University of Venda  Discourses on Difference and Oppression

This chapter deals with accounts of the consumption of the flesh of others. Stories about cannibalism were arguably the most extreme form of ‘othering’ perpetuated by Europeans against Africans. In their racist obsession with cultural evolutionism, they dichotomised what they saw as their own developed civilisations and African savagery, the ‘light of civilisation’ and the ‘darkness of heathenism’.

The title arises from the relationship between Khosi Makwarela Mphaphuli, son and vassal of Khosi Masindi Mphaphuli, and the Berlin Missionaries in Vendaland in the late nineteenth century. On the one hand, from their first meeting and throughout their relationship with him, they were extremely impressed by his keen dress sense, with his distinguished top hat and bespoke frock coat, and his adoption of western material culture. On the other, they saw this western exterior as masking a far ‘darker’ personality which they believed was ‘savage’ and ‘heathen’. They saw this as being typified by the khosi’s display of the severed heads of captured enemies outside his capital and, at a later date, in his consumption of muti containing the body parts of defeated enemies. For the missionaries, the question was whether or not, under their guidance, he would be able to develop the western and ‘civilised’ (the ‘top hat’) part of his personality and overcome the hidden ‘heathen essence’ (the ‘cannibal’ side of his personality).

I begin by looking at some stages of the journey that I had to make to come up with the interpretations that I have. I then go on to look at some general accounts of ‘cannibalism’ in Vendaland. Concluding that the only way that one can make sense of these accounts is by means of a detailed microhistory, I look at textual accounts arising from the interaction between Khosi Makwarela Mphaphuli, his father and the Berlin missionaries. In doing so, following the lead of Gananath Obeysekere (1995:7-32), I differentiate between cannibalism and anthropophagy, the one indicating ‘cannibal talk’ in the wider context of contact and othering, the other a complex ritual practice.

Khosi Masindi Mphaphuli refused the missionaries permission to operate in his capital village or in lands directly under his control. He was portrayed as a savage, bloodthirsty and cannibalistic king. It is clear that, for the missionaries, he was incapable of reforming himself and was heading towards damnation. He typified the ‘heathen Bawenda’[Bavenda].

The missionary portrayal of Makwarela was far more complex than that of his father. At first, they saw a strong possibility that he could indeed be the person who, taught and guided by successive missionaries, would lead his people to Christianity and the ‘Light of Salvation’. Beyond the fact that he welcomed them into his area, in the opinion of the Berlin Missionaries, there were strong signs that he himself would convert to Christianity. The missionaries believed that they would be able to work with, and through, him to save his people.

Over time, the relationship between Makwarela and the missionaries faced periodic tensions. It eventually became clear to them that he would not, in fact, convert. Missionary accounts increasingly argued that the thin veneer of civilisation was beginning to slide away and reveal the darkness of the heathen soul, or ‘essence’, hidden beneath it. After the death of the first missionary at the station of Georgenholtz in his area, what marked Makwarela’s return to complete ‘heathenism’ for the Berlin Missionaries was his reported consumption of the flesh of enemies killed in battle. In their interpretation, based on the work of their own society in South Africa and other mission societies in South Africa, other parts of Africa and other parts of the world, cannibalism was the supreme mark of the ‘darkness of heathenism’. Makwarela would then be portrayed as a man who, in falling back into the ‘darkness of heathenism’, would sink even lower than his subjects and would drag them down with him. The missionaries came to believe that they would have to work in spite of him, or even against him, to save his people.

The missionary accounts of their relationship with Khosi Masindi Mphaphuli and their detailed reconstruction of the life of Khosi Makwarela Mphaphuli were based on the extensive collection of oral evidence and their own experiences of interaction with them. They provide rich insights into the nineteenth-century history of Vendaland which are simply not available from other sources. However, they need to be read at many different levels.

It used to be easy. Explorers and missionaries were (conscious or unconscious) agents of colonial regimes. Their writings were so influenced by their paternalist, Eurocentric and racist ideologies that they were not worthy of serious consideration as historical sources. One could (and, indeed, should) safely ignore them. Sources of this type available locally, or in the South African Library in Cape Town, merely served to further entrench my thinking on this.

Then came a problem. Attempts to study themes in the nineteenth century history of the area in which I live and work were constantly hampered by the lack of documentary sources. I knew that there was more going on than I was accessing through oral sources but how was I to get at this?

On a visit to South Africa in 1995, Professor Albert Wirz, of the Institute for Asian and African Studies at Humboldt University at Berlin, convinced me that there was a wealth of material available in the archives and library of the Berlin Mission Society (Berliner Missionsgesellschaft, now the Berliner Missionswerk). He was certain that there would be at least some useful information there for me.

While still extremely dubious about using missionary sources, by this time I had been exposed to at least some of the work of the Comaroffs (1993, 1997). Through his study of the Samkange family and African politics, Terence Ranger (1995) was also beginning to unravel the role between Methodism and politics in Zimbabwe. As I was first being exposed to these works, and at Albert’s invitation, I spent seven months in Berlin as a Visiting Researcher in the Institute. As in the wider university, the old spectre of Karl Marx and the new spirit of deconstructionism stalk each other rather uneasily through the corridors of the Institute. The creative tensions arising from this, and the contributions by staff and students of the Institute made in seminars, have played the greatest role in shaping the ways that I have tackled the wealth of material that I found at the Berlin Mission. Other authorial influences of particular note were Geschiere (1998), Taussig (1987) and White (1978:183-196).

I still believe that the missionaries were paternalist, Eurocentric and racist. This played a major role in influencing what they saw in Vendaland, how they interpreted what they saw and how they wrote about this. On the other hand, the sources that I found convinced me that the archives and library of the Berlin Mission Society are a treasure-trove of sources on the history of this area which, until now, have largely been neglected by historians and others interested what was happening here during the nineteenth century. This chapter is based largely on station files of the Berlin Mission Society stations in Vendaland, the personnel files of the missionaries who served in the area, tractates produced about the local missionaries and African people, published reports appearing in the Mission Society publications Bawenda-Freund and the Berliner Missions-Berichte, published works on the history of the mission, and illustrations, maps and photographs, all of which are held by held by the archives and library.

In 1882, ten years after the Berlin Missionaries had established themselves in Vendaland, Das Ausland, then a widely-read paper in Germany, argued that the missionaries of the Berlin Mission Society were ‘like no other Europeans’ in that they used ‘their thorough knowledge of languages to collect those old traditions [of Africans in South Africa] and to study the old customs and religious beliefs.’ In the opinion of Warneck (1882: 77), the author of the article, these missionaries were ‘the most enthusiastic collectors, and their reports can almost all claim the value of a far more authentic resource than those of erudite travellers - who were not acquainted with these particular peoples even though they had knowledge of the language.’

This enthusiasm for the accuracy and insight of the writings of the Berlin Missionaries is shared by a number of modern scholars who have extensively used the archives of the Berlin Mission Society for their source material. Both the anthropologist Karla Poewe and the historian and political scientist Ulrich van der Heyden have drawn attention to the great importance that Berlin Missionaries attached to the collection of oral testimony from the people among whom they worked. They have also both argued that missionary attempts to understand local history and local culture were an early form of ethnographic fieldwork.

In the introduction to her paper on Africans, Missionaries and the making of the Pedi African Independent Church, Poewe (1996:2-3) has noted that:

The Berlin missionaries taught Africans the Christian metanarrative as stories about early church fathers, reformers and church formation ... At the same time that they taught, however, missionaries also learned to think and live their way into the specific culture of the people ... This was done by acquiring an intimate knowledge of the people’s language, grammar and narratives. Berlin missionaries were instructed not only to (ablauschen), to listen and take down a people’s dictionary, that is, to take in the ‘whole beauty, complexity, and regularity of a language’, but also to ‘hear their way into’ the intricacy of that people’s stories [See also Wangemann 1882: 28, 29] ... Africans ... knew themselves to be not only taught but also intently listened to ...

As an illustration of the importance that the Berlin Mission attached to local historical narrative, she draws attention to the fact that H.T. Wangemann, the Director of the Berlin Mission Society from 1865 to 1894, saw it as being important that he inspected ‘the mission field by doing what resembled ethnographic fieldwork of local mission stations.’ He conducted two research tours of the South African mission field lasting a year each, from 1866 to 1867 and from 1884 to 1885 (Poewe 1996:3-4; quotation, 4).

Ulrich van der Heyden (1996: 413) is equally enthusiastic when he argues that:

The missionaries knew how to use this knowledge broadly to their advantage. Evidence of this is the huge mountain of records in the archives, as well as in the books held in the library which retain literature that was written, in a period of one hundred and fifty years, by the missionaries of this society with their deep understanding of the visited ethnic groups or written by authors ... on the basis of the information collected and recorded by the missionaries. By interviewing elderly people, the missionaries got a large proportion of their ‘precolonial information.’ They used, though not perfectly according to present scholarly parameters, methods of recording and accessing oral history.

The only real caution that van der Heyden (1996: 413) offers in using these records is that:

Most of the literature produced in this way did not primarily fulfil a scholarly purpose because it was produced working in accordance with the Biblical injunction: ‘Go and make all people believers: Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’ But for the present historical and ethnological sciences, they are still of significance.

I share their enthusiasm for the sources and for the seriousness with which the missionaries approached the collection of oral history and oral testimony. Beyond the approaches and instructions quoted by Poewe, the Mission Regulations to which every missionary was subject stated that ‘the first task of a missionary who begins his work among a pagan tribe is to learn the language of that tribe, so that he becomes deeply acquainted with the people, and thus accepted as a member of the tribe, and earns their confidence, and thoroughly learns their customs and habits.’(Berliner Missionsgesellschaft 1882: 16; van der Heyden 1996: 414). Moreover, missionaries were compelled to keep diaries and send regular letters and reports home to Germany which gave details of events and conditions of life both on the mission stations and in the ‘heathen’ communities. These accounts were not to be ‘overstated’ or ‘exaggerated’. Rather, they were to be ‘objective’. Nevertheless, at the same time, ‘in his correspondence with the home country the missionary has to be very attentive that he should refrain particularly from all which could show the mission, the missionary himself and the bureaucracy of the mission in a bad light’ (Berliner Missionsgesellschaft 1882: 17) In a random survey conducted on letters and reports sent from South Africa until around 1890, the central office of the Berlin Mission found that almost all of them were free of such ‘bad lights’ (van der Heyden 1996: 414).

Where I differ from Poewe and van der Heyden is in my more cautious approach to the ‘scientific’ value of ethnographic research. This is particularly the case when dealing with accounts which include discussion of African religious beliefs or cultural practices which the missionary recorders saw as being strange, bizarre, cruel, distasteful, ‘Satanic’ or, at the opposite extreme, as being worthy of transformation and emulation. Also, in the light of my own biography and the influences on my thinking discussed earlier, I found the tractates and other writings that van der Heyden sees as ‘not primarily’ fulfilling ‘a scholarly purpose’ as being among the most useful sources in the library.

The first nineteenth-century account which referred to the Vhavenda as cannibals that I came across came not from a missionary but from the German explorer Carl Mauch. Describing his visit to Khosi Lwamondo on Monday 31 July 1871, he stated that:

Lomondo [Lwamondo] himself is of an uncouth appearance and his face is almost animal-like. While his devouring tools, behind extremely everted lips, have grown to perfection, the lids partly hide the small, cruel eyes and a once red-coloured piece of cloth makes the forehead appear still lower by the manner in which it is tied around the head. His behaviour matches fully one’s expectations; crude talk in a shrill voice. I believe he would make a perfect character to portray a cannibal, and I can hardly doubt the pronouncement of one of my companions to the effect that he actually is one. In fact all the Berg Kaffirs [Vhavenda] are still such (Burke 1969:120-121).

