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| Title: | Oral Evidence in a Pseudo-Ethnicity: The Fingo Debate |
| Author: | Stapleton, Timothy J. |
| Year: | 1995 |
| Periodical: | History in Africa |
| Volume: | 22 |
| Pages: | 359-368 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | Fingo ethnicity oral traditions Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171922 |
| Abstract: | This article discusses the unquestioning acceptance of African oral tradition which, the author argues, threatens to become a requirement of politically correct scholarship in South Africa. He illustrates his argument with the example of the Fingo debate. Oral evidence from Fingo communities around Grahamstown and Peddie corresponds with established written histories, which all base their account of the Fingoes on John Ayliff's and J. Whiteside's 'History of the Abambo: generally known as Fingoes' (1912). However, these statements are in complete contradiction to the documentary evidence presented by Alan Webster (1991), who claims that Ayliff popularized the Fingo myth in order to conceal his own role in the labour raids of 1835. The present author argues that for decades history lessons taught in African schools have been dominated by the official account of Fingo origins first written by Ayliff. It is more than just a possibility then that Fingo oral evidence has been largely created by colonial propaganda. In today's urban areas the distinct Fingo ethnic identity is eroding and being replaced by allegiance to the greater Xhosa nation. The author concludes that all evidence, no matter what its nature, should be subjected to equally detailed scrutiny. Notes, ref. |
