Chaka, an Historical Romance

THOMAS MOFOLO Translated by DANIEL P. KUNENIE C H A K A AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE By THOMAS MOFOLO WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SIR HENRY NEWBOLT Litt.D., DXrrr., LL.D., &c. Translated from the original Sesufo by f. h. dutton, Director of Education 1931 Chaka, An Historical Romance Thomas Mofolo 1877-1948 Contents Introduction I. NANDI CHOOSES SENZANGAKONA AS HER LOVER II. SENZANGAKONA CASTS OFF NANDI III. CHAKA KILLS A LION IV. CHAKA IS VISITED BY THE LORD OF THE DEEP WATERS V. CHAKA’S FLIGHT FROM HOME VI. CHAKA MEETS ISANUSI VII. ISANUSI DOCTORS CHAKA VIII. CHAKA COMES TO DINGISWAYO. HE KIIXS A MADMAN THE WAR AGAINST ZWIDE’S COUNTRY IX. NDLEBE AND MALUNGA COME TO CHAKA X. CHAKA CAPTURES ZWIDE XI. THE DEATH OF SENZANGAKONA XII. NOLIWE XIII. CHAKA AND ISANUSI AT THE GRAVE OF SENZANGAKONA XIV. CHAKA IS MADE CHIEF IN HIS FATHER’S STEAD XV. ZWIDE KILLS DINGISWAYO CHAKA SEIZES THE CHIEFTAINSHIP OF DINGISWAYO XVI. THE NEW TRIBE NAME XVII. REFORMS AND REGULATIONS OF CHAKA XVIII. THE DEATH OF NOLIWE XIX. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE COWARDS XX. CHAKA MAKES WAR AGAINST THE SOUTH UMZILIGAZI XXI. NONGOGO AND MN YAM AN A XXII. THE DEATH OF NANDI XXIII. UNQUENCHABLE THIRST XXIV. BAD DREAMS XXV. UDONGA-LUKA-TATIYANA XXVI. THE DEATH OF CHAKA NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION OF AFRICAN NAMES Contributed by dr. a. werner All words are stressed on the penultimate syllable. In the apparent exceptions (Sesuto names ending in ng, such as Quthfng) the final nasal ng forms a distinct syllable, pronounced as in ‘sing’. With this exception every syllable ends in a vowel. Vowels are pronounced as in Italian, and each one is sounded separately, except in Sesuto words where oa and ea (in the spelling introduced by the French missionaries) stand for wa and ya: thus ‘Mangoaela’ is pronounced ‘Ma-ngwa-e-la’. (This does not apply to one name occurring in the book, ‘Ma-ko-a’.) G in Sesuto, unless preceded by n, has the Dutch value of Scottish or German ch; e. g. ‘Segoete’ is pronounced ‘Se- chwe-te’, with this ch-sound. In Zulu, as in the name ‘Godongwana’ g has the sound of the English g in ‘gate’ and ng as in ‘finger’. HI is nearly the Welsh II in ‘Llandudno’. Th and ph as in ‘hothouse’ and ‘haphazard’, not as usually pronounced in English. C and q stand for clicks. Apart from the above sounds, all words are pronounced as spelt. Aba- and Ama- (sometimes shortened to Ba- and Ma-) are plural prefixes denoting tribal names. Zulu proper names always have an initial U; but this is frequently omitted in the text, where we find, e. g., both ‘Unkulunkulu’ and ‘Nkulunkulu’. Introduction IN theory every work of art is self-contained, and independent of all external circumstance or explanation. But in actual life we find this theory too absolute: we can seldom receive the communication even of a master-artist without desiring some knowledge of his raw material, some familiarity with his method, some reason for sympathy with his artistic endeavour. These points of contact with the world of fact are in the present case more than commonly interesting, and I have no doubt that it will be better to touch upon them first, before inviting the reader to share the enjoyment which this narrative is capable of affording, whether as a history, an epic, or a tragic drama. The author, Thomas Mofolo, born about 1875, is a Mosuto, a native of Basutoland, and writes in Sesuto, the language of his people. His manuscript was translated by Mr. F. H. Dutton, Director of Education, in collaboration with Mr. W. R. Moule, then Inspector of Schools, both at Maseru, Basutoland. With it was sent an account of Mofolo’s life, written in English by another Mosuto, named Z. D. Mangoaela, who was at school with Mofolo, worked with him later at Morija, and is, like him, a Sesuto author. From Mangoaela we learn that Mofolo was the second son of Christian Basuto parents, and grew up amongst beautiful natural surroundings at Qomoqomong in the district of Quthing, a fertile valley in the mountainous part of Basutoland. Between 1880 and 1890, when Mofolo was a youth there, this valley afforded excellent pasture and grain lands, the mountainous hills and kloofs were still covered with natural forests and bamboo thickets, and streams flowed down the many gorges into the bigger stream Qomoqomong, on whose banks were rich fields of wheat, mealies, and kafir-corn. On the hills and plateaux game abounded, groups of monkeys were still to be seen, and there were leopards which preyed upon the cattle of the people. The boy was quiet, shy, and reserved, but he played and herded