South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the ...

58 Becoming Amakholwa: Mission Communities and the Emergence of an Mrican Black Middle Class
separation and isolation of amakholwa ceased. In his autobiography, Matthews tells of his mother,
born in Mafeking area where the Barolong lived, who had
wholly blended into her own life the teachings of the Bible and Christian observance and a firm adherence
to the familial and communal obligation of her own people's past. Although she had not often been
back to the Barolong home since she was a young girl, her information, carefully gleaned from relatives
who kept coming to our home, was amazingly up to date. Martha Matthews' home was always open to
relatives and friends from the rural areas. Some would even leave their children with her, whom she always
treated as her own.t23 The Matthews family did not receive only 'heathen' relatives and friends, but integrated Chris­
tian belief and traditionalism. Apparently, for them, Matthews claims, "there was no conflict be­
cause they saw none: in their minds the values common to both had blended and become a
whole".124 The complex past and the continuous struggle to negotiate various influences is reflected
in the sectionalised repertoire of amakwqya (see Part Three of this thesis).
What, however, was the perception from the side of the white communities? We complete this
chapter by a brief look at this.
2.3.2 Stance of the White Community
[[he] educated Bantu... zs merelY an 'imitation-European:
a sham who has learned to
e the externals of the white mans wqys,
,l. h . 125
ut WfJO at ear! remazns savage.
In the previous chapter, I have already dealt with some typical Victorian stereotypes. When An­
thony Trollope travelled to South Africa in 1877, he had some of these stereotypes in his mind
when mentioning the "Kafir warrior who, with his assegai and his red clay, and his courageous ha­
tred was a terrible fellow to see".126 However, he was quite surprised to see this 'warrior' "with a
slate and pencil, wearing his coarse clothing with a jaunty happy air, and doing a sum in subtraction".127
When witnessing whites' treatment of black South Africans, Trollope was surprised that
the white communities of South Africa were more interested in keeping the "native [in his] raw and
uneducated state" rather than in educating him. The progress of the mission-educated Africans
remained ignored by the colonial authorities. l28 In fact, white farmers and businessmen felt threat­
ened by Africans who worked independently in agriculture or trade, and it was therefore their main
123 Z. K. Matthews, 1986: 11.
124 Ibid: 16.
125 R. F. A. Hoernle, Notes on «Assimilation )) (University of the Witwatersrand : Manuscript collection AD 843 B 43.6,
undated): 2.
126 J. H. Davidson, 1973: 175.
127 Patrick Miihlbauer, who visited South Africa fifty years after Trollope, gained a similar impression: ''1 came to Natal
with no poor expectations in regard to Native Schools, but I must confess that these expectations have not only been
fulfilled, but surpassed. I have studied carefully the different school-types from the sub-PriIDary-School, to the Teachers'
Training College, and was struck by the high degree of efficiency everywhere". (Native Teachers' Journal, October,
1927): 56£
128 The Natal Native Commission, which was set up 1881-82, stated in its report that "any progress made in civilisation
by Natives is, generally speaking, so slow that we can hardly expect to be able to trace it as having in any very sensible
degree taken place". The report continues: ''We think that there is little desire among ordinary Natives for education,
but we do not anticipate that there would be opposition to schools being placed in Locations." (pietermaritzburg: Natal
Archives, NCP 813119): 7; 11.
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