‘Brought into Manhood’: Christianity and Male Initiation in South Africa in the Early 20th Century

Abstract

This article concerns African Christians’ attempts to accommodate traditional practices – in this instance male initiation – within their evolving Christianity. It speaks to an on-going concern around the place of custom in modern Africa and the uses to which custom and its invocation are put. Contrary to the literature, which locates the adaption of custom by Christians in the independent or Zionist churches, educated African Christians in the historic mainstream churches were also staunch defenders of customs antithetical to the white missionary establishment. Using a range of unexamined and Xhosa sources, the article considers how African Christians publicly contested initiation. Black South Africans used their literacy, writing ethnographies and letters to newspapers to debate custom and establish themselves as purveyors and readers of, firstly, locally circulated and, later, ethnographic knowledge. Christians engaged in spirited and learned discussions of circumcision, using a range of arguments based on custom and Biblical precedent. Xhosa men, in particular, called on ideas about initiation to defend masculine moral authority. Their arguments in defence of initiation point to anxieties over manhood and power in the context of an increasingly modern society. While initiation had particular meaning for Xhosa men, men across South Africa debated, defended and, at times, incorporated Christianised forms of initiation into their own symbolic repertoires.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Hlumela Sondlo for most of the translation in this article. Mpho Buntse helped me with initial translations of the 1922 Umteteli wa Bantu letters.

Notes

¹ Umboneli Wezinto, ‘Isiko Lesizwe’, Umteteli wa Bantu, Johannesburg (hereafter Umteteli), 25 March 1922, p. 7.

² University of the Witwatersrand (hereafter Wits), Johannesburg, Department of Historical Papers, Church of the Province of South Africa (CPSA) AB799, St Cuthbert’s Mission, Bb, Workers’ Quarterly Meeting, 13 December 1941.

³ B. Meyer, ‘Christianity in Africa: From African Independent to Pentecostal–Charismatic Churches’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 33 (2004), pp. 447–74; D.R. Peterson, Creative Writing: Translation, Bookkeeping, and the Work of Imagination in Colonial Kenya (Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2004).

⁴ A.M. Stoner-Eby, ‘African Clergy, Bishop Lucas and the Christianizing of Local Initiation Rites: Revisiting ‘The Masasi Case’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 38, 2 (2008), pp. 171–208; T.O. Ranger, ‘Missionary Adaptation of African Religious Institutions: “The Masasi Case”’, in T. Ranger and I. Kimambo (eds), The Historical Study of African Religion: With Special Reference to East and Central Africa (London, Heinemann, 1972).

⁵ For instance, L. Thomas, ‘“Ngaitana (I Will Circumcise Myself)”: The Gender and Generational Politics of the 1956 Ban on Clitoridectomy in Meru, Kenya’, Gender and History, 8 (1996), pp. 338–63; C.J. Walley, ‘Searching for “Voices”: Feminism, Anthropology, and the Global Debate over Female Genital Operations’, Cultural Anthropology, 12, 3 (1997), pp. 405–38.

⁶ C. Ambler, ‘The Renovation of Custom in Colonial Kenya: The 1932 Generation Succession Ceremonies in Embu’, Journal of African History, 30, 1 (1989), pp. 139–56; J. Vansina, Paths in the Rainforests toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1990); J. Lonsdale, ‘Mau Maus of the Mind: Making Mau Mau and Remaking Kenya’, Journal of African History, 31, 3 (1990), pp. 393–421; B. Berman and J. Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa (London, Ohio University Press, 1992); Jan Jacob de Wolf, ‘Circumcision and Initiation in Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda: Historical Reconstructions and Ethnographic Evidence’, Anthropos, 78, 3/4 (1983): pp. 369–410.

⁷ The Xhosa term is ulwaluko, translated as ‘circumcision’. For this reason, many older sources refer to it as circumcision, rather than the more ethnographic ‘initiation’.

⁸ Zenoyisa Madikwa, ‘Mbalula Goes to the Mountain’, Sowetan LIVE, 9 September 2008, available at http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/sowetan/archive/2008/09/09/mbalula-goes-to-the-mountain, retrieved 11 February 2016.

⁹ M. Malan, ‘Medical Back-Up in Pondo Initiation’, Mail & Guardian, 27 September 2013, available at http://bhekisisa.org/article/2013-09-28-00-medical-back-up-in-pondo-initiation, retrieved 6 February 2017.

