S.E.K. Mqhayi and African social analysis: African sociological thought in colonial South Africa

Abstract

African intellectual traditions have much to offer social analysis, yet many historical African intellectuals remain obscured by history and peripheral to contemporary academic work. This paper turns to the writings of the prolific amaXhosa intellectual S.E.K. Mqhayi, exploring his social and political thought, and considering how his work can be taken as part of an African sociological tradition. Focusing on Mqhayi’s use of history and biography as both the method and site of social analysis, the paper shows how Mqhayi developed a powerful vantage point on social transformations in order to create knowledge for African people under colonialism. The piece closes with a consideration of how Mqhayi and other African intellectuals writing outside of the academy might be integrated into teaching and researching an African sociological tradition.

Full text

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[Note: This is a pre-print version of this article which has been accepted and published by Social
Dynamics, 46(3), 493-514. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2020.1861758]
S.E.K. Mqhayi and African social analysis: African sociological thought in
colonial South Africa1
Jonathan Schoots2
Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States of America
African intellectual traditions have much to offer social analysis, yet many historical
African intellectuals remain obscured by history and peripheral to contemporary academic
work. This paper turns to the writings of the prolific amaXhosa intellectual S.E.K. Mqhayi,
exploring his social and political thought, and considering how his work can be taken as
part of an African sociological tradition. Focusing on Mqhayi’s use of history and
biography as both the method and site of social analysis, the paper shows how Mqhayi
developed a powerful vantage point on social transformations in order to create knowledge
for African people under colonialism. The piece closes with a consideration of how
Mqhayi and other African intellectuals writing outside of the academy might be integrated
into teaching and researching an African sociological tradition.
Keywords: SEK Mqhayi; African sociology; Africa intellectuals; social thought;
colonialism
1 Special thanks to Jessica Farrell, George Agbo, Virgil Slade, Paul Vig, Heather Wares, Sinazo
Mtshemla, Surafel Abebe, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, Gary Minkley, Xolela Mangcu, Jacques De
Wet, Zoe Berman, Loren Kruger, the members of the African Studies Workshop at the University of
Chicago, and the anonymous reviewers for the invaluable comments and contributions on earlier drafts
which strengthened this paper.
2 Email: jonathanschoots@uchicago.edu

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Introduction
African intellectual traditions have much to offer social analysis. There is a long tradition of
African social thought which offers insights, methods, cases and nuanced analysis which can
enrich sociological understandings. Yet due to the history of academic knowledge production,
many historical African intellectuals remain largely unknown, and their work remains peripheral
to contemporary academia. In recent debates around Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism and
decolonisation, as well as in a long tradition of internal critique in South African sociology, there
has been a broad agreement on the need to turn to African theoretical perspectives. To respond to
this call we need more knowledge of traditions of African sociological thought.
Towards this end, this paper turns to the social analysis of S.E.K. Mqhayi, a prolific
amaXhosa intellectual writing in the early twentieth century in isiXhosa. The paper delves into
his writings to explore his method of analysis and the insights of his work. Focusing on his
historical and biographical writings, I analyse how Mqhayi engages in a knowledge making
project for African audiences, which offers a sharp contrast to the colonial knowledge project
which sought only knowledge of Africans. I argue that Mqhayi’s work merges analysis of
sweeping historical processes and intimate individual experiences to create knowledge to allow
amaXhosa and African peoples to make sense of the rapidly changing social world under
colonialism. Mqhayi’s method thus develops what later sociologists have called the “sociological
imagination”: by connecting biographical and historical analysis, it offers a framework to
understand and respond to the crisis of a changing society. I argue that Mqhayi offers a
compelling insight into one moment in a long tradition of African social analysis which can
revitalise sociological thought today. I close with a consideration of what would be necessary to

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incorporate Mqhayi and other thinkers working outside of the academy into a tradition of African
sociological thought.
The call for African traditions of sociological thought
There has been a well-established call in South African sociology to develop an African-centred
sociology (Magubane 2000; Adesina 2006b; Jubber 2006; Hendricks 2006; Sitas 2014; Nyoka
2013; see also Akiwowo 1988; Hountondji 2009). These longstanding internal critiques resonate
with contemporary global academic calls to wrestle with questions of Eurocentrism,
Afrocentrism and decolonisation. This literature has shown how both historical and
contemporary analysis has paid insufficient attention to African theoretical perspectives, and
argues for the importance of such perspectives for social analysis.
A range of studies have recounted the history of the discipline of sociology in South
Africa (Jubber 1983, 2006, 2007; Webster 2004; Oloyede 2006; Hendricks 2006; Seekings
2009). Xolela Mangcu succinctly summarises this history as follows:
From its origins in Afrikaans universities as part and parcel of the system of colonial
and apartheid domination, to its role in generating critiques of that system through
class theory, and the less influential Weberian and liberal schools, the discipline [of
sociology in South Africa] never had Black thinkers as its central sources. (Mangcu
2016)
This situation he calls a “conversation among White academics about how to analyse Black
society” (Mangcu 2016, 56). Other scholars have highlighted the contributions of important
African sociologists theorising South Africa including, for example, Bernard Magubane, and
Archie Mafeje (Vilikazi 2001; Adesina 2006a; Nyoka 2013, 2020), in addition to radical non-

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black African thinkers such as Ruth First, Fatima Meer and Harold Wolpe, among others
(Adesina 2006b, 257; Desai 2010). Yet these and other African thinkers remain peripheral in the
scholarship and teaching of a discipline which has anchored itself in theoretical trends developed
“elsewhere,” and scholars have noted that the work of black sociologists has been largely
missing from South African sociology curricula (Adesina 2006b; Jubber 2006; Nyoka 2013;
Sitas 2014).
Scholars have pointed to this predominant attention to “Western theory” over African
intellectual traditions as a central challenge. Ken Jubber has noted that “African and South
African sociologists … have tended to rely too heavily on borrowed sources and curricula at the
expense of developing indigenous and locally relevant sociology” (2006, 322). Fred Hendricks
has argued that “It seems obvious that African sociologists need to use the continent as a source
of theory and not only for data collection to prove or disprove inappropriate models and
hypotheses derived from the West” (2006, 95), and Ari Sitas has lamented that “No matter what
kind of endogenous scholarship was generated in the country, it was always surpassed by
exogenous encounters from the ‘elsewheres’ where an imputed real scholarship thrived” (2014,
4). Bongani Nyoka summarises these challenges:
the major problem in South Africa is that it is characterised by West-centred
frameworks. To the extent that these theories explain South Africa, so it is argued,
they only succeed in presenting it from the perspective of western scholars. The
problem is that of ‘academic dependence’ on western categories (paradigms and
theories). (Nyoka 2013, 19)
These debates highlight three key issues: First, the “third world” is not seen as a source of
theory, but a site of data gathering and theory testing (Hountondji 1997; Zeleza 1997; Alatas

