FOR the first time in more than a century since British colonial rule and later apartheid abolished the tradition in favour of subservient paramount chiefs, a King of the Xhosa will be installed in the Eastern Cape later this year. The Xhosa Royal Council, an elected body which serves the interests of the paramount chief commanding the allegiance of the various Transkei and Ciskei-based tribes from the Tembu to the Pondo and the Rharhabe who make up the Xhosa nation, says King Xolilizwe Sigcawu will be formally installed in a glittering ceremony in Butterworth on May 12. Xhosa Royal Council chief executive officer Zolani Mkiva, who is also former president Nelson Mandela’s praise singer, told the Daily Mail & Guardian the date had special significance to the Xhosa in that it marked the 165th anniversary of the death by decapitation of the great warrior king Hintsa at the hands of British colonial troops in the frontier war of 1834-35.