¹⁰ In 1856–57, millenarian prophecies led the Xhosa to kill their cattle and to refrain from planting for a new harvest. When the prophecies did not come true, many Xhosa were forced into the Cape Colony as labour, while many died of starvation or were dispossessed of their land. See G. Marquardt, ‘Building a Perfect Pest: Environment, People, Conflict and the Creation of a Rinderpest Epizootic in Southern Africa’, elsewhere in this issue; and J. Peires, The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856–7 (Johannesburg, Ravan, 1989).

¹¹ On the independent churches, see J. Campbell, Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 103–25; H. Pretorius and L. Jafta, ‘“A Branch Springs Out”: African Initiated Churches’, in R. Elphick and R. Davenport (eds), Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social and Cultural History (Cape Town, David Philip, 1997), pp. 211–26.

¹² These included the Mfengu, the Xhosa, the Thembu, the Bhaca, the Mpondomise and the Mpondo. J.H. Soga, The Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs (Lovedale, Lovedale Press, 1932), p. 169. J.B. Peires, The House of Phalo (Johannesburg, Ravan, 1981) p. 199 n 31. Initiation rites existed for both girls and boys, although the female initiation rite, the intonjane, was seldom practised by the early 20th century. B.A. Pauw, Christianity and Xhosa Tradition: Belief and Ritual among Xhosa-Speaking Christians (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 98, 172; M. Wilson, S. Kaplan and T. Maki, Keiskammahoek Rural Survey: Social Structure (Pietermaritzburg, Shuter and Shooter, 1952), p. 111.

¹³ For a fascinating and comprehensive discussion of current debates, including a review of the historiography, see H. Deacon and K. Thomson, ‘The Social Penis: Traditional Male Circumcision and Initiation in Southern Africa, 1800–2000: A Literature Review’, unpublished paper (Cape Town, Centre for Social Science Research, 2012), available at http://www.cssr.uct.ac.za/publications/working-paper/2012/social-penis-traditional-male-circumcision-and, retrieved 20 September 2012. For historical circumcision among isiXhosa speakers, see also F. Brownlee, ‘The Circumcision Ceremony in Fingoland, Transkeian Territories, South Africa‘, Man, 31 (1931), pp. 251–4; P.W. Laidler, ‘Bantu Ritual Circumcision’, Man, 6–7 (1922), pp. 13–14; B.J.F. Laubscher, Sex, Custom and Psychopathology: A Study of South African Pagan Natives (London, George Routledge and Sons, 1937); Pauw, Christianity and Xhosa Tradition; J.H. Soga, The Ama-Xosa; Wilson, Kaplan, and Maki, Keiskammahoek.

¹⁴ More is becoming available of 19th-century vernacular sources, including some of the early histories published in the newspaper Isigidimi Sama Xosa, but so far there is little discussion of circumcision in these. For example, H. Bradford and M. Qotole, ‘Ingxoxo Enkulu ngoNongqawuse (a Great Debate about Nongqawuse’s Era)’, Kronos, 34 (2008), pp. 66–105.

¹⁵ On the difficulties of using ethnic categories in discussing the history of the Eastern Cape, see A. Mager, Gender and the Making of a South African Bantustan: A Social History of the Ciskei, 1945–1959 (Portsmouth, Oxford and Cape Town, Heinemann, James Currey and David Philip, 1999), pp.19–22; J. Peires, ‘Ethnicity and Pseudo-Ethnicity in the Ciskei’, in L. Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (London, James Currey, 1987).

¹⁶ W. Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland (Johannesburg, Ravan, 1982); W.D. Hammond-Tooke, Bhaca Society: The People of the Transkeian Uplands, South Africa (Cape Town, London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 80–82.

¹⁷ N. Erlank, ‘Gendering Commonality: African Men and the 1883 Commission on Native Law and Custom’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 29, 4 (2003), pp. 937–53; J. Lewis, ‘An Economic History of the Ciskei, 1848–1900’ (PhD thesis, University of Cape Town, 1984).

¹⁸ For some account of these differences as emanating from a modern vs a conservative background, see Wilson, Keiskammahoek, Appendix B.

¹⁹ University of Grahamstown, Cory Library for Historical Research (Cory) Ms16369b: ‘Translation of “Intlalo xa Xosa” 1917’, by T.B Soga, trans. C.S. Papu (hereafter T.B. Soga, Intlalo, and page number).

