wasbecoming increasingly frustrated with the discrimination it faced at thehands of the settler government. In 1900, numbers of kholwa men cametogether at a meeting in Pietermaritzburg to form a new protest organiza-tion, the Natal Native Congress. At another level, the increasing intrusion ofBritish imperial interests into the affairs of southern Africa led to the out-break of war in 1899 between Britain and the two Boer republics of the inte-rior. For a while in 1899-1900, northern Natal was a major theatre of war.67To appreciate Stuarts concern with the particular issues on which he

pressed Ndukwana, we need to note that from the middle of October 1900to the beginning of January 1901, interleaved with their conversations, hewas also having intensive discussions with a small group of kholwa notablesfrom the Ladysmith district, led by John Kumalo.68 Virtually from the start,Stuart invited Ndukwana to be present. His main concern seems to havebeen to find out what their main grievances with official native policy orlack of it were. In sum, these had to do mainly with the increasinglyoppressive conditions under which Africans lived on white-owned farms,the weakening of the authority of homestead heads over their wives andchildren, and the growing feeling that white people had no interest in rulingAfricans justly. Beyond these issues, Stuart also led the group into discus-sions of the tribal system, the conduct of women, Christianity and civiliza-tion, and the failure of Africans to achieve as much as Europeans had. Ofthe reactions of Ndukwana, Kumalo and the others to these discussions weknow nothing except the comments from their side that Stuart recorded:these were generally, though not always, positive.

67Andr Odendaal, Vukani Bantu! The Beginnings of Black Protest Politics in SouthAfrica to 1912 (Cape Town, 1984), 16-19; John Lambert, Betrayed Trust: Africans andthe State in Colonial Natal (Pietermaritzburg, 1995), chapter 8, chapter 9; John Lambert,and Robert Morrell, Domination and Subordination in Natal, 1890-1920, in: RobertMorrell (ed.), Political Economy and Identities in KwaZulu-Natal: Historical and SocialPerspectives (Durban, 1996), chapter 3.68JSA, volume 1, 215-66, John Kumalo.

362 John Wright

Hamilton has discussed Stuarts talks with Kumalo and his associatesand with Ndukwana what she calls the Ladysmith conversations andtheir impact on Stuarts thinking in some detail. In her view they were cen-tral in shaping his conceptions of native policy and in giving form to hisIdea, which, as we have seen, he was beginning consciously to articulate atjust this time.69 It is not possible to establish from his notes what theirimpact on Ndukwana might have been. As Stuart has it, he sat in on the con-versations with the kholwa elders mainly as a listener, but at a number ofpoints proved well capable of intervening to defend the tribal system as hav-ing its own aspects of civilization (ukukhanya, or enlightenment, in thediscussions). On several occasions, after the others had departed, Stuart infact turned to him for commentary on their remarks.Stuarts conversations in Ladysmith with Ndukwana and with the kholwa

leaders came to an end in January 1901 with the expectation that they wouldcontinue soon afterwards. In the event this did not happen, as in March 1901Stuart left Ladysmith to take up the post of assistant magistrate in Durban.With him, in all likelihood, went Ndukwana. Apart from brief spells in Dur-ban and Pietermaritzburg in 1899, this was Stuarts first experience as amagistrate outside small rural villages and, as far as we know, also Nduk-wanas first extended experience of town life. Since the opening of the rail-way to the Witwatersrand in 1895, Durban had been growing rapidly as aseaport and commercial centre. It grew faster still after the outbreak of warbetween Britain and its colonies on the one side and the South AfricanRepublic and Orange Free State on the other in 1899.70 The populationincreased from about 39,000 in 1899 to 67,000 in 1904, including, in thislatter year, some 19,000 Natives in service.71In their new abode, both Stuart and Ndukwana could see the tribal sys-

tem eroding before their eyes. Something of Stuarts response wasexpressed in official reports in which he graphically expressed his concernsabout what he saw as rising rates of crime and of immorality (by which hemeant prostitution, among both European and African women), and lack ofofficial control over the African day-labourers who made up the bulk of thecitys workforce. Africans in the city behaved very differently from the waythey did in what Stuart saw as their real homes in the country districts, and

69Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 133-38.70J.W. Howard (ed.), Twentieth Century Impression of Natal (Perth, 1906), 352-60, 416ff.71Howard (ed.), Twentieth Century, 64.

