Microsoft Word - PhD Thesis Final.pdf - University of Limpopo ...

The system of polygamy was an important identity marker of Black
communities which they supported even in the face of vigorous attack by
the missionaries. The missionaries with their Eurocentric worldview, were
totally against polygamy as they viewed it as a form of enslaving the
women. They then made it a condition to their converts to abandon their
other wives before they could be fully accepted into Christianity. The
converts were also not allowed to stay at the mission stations before
complying with the demand of doing away with polygamy. In the
Makgabeng area, under pressure of the missionaries, some members of the
community listened to the missionaries’ call to dismantle their polygamous
marriages in order to be accepted into Christianity. Obviously, such actions
destabilised communities and continued to fuel familial and tribal divisions. It
was people such as Makeere who took the risk of destroying their families in
favour of accepting Christianity. Under pressure from missionary Beyer,
Makeere left his two wives in 1870 in order for him to be accepted at the
Leipzig mission station 332 . In other parts of the Makgabeng, there were
various reports in which men gave up their wives, became baptised, but
continued to look after their children 333 .
Paying of the magadi by the groom to the bride’s family was another
important aspect of the Blacks’ ways of life which the missionaries also
wanted to eradicate. The missionaries mistakenly assumed that magadi was
332 M. Jackel, Gananoa, p. 12.
333 Interview, Nkadi Ngwepe, Norma A village, 16 and 19 May 2003.
187