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Shaka statue at Ulundi |
On the wave-pounded
beach at St Lucia, north of Durban, a boat overturned in the surf. A punch-up ensued between the drenched
occupants, one English, one Xhosa. The
Xhosa was a prisoner of sorts; he knocked the white man down and ran,
disappearing into the interior. It was
1823. The man was taken by locals to
Shaka, leader of the amaZulu. Because he
had apparently emerged from the ocean, the man was named Hlambamanzi, or ‘Swim-the-Seas’.
Writing about Shaka
in my previous post reminded me of a long-standing but dormant possible project
on Hlambamanzi. From time to time I’ve
talked about him with local historians Hazel Crampton and Julie Wells, both
equally intrigued by his turbulent career; and recently KwaZulu-Natal amateur
historian Roger Gaisford sent me his own notes, hoping I might ‘do’ something. But I have so many projects on the go
already...
This week I saw the
Sibikwa Arts Centre’s play Ilembe, playing
in Grahamstown at the National Arts Festival.
“Ilembe” is an axe – one of Shaka’s praise-names. It’s a visually vivid and conceptually adventurous
play, escaping from clichés into puzzlement.
It’s gratifying to see Shakan history presented as a set of contesting
stories, rather than someone’s blinkered propaganda narrative, either of
heroism or monstrosity. Cannily, Shaka
himself never appears in the play; stories of him are told by a set of ‘minor’
characters: his ‘bodyguard’ Mbopha, the white trader Fynn, Shaka’s sister Nomcoba
– and Hlambamanzi.
Why is he so
intriguing? He is one of the many
in-between characters of history, defying borders and classifications,
inhabiting different worlds at once, an inconvenient figure for those who like
things etched in clear divisions. He was
a “misfit in the margins”, to quote Malvern van Wyk Smith’s recent article (in English in Africa) on
the sundry such personalities in African history.
Our man was born
Msimbithi (or some such) not 40 km from where I write in Grahamstown, under
headman Botoman, in the territory of Xhosa chief Ndlambe.
Boer traders and British military invaders were already warring with the
Xhosa, and the young Msimbithi quickly got involved in a series of frontier
skirmishes and cattle raids, learning to play sides off one another, and
learning some Dutch in the process.
Eventually he was arrested for cattle theft and transported to Robben Island,
where he almost coincided with another Xhosa chieftain, Makhanda (or Makana,
after whom our present municipality is named).
He sailed to the Cape
Colony under an ex-Navy chancer named James Saunders King, who was allegedly kind
to him in his seasickness. Hence Msimbithi
(now dubbed by the whites as Jacob, sometimes Jakot) was picked up as an ‘interpreter’
by an acquaintance of King’s, Captain W F W Owen. Owen was surveying the south-east coast, and
took Msimbithi with him. He was supposed
to be grateful, apparently, but he was still only too glad to take the gap when
he got the chance at St Lucia.
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Henry Francis Fynn |
A year later, in
1824, other white adventurers of King’s circle, including the (in)famous Henry
Francis Fynn, managed to make their way from the coast near Durban to Shaka at
kwaBulawayo. Imagine their surprise when
they discover, amongst Shaka’s coterie, none other than Jacob Msimbithi. Complete with an umuzi settlement and wives of his own. He had ingratiated himself with Shaka, he
told them, by repelling a faked attack by bewitched wildcats.
He had also
evidently told Shaka that the whites were violent, rapacious and deceitful, and
not to be trusted. They would take his
land. Shaka seemed nevertheless disposed
to give them the benefit of the doubt, and provided them with many of their needs. While they manoeuvred behind Shaka’s back to
move guns, slaves and ivory, he tried to use them to provide firepower in his
raids and to open up trade with the Cape.
In a mish-mash of plots and counterplots, betrayals and suspicions,
Jacob Msimbithi acted as ‘interpreter’ and escort. He accompanied expeditions
sent by Shaka both to Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth) and Delagoa Bay (Maputo). Alternately valued and suspected by every
party, he played his own ambiguous game.
Just how competent an interpreter he was is open to question: at least,
there must have been ample room for both inadvertent and deliberately
manipulative mis-interpretation. (Ilembe has some fun with this.)
It was all
bound to end badly.
We can’t believe
much of what Fynn and Co. said of him, but we don’t have much in the way of
other sources. I’m not sure we have
enough to write a substantial history of him.
I’ve thought of writing a novel; it would make a great novel. But I’m daunted by the mass of research that
would have to be done to bring it to life.
The textures of everyday life in all the places he visited, the whole
length of the subcontinent; the appearance and demeanours of all the other
historical personalities he crossed; the necessary invention of explanations to
fill the gaps in the record. Think of
what one would have to do to flesh out just this little extract from Fynn’s
account of machinations unfolding in 1830, when Dingane, Shaka’s successor, and
the whites were at serious loggerheads:
The following morning he
requested me to go with 4 of his chiefs and Jacob to argue over the report
Jacob had brought from the Colony. Jacob
began by stating that he had been sent to the Colony by Dingan with a present
to the Governor and to bring back what might be sent. The Governor refused the present. Met a man of the Indwandwo nation on his way
to the Colony who mentioned to him [Jacob?] he had heard of an attack being
intended upon the Zoolas, and that the 4 principal Kaffir chiefs Gaika, Slambi,
Vosanie and Dushani were dead and a consultation was about to be held by the
remaining chiefs as to the best way of freeing themselves from the white
people. A servant called in by Jacob
repeated the same statement, and another man who had been with Ogle to the
Colony repeated the same. Col. Somerset
came unto Cane and asked who Jacob was.
Said it was Jacob, when Col. Somerset replied: ‘Oh, it is the
villain? I will send him back to his
chief Botman’!
It’s hard to know what was really going on. And how did the exchanges summarised here
unfold? With what tones of voice? What did each personage look like? What clothes, what gestures, what motives? How would one tell the story overall? Through a third-person omniscient narrator
who could tell the back stories? More
dramatically through Msimbithi himself (surely a Xhosa writer would do that
most successfully)? Through a medley of
different voices? Each strategy would
offer strengths and limitations.
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Dingane |
As I said, Msimbithi’s career was destined for a sticky end. Not long after the exchange quoted here,
Dingane colluded with the whites – or simply ordered them – to get rid of this
stray and problematic Xhosa. The man
delgated to do the deed, John Cane, couldn’t, and passed the job on to one Henry
Ogle. Ogle invited Msimbithi to his umuzi on a pretext, took him round the
back and shot him, or got his retainers to do it.
Yet there is something very telling in Msimbithi’s career,
something more common than we might expect.
In the current atmosphere of hardening racial and political lines, it
can be forgotten that very many southern Africans are not ‘pure’ this or that;
they have mixed ancestries, tangled allegiances, multiple identities, mingled
cultural influences, bundled languages. One
way or another, we are almost all ‘in-betweeners’, potentially bridging rather
than dividing communities. I certainly
am – and I hope this inner cosmopolitanism will ultimately prove to be
fruitful, rather than fatal!
***
In 'A DANCE CALLED AFRICA'the 1st book of'THE 'JOHN ROSS' TRILOGY is where the story of Jakot Msimbithi begins. Follow his amazing story all the way to the end. I have made strenuous efforts to keep his part, as all the other characters, in the trilogy as authentic as possible. Available on Amazon in print and e book.
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