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 ? ^ #
 UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND
 INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SOCIAL RESEARCH
 SEMINAR PAPER
 TO BE PRESENTED IN THE RICHARD W A R D BUILDING
 SEVENTH FLOOR, SEMINAR R O O M 7003
 AT 4PM ON THE 3 AUGUST 1998.
 TITLE: Bones of Contention: The Return of Nonteta,
 an Eastern Cape Prophet
 BY: R . Edgar and H. Sapire
 NO: 439
BONES OF CONTENTION: THE RETURN OF NONTETA, AN
 EASTERN CAPE PROPHET
 Robert Edgar, Howard University and
 Hilary Sapire, University of London
 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by
 the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the
 valley; it was f ul 1 of bones. And he led me round among
 them; and behold, there were very many upon the val ley; and
 lo, they were very dry. And he said to me, "Son of man, can
 these bones live?" And I answered, "0 Lord God, thou
 knowest." Again, he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones,
 and say to them, 0 dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause
 breath to enter you, and you shall live.
 Ezekiel 37: 1-5
 "Nonteta told us that she would not return in the same way
 she left."
 Comment of a member of the Church of the Prophetess Nonteta
 at the exhumation of Nonteta1s grave, July 1998.
 Bones and burial places have been invested with special
 meanings in South Africa's recent political history. Before 1994
 funerals of anti-apartheid martyrs often created public spaces for
 activists to renew resistance against the apartheid regime. Since
 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has highlighted the
 iniquities of apartheid government hit squads by locating the
 graves of their victims and returning their remains to their
 families. However, as the public outcries over Saartje Baartman
 and Chief Hintsa indicate, the interest in the fate of remains
 extends back into previous centuries.
 Over the past year we have been privileged to participate in
2
 returning the remains of another person from an earlier era -
 Nonteta, a woman prophet from the Eastern Cape who was unjustly-
 institutionalized in mental hospitals and who on her death in 1935
 was buried anonymously in a pauper's grave in a Pretoria cemetery.
 This essay explains the circumstances of Nonteta's burial, how we
 became involved in searching for her grave, and how we facilitated
 exhuming her remains and returning them to her family and church.
 Born around 1875 in a rural location in the Ciskei, Nonteta
 ("someone who speaks a lot") began her prophetic career during the
 devastating influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed thousands of
 Africans in Nonteta's home area. When Nonteta herself fell ill,
 she had a series of dreams in which God revealed that he had sent
 the flu as isibeto, a punishment for sins that people had been
 committing. She had a special mission to reform her society, to
 preach the Bible to the uneducated, to stress the unity of the
 African people, and to warn that judgement day was imminent.
 Once she accepted her mission, Nonteta took her message to
 rural locations stretching from Middledrift to East London.
 Although her message was not revolutionary, she had the misfortune
 of attracting the attention of government officials in the wake of
 the Bullhoek massacre of May 1921. Expecting the end of the
 world, Enoch Mgijima's Israelites had camped out in their holy
 village Ntabelanga near Queenstown and resolutely refused to
 disband. The government, after protracted negotiations with the
 Israelites, sent out a police force to evict them, The
 confrontation ended in a massacre in which about 2 00 Israelites
3
 died. Thereafter officials, fearful of a repeat of Bullhoek, were
 deeply suspicious of any prophet who appeared on the scene.
 Although they were not of one mind about how to deal with Nonteta
 and her followers, they decided to silence her voice before her
 movement could gain momentum by committing her to the mental
 asylum at Fort Beaufort some 40 miles away from her home.
 Following her release for a brief period, she refused to adhere to
 the condition that she refrain from further preaching, and she was
 recommitted to the Fort Beaufort asylum. When her followers
 continued to visit her at the asylum, officials took the drastic
 step of removing her even farther away to Weskoppies Mental Asylum
 in Pretoria in 1924.