cattle with other boys and sometimes went with the ‘transport riders’, leading the oxen which drew the wagons bringing goods from the railhead: sometimes he joined in the hunts organized for killing game or monkeys on the mountains: and he saw or heard of the killing of leopards by older men. He then attended a school started by the Rev. Everitt Lechesa Segoete, a devoted pastor of the Church of Basutoland, founded by the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. Thomas was never a brilliant scholar, but he worked hard and loved and admired his teacher and spiritual guide. After school hours, when he was not helping his parents, he used to go alone and sit on a kopje overlooking his village, preparing his lessons, looking at the beautiful scenery or watching the movements of the village people and their herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. When he was twenty years old he went to the Masitise Mission school, ten or twelve miles away, to prepare for the Normal School at Morija. At Morija he did well, and passed his Teacher’s Certificate Examination in 1899. After this he studied theology at the Bible School at Morija, and learned carpentry at the Leloaleng Industrial School at Quthing. He then began teaching in the Maseru mission school and was soon recalled to teach at Morija. While there he worked also as a clerk and proofreader at the joint offices of the Morija Book Depot and the Morija Printing Works, where the Leselinyam, the oldest Sesuto paper, is published; and it was during this time that he began his career as a writer. He had read all the religious and historical Sesuto books then published, some English historical books on South Africa, and some novels by writers like Rider Haggard and Marie Corelli; and he may have been encouraged to write by his employers, the Rev. A. Casalis and afterwards the Rev. S. Duby. In 1906 the Leselinyana began to publish in serial form his first book ‘Moeti oa Bochabela’ (The Pilgrim of the East’). This is described by Mr. Dutton as ‘a surprise’, and it was enthusiastically received. ‘It was a new product—not a history, but a novel describing native life in ancient days. It told of a boy who became disgusted with the drunkenness, hatred, envy, and general unreasonableness of the people among whom he was born. In despair he says goodbye to his beloved oxen and wanders off in search of the unknown Creator who, he feels convinced, never intended his people to behave in a worse manner than brute beasts. The book is something like a mixture of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Olive Schreiner’s Story of an African Farm.’ After this followed ‘Pitseng’ (i.e. ‘At the Pot’—the name of a village in a hollow): ‘a love story describing the education and courtship of a modern Mosuto . written in what all natives say is the most charming Sesuto.’ A third book was accidentally destroyed in manuscript, but is being rewritten from memory. Mangoaela’s account adds that soon after the publication of his second book Thomas Mofolo left Morija for Johannesburg and eventually took service in Basutoland North with the Native Recruiting Corporation of the Gold Mines; that he now lives partly there and partly at Bokong, in the mountains behind Tejatejaneng, where he keeps a store of his own, and where his old parents have joined him. From time to time he revisits Maseru or Morija, and then disappears once more to his remoter dwelling. ‘A tall well-built man, rather shy and reserved, Thomas Mofolo is now a business man and a progressive man, very popular with his friends and acquaintances, and an influential member of the Progressive Association of Basutoland.’ The portrait is slight but authentic, and it belongs to a period of which we have as yet but few examples—the period of the Greater Commonwealth, which differs so remarkably from all Empires of the ages which have preceded it. Rome had her African colonies, and there were born in them writers who are still remembered. But there is a wide gulf between cultivated quasi-Romans such as Apuleius or Augustine, and the life of the primitive African world of the veld and forest. Mofolo takes us little more than a century back in time, but the society whose secrets he reveals to us is literally and in the deepest sense a prehistoric, or even a timeless society. In it we may see our own origins and the magnified image of our own spiritual conflicts. It is unfortunate that we cannot read his work in the language in which it was written. Translation is here more than usually thwarting, because the book is not a mere record of events, or a historian’s analysis of motives, but a piece of imaginative literature.

Load more