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CHAPTER 3

Walking 2 000 Kilometres to Work and Back: The Wandering Bassuto by Carl Richter

Peter Delius

Large-scale and widespread labour migration is often associated with (and explained by) the mineral revolution in South Africa. But long before the creation of the insatiable appetite for black labour, as a result of the growth of the diamond fields in the 1870s, thousands of men from a wide range of societies in what was then the Transvaal and beyond travelled vast distances to seek work in the Cape and Natal. In the 1860s, their main destination was the Eastern Cape – especially Port Elizabeth – which was in the grip of a boom in wool production and export, but the Natal sugar plantations were also an important magnet for migrants. The migrants were largely young men and the missionary Alexander Merensky commented in 1862 that, in the Pedi kingdom, it was an established practice for each youth on reaching maturity to go to the Cape Colony for one or more years. Since maturity was defined sociologically as well as biologically, this comment implies that these youths had passed through the challenging rites of initiation and had been constituted into regiments under royal authority. They usually travelled in large groups and were more than ready to defend themselves against predators and attempts to rob or press-gang them.¹ It was this system that was reoriented and transformed by the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley and then gold on the Rand.

Recent research has also underscored that travelling over long distances and for long periods in pursuit of income and employment was far from novel for the inhabitants of the interior. For centuries, people had travelled the long-distance trade routes that spanned the interior of most of modern southern Africa. Locally manufactured iron and copper goods, salt, ochre, horns, skins, pots, grain and cattle were traded over both short and long distances. These trade networks also connected to routes that linked to the east coast, which brought imported beads, cloth, ceramics and metalware to the interior and exported ivory, other products of the hunt and some cattle. Often, the paths that migrant workers walked on their way to work had been long-established trade routes.²

The pursuit of employment also shaped movement long before the nineteenth century. Young men travelled both locally and regionally to attach themselves to wealthy homesteads where their labour was rewarded with livestock or other items that could contribute to their bride-wealth goods and so to marry and achieve full adulthood. This pursuit of bride-wealth goods continues to be a key element in the system that evolved in the nineteenth century. But new goods came to play an increasingly important role. Most important from the 1840s to the 1880s were firearms, which played a key part in the hunting economy, power struggles between Trekkers and Africans and in conflicts between polities. The South African Republic tried to ban the arms trade with Africans, which was far from effective, but it did make guns very expensive in the interior. They were much easier and cheaper to buy in the Cape. The pace and scale of the acquisition of firearms by migrants was formidable. In 1862, Merensky calculated that the Pedi army consisted of 12 000 men, of whom approximately a third had guns – mainly anachronistic muzzle loaders. By 1876, the army was fully armed with breech loading rifles.³

A considerable literature has accumulated in recent decades on this early system of migrant labour, but our understanding of many elements remains sketchy. A great deal of historical writing portrays epic journeys whether by Trekkers, explorers, hunters, missionaries or shipwreck survivors. But the extraordinary journeys routinely undertaken by migrant workers, crossing more than a thousand kilometres of often hostile terrain, remain largely unrecorded and uncelebrated. While the evidence to correct this omission is sadly sparse, there are some documents that provide revealing glimpses into their travels. One of these was penned by a Berlin missionary, Carl Richter, who was based in the Transvaal and it was published in the Berlin Missionary Journal in 1882.⁴

Richter was born in Prussia in 1836 and was trained in the craft of nail-making. As was the practice at the time, after his apprenticeship, he travelled from town to town seeking work, until he eventually joined the Berlin

Figure 3.1

Photographer unrecorded

Migrants arriving on the diamond fields in search of work 1886

Courtesy of McGregor Museum, Kimberley Historical Photographs Collection

Missionary Society. After seven years of training, he was sent to the Transvaal. His own background as a travelling worker sparked his interest in the migrant workers who regularly passed by the mission stations and whom he encountered on his own travels.⁵ While he saw some elements in common between their experiences and those of apprentices in Germany, his cultural blinkers ensured elements of tunnel vision. He noted in his description that the

concept of ‘wandering’ is used as it is in Germany among the artisans and apprentices, i.e., to look for work. A wanderer in the sense of a tourist is unknown here. A Mossuto does not have a thought left for nature’s beauty or otherwise historical peculiarities, to strengthen and refresh his soul life through them. Even travel such as that of an artisan, who wants to create an opportunity for himself in a foreign place to perfect his craft, is unfamiliar to the Bassuto. The Mossuto of today only wanders to earn money.⁶