 This did not reduce the devotion of her followers. In 1927
 and 1930 bands of her faithful set out on pilgrimages in attempts
 to meet her and convince the authorities to release her. Their
 efforts prompted psychiatrists at Weskoppies to review her case.
 Although they concluded "there is no reason why she should not be
 so discharged having regard only to her mental condition," they
 concurred with government officials that she would play a
 troublesome role on the outside. As a consequence, no further
 consideration was given to her release and she would spend the
 remaining five years of her life within the walls of Weskoppies.
 Isolated from all but a few visitors and suffering from a
 terminal illness, Nonteta's must have spent her last years in
 pain. Surely she found little relief from anguish in the confines
 of Weskoppies. Apart from the peculiarly repressive character of
4
 mental hospitals for black South Africans, it is generally
 acknowledged that protracted confinement in ' total institutions'
 such as asylums tends to exacerbate, rather than treat mental
 pain. The loss of personal autonomy, the unpredictability of the
 environment, the coercive practices and the isolation from a truly
 therapeutic community are in themselves likely to lead to the kind
 of depression described by the psychiatrists.1
 On 20 May 1935 Nonteta died of cancer of the liver and
 stomach at Weskoppies hospital.2 The Superintendent of Weskoppies
 sent her family a telegram informing them of her death and
 instructing them to make immediate arrangements for claiming her
 body in Pretoria. Communication by telegram to the African
 reserves was notoriously slow, so it was not until 4 June that
 Reuben Tsoko wired a response: 'SEND NONTETA DOWN WE WANT TO BURY
 BY OURSELVES1 . By then she had already been buried. Citing
 public health codes, two days after her death, officials had
 wrapped her in a blanket and placed her body in an unmarked
 pauper's grave at Pretoria's Newclare Cemetery.
 Since the miserable state of communications in the rural
 areas was no secret, it is hard to imagine that hospital officials
 expected a reply from Nonteta's family or church leaders within
 two days. When Tsoko did contact them, they resorted to
 bureaucratic evasions, claiming that the cost of returning her
 body was too high and that they were prevented from doing so, in
 any case, by a regulation prohibiting exhumation for a period of
 two years.3
5
 Despite requests from her family and church leaders for the
 return of Nonteta's remains, the government year after year
 resolutely refused. In 1955 Tsoko, Dumalisile Bungu, one of
 Nonteta's sons, Simon Nxepe and Joseph Zumane contacted the
 government. This time they repeated their contention that Nonteta
 had never been mentally ill and demanded that the government open
 an enquiry into why her rights had been denied and why she had
 never been released. They expressed their belief that since no
 prior inquiry had ever been initiated, the government wanted to
 suppress the matter. Contending that correct procedures had been
 followed at the time, the government replied that it saw no reason
 to reopen the case, especially since Nonteta had been dead for two
 decades.*
 From that point on, the issue of a final resting place for
 Nonteta festered until July 1997 when one of the authors, Robert
 Edgar, paid a visit to members of the Church of the Prophetess
 Nonteta at Tamarha Location near King William's Town. He had met
 them over two decades earlier while doing fieldwork on millennial
 movements in the eastern Cape and Transkei, and although the
 church had split into three factions, the Tamarha branch claimed
 1,000 members, primarily in rural districts stretching from
 Middledrift to East London. Despite the passage of time, church
 members remembered Edgar well and welcomed him back warmly.
 During the course of his conversations with the congregation, he
 learned that government's handling of Nonteta's burial and their
 recalcitrant attitude was still a source of great anguish and
6
 anger to her family and church members. Edgar privately resolved
 to see if her grave could be located, though he wondered whether
 60 years later there was even the remotest possibility not only of
 finding the grave but persuading bureaucrats to assist in
 arranging for the return of her remains.