Ndukwana kaMbengwana 363

were led into committing crimes unheard of in the old Zulu order. Particu-larly worrying, in his view, was the sinking of wives and daughters from thecountryside into rampant prostitution. For their part, Europeans had no con-cern for the welfare of Africans, and management of what was an honestand noble race by the authorities was marked by its laxity.72Of Ndukwanas response to life in the modernizing metropolis we know

nothing, unless it was indirectly expressed in the historical conversationswhich he and Stuart resumed at the end of 1901 and beginning of 1902. Tobegin with, their discussions ranged mainly over relations between Dinganeand Mpande, and, more briefly, over what he knew about the history of theMthethwa main house.73 They held further intermittent discussions fromJuly 1902 to June 1903, with a final round in September-October 1903. Themanagement of womens age-regiments and of the women of the isigodlo(royal establishment of wives and of young women given as tribute), rela-tions between men and women, and ukuhlonipha (formal avoidances prac-tised by women) were treated at length. Other topics examined in somedetail were rights in land, the Zulu royal inkatha, and boyhood in the Zulukingdom. Of event-oriented matters, the history of the Mthethwa in theearly nineteenth century, relations between Mpande and Cetshwayo, and theadvent of the pretender Sitimela in the Mthethwa chiefdom in 1881 wereamong those touched on.74By this time Stuart was actively seeking out other potential discussants

with special knowledge of the reigns of the Zulu kings, and of earlier times.At the end of December 1901 and the beginning of January 1902 he heldprolonged question-and-answer sessions with another long-standingacquaintance from his Zululand days. This was Socwatsha kaPhaphu, whomhe regarded as smart as well as knowledgeable on Zulu history, andwhom he had specially requested to come to visit him from his home nearthe Nsuze river in southern Zululand.75 In the middle of 1902 Stuartlaunched into what became a more structured programme of discussion thananything he had done previously. Particularly important conversations wereheld with a network of men from the Mapumulo district: Mkhando, Ndlovu,Mhuyi, and Jantshi, and with Thununu from the Qwabe country north of thelower Thukela.

72Natal Government, Blue Book on Native Affairs 1901 (Pietermaritzburg, 1902), B61-B63.73JSA, volume 4, 345-48.74JSA, volume 4, 349-83.75Stuart Collection, File 71, page 63, note dated 9 December 1901.

364 John Wright

In this period of his research, Stuart for the first time showed a stronginterest in recording the praises of the Zulu kings and of other notables. Ashe himself noted, he was by this time coming to realize that praises were notonly of great social importance among African people but were also a majorsource of evidence on the past; in his view, in fact, they constituted thenational record.76 As already noted, Ndukwana was not among the individ-uals from whom Stuart recorded praises at any length. By this time, too,Stuart seems to have been shifting towards enquiring somewhat more aboutpolitical history and somewhat less about custom than is to be found inhis notes of Ndukwanas testimony.For his part, Ndukwana was present during nearly all of the discussions

between Stuart and his other major interlocutors in this period, and occa-sionally provided commentary and supplementary information.77 By thistime his role as sounding board and critic may have been as important toStuart as was his role as interlocutor.

