Little Suns (5 page)

His name was there too. As were the names of the other men who were fellow prison inmates. If only he knew how to read them. He pretended to read in the nasal accent that amaMpondomise associated with the English.

He was Hamilton Hope.

He read out the names of the men from Sulenkama who had been sentenced to a year in prison for torturing a man who had been smelled out as
igqwirha
, a person who harmed others through the use of witchcraft. And there in the Book of Causes another squiggle representing the diviner who was in charge of the witchcraft-smelling ritual, now also an inmate of the Qumbu Jail. He recited the names of those who had been sentenced to various terms for housebreaking, for stock theft, for assault, and for the non-payment of hut tax. The latter was a major grievance of the amaMpondomise people. Though the tax was not introduced by Hamilton Hope but by those who came before him, the new magistrate was enforcing it with gusto since his arrival seven months ago. He was collecting arrears dating back to 1875, and a number of men were in prison as a result. Malangana surmised that more than half his fellow inmates were there because of the hut tax.

And then he came across his name. It had to be his name. The squiggles were shapelier and were in black ink instead of the blue that was used on the rest of the pages. The rest of what followed must be his record – the whole story of how one Sunday morning he woke up with a thirst that could only be quenched by gourds of sorghum beer and a craving for something salty that could only be satisfied by an open-fire-roasted chunk of beef. He knew immediately those desires were pointing him to Gxumisa’s homestead, Mhlontlo’s uncle who had organised a feast for the boys who had graduated from the school of the mountain and were entering manhood with poetry, songs and dances. He had participated in the slaughter of a fattened ox the previous evening and he reckoned this morning the women would have already prepared and boiled the head – the part of an animal that was reserved only for men – and the men were already gathering to sink their teeth into it.

He was sitting under a tree with five other men, basking in his own freshly minted manhood – he had graduated a month or so before – the ox’s brain melting in his mouth when a group of mounted policemen came to quell the festivities. Hamilton Hope had banned drinking on Sunday and therefore a feast of this nature was illegal. It was tantamount to a riot in the eyes of the Government. Gxumisa must have known this, and yet he organised a feast in defiance of the law.

Malangana read in the Book of Causes how the men of the amaMpondomise had grumbled while obeying Hope’s orders and how he, Malangana son of Matiwane, had stood up in front of the leader of the policemen and told him that no British magistrate had the right to interfere with the customs and traditions of his people.

‘It is an insult to
uTat’u
Gxumisa, the king’s uncle, to come to his homestead and tell him that he cannot hold a feast,’ he shouted at the Qheya sergeant.

‘You are drunk already,’ said the sergeant. ‘If you don’t join your tribesmen and leave we’ll have to arrest you for drinking on Sunday.’

‘I am a Mpondomise man,’ said Malangana. ‘I refuse to obey laws that do not come from my king.’

The policemen laughed. Surely the man was drunk to think he could stand in defiance of the Queen of England. They grabbed him, handcuffed him and frogmarched him in front of their horses. Not a single man of the amaMpondomise lifted a finger to help him nor raised a voice to protest against his treatment. They just walked away from Gxumisa’s homestead, their heads bowed in shame.

The graduates in their new loin cloths of many colours, cotton handkerchiefs and chiffon scarves fastened on white or red blankets with
iziqhobosho
pins and round mirrors reflecting the sun on their chests, cowered near the kraal.

Though these policemen were black men except for the Qheya sergeant, Malangana decided they couldn’t be amaMpondomise. They must have been recruited from other nations. Otherwise they would not have scoffed at the customs of amaMpondomise and insulted the king’s uncle.

The policemen were going to deposit Malangana in the holding cells until the next day when he would appear before the magistrate. But as his misfortune would have it, when they entered the town of Qumbu they chanced upon Hamilton Hope on a horse ride with two of his trusted aides, Warren and Henman.

‘What do we have here?’ Hope asked.

‘This native was drunk and rowdy on Sunday,’ said the sergeant.