Despite his blind spots, Richter provides an informed overview of the development of labour relations in the Transvaal. The extract that follows is based on Richter’s account, with some minor editorial interventions to enhance the accessibility of the text, while retaining as much as possible of its original character.⁷

The Wandering Bassuto by Carl Richter

For as long as the white population advanced into these regions of the Bassuto (about since the year 1836), the Mossuto has been sought after as a worker. Either he was forced to work or he went voluntarily to earn something.⁸

Slavery, in the sense as in many other countries where adult persons are purchased for a price, did not exist here. This practice was limited only to the small children, whom one mostly appropriated in an illegal way; these children were then trained to become workers. But here, too, a time frame was set by the government, within which such a slave should acquire his freedom. I believe it was in the twentieth year. However, this year was not always the year of release, as is evident from the fact that the Mossuto never knew the years of his age and because his owner was probably never too hasty to voluntarily release his cheap worker.⁹

But many adults were also forced to work in the following way: one or more Boers had legitimately made themselves owners of a piece of land, which was occupied by indigenous people. The latter were then informed that for them to be permitted to stay on the property of the one or more whites, they had to work for their baas (master) for a certain time without remuneration. The chief of the tribe had to see to it that all young, strong people took turns, one after the other, to go to work for their masters, who often stayed a very far distance from them.

This forced manner of working caused much unhappiness and trouble on both sides. Among the Bassuto an expression was coined for such involuntary work attendance, which was supposed to be Dutch and was adapted according to their way of speaking and sounded ‘zoomaareng’, more or less with the meaning: ‘into the for-nothing’, it was supposed to imply: ‘We are going to work without getting any payment for it.’

It often happened that the summoned worker did not pitch up and the baas or ‘master’ himself had to ride to fetch him and when he had brought him to his place and set him to work, he fled away again after a short time. New trouble arose again for the chief of the tribe or the field cornet [a government official]. Often the field cornet had to go to that kraal himself and threaten punishment.

Usually the Boers, when they wanted to capture a fugitive, carefully approached his dwelling place by night, in order to surprise him early in the morning and to take him captive. One day saw a field cornet with a Boer, who had succeeded in getting back such an escapee. In order not to give him the opportunity to run away again on the way, they had tied him with a rope to the horse, in such a way that the one end of the rope was fastened to the saddle and the other around the neck of the Mossuto. Thus he had to (nolens volens) run along next to the horse. The distance from the kraal to the home of the Boer was about four to five German miles [one German mile = 7.5 kilometres]. Certainly not much consideration would have been given on the way to the pedestrian by the riders.

But in earlier years, many of the Bassutos also went voluntarily to distant areas to look for work. Many such workers stayed in the old colonies; others, however, returned after a number of years. One can often find people in these areas who have lived more than ten years in a foreign land.

A new stage with regard to wandering has emerged since the discovery of the diamond fields. Wandering is now the young man’s pleasure because it is associated with many hopes for the future life of the young Mossuto. It can be assumed with certainty that of the many thousand young people who grow up here, only very few don’t go wandering. To a German, who has got to know wandering in his homeland, the thought often comes up at the sight of such ‘working Kaffirs’ to draw a comparison between the earlier German apprentices and the local working Kaffirs. Some trends may be different from the other, but yet another is very similar. When in earlier times in Germany a ‘qualified one’ started his travels, he had his burden of the examination behind him and, maybe alone or with a travel companion, he was often accompanied out of the gate by companions of the trade and some friends, to then try his luck in the ‘world’.

