Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

tini’s testimony 159
consequences. Of course the consequences became all too obvious
and Tini turned to the Hananwa girls serving in the household with
her, for confirmation. Stech tried to reverse the inevitable (and
thereby acknowledging the growing reality) by tying Tini up with a
horse girdle. After eight months, ‘completely alone’ one night, she
gave birth to a still-born baby (‘the child did not cry’). Early in the
morning she wrapped the body in a cloth, went and threw it in the
waterhole and returned to her room before dawn. Apparently Mrs
Stech only realised the nature of Tini’s ‘illness’ upon discovering the
blood on her bedroom floor in the morning. Tini stayed in bed for
eight days. While Mrs Stech responded to her awkwardly belated
discovery of the pregnancy by refusing to allow Tini back into the
house (only until one of the Stech children fell ill), missionary Stech
barred Tini from church for approximately four to six weeks. Beuster
wanted to know from his godchild why she did not leave the Stech
household, upon which she replied that Stech had repeatedly told her
that the Beusters no longer wanted to have anything to do with her.
Beuster responded that Stech must have known all too well that their
house had always stood open for Tini to return to. 23 Of course Stech
must have realised that Tini’s story could best be kept secret if he
held her hostage on his own mission station.
The story could not have passed unseen by the small group of African
converts, the Majakane, on Blauberg mission station. More than
ninety years later, their descendents still recalled the incident and
pointed out the waterhole where the dead child was found. 24 As
already mentioned, if Tini’s testimony is to be trusted, she had to ask
the Hananwa servant girls to confirm to her that pregnancy was the
consequence of ‘playing’. The incalculable damage this must have
done the missionary cause among the Hananwa, can be understood
when taking into consideration how strict the Lutheran missionaries
were in controlling the sexual behaviour of their catechists.
Extramarital affairs, polygamy and the practice of paying
brideswealth were among the prime ‘heathen’ customs the
missionaries were anxious to eradicate. Stech made a grave mistake
when he instructed the senior Christian on the station, Petrus ‘Tsita’
23 EA BMG Gegen Stech: BMW 1/4225 12-15: C Beuster – HT Wangemann, 18 Februar
1892 & 68-72: An den emeritierten Missionaer Herrn Stech in Ferchland, Berlin, 18
November 1892.
24 In an interview with Annekie Joubert in September 1994, an elderly Hananwa man
(approximately ninety years old) who had grown up on the mission station,
reminisced that Christoph Sonntag’s predecessor at Blauberg (i e Stech) was a
‘bad missionary’ (A Joubert, video recording of interview, Blauberg September
1994). During this same visit, Joubert was also taken to the waterhole. The fact
that this information was volunteered during interviews in which the actual focus
was on Stech’s successor, Christoph Sonntag, and his role in the Boer-Hananwa
War of 1894, gives an indication of the strong impression Tini’s pregnancy must
have left on the black Christian community (personal information: A Joubert,
Berlin, 3 November 2003).