²⁰ For the Mfengu, see T.J. Stapleton, ‘The Expansion of Pseudo-Ethnicity in the Eastern Cape: Reconsidering the Fingo “Exodus” of 1865’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 29 (1996), pp. 233–50. For the late 19th- and early 20th-century Mfengu–Xhosa tensions, see W.G. Mills, ‘“The Rift Within the Lute”: Conflict and Factionalism in the “School” Community in the Cape Colony, 1890–1915’, Institute for Commonwealth Studies Collected Seminar Papers, 15 (1990), pp. 29–39.

²¹ T.B. Soga, Intlalo, pp. 79–81.

²² See also Brownlee, ‘The Circumcision Ceremony’; Laidler, ‘Bantu Ritual Circumcision’.

²³ P. Delius and C. Glaser, ‘Sexual Socialisation in South Africa: A Historical Perspective’, African Studies, 61, 1 (2002), pp. 27–54. Also, on attitudes to and shifts in African sexuality, see C. Burns, ‘Sex Lessons from the Post?’ Agenda, 12, 29 (1996), pp. 79–91; N. Erlank, ‘“Plain Clean Facts” and Initiation Schools: Christianity, Africans and “Sex Education” in South Africa, c.1910–1940’, Agenda, 18, 62 (2004), pp. 76–83.

²⁴ T.B. Soga, Intlalo, p. 79. Before the 1950s, the Xhosa masculine ideal centred on the figure of a warrior, with initiation instruction reflecting this. Mager, Gender and the Making, pp. 128–33.

²⁵ P.A. McAllister and D. Deliwe, Youth in Rural Transkei: The Demise of ‘Traditional’ Youth Associations and the Development of New Forms of Association and Activity, 1975–1993 (Grahamstown, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, 1994).

²⁶ J.H. Soga, AmaXosa, p. 253.

²⁷ For a discussion of shifts in Xhosa masculinity in the 19th century, see H. Bradford, ‘Not the Nongqawuse Story: An Anti-Heroine in Historical Perspective’, in N. Gasa (ed.), Women in South African History (Pretoria, HSRC, 2007).

²⁸ J.H. Soga, AmaXosa, p. 248. Also, Pauw, The Second Generation, p. 89.

²⁹ Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley, p. 317.

³⁰ Pauw, The Second Generation, pp. 89–90; collected from an informant in the 1950s.

³¹ And not only among the Xhosa. The association of pain and initiation is well documented. See, for example, A. Morinis, ‘The Ritual Experience: Pain and the Transformation of Consciousness in Ordeals of Initiation’, Ethos, 13, 2 (1985), pp. 150–74.

³² University of Cape Town, African Studies Library, Lestrade Collection, BC 255 A3.229. The manuscript has no page numbers. Grateful thanks to Jochen Arndt for bringing this to my attention. The text is in English, copied and possibly translated by the eminent linguist Lestrade on his visit to the Eastern Cape some time in the 1920s. My references are to this manuscript, hereafter ‘Banto Beliefs and Customs’, but the published piece is available as James Calata, ‘Ukudlelana Kobu-Kristu Namasiko Olwaluko Lwabantu abaNtsundu’, in S.J. Wallis (ed.), Inkolo Namasiko A-Bantu (London, SPCK, 1930), pp. 38–49.

³³ Wilson, Keiskammahoek, p. 203; also Pauw, Second Generation, p. 95.

³⁴ L. Vincent, ‘“Boys Will Be Boys”’: Traditional Xhosa Male Circumcision, HIV and Sexual Socialisation in Contemporary South Africa’, Culture, Health and Sexuality, 10, 5 (2008), pp. 431–46; L. Vincent, ‘Cutting Tradition: The Political Regulation of Traditional Circumcision Rites in South Africa’s Liberal Democratic Order’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 34, 1 (2008), pp. 77–91.

³⁵ M. Nonyonyana, Congress of Traditional Leaders, quoted in Vincent, ‘Cutting Tradition’, p. 81. The quote is from 2003.

³⁶ Wilson, Keiskammahoek, pp. 216–19, including footnotes.

³⁷ The term most recently used and explained in L. Gunner, ‘Soft Masculinities, Isicathamiya and Radio’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 40, 2 (2014), pp. 343–60.

³⁸ Stoner-Eby, ‘African Clergy’, p. 75.

