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Abstract
This article attempts to capture some of the complexity in the way that memory, meaning and agenda interact in the history of the cemetery of Roodepoort West. Roodepoort West was the ‘old location’ where Africans and others lived until 1955, after which a gradual process of removals took place until 1967, when it was finally destroyed. However, not everything was lost of the old location. The cemetery remained, after unrest caused by the proposed removal of the local cemetery during the late 1950s persuaded the authorities to leave it alone. More recently, the cemetery has played a part in land restitution, becoming both a site of tension and remembrance. This article explores the many meanings attached to the old cemetery, and funerals more broadly, over a period of time beginning from the 1950s to 2005. By looking at the history of funerals, and the cemetery, new insights and an alternative understanding of what it meant to live in an urban area in Apartheid South Africa can be gained.
Notes
*I would like to thank Kgatitswe Raborife, for this quote and for all of his help in the project. I'd also like to thank Professor Phil Bonner, chair of the ‘Local Pasts Present Realities Project’ at Wits University, and Professor William Beinart, from the African Studies Centre at Oxford University, for supervising my research. Lastly, thanks to Professor Peter Delius, Dr Simon Dagut, Dr Clive Glaser and Professor Deborah James for their helpful comments.
1 R. Lee and M. Vaughan, ‘Death and Dying in the History of Africa since 1800’, Journal of African History, 49 (2008), p. 341.
2 Lee and Vaughan, ‘Death and Dying’, p. 359.
3 Lee and Vaughan provide a comprehensive review of this literature in ‘Death and Dying in the History of Africa Since 1800’. My article has a more narrowly defined focus and engages with the literature most pertinent to the topic.
4 A. Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2005); A. Anderson, Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in SA (Pretoria, Unisa Press, 2000).
5 B.A. Pauw, The Second Generation: A Study of the Family among Urbanized Bantu in East London (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1973); L. Kuper, An African Bourgeoisie: Race, Class and Politics in South Africa (New Haven, CT; London, Yale University Press, 1965).
6 T. Ranger, ‘Dignifying Death: The Politics of Burial in Bulawayo’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 34, 1–2 (2004).
7 G. Dennie, ‘The Standard of Dying: Race, Indigence, and the Disposal of the Dead Body in Johannesburg, 1886–1960’, African Studies, 68, 3 (December 2009), p. 326.
8 D. Durham, and F. Klaits, ‘Funerals and the Public Space of Sentiment in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 28, 4 (2002), p. 777.
9 P. Geschiere, ‘Funerals and Belonging: different Patterns in South Cameroon’, African Studies Review, 48, 2 (2005).
10 Dennie, ‘The Standard of Dying’, p. 313.
11 D. James, Gaining Ground? ‘Rights' and ‘Property’ in South African Land Reform (Abingdon, Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), p. 88.
12 C. Walker, Landmarked: Land Claims and Land Restitution in South Africa (Johannesburg and Athens, OH, Jacana and Ohio University Press, 2008), p. 232.
13 P. Bonner, M. Hay and S. Mathabatha, ‘Roodepoort-Maraisburg Location: A History’ (unpublished paper, University of the Witwatersrand, 2007).
14 Roodepoort City Council (hereafter RCC), Roodepoort Council Minutes (hereafter RCM) September to December 1956, Nieblankesakekomitee, 14 November 1956.
15 See, for background information, W. Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001) and N. Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2007).
16 Roodepoort-Maraisburg Advertiser en Weekblad (Friday 1 February 1957).
17 Roodepoort-Maraisburg Advertiser en Weekblad (Friday, February 1, 1957)
20 RCC RCM, September to December 1958, ‘Memorandum of the Roodepoort Location Residents Re: Cemetery’.
18 Roodepoort City Council, RCM, January to March 1960, ‘Report on Negotiations between Council and Messrs. Horison Development Company Ltd., Re Contribution towards Cost of Removal of Old Location, Roodepoort’.
19 Roodepoort City Council, RCM, January to March 1960, ‘Report on Negotiations between Council and Messrs. Horison Development Company Ltd., Re Contribution towards Cost of Removal of Old Location, Roodepoort’
21 RCC RCM, January to March 1960, ‘Report on Negotiations… Re: Contribution towards Cost of Removal of Old Location, Roodepoort’.
22 RCC RCM, June 1959, No. 19 ‘Removal of Cemetery in Roodepoort Bantu Township’, Ordinary Council Meeting, 8 June 1959.
23 RCC RCM March 1966, ‘A(37) Removal of Old Location: Roodepoort’, 753rd Ordinary Council Meeting, 31 March 1966.
24 Church denominations active in Roodepoort West in 1956–57, included, in order of size: the Hermannsburg Mission Lutheran Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Bantu Methodist Church, and Church of Providence of SA. Other churches included: St Angela's Catholic Mission, the Zion Christian Church, National Church of Ethiopia, Swiss Mission, Ethiopian Church of SA, Assemblies of God, African Congregational Church, Bantu Presbyterian Church, Bantu Dutch Reformed Church, Church of Christ Mission, African Cathedral, Bantu Apostolic Faith and Old Apostolic Church. (RCC RCM Sept to Dec 1956, Nieblankesakekomitee, 14 November 1956; RCC RCM March 1957, Nieblankesakekimmitee, 13 March 1957).
