Home comforts and family histories
When Govan Mbeki spoke about his childhood, his face softened and he conveyed a sense of comfort, warmth and stability. The family house – in Nyili village, Mpukane ward, in the Nqamakwe magistracy – was ‘a solid house, very well built’ and the furniture was handsomely carpentered, ‘some of the most beautiful furniture I ever saw’. He spoke with a nostalgic pride about the dining-room table, purpose-built for his father. ‘With its extra leaf in, with all its leaves in, it could seat sixteen people – sixteen, all around it. For special occasions, yes.’ Even in its more compact form for everyday use, the table would have been ringed by a good number of chairs. Govan had a brother and three sisters – all older than him – and in addition his three half-sisters made extended stays in their father’s home. It was a house bustling with women, and one can easily imagine the affection and attention directed towards the laatlammetjie. Govan recalled being ‘very close’ to his mother, and told the film-maker Bridget Thompson that when she attended a wedding, she would tuck a piece of the cake into her doek to take home for him: ‘And wherever she went, if she got anything nice, she would always bring something home for me.’ His sisters also helped raise him, teaching him games and passing on songs they learned at school, and recounting Xhosa fables.
Childhood memories are often rose-tinted. It would be difficult to know, based on Govan’s account of his early years, that the family’s modest prosperity was being squeezed around the time of his birth; that his ageing father had been dismissed from his post in disgrace; or that, as he grew up, his family would begin a genteel slide: not into outright poverty, but into more straitened circumstances. But before these pressures began to tell, Govan’s father, Skelewu Mbeki, was unmistakably a member of a ‘progressive’ or modernising peasantry that enjoyed its heyday in the Cape Colony and Transkeian Territories in the second half of the 19th century. And like many others at the upper reaches of this peasantry, the Mbeki family was Mfengu; had converted to Christianity; enjoyed modest wealth through a combination of peasant farming and entrepreneurship; and channelled a good portion of its income into a self-consciously modern lifestyle and the best education available for the children.
Skelewu’s grandfather, Nonkasa, was an amaZizi herdsman: like many others of that clan, he was swept up in the population movements of the mfecane, leaving what is today Bergville district in KwaZulu-Natal. Driven south, Nonkasa was probably among the first few thousand refugees who presented themselves at the Great Place of the Xhosa king, Hintsa, in the 1830s. (When in prison on Robben Island, Govan Mbeki was usually greeted, respectfully, as Zizi – his clan name. But he deflected my questions about the usage, and he consistently sought to underplay references to his ethnicity: ‘I would rather you avoid reference to tribal origin,’ he wrote to me. I realised only subsequently that Govan – like Oliver Tambo – was highly sensitive to the potential discord that ethnic identities might trigger in the nationalist movement.) Nonkasa entered the Cape Colony in 1836 with two sons, Mfeti and Mbeki, and the latter’s seven-year-old son, Skelewu. The family lived briefly near Peddie, then settled close to the Methodist base and school at Healdtown. Here, Skelewu attended school, converted to Christianity, and married another Mfengu convert, with whom he had three daughters.
In 1866 or 1867 Skelewu was among the Mfengu encouraged by the Cape government to move back across the Kei River and settle in the new British protectorate of ‘Fingoland’ between the Kei and Mbashe rivers (part of the magistracies of Nqamakwe, Tsomo, Idutywa and Butterworth). Skelewu was accompanied by a number of his amaZizi clanspeople, and they were allocated Mpukane ward (or location, as it was called at the time). Skelewu was recognised at the time as a leader of the ward. ‘My father was chief and recognised as such by the people,’ Govan Mbeki wrote subsequently. He exercised the authority of a headman for a number of years before his official appointment in July 1890.
It was not only by virtue of office that Skelewu commanded respect in Mpukane. He was also one of the most prosperous men in the ward, and demonstrated this by building a handsome house, built of stone carved by masons at Blythswood mission school. It was (Govan averred) the first stone house owned by an African in the entire district of Nqamakwe. The house stood a few hundred metres from Skelewu’s farmland. He owned about 16 morgen of land (or about 30 acres), held under Glen Grey title, but on a plot about four times as large as most Glen Grey land grants. The land was all fenced. In addition to maize and vegetables for household use and for sale, Skelewu raised pigs and poultry. Like other successful peasant farmers, he invested in livestock, and owned goats, sheep, horses and cattle. His cattle herds were too numerous to graze on his own land, and he ‘leased’ them out in the loan system known as inqoma. Selected cattle were fattened on a friend’s farm in Komgha district before sale at the King William’s Town market. His most profitable enterprise during the 1870s and 1880s was transport-riding. Before the advent of rail and motor lorries, much of the commercial freight in the Cape Colony and Transkei was handled by peasants wealthy enough to own wagons and teams of oxen. Transport-riding was one of the most effective methods of accumulation available to rural households. Skelewu employed drivers who plied his wagons between King William’s Town and trading stores across the Transkei.
In 1893 the widowed Skelewu married for a second time. His new wife, Govan’s mother, was Johanna Mabula, daughter of a Methodist preacher from Healdtown district. Forty years younger than Skelewu, Johanna bore him five children, three daughters and two sons, Sipho and Govan Archibald Mvunyelwa (‘for whom the people sing’). She was an impressive presence in Govan’s early life. Fluent in Xhosa, Dutch and English, she was well known in Mpukane. Because of her husband’s standing, many local people passed to pay their respects – and Johanna would welcome them with liberality. The visitors did not need to say they were hungry (Govan recalled): ‘Whenever you came, the first thing you were offered was food or tea, things like that.’
Headmen like Skelewu were indispensable agents of colonial control, responsible for translating rules and regulations – over land, livestock, travel and taxes – into everyday observance. Their ‘loyalty’ and ‘reliability’ were under constant scrutiny; their performance and shortcomings occupy countless pages in the magistrates’ records. An instance of this occurred in June 1911. The octogenarian headman Skelewu was fined £10 and dismissed after a hearing conducted by the Nqamakwe magistrate, Gilfillan. The details of the case were not disputed. The headman had infringed the East Coast Fever regulations, restricting cattle movements, having driven five beasts over the Kei in order to sell them to a trader in Stutterheim district. Skelewu knew he was breaking the law. ‘I was being pressed for money which I owed. I was tempted by the devil to get the money to pay my debts. I regret my action very much.’ The sincerity of the regret cut no ice with the magistrate. He reported that Skelewu ‘has been of little use as a Headman owing to old age’, and that he had previously been fined for allowing the cutting of trees for firewood with permits.
From the viewpoint of government, the dismissal was a routine episode in the exercise of local authority. But for Skelewu, his demotion must have been a devastating blow. His entire career had combined loyalty to the colonial state, leadership of his community, and a stern ethical code based on his religious beliefs. Skelewu was a devout Methodist, a teetotaller who said grace before drinking even a glass of water, and a regular contributor to church funds. Govan was not sure of the date his father became a Methodist, ‘but the missionaries evidently had great influence on him’. The old man held a prayer meeting every morning at five o’clock, before family members left for school or work; and in the evening the family would gather for an evening prayer, with scripture readings and hymns. One can only imagine the pain caused to Skelewu by the harsh denouement of his career. Govan – who knew nothing of this at the time – remembers spending long hours with his father, whose chair was taken outdoors so that he might sit in the sunshine. ‘And I still have a very good picture of him and I loved him’ – and he added, tellingly, ‘He wasn’t a great talker. The stories I heard from my mother’s side.’
It is not clear how much formal education Skelewu received, or when, but he wrote correct English in the distinctive ‘schooled’ script of his generation. But