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2003; Nyoka 2013, 4 and 8; Connell 2014, 211). The necessary response is “not just doing
research locally… [but] to theorise local conditions as opposed to waiting for the West to do so”
(Nyoka 2013, 8). Second, as an extension of this point, scholars have emphasised the
“endogeneity” of all social analysis, highlighting the local and particular context from which
more abstract theorising emerges (Hountondji 1997; Adesina 2005, 2006a, 2006b; Nyoka 2013).
Theorists now taken as canonical, such as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, theorised in response to
their local contexts, intending to develop answers to explain their own particular social situation
(Adesina 2006b, 243). Our response should be to do the same: “Endogeneity at its core is an
affirmation of one’s locale” (Nyoka 2013, 10; see also Adesina 2006a, 2006b) and we should
attend to the local specifics as we work to generate theory which offers broader generalisations,
asserting the expectation that we “be taken on our own terms” (Mafeje quoted in Nyoka 2013,
10).i Finally, scholars highlight the need to engage more seriously with theoretical traditions
already developed by African sociologists (Adesina 2006b; Hendricks 2006; Sitas 2014; Nyoka
2013). As Paulin Hountondji argues,
in order to de-marginalise Africa and the Third World, scholars in these areas ought to
make a conscious effort towards a critical but resolute reappropriation of [their] own
practical and cognitive heritage, a negation of the marginality of [their] endogenous
knowledge and know-how... (Hountondji quoted in Nyoka 2013, 18)
Critical engagements with sociology thus broadly align in their argument for developing an
African sociology: the intellectual history of the discipline has largely excluded African
theoretical frameworks, being dependent on the grand theoretical trends imported from academic
centres elsewhere. In order to respond to this, we need to recentre African theorising of social
phenomena, looking for and developing “endogenous” theoretical frameworks to develop locally

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relevant social analysis. Such an approach need not be limited to offering only a clearer analysis
of previously obscured “local” social processes. I will also suggest at the end of this paper that
turning to the works of colonised African intellectuals who worked outside of the academy offers
an avenue into a global dialogue: how have the colonised theorised social transformation and
developed frameworks of social analysis from their own perspective? By bringing South African
traditions into dialogue with both African and global intellectuals we can identify social
processes which share a “context” which is not regional but temporal (Dubbeld 2020, esp. 70,
79–82). From this perspective these thinkers are engaged in theorising the social experience of
the vast majority of the world.
S.E.K. Mqhayi situated in African intellectual traditions
Given these established critiques, we need more work which turns to the long tradition of
innovative social and political thought developed by African social thinkers who sought to
conceptualise the social world of their time. Scholars have begun this work by studying African
academics and their frameworks of social analysis (e.g. work on Mafeje: Adesina 2008;
Ntsebeza 2016; Nyoka 2019; 2020). Yet in addition to these academic figures there also exists a
significant intellectual tradition which has historically developed outside of the academy. As
Sitas notes, “most creative sociological thinking on the continent occurred outside the university
system – a system that was and continues to be incapable of absorbing and refining such ideas”
(Sitas 2014, 460). This tradition remains largely unexplored as a source of social science
analysis, yet these intellectuals offer powerful social insights to questions which have been
ignored by academic sociology and social anthropology of the colonial era (c.f. Magubane 2000).
Such African thinkers respond to questions vital to those who lived through the social chaos of
colonialism and apartheid, and may offer a theoretical window into areas of society which the

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academy has hitherto been unable to conceive of as areas of social investigation when using only
imported theoretical frameworks.
This paper engages this intellectual tradition through a close analysis of the writings of
Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi – one of the most prolific Black South African intellectuals of the
early twentieth century (Jordan 1973, 105; Mangcu 2016, 54). Mqhayi’s life was immersed in
the tumultuous social changes wrought by colonial occupation. In theorising and responding to
this social transformation he offers insight both for his historic community and for social analysis
today. He was born in 1875, in the closing moments of the 100 years of Xhosa-colonial wars
(1779–1879) – a time when the last independent African states in South Africa were brought
under colonial control (Mostert 1992; Thompson 2014) – and died in 1945, three years before the
institution of apartheid. In this time of profound transformation, Mqhayi emerged as a leading
Xhosa intellectual. A towering figure in the development of Xhosa literature (Jordan 1973, 103–
116), he was called Imbongi Yesizwe Jikelele ‘the poet of the whole nation’ by his
contemporaries (Mqhayi 2009, 1), and had a profound impact on the following generations of
leaders, including figures such as Nelson Mandela (1994, 47–49) and Robert Sobukwe ([1949]
1973). His work spanned izibongo praise poetry, novels, history and biography. In all this he was
a “versatile creative force who dedicated his talents to improving the circumstances of black
people in South Africa” (Midgley 2010, 231).
Mqhayi is one exemplary historical figure who did the work of sociological analysis from
an African perspective. Like other African intellectuals of his era, Mqhayi’s work has been
embraced by scholars of literature, but has not been sufficiently engaged by other academic
disciplines. In addition to his long-lauded excellence as a Xhosa poet and novelist (Jordan 1973;
Qangule 1979; Kuse 1979; Saule 1996; Opland 1998, 2007), Mqhayi was a scholar and theorist

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of social change under colonialism, working to develop new answers to engage Xhosa social life.
Mqhayi’s analysis is beginning to be recognised by scholars identifying his sociological thought
(Schoots 2014), highlighting his role in a lineage of African social analysis (Mangcu 2014, chap.
2, 2016), showing how he was a forerunner to democracy (Neethling and Mpolweni 2006), and
examining his contributions to African language education (Kallaway 2020, chap. 7) and African
sociological concept formation more broadly (de Wet 2018, forthcoming).
Mqhayi’s sociological analysis draws on and builds an African intellectual lineage which
he both inherited and advanced. He was a member of a Xhosa and Pan-South African intellectual
community which developed new methods of social and political analysis in African language
newspapers and political organisations to analyse social life (Ndletyana 2008; Masilela 2010;
Odendaal 2013; Mangcu 2014, chap. 2, 2016). His analysis built on the methods and theorising
of the Xhosa intellectuals who preceded him; figures including William Wellington Gqoba,
Gwayi Tyamzashe, James Dwane, Pambani Jeremiah Mzimba, Elijah Makiwane, Isaac W.
Wauchope, John Tengo Jabavu, Walter B. Rubusana, John Knox Bokwe, Nathaniel C. Mhala,
and Alan K. Soga, among others (Masilela 2010, 246 and 250; Jordan 1973, 105; see also
Ndletyana 2008; Masilela 2013). Tiyo Soga has been identified as one of the earliest recorded
voices of Pan-Africanism and black consciousness in South Africa (Williams 1983, 178; see T.
Soga 1983), and his writings in isiXhosa newspapers set the grounds to use Xhosa history and
culture as a basis for theorising how to respond to colonialism. In the generation after Soga
which preceded Mqhayi, Xhosa intellectuals laid the methodological groundwork for Mqhayi’s
analysis, building intellectual communities in newspapers such as Isigidimi sama-Xosa, Imvo
Zabantsundu, and Izwi Labantu. The historical analysis published by figures like Gqoba (Gqoba
2015) and the incorporation of praise poetry and Xhosa idioms as tools for political and social

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analysis by figures like Wauchope (Wauchope 2008; Nyamende 2000; Mkhize 2008) offer
exemplars of the tools that a community of African intellectuals developed to anchor an analysis
of social change and continuity under colonialism. Mqhayi thus builds on a set of intellectual
tools even as he advances and transforms these approaches for future generations. It is important,
then, to see the close analysis offered in this study situated in a tradition of African social
analysis which preceded it, and to trace the ways in which Mqhayi’s frameworks and methods
shaped the thought of those who inherited from him, a point to which I return in the final section
of the paper.
How “African” was Mqhayi’s social thought? Like his contemporaries of the ‘Xhosa
Cultural Renaissance” (Masilela 2013), Mqhayi was deeply connected to both African and
colonial communities. Born to Christian parents, he grew up as a member of the Abantu
Basesikolweni (“School People”) community who were more deeply immersed in colonial
institutions and education than the Abantu Ababomvu (“Red People”) community who resisted
advancing colonial culture (Mqhayi 1976; see de Wet 2008). Archibald Jordan argues that
Mqhayi maintained “a double loyalty. As a Xhosa he was loyal to the Xhosa chiefs and their
ancestors and as a British subject he had to be loyal to the British king” (1973, 112).ii Yet
Mqhayi broke from the entrenched social divides between “school” and “red” Xhosa more than
any of his intellectual predecessors. At the age of 10 he moved to Gcalekaland to stay with his
uncle, Chief Nzanzana, in Centane. For six formative years, he imbibed the rich Xhosa cultural
life in this “red” region which had resisted colonial influence and remained a heartland of Xhosa
traditionalism (Mqhayi 1976). He returned at 16 to continue schooling at Lovedale, one of the
intellectual centres of the Abantu Basesikolweni community, and over the course of his life
served as a school teacher and newspaper editor much like other leading Abantu Basesikolweni

