Xhosa / UmXhosa Term Analysis

“Mandy!” Mrs. Nelson screams. That is what the white woman I work for calls me: Mandy. She says she can’t say my name. Says she can’t say any of our native names because of the clicks. My name is Mandisa. MA-NDI-SA. Do you see any click in that?

“Mzukulwana, listen to me. Listen and remember what you have heard, this day.” Then, in the voice of an imbongi of the people, he recited:

“Deep run the roots of hatred here

So deep, a cattle-worshipping nation killed all its precious herds.

Tillers, burned fertile fields, fully sowed, bearing rich promise too.

Readers of Nature’s Signs, allowed themselves fallacious belief.

In red noon’s eye rolling back to the east for sleep.

Anything. Anything, to rid themselves of these unwanted strangers.

No sacrifice too great, to wash away the curse.

That deep, deep, deep, ran the hatred then.

In the nearly two centuries since, the hatred has but multiplied.

The hatred has but multiplied.”

Hayi, ilishwa!

Amabhulu, azizinja!

One settler, one bullet!

By the match stick, we shall free our nation!

“Oh, the road has been long, indeed. The songs came much, much later, I can tell you that. Before the songs, many others tried to rid our nation of the ones without colour, who had come from across the great sea.”

“Makana, the Left-Handed, prophesied outcomes similar to Nongqawuse’s. His magic would turn the bullets of the guns of abelungu to water.”

“At Isandlwana, with spear and shield, Cetywayo’s impis defeated the mighty British army and its guns.”

“Bulhoek, in Queenstown, is another example of resistance I can cite. Close to two hundred people murdered. Their sin? They wanted back their land and took possession of it, claiming it as their own. When they wouldn’t move, even by force, bullets were unleashed on them. But it was all to no avail. All to no avail. To this very day, abelungu are still here with us, Mzukulwana. The most renowned liar has not said they are about to disappear.”

That unforgiving moment. My son. Blood pounding in his ears. King! If for a day. If for a paltry five minutes ... a miserable but searing second.

AMANDLA! NGAWETHU! POWER! IT 1S OURS!

AMANDLA! NGAWETHU! POWER! IT IS OURS!

[…] Transported, the crowd responded; not dwelling on the significance of the word, deaf and blind to the seeds from which it sprang, the pitiful powerlessness that had brewed this very moment

And the song in my son’s ears. A song he had heard since he could walk. Even before he could walk. Song of hate, of despair, of rage. Song of impotent loathing.

AMABHULU, AZIZINJA!

AMABHULU, AZIZINJA!

BOERS, THEY ARE DOGS!

BOERS, THEY ARE DOGS!

[…] The crowd cheers my son on. One settler! One bullet! We had been cheering him on since the day he was born. Before he was born. Long before.

Nongqawuse saw it in that long, long-ago dream: A great raging whirlwind would come. It would drive abelungu to the sea. Nongqawuse had but voiced the unconscious collective wish of the nation: rid ourselves of the scourge.

She was not robbed. She was not raped. There was no quarrel. Only the eruption of a slow, simmering, seething rage. Bitterness burst and spilled her tender blood on the green autumn grass of a far-away land. Irredeemable blood. Irretrievable loss.

One boy. Lost. Hopelessly lost.

One girl, far away from home.

The enactment of the deep, dark, private yearnings of a subjugated race. The consummation of inevitable senseless catastrophe.

[…] My son was only an agent, executing the long-simmering dark desires of his race. Burning hatred for the oppressor possessed his being. It saw through his eyes; walked with his feet and wielded the knife that tore mercilessly into her flesh. The resentment of three hundred years plugged his ears; deaf to her pitiful entreaties.

My son, the blind but sharpened arrow of the wrath of his race.

Your daughter, the sacrifice of hers. Blindly chosen. Flung towards her sad fate by fortune’s cruellest slings.

But for the chance of a day, the difference of one sun’s rise, she would be alive today. My son, perhaps not a murderer. Perhaps, not yet.