It is easy to dismiss this kind of description as resting on hearsay evidence and as being a reflection of the prejudices of nineteenth-century Europeans, rather than any kind of African reality. Indeed, Mauch’s description is a good example of the kinds of descriptions that Street was thinking of when he discussed cannibalism in his work on representations of ‘primitive’ society in English fiction between 1858 and 1950. In this discussion, Street (1975:75-76) noted that:

If ... cultural differences can be put down to racial heritage, then even cannibalism, supposedly one of the greatest distinctions between a gentleman and a savage, can be cited as a hereditary characteristic of inferior races. The Englishman, it is assumed, doesn’t practise it because his instincts, passed down to him through his race, revolt against it. Thus Tarzan, with no cultural training in an English environment, nevertheless has inherited the instinct which tells him that the cannibal breaks a natural law... The natives, of course, have no such inhibitions and proceed to break natural law with relish, revelling in meals of human flesh... That cannibalism is natural to primitive people is implied by Gilson in a description that links it with their physical appearance. They are ‘bestial, gorilla-like creatures, with exceptionally powerful jaws and teeth like fangs, hunting human flesh’.

Thus, in deconstructing Mauch’s account (and others like it), one is provided with a window into the unconscious forces which shaped the way that explorers and missionaries interpreted and made sense of the world - both physical and psychological - that they found themselves inhabiting in Africa. It may be argued that, Mauch’s description of Lwamondo tells us more about his prior-conditioning to see an independent African ruler, whose lands had not yet been colonised by European settlers, as a cannibal than about Lwamondo himself. Even the description of the khosi’s physical features and dress was shaped by European stereotypes. The ideas underlying this kind of analysis are also reflected Patrick Harries’ (1993a:1-10, b:2-6; see also 1996) discussion of various influences on the field of vision of the anthropologist and Swiss Mission Society missionary Henri-Alexandre Junod. He has argued that, on their first arrival in Portuguese East Africa in the latter part of 1889, Junod and his wife:

were cut off from the institutions, conventions and illusions that provide everyday life with sense and security and ... [he] initially drew on a number of familiar themes to domesticate the chaos and confusion of Africa. Junod was not a cultural cypher or blank slate upon which the reality of Africa would be inscribed. Nor was he ... a mirror that would present a true reflection of Africa. Junod’s vision of Africa was the product of the ‘dominant conventions and suppositions’ (Q. Skinner) of his age through which he interpreted what he saw and experienced, and a ‘prior textutalisation’ which allowed him to organize his writing in such a way that, ultimately, he could assert a control over the unknown (Harries 1993b:2-3).

Similarly, I have no difficulty in rejecting the account of the Reverend D. Fred. Ellenberger of the Paris Evangelical Mission Society mission to the Basotho which appeared in his book History of the Basuto (1912). Writing of the travels of the semi-legendary Batebang King Mohlomi before his accession to power, and using oral tradition describing events during the 1780s as his source, Ellenberger (1912: 94-95)recorded that:

Far away in the North Mohlomi arrived at the abode of some cannibal tribes, but they did him no hurt, perceiving that he was a man of peace, though Segoaela, one of his companions, who was rather quarrelsome, nearly served as a meal for these hungry people. Mohlomi arrived at one of their villages unexpectedly about noon. The sun was very hot, and everyone in the village slept. Nothing was seen but the cattle lying in the shade, and one heard no sound but the barking of the dogs and the buzzing of the flies. But little by little the inhabitants came out of their huts and the chief appeared and invited Mohlomi to sit down in the shade with his people. To their great horror, he offered the travellers some human flesh to eat; but they excused themselves, saying that this kind of food was strange to them, and they dared not partake of it, whereupon an ox was killed for them. They and the cannibals conversed together, asking and answering questions. These cannibals (Ma-ya-batho) were black and stout, resembling Bechuana in speech and appearance. Their hair was long and frizzled, and they kept it greased with human fat. Their bodies were smeared with red ochre; their huts were covered with reeds and thatching grass; their villages were large and built in a circle. They drank much thick milk, and ate the flesh of their fellows as a delicacy. They even seem to have devoured the flesh of those who died. They were at one time well known by reputation to the Basuto, who called them Bamahlabaneng (‘people of the antipodes’), because they lived so far away.

Ellenberger (1912: 95) identified these Bamahlabaneng - who ate people even although they had cattle and dogs for hunting - as:

descendants of the Bavenda [Vhavenda], or Matsuetla, who came from the south-west of the Congo Basin about three centuries ago ... After long peregrination they arrived in South Africa at Zoutpansberg during the early part of the sixteenth century, having already acquired the habit of eating the prisoners which they took in war.

and continued (1912: 95) by arguing that:

It would have been about 1782 that Mohlomi visited the Bavenda: he reported that they were cannibals then; and according to the missionary Beuster they remained such, until finally subjugated by the Government of the South African Republic at the recent date of 1898.

According to Ellenberger (1912: 32, 54, 89, 122, 137, 144, 146, 150, 158, 161-163, 190, 191, 192, 203, 217-226, 233), at the time of Mohlomi’s travels, there was no cannibalism amongst the Basotho. However, he detailed numerous cases of cannibalism among them during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. These he ascribed largely to what he saw as the holocaust of wars set in motion by the rise and growth of the Zulu kingdom. He argued that groups were driven into cannibalism by starvation as a result of their having lost their cattle and crops to raiders or by their defeat in battle. People either ate their own dead or consumed those they managed to kill (Ellenberger 1912:34, 54, 89, 122, 137, 144, 150, 158, 191, 218, 222). Cannibals and robbers (in my reading, outcasts,) infested the country and one of the reasons for state formation among the Basotho was the protection offered against these conditions (Ellenberger 1912:150, 190, 217, 221). Cannibalism and lawlessness were eventually largely brought under control by the efforts of Mosheshwe (Ellenberger 1912:192, 203). In attempting to explain this ‘aberration’, he laid the original blame directly at the door of the Bavenda, the people who saw human flesh as ‘a delicacy’ (Ellenberger 1912: 224):

For all that it is improbable that the idea of eating their fellow-men would have occurred to the South African Bantu had the example not been set by strangers from the north. ... [We have seen that] the Bavenda, who came from the sources of the Kassai, practised the custom of eating prisoners of war. They kept up this horrid practice until quite recently, and news of it, no doubt, filtered through to the cis-Vaal tribes, through the Bakhatla, who ... had intermarried with them, and through ... Mohlomi ... No doubt Mohlomi, who was a great raconteur, often related what he saw on that memorable journey... It is also to be noted that the first Basuto to set the example of eating human flesh were offshoots of those very Bakhatla of Tabane who had conquered and intermarried with the Bavenda. They evidently knew of the practice of the Bavenda, and, being rendered desperate by the loss of their cattle and crops, did not hesitate to adopt it... The Bamaiyane were not slow to follow the example of the Bakhatla; but it must be admitted that they were in some degree driven to it by the cynical taunt of the Bamokoteli, who, after robbing them of all they had, shouted after them, ‘Go ye, and eat people(Ellenberger 1912:217-218).’

I would like to argue that, even though he himself had seen no real evidence of cannibalism, Ellenberger had been pre-conditioned by his upbringing in Europe to accept the idea of Africans as savages and cannibals. He was thus prepared to uncritically accept the testimony of his informants. Moreover, the account that they gave him enabled him to partly excuse ‘his Africans’ for their aberration as they had learned it from others and only been driven into it by necessity. In turn, his informants had no scruples about portraying another group, who were conveniently far away and with whom there was a history of warfare in the nineteenth century, as cannibals. While Ellenberger could not, or did not want to, analyse them in these terms, the descriptions of the cannibals and their habits in the account of Mohlomi’s travels are very clearly methods of creating ‘otherness’ of the Vhavenda. Distant people, enemies and outcasts alone were seen as being capable of eating people for pleasure, local people first resorted to it only out of dire need. There was no ‘hard’ evidence of cannibalism in this account - merely a clear example of European preconceptions interacting with African manipulation of oral tradition.

The second missionary account that I would like to consider comes from the Swiss Missionary Auguste Jaques of the Mission station at Elim and was written on 18 April 1887. In writing of the then current fears of war between the Boers and the Vhavenda, Jaques chose to draw attention to the possible ‘scenes of savagery’ which would result. Significantly, although still extremely paternalistic and heavily influenced by ideas of the superiority of western Christianity and ‘civilization’, his analysis attempted to be sympathetic. He moved beyond the idea that people were eaten out of a ‘revolting taste for the flesh of warriors.’ Instead, he looked to the ‘superstition’ which enslaved the local people as the root cause of the practice. This, he argued, was slowly being dispelled by the light brought by the missionaries [Jaques 1887:281-282]:

there is an opinion, that if war sparks out, there is the prospect of scenes of savagery which will give little reason to be cheerful. During summer, the people of Mpafouri [Khosi Masindi Mphaphuli] ate their prisoners of war, and Mr. Beuster himself was witness to all preparations of the feast. Our neighbour Ndjabane, of Tsofim, also ate one of his brothers who offended him about fifteen years ago, and it can be supposed that he would do this again, if a good occasion arose. This eating of people should not be attributed to a revolting taste for the flesh of warriors. A few people actually only attend these horrors because they have been pressed by their chiefs or the relatives of those who are being sent into battle. It is just that there exists amongst our Bavenda and amongst many Africans the inveterate belief that whoever tastes human flesh is invulnerable in battle. Of all medicines, this one is the most effective to repel the blows of the enemy and to give victory. So it is more superstition and not cruelty or a depraved taste that leads these unfortunates to the exercise of such horrible practices.

The need for protection is a feeling that is so natural to us, that it seems that nothing is spared to assure us of it. Let us then feel sorry for these eaters of men, their misery is extreme. ... But ... the Lord is dissipating shadows and making his evangelism of peace shine brightly!

Jaques was not yet in South Africa at the time that Ndjabane’s allegedly ate his brother and his account was based on hearsay evidence from an unidentified informant (or group of informants). We may therefore dismiss it from consideration.

Moving on to Jaques’ discussion of Beuster, it is significant that while he had allegedly witnessed the preparations for cannibalistic feasts, he had apparently never witnessed any act of anthropophagy himself. Moreover, ‘superstition’ is far too tenuous a hook on which to hang an argument about the causes of anthropophagy. However, in drawing attention to the idea that eating a part of the body of an enemy would transfer invulnerability in battle to the person who ate it, Jaques moved beyond mere ‘superstition’ and introduced the concept of the human body as a source of power. Nevertheless, his position as a missionary of the Swiss Mission Society, and his view of African societies, seems to have prevented him from pursuing this line of inquiry any further.

The last general account which I wish to consider is the historian J.B. de Vaal’s description of a battle in the succession dispute between Davhana and Makhado after the death of their father, Khosi Ramabulana, in 1864. From the point of view of conventional historical methodology, the sources that de Vaal used were impeccable. His account of the hostilities was based on unpublished documents from the State Archives in Pretoria, the newspaper De Transvaalsche Argus and various published secondary sources. The description of the aftermath of the battle was based exclusively on oral testimony from the widow Bickard, who he described in his notes on sources as follows:

Mrs Maria Magdalena Bickard, a daughter of João Albasini, spent the greatest part of her life living at Pietersburg. She was born at Goedewensch on 27 December 1856 and died at Pietersburg on 8 July 1948. She was a very intelligent lady, with a healthy brain and a practical view on affairs. In 1935, her brain was still as clear as glass and her memory was excellent. She could talk for hours in a very interesting way about life at Goedewensch (de Vaal 1953: 154).