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intellectuals. But Mqhayi’s youth, spent among the Abantu Ababomvu (red) community, gave
him a foundation which allowed him to break from the social mores that led many of his
contemporaries to maintain a “Victorian” orientation. For example, risking the wrath of both his
“school” and “red” community, he both joined the Xhosa circumcision school and publicly
accepted Christianity – the core identifying rituals of both communities (Mqhayi 1976; for
detailed analysis see Schoots 2014, chap. 2). Throughout his life he followed the same pattern: as
Jordan notes “He understood alike the illiterate and educated, and as a result, his social influence
was very wide” (1973, 104–105). Mqhayi quit his teaching role at Lovedale when he came to
believe that the education offered there denigrated Xhosa culture and history (see Mqhayi 2009,
28–29,1976; Jordan 1973, 106) and he embraced the role of imbongi to serve as a social critic
and commentator from within a Xhosa tradition. While Mqhayi was a profoundly “hybrid”
figure, his hybridity was unquestionably directed towards the betterment of the amaXhosa and
Africans on African terms. The clearest evidence of this orientation was his commitment to write
entirely in isiXhosa. Alongside public performances in isiXhosa (c.f. Jordan 1973, 105–106) this
means that his intended audience were Xhosa (and as his fame grew, African) people. Thus,
Ntongela Masilela sees him at the head of a political movement for whom “intertwining politics
and culture, in the form of cultural politics, was seen as necessary in facilitating the emergence
of historical consciousness that would make African Nationalism possible” (2010, 249).
Mqhayi’s sociological imagination
Colonialism brought with it chaotic, rapid and broad scale transformations to the experiential
world of those living through it. In the midst of this social turmoil, Mqhayi and other African
intellectuals began to produce new knowledge to make sense of their social world.

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In undertaking this task, Mqhayi turned to two poles of social life: the intimate features of
individual experience shown through biographical analysis, and the vast transformations of
human history, shown through historical analysis. In his work, Mqhayi links these opposite poles
to make sense of the individual’s position in a chaotic changing world, and to offer insights on
how people in the present can respond. Mqhayi engages in a process of historical commentary by
drawing on studies of important leaders to make interventions into historical knowledge. At the
same time, he endeavours to deeply situate individuals in their historical contexts. His work thus
weaves a close analysis of individuals and a broad analysis of historical contexts together. In this
merging of historical and biographical analysis, Mqhayi develops a method which later scholars
have called the “sociological imagination” (Mills 1959). This “sociological imagination,” named
and popularised by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s, continues to inspire social analysis today. The
approach resonates deeply with the method of Mqhayi, who developed it independently decades
before its global popularity. Mqhayi draws on the tools of biography and history in order to
develop a clearer picture of what is happening both at a level of macro-social transformation as
well as at the experiential level of individuals. He is able to narrate history and biography to
make the changing world sensible, offering a clear vision of what is happening as well as
guidance on how to respond. His work is all the more powerful because he is able to maintain
coherence within the “Xhosa worldview” of the early twentieth century – translating and
applying his community’s knowledge, metaphors and practices to interpret the new world. By
drawing on concepts that already exist as “given” or “taken for granted” (Schutz and Luckmann
1973) in the Xhosa knowledge system he is able to make disorientating social transformation
legible. It is this ability to explain the new as a continuation of an older tradition that makes

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Mqhayi’s work so powerful and explains why he has been so revered as a public figure in his
own time and why his work is still drawn on today.
I will turn to Mqhayi’s use of biography and history and explore both his methods and the
aims and effects of his analysis.
Data: texts and translation
This analysis draws on the work Abantu Besizwe (Mqhayi 2009), a collection of 65 pieces of
Mqhayi’s writings between 1902–1944, collected, edited, and translated by Jeff Opland. The
isiXhosa is preserved in the old orthography used at Mqhayi’s time, reproducing how the text
was originally written. Note that Opland’s approach is to at times translate the spirit of the text
into English idiom instead of word for word translation. Both languages are provided for the
reader’s discretion.
History
Mqhayi devoted himself to investigating history and educating people about their past. He
weaved his historical research into his izibongo (praise poems) and also published histories of
individuals and events in leading African newspapers. Mqhayi clearly saw this work as part of
his greater project of defending the value and worldview of Xhosa and African culture. Part of
Mqhayi’s concern with history was the miseducation he saw in schools which taught African
children only the great exploits of England while denigrating African traditions:
Imfundi ezi zikolise ngamagwala kangakanana; kungakuba azibaliselwanga nto ngoyise,
zaza zati paya ezi Sinaleni nase zi Kolejini zafundiswa urezu lwama bali, enyanisweni
zafundiswa ulahleko lodwa, kuba kuzo zonke ezi Sinala sinazo kufundiswa ibali labantu
abanye, ama Ngesi qa; ngawo edwa abantu abane ngqondo, nobulumko, nolwazi, ngawo
odwa amak’alipa eli zweni, into ezinga zange zoyiswe sizwe emhlabeni; zide ziti nezona zazi

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wayo ukuba aziveli kuwo izinto azixele ukuba zezawo, abe ke ngokwe njenjalo oko exelela
izizwe ezingaziyo ukuba ziwoyike ngokungapaya kwe mfanelo, ziwahlonele ngokugqitileyo
entlonelweni eyiyo. Yiyo lento siti isidenge mhla sawaqonda sisuke sesi bhenqa itshoba
ukungawazeli nto, sicinga leminyaka ingaka sinika imbeko kongafanelwe mbeko ingako.
(These educated people set up none but cowards for emulation, because their fathers did not
narrate any history to them, and in those training schools and colleges they are taught a
sequence of history, but in fact their education has entirely duped them, because in all our
training schools the history of only one nation is studied, the English; they are the only
people with intelligence, prudence, knowledge, they alone have national heroes, they have
never been defeated by any other nation on earth; they claim as theirs even those things that
clearly did not originate with them, and in this way they indoctrinate nations who do not
appreciate that their awe of the English is exaggerated, that their respect for them is
excessive. This is why a fool runs wild when he discovers them to be empty vessels,
recalling all the years he honoured them where no honour was due.) (Mqhayi 2009, 28–29)
History, for Mqhayi, was an issue of “national” pride as well as right thinking about the nature of
the world. He goes on to show the cultural implications of this history and the impact on
African’s identity:
Umfo ufundiswe ukuba ezi zakowabo inkosi zinto ezi nobuqokolo, akolwe yilonto; ufundiswe
ukuba lamadoda akowabo makulu zinto ezibayo. Amasela, amagwala, amaxoki; akolwe
yilonto. Angaqondi ukuba ngokwenjenjalo oko kulahlwa yena ukuba alahle oyise nenkosi
zake.
(The person has been taught that his chiefs are sly and he believes it; he has been taught that
the great men of his nation steal, that they are thieves, cowards, liars; and he believes it. He
does not realise that in so doing they are misleading him into abandoning his fathers and his
chiefs.) (Mqhayi 2009, 29)
Mqhayi here makes clear the links between historic education, personal identity and cultural
pride: This kind of faulty education undermines pride in one’s own social group. This schism in

