IN THE TRANSKEI , WHERE FAMINE RULES, PEOPLE FEAR THE FUTURE 13
It is two years since I was last in the Transkei and the Ciskei and my birthplace Engcobo. When I visited these areas last month I was shocked by the signs of drought and famine written across the face of the countryside and the people.
In the first few words of greeting with all I met the fear of the months to come intruded. “We don’t know what will happen to us this year,” the people said. “The drought… The famine…”
March is one of the greenest months in the Transkei – or should be. In normal times, the people and the livestock are fittest at the end of the summer. The fields should be high enough to hide a man. This is the time of the year when the people eat their fresh produce from the fields.
Crops Destroyed
Last month the crops were short and stunted. The crop sown in November was destroyed by the drought; the second sowing was too late and has no chance of thriving. The stumps stand in the fields but the yield is hopeless and lost to the people. We ate neither green mealies nor pumpkin anywhere in these Reserves. Listlessly the people sit about and talk of the bleak months to come. I overheard a group of young women discussing the crop failure. One had been to her home village some distance away. “We are better off than what I saw across the Bashee River ,” she said. “There, people are already going to the shops!”
Already in March buying back some of last year’s crop from the trader! Ordinarily, people are driven to buy from the shops only from October or November onwards after they have exhausted their crop reaped in June and July. There is no fresh food this March, there will be no crop worth talking of this winter… and who dares to say how the people will survive the months later this year?
Many of the cattle I saw seemed too thin and emaciated to survive the winter.
There were few men to be seen in either the Transkei or Ciskei villages. Those still there are making arrangements to leave to find work outside the territories.
Bantu Authorities
Another question that is uppermost in the minds of the people in the Transkei and Ciskei today is that of the Bantu Authorities Act and its effects. Chiefs, headmen, Bunga members and even ordinary people have been thrown into a ferment by this new system.
On the day of our arrival at Umtata we met Councillor Sakwe, one of the champions of this Bantu Authorities Act who told us of a meeting under the auspices of the Transkeian Chiefs and People’s Association to which Government and Bunga officials had been invited to speak on Bantu Authorities. The meeting was held at the Great Place Bambane, the home of the Paramount Chief of the Tembu, Sabata Jongihlanga Dalengebo. We learnt that the Paramount Chief himself did not attend the meeting, though the chiefs of Eastern and Western Pondoland did.
The reports current at the time said that the Tembus had disrupted the meeting which ended in disorder. Councillor Sakwe told me that sarcastic questions had been asked, like: “Now that you have decided to give us freedom, what is it that you want amongst us?” Chiefs at the meeting asked why the members of the Bunga had accepted the Bantu Authorities without the authority of the people. Such questions were branded “political” and ruled out of order.
It is an open secret that the Government is very perturbed by this meeting and the attitude of the people, and few will be surprised if the Government decides to take action against the Paramount Chief of the Tembu.
Signs of Unrest
This is a topic of conversation everywhere, and there are signs of unrest in the Territories over the Bantu Authorities Act. Some Chiefs and leading individuals are openly hostile to it; others are trying to use it and are maneuvering and campaigning for position. Rivalries between chiefs are springing up as some angle for promotion at the expense of others. Chiefs with ambitions for higher status are maneuvering for a split in their tribe so that they can be the supreme head of a portion of their subjects, and not subordinate to some other, greater chief. This is especially so in Griqualand. Tribal hostilities are being encouraged by these intrigues and the unity and amity of the people being disrupted. Much of this still flows beneath the surface but it will undoubtedly burst into the open.
Meanwhile the stock of the members of the Bungas, never high in the eyes of the people, has reached its lowest ever since they accepted the Bantu Authorities Act without making the slightest effort at consulting the people.