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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Memory of Maqoma: An Assessment of Jingqi Oral Tradition in Ciskei and Transkei |
Author: | Stapleton, Timothy J. |
Year: | 1993 |
Periodical: | History in Africa |
Volume: | 20 |
Pages: | 321-335 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Ciskei South Africa Transkei |
Subjects: | traditional rulers oral traditions Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Education and Oral Traditions History and Exploration |
About person: | Maqoma Xhosa Chief (1798-1873) |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171978 |
Abstract: | Dominated by a settler heritage, South African history has forgotten or degraded many Africans who had a significant impact on the region. Maqoma, a 19th-century Xhosa chief who fought the expansionist Cape Colony in three frontier wars, has been a victim of such distortion. He has been characterized as a drunken troublemaker and cattle thief who masterminded an unprovoked irruption into the colony in 1834 and eventually led his subjects into the irrational Cattle Killing catastrophe of 1856/57. Recently, the validity of this portrayal has been questioned. While it is clear that Maqoma has been slandered by settler historians, his and his subjects' descendants have preserved oral traditions which contradict the dominant written sources. The oral traditions of the Maqomas and their Jingqi chiefdom can be divided into three distinct categories: genealogies of chiefs and influential councillors; praise poems, which are the preserve of trained praise singers; and various stories which are known by a few knowledgeable informants. On the basis of fieldwork conducted in the Ciskei and Transkei, South Africa, during the last half of 1991, the author considers some problems and limitations which hamper the oral evidence concerning Maqoma. Notes, ref. |