In de Vaal’s account, Davhana had sought protection from Albasini. This was because of his very real fear that, were he not able to get support from the latter’s private army of Tsonga-Shangaans, he would not survive a battle with his brother. Makhado:

harboured feelings of revenge and cruelty against Davhana. He swore an oath that if he got him in his hands, he would sew him up in a wet cattle-skin and hang this up in the sun. He would put kaffir pots under the decomposing body to catch the juices [vog]. This he would then pour out as an offering on the grave of their father Ramabulana (de Vaal 1953: 75).
 
 

By the end of June ‘of 1864, Davhana was no longer safe with Albasini.’ On 3 July, he was attacked by ‘an impi under Funjufunju or Tromp, a kaffir marksman [skutkaffer] of landdros Jan Vercueil, and Michael Buys’. Although ‘a number of his kraals were burnt down ... Davhana nevertheless succeeded in beating the attack back and delivering a severe blow to the enemy (de Vaal 1953: 75).’

At first reading, it seems that Mrs Bickard witnessed an act of anthropophagy when she was a young girl. However, with a closer reading, it becomes clear that she did not actually witness all that she described. Writing of the aftermath of the battle, De Vaal noted that:

Mrs Biccard, who was then a little girl of eight years old, still remembers the events very well. After the battle her older brother and his shrewd kaffir friend went to Davhana’s village out of curiosity. There they saw Hlanganabo, who they knew well, lying with his right leg’s sinew shot off at his ankle. He had played a traitor’s role firstly by staying with Davhana as a spy and then by leading the impi there.

While he was lying there he clapped his hands and begged Davhana not to kill him. This did not help him at all, because he was stabbed to death by another brother who had fought on Davhana’s side.

Thus, the eight year old girl did not actually witness the execution of the traitor Hlanganabo but no doubt had to rely on the (perhaps exaggerated) account of her brother and his friend. However, it would seem that she was among (or claimed to be among) the children who later allegedly witnessed the preparations for the ritual act of anthropophagy:

When the children went to the Cooksleys, who operated as traders near Luvuvhu, to drink tea, they saw smoke on the river bank. Down next to the water they saw kaffir doctors with the bodies of two dead people placed with them. They also slaughtered a heifer, which had been wounded that day at Davhana’s village. The two corpses had reeds pushed through their spinal cords and were later carried by the kaffirs on their shoulders. The flesh was cut into small pieces and cooked, while the legs were thrown into beer pots and made into soup.

It is not certain whether or not the children witnessed events later that night. However, the nature of the ceremony which allegedly took place makes it likely that they would have been excluded as observers and could have had to rely on a second-hand account (or second-hand accounts) from one or more of the participants:

That night the great victory feast would take place at Davhana’s kraal. The kaffirs all sat in rows, with the witchdoctor with them. The flesh was dished out into a kaffir basket lid. With an assegaai, the point of which had been bent into a hook, the witchdoctor pulled the kaffir basket lid in front of the kaffirs, while they each took a piece and ate it. Thereafter a beast’s tail, which had been attached to a stick, was dipped in the soup and sprinkled over the armed soldiers. ‘You were brave’, says the witchdoctor, ‘may you become even braver (de Vaal 1953:75-76)!’

The published account bears an extremely close resemblance to his notes of the (undated) interview contained in the de Vaal Collection in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Venda. At first reading, it thus seems to faithfully reproduce the recollections of an informant who appears to have claimed to have witnessed an act of anthropophagy. However, closer reading suggests that, if she witnessed anything at all, she witnessed the preparations for the ceremony conducted in the aftermath of the battle -which may, or may not, have included elements of anthropophagy. There are also a number of other difficulties with this account.

Firstly, the story was told in an extremely bloodthirsty way. While this may have been determined by the events that it described, it is also possible that this arose from the desire of the informant to portray her family history in the style of an African adventure story. In her discussion of family memories about the historical figure of João Albasini, Teresa van Ryneveld has argued that, over time and over different generations, memories were being shaped both by a changing historical context and by the influence of different literary genres. The African adventure tradition was an extremely strong component of this process (van Ryneveld 1998; see especially chapter 1).

Secondly, Mrs. Bickard was referring to events which had happened about seventy-one years previously, when she was only eight years old. Obviously, we should be extremely sceptical about the accuracy of such recollections. Not only would they have been coloured by time, they would also have been greatly influenced by her own ideological beliefs (she is locally remembered as being extremely racist).

On the other hand, the account contains a number of features which commonly recur in accounts about the treatment of the bodies of slain enemies after a battle. These are the butchering of the corpses, their being cooked together with beef or ox-meat, the ritualised consumption of the resulting mixture, the participation of ritual specialists (dzinanga) in the preparation and distribution of the muti and the relationship between the consumption of the mixture and the increasing of bravery or strength.

Considering all of these cases together, it is clear that, with the possible and problematic exception of Mrs Bickard, none of the authors or their informants quoted had actually witnessed an act of anthropophagy or the consumption of human flesh in any form. They either recounted the tales of others (who had not actually witnessed the act itself) or claimed to have witnessed the preparations for the feast, but not the actual feast itself. In so doing, these fall squarely into the kinds of accounts analysed by the anthropologist William Arens (1979) - probably the scholar most vociferous in his attempt to debunk the notion that cannibalism has been a characteristic feature of any society (see especially York 1996).

Arens’ analysis covered most societies which have been accused of cannibalism, including - amongst others - prehistoric humans, the Aztecs, North American, New Guinean and African societies. In attempting to find credible witnesses who had actually witnessed the acts that they were describing, he found rather that these so-called witnesses were merely recounting what they had been told. In dismissing these ‘second-hand’ accounts of explorers, missionaries and anthropologists, he noted that they fortuitously seemed to enter areas just after the inhabitants, or - more usually - their neighbours had given up cannibalism. Only a handful of the masses of second-hand accounts purported to be by direct witnesses of cannibalism. In each of these cases, and in the case of modern anthropologists who claimed to have witnessed cannibalistic rituals, he found reasons to throw doubt on either the credibility of the witness or on the accuracy of their observation.

If there is any veracity in her account at all, Mrs Bickard also probably falls into the category of having witnessed preparations but not the ritual itself. But, in spite of all its problems, the faint possibility of her actually having witnessed an act of anthropophagy still remains. A much less extreme (and apparently more plausible) argument than that developed by Arens was put forward by Joan Smith (1995:69-84). Writing in Granta, she did not completely discount accounts of cannibalism but argued that they should be treated with great caution. Her article began with a detailed discussion of the writer and radical Joseph Ritson’s An essay on Abstinence from Animal Food as a Moral Duty, which was published in 1882. She then went on to review the treatment of cannibals and cannibalism by ancient authors such as Juvenal and Julius Caesar, in sources as varied as the Thousand and one Nights, the writings of Marco Polo, Claude Lévi-Strauss’ Le Cru et le cuit (The Raw and the Cooked), Garry Hogg’s Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice (1958) and Lewis Robert Wolberg’s The Psychology of Eating. She also analysed the accounts of travellers and explorers such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s description of his meeting with ‘the last eater of long-pig in Nuka-Hiva’ - in the South Seas, Captain J.C. Voss’ The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss in Melanesia (1913), and the accounts of the French explorer Paul Belloni du Chaillu (1861; discussed in Baker 1974:390-391) and the Victorian explorer Mary Kingsley(1897), who went in search of the allegedly cannibalistic Fang in the 1850s and 1880s respectively. Her article concluded with an analysis of the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer dubbed by the press ‘the Milwaukee Cannibal’, who was arrested in 1991.

Smith argued that ‘A striking feature of Ritson’s cannibals is that, far from showing remorse, they generally polished off their victims with exhibitionist relish.’ Unlike the cases which he reported on from Ireland in the 1860s (and the few other cases from Europe that he touched on) where people were driven to cannibalism as a result of plague and famine, few of the people outside of Europe listed by Ritson ‘had been driven to eating their fellow humans by necessity, a motive he viewed more leniently than sheer bloodlust.’ In fact, his prejudices became very clear as soon as he began writing about Africa, where he believed that (in a description which has strong resonances with those of Mauch about Lwamondo and Gilson about cannibals in general given earlier in this chapter):

The negros, from the inland parts, are, almost without exception, anthropohagi, have terrible, tiger-like, scarcely human aspect, and pointed or jagged teeth, closing together like those of a fox. Most of these are so fierce and greedy after human flesh, that they bite large pieces out of the arms or legs of their neighbours and fellow slaves, which they swallow with great avidity (Ritson 1882; quoted in Smith 1995: 73).

Thus, according to Smith (1995: 73): ‘Cannibalism is, in other words, an index of savagery.’ The belief in ‘the widespread existence of cannibal tribes in the non-European, ‘uncivilized’ areas of the world’ was shared by a range of authors. Thus, she argued that :

Cannibal narratives ... are one of the ways in which colonial cultures differentiate themselves from other races - particularly ones they regard as troublesome or unwilling to accept their subject status... This is not to argue that cannibalism does not exist but to suggest that its unacknowledged function is supporting an otherwise dubious hierarchy of racial superiority has predisposed too many commentators to believe almost any anecdote, no matter how vague or unlikely the details (Smith 1995: 76).

Moreover:

What emerges from these credulous and strikingly similar narratives is greater evidence of a prurient curiosity within developed cultures about cannibalism than of its widespread practice outside them (Smith 1995: 78).

Ideas about differentiation and racial superiority, and cannibalism as an inherent trait of certain groups, were also particularly clearly revealed in another group of sources that I consulted - authors who accepted (largely uncritically) the veracity of accounts of cannibalism. Thus, in a work first published in 1930, the ethnologist Charles Gabriel Seligman (1873-1940) used cannibalism (or its absence) as one of the tools for categorising and identifying the peoples of Africa. What struck me the most about the descriptions of various groups in this work was that cannibalism was simply included as one of the features of the people being described - it would appear that it was not seen as remarkable, rather, it was almost expected of some groups - particularly what were seen as the more ‘primitive’ ones. Moreover, some of these descriptions are almost like zoological ones of animals (Seligman 1966; see especially 32, 56-57; 136).

In a work published as late as 1974, the zoologist John Baker was, in some ways, even less critical than Seligman in accepting accounts of cannibalism. He accepted the accounts of nineteenth century explorers and traders such as Paul Belloni du Chaillu, John Petherick, Carlo Piaggia and Georg Schweinfurth with what I see as a remarkable degree of gullibility (Baker 1974:391-393).

Seligman’s account, those of the nineteenth century explorers and traders, and their echo in Baker’s (much more recent) work, clearly reflect the underlying assumption of cannibalism as an index of savagery capable of being used in the construction of racial hierarchies. By making cannibalism the icon for ‘otherness’, they enabled individuals, and groups, to define themselves in opposition to this - as paragons of ‘civilisation’ in opposition to the ‘savagery’ of the ‘barbarians’ or ‘heathens’.

I would like to suggest another way out of the dilemma of attempting to decide whether or not the Vhavenda really ate bits of their enemies. For me, what is important is the fact that the explorers and missionaries said that they did. Rather than trying to look at which of the cases ‘actually’ occurred and which did not, one may spend one’s time far more usefully in deconstructing the missionary accounts and seeing what they tell us about the missionaries, the Vhavenda and their interaction. The best way of achieving this, I would argue is by means of microhistory.

Turning to the background to the situation in which the Mphaphulis and the missionaries found themselves in the late nineteenth century, the establishment of a voortrekker settlement in the Soutpansberg in 1848 created a potential for conflict. Not only were the Vhavenda pressurised to cede a part of their land to the new-comers, they were also forced either to provide them with labour or to pay tax (Conerly 1990:13-14; Boeyens 1990: 110). However, there was a great deal of peaceful interaction and, for about nineteen years, Schoemansdal was the most important trade centre in the Northern Transvaal. Thousands of tons of wild animal meat, horns, whips, wood and salt were taken by local and travelling traders to Mozambique, the Cape Colony and Natal. There was a brisk illegal trade in ‘apprentices’. White employers also armed local Africans with firearms to hunt elephants for them (Conerly 1990:12-17; de Vaal n.d.; Wagner 1980). Commenting on its potential in 1866, the Berliner Missionsberichte [BMB] (No. 5, 1866, 77) noted that this ‘extremely fertile’ area was suitable for farming but ‘one has always to live in fear of war.’

