from Research in African Literatures Volume 33, Number 1The Early Career of D. L. P. Yali-Manisi, Thembu Imbongi
Jeff Opland
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David Livingstone Phakamile Yali-Manisi (1926-99) was not just a Xhosa poet, but a traditional Xhosa oral poet, an imbongi. In offering this narrative of the early career of a Xhosa imbongi, I address concerns distinct from those who use folklore texts as an incidental springboard for theoretical debate, and revert to a perspective advocated by Mark Azadovskii in his classic study, A Siberian Tale Teller, published in 1926. Azadovskii called for greater attention to be paid to "the biographical element" by collectors and researchers: "The tale," he wrote, "contains deep traces of personal experience and of the events in the narrator's life. His experience, his ability to observe, his occupation with this or that handiwork, as well as his own personal characteristics, all of this has an enormous influence on the retelling of a tale" (7). He cited approvingly W. Berendsohn's response to the tale collection of the Brothers Grimm:
It is incumbent on us to learn from the environment and the atmosphere in which narration takes place, from the relationship of the narrators to their audiences, from the contents of narrative art. Above all, however, we would like to get to know, through detailed descriptions, the narrators as well as their entire repertoire of stories, in order to interpret the importance of the personality in the restructuring of the Märchen; for we are no doubt dealing with highly gifted people with rich phantasies and strong memories, with artistic types who are the equals of outstanding creative writers in the world of literature. (13)
Focusing on the life of one specific oral poet in this way frees us from the generalizations necessarily entailed in the definition of a tradition.
The greatest of all iimbongi (the plural form of the Xhosa noun) was Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi (1875-1945). In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela recalls how deeply he was affected by one of Mqhayi's performances: during Mandela's final year as a student at Healdtown, in 1938, Mqhayi paid a visit to the school, and produced for the assembled students an oral poem (the Xhosa term is izibongo) that aroused conflicting emotions in the future President of South Africa, who found himself torn between "pride in myself as a Xhosa and a feeling of kinship with other Africans" (50). Mandela was "galvanized, but also confused by Mqhayi's performance" (49), caught between his parochial ethnic identity as a Thembu and his emergent nationalistic identification with all Africans.
Mqhayi, Mandela tells us, was an imbongi, "a praise singer, a kind of oral historian who marks contemporary events and history with poetry that is of special meaning to his people" (47). When the entire school had gathered in the dining hall, Mqhayi walked in "dressed in a leopard-skin kaross and matching hat [and] carrying a spear in either hand" (47-48). In a soft voice, hesitatingly, the visiting poet delivered a speech that astonished his audience with outspoken predictions of the future triumph of black over white in South Africa, and served to introduce the performance of an izibongo:
Mqhayi then began to recite his well-known poem in which he apportions the stars in the heavens to the various nations of the world. I had never before heard it. Roving the stage and gesturing with his assegai towards the sky, he said that to the people of Europe—the French, the Germans, the English—"I give you the Milky Way, the largest constellation, for you are a strange people, full of greed and envy, who quarrel over plenty." He allocated certain stars to the Asian nations, and to North and South America. He then discussed Africa and separated the continent into different nations, giving specific constellations to different tribes. He had been dancing about the stage, waving his spear, modulating his voice, and now, suddenly, he became still, and lowered his voice.
"Now, come you, O House of Xhosa," he said, and slowly began to lower himself so that he was on one knee. "I give unto you the most important and transcendant star, the Morning Star, for you are a proud and powerful people. It is the star for counting the years—the years of manhood." When he spoke this last word, he dropped his head to his chest. We rose to our feet, clapping and cheering. I did not want ever to stop applauding. I felt such intense pride at that point, not as an African, but as a Xhosa; I felt like one of the chosen people. (49)
Mandela's reactions, so vividly recollected some sixty years after the event, bear eloquent testimony to the peculiar power of the poetry of the Xhosa imbongi and its ability to arouse and incite his audience, to appeal to the elemental in them and to affirm and confirm their sense of identity.
Part of the impact of the imbongi's poetry derives from his accoutrements and performance style (on the imbongi, see my Xhosa Oral Poetry and Xhosa Poets and Poetry). He dresses in a cloak and hat of animal skins, and carries two spears, or knobbed sticks; he declaims his poetry in a gruff voice marked by rising intonations and drawn-out concluding cadences; and he punctuates his performance with dramatic gestures. The social context heightens the effect too, for the imbongi can be expected to set his poetic seal on occasions of significance attended by the chief and other dignitaries, but the principal source of emotion is his words: by common acclaim, the richness and eloquence of Mqhayi's diction has never been surpassed. For many years Mqhayi served as councillor to the Ndlambe chief Silimela Makinana. In 1929 the Johannesburg newspaper Umteteli wa Bantu ("The people's spokesman") printed a long Xhosa poem by Mqhayi in honor of Chief Silimela, which concluded with the following passage, strongly reminiscent of the one that impressed the young Mandela at Healdtown a decade later:
Oh the new Ndlambe!
Summon the nations to hand out the stars.
You Sotho take Canopus
and see the Tswana get some of your land;
you Zulu take Orion,
along with Swazi and Tonga,
Tshopi and Tshangana;
you British take Venus,
to share with Boer and German
and other nations of Europe;
the people of Phalo, we'll seize the Pleiades,
the greatest of constellations,
for they measure years,
measure the years of manhood,
measure the years of manhood! ннннннн Mercy, Mnzwini,
I know I've berated you,
talking of barking,
of sharpened sticks,
of white-striped sticks,
sticks of an occupied land,
of an occupied land!
нннн
нн нннн
(trans. from the Xhosa)The imbongi's outspoken poetry apportions criticism as much as praise. Although he is associated with a chief, he is essentially a poet of the people. And S. E. K. Mqhayi, widely recognized as the greatest exponent of the art of the imbongi, was in his time acknowledged to be the poet of all of South Africa's black people, Imbongi yesizwe jikelele ("The poet of the whole nation"). On 31 July 1945 Mqhayi died at his home on an inaccessible hill known as Ntab' ozuko ("Mount Glory") outside the village of Berlin in the Eastern Cape Province, much loved and greatly mourned by the people of his nation.
