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Political Community and Audience in the Poetry of Dayid Manisi

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Political Community and Audience in the Poetry of Dayid Manisi ASHLEE DOMINIQUE LENTA TRIBES OF PHALO; TRIBES OF NONIBE: POLITICAL COMMUNITY AND AUDIENCE IN THE POETRY OF DAYID MANISI This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London April 2005 ProQuest Number: 10757505 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10757505 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 2 Abstract David Manisi was a Xhosa imbongi (praise poet) whose public career spanned the apartheid era. In the early 1950s, he was the official poet to Chief Kaiser Mathanzima in rural Transkei. However, after he left Mathanzima’s court in 1955 for political reasons, Manisi’s career reflects the increasingly marginal position of the rural imbongi in the national context. This dissertation examines the archive of Manisi5s izibongo (praise poetry), and argues that the poet's allegiances to the chieftaincy, to liberal multiculturalism and to black nationalism were rendered discordant with one another by the polarised national context. On the one hand, apartheid discourses appropriated terms and distorted institutions associated with the imbongi’s art, which was consequently perceived as an uncritical endorsement of corrupt rural politics. On the other hand, the urban-led resistance struggle mobilised a counter-discourse of black unity that often explicitly rejected ethnic identities and rural politics. Part One deals with written and oral texts produced by Manisi for Xhosa- speaking audiences. I examine the poet’s innovative use of print media, and argue that Manisi responded to the increasing constraints on vernacular publication by crafting texts for future rather than immediate Xhosa readerships. Part One concludes by examining the poet’s ambiguous performances at the official celebrations marking Transkei’s ‘independence’ from South Africa. Part Two investigates the body of poetry Manisi produced for academic audiences in South Africa and abroad. I argue that his predominantly white, English- speaking audiences frequently provoked Manisi. That he identified these audiences as descendants of colonials often prevented him from elaborating his vision of liberal multiculturalism. Manisi often retreated rhetorically into an exclusionary Xhosa identity based on claims to land that had been lost to colonials. I argue that the poet’s intention of deploying his genre’s healing political power in academic environments, was frustrated by the academic expectation of his performances and by discordances in his political ideals that were aggravated by the intercultural context of academic exchange and the polarised politics of apartheid. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration and Acknowledgements 4 Note on Genealogy 5 Map o f Some o f the Coordinates o f Manisi’s Life and Poetry 1 Introduction 8 Part One Chapter One Politics, Black Intellectuals and Publishing in Xhosa: Manisi’s Literary Inheritance and Writing Career 40 Chapter Two The Uses of Print in Contexts of Constraint 74 Chapter Three Manisi’s Poetry at Transkei’s ‘Independence’: The Failure of the ‘Natural’ Performance Context 108 Part Two Chapter Four Fieldwork Contexts and their ‘Unnatural’ Texts 142 Chapter Five Provocative audiences: Manisi’s Poetry in South African University Contexts 176 Chapter Six The Poet as Liar: Indirection and Contradiction in Manisi’s American Poetry 210 Conclusion 243 Bibliography 251 4 Declaration I hereby declare that this dissertation, including footnotes, does not exceed 100 000 words. This dissertation is my own work and is not substantially the same as any work I have submitted towards any other degree, diploma or qualification. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Professor Graham Fumiss, my supervisor, for his generous support, encouragement and advice. I am also indebted to Jeff Opland for providing me with access to the Opland Collection and answering my many enquiries. I acknowledge the financial support of the Emma Smith Overseas Scholarship. 