Umgidi at the Mabambas

This article describes and analyses an umgidi, a celebratory feast that usually accompanies the final ‘coming out’ phase of circumcision, among farm workers in the Sundays River Valley, Eastern Cape. Anthropological monographs describing circumcision rituals among Xhosa-speakers appear not to discuss such a feast at all, despite this event being familiar to most rural and urban Xhosa-speakers, particularly in the western half of the Eastern Cape. In the absence of comparative information, this article introduces an umgidi feast as a multi-vocal event that comments on the spatial, performative and practice-oriented elements of life among workers in the Sundays River Valley. I show that farm workers have a definite sense of identity and place connected to the occupation of land as labour tenants and later as labourers. Their conservative rural values are closely associated with the memories of previous land occupation, but are also combined with experiences of displacement, so that memories of lost land directly inform the creation of current identities. An umgidi feast allows the unification of fragmented groups of kin and clan, and provides an opportunity for workers to articulate the pressures of modern farm employment. The prominence of female workers at umgidi feasts also heightens the use of domestic space as an idiom for commentary on experiences of disruption and labour domination. Broadly, the article contributes to an understanding of ritual among displaced communities in southern Africa, particularly labour tenants and farm workers on white farms. Notes 1 M. Hunter, Reaction to Conquest: Effects of Contact with Europeans on the Pondo of South Africa (London, Oxford University Press, 1936); P. Mayer, Townsmen or Tribesmen: Conservatism and the Process of Urbanization in a South African City (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1961); M.E. Elton-Mills and M. Wilson, Keiskammahoek Rural Survey, Volume III: Social Structure (Pietermaritzburg, Shuter and Shuter, 1952); M.E. Elton-Mills and M. Wilson, Keiskammahoek Rural Survey, Volume IV: Land Tenure (Pietermaritzburg, Shuter and Shuter, 1952). *This article was originally presented at the Centenary Monica Wilson Hunter conference, Hogsback (Eastern Cape), organised by the University of Fort Hare and the Fort Hare Institute for Social and Economic Research in June 2008. 2 C.J. de Wet, Moving Together, Drifting Apart: Betterment Planning and Villagisation in a South African Homeland (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1995); P.A. McAllister, ‘Resistance to Betterment in the Transkei: A Case Study from Willowvale’, Journal of Southern African Studies [JSAS], 15, 2 (January 1989), pp. 346–68. 3 L.J. Bank, ‘Xhosa in Town Revisited: From Urban Anthropology to an Anthropology of Urbanism’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cape Town, 2002); L. Bank, ‘Beyond Red and School: Gender, Tradition and Identity in the Rural Eastern Cape’, JSAS, 28, 3 (September 2002), pp. 631–49; D. Fay, ‘“The Trust is Over! We Want to Plough!”: Land, Livelihoods and Reverse Resettlement in South Africa's Transkei’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, 2005); A. Ainslie, ‘Farming Cattle, Cultivating Relationships: Cattle Ownership and Cultural Politics in Peddie District, Eastern Cape’, Social Dynamics, 31, 1 (2005), pp. 129–56. 4 Ainslie, ‘Farming Cattle, Cultivating Relationships’, p. 149. 5 G.E. Rodgers, ‘When Refugees Don't Go Home: Post-War Mozambican Settlement across the Border with South Africa’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2002), p. 47. 6 M.M. Cernea, ‘Bridging the Research Divide: Studying Refugees and Development Oustees’, in T. Allen (ed.), In Search of Cool Ground: War, Flight and Homecoming in Northeast Africa (Trenton, NJ, Africa World Press, 1996), pp. 293–317; T. Scudder, ‘Development-Induced Relocation and Refugee Studies: 37 Years of Continuity among Zambia's Gwembe Tonga’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 6, 2 (1993), pp. 123–52. 7 Rodgers, ‘When Refugees Don't Go Home’, p. 50. 