ннннннн Late in 1947, two years after Mqhayi's death, a long serial poem started to appear in the Umtata newspaper Umthunywa ("The messenger"). In the traditional style of the imbongi, it praised the Thembu chief Kaiser Daliwonga Mathanzima, Nelson Mandela's nephew yet his mentor as a student at the University of Fort Hare; it was written by Livingstone Manisi, who styled himself Imbongi entsha ("The new poet"). In subsequent poems in praise of chiefs that appeared in Umthunywa and Umteteli wa Bantu, Manisi laid vigorous and eloquent claim to be the true successor to Mqhayi, as his sobriquet, accorded him by a teacher, implied. Like Mqhayi, he was associated as an imbongi with the annual nationalistic Ntsikana Day celebrations in the Eastern Cape; like Mqhayi, he was a practicing oral poet who exploited the media of both the popular press and formally published books; like Mqhayi, he was passionately committed to the particularities of Xhosa history as well as to the restoration of independence to South Africa's black population at large. Certainly the venerable poet St John Page Yako believed the young Manisi to be a worthy recipient of Mqhayi's mantle. Yako's Xhosa poem on the celebrations of 10 April 1950, "Ngemini kaNtsikana eRini kwakunye nembongi u-Manisi" ("Ntsikana Day at Grahamstown with the imbongi Manisi"), graphically depicts the effects of Manisi's stirring performance, which even stirs the bones of Mqhayi on Ntab'ozuko:
. . . we Africans grieve,
grieve at the loss of the great Mqhayi,
who loved the land with all its ailments.
The nation suffers for lack of a comforter,
and the Pleiades mark each passing year;
the land has no-one to bind its wounds
as Mqhayi did in his time.
Old timers groan away
with no-one around to comfort them,
while youngsters rob away
with no-one to stop and correct them.
Hand Mqhayi's weapons to Manisi,
poet to Mhlobo's Daliwonga,
the knotted rod of Rhoda,
poet at Mthikrakra's, the bearded puffadder.
When this poet spoke at Grahamstown the sun paused to listen,
the moon came out, Venus rushed back
with the other stars, and all was ablaze;
cars fluttered like dainty birds
keeping their dust from Manisi's face,
planes held to the ground like cows
paying Manisi rapt attention,
the train shunted into its shed
lest the Khundulu poet choke on its fumes.
Ntab'ozuko's bones were shaken,
trembling in rolling thanks
at the wailing of Manisi's son
ripping out "Hail, Vukile! Hail, Vukile!"
sending chills to the hearts of men
who felt urged to lash out with whatever they held,
leaving women to cry, "What's become of our men?"
And the cops continued to nod at their posts, thier handcuffs idly clinking,
as the son of Manisi set the law free. (trans. from the Xhosa)
But the fiery young imbongi who shortly after the death of Mqhayi rose to prominence as a nationalist and an African National Congress supporter left the stage Nelson Mandela ascended in the 1990s to a new breed and a new generation of oral poets (see Kaschula). Aged and infirm, Manisi sat silent in his bare home in the Matyhantya location between Queenstown and Lady Frere, unrecognized in his liberated land. Manisi delivered his first public performance as an imbongi on a national scale in 1947, a year before the white Nationalist government came to power, and he produced his last oral poem in 1988, two years before the release of Nelson Mandela. His voice was silent in the new South Africa, whose liberation had served as a passionate ideal in his poetry; he died in September 1999 in crushing obscurity, his eloquent voice finally silent, all his books out of print. It was perhaps Manisi's misfortune that his public career as an imbongi coincided almost exactly with the years of apartheid, and that his chief was Kaiser Mathanzima, arch-collaborator with the white Nationalist government.
The varying political options available to traditional rulers in their relations with South Africa's white rulers is starkly evident in the choices made in the middle of the twentieth century by three of the direct descendants of the Thembu king Mthikrakra (c1820-c1850): from his base in Emigrant Thembuland Kaiser Mathanzima collaborated wholeheartedly with the grand design of apartheid, accepting independence for Transkei in 1976 and becoming its first Prime Minister and second President; in this capacity he acted ruthlessly against his political opponent, Sabatha Dalindyebo, King of the Thembu, who was in time banished from his country to a death in exile in Zambia (see Dennie 1992); but Mathanzima lived to see the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, the collapse of the homeland system and the ultimate vindication of Mandela's opposition to apartheid in his election as President of a free South Africa. The imbongi normally gravitates towards a royal court, and David Manisi was born and lived most of his life in Kaiser Mathanzima's chiefdom; the careers of these three members of the Thembu royal family provide a political context and focus for much of Manisi's early poetry.
ннннннн Kaiser Daliwonga Mathanzima was born on 15 June 1915 at Qamata, the son of Mhlobo, the son of Mvuzo, the son of Mathanzima, the son of Mthikrakra in the Right Hand house, the junior house. (Information on Mathanzima is taken largely from his autobiography, published in 1976.) Somewhat inauspiciously, he was named after the German war leader. He entered school at the age of seven and in 1930, at the age of 15, he was sent to school at Lovedale. He moved on to Fort Hare University College, where he passed the matriculation examination in 1936, and in 1939 graduated with a BA in Roman Law and Political Science from the University of South Africa, the first South African chief to be awarded a university degree.
ннннннн Nelson Rholihlahla Mandela was born on 18 July 1918, three years after Kaiser Mathanzima, at Mvezo on the Mbashe River, the son of Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, the son of Mandela, the son of Mthikrakra in the Xhiba House. (Information on Mandela is taken largely from his autobiography, published in 1994.) The Xhiba house serves in an advisory capacity, and Nelson's father was a trusted counselor of both King Sampu and the regent David Dalindyebo. When he was 16, Nelson was circumcised, and given the prophetic name Dalibhunga, "Maker of Parliament." After passing Standard 5 at school, he was sent to Clarkebury to further his education, as part of his grooming to serve as advisor to the Thembu heir, Sampu's son Sabatha. After passing his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury, Mandela transferred to Healdtown near Fort Beaufort in 1937 and thence, at the age of 21, to Fort Hare, where he met his relative Kaiser Mathanzima for the first time; the older Mathanzima took Nelson under his wing. Mandela introduced Kaiser Mathanzima to the woman who was to become his great wife and in 1940 Mandela served as best man at their wedding.
ннннннн The reign of the Thembu king Sampu was brief. On his death from enteric fever in 1928, his wife Novothi was pregnant. David Dalindyebo, Sampu's half-brother, in whose home Nelson Mandela was nurtured, was appointed regent, and a son and heir to Sampu, Sabatha Dalindyebo, was born to Novothi on 25 November 1928, five months after the death of his father. Sabatha attended school in Qhumanco and later transferred to Clarkebury, where Mandela had attended school. (Information on the Thembu is taken largely from Hammond-Tooke, and on Sabatha Dalindyebo largely from Mvenene.)