The already-strained relationships between the settlers and various Vhavenda groups deteriorated even further after the whites became involved in the succession dispute between Makahdo and Davhana in 1864 discussed earlier. Makhado and his allies were dissatisfied with the support and protection offered to Davhana by João Albasini and other whites. The latter group, and Albasini’s Tsonga-Shangaan following, joined forces with Davhana and attacked the Venda gota [headman], Maphaha. During this attack, makhadzi Nyakhuhu, one of Makhado’s principal supporters in his rivalry with Davhana, was killed. Makhado and his allies retaliated by forbidding their subjects to work for the whites and by retaining the firearms which had been supplied to them (Boeyens 1990: 110; Conerly 1990:23-24, 25-27).

This conflict escalated rapidly and resulted in several military clashes. Largely as a result of mutual distrust and land-grabbing and overhunting by the settlers, negotiations aimed at reaching a peaceful settlement failed time and again. In June 1867, a commando led by Paul Kruger, the commandant-general (and later President) of the Transvaal Republic, failed to dislodge the Vhavenda leader, Madzhie, an ally of Makhado’s, from his mountain stronghold above Schoemandsal. As a result of the continuing state of war, the depletion of the local wildlife reserves through overhunting and the high incidence of malaria among the settlers, Schoemandsal was evacuated on 15 July 1867 and a new town, Marabastad, was established in the south of the Zoutpansberg district Boeyens 1990: 110; Conerly 1990:27-28, Miller and Tempelhoff: 1990: 36).

After the evacuation of Schoemandsal, the white settlers renewed their efforts to subjugate the Vhavenda and seize more land. In spite of the fact that they suffered a number of defeats, the Vhavenda were not subjugated. The northern part of the district of Zoutpansberg was essentially cleared of white settlers until the conquest of the Vhavenda by the Boers in the Boer-Mphephu War of 1898. Mphephu fled into what was then called Rhodesia. (He would only return in 1905, after the British victory in the South African War of 1899 to 1902.) The Vhavenda were thus the last of the African groups in the Transvaal to be subjugated by the Boers (McDonald 1933: 12; Conerly 1990: 31; Miller and Tempelhoff 1990: 37; van der Heyden 1986b:10-12).

It was in 1872, during the time that whites had been driven from the Zoutpansberg district and prior to the establishment of white control, that missionaries of the Berlin Mission Society became the first to establish themselves in the heart of Vendaland in areas under the direct control of Vhavenda mahosi.

At this time, the area was dominated by three great mahosi: Khosi Makhado (Ramabulana), Khosi Tshivhase and Khosi Masindi Mphaphuli. There were also a number of lesser mahosi and magota, who exhibited varying degrees of independence (BMB, Nr. 21 u 22, 1878, 490; Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(18), 1 Juli 1887, n.p. (2); Bawenda-Freund, VI(23), 1888, 67; 11(42), 1893, 161; Wessmann n.d. – 1902: 1). Ha-Tshivhase (later called Maungani or Beuster), the first Berlin Mission station to be established in Vendaland, was founded in the lands of Khosi Tshivhase in October 1872 by Br. Carl Beuster. This was followed by the founding of a second station, Ga Matzebandela (later called Tshakhuma), in the lands of Khosi Madzivhandila, an independent ruler who nevertheless had to be extremely careful in his dealings with Makhado, by Brother Erdmann Schwellnus, in May 1874 (Acta betreffend Personalia: Schwellnus, Erdmann, Anon. N.d. – 1947; Bressani: 1963:57-58). Thus far, Khosi Makhado had refused permission for the extension of mission work into the areas controlled by his vassals or for establishment of mission stations in the area that he controlled directly. In addition, Khosi Masindi Mphaphuli had not given permission for the establishment of a station in his area or those of his subordinate mahosi and magota (Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(16), April 1887, n.p. (2-3); Bawenda-Freund, 11(42), 1893, 161; VI(23), 1888, 67; 14(54), 1896, 292; BMB, Nr. 7 u 8, 1873, 132-137; Nr. 12 u 13, 1873, 213; Nr. 7 u 8, 1874, 123-143; Nr. 11 u 12, 1875, 231; Nr. 17 u 18, 1875, 368). Indeed, although they saw it as essential that they spread into these areas, the missionaries had a strong perception that these mahosi were, and remained, hostile to the idea of allowing this to happen (Bawenda Freund, 14(55), 3 Quartal 1896, 310; 31(2), April 1914, 22; 33(4), Oktober 1916, 11; 35(2), April 1918, 5).

In an effort to test the ground for expansion of mission activity into unmissionised areas, Beuster sent Evangelists Paulus (Luvhengo) and Johannes (Mutshaeni) out on a preaching journey from Ha-Tshivhase in November 1875. They were accompanied by another Christian convert, David, who acted as their guide. Khosi Makwarela Mphaphuli ‘received them in a very friendly manner and asked them to send him a teacher.’ Spurred on by this encouragement, Beuster entered into discussions with Makwarela about the possibility of establishing a third station in his lands. The man that he found was not at all what he expected. With his neat western dress and his keen intellect, he could not easily be fitted into any existing stereotype. ‘Makoarele [Makwarela] himself was very obliging and friendly, and Bro. Beuster was astonished to find a more or less decently-clothed man, well-mannered and intelligent, with keen perception, in the middle of the wilds (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 292 -quotation; BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 397, 400).’ The Khosi stated that he was extremely keen to have a ‘teacher’ for his people. He could nevertheless not permit this to happen without the permission of his father and overlord (Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(18), n.p. (2), and BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 400). This prompted Beuster to visit to Masindi Mphaphuli.

The first face-to face meeting between the two men took place at the khosi’s royal capital on 13 December 1875. I wish to analyse two published accounts of this meeting, both of which drew on Missionary Beuster’s diary entry describing what occurred. The first of these was published in the Berliner Missions-Berichte for 1876. Due to the fact that there was some delay between information being received at headquarters in Germany and its publication, this may in fact be viewed as the contemporaneous account. The second, which could draw on hindsight, was published in Bawenda-Freund in 1896. Since these two accounts differ very slightly, but in important ways, I would like to discuss both of them in some detail.

The first account states that Beuster was accompanied by Paulus, Johannes and David, the three Christian converts who had visited Makwarela earlier (BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 398). The second refers only to Johannes (Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(18), 1 Juli 1887, n.p. (2)). I believe that this omission was deliberate. Johannes was the evangelist whom Beuster came to trust and depend on the most, even writing a tractate about his life which ran to two editions (Beuster 1890, 1897). So, it would make sense that his role was emphasised the most. However, I would like to argue that the fact that much of the more dramatic behaviour of the khosi was directed towards Johannes meant that ignoring the others, to whom he did not exhibit the same patterns of behaviour assisted in creating a strong impression that Masindi Mphaphuli was a savage ruler, quick to take offence at the slightest provocation and not entirely in control of his actions. While this is suggested in the first account, explanations given serve to mitigate this impression of the khosi. The later description was carefully crafted to leave no such room for understanding open.

The first account continues by stating that Masindi Mphaphuli

was an odd person. Beuster and his companions had hardly sat down when Pafudi [Mphaphuli] started shouting at Johannes. At first Brother Beuster did not take much notice of this, and he thought that it was just the way of the old heathen. But he continued scolding Johannes over and over again, becoming more vehement: his scolding became the most vulgar insults. The red eyes of the old man sparkled in a most sinister way, the spittle shot out of his mouth: he looked like a Satan. Eventually he jumped up, took a stick and lifted his arm to beat Johannes. Johannes warded off the stick. But this just infuriated the king more. ‘How dare you touch my stick!’ With this he lifted his arm again; this time the caning was averted by some court attendants, who sprang between them and begged for mercy. This all happened within a few seconds (BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 398).

While the information given is basically the same, the more extreme language used in, and the more focused nature of, the later account gives a much more dramatic picture of the behaviour of the khosi:

Hardly had they sat down when Pafudi [Mphaphuli] began to abuse Johannes. His words of abuse became even stronger until they were mostly cursing and swearing. The red eyes of the old man sparkled sinisterly; the spittle shot out of his mouth: he looked like a Satan. Eventually he jumped up, took a stick and careered around with this, although luckily turning the blows away [and not hitting anyone]. And the reason for this fit of rage? By keeping his jacket on, Johannes had not presented himself properly before the king (Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(18), 1 Juli 1887, n.p. (2)).

Both accounts continue by stating that the missionary felt that he could not tolerate this, and started to leave. The first account has him commenting: ‘What have you done? You are hitting my child! By doing that you have driven me away!’ before walking away. In response to this:

When he had gone, the king and his attendants ran around the house to prevent them from leaving. The king stood in front of the missionary and shouted: ‘Don’t go, Mynheer. Mynheer must not go! It is all just a prank! You do not know Mpafudi [Mphaphuli]!’ His accomplices tried their best to make excuses for the king. With this, Beuster decided to return (BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 399).

Mphaphuli then engaged in a series of acts which were obviously calculated to make a point about power and power relations. Since (in spite of being related to each other) Mphaphuli and Tshivhase were old enemies (Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(18), 1 Juli 1887, n.p. (3-4)), they were also obviously designed to comment on this. The first account continues by describing that:

The king ordered food to be brought. Then he played on his mbila; when he had done, he got up and pushed it over so that it broke. After this, he sat down and, in his usual way, he started shouting. Beuster said: ‘King, my ears are hurting when they hear such words.’ The king answered, annoyed: ‘May they always remain sore. This is nothing!’ He claimed not to be drunk - that was supposed to be a lie. But he had his dagga-pipe brought to him, and with the smoking he began raving again: ‘Schewasse! Schewasse! [Tshivhase! Tshivhase!] I am coming for you! I will smash you into pieces! Today, this very night, I will set your villages alight!’ Then he ordered Beuster to relate all kinds of compliments like these to Schewasse [Tshivhase] - Beuster politely declined to do so.

In an argument which obviously reflected the fact that Mphaphuli did not trust Beuster because he was Tshivhase’s missionary, the first argument then quotes him as saying: ‘Schewasse kills my children! You are living with him! Why don’t you ask him not to do it (BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 399)?’

Both accounts then have Mphaphuli accompanying Beuster out of the capital village and telling him that:

You people say that we blacks will burn in fire! Nonsense, do you not see my black skin? This is not burned, it is black, but you are white, you will be burned!’ At the same time, the king made all sorts of gymnastic jumps and assumed all sorts of warrior-positions, pouring scorn on the horses of the whites, [and] singing the praises of his axe against these. He would take this in his hand and, with his speedy feet, catch up the fleeing rider and then with his strong arm cut the horse in two under its body. With this, to the delight of his subjects [who had accompanied him], he acted out the movement of chopping and the crashing down of the horse. The capital village already lay some distance behind the travellers, who had strode through a long, thick thorn-forest, the king was still with them; then he wanted to show them his pigs and see his workers (BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 399; Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(18), 1 Juli 1887, n.p. (2-3)).

It was only once he felt that Mphaphuli had calmed down that Beuster was able to broach with him the issue about which he had come. This was the request of his son that he be permitted to have a ‘teacher’ in his lands.

Mphaphuli would not countenance opening a station at his own capital. He nevertheless gave permission for the missionaries to open a station in the lands of his son: ‘Between us there is no conflict, you can teach when and where you want to [in his lands]; you can also tell my son that I have nothing against it, if he wants to believe in Jesus (BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 399; Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(18), 1 Juli 1887, n.p. (3); also Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 292).’