 However, the elections of April 1994 and the change in
 government had transformed the political climate for making such
 inquiries, and there were a few leads from official documents in
 the State Archives in Pretoria already in hand. For one, it was
 known that Nonteta died in May 1935 and that she had been buried
 in "New" Cemetery in Pretoria. After calling all the cemeteries
 in Pretoria, no cemetery with that name could be found. But
 talking to Johan Green, supervisor of Rebecca Street Cemetery,
 Edgar learned that it had previously been known as Newclare
 Cemetery. Not only did the name fit but the old Newclare was the
 closest cemetery to Weskoppies where it was possible to bury
 Africans, albeit in a segregated section. This was a very
 promising lead.
 Fortunately the cemetery had very detailed records of all
 burials. Therefore, it was a simple matter to ask Green to bring
 out the oversized burial register for the time period when Nonteta
 died and turn to the pages where burials for May of 193 5 were
 recorded. Without too much searching a handwritten entry for
 "Nonteto" appeared, dated 22 May 1935. The burial register also
 noted that she had died in the Mental Hospital and that she was 62
 years old, roughly the age we estimated for her.
7
 Paupers were usually buried two to three deep in a single
 grave. According to the register, the day before, on 21 May, the
 body of an 86-year old inmate of the Pretoria jail had been
 buried, and Nonteta's body was put on top of his. Had she been
 buried at a lower level, a complex process of securing permission
 to exhume the other body would have been necessary.
 The cemetery that became Nonteta's resting place had been
 located, but the task of precisely pinpointing her grave remained.
 The register identified plot numbers for each burial, but graves
 in the pauper's section had no headstones. In fact, in the entire
 section for Africans in which Nonteta was buried, there is but one
 row of graves with the headstones of Pretoria notables. One is
 for William Nkomo, a founder of the ANC Youth League, and another
 is for Nimrod Tantsi, an AME minister who was chaplain to the ANC
 for many years. Green showed Edgar a detailed map of every plot
 in Nonteta's section, and then he escorted him to an area where he
 pointed to a patch of land. He was confident that this was the
 place where Nonteta was buried, and was convinced that once they
 located reference points, he and his assistants would be able to
 pinpoint the exact location of her grave.
 At this point, Edgar contacted his co-author Hilary Sapire to
 update her on his discovery at Rebecca Street Cemetery. Since
 Edgar had to return to Washington, D.C. and Sapire resides in
 London, neither could pursue the matter at first hand. They
 decided the best course of action was to gather relevant
 documents, including a photocopy of the burial register page
8
 bearing Nonteta' s name, and have a friend who grew up in King
 William1s Town, Luyanda ka Msumza, hand carry them to Nonteta's
 church and family. When Msumza passed on the documents and
 information, they caused much excitement. In addition, the
 authors contacted the Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture for the
 Eastern Cape Provincial Government in King William's Town. Once
 ministry officials learned about Nonteta's story and her fate in
 Pretoria, they were intensely interested in pursuing the matter.
 In subsequent months close communication was maintained so
 all parties could be briefed on developments. Plans were made by
 Edgar and Sapire to travel to the eastern Cape in March 1998. The
 trip was scheduled in order to deal with -a host of issues related
 to exhuming the remains and returning them to Nonteta's home.
 Many questions had to be addressed. Could her plot in the Rebecca
 Street Cemetery really be identified? How could one be absolutely
 sure that the remains dug up were hers? What is the procedure for
 exhuming remains? Who would pay for the costs of exhumation and
 transporting her remains in a casket back to the eastern Cape?
 Would a ceremony be held to celebrate her return home? How much
 publicity did her family want and at what stage should media
 coverage begin?