Here we find the Mossuto, as inexperienced in every work as possibly imaginable, preparing himself for wandering. However, a young man will never embark on the journey alone; he waits until several countrymen want to start on such a journey, to which he joins himself. And, as in Germany, the destination of the artisans is often one or more capitals of the country; the destination here is the diamond fields, from whence the expression: ‘to go into strange lands’, ‘deimaneng’, that is, ‘to the diamond fields’.

The travelling party has its specific rules. One of the travellers becomes the leader, so to speak, whose directions the others have to follow and who is also accountable to his national tribe for the travelling companions. When a travelling company has gathered, the provisions are attended to. Each of the travellers is obliged to take along a portion of the journey’s food. Mostly it consists of a quantity of about 10–15 pounds of Kaffir corn [sorghum] or flour. Only one cooking pot and one drinking vessel, often only one ox horn, is required for all of them. Also, those who are in a position to do so provide some money for the trip. They start out with food for the journey in a little bag, or also, as I have seen myself, in an old trouser leg, which was tied up at the end, also a sleeping blanket, maybe prepared from a skin, and all this tightly tied together and carried on the shoulder, so that it almost assumes the longish form of a so-called ‘Berliner’ of the German artisan.

If a believing Christian is among the company, he will never leave his Bible, reading book or hymn book at home, that is, if he had been able to acquire such books before then. Books are the pride and joy of believing men.

In the company, one will always find someone who is supplied with fire, be it a glowing piece of wood or a piece of dry cow dung.

It is their custom to march along like geese, that is, one behind the other. Even on wagon trails, which are wide, one often finds them walking in this way. Already from their youth they have become accustomed to walking in this manner, since the paths that run through their gardens are only wide enough for one person.

On the first day . . . after they have covered a distance of maybe six to seven German miles [45–53 kilometres], they look out for a night shelter, which is always under the open sky. Even when they want to spend the night in the proximity of a Kaffir kraal, they seek out a night camp outside the village. Such night camps are different, depending on the surroundings in which they happen to find themselves. If they are in the bushveld, that is, in an area covered with trees, they know how to make it quite pleasant for themselves. Wood is carried to camp from all directions and a fire is lit, so that the flame shines far into the night. On the one hand, the fire is kept so large in order not to feel the cold of the night too badly, on the other hand, to keep away lions and other dangerous animals in such areas where these still live. While the rest sit closely around the fire, the hands mostly stretched out to the same and engaged in lively conversation about ‘nothing’, the youngest of the company are busy preparing supper, which consists simply of Kaffir corn without any garnish.

When they have eaten, it is time to go to sleep. If they managed to find a prepared sleeping place, in other words, one where earlier travellers had already made a type of hedge from branches of thorn trees to ward off the wind or also wild animals, it is more pleasant for them; otherwise, however, a camp without it will also suffice. Some may gather a little grass that they will use as a bottom layer; most of them, however, have no desire for a bottom layer. The sleeping blanket or skins are rolled out; one person lies down to sleep close to the other, the feet directed towards the fire. Often several persons cover themselves together with their blankets and thus they give themselves over to sleep, unperturbed by the hyenas and jackals howling close by. Only when the king of the animals makes his voice heard will the fire be kindled to a brighter flame with the wood that was collected the previous evening. Otherwise, every now and then, one of the sleepers will get up to keep the fire burning.

Before daybreak, which they recognise accurately by the rising of different stars, especially of Venus, which they simply call ‘the star’, we find one or the other, for whom the night became too long, sitting at the fire again. The last of the sleepers only get up after the sun has spread its warming rays over the sleeping place.

It is completely different when they have to wander during the rainy season. Then the poor, scantily dressed wanderers are truly to be pitied. Already half-frozen, with a wet and black shining skin from the rain, they come wandering along. Their desire is to find a shelter and often they are also successful. But what is it made of? There in the open field is a hut, which consists of some sticks, which are dug into the ground a little, but which are tapered to the inside at the top and tied together with flax or grass and covered with bushes and grass, which is supposed to represent the roof. This hut has to serve as accommodation for them, as it has served many others previously. On the outside of the hut, a type of furrow was made, so as not to let the rain water flow towards their sleeping place with full force. The wind howls into it, finding its exit again on the opposite side. Neither is the roof any protection against the pouring rain and understandably such a night provides little refreshment.