What the second account omits totally is the explanation offered by Johannes of the khosi’s behaviour later when the travellers were alone. In this, his actions were explained in perfectly rational terms. Firstly, particularly amongst the three great mahosi, there was a continual jockeying for power, status and prestige. On one level: ‘the cause of it was most probably nothing other than proof that Mpafudi had wanted to show what a very big king he was; a king who should receive the necessary respect.’ Secondly, as Helga Giesekke, of the Vendaland missionary family, pointed out to me in an oral communication, jackets or coats could be used to conceal weapons. It was customary to remove these in the presence of mahosi to show that the visitor or petitioner was unarmed. Johannes himself pointed out that Mphaphuli’s ‘wrath against’ him ‘was most probably because he had neglected to take off his coat when he had been granted an audience with the king’. Paulus, who was a MuSotho from the Waterberg area, ‘could be excused for this lack of manners as he did not know the customs here. But Johannes should have known the etiquette of the king’s court.’

Showing Beuster’s bias in favour of ‘his’ khosi, Tshivhase, the Missions-Berichte recorded that ‘Tshivhase does not demand this recognition - everybody knows of him that he is a powerful, legitimate king who does not have to demand respect through swearing.’ More perceptive was Johannes’ comment that:

As for the insults which are meant for Schewasse [Tshivhase], they were just a pretence. If Beuster passed on the messages, it would only result in the two kings re-affirming their friendship and the missionary would be the guilty one - he would be accused of fanning the flames of enmity between the chiefs, like all whites usually do.

However, in a phrase which could be read either as veiled criticism of the missionaries or as playing into the stereotypes which would be developed about Mphaphuli: ‘Besides, there are enough rumours about Mpafudi’s [Mphaphuli’s] atrocities - that he tears out the intestines of his enemies while they are still alive, and other stories like this (BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1876, 400).’

With the benefit of hindsight, and a different ideological starting point, it is also clear that Mphaphuli’s decision to allow the missionaries to operate in the lands of his son was an extremely shrewd political move - it gave him access to the missionaries without allowing them to encroach into his area of authority. However, such subtleties escaped the missionaries as they did not fit in with their preconceptions about ‘heathen’ rulers. Instead, in 1876, when there was still the remotest possibility that Masindi Mphaphuli would change his attitude to the mission, the rational explanations for his behaviour were still given. By the late 1880s, when it was clear that he would continue to allow a missionary presence but would act to prevent any significant expansion of their activity in his area, he was portrayed as a savage, unstable cannibal king. Explanations of his behaviour were edited out or dropped and the stereotype was further developed to portray him as:

a really cruel man, who took pleasure in a great deal of bloodshed and was often the instigator of battles between his two sons and their followers. He often had the bodies of fallen enemies bought to the capital village, where he defiled them and allowed them to lie unburied in the open country. Out of the bones of the same, he had war pipes [musical instruments] manufactured. From time to time, by his command, at great celebrations, human flesh was cooked together with the meat of oxen. Individual pieces were then placed in the thorn-bushes; from there his people had to take the pieces of flesh with their mouths and eat them, without touching them with their hands (Wessmann n.d. – 1902:1-2).

Because of the ‘gruesome events’ which took place in this ‘heathen’ capital village, it ‘was a really dark area.’ It lay concealed in the ‘midst of a huge, impenetrable’ forest of bushes and thorn-bushes. There were many paths which entered into this but most ended in dead-ends. ‘Every visitor had to take a guide with him to show him the way.’ This was a defensive measure and ensured that visitors could not arrive uninvited or unexpectedly in the capital. It also obscured events in the capital from outside eyes. Beyond the consumption of human flesh:

From time to time, huge dance performances took place in the capital village. Only respected men could dance, that is those who had killed many people in their lives. So one often saw how, to the thudding tones of the large war drum, old men and women turned round in the circle and praised their dark deeds before the chief in song Wessmann n.d. – 1902: 2).

Whatever they thought of Masindi Mphaphuli, the missionaries were nevertheless able to act upon the permission that he had given them to open a station in Makwarela’s lands. Klaas Koen, the missionary who would found this station in his area was already in Vendaland preparing for his task. Having arrived in the area in April 1876 (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 11), his first posting was to Tshakhuma. As was customary for new missionaries, he was to be stationed here for a year to ‘be initiated into his calling and to study the language and customs of the Bawenda (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 12; Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 292).’

Missionary descriptions of Koen’s training under the direction of Missionary Erdmann Schwellnus and his wife clearly reveal the stereotypes that they held about unconverted Africans in general and the Vhavenda in particular. They note that he ‘diligently and quickly learned the pleasant-sounding Bawenda language and studied the people and their habits’ of life. Koen ‘often crouched with the half-naked black people in their low, round living-huts and spoke with them about God and salvation.’ In these meetings, he learned more about:

the depraved heathen nature. The first thing that they tried with him was shameless begging; also knaveishness was tried against him. With repugnance, he learned about polygamy - where, for the price of a beast and a goat (sometimes hoes, guns and so on are also used), even a nine-year old girl can become the third wife of an old man - or where the nobility use one of their young wives, kneeling behind them, as a back-rest.- Occasionally, war-cries emerge. But the rattling of spears, bows and arrows, and the shooting of guns, which have mainly been earned [from wages] at the diamond fields are always the main thing. But terrible atrocities are perpetrated by the chiefs. Some [subjects] who are found guilty of a misdeneamour are wiped out with their entire family and their possessions are confiscated. When twins are born, the second one is always killed, even when the first was born dead; ... All of these silly customs are fostered by the Zauberer, or priests, who pretend that they are in contact with the spirits of the ancestors. The ... [ancestors] take up their dwellings in animals or in other objects, and these are venerated like gods. Among one nearby tribe, a few apes are the gods, which are worshipped by the chief and his subjects.

At the same time, the disposition of the Bawenda is earthy through and through. They long after eating and drinking, jewellery [bodily adornment], cattle and wives; of spiritual matters they know and understand nothing (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.:12-14; see also Letter: Missionar Koen an Direktor Wangemann aus Tshakoma, 10.5. 1876, also reproduced in ‘Aus dem Leben des Missionars Niklas Koen’, both in Acta betreffend Personalia, Koen, Klaas).

Thus, in missionary discourse, the ‘pleasant-sounding’ language of the people was undermined by their ‘half-naked’ state. This, in turn, was interpreted as a reflection of their ‘depraved heathen nature’. This stereotype of a ‘pleasant’ exterior masking a deeper ‘depraved heathen nature’ would be expressed, and developed, particularly strongly in missionary experiences of, and writings about, the relationship between Koen, his colleagues and successors, and Khosi Makwarela. It is very clearly present in the descriptions of Koen’s first meeting with Makwarela, and his first impressions of him.

On 13 July 1877, Koen and Makwarela met to make final arrangements for the establishment of the mission station. Based on this meeting, and those which would follow, Koen soon developed the following impression of the khosi:

Makoarele is a half-civilised Mowenda, he goes around neatly dressed in the European manner, has all sorts of household goods, some [of which] he himself skilfully manufactured, plays [the] concertina, possesses horses and learns to read and write quickly. He is intelligent, quick-witted, skilful and is interested in everything. One can have a far better conversation with him than with any of his people. He does not beg; yet he has many wives and is still buying more (BMB, No. 21 u 22 1878, 490 (quotation); Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 14).
 
 

For the missionaries, this ‘half-civilised’ exterior masked a far darker personality:

That he was nevertheless a raw heathen was attested to by two human heads placed on top of poles. Recently he had attacked a certain chief and killed him, together with his son. The heads were signs of his victory. Kuhn [Koen] argued that this was wrong and pleaded with him for them to be removed (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 14).
 
 

That this picture of a ‘pleasant’ exterior masking a far ‘darker’ hidden core was a pre-existing one which was refined over time, is revealed by the fact that these descriptions are drawn from Koen’s own contemporary writings, and from other sources which used these as their primary source. They were not written later with the benefit of hindsight. What changed over time was the missionary interpretation of whether or not Makwarela, like Koen, would be able to rise above his background.

At first, the missionaries believed that this would, indeed, be the case. They viewed this as being of critical importance. Due to the great difficulties that they were experiencing in making, and keeping, a significant number of converts, from very early on, the missionaries in Vendaland saw it as essential that they convert a khosi. They believed that only this would make conversion acceptable to society-at-large. Due to the ruler’s central position in the life of his people, if they succeeded in doing so, his followers would follow (Bawenda-Freund, 14 (54), 1896, 296).

Koen returned to Tshakhuma after the meeting of 13 July 1877 but returned on the twenty-sixth of the same month, this time to stay (Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 1; Tagebuch der Station bei Ha Makoarela (Nicolaus Koen), 26 Juli 1877; Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 292-293; BMB, Nr. 11 u 12, 1878, 256; No. 21 u 22 1878, 491-492; Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(19), 1 Oktober 1887, n.p. (2-3); Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 14). In discussions with Koen, Makwarela clearly showed his mastery of strategy and diplomacy. The khosi stated that he was not yet ready to become a Christian. To do so while many of his subjects remained unconverted would diminish his position as their ruler. He nevertheless had no objection to his people converting. Should they do so, he would have no objection to becoming the Christian King of a Christian people (Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(19), 1 Oktober 1887, n.p. (3)).

Koen wasted no time in starting work on the establishment of the station of Georgenholtz. In discussions of the early development of this station, Makwarela is again depicted as an exceptional character - a leader of the people who outshone his subjects, his peers and his superiors in ability and application. In the perception of the missionaries, he clearly strove after acquiring the benefits of ‘European civilisation’, as symbolised by literacy and the manufacture of ‘well-made European clothing’. He was also perceived to be taking the first steps towards converting to Christianity. In contrast, while they sought after the same benefits, his people were not perceived as having the same capacity for application:

Kuhn [Koen] immediately began to preach to the people. Because he had no bell, he called the heathens together by beating on a pot or a piece of iron. They came also - sometimes only 10, although often up to 500 (Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(19), 1 Oktober 1887, n.p. (3)). ... The chief maintained his good opinion of the missionary and aided him whenever he could. He left his people in no doubt that he found it pleasing when many of them went to learn - and himself was the most regular at hearing the preaching and at learning in the school (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 293). ... With great determination, he also learned to read and write. He also mastered the art of tailoring which, at that time, was unknown to his people (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 15). ... To those who were enrolled as catechists under the instruction of the missionary, he presented well-made European clothing [which he had made himself] (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 293). ... Later, when other people were also taught by the missionary, he helped to show them how to cut and sew decent clothes for themselves (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 15).
 
 

However, in spite of strenuous efforts by Koen and the enthusiastic support of Makwarela:

at first, the preaching of the Gospel brought none into line. If the Gospel brought wealth and a life of luxury, all of the Bawenda would have fallen for it. But none of them had the desire to take up the cross. ... One day, one man in particular was extremely angry about the sermon and exhorted the others not to move away from the old customs. He frequently stated: ‘We are the children of Satan and want to remain so.’ That they listened to this ‘liar from the beginning’ also shows that they often tell the missionary what he wants to hear, but without acting accordingly afterwards (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.:15-16).
 
 

In spite of these difficulties, by the time of Koen’s first Christmas at Georgenholtz, the missionaries felt that there were strong signs that he was beginning to have some kind of success. It even seemed probable to them that Makwarela himself was ready to convert to Christianity:

The Word of God ... found others who wanted to be taught [together] with Makoarele and receive baptism. The Lord assisted here by sending signs (Mark 16, 20). Sick people, to whom Kuhn gave homeopathic medicines, were healed. When, in time of a drought against which the rain-makers had no remedies, he prayed for rain, the Lord sent rain. Through this, the missionary won the love and attention of the people from far and wide, and deeply dented the faith in the arts of the Zauberer. Makoarele still believed that the Zauberer could do something but the power of the Word of God was also clear to him. Kuhn had to visit him in his home in the morning and in the evening, and even in dreams he occupied himself with the question of salvation (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.:16-17; see also Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 293).
 
