The Xhosa Cattle Killing

The Xhosa Cattle Killing: Eastern Cape Articles: South Africa Safari Lodges:
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Written by Gemma Pitcher


These factors suggest that the Cattle-Killing could be viewed as a prelude to later resistance ideologies of Africanism and Black Consciousness. As such it should be regarded not as a shameful secret in the history of the Xhosa people, but as an early form of black consciousness and resistance.

Copyright © Gemma Pitcher 2004


The Xhosa Cattle Killing: Eastern Cape Articles: South Africa Safari Lodges:
Page: 1 Mass Resistance, Not Mass Suicide
One morning in 1856, a fifteen year old Xhosa girl named Nongqawuse went with another girl to scare birds from her uncle's crops in the fields by the sea at the Gxarha river mouth in the present day Wild Coast area of South Africa. Whe ...

The Xhosa Cattle Killing: Eastern Cape Articles: South Africa Safari Lodges:
Page: 2
As word of the prophecies grew, the Xhosa paramount chief, Sarhili,  sent emissaries to the Gxarha river mouth to investigate the prophecies. They did not actually meet the strangers, but returned home convinced of the truth of the pro ...

The Xhosa Cattle Killing: Eastern Cape Articles: South Africa Safari Lodges:
Page: 3
Sarhili visited the Gxarha river mouth, and spoke with Nongqawuse and Mhalakaza for a long time. When he returned, he announced that the New World would begin in eight days. On the eighth day the sun would rise blood-red, before setting again, there wo ...

Page: 4
Sickness was associated in traditional culture with witchcraft and sorcery. If the cattle were dying, then the owners were at fault because they had allowed witchcraft to be practised in their community. In order to make way for Nongqawuse's vision of ...