Marion Edmunds=20
GOVERNMENT anthropologist Jan van Wyk is in a=20 quandary over who should be South Africa’s real=20 traditional leaders: “The definition of ‘leader’ is=20 easy, but ‘traditional’ creates more problems.=20 Basically, I think it’s about handing over the=20 goods, the values and culture from the past=20 generation to the present.”=20
That definition is not, of course, going to help=20 when President Nelson Mandela signs the Bill, or=20 when Roelf Meyer’s Constitutional Development=20 Department has to draw up a payroll.=20
The Bill is to empower central government to=20 control the purse strings — and, according to=20 critics, the politics — of traditional leaders.=20 Until it comes into force, South Africa’s=20 aristocracy will still be paid according to the=20 old, jumbled-up systems and laws that evolved from=20 apartheid. =20
In the past, the Department of Native Affairs was=20 able to keep a firm grip on the rural areas by=20 using anthropologists, then styled ethnologists, to=20 police areas and ensure that the chiefs sympathetic=20 to Pretoria were in power — a technique of=20 governance that has its origins in British rule.=20 Government ethnologists have been in place since=20 1926, collecting evidence, compiling family trees=20 of the 800-odd tribes across South Africa and, most=20 significantly, assisting in succession. =20
The second ethnologist to be appointed to=20 government was a Dr NJ van Warmelo, who compiled=20 the definitive who’s who of traditional leaders of=20 the day. His A Preliminary Survey of the Bantu=20 Tribes is still the Bible for government=20 anthropologists to this day, although updates are=20 made regularly. =20
Van Wyk is clearly proud that his department holds=20 75 years of family-trees: a resource unlike any=20 other in the world. =20
Once a month he leaves the world of bureaucrats and=20 heads off to God-forsaken places to talk to chiefs,=20 make contacts and get the latest family low-down.=20 Does he meet with resistance? “Mostly not, the=20 people have been used to having government=20 ethnologists around for the last 75 years … On=20 the whole, they see us as neutral figures who=20 render a service, and can give them information=20 about their family. In fact, most often we are=20 approached when there is a succession dispute in=20 the tribe.”=20
The description of government anthropologists as=20 “neutral” flies in the face of the stereotype of=20 government anthropolgists of old, exploiting the=20 shifting sands of indigenous law to control chiefs=20 and their people, often by manipulating family=20 trees, propping up sycophants and disinheriting=20 true leaders. =20
While Van Wyk does not talk explicitly about the=20 government’s dirty past, he hints at darker days=20 when military ethnologists researched communities,=20 both inside and outside the country, to infiltrate=20 or subdue them. He says some files from the past=20 have been banished to the archives and that there=20 was a time when government ethnologists were more=20 powerful in the rural areas than local magistrates.=20
That time has gone. It has been replaced by partial=20 chaos where traditional leaders are using=20 constitutional provisions to justify their position=20 in a newly democratic society and demanding to be=20 paid stipends according to their status, rather=20 than their ability. =20
Despite the changes, the Constitutional Development=20 Department still employs seven anthropologists=20 whose expertise, grounded in the past in more ways=20 than one, is being drawn on to validate or=20 invalidate land or chieftain claims.=20
* Meanwhile, Congress of Traditional Leaders=20 (Contralesa) head Chief Patekile Holomisa said this=20 week: “I’d hoped traditional leaders had graduated=20 from being objects of anthropological study.” He=20 said responsibility for traditional leaders should=20 be shifted from government structures to the=20 Council and Houses of Traditional Leaders and to=20 Contralesa. =20