Memory, Identity and Inheritance Amongst Zululand Traders
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Memory, identity and inheritance amongst Zululand traders Much of the contemporary lives of Zululand traders is reliant on memory and nostalgia, and the legacy of their past perpetuates not only orally and in written form, but also in practice. Their past thus bleeds through to their contemporary lives. History and anthropology merge in the assimilation of interpreting how people see their lives and understand their legacy. It is thus that these ‘voorloper’ histories construct who they are and the manner in which they approach their worlds. This paper is part of a greater investigation which melds the architecture of the trading store, the social histories of the Zululand traders and their various networks, and anthropology in the creation of identity through memory and nostalgia. Introduction assisted in the creation of their identity, The Zululand traders identify themselves and contributes to a larger study that syn- as such, even if they are no longer trad- thesises social and material culture and ing. Jean Aadnesgaard is one of many history. informants who say that ‘trading is in the blood’, yet she has not effectively traded The reality and non-reality of for thirty years. Besides being experiential, nostalgia and memory much of this comes from the generational ‘We had a good time’ is a phrase constantly responsibilities that being ‘in trade’ has reiterated by the traders still trading, and inculcated, and the stories of trade, located by those who stopped many years ago. It within the social remoteness of Zululand is a statement about their pasts which are are reinforced by stories and memories of generally perceived as difficult times, and close-knit ties. The focus of this paper is is located in relative contrast to the com- the manner in which memory and stories fortable, affluent lives that they are living of some of the white traders in Zululand today. For many, trading is the stuff of 79 Natalia 39 (2009), Debbie Whelan pp. 79 – 93 Natalia - Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2010 Memory, identity and inheritance amongst Zululand traders Mahommed’s Store at Ahrens memory, so strong that it creates identity. ‘combatative’ manner rather than chal- The good times of trading are remembered, lenging, interrogating what they perceive and nostalgia is, on the surface, a primary as a cultural phenomenon that chooses to response to their pasts.1 represent the present through ‘falsification Given that most of these people no lon- of the past’. Nostalgia, they established, ger trade, nostalgia is the vehicle for these was something rooted in the medieval traders’ presentation of their lives. At the period, and a large part of the ethos behind same time nostalgia is that which causes Victorian landscapes.2 other people to remember minute details Memory has different roots. Given that of the trading stores without pictographic much memory is in narrative or narrative reference. In The imagined past – history textual form, the difficulties of capturing and nostalgia Christopher Shaw notes that the senses of memories form contentious ‘Of all the ways of using history, nostalgia discussion.3 A malleable personal memory is the most general, looks the most inno- is described by Julian Thomas as cent, and is perhaps the most dangerous.’ Memory is not the true record of past (Shaw in Shaw & Chase 1989: 1) Nostalgia events but a kind of text which is worked alludes to the romanticisation of elements upon in the creation of meaning. Identities of the past, embracing a comfort blanket are continually crafted and re-crafted out which forgets the personal, economic, of memory, rather than being fixed by social and political challenges which were the real course of past events… (Thomas faced at the time. ‘The sick man of Europe 1996 in Bender & Winer 2001: 4) had taken to his bed, dreaming of a child- Identity is therefore, for Thomas, con- hood that he had never had, regressing textually legitimated by the reconstitution into a series of fictitious and cloudless of memories. infantile summers.’ (Ibid 1989: 1). The Maurice Bloch expands on this, in part authors prefer to address nostalgia in a as a means to understand how memory and 80 Memory, identity and inheritance amongst Zululand traders time may be constructed from a variety of However, at the same time, he is criti- different types or remembering. (Bloch cal of singular interpretations of group 1998) He says simply, that we use stories to practice, finding it ‘totally unacceptable’ make sense of the world we live in and that that the examination of narratives reveals it is the characteristics of these stories that a generalised concept of the mechanisms define and construct our worlds and how of the functioning of other people’s worlds. we perceive ourselves in them. Time and (Bloch 1998: 102) space he uses specifically, as examining Narratives, then, in the interpreting and the representations of both the past and the presenting of the primary sources of Zu- present reveals the parameters of consid- luland traders, are potentially malleable in ered experience. (Bloch 1998: 100) the direction of the topic, and exist on both Bloch also states strongly that narratives personal and group/communal levels. within which people consider themselves It is not the nature of the memory that to act are bound to that person and ques- is important here, nor a deep investigation tioning the participation within that narra- into the source of the memory, but rather tive is both arrogant and imposing, what he that stand-alone memories have their own calls, an ‘intellectual imperialism’. (Bloch tales which contribute to the construction 1998: 101) of identity and define the lives of the Zu- Thus, a distanced view has to be em- luland traders. ployed in reading these texts, as events that precipitated the memory have hooks I remember when…. on which the memory is pegged. In her beautiful home overlooking indig- These individual memories or ways of enous bush and the Indian Ocean, Ursula creating memory are then extended to a Morrison puts the jam tin of roses that I greater social interpretation by Paul Con- have bought for her into water, and in- nerton in his monograph ‘How Societies troduces her husband Jimmy, wheelchair Remember’. bound and mute after a massive stroke Here he notes that in the case of social/ some time before. She tells a much told collective memory story, reinforced in the iteration and rela- images of the past commonly legitimate tion of other’s histories and memories. In the present social order. It is an implicit 1918, she says, David Brodie, a partner rule that participants in any social order in a trading firm named G.A. Challis & must presuppose a shared memory. Co. was looking for a young man to take To the extent that their memories of a over from Challis. The latter had returned society’s past diverge, to that extent its from war with bad shell-shock and was members can share neither experiences not able to continue running the shop nor assumptions. (Connerton 1991: 3) which they owned at Makakatana, known In the collective sense Bloch, too, main- as ‘Lake Store’. Both Challis and Brodie tains that this has unifying creativity in that were ex-Natal Government Policemen. In ‘the phenomenological maintenance or addition, Brodie travelled a lot and needed otherwise of past states is, in real circum- a reliable person to look after the shop in stances, largely determined by history and his absence. At the time, ‘Jock’ Morrison, people’s view of themselves in history and Jimmy’s father, was eighteen and working hence, via notions of persons and places in Mtubatuba, and had to borrow money and various views of ethics and intentions from a family friend to be able to enter (Bloch 1998: 69). into this partnership. Trading suited him 81 Memory, identity and inheritance amongst Zululand traders and it was not long before he opened a end of World War 2 and customers would store at Maphosa when he got married, queue for their daily rations of brown as well as at the railhead at Nyalazi and sugar as this item was necessary for the at Hluhluwe. brewing of home-made liquor. Black people were not permitted to buy ‘white Jock Morrison died at the end of the liquor’ at that time so concocted and sold 1930s. His son Jimmy had gone off to their own version of moonshine as well war, serving in the South African Air as tapping the ilala palm to make palm Force, whilst his mother, characteristi- wine, a potent liquor. cally, continued to run the family store at St Lucia. Maphosa Store was being run James married Ursula in 1949. She had by an uncle who had built it into a viable grown up on a farm at Ballito, and had at- concern whilst keeping the other stores tended boarding school at Eshowe. Thus at Makakatana, Nyalazi and Hluhluwe she was not really thrown into a totally running. Jimmy Morrison was demobbed foreign environment when she moved and returned to South Africa, studying up to the wild, remote Makakatana in the accountancy before returning to Zululand 1950s where, she tells, the only drinkable and re-entering the store business. Ursula water came from rainwater tanks and 4 Morrison takes up the story. there was no electricity and no telephone. Light came from paraffin-fired Coleman The businesses were not in good shape, lamps. only one of the three shops showing The railhead may have reached Som- a fair return, and the buildings, which were built of wood and iron, needing khele by 1903, meaning that one could replacement. There were shortages of catch the train, but nevertheless it was goods for a number of years after the still quite a trip to get to the siding at Nyalazi.