 

In December 1877, Makwarela dreamed a dream. He related this dream to Koen, who recorded it on 23 December as follows:

In my dream, I saw a terribly big fire filled with people in front of me. They were screaming and complaining piteously. On the other side, many people were sitting. All of them were extremely cheerful, praying, reading God’s word and singing. I was standing entirely alone. The flames appeared to want to engulf me. I shivered in terrible fear. Then my father, Pafuli [Masindi Mphaphuli], came running, screaming in his fear: ‘Save my son! Save my son!’ Eventually, I discovered a small gap near the fire, fled through this and ran to those praying, pleading with them in my fear: ‘Help me, help me, in my thirst for knowledge I have merely learned how to read and write, I have often not heard God’s word with a heart longing to praise him. Now I seek refuge with you, pray with me.’ They did this and I awoke. All people that I saw in my dream were blacks (Tagebuch der Station bei Ha Makoarela (Nicolaus Koen), 23 Dezember 1877, 28; see also Bawenda-Freund, VII(27), 86; 14(54), 1896, 293; BMB, No. 21 u 22, 1878, 495-496; Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.:17, 1891: 8).
 
 

Makwarela’s dream demonstrates the kinds of tensions that the presence of the missionaries in his lands had brought to him and to his people. The pressure that Makwarela was under to convert is evidenced by the twice-daily visits that Koen paid to him. His regular attendance at instruction classes and church services would have increased this pressure significantly. As shown by Mphaphuli’s comments to Beuster at their first meeting about blacks being ‘burned in fire’, the local people clearly associated the missionaries with their teachings about the fires of hell. Indeed, the missionaries taught that this was the fate of ‘heathens’ (BMB, Nr. 11 u 12, 1899, 249).

Moving to the content of the dream itself, Makwarela was in fear of damnation. In addition, like the parable of the rich man in hell who wished to warn his brothers about the fate that would befall them if they did not mend their ways (Luke 16, 19-31), Masindi Mphaphuli was already lost. This consigning of Makwarela’s father to the fires of hell struck at the very root of the religious charter which supported Vhavenda society. A strong body of anthropological and missionary writing argues that, even in life, the mahosi were regarded as gods (for example, Bawenda-Freund, VII(27), 1889, 87-88; Gottschling 1905: 197; Lestrade 1930: 311-313, 321; Wessmann 1908: 80; van Warmelo 1931, 998-999). While this possibly confuses veneration with worship, the mahosi certainly were the religious leaders of their people. The rites and ceremonies attached to their office, the musanda language (Khuba 1993, 1994) used in royal circles and the patterns of behaviour adopted by subjects in their presence set them apart from ordinary mortals. Moreover, their role as protectors of their communities and final arbiters of the fate of their subjects did not stop with death. Consigning Mphaphuli to the fires of hell thus affected his whole community, not just those of the existing generation but also those of the generations still to come.

From the perspective of the dream, the only solution lay in the wholehearted acceptance of Christianity. Learning the new ways of the whites - as exemplified by reading and writing - was not enough. Makwarela, and his people, would have to leave this past and accept life in Christ and the prayers, support and assistance of those who had already converted. In the view of the missionaries, Koen’s successes in treating illness and his successes where the Zauberer had failed, reinforced this interpretation. Under such conditions, the dream reveals the great trauma that operation of the Berlin Missionaries in his area of authority against a background of increasing white penetration had engendered in Khosi Makwarela. The time was not far off when he would have to make far-reaching decisions about his own fate, and the fate of his people.

Koen asked Makwarela if he understood the dream, arguing that God was using this to ‘say the same things’ that he had ‘already preached to him.’ In a similar vein, ‘His brother Masiti [Masithi] also told him that the dream is very clear, all can see that it is the voice of God that is calling him.’ While Makwarela acknowledged that this may have been true, he also allowed for the possibility ‘that perhaps it was just a dream (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 293).’ It was nevertheless very clear that the dream had ‘made a deep impression on him’ (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 17).

The missionaries believed that it was clear that Makwarela ‘was caught in an inner conflict.’ This was clear not only from the dream but also by the fact that, at this stage:

he often acknowledged in conversation that he no longer believed at all in the lying gods of the Bawenda; they [the Vhavenda] had merely been deceived and believed so strongly in these lies because they had been passed down from their great-great grandfathers and were tradition. He had learned enough of God’s word to say that they were only fables (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 293; see also Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 17).
 
 

In the interpretation of the missionaries, Makwarela felt the truth of the Word of God deeply and seriously’ but ‘the fear of diminishing his power and prestige as a chief’ and his worries about ‘his many wives, the number of which he was always increasing, prevented him from seriously moving to convert’ to Christianity. He was also ‘not completely free from believing in’ the ‘lies’ of the traditional religion himself. For example, shortly after telling Br. Koen about his dream, ‘he told him that the rain doctor of Lowimbi could really make rain (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 293; see also Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 17). However, in spite of these stumbling-blocks, the dream and the discussions which followed it gave the missionaries a great deal of hope that Khosi Makwarela was finally ready to convert to Christianity and become baptised (Tagebuch der Station bei Ha Makoarela (Nicolaus Koen), 23 Dezember 1877, 29; Bawenda-Freund VII(27), 1889, 86; 14(54), 1896, 293; BMB, No. 21 u 22, 1878, 495-496).

These missionary interpretations may also be read in a different light. An alternative explanation could be that Makwarela was in the early stages of formulating a strategy which would enable him to attempt to solve the dilemma posed by his liminal position somewhere between ‘tradition’ and the new order held out by the missionaries by bridging the two extremes in his person.

Whether or not Makwarela believed that the ‘truth’ that Christianity taught was the only truth, he appears to have realised that abandoning tradition and traditional religion completely would have shaken his society to the core. It would also have been an act of political suicide. ‘Heathens’ showed considerable ‘animosity’ to those that converted to Christianity. This ‘animosity’ would have been greater in the case of a converted khosi than with ordinary commoners. Not only would his father not have accepted his conversion but the overwhelming majority of his people still followed traditional religion. They would have demanded of him that he rule according to established traditions and beliefs. At best, his conversion would have divided his people, at worst, he would have lost his throne and possibly his life. Moreover, even if he had managed to retain power, or a degree of power, his continued rule would have been subject to conditions and constraints imposed by the missionaries.

One solution to this dilemma would be that of taking elements from both traditions and blending them together in a similar way to that which was later to be adopted by Zionist religious groups. By the time that the first four adult baptisms took place at Gerogenholtz on 27 July 1879, Makwarela apparently wanted both to be baptised and to rule as a ‘traditional’ chief - to blend elements of Christianity with elements of ‘tradition’ (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 21; see also: Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 1; Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(19), 1 Oktober 1887, n.p. (3); BM, Nr. 11 u 12, 1880, 211; Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 294. and Berliner Missions-Berichte, Nr. 11 u 12, 1880, 211).

Missionary accounts of these baptisms record that, in spite of the great joy that they brought:

One person was deeply saddened by these events: this was Makoarele. He very much wanted to be baptised also. He had begged to be baptised ... [with the words] ‘See, there is water; what is stopping me from being baptised?’ However, Klaas Kuhn could not grant him his pleas as he would not leave his many wives and live with only one wife as a Christian. The missionary could make no exception ... [of the rule] for him (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 22; see also Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 1; Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 294).
 
 

As a man of his times and his calling, Koen had no choice but to take the stand that he did. However, in so doing, he brought into the open a tension between the leadership of the mission and the leadership of the people which had previously been hidden beneath the cordiality of their relationship on the surface. He also fomented a tension between him and Makwarela which had not existed previously. In the interpretation of the missionaries:

There followed difficult times for the young Christians at Georgenholtz. Makoarele took offence that he had not been allowed to be baptised. One should not be surprised that he was hostile to Kuhn; because as a chief he was not used to any dissent. He became a little cooler towards Kuhn; only attending church services infrequently. He nevertheless still claimed to be Kuhn’s good friend. Nevertheless, he came more and more under the influence of his mother, who was a bitter enemy of the Gospel. She had become extremely wild when she had heard that her son wanted to become a Christian. On the day of the baptisms, she had said that she wanted to dance at the celebration and then, when Makoarele was also baptised, she would take her own life. Now she was very satisfied that he was for the present remaining with the customs of his father and requested him - not without success - to hinder [the spreading of] the gospel (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 23; see also Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 294).
 
 

Because of the pivotal role that the khosi played in the life of his community, this new tension was not restricted to him alone. In the interpretation of the missionaries:

Many of those who had learned now remained distant because they saw that Makoarele [Makwarela] had become half-hearted [about Christianity]. They started to work on Sundays again and all sorts of terrible heathen practices which had been allowed to fall into disuse were again practised (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 23). ... [Makwarela] again celebrated the consecration of the beer [for the ancestors] in heathen manner, yes, he also no longer stopped his people from persecuting the Christians (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 294). ... Many heathens cut ties with the believers, hindered them and threatened them in bitter enmity (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 23).
 
 

Because of this atmosphere of tension, the missionaries believed that ‘The difference between the Christians and the heathens became increasingly clear.’ In a clear statement of what Koen saw as the wild, uncontrolled passions of the ‘heathens’ as opposed to the controlled study, self-improvement and spirituality of his converts:

One particular Sunday, Kuhn [Koen] wrote: Here at the station there is Sunday rest, over there at the heathens there is noise and wild shouting. There, from that kraal, a woman jumps wildly around to the monotonous music of their drums and pipes [flutes]; she dances and shouts until she can [do so] no longer and is completely exhausted. Then she becomes possessed by spirits and becomes the irrational lute for the expressing of what they see as a higher wisdom; In contrast to this, the converts sit and read. Gathered in groups, they read their Testaments [Bibles] and exercise books, while here and there a spiritual song rings out. What contrast [between] here and there (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 24)!
 
 

In 1882, ‘there were but 28 Christians at the station who held faithfully to God’s Word (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 24).’ In the interpretation of the missionaries, Makwarela was no longer interested in:

the Gospel ... as he was busy with very different plans. He wanted to journey into the lands of the whites himself and possibly to acquire a wagon from there. He really carried out this journey with more than a hundred of his subjects, and went right through to the diamond fields, where he left them to work. When, after some months, he came back with his new wagon drawn by 16 oxen, the joy among his people was great. He also greeted the missionary again as his old friend (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 24-25).
 
 

Other events were also leading to the rebuilding of the friendship between the two men, for:

at that time there was a great drought in the land. The Zauberer tried all their arts to make it rain - but in vain. Then the chief requested the missionary to pray for rain with the Christians. They did this and then, the very next night, came the long-awaited rain. This made a deep impression on the people. However, none converted because of this (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 25).
 
 

The missionaries argued that it nevertheless did have an effect on Makwarela:

At night, Makoarele [Makwarela] came to the church service again. Klaas Kuhn [Koen] preached about the ‘lost son’ so powerfully that it went deep into his heart. However, he wanted to make excuses. He said [that] he wanted to accuse his mother and [his] council for turning him away from the Word of God (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 25).

This thawing of relations was reflected in the extremely warm welcome which Dietrich Baumhöfner received from Makwarela when he arrived to assist the seriously ill Koen - who was dying of ‘fever’ [malaria and, apparently, tropical amoeba-infections] - in August 1882 (Mitteilungen des Vereins ‘Heidenfreund’, V(19), 1 Oktober 1887, n.p. (4); BMB, Nr. 19 u 20, 1883, 364; Bawenda-Freund, VI(20), 1888, 54). However, while there would still be many times when friendly relations would prevail between Makwarela and the missionaries, things would never return to the way that they had been in the early days (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 294).

