The Historiographical Development of the Concept “mfecane” and ...

from Natal directly, like the Qwabe. 27 This then seems to be the likely basis for
Ayliff’s ideas. Fingo, who were of Fetcani origin and in 1835 lived in or near
Gcaleka and Thembu mission stations, were moved to new mission stations in
Peddie and the Tyhume River valley. From there men were appointed by
government as chiefs over the Fingo, because they were after all, according to
the myth, migrants from Zululand and Natal. Thus it is clear that the majority of
the Fingo were of Xhosa-speaking origin with only a small proportion of the
chiefly elite who had come from Zululand and Natal, via the Transgariep. 28
There remains the question as to why such a flimsy and artificial colonial
identity should have taken root among the people for whom it was invented.
Personal communications from anthropologists indicate that this is impossible.
Clearly a detailed study of this issue is now required. However, there is a body
of literature which clearly demonstrates that artificial modification of ethnic
identity has occurred, particularly in the colonial context, in other parts of Africa
and indeed the world. Ethnicity is a social construct which can either be
asserted from inside or ascribed from the outside, and in time can be
internalised by the people to whom it was ascribed to, according to Cornell. He
go on to describe how Yoruba ethnic identity was constructed by missionaries in
the nineteenth century. 29 The same pertains to the invention of the Tsonga by
Swiss missionaries. 30 Therefore, Cornell believes that, ‘as a result of gradual or
sudden social change, already existing groups of people defined in various
ways … consequently either rethink who they are in ethnic or racial terms, or
are rethought, so to speak, by others’. 31 In the case of the Fingo sudden social
change is indeed a given, with the majority being torn from their family and
wider social structures, and being forced to be subservient to a new people –
colonists - and subject to a new ethnic identity. However, as far as the mfecane
27 See missionary journals and Kay in chapter 2.
28 See Footnote no. 25.
29 Cornell et al., Ethnicity and Race, 51, 81-85, 92-93.
30 Harries, ‘Roots of Ethnicity', 25-52.
31 Cornell et al., Ethnicity and Race, 197. See also L. Vail, ‘Ethnicity in Southern African History,
in L. Vail, Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (London, 1989), 1-21.
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