ннннннн In 1940, after his graduation, Kaiser Mathanzima commenced work with a firm of attorneys in Umtata. Later that year he was installed as chief of the Hala in Emigrant Thembuland. Mqhayi attended and performed as an imbongi at the installation ceremony (see Shepherd). In 1942 Mathanzima was appointed by the South African government to the United Transkeian Territories General Council (the Bunga) but, regarding it as "obsolete," he resigned in 1944 and articled himself to a firm of attorneys in Umtata. In 1948 the National Party came to power in South Africa, and proceeded with the implementation of its policy of apartheid. In 1951 the Bantu Authorities Act was passed establishing tribal homelands. Mathanzima had caught the eye of the authorities in Pretoria, and his status was enhanced: he was made "permanent Regional Chief of the Emigrant Thembu districts of St Marks and Xalanga" (not just, as formerly, chief of the Hala in Emigrant Thembuland). He rejoined the Bunga in 1955 and, in the face of official Thembu opposition, his status was further enhanced to Paramount Chief under the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959. In 1961 he became Chairman of the Transkeian Territorial Authority and pursued his career within the framework of apartheid: when the Transkeian Flag Act was passed in 1966, Mathanzima saw it as "the symbol of the separate existence of the Xhosa-speaking people. [. . .] It was a symbol of our unity as a people and reflected our identity as a separate national group within the framework of South Africa" (Matanzima 16).
ннннннн After leaving Fort Hare at the end of 1939, Nelson Mandela moved to Johannesburg, where he was gradually drawn into ANC affairs and protest politics. He completed his BA degree at the end of 1942 and early the following year he traveled to his graduation at Fort Hare. Kaiser Mathanzima attended the ceremony, and Mandela spent a few days with him afterwards at Mathanzima's great place at Qamata. Mathanzima unsuccessfully urged him to practice law in Transkei, but Mandela "was beginning to see that my duty was to my people as a whole, not just to a particular section or branch. I felt that all the currents in my life were taking me away from the Transkei and towards what seems like the centre, a place where regional and ethnic loyalties gave way to a common purpose" (Mandela 102).
ннннннн On his return to Johannesburg, Mandela enrolled for a law degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, and in 1952 he opened his own law office in partnership with Oliver Tambo. At the same time he helped to organize the Defiance Campaign; he was arrested under the Suppression of Communism Act, tried, and found guilty. A few days before the annual conference of the ANC at the end of that year, Mandela was served with banning orders preventing him from participating in meetings of any kind. In 1955, temporarily relieved of his banning orders, Mandela returned to Transkei to visit the scenes of his childhood. Taking a break from the Bunga debates on the Bantu Authorities Act, Kaiser Mathanzima joined Mandela in visiting Sabatha Dalindyebo in hospital in Umtata. Sabatha was not well enough to discuss the Act, as Mandela had hoped, but Mandela "felt proud to be organizing a meeting between the descendants of Ngubengcuka, and mused for a moment on the irony that I was finally fulfilling the role of counsellor to Sabata for which I'd been groomed so many years before" (Mandela 214). Later, at Mathanzima's great place at Qamata, Mandela took the opportunity to engage Mathanzima in debate on the Act. Mandela opposed the bill: "The people, I said, wanted democracy, and political leadership based on merit not birth. The Bantu Authorities was a retreat from democracy" (Mandela 215). Mathanzima "was trying to restore the status of his royal house that had been crushed by the British. [. . .] He, too, wanted a free South Africa but he thought that goal could be achieved faster and more peacefully through the government's policy of separate development. The ANC, he said, would bring about bloodshed and bitterness." Mandela replied that "while I understood his personal position as a chief, I believed that his own interests were in conflict with those of the community. I said that if I were in a similar position to his, I would try to subordinate my own interests to those of the people." Mandela and Mathanzima talked through the night, but parted in fundamental disagreement. During this climactic confrontation, the young Sabatha, senior in rank to both the protagonists, lay sidelined in a hospital bed.
After attending school at Clarkebury, Sabatha had transferred to Lovedale late in 1945, and after only six months moved on to Healdtown, following in Nelson Mandela's footsteps. During his brief stay at Lovedale Sabatha "met and formed a life-long association with David Yali-Manisi" (Mvenene 16), who had himself arrived at Lovedale in April of that year. Sabatha's stay at Healdtown was curtailed by his expulsion "for having cut telephone wires and leading a strike." Sabatha ignored the advice of Kaiser Mathanzima to further his studies and turned his back on the white education that Mathanzima had embraced. In 1948 Sabatha underwent initiation, at which time he was given the name Jonguhlanga, "Watch the Country." On 30 June 1954 he was installed as Paramount Chief of the Thembu. David Manisi was one of three iimbongi who performed at his installation. Sabatha threw his weight against the Bantu Authorities Act and its elevation of Kaiser Mathanzima, but was consistently outmaneuvered politically by Mathanzima (sustained as he was by Pretoria), and regularly harassed by local white officials. Sabatha embarked on a life-long political career of ineffective opposition to Mathanzima.
In the month of his arrival at Lovedale in April 1945, David Manisi produced a poem during the school's celebrations in honor of the revered Xhosa prophet Ntsikana (see Hodgson). Mqhayi usually produced poetry in honor of Ntsikana at the national celebrations, but in April 1945 he was ailing, and he died at the end of July of that year. Manisi's public performances as a schoolboy impressed a member of the Lovedale teaching staff, J. T. Arosi. Arosi, who served as Secretary of the committee organizing the national Ntsikana commemorations, invited him to perform at the 1946 celebrations in Duncan Village outside East London, and the following year the Chairman of the Ntsikana Day committee, Rev. J. A. Calata, invited Manisi to participate in the national celebration in East London. The report of those proceedings, which appeared in Xhosa in the Johannesburg newspaper Umteteli wa Bantu on 19 April 1947, provides a vivid description of the social context of this early performance in Manisi's public career as an imbongi, his first on a national stage:
ннннннн The 7th April 1947 will be forgotten only after a long time. On this date there was a service of the Holy Ntsikana celebration. There were very many people at Rubusana's Park where this service was held. People came with their children and there were visitors from Port Elizabeth, Cradock, Cape Town, Umtata and various other places as far as Queenstown. More than 3000 attended. ннннннн After the people entered the Park Mr V. M. Kwinana, presiding, settled them in their proper places using loudspeakers, and his speech was heard even by people far away from the place where the service was conducted. The service was opened with singing by a church choir. Mr G. Tshotyana prayed. Mr Zondeki and Rev Guma of King William's Town read the bible. After a prayer Ntsikana's Song was sung. нннннн Rev J. Calata made a speech referring to the leading officials
of Ntsikana's celebration. [. . .] Calata also mentioned
Mr S. E. K. Mqhayi, the poet of the whole country. The gathering stood up for a while. [. . .] нннннн Going on with his speech he recalled how Ntsikana was entered by the word. He talked about his work amongst his red people and the way he made them believe in the scriptures and how he converted them to Christianity. ннннн He appealed to the educated black children to maintain their Xhosa customs, not to throw them away and mix them with white things, for there are some which would not be right for them. нннннн He said we lost many things in following foreign fashion. All the nation has its own customs which should not be discarded. [. . .]After Calata's speech, Dr. R. T. Bokwe urged everyone to follow Ntsikana's example. Grace was said, there was an appeal for contributions, and then
the President reported about the weakening of Chief Silimela, who had failed to attend because of his health. As we were closing Mr Livingstone Manesi (a poet) spoke about the celebration and he reminded us of Mqhayi. After that all the people turned their noses to Rabe Hall where there was a slaughter of a cow and several sheep.