 During the interim, telephone conversations and
 communications by fax with the provincial government, the family,
 and members of Nonteta's church were finely tuned, but the authors
 were still prepared for last-minute glitches. And, just before
 they departed Johannesburg for the eastern Cape, one such problem
9
 arose when family and church members informed them that they had
 to attend a funeral on the Sunday that had been scheduled for
 meetings with them. They graciously changed the date to Saturday,
 and allowed Edgar and Sapire to meet with them then. Nosabata
 Morley, Similo Grootboom and Sitati Gitywa, officials from the
 office of Museum and Heritage Resources of the Eastern Cape
 government met Edgar and Sapire at the homestead of Rev. Mzwandile
 Mabhelu, Bishop of one branch of the church, at Tamarha in the
 Ciskei. Despite a warm welcome, it was obvious that a number of
 sensitive issues had to be addressed. After prayers and hymn
 singing, the discussions with church elders began. The presence
 of government officials was useful because they understood what
 need to be clarified and what lay within their jurisdiction.
 Mindful of their roles as historians, the authors knew they were
 there to serve only as facilitators. All decisions ultimately had
 to be made by Nonteta's family.
 After discussing the main issues with church elders, the
 group attended a gathering of Nonteta's descendants at Vuyani
 Bungu's home in an East London suburb. Bungu is a great grandson
 of Nonteta but a well known celebrity. In a country where boxing
 has gained enormous popularity among blacks, he has been world
 featherweight boxing champion of the International Boxing
 Federation for the past three years. Again, hymn singing and
 prayer were a prelude to a lengthy round of discussions. First
 off, Edgar and Sapire had to tender an apology for initially
 meeting with the church elders because in matters such as these,
10
 the concerns of the family are paramount.
 At both the meetings, the two most vexing issues raised
 concerned responsibility for the various costs and the certainty
 of confirming that the remains exhumed in Pretoria are actually
 Nonteta's. Government officials felt that the government of the
 Eastern Cape government had a moral obligation to assist the
 process, but wondered what they could pay for in the face of
 limited resources. They wanted to make it clear that they could
 cover the costs of exhuming Nonteta's remains and paying for a
 casket, but could not assume the costs of reburial, a gravestone,
 and a ceremony.
 How to be absolutely certain that the remains truly belong to
 Nonteta was a more contentious issue due to a highly publicized
 and embarrassing attempt to recover the skullbones of the Gcaleka
 Xhosa Chief Hintsa. In 1835, in the midst of a war between the
 British and Xhosa chiefdoms, the British had lured Hintsa into a
 trap on the pretence of initiating talks with him. The British
 threatened to hang Hintsa unless he betrayed other Xhosa leaders.
 When Hintsa tried to escape, he was shot and killed. British
 soldiers cut off his ears and mutilated his skull. Later a
 popular belief developed that Hintsa was beheaded and that his
 skull was spirited back to England. Because Hintsa was not
 properly buried, it was believed that his spirit roamed the land
 and was responsible for continuing strife. Over the years, the
 fate of Hintsa's skull had become "a running sore," according to
 Mda Mda, a lawyer representing the interests of a group of Xhosa
11
 chiefs.
 In 1996, a sangoma {medicine man), Chief Nicholas Gcaleka,
 seized on the story and set off to Britain on a search for
 Hintsa's skull. He found one with a hole in it near Inverness,
 Scotland that he claimed was Hintsa's, but when he returned home
 with the skull, he was greeted with a great deal of skepticism.
 He was invited to an imbizo (assembly) of 30 senior Xhosa chiefs
 at the great place of Gcaleka paramount chief, Xoliliswe Sigcau.
 They were dubious about Nicholas's claims, especially because they
 understood Hintsa's head had been shattered when he fled. They
 confiscated the skull and turned it over to leading scientists
 such as paleo-anthropologist Philip Tobias and forensic geneticist
 Trevor Jenkins to run tests on its authenticity. Their
 investigation concluded that the bones were more likely to be
 those of a Scottish nanny than Hintsa.5
 With this fiasco in mind, Sapire and Edgar knew that they had
 to confirm that the remains exhumed from Nonteta's grave are
 really hers. There is an irony is using modern scientific
 investigative tools to rectify an injustice perpetrated by a
 previous generation of scientists who justified their actions with
 scientific rectitude. Sapire consulted with experienced
 scientists at medical schools in Pretoria and Johannesburg, who
 cautioned us about the complexity of this kind of investigation.
