The Great Xhosa Prince Meligqili

By Vusi Moloi © 2009

The great intellectual son of the formidable Xhosa King Dalindyebo, Prince Meligqili once spoke powerful words at a traditional Xhosa ceremony welcoming the new graduates of the mountain school which, among others, provided a rite of passage for the Xhosa boys. The graduates of this institution of learning known as abakhwetha included in their midst the future President of South Africa the venerable Mr. Nelson Mandela. This school that produces abakhwetha is an indigenous school of learning which the English summarily and pejoratively referred to as a circumcision school. In fact circumcision is one piece of the learning experience to symbolize a separation of the unschooled boys from the learned ones.

Remarks on African Indigenous Systems of Learning

Just before sharing the speech of Prince Meligqili, let me make a few remarks about the indigenous institutions of learning. The traditional society of South Africa boasted some of the most advanced schools and colleges of higher learning long before the advent of the colonizing Europeans who eventually subdued and destroyed these academic institutions. Despite the colonial conquest of these institutions, some of the schools survived including at KwaZulu Natal where they still have colleges of medicine like Umhlabawalingana (equivalent of a University institution in a Western society) that train and produce doctoral experts in the practice of African medicine. In fact some of the oldest University institutions are found on the African continent like Timbuktu in the present day country of Mali which was a University town long before Universities existed in some European societies. Colonial conquest gave the colonizers and their descendents control over the learning and communication of ideas and made Africans into products of a Eurocentric system of education. This Eurocentric system of learning inculcated a sense of disdain towards African civilization making some Africans, including this writer, into parrots of Western ideas. The purpose of this new colonial system of learning was to usher a new order of master servant relationships where the African spent all his or her life serving the colonial descendents while neglecting the development and advancement of African civilization.

Prince Meligqili Addressing the New Graduates Abakwetha

Prince Meligqili saw this sad state of affairs when he spoke to the graduates of the Xhosa tradition system of learning. This ancient institution of African learning is not a circumcision school as we are led to believe by the English but rather one of many schools that impart a large body of knowledge to the young initiates. On this occasion the venerable Mr. Nelson Mandela was among the graduating abakhwetha and Prince Meligqili addressed the gathering as documented by the venerable Mr. Mandela himself in his book Long Walk To Freedom:

“There sit your sons, young, healthy and handsome, the flower of the Xhosa tribe, the pride of our nation. We have just circumcised them in a ritual that promises them manhood, but I am here to tell you that it is an empty, illusory promise, a promise that can never be fulfilled. For we Xhosa, and all Black South Africans, are a conquered people. We are slaves in our own country. We are tenants on our own soil. We have no strength, no power, no control over our own destiny in the land of our birth. They will go to cities where they will live in shacks and drink cheap alcohol, all because we have no land to give them where they could prosper and multiply. They will cough their lungs out deep in the bowels of the White man’s mines, destroying their health, never seeing the sun, so that the White man can have a life of unequalled prosperity. Among these young men are Chiefs who will never rule because we have no power to govern ourselves; soldiers who will never fight for we have no weapons to fight with; scholars who will never teach because we have no place for them to study. The abilities, the intelligence, the promise of these young men will be squandered in their attempt to eke out a living doing the simplest, most mindless chores for the White man. These gifts today are naught, for we cannot give them the greatest gift of all, which is freedom and independence. I well know that Qamata is all-seeing and never sleeps, but I have a suspicion that Qamata may in fact be dozing. If this is the case, the sooner I die the better because then I can meet him and shake him awake and tell him that the children of Ngubengcuku, the flower of the Xhosa nation, are dying.” From Long Walk To Freedom – Autobiography of Nelson Mandela.

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About the Author

A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet. In addition to writing, Mr. Moloi also works as a software engineer.