Politics, ideology, and the invention of the 'Nguni'
Date
1983-06-14
Authors
Wright, John
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Abstract
The word 'Nguni' is today commonly used by academics as a collective
term for the black peoples who historically have inhabited the eastern
regions of southern Africa from Swaziland through Zululand, Natal, the
Transkei and the Ciskei to the eastern Cape. These peoples are conventionally
distinguished by language and culture from the Thonga peoples of the coastlands
further to the north, and the Sotho peoples of the interior plateau to the
west and north-west. Use of Nguni in this extended sense is now so well
entrenched in the literature on southern African ethnography, linguistics, and
history as probably to make the term irremovable, but, from a historical
perspective, it is important to note that it is only within the last half-century
that this usage has become current. Previously, the peoples now
designated as Nguni had been variously labelled as Zulu, or Xhosa, or Kaffirs,
or Zulu-Kaffirs, while Nguni itself had been a non-literary term used by the
black peoples of south-east Africa in a number of more restricted senses.
Nowhere among these peoples was Nguni used in a generic sense.
The purpose of this paper is to trace the historical process by which
the modern literary usage of Nguni became established. It is divided into
three parts. In the first, the various historically known meanings of Nguni
are identified. In the second, an explanation is suggested as to why
specifically one of these meanings was appropriated by academics from the
1930s onward. In the third, an explanation is put forward as to how and
why this particular meaning had developed in the first place.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 14 June 1983. Not to be quoted without the Author's permission.
Keywords
Nguni (African people), Ethnology. South Africa