The Maphumulo Uprising: War, Law and Ritual in the Zulu Rebellion
by Jeff Guy
(University of KwaZulu-Natal Press)
Drawing on a less well-known series of incidents in the 1906 Zulu uprising in Natal — often called the Bhambatha Rebellion — Durban-based historian Jeff Guy has written a concise yet important study that critically examines themes of resistance and internal conflicts within Zulu protesting, African medicine and the colonial justice system. In doing this, he not only broadens our knowledge of the 1906 rebellion but invites us to a more critical examination of historical sources.
Shifting the focus of previous research — away from the figure of Bhambatha and the conflict centred on the Nkandla forest — Guy describes and analyses the campaign in the Maphumulo district and its aftermath.
Against a background of mounting poll taxes and the realisation that their ability to determine their own lives had been thoroughly undermined by the British, Zulu chiefdoms revolted against the colonial authorities in Natal. The rebellion was led by two chiefs: Meseni kaMusi Qwabe and Ndlovu kaThimuni Zulu. Though some chiefs paid the poll tax in early 1906, popular resistance in Maphumulo was consider-able. When the colonial state tried, quite ruthlessly, to make examples of defaulters, protest turned to rebellion.
What followed was a short but brutal conflict. Raids and counter-raids followed. The colonial militia — heavily armed with, and readily using, the latest high-tech weaponry, including machine guns — swiftly crushed the rebellion. But before it was over, a number of key colonial posts were attacked and a noncombatant colonial civilian, Oliver Veal, was captured and killed. Veal’s death became a focus of legal attention in the aftermath of the uprising because it was alleged that, after he was killed, some of his body parts were used in a cleansing and strengthening ritual, what the court termed “war-doctoring”.
After the uprising, the colonial authorities used the fullest extent of the law to ensure that no such incident would occur in future. Though neither Meseni nor Ndlovu were executed for treason, both were stripped of their chieftainships and exiled to St Helena for a number of years. On their return, Meseni was prohibited from returning to Maphumulo while Ndlovu had to campaign for eight years to attain the restoration of his chieftaincy.
Less fortunate were those convicted for the murder of Veal and another civilian, Adolf Sangereid. Five rebels were executed for these killings: Ndabazezwe and Nkosi (convicted of Sangereid’s murder), and Macabacaba, Sibeko and Mabalengwe (for their involvement in Veal’s death). Mabalengwe was held particularly accountable for using Veal’s body parts for war-doctoring.
The killing of Veal and the 1907 trial is, for Guy, of particular historical significance for what it brings to the surface: the role of ritual in rebellion, the internal dynamics of Zulu resistance, the complexities of colonial court records and colonial attitudes. Trial records, he reminds us, are hazardous sources, not least because of the language that is used. In the Maphumulo case, he recounts, there is a preponderance of the “war” prefix — war-doctoring, war-hut, war-dance and war-medicine, to name but a few terms used to justify often brutal repression and the closing off of complex cultural-political discourses. (One sees this today in the “war on terror” clichés of George W Bush. Nothing much, except war-technology, has changed among the power elites.)
Having noted that, it is clear ritual certainly played a part in the uprising, as it had in other times and places. This should be no surprise to us. Ritual of varying kinds has played, plays and will no doubt continue to play a major part in all wars in all societies.
Far more complex is the process of discovering who killed Veal. With dexterity, Guy takes us through the often labyrinthine complexity of the Court Record, the accusations and counter-accusations, and the legal deals struck with suspects to get a conviction. In the process, we see how the person of Mabalengwe almost attains a mythical status of omnipresence, becoming a “fictional” character and the “focus” of “evil”. Behind this, too, we gain a glimpse of a complex social system with a range of views on the rebellion and how to proceed against the colonial authorities.
With its impressive collection of photographs and maps, and aided by Guy’s clear, deceptively simple style, one might be deceived into thinking that this is an easy read. Far from it. What we have, rather, is a highly complex, carefully researched work of critical history that just happens to be written in a clear and deceptively simple style. A close first reading of it will give one an overview of the subject. A second reading reveals the complexity of what happened in this “side-show” of the Bhambatha Rebellion, and its wider political implication. And a richly deserved third reading invites us to meditate upon the methodological and philosophical problems inherent in serious academic research — or any examination of texts, for that matter — that seeks to delve beneath the superficial.
Such an exercise may seem excessive, even to the serious academic, but it is worth it, made more so by the excellence of the production values of the publishers and the quality of Guy’s writing. Unless something really spectacular comes along, The Maphumulo Uprising is non-fiction book prize territory. Or the judges are idiots.