8 H. Giliomee, ‘The Eastern Frontier, 1770–1812’, in R. Elphick and H. Giliomee (eds), The Shaping of South African Society: 1652–1846 (Cape Town, Maskew Miller Longman, 1989), pp. 421–71; B. Maclennan, A Proper Degree of Terror: Johan Graham and the Cape's Eastern Frontier (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1986); J.M. Meiring, The Sundays River Valley (Cape Town, AA Balkema, 1959); S. Newton-King and V.C. Malherbe, The KhoiKhoi Rebellion in the Eastern Cape: 1789–1803 (Cape Town, Centre for African Studies, 1981); K.W. Smith, From Frontier to Midlands: History of the Graaff-Reinet District (Institute of Social and Economic Research, Grahamstown, Rhodes University, 1976). 9 Maclennan, Proper Degree, p. 102; J. Milton, The Edges of War: A History of Frontier Wars (1702–1878) (Cape Town, Juta, 1983), p. 62. 10 Milton, Edges of War, p. 58. Ndlambe was regarded as the most powerful chief in the Zuurveld, an area of land between the Sundays and the Fish rivers to which many people fled from wars between Xhosa chiefdoms during the late eighteenth century. 11 Paragraph based on interviews with: Alec Mbosini, November 2002, July 2003, and November 2003; Evelyn Links, July 2003; and Ndogi Mafile ‘Seven’, October 2003. 12 G.G. Antrobus, ‘South African Farm Wages and Working Conditions with Special Reference to the Albany District, 1957–1977’ (Ph.D. thesis, Rhodes University, 1984); S.B. Bekker, R. Humphries, D. Meterlerkamp, Langkloof Farmers’ Practices and Attitudes Regarding Coloured and Black Farmworkers (Rhodes University Institute of Social and Economic Research, Grahamstown, 1982); F. Wilson, A. Kooy, and D. Hendrie (eds), Farm Labour in South Africa (Cape Town, David Philip, 1977). 13 S. Delport, Veldslae in die Kirkwood Distrik (Sondagsriveiervallei en Omstreke) (unpublished manuscript, Kirkwood, no date); O.E. Dorfling, My Plek, My Mense (Department of Computer Science, University of Port Elizabeth, 1995). 14 B.J. Grant, ‘Forced Removals in the Sundays River Valley with Specific Reference to Bonterug Location’ (BA Hons thesis, Rhodes University, 1993). 15 C.W. Manona, ‘The Drift from the Farms to Town: A Case Study of Migration from White-owned Farms in the Eastern Cape to Grahamstown’ (Ph.D. thesis, Rhodes University, 1988); K. Luck, ‘Contested Rights: The Impact of Game Farming on Farm Workers in the Bushmen's River Area’ (MA thesis, Rhodes University, 2003). 16 Hunter, Reaction to Conquest, p. 506. 17 Mayer, Townsmen or Tribesmen, p. 170. 18 Mayer, Townsmen or Tribesmen, p. 169 19 D. James, ‘Anthropology, History, and the Making of Past and Place’, in P.A. McAllister (ed.), Culture and the Commonplace: Anthropological Essays in Honour of David Hammond-Tooke (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1997), pp. 115–36. 20 McAllister, ‘Resistance to Betterment’; De Wet, Moving Together, Drifting Apart. 21 Bank, ‘Xhosa in Town Revisited’, and ‘Beyond Red and School’. 22 P.A. McAllister, Xhosa Beer Drinking Rituals: Power, Practice and Performance in the South African Rural Periphery (Durham, NC, Carolina Academic Press, 2006), p. 51; P. Mayer, ‘The Origin and Decline of Two Rural Resistance Ideologies’, in P. Mayer (ed.), Black Villagers in an Industrial Society: Anthropological Perspectives on Labour Migration in South Africa (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 1–80. 23 Bank, ‘Xhosa in Town Revisited’, p. 8, emphasis added by author. 24 Bank, ‘Xhosa in Town Revisited’, p. 11. 25 Mayer, Townsmen or Tribesmen, p. 175. 26 Meiring, Sundays River Valley. 27 Antonio Mabamba is a pseudonym for a worker residing on a farm in the Valley. Workers are Xhosa-speaking, but use Afrikaans to communicate with non-Xhosa-speakers, including most whites and coloureds. Communication with workers therefore took place in Afrikaans, although Xhosa songs and some speeches were taped and later transcribed and translated. 28 Wilson et al., Keiskammahoek, pp. 199–200, refer to circumcision as having seven phases: (i) preparation; (ii) ukungcamisa; (iii) circumcision; (iv) privation; (v) ukojiswa; (vi) seclusion; and (vii) coming out. Ukungcamisa is a ritual killing and celebration held the day before the actual circumcision; ukojiswa a feast held shortly after circumcision and before the initiate's seclusion. 