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of Native Affairs approved the application by the said purchaser and
seller, also indicating the total price of the farm, as well as its size (in
morgens and square roods) and the registered number of that farm. The
approval would also state that the said farm would be transferred into the
name of the Minister of Native Affairs in trust of the purchasers who
should form themselves into a “tribe” belonging to a chief recognised or
appointed by the Governor General. New identities of “tribes” were
created out of the purchasers of farms from different backgrounds. This
was an example of an imposed kind of identity creation by the state 431
because purchasers were forced by law to form themselves into “tribes” –
a prerequisite for the approval of their farm purchase application.
According to Section 1 of the 1927 Native Administration Act, the
Governor General was the “Supreme Chief of all natives in the Union” 432 .
Section 7 of the Act declared that the Governor General “may recognise
or appoint any person a chief of a native tribe and may make regulations
prescribing the duties, powers, privileges and conditions of service of
chiefs so recognised or appointed, and of headmen, acting chiefs and
acting headmen appointed under subsection (8). The Governor General
may depose any chief so recognised or appointed” 433 . According to
431 J. Muller et al, Challenges of Globalisation, p. 116.
432 The Native Administration Act of 1927, Section 1.
433 Ibid, Section 7.
258