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identity causes missionary educated amaXhosa to potentially abandon their locating identity as
“umXhosa” with the concomitant social worldview and historic pride. Frantz Fanon in his Black
Skin, White Masks ([1952] 2008) has demonstrated how such denigration of identity causes a
host of personal and psychological crises for colonised subjects. In his work, Mqhayi responds to
this assault on African identity by producing histories of important African leaders and events.
Mqhayi’s histories thus do more than simply recount or preserve oral tradition; he uses
history as a way to push back against the denigration and undermining of amaXhosa life wrought
by both colonial education and societal transformation. His interventions into history are
primarily done through analysis of Xhosa and African leaders and their historical context. These
works aim to develop a sense of pride and act as a psychological shield against the
dehumanisation of colonialism, aiming to offer Xhosa history as a site for emulation and
correcting colonial misrepresentations. These historical works also serve as a site for analysis of
social processes which continue into Mqhayi’s present, allowing historical moments to serve as
cases for broader social knowledge.
In what follows, I turn to a close textual analysis of a specific case which exemplifies
Mqhayi’s methodology.iii
The Battle of Amalinde
The battle of Amalinde was a central moment in amaXhosa politics in the early period of
advancing colonial influence. The war was fought in 1818 between Ngqika and Ndlambe, the
paramount chief of the Rharhabe Xhosa and his uncle, respectively. I examine three features of
Mqhayi’s use of history through this case: correcting false history, social and political education,
and history as a tool to understand the present.

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(i) “Thutula’s war” – correcting history
In Mqhayi’s time, 100 years after the event, popular but mistaken opinioniv was that the battle of
Amalinde arose because of a conflict between Ngqika and Ndlambe over a wife. Ngqika had
taken one of Ndlambe’s wives – Thuthula – for his own. The resulting tension had all the
makings of a political drama to rival the battle of Troy: from the legendary beauty of Thuthula to
the outrageous royal scandal – as the amaXhosa viewed Ngqika’s relationship with Thuthula, his
uncle’s wife, as incest.v In spite of this political drama, the battle of Amalinde was caused by far
more than a personal conflict between two chiefs over a sexual relationship. The reduction of this
pivotal political event to a sexual conflict negatively portrays chiefs as petty selfish leaders and
irrational “sexually crazed” beings (a trope that would have fit perfectly with the European
stereotypes of Africans, and the missionary projection of chiefly immorality). It also covers over
the larger political reality of the time. Mqhayi aims to counter this misrepresentation and show
the deeper political significance: that this battle was more about colonial intent to gain power in
Xhosa territory than any interpersonal conflict between chiefs:
Yimposiso enkulu kubenzi bemb’ali xa bati elidabi lasema Linde yimfazwe ka Tutula. Into ka
Tutula yona ingapambili kanye, nayo yapeliswa kwangama Ngqika odwa, ayigweba afuna
ukuba ngubanina lo uye ukube u Tutula e Mnyameni, – kwatyolwa u Mguye kufihlwa u
Ntlebi owaye ngumpakati omkulu kakulu, wagoduswa u Tutula lowo kungadange kubeko
kupatelana zikali. Ubuhlobo bona pakati ko Ngqika no Ndlambe, babungeko bumke nezinto
zombuso. [my emphasis]
(It is a serious mistake for historians to call the Battle of Amalinde Thuthula’s War. The
Thuthula affair took place earlier, it was resolved internally by the Ngqika, who passed
sentence after discovering the person who went to Alexandria for Thuthula. Mquye was
found guilty and Ntlebi exonerated, because he was the senior royal councillor, and Thuthula

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was sent home before anyone came to blows. The relationship between Ngqika and Ndlambe
could not affect the affairs of state.) (Mqhayi 2009, Item 32, 310–311, my emphasis)
Mqhayi here is at pains to point out the “civility” of Xhosa politics. The “Thuthula affair” was
dealt with by proper legal process and duly resolved. Mqhayi here counters the idea that Xhosa
politics was fuelled by the despotic whims of individual chiefs. Instead, the “affairs of state” are
determined by much more complex political interactions.vi
Instead, Mqhayi highlights the changing power dynamics stirred up by colonial
advancement. The colonial government either mistook Ngqika as the amaXhosa paramount, or
intended to install him over all the Xhosa in their pattern of indirect rule. They thus pursued an
alliance with Ngqika and sought to subordinate other chiefs to him. In a meeting to negotiate
colonial boarders between the British and the Xhosa, the colonial governor, Charles Somerset,
publicly threw British political support behind Ngqika and showered him with lavish gifts.
Mqhayi recounts his words: “I recognise you alone as paramount chief of the Xhosa here, and I
intend to consult you only. Therefore look to my interests and I will look to yours” (2009, 314).
This show of power, likely intended to both gain Ngqika’s alliance and intimidate the other
chiefs into following Ngqika, was the true cause of conflict according to Mqhayi:
ukusuka kulombizo inkosi zonke zaba nesigqibo eside saziwa nakwa Gcaleka sokuba,
lomfana makohlwaywe, utabate indawo ezingapaya kwake, waye nesizwe usitengisile
kumlungu.
after that meeting all the chiefs, with the Gcaleka [the true paramount house] in support,
resolved that this young man [Ngqika] must be punished, he was assuming airs, and he had
sold the nation to the white man. (Mqhayi 2009, 314–315)
Mqhayi thus aims to position this important moment of internal Xhosa conflict in its wider social

17
and political context. These different accounts paint a very different picture of Xhosa political
life, transforming the account from one of internal political implosion due to despotic chiefs’
power and immorality, to an instructive view into changing power dynamics and conflicts
ushered in alongside colonial advancement.
(ii) History as a tool for social and political knowledge
In recounting the story in this way, Mqhayi helps the reader understand something of the nature
of social and political change in his own day. In his broader dealing with both Ngqika and
Ndlambe, Mqhayi is able to skilfully represent these leaders as three-dimensional characters,
weaving in both praise and criticism to produce a well-rounded image of them (such praise and
criticism is a hallmark technique of izibongo praise poetry [Jordan 1973, 112]). This historical
representation is clearly aimed against colonial histories that defame Xhosa leaders. In this sense
Mqhayi restores a sense of positive identity in any Xhosa reader, enabling a proud association
with these great leaders of the past.
Mqhayi also aims to extend the political insights drawn from this history to his own time.
In his narrative, colonial influence disrupts the “correct” running of Xhosa political affairs.
Mqhayi goes on to explore the consequences for Ngqika, who turns to the British for aid. While
the colonial government sent re-enforcements who drive off the remaining Ndlambe troops, they
annexed a large portion of Ngqika’s land as “payment.” Mqhayi recounts Ngqika’s response to
this colonial treachery through an isibongo (praise poem):
Okunene wancedwa [uNgqika]; kodwa akazuza nto emaxobeni, kukuze aqale kaloku awa
bonge amabandla ako Nibe ngezibongo eziti:
[Ngqika] did indeed receive help but the victims received nothing, hence he began to refer to
the whites with this poem:

18
This metaphor – whites as those who “halter a pregnant cow” – is an image that is repeated in a
number of contexts to express the greed and immorality of “white” politics. The lesson to
Mqhayi’s contemporaries is that white/colonial leaders are not to be trusted. They disrupt the
functioning of political affairs with dire consequences, and they betray their allies. For Mqhayi to
push such a point was a shocking claim in his time. Today we are aware of the political
conniving that accompanied colonialism, but at Mqhayi’s time, many black intellectuals felt
significant respect for their white benefactors, mentors or teachers.vii Here Mqhayi’s analysis
belongs to an intellectual tradition arguing for the same ideal of political self-determination that
we see in future intellectuals such as Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe.viii
This use of history is repeated throughout Mqhayi’s work: his analysis weaves together
knowledge of the past with its lessons for his tumultuous present. In this way, his histories
function as empirical evidence to back up his social commentary, criticism and theorising.
(iii) Epistemic translation – History for developing a greater field of meaning
Mqhayi’s sociological imagination is also visible in the way he uses history to situate present day
readers/listeners in a greater field of meaning and identity, anchored by the events of the past. In
the history of the Battle of Amalinde, for example, Mqhayi ties the heroes who fell in battle to
people and clans that his contemporaries would know:
Ngama rwex’ako Nibe,
O Qina ka Qonono,
Mayizal’ inkomo sidl’ isigqoro,
O K’aka ka Mpetu,
Omajik’ abinze kweyase kaya,
Aba mehl’ ang’a gcagceleya yehlati
(Mqhayi 2009, item 27, 270–271)
They’re Nonibe’s coarse things,
Who halter a pregnant cow:
‘Let it give birth so we can drink the first milk.’
The turncoats,
Who wheel and stab their own people,
With eyes like forest berries!