 They pointed out any testing depends on the condition of the
 skeletal remains that are uncovered. They stressed that family
 members should be present to validate the credibility of the
12
 investigation. Moreover, the scientists had to take great care
 retrieving any remains from the grave, the bones had to be
 carefully cleaned, and photographs had to be taken at every stage
 of the process.
 Then several options existed for examining her remains. One
 is to have a physical anthropologist or a medical specialist
 examine the bones to determine demographic characteristics - age,
 sex, cause of death, and racial group - and to see if they match
 the facts we know about Nonteta. The family would then have to
 decide whether this is sufficient proof for them.
 A longer and more expensive process is to conduct DNA testing
 on the bones, but the reliability of DNA testing rests on the
 conditions of the bones and whether a match can be made with a
 living descendant. For instance, the soil condition of her grave
 determines how much her bones have deteriorated over the years and
 whether there is enough protein in them for tests. In addition,
 the DNA of the bones has to be matched with a family member, and
 there are problems of whether the descendants are male or female,
 their sex, and other factors.
 After consultations with experts in the field, we decided to
 ask a team from the University of Pretoria's Department of Anatomy
 whether they would oversee Che exhumation. Dr. Maryna Steyn, a
 Professor of Anatomy, and Mr. Coen Nienaber, an archaeologist,
 have a great deal of experience in exhuming graves and analyzing
 remains. Nienaber also had knowledge of the complex procedures
 for obtaining official permission to exhume a body, and he
13
 consulted with the Bungu family and the Eastern Cape government
 about the host of steps that had to be taken.
 Edgar returned to South Africa in early June and consulted
 with Steyn and Nienaber about when their schedules allowed for an
 exhumation. Nienaber set 13 and 14 July as possible dates, and
 after consultations with the Bungu family about their
 availability, we decided to proceed with those dates. We needed a
 lengthy lead time since it was not clear how long it would take to
 obtain all the official approvals. First the Bungu family had to
 send a letter requesting the exhumation. Next the Eastern Cape
 Department of Health and the eMnqaba community authority (the home
 of the Bungu family) had to approve reinterring her remains once
 they had been exhumed in Pretoria. Then the National Department
 of Health and Gauteng Province's Department of Health had to
 approve the exhumation. Finally the Office of Gauteng1s MEC for
 Development and Planning, which oversees cemeteries, had to add
 their endorsement.
 We also conferred with Johan Green at Rebecca Street Cemetery
 since he had the task of pinpointing Nonteta's grave. Fortunately
 he had much more specific information to work with than the
 reseearchers who searched for the grave of Enoch Sontonga,
 composer of Nkosi Sikelel'i Afrika, several years ago. They knew
 that Sontonga had been buried in Braamfontein Cemetery in
 Johannesburg, but there were discrepancies in various publications
 on the date of his death. Someone located his obituary notice in
 Imvo Zabantsundu, a leading African newspaper, and then an entry
14
 for an "Enoch" was found in the cemetery register for 1905. It
 was not uncommon for the surnames of Africans to be omitted in
 entries. The register also noted a plot number 4885 in the
 Christian African section. However, in the absence of a detailed
 map of individual plots, researchers had to rely on an infra-red
 photograph of the cemetery taken in 1970, a shallow dig by
 archaeologists to identify where paths and graves were in the
 Christian African section, and a number plate from another grave
 to locate what they are confident is Sontonga' s grave.6 In the
 case of Nonteta's grave, Green not only had a plot number, but he
 also could refer to a detailed map of the African section
 specifying individual plots. Over a two week period, he had
 surveyors locate reference pins and carefully mark off the
 distances to plot "99".