³⁹ T.B. Soga, Intlalo, p. 81.

⁴⁰ W.G. Mills, ‘Missionaries, Xhosa Clergy and the Suppression of Traditional Customs’, in H. Bredenkamp and R. Ross (eds), Missions and Christianity in South African History (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 1995); Erlank, ‘Gendering Commonality’.

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² Editor’s translation and summary, Kaffir Express, Lovedale, 1 July 1873, p. 6.

⁴³ Editor, Imvo Zabantsundu, King William’s Town (hereafter Imvo), 7 October 1890, p. 3.

⁴⁴ ‘Abakweta’, Imvo, 23 July 1912, p. 4. See the same sentiments in S.H. Mbulana, Umteteli, 8 October 1921, p. 7.

⁴⁵ ‘The Circumcision Rites’, Christian Express, Lovedale, 5 January 1917, p. 71. Also, UCT BC 255.

⁴⁶ School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, SOAS, ICM/CBMS, Africa 2, Box 1224, Report on 6th General Missionary Conference, 1925. The GMC was an early 20th-century liberal institution, touting rights for civilised black men and advocating trusteeship for black communities still located in rural areas.

⁴⁷ See Cory Ms16321, Mqhayi, Ulwaluko. Also, Cory Cl-Pr1394, J. Mazwai, Blythswood Review, Transkei, March 1929. The Anglicans devoted a whole commission of enquiry to the matter. Wits CPSA AB768, Diocese of Pretoria, Native Conference Minutes, 1915–1924. Wits CPSA 787f, Initiation Ceremonies Research, 24 November 1939.

⁴⁸ UCT, BC 255 A3.229.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ T.B. Soga, Intlalo, p. 214. The term ‘sodomite’ also derives from this reference, though this was not the context in which Soga and the others were using it.

⁵¹ I. Wauchope, ‘Primitive Native Customs’, in J. Opland and A. Nyamende (eds), Isaac Williams Wauchope, Selected Writings 1874–1916 (Cape Town, Van Riebeeck Society, 2008), pp. 321–2.

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ For this section, I consulted the following newspapers and journals: Christian Express and South African Outlook, Lovedale (until 1940); Imvo (until 1922); Umteteli (1920–38); and Bantu World, Johannesburg (1933–38). My selection was determined by the availability of the papers in question.

⁵⁴ M. Bandela, ‘Asixoleli Amaxosa’, Umteteli, 18 February 1922, p. 5.

⁵⁵ Wezinto, ‘Isiko Lesizwe’, p.7.

⁵⁶ Bandela, ‘Asixoleli Amaxosa’, p. 5.

⁵⁷ X.Y.Z., ‘Ulwaluko-Isiqendu II’, Umteteli, 2 September 1922, p. 7.

⁵⁸ Ibid.

⁵⁹ J.P. Makapane, ‘Ulwaluko’, Umteteli, 16 September 1922, p. 8.

⁶⁰ W.S.D., ‘Ulwaluko e Nancefield’, Umteteli, 9 September 1922, p. 9.

⁶¹ G.G. Nqhini, Umteteli, 4 March 1922, p. 8.

⁶² See R. Nkosie, ‘About Superstition’, Umteteli, 14 August 1937, p. 9, for a list of Bible chapters in favour of circumcision.

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ Wezinto, ‘Isiko Lesizwe’.

⁶⁵ Vazidlule, ‘Isaqwithi ekomityini’, Umteteli, 15 April 1922.

⁶⁶ J.H. Soga, The Ama-Xosa, p. 247. See also Walter B. Nqini, ‘About Superstition’, Umteteli, 1 January 1938, p. 8. Compare King James Bible, Genesis 17:10–11.

⁶⁷ T.B. Soga, Intlalo, p. 81.

⁶⁸ Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley, p. 390. ‘For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love’, King James Bible, Galatians 5:6.

⁶⁹ J.H. Soga, The Ama-Xosa, p. 247. Ham’s son, Cush, was known to have founded modern Ethiopia. Many Bible readers have taken this to mean that Ham was the father of the north-eastern peoples of Africa. See King James Bible, Genesis 9. On the validity of the Hamitic myth and male circumcision, see De Wolf, ‘Circumcision’.

⁷⁰ UCT, BC 255 A3.229.

⁷¹ King James Bible, Psalms 68:31. ‘Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God’.