Malangana yelled back that he was not rowdy. No man would tell him he could not drink on any day of the week when he wanted to drink.

Hope dismounted.

‘
Paqama
,’ he said, asking Malangana in Sesotho to lie on the ground face-down. He had not yet learned the language of amaMpondomise.

Malangana stood before the puny man defiantly. The magistrate’s nostrils flared, which reminded Malangana of Gcazimbane. Two policemen forced him to the ground. Hope’s eyes protruded and his lips twitched, making his full beard vibrate as he gave Malangana a few lashes with a cat-o’-nine-tails.

Malangana would not flinch. He would not give this white man the pleasure of his screams. After all, he had graduated from the school of the mountain where he had been trained to take pain like a man. Hope’s face reddened as he lashed out with greater vigour. He would not let an impertinent native destroy his reputation which preceded him even before he assumed the magistracy at Qumbu. He had acquired it when he was the magistrate among the Baphuthi people of Lesotho. Their King Moorosi had told his close friend Mhlontlo about Hope’s cruelty and penchant for flogging grown men, even chiefs, with his trusty cat-o’-nine-tails. When the amaMpondomise first saw him they didn’t think the tiny man with a deformed leg could be capable of any cruelty. Soon they learned that the king of Baphuthi knew what he was talking about.

Still Malangana would rather die than give him satisfaction. Hope instructed the sergeant to lock the rebel up in jail and bring him before the magistrate for trial first thing in the morning.

The next morning, still boiling with resentment, Malangana was brought to the House of Trials where Hope summarily sentenced him to a year in prison as a lesson to all those natives who were disrespectful and stubborn. But he tempered justice with mercy. There was the option of a fine: ten pounds.

As he paged the leaves of the Book of Causes Malangana recalled how Mhlontlo refused to pay the fine. Malangana was an impetuous young man, he told the messengers. He had no business picking a fight with Hamilton Hope. He should therefore take his medicine like a man.

‘He has betrayed me,’ said Malangana. ‘My king and brother has let me down. Tell him when I am released from the white man’s prison I will pack my things and seek asylum from Mditshwa.’

Mditshwa ruled over a rival branch of amaMpondomise across Itsitsa River in Tsolo, about nineteen miles from Qumbu.

By the time the warder returned to take Malangana back to the Qumbu Jail the hip flask was empty, he had become bored with the Book of Causes and was staggering about pretending to be dusting the furniture.

The warder was not blind. Malangana readied his buttocks for an impending encounter with the cat-o’-nine-tails.

‘I would have kept quiet if you had shared those Tears of Queen Victoria with me,’ the warder said repeatedly. ‘
Ngoku awulibonanga!
’
You will bear the consequences
.

The chiefs and elders were already gathered outside the Maclear Magistracy when Mhlontlo arrived accompanied by Gxumisa and Malangana. The latter was there specifically to act as Mhlontlo’s interpreter. The three men were on horseback, with Mhlontlo riding in the middle on Gcazimbane. They were resplendent in European pants, riding boots and white beaded blankets, and the two older men carried knobkerries while Malangana carried an assegai and a shield, more as accoutrements than as weapons of war.

Despite the drought that the elders said was the worst in living memory, the horses still looked fresh after almost two days on the hilly terrain from Sulenkama to Maclear, a distance of about forty-five miles. They had rested at each stream they crossed so that the beasts could drink and graze, and the men could nibble a bit on the
iinkobe
boiled sorghum kernels and sun-dried beef that they carried in their rock-rabbit-skin bags as provision – thanks to Mhlontlo’s wife of the Iqadi House. Most streams had run dry, but the riders moved on until they reached the ones that had some water.

‘The King of amaMpondomise has arrived,’ announced a policeman.