 Nienaber took the lead in working through obtaining permits
 for the exhumation. However, his task was complicated by adverse
 publicity generated by another set of exhumations - those of six
 Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres hanged in the Pretoria Central Prison in
 1964 and 1965 and buried in Pretoria's Mamelodi and Rebecca Street
 cemeteries. Their families had long desired to have their bodies
 returned to a place near their homes in the Port Elizabeth area.
 The government agreed to reinter their remains at a Heroes
 Memorial and to hold a commemoration service on their behalf on 27
 June. The directive went out to the Pretoria Metropolitan Council
 to exhume their graves and transport them back to Port Elizabeth
 in time for the commemoration. However, when relatives,
15
 government officials, Truth and Reconciliation officials, and
 Pretoria City Council officials showed up at Mamelodi cemetery on
 22 to exhume the graves of Daniel Ndongeni, Noali Petse and Samuel
 Jonasi, they had not followed the procedures laid down by law.
 Although the City Council had not been duly notified that
 permission had been granted by the Metropolitan Council for the
 exhumations and they had not notified the police who routinely
 supervise exhumations. They also did not bother to consult with
 Willie Matsoko, supervisor of Mamelodi cemetery, about the
 location of the graves. After he objected to the process for
 ignoring regulations, he went back to his office to identify the
 precise location of the graves. In his absence, the earth moving
 machines went ahead with excavating what was thought were the
 right graves with the tragic result that the wrong bodies were
 exhumed. Embarrassed officials had to rebury the bodies and find
 the right graves.7
 The exhumations of Vuyusile Mini, Mkhaba and Khanyinge at
 Rebecca Street also ended in controversy, as Green was also
 bypassed. This time the right graves were exhumed, but in a crude
 fashion so that little care was taken in removing the bodies.
 Several observers knowledgeable about these operations believe
 that it is likely that a number of bones were left in the mounds
 of earth piled next to their graves.
 We resolved that for the sake of Nonteta' s memory and her
 family that we would not allow a repetition of these incidents
 when it came time for exhuming her grave. At the same time we
16
 realized that Gauteng provincial officials charged with approving
 exhumations would scrutinize the next request with extra care. A
 week before Nonteta's exhumation was due to take place, we still
 lacked the signature of Gauteng1s MEC of Development and Planning
 who was out of town that week. By week's end, although the
 paperwork had reached the MEC's desk and despite promises that a
 signature was forthcoming the following Monday, we were concerned
 enough to entertain a proposal to postphone the exhumation for two
 weeks. However, too many expectations had been built up in
 Nonteta's family and church to delay the exhumation any further.
 After Eastern Cape officials attended a religious service with
 family and church members on 11 July, a decision was made to leave
 for Pretoria. On 12 July a minibus set off for the long journey
 to Pretoria. Accompanying three government officials were three
 leaders of Nonteta's church, a granddaughter and two grandsons of
 Nonteta, and 98 year old Sosepha Saleni who had been one of the
 band of pilgrims who had walked for two months to visit Nonteta at
 Weskoppies Hospital in 1927. This time the journey would take one
 day, but the minibus followed virtually the same path as the
 pilgrims had six decades before.
 Fortunately the last signature approving the exhumation came
 the morning of 13 July. Then Nienaber took the last official step
 - calling the local police so that a policeman could observe the
 exhumation. By late morning, family members, church leaders,
 government officials, journalists, a playwright, a historian, a
 policeman, and aarchaeolgists were at graveside. After prayers
17
 were offered in remembrance of the spirit of Nonteta, Nienaber and
 his Nienaber and his team began the initial phase of clearing the
 grave of a layer of debris that had accumulated over the years.
 Then one could clearly see the outlines of a grave framed in ash
 that had been partly used to fill the grave. This area had been a
 landfill before, so as earth was removed from the grave, a variety
 of animal bones and pottery fragments surfaced.