The ceremony was followed by an evening choral concert, concluded by poetic performances by two iimbongi, Mr. Tola and A. S. Sityana.
Manisi had now appeared officially as an imbongi at a ceremony of national significance, and had been mentioned in a national newspaper. He had been accorded the singular honor of comparison with the great Mqhayi; indeed, the name Arosi accorded him, Imbongi entsha, "The New Poet," acknowledged Manisi as Mqhayi's successor. What kind of upbringing had brought him at the age of 21 to this position of national prominence as a poet?
ннннннн In July of 1983 Manisi produced some autobiographical notes for me, in which he introduces himself as follows:
I was born on the 17 September, 1926 at Khundulu Location in the District of Cacadu in Western Thembuland. I belong to the amaNcotsho clan. I am the eldest son and heir of seven children born to Johnson Mpungutyana Yali-Manisi by his only wife, Noleft Nokuhomba, the daughter of Majwete Mcinziba, of the amaMpinga clan. [. . .] My father was born in 1897 and my mother was born in 1904. They were members of the Methodist Church. My father had passed Std. III at school. My mother never attended school. They lived on farming, and my father was a labourer who used to work in the Western Province.
As a young boy, Manisi had been troubled by a recurrent dream. He consulted an old man in his location, who interpreted his dream for him: Manisi was to become a poet. Manisi considered this dream sacred: throughout his life, he divulged it to no other person, until he repeated it to me in 1988. There is no formal training or apprenticeship for a Xhosa imbongi; Manisi's early development as a poet follows a typical course of passive absorption of oral poetry and practice in performance. Much later, in 1979, Manisi responded in Xhosa to questions put to him by black schoolchildren in Grahamstown. When did he start to produce poetry?
I was inspired as a small boy, younger than you are. I was herding cattle above those fields that are situated below the small ridges of the location where I live. We used to hunt grass warblers. Do you know the grass warbler? We were hunting those birds, and chasing the widowbirds, riding and racing with donkeys. We would compete, and the donkeys would toss us off and we would graze our backsides. I started at that time. By the time I came to Alice, I had already started to learn my craft. (trans. from the Xhosa with the assistance of Vuyani Mqingwana)
Was he taught formally to sing praises?
No. When we were looking after cattle as boys, or when we were driving them home, or to the veld, or taking them out before the morning milking, or driving them home towards sunset, the bulls bellow and the cows low. Every boy praises his father's cattle, whether or not they're in a team: "You watch that bull So-and-so: it will act like this and like that." Perhaps they're drawing a wagon. "That bull's stronger than yours. Do you see that bull of ours of such-and-such a color? Its name is So-and-so, its name is So-and-so." That's how it develops. We don't see visions which come to us and announce "Here's something new." To us it's an inspiration, the mind starts working.
As important as birds and cattle and the natural world as a source of Manisi's poetic inspiration is the history of his nation, which he absorbed through oral tradition. "How can you say fine things about a chief or anybody you meet for the first time?" asked one schoolboy, marveling at the spontaneity of his poetry. "And when you praise him, how do you speak so eloquently?" Manisi replied:
This is caused by the fact that the history of the nation, its paths and its pains, its way of life when it comes into contact with whites, its way of life before that contact, has been narrated to me when I became a member of the chief's court. I mixed with chiefs and old men. We know what happened to each chief, how he lost his chieftainship, how Chief So-and-so regained his chieftainship. And in that way I know the history of my nation.
In his autobiographical notes he puts his early development this way, once again referring to the natural environment and to historical narratives as sources of inspiration, but stressing too the influence of the oral poetic tradition and the exercise of his poetic talent:
When I grew up as a small boy I used to look after stock. It was then I usually heard men praise their bulls, oxen and milk-yielding cows. They even praised us, the herdsboys. It was really pleasant to listen and hear those supernatural men delineate their delightful praises with their pitched voices and sweet tongues. It was our motto thereafter to imitate them, and I happened to excel my colleagues in memorising the praises and by adding more words or verses to them. I think it was here I was encouraged to accomplish my poetic inspiration, because, later on, old men would call and ask me to praise anything for their amusement and pleasure, and in turn, I would be congratulated and encouraged to keep up the spirit.
ннннннн My father's brother and my mother's father's brother were the people who really encouraged me more than anybody else. To me they related stories of bravery performed by our past heroes and chiefs. They recited some of the heroes' and chiefs' praises, which, in turn, they would ask me to recite for them. They told me about wars between black and white and wars amongst the black nations themselves. They told me about the inter-relationship amongst the black races. These were interesting stories to me and I grasped and esteemed and held them in mind.
When he entered school, Manisi encountered in books the written poetry of Mqhayi, from which he drew further inspiration. On 12 April 1988, he was asked in an interview with two students at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, "When you were learning and growing up, wanting to be an imbongi, was there one very strong imbongi that impressed you, or one or two, that somehow made a very deep impression on you that was almost like a model for what you wanted to do?" He replied, "Well, there were no praise singers, no imbongis, but there were old men who could recite the praises of the old chiefs and they would praise their cows, bulls, horses and so forth. So from them I learnt by imitating. When I went to school I happened to read poems that were written by one man who was a great praise singer. So his poetry, I think it gave me influence to feel like doing the thing." "Who was that?" "It's S. E. K. Mqhayi," Manisi responded.
ннннннн After a local primary school education Manisi went to work as a laborer in the Western Province. There the Rev. Storr Lister of the Presbyterian Church noted Manisi's ardent desire to continue his education and sponsored his enrollment at the Lovedale Missionary Institution, which Manisi entered in April 1945, and where he soon met Sabatha Dalindyebo. In 1948 Manisi, like Sabatha, was expelled from Lovedale. He offers this account of the incident in his autobiographical notes:
By this time my poetic inspiration, though it had long been planted, was not yet fully developed, but it was sparkling and glowing. My eye then would not let pass by neither a bird nor a butterfly unnoticed, and my mind and tongue would match with it and burst in words with a bellowing voice. The Institution was time and again visited by dignitaries, and there were always chiefs' sons with us. It was my chance therefore to jump and salute first and expatiate in singing eulogies to or for those dignitaries in our traditional mode. This Dr. Shepherd and company construed as unchristian and unbecoming. I still remember one evening, after supper, when I was called to the office of the Boarding Master, Mr McGillavry, who asked me why when it was my turn to say prayers before supper that the students would not close their eyes, and instead of them saying, Amen, they would say, Hurray! That evening I was rebuked and cursed with my nation likened to everything bad or ugly below the sun.