With Koen’s death in February 1883, the ‘young, fresh Missionary’ Dietrich Baumhöfner was left in charge of the station at Georgenholtz (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.:29-30; see also Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 294). He ‘had all the keenness of youth and tackled the labour on the soul of the chief’, which Koen had been forced by his illness to cut back on, ‘with fresh effort.’ From the paternalistic perspective of the missionaries, it was clear that, removed from the regular influence of Koen, Makwarela had begun to slip back from the position on the road towards conversion and salvation that he had reached. In so doing, he was again not prepared to stand up to his father and was prepared to use Mphaphuli’s hostility as an excuse for his own backsliding. However, the missionaries still held out hope that Baumhöfner would lead him to convert to Christianity:

First, Makoarele came to him to ask for medicine for one of his wives. Br. Baumhöfner showed him the punishing hand of God in the illness of his wife. Because he had recently taken this wife against Br. Kuhn’s objection - he had told him that it was a sin to take more than one wife. By this deed, he had shown the heathens that he did not want to learn. Then he came with many excuses. His father Pafudi had said to him: ‘You must only dare to learn to read, but when I hear that you have become baptised and have to leave your wives, I will exile you from the lands; then [also] think that you have the children of the greatest in the lands as your wives.’ About the Sunday labour that he had caused to be performed in his garden the previous day, he willingly said that he would put a stop to this [and] said also that he had had pain in his heart about this matter all day, and would no longer have the people called for labour in the garden on a Sunday. When asked for permission for the children of the capital to be given an hour of singing twice a week, he did not do so. But he also did not forbid it. And he visibly took pleasure in the singing of the children and in the great honour shared by him when the young Mynheer came to him twice a week, also he heard when Br. Baumhöfner coupled preaching with the singing-hour (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 294-295).
 
 

‘So Baumhöfner gradually began to touch him.’ However, even the period of ‘his work was limited’ and the missionary died, also of ‘fever’, on 26 April 1883 (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 294-295 (quotation, 295); Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.:30-31; Stationschronik von Georgenholtz,:1; BMB, Nr. 11 u 12, 1884, 222; 13 u 14, 1884, 301).

For the missionaries, the great worry remained what would happen to Makwarela? Revealing the paternalistic importance which they placed on having German-trained missionaries, rather than native evangelists, in charge of stations, Bawenda-Freund recorded that, with the death of Baumhöfner ‘the congregation in Georgenholtz was orphaned, and also Makoarele was deprived of the direct and regular influence of the Word of God.’ Instead, they and he had to rely on visits ‘every now and then’ from Br. Beuster (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 295). They stated this in spite of the fact that, subject to the overriding authority of Beuster, leadership of the congregation had been:

transferred to ... one of the helpers, Franz [Maluleke], who Kuhn had trained .... Makoarele [Makwarela] was friendly both to him and [to] the Christians (Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.:31; see also Stationschronik von Georgenholtz:1).
 
 

As indicated by his cordial relationship with Franz and the Christians, in the view of the missionaries, Makwarela’s strength of character managed to keep him on the path towards conversion and salvation for some time. During the time of the station’s ‘abandonment’, Dr. Theodor Wangemann, the Director of the Berlin Mission Society, paid his second and final visit to the stations of the Society in South Africa. He also visited Georgenholtz on 11 December 1884 and had a lengthy meeting with Makwarela (Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 1; Bawenda-Freund,14(54), 1896, 295 (quotation); Sauberzweig-Schmidt n.d.: 31). In commenting on this meeting, Bawenda-Freund (14(54), 1896, 295)stated that:

Dr. Wangemann was so surprised by his intelligence and distinguished appearance that at first he thought that he was a native evangelist, rather than a heathen. In this meeting, he showed himself to be very well disposed towards Christianity and was overjoyed when the re-founding of the station was suggested.
 
 

However, even in Makwarela’s strength, in their paternalism, the missionaries saw signs that his commitment was beginning to weaken because of insufficient contact with a white missionary. It would be ‘some time before the missionary spoken about’ in the meeting with Wangemann ‘could be transferred to the station.’ In the meantime, Br. Beuster continued to visit ‘every now and then.’ It is clear that Makwarela did not count himself among the saved, or amongst those about to be saved, when, on one of Beuster’s subsequent visits:

when he [Beuster] was leading the festively-attired small congregation in singing, Makoarele said to his heathen crowd: ‘hear people, in the days to come, the believers will be with their King Jesus, but we will stand there ashamed; I know all of this because I read God’s Word (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 295-296).’
 
 

While relief would come, for the missionaries, the question was whether or not it would be in time to save Makwarela. On 28 May 1886, Missionary Reinhold Wessmann arrived at Tshivhase and began the customary one-year’s orientation with Missionary Beuster. On 23 July 1887, he and his wife arrived at Georgenholtz to re-open the station (Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 1; Tagebuch der Station Georgenholtz (Reinholdt Wessmann) Sonntag, den 24. Juli 1887; Bawenda-Freund, VI(22), 1888, 62; VII(26), 1889, 84-85; 14(54), 1896, 296; BMB, Nr. 21 u 22, 1887, 485; Nr. 11 u 12, 1888, 223; Nr. 23 u 24, 1888, 530-531; Nr. 21 u 22, 1889, 543). Bawenda-Freund (14(54): 296) noted that: ‘For the third time, the third missionary at Georgenholtz had the liveliest hopes for Makoarele’s conversion.’

Describing his early impressions of life in the vicinity of the station, Wessmann wrote of what he saw as the ‘wild’ and ‘satanic’ ways of the ‘heathens’:

What a turbulent life prevails around Georgenholtz was brought to my attention again this morning. One goes to sleep in the evening with the sound of drums and the wild screaming of the dancing heathens, so we also usually awake again in the early hours of the morning to the inarticulate sounds cast out by an old dagga-smoker in a state of euphoric intoxication. The wild dancing and the wild screaming of the Balembetu [Vhalembetu], a small group living scattered among the Bawenda [Vhavenda], may also often be heard throughout the day and night. The sight of such satanic behaviour leads one to acknowledge the force and power of Satan, whereby he blinds and shackles the heathens.- During the day we hear the sound of the Bela [mbila], a big but beautiful instrument made out of wooden rods, whose full and clear tones are not unpleasant to hear [and] fall silent on Sundays when the bell rings to call people to services (BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1888, 531-532).
 
 

Makwarela was still a ‘heathen’. However, Wessmann clearly saw him as being superior not only to his people, just described, but also to other ‘heathen rulers’ as well. He also saw him as still standing on the threshold of conversion and, like his predecessors, saw this conversion as being the key to unlock the floodgates of conversion among the Vhavenda. At about the same time as he described Makwarela’s people, Wessmann wrote about the khosi himself as follows:

The visit of a heathen ruler to the home of the mission very seldom excites the same kind of joy as the visit of Makoarele, our ruler. ... He does not only go around elegantly dressed but his aristocratic features and his pleasant speech are such that would lead him to be recognised as an educated man in Germany, if his black face did not give away his descent. Among the heathens, he is honoured and celebrated as a valiant man and a hero in war. Among our Christians, he is honoured and loved, not only as a ruler but also as a friend and brother. During the visit of other chiefs, it is common for the missionary to be bothered by continuous and great begging, but with Makoarele the opposite is the case, and he does not delight me only, he also regularly serves the members of our congregation with his good deeds and kindness. He stands very close to the Word of God. Also today, he reads with me, and his knowledge of this is not limited. God’s spirit has already been working for a long time on his heart, so that he does not only recognise his corruption but also attempts to comply with the demands of the Word of God. In his lands, he allows Sundays to be observed, and himself provides a good example of this. ... Also, blasphemers and mockers [of the Word of God] find no room in his area. If he is won for the Kingdom of God, this will give us a great harvest. With him stands or falls heathendom in these lands. Many only wait for their ruler, Makoarele, to go forward. May many praying hearts at home unite with us to win this one for salvation (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 296; BMB, Nr. 23 u 24, 1888, 532).
 
 

Moreover, in the perception of the mission, Wessmann’s admiration for Makwarela was reciprocated by the khosi. Not only did he show him honour in various ways, he also relied on him as a source of protection against the Boers:

On the other hand, the high regard in which Makoarele [Makwarela] held the missionary was shown when, on a four-week journey to Makato [Makhado], he sent back the command that all occurrences that came to light be decided by the missionary and that he had to be consulted. He forbade the common [practice of] the killing of twins and, at the same time, the importation of the brandy brought by Portuguese traders from Delegoa Bay. Makato [Makhado] expended a great deal of effort attempting to move Makoarele [Makwarela] into an alliance against the Boers; the first step in this direction was that one had to expel the missionaries. Because the missionaries prepared the ground for the Boers. But Makoarele [Makwarela] replied: ‘Why is it then that the Boers want to grab you by the collar at night when you have still not tolerated a single missionary in your lands (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 296-297)?’
 
 

These extremely positive images of Makwarela are clearly revealed in an illustration titled ‘In the area of the ruler of the lands’ in Wilde’s (1913: 73) Schwarz und Weiss and ‘Audience with Mpafudi (Makwarela)’ in the Northern-Transvaal albums of the Berlin Mission Archives (Album XXIX, Nord-Transvaal 1, Nr.40). Squatting wearing a top-hat and a jacket with missionaries, Native Evangelists (also squatting) and (apparently) a councillor in attendance, Makwarlea looks every bit the ‘civilised’, ‘aristocratic’ and ‘educated’ ruler that we have come to expect from the textual descriptions. However, extremely ironically, what this photograph does not show is that, by the time that it was taken, the Berlin Missionaries’ picture of Makwarela had changed completely.

Just as it seemed that things were going so well, the hopes of the missionaries to finally bring Makwarela to conversion were dashed. In their perception, a number of wars, the influence of his father and a lack of frequent contact with Wessmann were responsible for his change of heart. According to the missionaries, ‘1889 brought a drastic change (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 287).’ In May of that year, in a revival of previous conflicts between them change (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 288-290), Makwarela and his brother Tshikalange became involved in a ‘bloody struggle’ to consolidate their power bases as possible successors to Masindi Tagebuch der Station Ha Tsevase (Carl Beuster), 12 Mai 1889, 50-53; 17 bis 18 Mai 1889, 53-56; 25 Mai 1889, 56-57; 30 Mai 1889, 60; 5 Juni 1899, 60-61; Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 297; BMB, Nr. 21 u 22, 1890, 478-481). Makwarela had managed to gain a temporary alliance with Khosi Tshivhase, his and his father’s old enemy. As a consequence, the war also spread into the latter’s lands and dragged the missionaries at Ha-Tshivhase into the conflict (Tagebuch der Station Ha Tsevase (Carl Beuster), 18 Mai 1889, 55; Bawenda-Freund, 8(30), 1890, 97-99; 14(54), 1896, 297; BMB, Nr. 11 u 12, 1890, 238-239; Nr. 21 u 22, 1890, 465-481, 484-488; Nr. 19 u 20, 1891, 460-461; Nr. 11 u 12, 1892, 271-272; Nr. 21 u 22, 1892, 551-553). Makhado ‘also became involved and seized the opportunity provided by the state of war to commit a series of robberies in Tschewasse’s area.’ In 1890, Makwarela conquered and occupied Tshikalange’s capital village, only to be attacked himself during the following year by the combined forces of Tshikalange and Tshivhase (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 297).