 The basic strategy of Nienaber"s team was straight out of an
 archaeology textbook. They knew that bodies were buried in the
 Rebecca Street cemetery with heads facing the west, so they
 estimated where it was likely to find a femur and began carefully
 digging shallow test pits or trenches with trowels. The femur is
 a strong bone and less prone to break on contact with a digging
 tool. If the test pit turned up no evidence of bones, then
 another layer of earth was removed from the whole grave. Our
 initial hypothesis was that since the top body buried in a
 pauper1s grave was usually buried about 2 1/2 feet beneath the
 ground, we expected to find some remains about that depth. But by
 day's end, the archaeologists had gone down about 3 feet with no
 results.
 The next day work resumed at 8 a.m. Nienaber and Marius
 Loots were even more careful with each test pit they dug. When
 they reached four feet down with no bones surfacing, we did some
 rechecking with the cemetery register to confirm that there were
 indeed only two bodies placed in grave 99. We then calculated
 that since grave diggers typically dug a grave 2 meters deep - as
18
 the standard practice was - it was likely that the two bodies were
 placed at the lower end of the grave. This meant that Ninenaber' s
 team had to dig deeper before coming across any bones.
 Our surmise was correct. Another foot down and fragments of
 a wooden coffin and iron nails began to appear in the red earth.
 Then Nienaber found the first indication of remains - the imprint
 of a tibia that had turned to dust. At the other end of the
 grave, Loots made an even more dramatic discovery - a largely
 intact skull.
 The next day as Nienaber's team continued the process of
 uncovering and retrieving the remains, they learned that some of
 the bones on top had co-mingled with the bones of the body on the
 bottom. Nienaber's hypothesis is that since the person on bottom
 was buried in a coffin, as it disintegrated, the body on top,
 which was not buried in a coffin, sank even deeper and shared some
 of the same space with the lower body. Nienaber's preliminary
 analysis of the bones of the person on top is that they belong to
 a women.
 Now that the remains of grave 99 have been gathered, they are
 awaiting an examination by Prof. Steyn. We will see whether they
 add further weight to the consensus of those who attended this
 remarkable exhumation - that Nonteta's remains have indeed been
 found and that in the near future they will be returned to her
 home. "Now at last we can rest in peace," said Nonteta's grandson
 Mzimkulu Bungu, "knowing that we will not die without seeing that
 our prophet reaches her rightful resting place."9
19
 .1. See Shula Marks' comments in this regard in her ? The Context
 of Personal Narrative. Reflections on "Not Either an Experimental
 Doll" - The Separate Worlds of Three South African Women',
 Interpreting Women's Lives: Feminist Theory and Personal
 Narratives, ed. Personal Narrative Group (Bloomington, 1989), 3 9-
 55.
 2. Newclare Cemetery Register, Pretoria.
 3. Interview, Reuben Tsoko. The government was opposed to paying
 about 12 pounds for a coffin made of sheet-metal, 5 pounds for the
 cemetery fee and 15 pounds for transporting the body to
 Middledrift. The government also balked at releasing her body
 because they had to observe official authorization and a
 Department of Health rule that stipulated that 'except in special
 circumstances...no recommendation for the issue of a permit for
 exhumation will be made...by the Union Health Department until at
 least two years after interment1 (NTS 6605 11/328).
 4. Undated, unsigned memorandum of 1955 (NTS 6605 11/328).
 5. Weekly Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg), 15 March 1996 and 29
 March 1996.
 6. "Unearthing Our Hidden History: Nkosi Sikelel'i Afrika," The
 Teacher Resource Pages, September 1996; A.E. Buff, "In Search of
 Enoch Sontonga: Author and Composer of Nkosi Sikelel'i Africa,"
 Report for the Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan
 Council, April 1996.
 7. Sowetan, 29 June 1998; Cape Times, 26 June 1998; and Pretoria
 News, 23 June 1998.
 8. Maureen Isaacson, "The Search for a Lost Prophet,." Sunday
 Independent (Johannesburg), 19 July 1998, 15.