19
Kulomfazwe yama Linde afa kakulu amapakati ake apetwe ngu Jotelo, uyise ka Soga um
Jwara; no Nteyi, uyise ka Tyala um Dala no Ntlukwana, uyise ka Neku, um Cira; no
Qukwana uyise ka Nxokwana um-Ntakwenda.
In the Battle of Amalinde, many of Ngqika’s councillors died, foremost among them Jotelo,
the father of Soga, of the Jwarha; Nteyi, father of Tyala, of the Dala; Ntlukwana, father of
Neku, of the Cirha; and Qukwana, father of Nxokwana, of the Ntakwenda. (Mqhayi 2009,
item 45, 424–425)
In linking fallen heroes to their modern-day descendants who were well known intellectuals and
leaders, as well as linking them to their clans (thus allowing individuals to imagine themselves
with pride in the position of their forefathers), Mqhayi makes the distant history much more
experientially accessible, and offers a new lens for his readers to understand themselves and their
peers. Furthermore, Mqhayi explicitly aims to move from the world of the ancestors to the world
of his day. For example, Mqhayi says “Among the dead was Jotelo, the father of Soga, of the
Jwarha clan; to this day his descendants remain vigorous in fighting the nations battles!” (2009,
item 32, 320). Here Mqhayi translates the warrior identity from more than 100 years prior into
contemporary terms by implying that the kinds of warriors the amaXhosa need today are
intellectuals who can fight for the Xhosa nation.ix
It is exactly this kind of epistemic translation that makes Mqhayi’s work so vital: he is
able to interpret the present not only in the metaphors and typifications of a Western knowledge
system, but instead is able to revitalise the meanings and metaphors of a Xhosa knowledge
system. This one example (which is far more evident in his body of izibongo), thus gives us a
window into the vital work that Mqhayi and others like him do in traditional knowledge systems
– they both maintain the implicit value and meaning structure of a knowledge system while at the
same time revitalising that system in a way that makes it a meaningful tool for understanding the

20
present. It is precisely these links that are lost when we neglect African knowledge systems, and
Mqhayi’s example can inspire us to the necessary work of both continuity and revision, as well
as provide some of the metaphoric tools needed to continue this work.
For Mqhayi, history is a vital methodological tool to develop new social understandings
which nevertheless remain coherent as part of an intellectual and cultural tradition. Mqhayi thus
sets about correcting misassumptions, offering “bigger picture” insights into unfolding social
processes, and allowing the individual to place themselves within a greater field of meaning
drawing on elements from a Xhosa or African worldview.
Biography
In addition to historical analysis, Mqhayi’s sociological framework, and the lessons which he
draws and seeks to convey, are anchored in and developed through a biographical analysis of
individuals. Using a narrative lens, Mqhayi offers his commentary on social and political
processes, explores the impact of the changing world on leading figures, and follows the positive
or negative effects of choices made by these African leaders. Mqhayi offers general histories of
important figures such as Ngqika (Mqhayi 2009, item 9, item 27, item 45), Rharhabe (item 28),
Maqoma (item 12), Langalibalele (item 31) and many others. These pieces offer historical, social
and political analysis as shown above. In addition, Mqhayi also uses some biographical histories
to offer direct social lessons to his contemporaries. Examples of this approach are seen in pieces
such as “Rev Tiyo Soga, Shaka and Mlanjeni” (item 23), or on Dingiswayo (item 25), where
Mqhayi takes experiences of these historical figures and uses them to draw explicit lessons for
the “young men” of his own generations.
This mode of biography both instills knowledge and pride in African history and also
mobilises that history to offer concrete advise for the changing world, linking positive ethical

21
action of the past to a conception of the “good life” and admirable moral practice in Mqhayi’s
own day. What is interesting to note is how these historic lessons are drawn not just from Xhosa
men and women, but from African leaders more broadly. In this way, Mqhayi moves past Xhosa
cultural nationalism towards a Pan-African cultural nationalism; instilling pride, identity and
morality in people as more than just amaXhosa – but as Africans.
Narrative effects of biographical history
Writing in the biographical medium has important narrative effects for a number of literary
reasons: Firstly, the medium utilises the inclination of a reader to develop strong sympathies and
associations with a protagonist. In this way, the act of narrating the histories of a chief as the key
protagonist builds the individual’s positive notions of that chief. By using this narrative method
Mqhayi is able to counter the negative conceptions of African chiefs and leaders that have been
perpetrated by missionary education (see Mqhayi 2009, 28–31). This affirmation is created in a
second way; these histories offer African leaders as role models, allowing Mqhayi to use both
their successes and failures as tools to teach specific lessons. Mqhayi steers clear of hagiography
in his biographic histories, including protagonists’ failures while garnering social insight from
them in the process. For example, in his work on Ngqika, Mqhayi highlights Ngqika’s quick
temper and lack of long-term thinking (c.f. Mqhayi 2009, item 27). These negative
characteristics result in him almost killing his uncle Ndlambe (Mqhayi 2009, 266) and later
being stopped just before killing his paramount chief, Hintsa (266). Despite these characteristics,
Ngqika is shown to be repentant and grateful for the wise advice of his councillors who prevent
his hot-tempered actions. Ultimately Ngqika is held up as a national hero despite these and other
negative events. The biographic association with leaders as protagonists leaves the reader with
sympathy even for a leader’s shortcomings, rather than reviling leaders for their failures.

22
This close narrative association between protagonist and audience also allows the
reader/listener to experientially place themselves in the lives of the subject of the biography. One
effect of this close association is that it allows the audience to interpret the experiences of their
own life through the metaphor of the protagonist’s experiences. This process allows the
individual to conceive of themselves and their world using tools from a “Xhosa” identity. When
these metaphors are shared broadly, they create the basis for a shared social identity. Attention to
these narrative effects highlight the identity work that Mqhayi’s histories offer for those who
read them. They allow the individual a set of identity markers to understand themselves
pridefully as an umXhosa and as African. This individual identity is then shared and associated
with all other amaXhosa and Africans, thus developing pride in a shared identity based on a
shared set of cultural and historic practices.
Contemporary Biography
A second distinct style of biography employed by Mqhayi recounts the lives of contemporary
individuals. This mode is stylistically different from his historic biographies: it is largely done
through obituaries which consider the challenges and achievements of the recently deceased.x
His obituaries usually take the form of both a prose recollection of the subject’s life as well as an
isibongo to celebrate their life and achievements. Using his well-respected position as an
imbongi (praise poet), Mqhayi offers both praise and critique of the lives of the subjects of his
biography. Mqhayi’s key concern in this contemporary biography is twofold: firstly he aims to
praise the positive characteristics and choices of his subject, and secondly he aims to praise the
contribution that these great men and women made for the lives of amaXhosa or African people.
In doing so, he is able to hold up the achievement of African women and men and encourage
others to follow in their footsteps.