The missionaries felt that ‘these battles served to increasingly shackle the chief to [his] heathen essence (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 297).’ What caused them the gravest concern, however, were not the casualties which the war caused but the way in which victory was sealed in the capital after the return of the warriors. The victory ceremony involved a most dramatic ritual re-enactment of the process of destruction on the bodies of dead enemies, culminating in acts of anthropophagy, with the Khosi playing an essential role in it. As Br. Johann Meister of Ha-Tshivhase noted in his diary (Tagebuch der Johannes Meister vom 1 Juli bis 30 September 1891: 7-9):

Monday, 27 July: We had promised to come [and attend to] the casualties again today. On the way, we heard that bodies of the enemies which had been carried away and the living captives were being taken to the capital of Mpafuli [Masindi Mphaphuli], the father of Makoarele [Makwarela]. What did they want to do with them? We had no doubt that they would violate the bodies in their extreme heathen manner. But would he not also possibly lift up his hand against the captives? With Mpafuli [Mphaphuli] anything is possible. Therefore we had to go to him. We found everything that had been reported to us [to be] true. Already, the warriors were awaiting the signal to begin with their abominations. I could not resist, I had to express to Makoarele [Makwarela] my great grief that he personally was taking part in such horrors, he that was so close to the Kingdom of God. He excused himself by saying that he would not have carried out these deeds were it not for his father Mpafuli [Masindi Mphaphuli]. Mpafuli also promised Br. Beuster that he would do nothing evil to the captives. We did not want to wait at the capital any longer, and witness the horrors. The bodies were already laid out in the Khoro [public courtyard] for the Dance of the King, which would be carried out upon their dead bodies while he desecrated them with his spear. Then they were to be cut and torn into pieces, the bones separated out from each other and made into pipes, part of the flesh cooked and eaten, part given to the smiths ... to be put into the smelting oven with the iron-ore to make good iron. We left them and rode away from there (see also BMB, 21 u 22, 1892, 552-553; Bawenda-Freund, 11(43), 1893, 168-169).
 
 

Bad as things were, they became even worse. The struggle having ended indecisively, a further struggle broke out between the brothers in 1893. This time, Tshivhase again supported Tshikalange (Bawenda-Freund, 11(42), 1893, 161-162; BMB, Nr. 17 u 18, 1894, 364, 366-367). During the course of this war, starting on 30 September, Makwarela’s warriors had to undergo an elaborate ritual at the capital before going into the field. Reinhold Wessmann, stationed at Georgenholtz, calimed to have witnessed it. According to him, it was ‘a really heathen festival ..., such as I have not experienced before...’ It lasted for more than one day with people ‘from all sides’ attending. There were speeches, incantations, ritual washings, feastings, sacrifices, and the chief danced in front of his people, cheered on by the crowd. Wessmann also wrote that ‘the flesh of human beings [was eaten]’ (Tagebuch der Station Georgenholtz (Reinholdt Wessmann) 30 September 1893, 38-40; Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 297-298). The formulaic rendering of the event clearly shows that Wessmann was relating hearsay, at the very best. Whether he had seen what he described with his own eyes or not, did not matter for him, nor did it for the mission people back home. For them, what mattered was that the report confirmed their phantasmagoric ideas of savage people.

While Makwarela would continue to allow the mission to operate in his lands, and there were times when he still met with the missionaries, things were never the same again (Bawenda-Freund, 14(54), 1896, 298-299; 15(58), 1897, 352; BMB, Nr. 11 u 12, 1894,201; 17 u 18, 1894, 368-369; April 1896, 112-113; August 1896, 350; Februar 1897, 90, 112; Januar 1898, 6-8, 11; November 1900, 691-692). For the Berliners, Makwarela was about to descend back into ‘complete heathenism’. Henceforth, he was in the same camp as his father, whose actions during the war were described by Wessmann (1908:133-134) in similar terms to the ceremonial for young warriors, yet focusing even more on bodies in action, on smells and sounds, the gaze disappearing in ‘frantic’ excitement, and with it the personalities of the people involved, reason submerged by passion:

One Sunday morning, I accompanied a neighbour to the capital of the old chief Pafuri [Masindi Mphaphuli]. We intended to put in a good word in favour of the cessation of the war which kept the whole population from their work in the fields, and had interrupted the traffic on the roads. When we spoke to the chief, and had, in consequence of the evil smell emanating from the corpses which were thrown in old maize-holes, changed places with him, suddenly the big war-drum sounded, and a slain enemy was carried within the gate on long poles. Hardly had the chief caught sight of the body than he jumped up, rushed at the corpse like a wild animal, tore it down on the ground, sat on it, and beat it in order to relieve his anger. Soon after the dancers arrived and performed a triumphal war-dance. They consisted of old men and women only; for those alone are entitled to take part in the war-dance who had already killed or poisoned some one. We left the cruel scene without taking leave of the people, who had already gone frantic with excitement; and we returned home without having achieved our object, only hoping that time might remedy this.
 
 

It is clear that, at a conscious level, for the missionaries, what marked Khosi Makwarela’s return to ‘complete heathenism’ was his alleged consumption of war muti containing human body parts as one of its ingredients. And while they did not describe his actions as cannibalism, or him as a cannibal, their focus on the consumption of ‘human flesh’ as they called it (German does not differentiate between ‘flesh’ and ‘meat’), demonstrates that they saw his actions as Menschenfresserei, and not as a ritual designed to enhance the prowess and martial spirit of his followers.

For the Berlin Missionaries, cannibalism, which included the consumption of body parts of enemies captured in war, was the supreme symbol of ‘heathenism’. It was inconceivable to them that Christians could be cannibals since humankind was created in the image of God and the human body housed the soul. One could not sink lower into ‘bestiality’ than by consuming the image of God and the house of the spirit given by him. Since they were freed from such scruples by their ignorance of the Law of God, ‘heathens’ could sink to such depths that they could treat the human body as a source of food. In their blindness’ and ‘superstition’ they still had some idea of powers greater than themselves. As such, they could also ingest parts of the human body as sources of power. This was the case not only in Africa (Merensky n.d. – 1895a; Wangemann 1883a, b) but also in other parts of the world such as the South Sea Islands (Merensky n.d. – 1895b) and, indeed, in the distant ‘heathen’ past of the Germans themselves (Anon. 1890). In Africa, including South Africa, it was only through the spread of the gospel, backed up by colonial authority, that cannibalism could be eradicated (see especially Merensky n.d. – 1895a:2-4, 16).

The missionaries clearly had no understanding of the different meanings of ‘eating’, which may range from the purely metaphorical indicating a process of domination to the very act of incorporating something edible. Nor had they an eye for the spiritual aspects of the ingestion of body parts of an enemy killed in battle in the production and consumption of muti which anthropophagy as a ritual practice stands for. Anyway, they used the trope and the imagery of cannibalism as the ultimate weapon in their othering of Non-Christian Africans, just as the Portuguese had done with the pictures that Hans Staden had brought back from Brazil in the mid-sixteenth century and the British did during their wars of colonial aggression in nineteenth century West Africa (Kirkaldy and Wirz 1999:54-55).

In missionary interpretation, Khosi Makwarela’s actions fitted neatly into this paradigm of ‘cannibalism’ as an icon of ‘heathenism’, in other words, ‘otherness’. They believed that he had been exposed to the Law and Grace of God. For him, there was no possibility of claiming ignorance. Just when it seemed that he would accept Christianity, and win salvation for himself and his people, he had plummeted back into the very depths of ‘heathen darkness’. The magnitude of his fall was compounded by the fact that, as a ‘chief’ he had, inevitably, dragged his people down with him. For this, the missionaries believed, God had exacted retribution on him and brought him low (Bawenda-Freund, 15(59), 1897, 366).

Hence the missionaries were not surprised when they learned, in 1897, that Makwarela, after suffering great losses in his following due to the combined effects of famine (Bawenda-Freund, 14(56), 1896, 328-330; 15(57), 1897, 343-345; 15(58), 1897, 351; 15(59), 1897, 358-363) and a lengthy struggle with Tshivhase (Bawenda-Freund, 15(57), 1897, 345; 15(58), 1897, 352-353; 15(59), 1897, 364-365; Berliner Missions-Berichte, Dezember 1897, 725; Januar 1898, 7), had ‘become a poor, small king’ who ‘sits and ponders revenge.’ They were convinced:

He once came close to fully accepting Christianity but, when he was close, he rejected it because he feared losing his chieftainship. Now, because of his heathenism, he has lost his power completely (Bawenda-Freund, 15(59), 1897, 365-366).
 
 

Although they prayed to God that he might ‘win this strong one’ (Bawenda-Freund, 15(59), 1897, 366), Makwarela Mphaphuli never did convert. One of his sons, however, was among the first group of people to be baptised at New Georgenholtz on 27 June 1909 (Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 4), one and a half years after this station was inaugurated by Ludwig Giesekke and his wife. Old Georgenholtz had been abandoned in 1899 (Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 2-3). In spite of his alienation from the mission, Makwarela would only allow missionaries from the Berlin mission to operate in his lands and would not give other ‘sects’, including Zionist-type ‘sects’ permission to operate there (Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 25). Makwarela died in April 1928, still a ‘heathen’ (Stationschronik von Georgenholtz: 37).

The psychologically minded might speak of a missionary obsession with the violation of human bodies and ask whether this was not echoing their European experience? For one, there is a rich imagery of man-eating-man in European fairy tales such as the story of Hansel and Gretel, but also in religion, in shipwreck stories and generally in fantasies about the wild. Secondly, in the last third of the nineteenth century Europe experienced a severe economic depression with the twin-processes of urbanisation and industrialisation ever accelerating, up-rooting, or ‘devouring’, thousands and thousands of people. Thirdly, innovations in military technology had made wars even more destructive. Henry Dunant had exposed this in his justly famous Mémoire de Solferino of 1866, which then led to the foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (Kirkaldy and Wirz 1999:54).

However, we should also look at the historical context of the argument. Stories about cannibalism are necessarily stories about contact. It thus makes sense to ask whether the ‘conspicuous anthropophagy’ was not a response to colonial expansion, as Gananath Obeysekere (1995:7-32) has recently argued with respect to the South Pacific, and Michael Taussig (1987) before him with regard to Amazonia and the Congo Free State in the period of the rubber boom. The Berlin Missionaries, for their part, happened to arrive in the Transvaal at a time when many South African societies were going through a period of severe upheaval. They either suffered from the consequences of earlier wars, or they had to fend off foreign intruders such as the land-grabbing white settlers, or they were involved in wars of succession. Hence the importance of rituals of appropriation, retribution and bonding. And these in turn supplied enough horror stories to those who had an interest to denigrate some people and to frighten others.

Like his father, Masindi Mphaphuli, Makwarela Mphaphuli was attempting to come to terms with the encroaching Boers, the missionaries and internal power-struggles within his society. His father attempted to gain control over the situation by permitting the missionaries to operate in the lands of his son. He would thus have access to them without having to face a direct threat to his authority.

Makwarela attempted to deal with the tensions by forming a close working relationship with the missionaries. It also seems that he found the religion that they brought appealing. His strategy underwent changes over time. At first, it seemed likely that he would convert. In time, he realised that conversion would result in the loss of his throne. He then attempted to blend aspects of the new religion with the old. It is clear that, in doing so, he was attempting to retain his power as a ruler.

In time, and involved in a series of battles for succession with his brother, it became clear to him that the missionaries would not accept anything but conversion to orthodox Christianity as interpreted by them. Had he accepted this, it is likely that he would have lost the succession struggle with Tshikalange. Even in the unlikely event that he was victorious, he would have lost his power and independence to the missionaries.

Makwarela was trying to operate creatively in a situation of dynamic change. The missionaries could not accommodate this. He was to be either a ‘heathen’ or a ‘Christian’, either a savage or a civilised man - there were no shades of grey in between. This static opposition was crucial to their entire world view. To challenge it would be to negate all their work and sacrifice in the area.

At a deeper level, it does not matter whether or not Makwarela Mphaphuli ‘really’ committed an act, or acts, of anthropophagy. Either by doing so, or by allowing the missionaries to believe that he had done so, he was saying that what they believed had no power over him any more. He had reclaimed his throne and the right to rule his people through his birthright and the power of African religion.
 

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