Episode 208 - Believers vs Unbelievers, Ancestor Veneration and the Stupifying Logic of Global Millenarianism
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Show notes
Episode 208 it is .. where the steely grip of starvation takes hold of the amaXhosa nation by December 1856.
Self-induced, a response to years of colonial expansion, incroaching land grabs, loss of power of the chiefs and ancient custom, the immediate terror of the 8th Frontier War and its effects, and a mingling of Christianity and traditional magic — an attempt at finding salvation.
It was not the first, nor the last millenarian movement of South African history. It was also not the only one of its type at the time in the mid-19th Century, the Taiping Rebellion in China had been bludgeoning its way through the countryside, and there the number of dead would climb to more than 20 million in the decade of that country’s disastrous flirtation with sectarianism and mythology.
40 000 Xhosa were going to die of starvation in British Kaffraria and what was known then as Xhosaland. When we left off last episode, King Sarhili of the Gcaleka line, the paramount chief of the Xhosa, had visited the Gxarha river to meet with Mkhazana and Nongqawuse the prophet early in 1857.
A quick word about millenarian movements. Most have a particular structure, and are replicated the world over. There is usually the charismatic leader, a figure head. Behind this person are the administrators, the navigators who guide this mishapen ship on it’s voyage, almost always towards self-destruction.
The causes of millenarianism are diverse, but the overriding similarities lie in all linked to Middle Eastern monotheistic religions intersecting with local ancient rites and cultural norms. They all are characterised by a prophetic leader, a charismatic figure claiming divine insight, all have end-times expectations. Elements of the Christian Nationalist right wing in America have a similar core belief - as the baby boomers approach their end of life, many are convinced its the end-Times for everyone. They have annointed their own charismatic figure who is known as POTUS.
Nongqawuse’s startling revelations that these ancestors were on the cusp of returning led to the Cattle Killing frenzy. By December 1856 there had been two disappointments, the resurrection had been postponed twice.
Still the believers believed. Two harvests had passed, and they did not til their land. Old people living near Peelton Mission station began dying of starvation. Many others were wearing hunger belts, special girdles fastened around the stomach.
“Hunger…” wrote Brownlee “is fast closing upon its victims, and though there should be no war, their sufferings will far exceed anything which they have hitherto experienced…”