Hamilton Hope glared at the policeman. Mr Welsh, the magistrate of Tsolo, smiled. He knew that Hope was very particular on how the native rulers were to be addressed. They were chiefs and nothing more. At best they were paramount chiefs if they – like Mhlontlo – had other chiefs owing allegiance to them. They could not be kings or queens. There was only one Sovereign, Her Majesty Queen Victoria. The natives ceased to be kings and queens when they were graciously ushered into the civilising fold of the British Empire.

Mr Thompson, the magistrate of Maclear and convener of this meeting, beckoned Mhlontlo and indicated that he should join the other elders seated on the ground in front of the magistrates and their aides. There must have been a couple of hundred men gathered that day, and Mhlontlo could see among them a number of amaMpondomise military leaders who had left Sulenkama in the night and arrived at Maclear that morning. They were there to bear witness and to support their king.

The three magistrates, Welsh, Hope and Thompson, were sitting on the chairs, with the convener seated in the middle. A group of white men was standing behind them, leaning against the sandstone wall of the Magistracy. Malangana could recognise three of them: Warren, Henman and Davis. Warren was a Captain in the Cape Mounted Riflemen and Henman was a clerk of the resident magistrate of Mthatha currently seconded to Hope. Davis was also a Captain in the Cape Mounted Riflemen and Adjutant in Qumbu. He was known as Sunduza among amaMpondomise and was popular mostly because his brother was a highly regarded missionary based at Shawbury Mission, but also because he spoke isiMpondomise as if he had suckled it at his mother’s breast. That was almost the case because, from the time he was a baby, he was brought up by amaMpondomise nannies and grew up playing with native children. He therefore spoke the language of the black people long before he could master his mother tongue.

Malangana got to know these men when he was a prisoner. From Sunduza, particularly, he had learned what he knew of the English language.

Malangana placed his assegai and shield on the ground and took his place next to Gxumisa.

Mhlontlo did not immediately take his place but stood to survey the delegates sitting on the ground. He knew some of the chiefs and elders besides those who came from Sulenkama. Among them were Lehana and Lelingoana, chiefs of Basotho clans. But there were many others who were strangers. Protocol therefore demanded that he introduce himself by reciting his genealogy, which dated back to the great migrations of the 1400s and 1500s. It was a ritual the magistrates found tiresome, but because they wanted the cooperation of the natives they indulged them.

‘I greet you all, children of abaMbo. I am Mhlontlo, King of amaMpondomise,’ he said in a singsong voice. His body moved rhythmically and he gently hit his open palm with his knobkerrie as he mentioned the name of each ancestor. ‘I descend from Sibiside who led abaMbo from the land of the blue lakes. Sibiside begot Njanya, Dlamini and Mkhize. Dlamini is the one who founded amaSwati people; Mkhize is the father of those who later merged into a nation that became known as amaZulu. Njanya begot the twins Mpondo and Mpondomise, and Xesibe. Mpondo branched off to found his own nation called amaMpondo and Xesibe originated ama-Xesibe. Mpondomise established amaMpondomise.’

‘I’m sure your fellow chiefs know all those stories already,’ interrupted Thompson. ‘We don’t have all day.’

You don’t interrupt a man in the middle of reciting his genealogy. Malangana shook his head;
the white man never learns
.

Mhlontlo ignored Thompson and continued.

‘Mpondomise begot Ntose, and Ntose begot Ngcwina. Ngcwina begot Dosini, Ngqukatha and Gcaka from the Great House, and Nxotwe from the Right-hand House. Ngcwina also begot Cirha from the Iqadi House, and that was where the dust-storm began. Cirha’s mother was a Bushman woman, Manxangashe, yet still Ngcwina insisted that he be the heir to the throne even though he was from a junior house. Ngcwina felt that the rightful heir, Dosini, was an imbecile who would disgrace the throne. It is where our praise-name,
Thole loMthwakazi
, began.’

Thompson was losing his cool; the meeting should have started already. He was about to interrupt with much firmness this time, but Welsh stopped him.

‘We need the natives’ cooperation,’ he said to Thompson between his teeth. ‘Let’s show them that we respect their protocol. It’s a small price to pay.’