Manisi takes offence not only at his own unjust condemnation, but at that of black people in general. His nationalistic convictions are already pronounced, and find expression in his poetry. He continues:
Well, I did not know what made the students to act thus, because I prayed like other people; but there was one thing I could not leave out, and that was to pray for the liberation and salvation of my people. I therefore had to praise and beseech God to have mercy on her.
ннннннн One Sunday afternoon a certain student of the amaZizi clan from Middledrift stood in front of our dormitory and recited Mpinda's poem which he read from Imibengo by Bennie. He had a stick in his right hand. I, then and there, took my knobbed stick and moving towards him I praised the children of Rharhabe. He ran away from me and I continued following him praising all the time. The students came out of the dormitories and followed hailing us, making a hell of a noise. This upset the Institution, as everybody else knew not what was going on, while others thought there was a riot or strike taking place. Even girls, I still call in memory, left their hostels and came up to see what was happening in the Boys Boarding School. The following morning, on Monday, I was rebuked by our High School principal, Mr. Benyon, who said I was not fit for the Institution, and sometime later I was expelled by Dr. Shepherd.
ннннннн Manisi tried to continue his schooling, but left to support his family when his father fell ill. He worked for the Native Recruiting Corporation as a clerk from 1951 to 1958, when he was dismissed for his support of the ANC, which he had joined in 1952. Kaiser Mathanzima had called Manisi to serve him as an imbongi in 1949, but he broke with his chief in 1955, the same year that Nelson Mandela held his futile conversation with Mathanzima at Qamata. In 1986, in a conversation with me in his home in the Matyhantya location, Manisi offered details of this break with his chief:
As a youth I had the feeling that we as a people had lost all of our rights. So, as I was at school at Lovedale, I learnt that though we were at a missionary institution we were not treated well as human beings. From there I learnt from historical books, and I got the knowledge that all we had was grabbed by the white man. So that remained in my mind till I grew up to be a young man who could make his own decisions.So there was an ANC organization fighting for the rights of our people. In 1952 I joined the ANC to take part in the struggle for our freedom. In 1953 I was at the great place Qamata as a praise singer. It so happened that one day my paramount chief, K. D. Mathanzima, brought the Daily Dispatch and he read to us a portion saying that the Nationalist government was going to give power to the chiefs, and he was pleased with that and he wanted to know our opinion. Well, I questioned him: if at all we are freed by the Nationalist government, why do they choose to give freedom to the chiefs instead of to the people who are fighting for their freedom—the ANC and other organisations? Even in the past, it was not the chiefs who fought for the country: it was the people who were the warriors. So I was out with him, telling him that I don't take it as freedom that is given to the chiefs because there were organisations fighting for the freedom of the people and the leaders of those organisations were the very people who should be consulted by the government. Well, my chief was not pleased with my question and my explanation. He took me to be abnormal.
ннннннн But eight years prior to his break with Mathanzima, Manisi was still on good terms with his chief and served him as an imbongi. Manisi's appearance at the Ntsikana Day celebrations in 1947 was followed later in the same year by the publication of his first poem. It was headed "Kumhlekazi uKaiser Mathanzima (Aa! Daliwonga)," was accredited to Livingstone Manisi, Imbongi Entsha, and appeared in three installments in the Umtata newspaper Umthunywa in September and October 1947 and, after a protracted delay, in July 1948. Although Manisi later remembered little about the circumstances of publication, the three installments can be recognized as parts of the same poem by the recurrence of a two-line refrain throughout. The division of the poem into stanzas mostly of eight lines marked by a concluding refrain is a feature of European poetry untypical of the oral poetry of the Xhosa imbongi, and was not to recur in the poetry Manisi subsequently published in newspapers, which reflected more closely the style of oral performance. However, the refrain and stanzaic structure apart, the diction of this first poem is entirely typical of Xhosa izibongo, and thus this poem may be taken as representative of the oral poetry Manisi was producing at the time, brash, confident, powerful, witty and outspoken. Manisi praises his chief's beauty and his education, exhorting him to work for the benefit of his people:
To the Honorable Kaiser Mathanzima
(Hail, Maker of Majesty!)Lend me a stick to lean on, my chief,
lend me a stick to lean on, my nation,
this stick I lean on's crooked,
this stick I lean on's knotted,
lend me an ebony stick to drive cows,
to drive the suckling cows out to graze.
The path I tread is full of thorns:
I'm not a poet, I'm just a child,
those who know me say I'm a baby,
but just you listen to what I say.
To you, then, son of Mathanzima:—Hail, Fix it Quick!
He's Fix it Quick, son of Mathanzima,
tall corn waving in wind, dark man with honor,
gangly tower, giant trailing fronds;
he's the heaven that strikes without thundering,
he's Weedcutter, an axe honed by use,fortdweller like a white chief;
an elegant figure, the son of Mathanzima,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.He's the sun that broke in Thatho's court,
the whole nation came to look;
he's the star that flashed from the mountains,
he's the shooting star right in the kraal,
it shot across the Tsolo mountain,
the whole country trembled;
an elegant figure, the child of Mhlobo,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.нннннHe's Venus bright in Khazeka's home,
seen in the land's four corners,
it appears and descends Lukhanji,
it bathes Zingxondo in light,
for while it's at Rhoda it's also at Cala,
filling dongas, reviving villages;
an elegant figure, the son of Mathanzima,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.He's the news they discuss,
the people of Thatho and Phalo,
he left a meeting and returned with a trophy
claimed by all the nations,
the whites claimed it,
the Xhosa claimed it,
for my part I'll side with the Xhosa.
My chief is the son of Mathanzima.He's the fortress of Thatho's people,
their refuge when times are bad,
his teeth ivory armband white,
the armband's whitest when blood has been spilt for it,
he's a novice diviner out of tune with his dreams.
Dandy, stop tasting food for others;
an elegant figure, the child of Mhlobo,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.
He's a traveler disliked by whites,
with knowledge as vast as that of a white chief,
a well-trained scholar with sprawling learning,
he speeds to enlighten his darkling people
while others live in clarity.
Report, SoPhitshi, that it's me speaking;
an elegant figure, the child of Mathanzima,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief. What a pity I'm wanting in wings
so I flutter in fright like doves,
what a pity I'm wanting in wings
so I strip off my clothes like a kestrel,
what a pity I'm wanting in wings
so I quiver in flight like a kite;
an elegant figure, the child of Mhlobo,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.He's a true Thembu with tough nails on his toes,
he trips on his toes like a guinea fowl.
Who hasn't seen the elegant man?