⁷² I. Hofmeyr, ‘Reading Debating/ Debating Reading: The Case of the Lovedale Literary Society, or Why Mandela Quotes Shakespeare’, in K. Barber (ed.), Africa’s Hidden Histories: Everyday Literacy and Making the Self (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2006), p. 271.

⁷³ Ibid., p. 260.

⁷⁴ Vazidlule, ‘Isakwiti Ekomityini’, p. 7.

⁷⁵ H.K. Mahaluba, ‘Ulwaluko/Impendulo ku X.Y.Z’, Umteteli, 16 September 1922, p. 8. Also, G. M. Matete, Mafeking, Umteteli, 16 September 1922, p. 9.

⁷⁶ H.M.M., ‘Native Conference’, Umteteli, 23 September 1922, p. 9.

⁷⁷ Editor, ‘Ulwaluko’, Umteteli, 30 September 1922, p. 9.

⁷⁸ D.D. Ngqeleni, ‘Ulwaluko’, Umteteli, 10 November 1928, p. 8.

⁷⁹ E.B. Mpalisa, ‘Amakwenkwe Makoluswe’, Umteteli, 8 December 1928, p. 9. Also, Nqhini, ‘About Superstition’, for the same sentiment.

⁸⁰ Zangwa, ‘Ngo Lwaluko’, Umteteli, 26 January 1929, p. 10. E.F.J. Fuku, ‘Ngo Lwaluko’, Umteteli, 26 January 1929, p. 10.

⁸¹ S. Newell, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: ‘How to Play the Game of Life’ (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002).

⁸² A.L. (sic) Hoernle, ‘The Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs’, American Anthropologist, 35, 2 (1933), p. 369. This was probably Agnes Winifred Hoernle, known by many as the ‘mother of South African anthropology’.

⁸³ SOAS, CBMS/ICCLA 541/38, ‘Listen’, bound copies, Vol 1.1, January–February 1932, p. 6.

⁸⁴ For the impact of Listen in Ghana, see Newell, Literary Culture, p. 89.

⁸⁵ R.C. Brouwer, ‘Books for Africans: Margaret Wrong and the Gendering of African Writing, 1929–1963’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 31, 1 (1998),pp. 53–71.

⁸⁶ See also J. Peires, ‘The Lovedale Press: Literature for the Bantu Revisited’, History in Africa, 6 (1979), pp. 155–75.

⁸⁷ Cory Ms16369, Tiyo Burnside Soga.

⁸⁸ Editor, Umteteli, 13 April 1935, p. 1; 27 April 1935, p. 2.

⁸⁹ L.M. Thomas, ‘The Modern Girl and Racial Respectability in 1930s South Africa’, Journal of African History, 47, 3 (2006), pp. 461–90; L.M. Thomas, ‘Love, Sex, and the Modern Girl in 1930s Southern Africa’, in J. Cole and L.M. Thomas (eds), Love in Africa (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 31–58.

⁹⁰ T.B. Soga, Umteteli, 11 May 1935, p. 7. Also, Nqeleni, ‘Ulwaluko’.

⁹¹ N.T.J. Ncalo, ‘Mr Nazo’s letter’, Umteteli, 4 May 1935, p. 7.

⁹² E.N. Pule, ‘Superstition’, Umteteli, 19 June 1937, p. 7. A.S. Grootboom, ‘What a Rustenburg Reader has to Say about Superstition’, Umteteli, 24 July 1937, p. 8. R.M.S. Langa, Umteteli, 27 November, 1937, p. 8.

⁹³ Nomeva, ‘About Superstition’, Umteteli, 3 July 1937, p. 8.

⁹⁴ For bodies and hygiene, see T. Burke, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption, and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe (Durham, Duke University Press, 1996). The benefits of circumcision for a healthy penis are to be found in ’Bantu Beliefs and Customs’.

⁹⁵ Cory Ms16297, Minutes of Press Sub-Committee, 23 September 1940; J. Opland, Xhosa Poets and Poetry (Cape Town, David Philip, 1998), pp. 168–70.

⁹⁶ S.E.K. Mqhayi, in J. Opland (ed.), Abantu Besizwe: Historical and Biographical Writings, 1902–1944, (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 2009), p. 84.

⁹⁷ Cory Ms16297, Minutes of Press Sub-Committee, 23 September 1940. Mqhayi, Abantu Besizwe.