29 Hunter concentrates on female initiation rites rather than on male circumcision. She also refers to umgidi in connection with the initiation of amagqira (healers), usually held on the last day of the final ceremony: Hunter, Reaction to Conquest, pp. 324–25. 30 This is confirmed by informants in the Valley. See also G. Schutte and S. Singiswa, Umgidi: The Celebration (Johannesburg, Hand-Held Films, 2004). SABC 1 aired this documentary on 16 June 2008. 31 Fieldnotes, October 2003. 32 Fieldnotes, August 2003. 33 Wilson et al., Keiskammahoek, p. 200. Uphumo has a similar meaning to umgidi, but the latter is preferred among workers in the Valley. 34 Fieldnotes, October 2003. 35 Peires, The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of Their Independence (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1981), p. 4. 36 Although these alcoholic gifts are generally termed iswazi, mabele is specifically used by womenfolk. Mabele is the term among northern and southern Sotho-speakers for sorghum, a crop that is associated with women's work. Sorghum beer is consumed at ceremonial and ritual events. 38 Fieldnotes, April 2004. 37 Wilson et al., Keiskammahoek. 39 McAllister, Xhosa Beer Drinking Rituals. 40 McAllister, Xhosa Beer Drinking Rituals, pp. 67–8; V.N. Turner, On the Edge of the Bush: Anthropology as Experience (Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1985), p. 180. 41 Bank, ‘Xhosa in Town Revisited’, pp. 220, 258. 42 P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 177. 43 J.B. Loudon, ‘Workers, Lords and Masters: The Organisation of Labour on South African Farms’, in S. Wallman (ed.), Social Anthropology of Work (London, Academic Press, 1979), p. 129. 44 C. van Onselen, ‘The Social and Economic Underpinnings of Paternalism and Violence on the Maize Farms of the South-Western Transvaal, 1900–1950, Journal of Historical Sociology, 5, 2 (June 1992), pp. 127–60; A. du Toit, ‘The Micro-Politics of Paternalism: The Discourses of Management and Resistance on South African Fruit and Wine Farms’, JSAS, 19, 2 (June 1993), pp. 314–36; L. Waldman, ‘Houses and the Ritual Construction of Gendered Homes in South Africa’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 9, 3 (September 2003), pp. 657–79. 45 L. Waldman, ‘Monkey in a Spiderweb: The Dynamics of Farmer Control and Paternalism’, African Studies, 55, 1 (1996), p. 76. 46 D. James, ‘Land for the Landless: Conflicting Images of Rural and Urban in South Africa's Land Reform Programme’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 19, 1 (January 2001), pp. 102–3. 47 ‘Ndebele People (South Africa)’, available at http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Ndebele_people_(South_Africa), retrieved on 6 November 2009. I am grateful to one of the anonymous JSAS referees for directing me to this source. 48 D. James, Songs of the Women Migrants: Performance and Identity in South Africa (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1999), p. 109. 49 D. James, Songs of the Women Migrants: Performance and Identity in South Africa (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1999), p. 142. 50 P. Probst, ‘Expansion and Enclosure: Ritual Landscapes and the Politics of Space in Central Malawi’, JSAS, 28, 1 (March 2002), pp. 179–98; Rodgers, ‘When Refugees Don't Go Home’, p. 261. 51 D. Parkin, ‘Foreword’, and N. Lovell, ‘Introduction: Belonging in Need of Emplacement?’, in N. Lovell (ed.), Locality and Belonging (London, Routledge, 1998), pp. x, 1

Clan · Ethnology · Political science · Sociology · Xhosa · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Legal Issues in South Africa · South African History and Culture

• Reformulating identity in post war Mozambique

  Open Access•Teresa K Connor•New Contree•2020

  Add to list

• “They Will Do Anything for These Votes”

  Open Access•Mpofu, Linah N Masombuka•de arte•2026

  Add to list

• The frontier revisited

  Teresa K Connor•Journal of Contemporary African…•2012

  Add to list

• Borders of Mutuality, Frontiers of Resistance

  Teresa K Connor, Teresa Connor•African Studies•2013

  Add to list