Lovely as a lady,
handsome as a commando's horse,
but an animal's beauty's more than skin deep;
an elegant figure, the child of Mvuzo,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.I say he's an elegant figure, the child of Mathanzima,
He's a star breaking through cloud
an elegant figure, the son of a chief;
he was fed education till he burped it up,
his education's got tails like Jobela;
listen, nations, that's a Thembu,
my chief is the son of Mathanzima,
an elegant figure with bands on his arms,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.
between the Bashe and Kei,
he's the ruler of fields and slopes,
he's the ruler of rivers and streams,
once they said he was seen at Ngojini,
he crossed Mqhekezweni and stopped at Gwali,
an elegant figure, the son of Mhlobo.Once he saw the Mthentu mountains
and criss-crossed those of Xhwili,
he's "Calm down, star, let me lean on you,"
Ndaba's kraal's beast who came with Venus,
the dawning sun's harbinger,
a new day's at hand when Venus appears;
an elegant figure, the child of Mathanzima,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.You calf of an animal, calf of a wild beast,
Grab a walking stick and stride out,
stop our land's hesitation,
our land is precipitous cliffs,
we raise our armbands to greet you today,
saying everything's going to come right.
Report, SoPitshi, that it's me speaking;
elegant figure, the child of Mhlobo,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.
today we've made you our sacrifice,
you'll be an offering for nation and country,
you'll bear burdens heavy and troublesome,
so there'll be no more exploited and homeless,
so widows and orphans flourish;
my chief is the child of Mathanzima,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.Hail, Sunlike!
There's nothing but pain when you manage a nation.
I heard a voice as if from the clouds
saying, "Sleep with one eye and watch with the other,
today this soil will be purged,
this star shoots like an ancient utterance";
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.In so saying I offer a greeting,
Hail, Maker of Majesty,
I say watch for this wonder's arrival,
today with tails between their legs
the bullshitters' flanks tremble in doubt,
parched they watch the droplets evaporate.
Nations, I still say "That is a Thembu,"
an elegant figure, the child of Mvuzo,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.
the name he's called at home;
hail, Fix it Quick,
the name he's called by nations; hail, Sunlike,
the name he's called in private;
an elegant figure, the son of Mathanzima,
an elegant figure, the son of a chief.
(trans. from the Xhosa with the assistance of the poet)
Long life, Prince, long life, King, everyone says so, the Thembu say so, the whole nation says so. I disappear! ннннннн Late in 1948 Arosi reported in the Johannesburg newspaper Umteteli wa Bantu on a visit to Cala by Mathanzima:
Accounts of Manisi's performances occasionally found their way into the national press. In 1950, for example, Umteteli reported on the opening on 13 July of the new Emigrant Thembu court house at Qamata:At last the long-awaited day arrived. Chief Daliwonga Mathanzima arrived at noon on the 27th of October 1948. This chief arrived with a host of men riding horses from Qamata, and that great cavalcade stopped all the cars in the streets of Cala. Whites were not exactly thrilled with the poets capering, carrying assegais and strutting as if the town were theirs. Oh today the son of Manisi has come into his own: he is an imbongi. (trans. from the Xhosa)
From before sun-rise crowds began to throng towards the Great Place, on foot, on horseback, on bicycles and in cars and buses. When they had gathered before the new tribal building, the Chief's Imbongi appeared, brandishing two short assegais, leaping into the air and earning applause for his songs of praise. The Imbongi is Mr. D. L. P. Yali Manisi. After a feast the women kept up a dance for some hours, accompanied by chants of jubilation. There was a beer-drink in the afternoon, and the significant occasion was celebrated in a memorable way. (trans. from the Xhosa)
ннннннн Two years before his installation as King of the Thembu, the young Sabatha Dalindyebo toured his territory, and paid a visit to the Emigrant Thembu at Qamata, in Mathanzima's territory. Manisi perhaps signaled his support for his former schoolmate's political philosophy as against that of his own chief, Kaiser Mathanzima, by the very length of the poem he subsequently wrote and submitted for publication. It appeared in Umthunywa on 26 January 1952, at a time when Pretoria had already put stumbling blocks in the way of the succession of Sabatha, when land claims continued to be a burning issue, and when Manisi could still characterize Kaiser Mathanzima as well disposed to the young king.
The Praises of Chief Sabatha MthikrakraThis is Honorable and Respected, Prince Sabatha (Hail, Watch the Nation) the son of Sampu (Hail, Watch the Country), son of Dalindyebo son of Ngangelizwe son of Mthikrakra. He is the true heir to the kingdom of all the Thembu. The poet then says about him:—
Allow me, Thembu, to say a word,
to ask questions until I speak for myself
about my chief, Dalindyebo's grandson,
so that all the nations and peoples know
that even we Thembu have our king.So then:—
Where's my chief, Watch the Country's son?
short paleskin with flapping trousers,
great bull cornering Mthikrakra's cows,
cornering Mthikrakra's cows till they calf;
it cornered the Ndayenis' but they stay calfless.
Bandylegs for hooking the nation towards him,
Bandylegs for hooking the sky;
Frisky who wears a leopardskin blanket,
Frisky who wears a crocodile hide.
Provider for the Halas,
the son of a chief himself a chief.
So who makes claims against him?
So who lays claim to his father's goods?Make way, Zondwas, for the nation's calf's entrance,
So there he is, hands white for giving,
great bull that sees off other bulls,
it starts at the sea and ends on the Orange.
Salute, Halas, the son of Sampu's coming,
all of you say:— "Hail, Watch the Nation!"
Watch the Nation's the dark son of Watch the Country,
Starer watching the eastern Thembu
to guard them from nations coveting property,
Maker of Majesty guards his west flank. . . .
for giving cattle to his home advisors:
if I were a Hala I'd have cows with calves.
Healthy from self-help, Novothi's fighter,
son of Gwadiso's Khonjwayo daughter,
paleskin tough even when clothed,
seen to be an animal's son.
Strongest sneezewood of Nompucuko's home,
strongest sneezewood immune to axes.
Still as Mbashe pools,
where the Mbashe meets the Xuka no mushrooms grow.
White-flecked red beast, Watch the Nation's son,
tough tree of Nomathokazi's home,
other nations could never twist it,
even the whites would fear him,
nations feared him till they appealed to the whites,
that's why they reported him to Umtata magistrates
on the day a letter was composed for Pretoria
to the great magistrates of Joubert's tribe.
A letter came from the whites at twilight
denying the prince his rights:
that day we wept bereft at the graveside
as if Watch the Country had died only yesterday. . . .He's All mountains melted at his appearance,
he's The sky thundered when he was made a man,
his home advisors ran into hiding,
Dabulamanzi and Zwelivumile were puzzled,
Maker of Majesty spoke up, Mhlobo's dark son,
Mathanzima's living hero proclaimed
that the prince should be circumcised under the hill:
this child of Mhlobo loves his chief.