23
As with his historical biographies, Mqhayi works to weld together the experiences and
trajectories of an individual’s life with the changing social world around them. For example,
Mqhayi opens the obituary of the leader and politician J.T. Jabavu as follows:
Ukuba ubani ulinga ukwenza imbali engobom bomfi lo, anga twala amahla-ndinyuka nama
silantsi amaninzi, – ewe, angaba uzama ukwenza ibali lokuqubela pambili kwelizwe lasema
Xoseni lipela. Indawo leyo ilungile nge xesha layo, kuba lomfo uwileyo namhlanje
bekuxonywe izinto ezininzi kuye zesizwe setu – ngoko ibali lake liyakumelwa kukwenziwa
licokiswe nokwenziwa kwalo.
(Anyone trying to construct the life history of the deceased would have to include the ups
and downs and the many difficult patches – yes, one would be struggling to construct the
history of the progress of the entire country of the Xhosa. It would be good to do that when
the time is right because many affairs of our nation were hung on this fellow who has just
died – and so his story needs to be constructed and constructed thoroughly.) (Mqhayi 2009,
154–155).
What is made clear here is that Mqhayi’s biographical work intentionally connects the individual
and their social and historic moment. Each individual thus also offers a window into the
changing social life of African people. The obituary form offers a site to both mourn the loss of
great figures and at the same time serves an important function as a site for analysis and a
resource for social lessons. The lives of these heroes implicitly offer a normative framework for
how other individuals can and should respond to their world – the lives of those who have passed
away thus give meaning to the lives of those still here.
Revealing the ironies and ambiguities of colonial “progress”
Mqhayi is also able to use complex irony to great effect in his obituaries, which carry the
experiential complexity of the changing social world during colonialism. The obituary of the

24
missionary Rev J.M. Auld (Mqhayi 2009, item 49) offers a notable example:
Ute kuba umfo litole lamatole angevayo asezi Kotshini, lo Nozikhakana, kwadibana into
zifana namatole ama Ngqika! Yinto ke leyo ebekuhlala kuba ngama halihali, nama
nkantinkanti, kufakwana iminqayi ne zabokwe kubhutywana nangemizamo kube yilonto.
Atsho kube kanye umfo wasezi Kotshini, ikalip’ elikulu, ukuti: “Nganina wateta njalo kuye
umfundisi wako! Ufanelwe kukubhetwa!!!” Loti eli lokugqibela ilizwi lisitsho libe selisihla
kunye ne sabhokwe endodeni. Umfo esitiyile isono kunye nomenzi waso, engena budlelana
nendoda “ekohlekileyo.” Ngenxa yalonto akabanga mbunguzulu kuma Ngqika; amasiko,
izitete, inkolo, amakazi, ubuti, ulwaluko njalonjalo ubesakutsho futi ukuti: “Iyakude ibe
yimini yokufa kwam ndizilwa ezizinto!”
(The fellow was unruly, true to his heritage as a Scotsman, as a Scot in Skirts, and he met his
match in the Ngqika, true to their own heritage. The result was constant strife and conflict in
which they laid into each other with sticks and sjamboks, locked in that kind of head-to-head
struggle. The son of the Scots, the brave man, would say just one thing: ‘How can you speak
like this to your minister! You deserve to be thrashed!!!’ On uttering the last word he
brought a sjambok down on the man’s body. The fellow hated sin and those who committed
it, and entertained no traffic with ‘obstinate’ people. Because of this he was not respected
among the Ngqika; of customs, traditions, religion, marriage, cattle, charms, circumcision
and such like, he used to say: ‘I will fight these things until the day I die!’ (Mqhayi 2009,
440–443)
Here, Mqhayi offers a social critique of the disdain and violent repression of amaXhosa customs
by highlighting an equivalence: By foregrounding Auld’s Scottishness, Mqhayi undermines the
notion of the “civilised” man meeting the “savage” and instead shows two “heritages” or
“customs” meeting as equals in a head-to-head struggle. In this analysis Mqhayi highlights
Auld’s own heritage and custom as a Scott which creates both his unruliness and his bravery,
making him equal to the amaNgqika who hold “obstinately” to their own heritage.
Mqhayi critiques the “unruly” nature of this man, who brings violence and anger in his
interactions with the Ngqika. Yet in spite of this, the lines of inclusion/exclusion between

25
missionaries and amaXhosa are not clear cut. Mqhayi recounts the interaction between the
Ngqika and the Wesleyan missionaries as both significant conflict and as gain. When considered
as confrontation, the missionaries who win a conflict and take territory signals a loss for the
Ngqika. But with this defeat and loss comes the spread of schools and churches, institutions
which Mqhayi sees as beneficial to the amaXhosa, and which allowed amaXhosa people
increasing entrance into the new institutional power systems being set up by colonialism. Mqhayi
thus narrates both conflicting difference and new sites of empowering synthesis. Here, for
Mqhayi, lies the complex ambiguity of colonial progress: both loss and gain characterise the
lives of the people involved in the colonial encounter.
This ambiguity is reflected in Mqhayi’s isibongo for J.M. Auld. I quote in full to best
reflect the nuance of the poem’s argument:
Awu!!!
Kwasala kwenzwanga ma Ngqika,
–
Mabandla ka Butsholo
-bentonga!
Mabandl’ akulo Teta, kulo Mbombo nama Mbede;
Kwasala kwenzwanga,
–
Imkil’ indoda, umkil’ um Ngqika,
Ibizwe kwa Tixo yasabela;
Induluke ku Luqongo yasing’ e Ncabanga;
Yalapo ngesiqu intliziy’ iku Luqongo.
Taruni mabandla ka Palo!
Nanamhl’ iselapo pakati kwenu,
Ilwa isono, nokunchola, nenkohlakalo
Zange kufiwe kowetu kwa Palo.
Taruni zintombi zakwa Rarabe!
Nite nzwanga nganina?
Kwake kwanje pina kulomzi?
Andibi na ngenibongisela,
Awu!!!
We sit silent, Ngqika people,
tribes of Rharhabe,
tribes of Tetha, Mbombo and Mbede;
we sit silent –
a man has gone, a Ngqika’s gone,
God’s home called and he responded;
he left Luqongo for Ngcabanga;
at Ngcabanga his heart was in Luqongo
Mercy, tribes of Phalo!
He’s still with us today
fighting sin, and filth, and evil:
Phalo’s people never die.
Mercy, daughters of Rharhabe’s home!
Why are you silent?
Where have you seen such a thing among us?
Aren’t you supposed to be speaking well,