A night camp on the highveld can become even worse, yes, life-threatening. The temperature is far colder than in the low-lying bushveld and in addition there is no firewood to be found far or near for protection against the cold.

Winter is usually the time in which a cloud is seldom seen in the sky and, although by day there is the most pleasant travelling weather, up to 20 degrees Réaumur [25 degrees Celsius] and above, it becomes so cold with sundown that the earth is covered with frost and the water freezes into ice. If in such a time, the heaven covers itself with clouds and they empty their contents in the form of rain or even snow, it is not unusual for travellers to freeze to death. Warm food cannot be prepared, for lack of burning material. The dung of cattle that grazed here that is otherwise used as burning material is totally drenched and unusable.

The company starts on the new day’s march, without having cooked food. By 11 o’clock, they rest, at which time the breakfast is prepared. On a journey that I undertook on horseback, I unsaddled in the proximity of one such resting group. After I had eaten bread for sustenance, which the mission sisters had given me, I approached the travellers to have a conversation with them. One of them was busy preparing the meal. He took out a little bag of flour, while another one put down water, which he had just drawn. Several tin cups stood ready; a little flour was poured into each one, then cold water was poured on top and stirred. Thus the prepared food was dished out for the meal. I was also handed such a portion. However, I declined, with the words that I had just eaten.

Among all local national tribes it is custom that they always invite one who comes to them during mealtime to eat, an offer that is seldom refused.

As mentioned above already, the leader and, in the second place, also the rest of the wanderers, bear responsibility for everybody in the company.

If one of the co-travellers becomes ill and cannot continue, all the travellers are obliged to stay put for at least one day. If no improvement has come on the second day, they try to accommodate the sick one if possible with people living nearby, or one of the travellers has to remain behind to help, while the others may travel on. They don’t only care for their sick along the way, but also during their time of working. If a close relative of a sick person is there, he is primarily responsible for the care, even payment for the doctor and medicine, if a doctor has been called for assistance. However, if there is no close relative, the responsibility rests with the travelling companions, or also on his countrymen. Should someone fall away through death, the abovementioned also have to come up with the funeral costs, which, when the funeral is simple, is very minimal (one Mark).

In the course of time, the provisions also get depleted (the distance from here to the diamond fields is about four weeks by foot). Then those who have money have to help out, open their bag, or rather roll open their little cloth, in which they have folded up their money, to buy food. Often, however, they try to work for food for one or a few days at the place of a Boer or farmer. And the closer they come to their final destination, the more often it is necessary to let one shilling after the other pass over into the hands of others. Not only food, but also fuel, yes even cooking and drinking water, have to be paid for sometimes.

Some of those who started out together remain behind to accept work here or there; the majority, however, who hoped to receive more wages further down the line than what had been offered them on the way, move into the long-awaited city of diamonds, where they perhaps rest a day from the journey’s hardships, to then begin their work.

As in each one who loves his home country and lives in a foreign country, even if 15 or more years have already passed, longing for the home country often fills his heart, so the word chai [gae] ‘home’ also has a rather sweet sound for the wandering Mossuto and how often may it sound in the mouths of those who had set out together to work.

One or the other of the company has long already started on his way home with fellow citizens. Another, however, wants to try his luck longer in the foreign county and only a fraction of the earlier travelling companions prepare themselves for their return journey together. But what a difference between a man setting out to work and one returning! Outwardly he has become a completely different person. While on the way there, his travel baggage was very light and simple, he is now heavily loaded with riches.

His knapsack still has the longish form it originally needed to accomodate the barrel of a gun because in his home country, only one who possessed a gun could lay claim to the name: manna, ‘man’, otherwise he exposed himself to the danger of being scolded as a ‘woman’, mosadi.

