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ZIGGURAT
They told him that they were the people often spoken of in former
days by [Nxele] and Umlanjeni, as being a strong people, who would
in the course of time render the [Xhosa] the assistance they required
in driving the white men out of the land…and in order that this may
be carried into effect, they must prove themselves deserving by acting
up to their commands, which are, first to throw away all bewitching
matter – second, to kill all their cattle, so as to be stocked with others
that are free from any disease. 2
The numerical scale of the disaster caused by the ensuing Xhosa
Cattle-Killing movement of 1856-7 is clear. In one year, 40,000 Xhosa
people died of starvation, another 150,000 people were displaced, 400,000
cattle were slaughtered, and over half a million acres of land were lost by
the Xhosa. 3 Scholars have probed into and surmised three main reasons
for this movement: the threat to the Xhosa of war and land loss caused by
colonialism, the integration of Christian ideas into the traditional Xhosa
belief system, and the devastation caused by lungsickness on Xhosa cattle
herds. Yet, in all of this analysis, inadequate attention is paid to the exact
identity of who is associated with the cattle-killing movement. Who was the
prophetess who spurred this movement and to whom did her prophecies
speak Despite otherwise quite sophisticated analyses of political, religious,
social, and environmental conditions in Xhosa society that influenced this
millenarian movement, most key authors and historians have side-stepped
the implication of Nongqawuse’s identity as a woman and the genderconscious
analysis that should follow.
As Helen Bradford aptly points out in her study of the cattle-killings,
it is necessary to reenlist gender as a tool of analysis in understanding
the Cattle-Killing. 4 Nongqawuse’s prophecies and the Xhosa Cattle-
Killing movement are commonly described and explained in the context
of the colonial oppression and exploitation of the Xhosa people during
the nineteenth century. Yet any discussion of the importance of analyzing
Nongqawuse’s prophecies and teachings with specific attention to her
position as a young Xhosa woman is ignored, despite that the very stuff
of her prophecies suggests it: cattle and grain are goods fundamentally
linked with women, as bridewealth and a source of labor, respectively.
In order to fully understand the Cattle-Killings, the movement must be
looked at within the context of gender, as well as that of colonialism, the