26
Nisenz’ izango ze
ngoma,
Ngomfo ka Holide wesezi Kotshini;
Owakanyisel’ ama Ngqik’ emnyameni,
Awel’ I Qora ne Qwaninga kuma Gcaleka.
Abuye ngo Manyube ne Qolora;
Taruni madod’ andilili, –
Andisemntu wakulila kaloku,
Ndinovuyo kub’ ubawo ndimcim’ amehlo;
Ndinovuyo kub’ ubawo
ndimnchwabile;
Ndinovuyo kub’ ubawo ndimlindele!
Ncincilili!!! (Mqhayi 2009, 442–445)
creating gateways of song
about the Scottish son of Auld,
who enlightened the benighted Ngqika,
who crossed Qhora and Qwaninga into Gcalekaland
and returned through Manyube and Qolorha
Mercy, men, I’m not crying –
I’m not a person to cry at the moment,
I’m happy I closed my father’s eyes;
I’m happy I buried my father;
I’m happy I sat in wait for my father
That is it!!!
Auld stands as a richly ambiguous figure in this isibongo. He is considered to be one with the
Ngqika people, “a man has gone, a Ngqika’s gone,” yet the Ngqika sit in silence and do not
mourn his passing. His inclusion as a Ngqika is so total that it also extends to his status as an
ancestor: “He’s still with us today / fighting sin, and filth, and evil: / Phalo’s people never die.”
Since the amaXhosa (Phalo’s people) do not simply die but become ancestors, Auld is taken to
be truly one of the Ngqika to continue his work as an ancestor. Yet this inclusion as an ancestor
ironically cuts against his own beliefs in life, as reverence for the power of ancestors was one of
the “heathen” beliefs that Auld fought against. His status as an ancestor does not only cut against
Auld’s beliefs but has real impact on the Ngqika too, as even in death he continues to fight
against the amaXhosa customs which he viewed as “sin, and filth, and evil.” The isibongo
highlights the complex intertwining of social worlds and individual lives, demonstrating the
intense intimacy of interactions even in sites of intense conflict. Further, Mqhayi’s use of
ancestors enables a sociological analysis which draws on amaXhosa knowledge to make sense of
the colonial world: it is true that the power and impact of Auld’s life is not over, his continued
influence in the region (whether through metaphysical spirit or legacy)xi will continue to assault

27
the very idea of ancestors as well as other Xhosa customs. Death will not end the fight for Auld,
and his inclusion as an ancestor functions both as a poetic exploration of the intertwined lives
created in colonialism and as a descriptive analysis of the continued causal power of Auld and
others like him, even after death.
This poetry allows us access to the complex identity experience of colonialism in ways
that plain prose never could. The complexities and ambiguities affect the amaXhosa and white
people alike: Auld’s identity is deeply wrapped up in the Ngqika people, and when he retires
from ministry he still yearned to be with his Ngqika people: “he left Luqongo for Ngcabanga/at
Ngcabanga his heart was in Luqongo.” Auld is taken in with such intimacy as to be considered a
Ngqika, and even called father. Mqhayi sarcastically exhorts the amaNgqika to celebrate the man
“who enlightened the benighted Ngqika,” and yet by the conclusion Mqhayi, too, remains silent,
joining the Ngqika and refusing to mourn. Ultimately the Ngqika are profoundly affected by
Auld and he is profoundly affected by them. Thus, Auld is remembered as both Ngqika and Scot,
both a father and unmourned. In the process Mqhayi makes a distinction between culture and
identity. Auld has taken up a Ngqika identity but not all of their culture. What is mourned is his
identity, but not his culture.
In his engagement with these complex ambiguities Mqhayi is able to offer both a nuanced
exploration of the emotive experience of colonial intertwining and a powerful analytical account
of colonial processes. Mqhayi here offers an analysis that would be accepted as a dominant
account of identity under colonialism today, but is at least 50 years ahead of academics arriving
at similar analyses. He examines the process of cultural interaction and cultural transformation,
he offers an account of cultural pluralism and the way it impacts on cultural intersections, he
demonstrates the experiential dimension of the intimate antagonism of missionaries and those

28
they evangelise and theorises the impact of individuals beyond their physical lives. While the
style here is not orthodox for academic study, it is nonetheless a rich analysis of the colonial
condition, which offers a nuanced and accurate account of the changing experience of the
colonial world for amaXhosa and missionaries alike.
Mqhayi’s work of social analysis
In weaving together the opposite poles of broad impersonal history and nuanced individual
biography, Mqhayi is able to create a social analysis which synthesises and enriches both.
Mqhayi’s histories highlight both the macro-level societal trends while also narrating the
victories and defeats, joys and despairs, of the individuals who are caught up in them. His
biographies show us men and women who are at times brave, at times weak, at times persistent,
at times foolhardy. These individuals, however, are shown to be profoundly people of their time,
and Mqhayi raises the biographic to the level of the historic and shows how each is shaped by,
but also shapes, their own period. By uniting biography and history, Mqhayi deploys the
sociological imagination to help his fellow women and men make sense of their world, so thrown
into flux. While Mqhayi’s intellectual work does not follow the methods familiar to academic
sociology, the task is fundamentally sociological. His works both develop an analytical
framework to understand the social world under colonialism and, at the same time, seek to help
his people understand the historical processes they are participating in, to better see how they
might actively engage in these historical trends (c.f. Mills 1959, 9–10). His analysis is turned
into applicable knowledge aimed at helping Africans navigate their new social worlds without
losing their sense of identity as Africans.

29
Putting Mqhayi into an African sociological tradition: notes on teaching and research
How can Mqhayi and other colonised intellectuals writing outside of the academy be
incorporated into an African sociological tradition? In this final section, I offer some comments
on incorporating Mqhayi’s works into sociological teaching and research as well as outline some
directions for future analysis. Mqhayi’s purpose was to make meaningful knowledge for African
people, starkly opposed to the colonial academy’s work to create knowledge of African people
(c.f. Hountondji 2009). In this goal, Mqhayi shares a common objective with many other African
intellectuals and social scientists, in both his own time and onward into the present. While his
task was directed towards his time, his body of work holds rich insights and analysis that need to
be drawn on and recovered today. Mqhayi should thus be considered as one figure in a long
history of African sociological analysis, as his work offers detailed analyses of the processes of
colonialism and the experiences of those who faced it.
Yet the existing frameworks of sociological research and teaching mean that it is not
straightforward to incorporate such thinkers, whose methods of social analysis look different
from academic sociology. To incorporate Mqhayi and others into sociology classes, the first step
is to emphasise that a shared framework of sociological analysis was developed by African
intellectual communities under colonialism who had no access to the academy. If we are to equip
ourselves to engage with these theoretical perspectives, we need to acknowledge that knowledge
production was developed in a different genre than contemporary journal articles or academic
books. The African intellectual tradition in South Africa is recorded in newspaper articles,
political speeches, izibongo, sermons, pamphlets and novels. In the same way that students must
be taught the skills of comprehension necessary to engage contemporary academic genres or
European theoretical texts, teaching will need to develop the set of interpretive and language

30
skills needed to understand and analyse these alternate genres which have sustained African
social analysis.
Yet, putting in the effort to work with these non-academic genres promises to yield much
fruit. Both teaching and future research should identify the common issues and challenges which
are of core importance to this intellectual tradition. This will at times align with existing
disciplinary themes and at times diverge. For example, questions of religion, education, race,
politics, power and gender which are central to sociology are also central to the Xhosa
intellectual community at the turn of the twenieth century (e.g. for race see Mangcu 2016; for
political power and gender see Masola 2018; for themes of political analysis see Odendaal 2013;
for education see de Wet 2018, forthcoming; for justice see Nyamende 2010). In these areas, we
might distill theoretical analyses of core sociological issues developed from the perspective of
the colonised. Yet other issues may diverge from core themes of the Western tradition. For
example, consider Mqhayi’s analysis of the enduring influence of individuals theorised through
the framework of ancestors (discussed above). This question of endurance after death is not
clearly articulated in Western sociological theory due to its metaphysical framework (c.f. Carroll
2014). Yet such enduring legacies are both clearly empirically accurate and of vital theoretical
importance to the colonial and post-colonial context which must wrestle with the continuing
influence of those long dead.
This task of developing the methodological and substantive expertise to engage and flesh
out traditions of African social theory confronts a challenge in contemporary South African
sociological training. Scholars have noted that, driven by demands to create knowledge that is
marketable and produces financial gain, sociological training has turned increasingly to a
“functionalist” approach which combines simplistic social models with quantitative