V

We know very little of how Ndukwana had come by his knowledge of histo-ry and custom. Much of it, pertaining to the latter part of Mpandes reign(1840-1872) and to Cetshwayos reign (1872-79), would have been a prod-uct of his own experiences and observations. As a not infrequent visitor tothe kings courts, he would have been well placed to pick up information onpublic affairs, past and present, from conversations with other officials andwith visitors, great and otherwise, from other parts of the kingdom. Hewould no doubt have learnt yet more from his attendance at public hearings,where issues rooted in the past were often aired in minute detail, and fromhearing the declamations of praise-singers and the singing of regimentalsongs and of tribal anthems.78Stuart records the names of a few individuals from whom Ndukwana

heard statements about the past. One was Mnyamana kaNqgengelele,already mentioned as chief of the Buthelezi.79 Another was Zibhebhu

76Stuart Collection, File 60, nbk. 4, pages 7-8, note dated 3 January1902.77For example, JSA, volume 1, 190-91, under Jantshi; JSA, volume 4, 206, 217, underNdlovu.78On the importance of praise-singers as conduits of knowledge about the past, see theexplicit statement made to Stuart by John Gama in Swaziland in November 1898: JSA,volume 1, 365.79JSA, volume 4, 282.

Ndukwana kaMbengwana 365

kaMaphitha, head of the uMandlakazi section, whom Ndukwana frequentlyheard speak and whom he describes as having a very intimate knowledgeof old Zulu affairs.80 A third was Mqikilelo, who seems to have held somesort of official position under Mpande as a great composer of songs for hisamabutho; one of these, as referred to by Ndukwana, was about people whohad fled from the Zulu kingdom into Natal.81 A fourth was Ndukwanasmaternal grandmother, Sonyumba kaNdingotshe of the abakwaMtshali peo-ple, who told him about the attacks made by the Mthethwa underDingiswayo.82 Ndukwanas father and other senior Masondo men of hisgeneration, we should remember, had been killed off in his infancy by Din-gane, which probably cut off an important conduit of the history of theMasondo and of Ndukwanas own family. The details that he imparted toStuart had no doubt come to him from others of his people at iMpangiso. Atvarious points, Ndukwana also names individuals who, in his opinion, werecapable of giving Stuart detailed information on specific historical topics.83Whether he himself had ever conversed with them on the past is not record-ed.At a more general level, Ndukwanas perspectives on the past would

have been influenced in important ways by the nature of the forces politi-cal, social, cultural, intellectual which shaped the generation and circula-tion, in private and in public, of ideas about the past in the Zulu kingdom inwhich he lived for the first forty years of his life. Very little academicresearch has been done in this historiographically important and complexfield, and only a few pointers from Ndukwanas testimony, some of themexplicit, others not, can be given here. Thus he told Stuart: People did notknow of matters pertaining to the times of Dingiswayo and Tshaka. Theyonly narrated war stories, not customs etc.84 And thus: Mpande refused toallow his regiments to sing songs (raya) about the white people whom heregarded as his friends.85 One wonders here how much information andopinion on historical matters was thus prevented from entering wider circu-lation. And, to take a third example, this time from the period when the Zulukingdom was disintegrating, Ndukwana cites the case of Mnyamana who,on an important public occasion, invoked a precedent which he claimed hadbeen set by Shaka, to justify his not turning against the white people in the

80JSA, volume 4, 307.81JSA, volume 4, 265.82JSA, volume 4, 326, 361.83JSA, volume 4, 264, 289-90.84JSA, volume 4, 325. The italics indicate translation from the isiZulu original.85JSA, volume 4, 265. The italics indicate translation from the isiZulu original.

366 John Wright

Zululand rebellion of 1888.86 The documentary sources need to be combedfor historiographical statements of this kind.From another angle, Carolyn Hamilton has drawn attention to the lines of

contestation of the past which were drawn in Zulu society by four majorpolitical fissurings in the kingdoms history: the assassination of Shaka andthe succession of his brother Dingane in 1828, the overthrow of Dingane byhis brother Mpande in the civil war of 1839-1840; the war over the succes-sion to the kingship between Cetshwayo and his brother Mbuyazi in 1856,and the civil wars, largely fomented by British officials, that effectivelydestroyed the kingdom in the 1880s.87 In this context, we need to takeaccount of the fact that as a member of the iMpangiso royal section, Nduk-wana would have been an Mpande man over against the supporters of thehouse of Dingane. Loyalty to the house of Mpande also seems to haveplaced him among the supporters of Mbuyazi rather than of Cetshwayo. Byhis own account, he saw Mbuyazi as Mpandes rightful successor.88 Butlater, in the wars of the 1880s, as a member of the iMpangiso section hewould have been seen by the enemies of the Zulu royal house as a royalistand supporter of the uSuthu following of Cetshwayo, Mpandes successor.The ways in which these complex and shifting affiliations shaped the kindof testimony that he gave to Stuart can be determined only through the closetextual examination of it which still awaits doing.