5 Note on Genealogy David Manisi was a Thembu imbongi1. The Thembu are a Xhosa-speaking group whose history is distinct from that of the main Xhosa line. Despite their distinct histories, however, as a response to colonial incursion, Xhosa-speaking people began to see themselves increasingly as constituting one nation, which is popularly, if not strictly correctly, known as the Xhosa nation. In its rural manifestation, this ‘nation’ exists locally as chiefdoms with their roots in pre-colonial groups such as the Thembu. Manisi makes reference in his poetry to the ancestors of present-day Xhosa leaders from Thembu, Xhosa and other Xhosa-speaking lines, all of which in his conception form part of one Xhosa nation. His naming of any of these ancestors invokes, depending on the context, either the Xhosa nation as a whole or a specific chiefdom. The poet uses the appellation “Tribes of Phalo” to refer to the whole Xhosa nation as descendants of Phalo, a chief in the main Xhosa line. Manisi’s poetry refers also to clans, such as the Hala, within these larger ‘tribes’ or ‘nations’. According to Peires, “clans were kinship units in which the ordinary family homestead was the microcosm and the matrix of the clan as a whole.” (1981a: 127). Izibongo, a literature of identity and connection, likewise represents its subjects both in the microcosm of their homesteads as well as in the matrices of their many larger affiliations. Thembu lineages Most of Manisi’s local Transkeian subjects were Thembu. The Thembu migrated southwards into the area between the Umtata and Mbashe Rivers in the seventeenth century. The early chiefly line ran: Thembu, Bomoyi, Ndunakazi, Cedume, Toyi, Ntande, Mguthi, Nxeko. Nxeko had two sons in the Great House (the house from which paramount chiefs are drawn) and one in a non-paramount house.2 The two Great-House sons, Dlomo and Hlanga, engaged in a succession dispute which Dlomo, the younger, won. Several groups broke away and formed their own Thembu chiefdoms, including the amaNdungwana, the amaTshatshu and the amaJumba. In the 1 ‘Imbongi’ (plural: iimbongi) is the Xhosa word for ‘praise poet’. ‘Izibongo’ (plural: ‘izibongo’) is the Xhosa word for ‘praise poem’, ‘praise poems’ and ‘praise poetry’. These terms are used so frequently in this dissertation that they are not italicised. 2 A chief married several wives. The Great Wife produced heirs in the Great House. The chiefs offspring in other houses, the Right Hand House of which was a major house, were not direct heirs to his chieftaincy. 6 main Dlomo line, descent continued through Hala, Madiba, Taro, Zondwa, Ndaba and Ngubengcuka (also known as Vusani). Manisi frequently invokes these chiefs. In 1828, Shaka expelled the Ngwane from his territory in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, The Ngwane invaded Thembu territory and Ngubengcuka, with colonial assistance, fought a successful battle against the invaders. However, the disturbances caused by the incident resulted in the secession from the main Thembu body of a group that became known as the Emigrant Thembu: the secession was led by Mathanzima of the Right Hand House of Mthikrakra, son of Ngubengcuka. The Emigrant Thembu took up residence in the area of Glen Grey and Cofimvaba, while the main Thembu line remained between the Umtata and Mbashe Rivers. The breakaway Thembu consisted of the Tshatshu led by Bawane, the Hala under Mathanzima, the Ndungwana, and the Gcina and the Qwathi, two non-Thembu groups who recognised the Thembu paramount. Ngangelizwe succeeded Mthikrakra in the main line. Ngangelizwe was followed by: Dalindyebo, Sampu, Sabatha and Sabatha junior. This was the paramount line to which all Thembu, including the Emigrant Thembu, owed allegiance. In the Mathanzima line, which ruled in Emigrant Thembuland, Mathanzima was succeeded by: Mvuzo, Mhlobo and Kaiser Mathanzima. Other Thembu chiefs referred to in Manisi’s poetry include Joyi, the second son of Ngubengcuka’s Great House, and Mthikrakra, son of Silimela and cousin of Sabatha junior. Brief note on the main Xhosa line In the main Xhosa chiefdom, the royal line begins with Tshawe in the 1600s, and descends through four generations in the course of which breakaways occur. Phalo, the son of Tshiwo in the main Tshawe line, had three sons, two of which (Gcaleka in the Great House and Rharhabe from the Right Hand House) split the Xhosa into two territories and chiefdoms. Gcaleka’s descendants included: Khawuta, Hintsa and Sarhili. Rharhabe had two sons, Mlawu (his heir) and Ndlambe. When Mlawu died, his heir, Ngqika, was too young to assume the chieftaincy. Ndlambe ruled in his stead and refused to relinquish his power when Ngqika came of age. The Rharhabe thus split into the Ndlambe and the Ngqika, each chief ruling his own followers in different territories. Where other Xhosa rulers are mentioned in the poems I cite, brief footnotes will be supplied to gloss the poet’s allusions. 7 Map of Some of the Coordinates of Manisi’s Life and Poetry1 R. & A. (urban MOl ;r e TS<?LO ELLO UMXATA :OBO NGQ^LENI MQANDULI QUEENSTOWi «QAMATA ECbJOTDALI COFIMVABA ITANI FORT BEAUFORT KING ALICE TOWN A ST LONDON IAHAMSTOWN PO R l>* ELIZABETH 1 1 This map is an imprecise sketch of the region in the eastern Cape in which Manisi lived and on which his poetry centres. Transkei, the territory set aside first as a native reserve, then as a homeland and, in 1976, as an ‘independent’ nation, is bounded in the north by the Mtumvuna River, in the south by the Kei River, in the east by the Indian Ocean and in the west by the Drakensberg Mountains.
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