31
methodological techniques (Dubbeld 2009, 218). This training equips students to produce
knowledge which enables social control, making them desirable for institutions in political and
economic domains (Dubbeld 2009, esp. 217–219; see Bauman [1987] 2013). Yet, others have
also reported the eagerness that students demonstrate for a deeper knowledge of both large-scale
social transformation and their own place in this process as revealed by African intellectuals
(Mangcu 2016, 56; see Mills 1959, chap. 1). The project of bringing traditions of African social
theory into a sociological curriculum does not “add value” to the task of training a class of
technocratic experts who assist institutional leaders in achieving their vision of social control.
Instead, it equips students to be political and social leaders and intellectuals who participate in
shaping the vision and goals of social transformation itself. Such a training requires more than
just adding African intellectuals to the reading list. It also calls for emulating those figures,
cultivating the role of intelligentsia in students, equipping them to see a breadth of historical and
social processes which shape their world, and cultivating their capacity to engage normatively in
this process, debating and clarifying desirable social ends alongside their other technical training.
An exemplar of this approach is Ntombomzi Mazwi’s (2019) study of Mqhayi, which reveals
both the content of Mqhayi’s poems and simultaneously highlights the social and political task
Mqhayi sets for himself. Teaching African intellectuals in a similar way introduces students to
both African intellectual thought and to the role of socially engaged knowledge creation that
these intellectuals played.
Finally, to enrich our understanding of a tradition of “African” or even “anti-colonial”
sociology, future work needs to identify lineages and resonance between the frameworks
developed by Xhosa and Pan-South African intellectual communities of the turn of the twentieth
century and wider African and global intellectual communities. These connections may arise

32
from parallel analysis rather than through direct interconnections of an intellectual community
directly in dialogue with each other. In this context, the question is one of resonance – how do
different figures who analyse similar social phenomena develop ideas which complement (or
contradict) each other? This approach emphasises that many social phenomena are not socially
or culturally “bounded” by demarcations such as the nation or the continent, but instead share a
“context” that is not regional but temporal (see Dubbeld 2020). Intellectuals from their own
traditions have developed theorisations of social processes which have global effects –
colonisation being an exemplar of such a global process. In addition to better understanding
“local” phenomena by emphasising “endogenous knowledge” (Adesina 2006a, 2006b; Nyoka
2013), we can draw on this same knowledge to develop a richer understanding of trans-national
social processes.
To incorporate Mqhayi and other nineteenth and early twentieth century intellectuals into
an “African sociology,” future work should identify common social processes studied by South
African and African intellectuals across time. Work might put Mqhayi and others into dialogue
with important South African academics such as Archie Mafeje, Ben Magubane, Ruth First,
Fatima Meer, Harold Wolpe (c.f. Adesina 2006b; Desai 2010; Nyoka 2020), or social theorists
from across the continent (such as Samir Amin, Mahmood Mamdani, Issa Schivji, Achille
Mbembe and others). An exemplar of this is Masilela’s (2010) analysis, putting Mqhayi into
dialogue with both his South African lineages as well as thinkers such as Aimé Césaire, David
Diop and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.
Attending to this parallel analysis also allows us to develop international dialogues to
identify common analysis of colonised society from the perspective of the colonised. In what
way do the theoretical frameworks developed by this turn-of-the-century Xhosa community

33
resonate with or contradict colonised scholars in India, or the Philippines or the intellectual
debates of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century newspaper community of Sierra Leone or
Liberia? Mangcu (2016), for example, explores the commonalities of “a shared text of
blackness” by putting these figures into dialogue with analysis developed by Black American
social theorists. These connections across time and space allow us to analyse and contrast the
theorising of diverse intellectuals who, in spite of their absent connections, still developed
complementary theorising of similar social phenomena. A number of fruitful avenues emerge
from this approach because the vast majority of nineteenth- and twentieth-century intellectuals
have had to analyse the effects of colonialism or empire from the perspective of the colonised.
Developing this dialogue may allow us to continue to build common analysis of colonial and
post-colonial social processes which emerge in spite of local difference.
Conclusion
This paper has sought to highlight the work of S.E.K. Mqhayi and his social thought, both as an
exemplar of African sociological analysis beyond the academy, and as one figure embedded in a
much larger intellectual tradition in need of increased attention. Mqhayi is working to develop an
analysis of social life at the turn of the twentieth century oriented to a Xhosa and broader African
community. This paper has considered how his method, uniting historical and biographical
analysis, gives unique avenues of insight into colonial social life for African peoples. Given the
call for developing African theoretical perspectives, we need more work on both the analytical
frameworks of individuals – often captured in non-academic genres – as well as more studies
which develop dialogues between African as well as other colonised theorists in order to identify
common issues and common theoretical insights. These insights might revitalise our
understanding of both local and global processes because they centre an analysis from the

34
perspective of the colonised which has largely been hidden from the academic tradition.
Notes on contributor
Jonathan Schoots is a PhD Candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Chicago. His work
broadly focuses on African intellectual responses to colonialism in South Africa. His current project
explores the earliest moments of the emergence of African Nationalism in South Africa, following
transformations in African political and intellectual networks between 1860 and 1910, and studying the
innovative political thought and practice developed by the Xhosa intelligentsia within these networks.
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i Equally important is to not be parochial in our analysis. Scholars have also raised the important
challenge of remaining attentive to social processes which are global in scope, requiring us to link
local phenomena with the global social forces with which they are interconnected (Dubbeld 2020).
ii While Jordan (1973) notes that Mqhayi at times asserts a positive relation to the British (such as in
the work “SingamaBritani!” - We are Britons!), it is important to remember that such a position was
at least as much political pragmatism as it was political vision. As Shula Marks has noted in the case
of Dube, there was a political need to “espouse nineteenth-century liberal and missionary norms
against settler nationalism” (Marks 1986, 73). Appealing to the “old liberal” political vision of
missionaries and British Imperial elites was necessary for African political leaders as an ideological
bulwark against aggressive settler politics which held no value for African rights, or African
humanity (see Marks 1986 for detailed analysis).
iii Analysis combines a number of Mqhayi’s articles (henceforth referred to by Opland’s item
numbers): Item 9 (1912) “Ngqika” in Imvo. Item 12 (1917) “Maqoma” in Ityala Lama-Wele (3rd
Ed). Item 27 (1928) “Ngqika” in Umteteli. Item 30 (1928) “The origin of the Ndlambe” in Umteteli.
Item 32 (1928) “The Battle of Amalinde: white provocation (1818–19)” in Umteteli. Item 45 (1932)
“Hail, Lwaganda!” in Umteteli.
iv Which appears to continue to the present: see Peires (1981) quoted in Mqhayi (2009, 21).
v See especially Mqhayi 2009, item 27 and 30.
vi See also similar arguments made in item 27 (268), item 30 (304) and item 45 (424).
vii See esp. Mandela’s (1994, 48–49) account of viewing Mqhayi’s performance.
viii This intellectual heritage is also clearly evident to some of these inheritors. Sobukwe, for example,
speaks very highly of Mqhayi (see [1949] 1973).
ix Mqhayi here references Tiyo Soga, son of Jotelo, and his descendants, such as A.K. Soga the
founder of the Izwi Labantu newspaper, J.H. Soga, the author of the acclaimed books The South
Eastern Bantu ([1930] 2013) and Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs ([1932] 2013), as well as others who
were active intellectual and political leaders of the time.
x 27 of the 38 articles of contemporary biography collected in Mqhayi 2009 are obituaries.
xi The original isiXhosa “Nanamhl’ iselapo pakati kwenu,” translated as “He is still with us today”
might also be translated “with” or “inside” in addition to the given among/with. This opens the
ambiguous space to read Auld’s causal power as an ancestor from two different metaphysics: from
“among” as an independent agent (spirit), or from “within,” internalised within the amaNgqika,
continuing his actions through their bodies (legacy).