He once planned to send him to the Lovedale Kilts
to sharpen his horns for judging whites too,
but Watch the Nation shuns the Vicious,
early next morning he pulped the plan:
Maker of Majesty bowed and zipped his lips.Peace, Watch the Country's son with skin light as porridge,
on your succession watch over Maker of Majesty
for he's cut down thickets and thornbushes for you.
When I say this, people of Zondwa,
I say my chief's the persistent son of Sampu,
he encounters a python while hunting a leopard,
when he enters the court the magistrates fart at each other,
when he arrived below Table Mountain,
the great python of Ngubengcuka's land
confused the Sticky white Binders,
phone calls flew up to Pretoria
which led to the prince's immediate return
to his home at Ngangelizwe's kraal.
When he came to Engcobo the whites were bamboozled
till his own Hippostead turned him home;
by Hippostead I mean Mhlobo's dark son. . . .Peace, fair paleskin of the Mpondo girl,
I'm not praising you, prince, I'm setting you free:
I praised Mhlobo's darkskin below Mngqanga
and he purged the thugs' tents at Mvuzo's kraal.
On that day we laughed revealing our molars
for the thugs had hugged themselves with glee
saying Joubert's tribe owned the country not us.
You stabbing sky of Hala,
thunder until the grinding stone's powdered,
you one-tusked elephant of Madiba's place
who bars the fords to those with two tusks,
you red-shouldered parrot of Gwadiso's girl
with nostrils wide as Nqadu mountain
which turned the Ngwane back to Faku
in fear of the thundering sky of Hala.
Permit me, my chief, to conclude
for we have a great day before us
ннн the day you're handed Ngangelizwe's stick
empowering you to try cases:
you point with it to make law.
I serve you, son of a king,
I serve you, prince,
sheathing your prick in an animal pelt.
I disappear! I disappear!
ннннннн In the same year Manisi's career as a poet advanced still further, with the appearance of his first book, Izibongo zeenkosi zamaXhosa ("The praise poems of the Xhosa chiefs"), published by the Lovedale Press in 1952. Manisi was paid Ѓ25 for it, and received no further royalties. The book was rendered useless as a school text soon after its publication when the spelling system was revised, and it accordingly received very limited distribution. Izibongo zeenkosi zamaXhosa consists of poems in traditional style about Thembu and Xhosa chiefs. Manisi had traveled about talking to old people, collecting information about the chiefs, their personalities, their family connections, and their exploits. Based on these interviews, he created his own original poems about the chiefs. Manisi included a poem on Sabatha, as well as one on Kaiser Mathanzima. The second section of the book is more diverse in style: it consists of 50 poems grouped into four sections of lyrical poems, poems about national heroes, laments for the dead, and narrative poems.
ннннннн Two years after the appearance of Izibongo zeenkosi zamaXhosa, Manisi himself paid £69 to print 500 copies of his second volume of poetry, Inguqu ("A return to the attack"), dated on the cover 21 April 1954. In his preface, Dorrington Nobaza, Manisi's great-uncle, surveys the poet's brief public career as an imbongi, commends the rich diction and content of the poetry in his new book, which he hopes will provide a focus for the unity of black people, and explains the significance of the title, Inguqu:
This term is common in Xhosa lore. The real meaning is that if you leave your original home—perhaps you get lost or run away—and then you return home, you become aware of your traditions in your emotions and conscience. In this booklet the son of Yali-Manisi urges us to be sensitive to our past, to return to our language and learn to build ourselves up through our traditions and customs, as the reader will perceive through the lesson of the poetry in this book. (trans. from the Xhosa)
ннннннн The slim volume contains heroic narrative poetry on the frontier wars and lyrics, praise poems to Kaiser Mathanzima on various occasions, to Arosi, on the Ntsikana Day celebrations of 1948 and 1954, and on Mqhayi. With the benefit of hindsight, the outstanding item in Inguqu is the penultimate poem. Shortly before the volume was published in 1954, Manisi had traveled to Johannesburg to represent his home district of Queenstown at a meeting of the African National Congress. Nelson Mandela was under house arrest at the time but, despite his banning order, Mandela put in an appearance at the ANC meeting, and Manisi was deeply impressed. He wrote the poem on his return home. This is in fact the earliest recorded poem about Mandela, sensitive to his character and potential, and remarkably prophetic about his future and that of Africa's emergent nations.
Chief Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela (Hail, Earth Tremor!)The earth's trembling, sirs!
the rivers all roaring;
the mountains all shaking;
mighty nations are puzzled,
for small nations are writhing,
straining, striving to burst their bonds.
The earth's surely trembling,
the earth's surely trembling.Hail, Earth Tremor!
Earth Tremor's Mandela's dun-skinned son,
vibrant dun-skin at Sokhawulela's home,
at armed Dlomo's, at Ngqolomsila's,
a secretary bird so tall it stoops in walking at Hala's home,
iron-eating iron at Ndaba's home,
"Yell, rafter, the pillar's your downfall,"
tough Ntandeni thong.Hacker in thorn brakes,
scything swathes through ignorance;
colossus astride the earth;
rocker rocking the land,
encoiling it like chanti,
snake that swims the Vaal,
but sips the Zambesi;
servant of Africa's nations.You've rendered service to Mbo and Nguni,
to Sotho and Tswana,
to Senzangakhona's Zulu,
to Swazi and Ndebele,
to Shona, Nyasa, Kalanga;
you've bridged nations great and small,
forging African unity:
all its nations are gripped in one birth pang.Piercing needle,
handsome at Mthikrakra's home,
torso daubed with ochre, Mandela's son.
Beads and loin cloths suit him,
though ochre suits him he spurns it:
if he'd used it, what then?
Hustler disrupting tramps, niggling thorn in the flesh of nations.Hail, Earth Tremor!
Hail, Mandela's gleaming road!
Nations name you Earth Tremor;
the poet names you Gleaming Road:
you set Africa blazing;
the rising sun scorched arrant rogues,
flushed the thugs with roasted pates;
hasslers rattled in fear of the rabble;
bereft of plans the ruffians dithered;
the genets fled the flaring land.Speak, Mandela's son! Speak, my chief!
Speak out fearlessly: there're remnants in Africa!
Hold no fear of sunburnt bellies,
Shoulder-shruggers and white flag wavers.
Let them note your blemishes:
the truth is bitter,
goes deep like aloe,
contempt and cruelty crumple before it.Speak out fearlessly, Thembu, there are still men!
Speak out fearlessly, there're still men in Africa!
Those bones can stir,
link up with each other,
for God Almighty reigns,
he quickens his times,
dashes mighty kingdoms,
raises scorned statelets.Speak out fearlessly, son of Zondwa,
uncowed by genets or wild cats!
Even if death's in store,
you've been readied to serve
as blood offering for blacks,
for you're a royal prince.
You were born to bear these trials and burdens,
loads and loads stacked on loads.
May the Lord bless you,
grant you success
in confronting the lackeys of evil.