VI

Stuarts last recorded discussion with Ndukwana took place in October1903.89 After this he is lost to the historians view. By this time he wouldhave been about 65, and it may be that employer and retainer decidedbetween them that it was time for him to retire to his home. Whether thiswas still located in the iMpangiso region near Ceza we do not know. Nor dowe know when he died and joined the ancestors whose names Stuart hadrecorded. Unlike the testimonies of others of Stuarts major informants,only one brief statement that can be attributed to Ndukwana on the Zuluroyal inkatha found new if anonymous life in the isiZulu school readers

86JSA, volume 4, 264-65.87Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 55-59.88JSA, volume 4, 198-99, note recorded in testimony of Ndlovu kaThimuni, 7 November1902.89JSA, volume 4, 382-83.

Ndukwana kaMbengwana 367

which Stuart published in the 1920s.90 The lengthy records of his discus-sions with Stuart began to be examined by academic historians in the 1970s,but remained largely out of public sight until they were published in theJames Stuart Archive in 1986.91 To the extent, though, that his views on thepast, and on native affairs in the present, served to shape Stuarts thinking,and thus the latters interviews with his other interlocutors, Ndukwanasindirect influences may have gone much wider in his own lifetime.

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Guy, Jeff, The View across the River: Harriette Colenso and the Zulu Strug-gle against Imperialism (Charlottesville/Oxford/Cape Town, 2001).

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, Authoring Shaka: Models, Metaphors and Historiography, PhD thesis,Johns Hopkins University (1993).

, Terrific Majesty: the Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of HistoricalImagination (Cape Town, 1998).

, Bernard Mbenga, and Robert Ross, The Production of PreindustrialSouth African History, in: Carolyn Hamilton, Bernard Mbenga, andRobert Ross (eds.), The Cambridge History of South Africa, Volume 1,from Early Times to 1885 (New York, 2010), 1-62.

Harries, Patrick, Butterflies and Barbarians: Swiss Missionaries and Sys-tems of Knowledge in South-East Africa (Oxford/Harare/Johannes-burg/Athens OH, 2007).

Kopytoff, Igor, Introduction, in: Igor Kopytoff (ed.), The African Fron-tier: the Reproduction of Traditional African Societies (Bloomington /Indianapolis, 1989), 8-78.

Laband, John, Rope of Sand: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Kingdom in theNineteenth Century (Johannesburg, 1995).

Laband, J.P.C., and P.S. Thompson, Field Guide to the War in Zululand andthe Defence of Natal 1879 (Pietermaritzburg, 1983).

90James Stuart, uKulumetule (London, 1925), 123. The English original is reproduced inJSA, volume 4, 373.91Wright, Making, 348.

368 John Wright

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, and Robert Morrell, Domination and Subordination in Natal, 1890-1920, in: Robert Morrell (ed.), Political Economy and Identities inKwaZulu-Natal: Historical and Social Perspectives (Durban, 1996), 63-95.

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ed Oral Evidence Relating to the History of the Zulu and NeighbouringPeoples, volume 4 (Pietermaritzburg, 1986).

Wright, John, The Dynamics of Power and Conflict in the Thukela-Mzimkhulu Region in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries: a CriticalReconstruction, PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand (1989).

, The making of the James Stuart Archive, History in Africa 23 (1996),333-50.

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, and Andrew Manson, The Hlubi People in Zululand and Natal: a Histo-ry (Ladysmith, 1983).