Until not too long ago, it was permissible to sell guns to the coloureds [blacks] at the diamond fields; however, in the ZAR it was first totally prohibited for coloureds to import guns.

Therefore they were simply smuggled in dismantled form, packed away under things. Although this smuggling was generally known, the government did not have enough power to seriously act against it. This trade is now generally prohibited, but I have been assured that many guns are nevertheless still sold to the coloureds on the diamond fields. Unscrupulous hawkers come to the Kaffirs and advise them to come into their shop undetected at night, where they are offered the desired guns to buy. Not only this, but they are also advised to bring diamonds at such time, which are bought from them in secrecy.

Because of the smuggling of guns, or also, because their tribe had during their absence become engaged in war with the government, their journeys home were fraught with other mishaps and difficulties. They often had to make long detours, to pass through areas where there were still few or no white settlers. Thus one day, a company of 22 returning Bassuto of Sekukuni, a chief, who at that time was engaged in war with the government, but has now been conquered, arrived at my place.¹⁰ When they left the diamond fields, they numbered 26. Because of the war, they had made a great detour to the west of the country. Only 22 arrived here; 4 had succumbed to thirst.

For three days, they had not found a drop of water in the scorching heat of the sun; on the fourth day, they dispersed to look for some again. By evening, they had found water, but four of the seekers were missing, for whom they looked in vain the whole next day and who were given up as having died of thirst.

The way home of he who travels along a straight road is now far more pleasant than the way there. The clothes, the many blankets and money protect him better from cold and hunger. His acquired cattle, which he drives in front of him, refresh his soul, his purchased dog is his hope, as he is to be of great use to him later on the hunt. If the sun burns too hot by day, the carrying of his burden is much lighter by night, even the cattle also walk better, when they have rested during the heat of the sun. The stars, which are already known to the Mossuto from his home country, are his guide at parting and crossways and, despite the burden and hindrances, he arrives in his home country in no more days than he needed for his journey there [to the diamond fields].

The cow is probably the first item on which the eyes rest of those to whom the returning one comes home and, after it has been thoroughly gazed at, it is time to greet their loved ones. If granted the opportunity, after the welcome, to witness the unpacking of the riches of a thrifty worker, we would see before our eyes the glitter and glory unfold for the Mossuto, which entices the hopeful bystanders and young men to also embark quite soon on such a working journey.

Among the things we find, as mentioned above, the gun, further gunpowder, lead, [explosive] caps, an American axe, some sleeping blankets, a dress, trousers, colourful shirts, a hat; maybe a pair of shoes, a white or quite colourful umbrella and other bagatelles. The remaining money we most probably don’t get to see.

After this feast for the eyes, the returning one unfortunately has to consider the country’s father, the chief of the tribe. The latter must be greeted and the grace would be withdrawn from him who would not appear or appeared with empty hands. It is an old, long-known law that ‘from someone who has brought two head of cattle, one must be given to the chief; if it is a cow, the first calf born lawfully belongs to the royal cattle kraal’. From the earned money, at least one pound sterling has to flow into the treasury of the king, even of the bagatelles the worker has earned, one part is to serve to satisfy the greed of the chief or still to help to increase it. Just how many diamonds, which have been appropriated by the workers unlawfully and were then given to the chief, to find favour from the same and may now be in the hands of such rulers who had formerly put capital punishment on theft, can easily be deduced from the following incident.

When Sekukuni was captured during the attack on the capital city by the British and assistant troops, so many diamonds were found with him, that a six-to-eight-inch-high vessel, whose thickness was not disclosed to me, however, was filled, which had all been brought to him at his wish by the workers from the diamond fields.

When it was said, however, that the Mossuto became a completely different person in the diamond fields, even his new name was reminiscent thereof; there he had acquired another one, because to the In the turbulent and dangerous nineteenth-century world, the major incentive to travelling from the interior to the Cape was to buy guns, which were relatively cheap and available – especially at the diamond fields.