25 Interview with Chappie Mmuntle, Kgatitswe Raborife, Dobsonville, 25 September 2007.
26 Thenjiwe Radebe interviewed by Sello Mathabatha, Dobsonville, 17 January 2007.
27 Soni Nonthlahla, interviewed by Sello Mathabatha, Dobsonville, 24 January 2007.
28 Thenjiwe Radebe interviewed by Sello Mathabatha, Dobsonville, 17 January 2007.
29 Interview with Kgatitswe Raborife, Dobsonville, 29 July 2008.
30 For more on the dangers of death, dirt and contamination see Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa, pp. 136–66 and P. Delius and C. Glaser, ‘ “Sex, Disease and Stigma in South Africa”, Historical Perspectives’, African Journal of Aids Research, 4, 1 (May 2005), pp. 32–4
31 Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa, pp. 163–6
32 Interview with Susan Kabane, Dobsonville, 19 August 2008.
33 Used in this sense to denote any Christian religious leader.
34 Thenjiwe Radebe, interviewed by Sello Mathabatha, Dobsonville, 17 January 2007.
35 Thenjiwe Radebe, interviewed by Sello Mathabatha, Dobsonville, 17 January 2007
36 Soni Nontlahla, interviewed by Sello Mathabatha, 24 January 2007.
37 Nkathlo Steven Moeketsi, interviewed by Sello Mathabatha, Dobsonville, 24 January 2007.
38 R. Hertz, Death and the Right Hand (Aberdeen, Cohen & West, 1960); Lee and Vaughan, ‘Death and Dying’, p. 345.
39 Soni Nontlahla, interviewed by Michelle Hay, 7 March 2009.
40 RCC RCM January–June 1952, Non-European Affairs Committee Minutes, 7 April 1952.
41 RCC RCM July 1963–Sept. 1963, A.36 ‘Report on Supply of Transport to Bantu Mourners Attending Funeral Services’, 451st Ordinary Council Meeting, 31 July 1963.
42 RCC RCM July 1963–Sept. 1963, A.36 ‘Report on Supply of Transport to Bantu Mourners Attending Funeral Services’, 451st Ordinary Council Meeting, 31 July 1963
43 RCC RCM July 1963–Sept. 1963, A.36 ‘Report on Supply of Transport to Bantu Mourners Attending Funeral Services’, 451st Ordinary Council Meeting, 31 July 1963
44 RCC RCM July 1963–Sept. 1963, A.36 ‘Report on Supply of Transport to Bantu Mourners Attending Funeral Services’, 451st Ordinary Council Meeting, 31 July 1963
45 Interview with Steve Nkatlo, Dobsonville, 7 April 2009.
46 RCC RCM July–September 68, Dobsonville Urban Bantu Council minutes, 30 July 1968.
47 RCC RCM July–September 68, Dobsonville Urban Bantu Council minutes, 30 July 1968
48 Interview with Kgatitswe Raborife, Dobsonville, 29 July 08.
49 Interview with Kgatitswe Raborife, Soni Nontlahla and Bebe Mabe, Dobsonville, 15 July 2008; also described in Anderson, Zion and Pentecost, p. 211.
50 James, Gaining Ground, p. 98.
51 B.A Pauw, The Second Generation: A Study of the family among urbanized Bantu in East London (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 105; G. Setiloane, The Image of God among the Sotho-Tswana (Rotterdam, Balkema, 1976).
52 Ashforth, Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa, p. 173.
53 Anderson, Zion and Pentecost, p. 183.
54 A. Ashforth, Madumo: A Man Bewitched (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2005).
55 Interview with Bebe Mabe, Dobsonville, 12 August 2008.
56 Interview with Soni Nontlahla, Dobsonville, 7 March 2009.
57 Interview with Kgatitswe Raborife, Kereeditse Pitswane and Lydia Mpshe, Dobsonville, 27 August 2007.
58 N. Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2007), p. 134.
59 Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Vol. 3, Chapter 6, p. 611.
60 Interview with Chappie Mmuntle, Dobsonville, 29 August 2008; and John Moralo, 8 April 2009.
61 C. Wren, ‘Pretoria Orders Curfew in 6 Townships’, New York Times, 26 September, 1990, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/26/world/pretoria-orders-curfew-in-6-townships.html?scp = 5&sq = dobsonville& st = cse, accessed on 27 March 2009.
62 Interview with Soni Nontlahla, Dobsonville, 7 March 2009.
63 Interview with Soni Nontlahla, Dobsonville, 7 March 2009
64 Interview with John Moralo, Steve Nkatlo, Soni Nontlahla, Kgatitswe Raborife, Dobsonville, 31 March 2009.
65 A. Anderson, Zion and Pentecost, p.183; B.A Pauw, The Second Generation, 1973.
66 A. Anderson, Zion and Pentecost, p.183; B.A Pauw, The Second Generation, 1973
67 The privileging of the ‘spectacular’ over the ‘ordinary’ is a problem of South African writing discussed in N. Ndebele, ‘The Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Some New Writings in South Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 12 (1986).
69 G. Gotz and A. Simone, ‘On Belonging and Becoming in African Cities’, in R. Tomlinson, R. Beauregard, L. Bremner and N. Mangcu (eds), Emerging Johannesburg (London, Routledge, 2003), p. 124.
68 Interview with Kgatitswe Raborife, Dobsonville, 8 April 2009.
72 Interview with Kgatitswe Raborife, Dobsonville, 8 April 2009.
70 A. Harniet-Sievers, A Place in the World: New Local Historiographies from Africa and South-Asia (Leiden, Brill, 2002), p. 4.
71 A. Harniet-Sievers, A Place in the World: New Local Historiographies from Africa and South-Asia (Leiden, Brill, 2002), p. 3.
73 Interview with Kgatitswe Raborife, Dobsonville, 29 July 2008.