The first stanza develops the praise name Manisi accords Mandela, Zweliyashukuma ("The country's quaking"), establishing a context of disruption and disturbance on earth as small nations struggle for independence from the major powers. (Three years later, Ghana would become the first African nation to gain success in this struggle.) The second stanza identifies Mandela in terms of his royal lineage, characterizing him as tall and light-skinned, powerful ("iron that eats iron"), and resilient ("tough thong"). Mandela has the potential to topple the current regime, like a pole on which a rafter rests. Mandela promotes the liberation struggle in the northern regions of southern Africa like ichanti, a mythical, secretive, colourful, hypnotic, shape-changing river snake (see Pahl 719). Through his political activities, Mandela serves not only his own people but all of Africa, which stands poised on the brink of freedom, about to give birth.
In the fifth stanza, Manisi turns to the effect of Mandela's political activity in South Africa. He has left his traditional way of life in Transkei, with its beads and cosmetic ochre, to become a thorn in the flesh of white "tramps." Mandela has blazed a trail for his people, his incandescence enflaming and disrupting the white rogues, thugs, hasslers, ruffians, and genets (the whites characterized here as the social predators). In the concluding three stanzas, addressing Mandela directly, Manisi urges him to persist in this perilous course of action: he must continue to denounce injustice, attracting to his cause those fellow blacks who support the status quo through their apathy or criticism of Mandela. Mandela's is a just cause, supported by the ancestors ("Those bones can stir and link up with each other"). Manisi encourages Mandela to achieve his destiny and fulfil the role for which he has been prepared, opposing "the lackeys of evil," despite the inevitable personal suffering it will entail.
By this stage in his career, Manisi has turned his back on the political philosophy of his own chief, Kaiser Mathanzima, and embraced wholeheartedly the strategy espoused by Nelson Mandela. As an active member of the ANC, himself subject to occasional police harassment, Manisi was entirely sensitive to the implications of including in his second volume of poetry a poem paying tribute to and encouraging Mandela: it would never be published by the Lovedale Press or any other publisher, and would have no hope of ever being prescribed by educational authorities as suitable reading for school children (the paramount justification for publishing Xhosa literature: see my Xhosa Poets and Poetry, ch. 13). Paying for its own publication, Manisi claimed greater licence to speak his mind in print in Inguqu than he would have been accorded by a commercial publisher, but in so doing he paid the price of his liberty: the book was not distributed by the printer in Queenstown and is now condemned to the silence of utter obscurity.
In October 1955 the Johannesburg newspaper Umteteli wa Bantu carried another of Manisi's poems in praise of K. D. Mathanzima, this one in two parts. This was the year the Freedom Charter was signed, the year of Manisi's break with Mathanzima (and of Nelson Mandela's, similarly), and Manisi makes a point of saying "I'm not praising you, son of Mhlobo, I'm inciting you." Indeed, there is no praise of Mathanzima in this poem, though there is explicit criticism of his chief, a "great one who struts preening on his own,"
overseer whose stench repelled nations,
Mhlobo's taskmaster who crossed the Gqobonco . . . (trans. from the Xhosa)Mathanzima's people suffer for his opinions:
Discussion is foreign to Mhlobo's son,
presuming to judge nobles he subverts justice.
Oh dear, this chief of the Hala!
Herdsman of stricken cattle.But Mathanzima is in a position of power and, though Manisi has parted company from Mathanzima to seek employment elsewhere ("My chief's betrayed me to Bolonisi, / so I left home and went to the whites"), he yet seeks as an imbongi to influence Mathanzima:
Command, Mhlobo's son, today it's your turn:
a nation dies with no doctor,
a doctor shrewd in prudence.
Command, prince, you hold the sticks now.One of the policies Manisi urges on Mathanzima is opposition to the exploitation of women as domestic servants:
O the white adulterers eye Xhosa girls,
yet we don't even hear their girls' scent.
Open the door, Mhlobo's son, for us to enter,
thrash the sun, boy, drive it from the clouds,
tell men today to stop holding back,
explode and stop our girls' work as domestics:
it's only a ruse for their abuse
so they give birth to wildcats and monkeys.Much of the poem alludes to Mathanzima's relations with Sabatha, whom he is encouraged to guard, and with his betters and superiors, clearly those in the ANC to whom Manisi was entrusting his allegiance, whose political strategies were increasingly diverging from those of Mathanzima. Manisi still addresses Mathanzima in poetry, not to praise him but to guide him along paths beneficial to his people.
In assessing his art, we need to consider what David Manisi absorbs from other iimbongi, of course, but we need to see too what is peculiar to him, the emphasis he places in his poetry on animals, landscape and territory, and the history of his people, his respect for education more than for the educated, his distrust of white authority, and his anger at social injustice. If we follow Manisi's career, as his political philosophy matures we can note the escalating element of criticism in his poetry addressed to Mathanzima, we can see the publication of his poems in praise of Sabatha and Mandela as political acts that distance him from the evolving strategy of Mathanzima and that imply criticism of his own chief. Praise poems have often been viewed as anonymous and immutable, poets as mere transmitters. Consideration of the biographical element in Manisi's poetry permits us to accord him the credit that is his due for authorship, and to appreciate that his poems about Mathanzima changed as Manisi's outlook changed: they are not of a kind, and demand to be located in a historical and biographical context. We are also able to challenge the popular assumption that iimbongi who operated under apartheid were mere sycophantic supporters of puppet authorities: Manisi is less concerned with legitimizing the authority of Mathanzima than he is with exhorting him to act in the interests of his people, to live up to his legacy as a descendant of Thembu royalty.
In his poetry, Manisi often resorted to an image of black fighting sticks concealed and preserved in dung, sticks whose retrieval symbolized the reclamation of black pride, dignity, and independence, as he did in one of his most powerful performances, addressed to Chief Manzezulu Mthikrakra in August 1976:
He holds black sticks in safekeeping
at Mthikrakra's Xhiba house:
we'll bring them to light when we gather the leaders
of Ndaba's princes and warriors. (Opland, Xhosa Poets and Poetry 147)Now that those leaders stand assembled before the princes and warriors of a free nation, now that the black sticks have been retrieved, Manisi's cherished goal has been achieved. Having inherited Mqhayi's leopard-skin kaross, David Manisi left it in turn to the poets of a liberated South Africa; he lapsed into crippled obscurity, and faded from view like a star swept by clouds.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I am grateful to the British Academy for a grant that enabled me to travel to South Africa in 1999 to discuss the interpretation of the poems cited in this article with the poet. I am also indebted to Martin Orwin for reading and commenting on an early version of this article.
WORKS CITED
Azadovskii, Mark. Siberian Tale Teller. Trans. James R. Dow. 1926; Austin: Center for Intercultural Studies in Folklore and Ethnomusicology, U of Texas, 1974.
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