Figure 3.2

Artist unrecorded Southern Africa c. Nineteenth century

Spoons with handles carved in the shape of flintlock rifles Wood poker work 35 × 11.2 cm and 33.3 × 11.9 × 12 cm

Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)

Figure 3.3

Artist unrecorded, Southern Africa Knife with sheath carved in the shape of a rifle c. Nineteenth century

Wood poker work 82.7 × 10.5 × 2.5 cm

Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)

European, who was not knowledgeable about the language of the Bassuto, the foreign name of the Mossuto with mostly three or also more syllables, was strange, incomprehensible and therefore also difficult to pronounce. The otherwise meaningful Nakedi e fsietsche leschaka (skunk has swept out the cattle kraal) has simply changed into a ‘Booi’ = Boy; a Mamonyamakoba (the mother of the mother of Koba, the chief of the village) becomes a ‘Jak’ or ‘Jim’; a Ngoanaoatutumda (the child who shivers) has been made an ‘April’ or ‘September’.

In order for all not to become Boois, Jaks, Jims and so that they can be distinguished, extraordinary names are given to others: ‘Be greeted, Diamond!’ one of my people addressed another one who had come to us. ‘Oh, yes!’ came the reply of Diamond, but who immediately posed the question: ‘Where is Woolbag?’ Diamond would hardly have acquired his name due to his inner contents, while the name of Woolbag could possibly have originated from the clumsiness or ineptitude of its bearer. However, all returning ones are pleased when they receive another name in addition to their former name, by which they are called by the whites.

He who has become a ‘man’ through the acquired gun, now aims to get a wife; to this end, the cow and also the money are to serve him. The price for a wife is up to ten head of cattle. Originally every piece should be a head of cattle, but these days any piece, which is to make up the total, is accepted, even if the beast is only a goat or a sheep. In the land of expensive wives, the money of a suitor also has to be produced and cattle bought with it, or the journey to the diamond fields has to be undertaken anew, if he does not want to die unmarried.

Even believing family fathers often go to work to provide for the maintenance of his family. With civilisation, the needs also grow.

Conclusion

Despite the many hardships and dangers involved in the long journeys they undertook, these groups of men drew on forms of organisation rooted in their own societies. They could make their own decisions about when to stay and when to go. Their freedom from control by government officials, mine-owners and recruiting agencies gave them considerable bargaining power and helped to keep their wages relatively high. But, as the other chapters in this volume show, by the end of the century, their room for manoeuvre was being steadily whittled away and the camaraderie and autonomy that characterised their ‘wandering’ was supplanted, at least in part, by systems of recruitment designed to break their spirits and prepare them to accept industrial discipline.

Notes

1.P Delius, The Land Belongs to Us: The Pedi Polity, the Boers and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Transvaal (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), Chapter 3. A rich literature dealing with the origins and development of the migrant labour system was published from the 1980s onwards. See, for example, W Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860–1930 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982) and P Harries, Work, Culture and Identity: Migrant Labourers in Mozambique and South Africa, c.1860–1910 (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1994).

2.Harries, Work, 13–16, Delius, Land, 69–71.

3.Delius, Land, 62.

4.Wandernde Bassuto: Ein Lebensbild van C Richter, Berliner Missions-berichte (Berlin: Des Berliner Missionshauses, 1882).

5.L Zollner and J Heese, The Berlin Missionaries in South Africa (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 1984), 378–385.

6.Richter, Wandernde Bassuto, 46.

7.Ibid., 46–59. I am grateful to Professor IM Kosch for her help with the translation.

8.The term ‘Bassuto’ as used here is the equivalent of North Sotho in contemporary usage. ‘Mossutho’ is the singular form.

9.See Delius, Land, Chapter 6 for a fuller description of this system and, more broadly, labour relations in South Africa. See also H Giliomee, The Afrikaners (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2003), Chapter 6.

10.Sekhukhune ruled the Pedi kingdom from 1861 until its conquest by an Imperial Army in 1879, shortly after the defeat of the Zulu kingdom.