Mfengu biography books

Mfengu-Rharhabe Rivalry and the Rise of Lennox Sebe

Conventionally, one distinguishes between two ethnic groups in the Ciskei: the Rharhabe Xhosa, who are descended from the first Bantu-speaking people to inhabit the area, and the Mfengu, a generic name for several distinct groupings of associated clans who fled from Zululand during the time of King Shaka (–) and settled in the eastern Cape.^[18] It is important to emphasize that members of both these groups are to be found in the Transkei as well as the Ciskei: they cannot be characterized as distinctly Ciskeian peoples.

Initial cultural differences between Rharhabe and Mfengu—for example, that the Mfengu pierced the ears and the Xhosa did not—have long since faded into insignificance. They have been overshadowed by the cataclysmic events of the year , when the Mfengu were persuaded by the missionary Ayliff to desert their Xhosa patrons and seek Colonial protection.

On the 14 May , the Mfengu gathered under an old milkwood tree