 The Poet and the Prophetess (2008)
Mats Larsson Gothe's musical, with libretto by Michael Williams, is an opera created by a collaboration between the Cape Town Opera and Norrlandsoperan in Sweden. The opera portrays "a fictitional meeting between the 19-year-old Swedish poet Bengt Lidner, (born in 1757), one of Sweden’s greatest pre-romantic poets and Jula, a slave girl prophetess on board the Swedish East Indiaman "Terra Nova", bound for Canton by way of the Cape of Good Hope." Drawing inspiration from the Cattle-Killing, Gothe and Williams seek to answer: "But what was it about this young girl Nongqawuse that made her words the most potent of all the prophets? How was this girl able to convince kings and elders to slaughter their cattle, which would bring about the ruin of the Xhosas? Although fictitious their story represents the thousands of fascinating initial interactions that took place between the European and the African in South Africa."
>> Cape Town Opera's Poet and Prophetess Website |
 The Prophecy of the Cattle Killing: Nongqawuse (2006)
Johannesburg-based illustrator Nic Buchanan created his comic book company, Umlando Wezithombe, to illustrate South African history for the nation's youth. Umlando Wezithombe ("history of pictures") has created a series based on Nelson Mandela as well as other single-issue topics. One of their first creations depicted the Cattle-Killing as narrated by a Xhosa grandfather to his grandson and friend. Umlando Wezithombe distributed the comic book free to Johannesburg-area schools.
>> View Frames from the Nongqawuse Issue
>> Umlando Wezithombe's Website |
 Red Earth / Umhlaba Obomvu (2006)
This puppet show for children was written by Saskia Janse of Speeltheater Holland and performed by Macebo Mavuso and Tau Qwelane of Sisonke Arts. The show has been performed extensively throughout the Netherlands and South Africa. It story of the Cattle-Killing is narrated by a stork that migrates every year from Europe to South Africa and tries to understand the movement's history. "Maybe this mystery can never ever be unraveled. Everyone has his own interpretation of the facts. And can a bird that has his roots...in the North as [well as] in the South ever understand?"
>> Photos of the Performers
>> Red Earth Website |
 "The Cattle Killing of 1856/7, also known as Ibali Lika Nongqawuse" (2004)
This art exhibit displayed scenes from the Cattle-Killing and was comprised of seven paintings set up in a circle, part of what painter Andrew Nhlangwini calls "narrative painting." His exhibit was shown at the KZNSA Gallery in Durban in April 2004. Nhlangwini is a lecturer in the School of Art at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth.
>> Andrew's Cattle-Killing Series
>> More about Andrew |
 The Keiskamma Tapestry (2002)
This 120-meter-long embroidered tapestry visually narrates Xhosa history. It was presented at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and was created by the Keiskamma Art Project, founded by Carol Hofmeyr, a "community initiative providing women with the skills, materials and training for the production of art and craftwork; a forum in which to generate income; and, support in establishing their own small enterprises." Two of the Tapestry's panels represented the Cattle-Killing.
>> Photos of the Panels and the Tapestry's Debut
>> More about the Tapestry |
 "Nongqawuse" (2002)
Ceramic artist Lynnley Watson displayed her near-life-size ceramic statue of Nongqawuse at the 2002 National Arts Festival. Other work of hers has drawn from Cattle-Killing history, as Watson has also sculpted a bull (pictured here) and a cow.
|
| Other Creative Works |
The Heart of Redness (2000)
Zakes Mda's novel is simultaneously set during the Cattle-Killing and in post-apartheid South Africa. This novel is perhaps the best-known work related to the historical movement. |
"The Day of the Two Suns" (1999)
This episode of the SABC2 series, Saints, Sinners, and Settlers, puts Nongqawuse on trial in contemporary South Africa to determine her responsibility for the Cattle-Killing Movement. It was written by Zakes Mda. |
The Prophet (1999)
This musical drama/play, written by Brett Bailey, debuted at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Bailey is also the author of The Plays of Miracle & Wonder: Bewitching Visions and Primal High-Jinx from the South African Stage (2003). |
Mother to Mother (1998)
Mother to Mother is a novel by Sindiwe Magona that creatively recounts the murder of Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl during the fall of apartheid. Magona writes on the Cattle-Killing to explore issues of culpability, forgiveness, and historical circumstance. |
Nongqawuse's Prophecy (1995)
Author Karen Press and artist Jeff Rankin produced a short children's book about the prophetess and subtly manage the disparate interpretations of the movement. |
Nongqawuse: A Treachery of Winds (1988)
Nigel Maister's play creatively narrates the entire Cattle-Killing Movement and was originally produced at UCT's Arena Theatre in 1988. |
Pilgrimage to Dias Cross (1987)
Poet Guy Butler takes an imaginary pilgrimage to coastal South Africa in apartheid's final days, contemplating figures and events from the nation's tormented past. |
"The Cattle-Killing" (1970)
Thembu imbongi D.L.P. Yali-Manisi performed a spontaneous poem for Jeff Opland in December 1970 on Nongqawuse, George Grey, and the Cattle-Killing. Opland recorded the poem and printed it in his Words that Circle Words: A Choice of South African Oral Poetry (Parklands: A.D. Donker, 1992). See also Opland's "Imbongi Nezibongo: The Xhosa Tribal Poet and the Contemporary Poetic Tradition," PMLA 90, no. 2 (March 1975), 185-208. |
"The Cattle-Killing" (1959)
J.J.R. Jolobe's lengthy poem recounts the movement. This was originally published in his (Xhosa) book, Ilitha, but it was translated and republished in Guy Butler and Jeff Opland, eds., The Magic Tree: South African Stories in Verse (Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman, 1989). |
"Three Days in a Land of a Dying Illusion" (1979)
Mtutuzeli Matshoba's short story, which appeared in his book Call Me Not a Man, draws parallels between the absurdity of the Cattle-Killing Movement and that of the South African separate "homeland" system. |
The Girl Who Killed To Save (Nongqause the Liberator): A Play (1935)
H.I.E. Dhlomo's play is one of the earliest dramatic renderings of the movement and has been discussed by a few academics. See Jennifer Wenzel, "Voices of Spectral and Textual Ancestors: Reading Tiyo Soga alongside H.I.E. Dhlomo's 'The Girl Who Killed to Save,'" Research in African Literatures 36, no. 1 (2005), 51-73. |
U-Nongqause: Isiganeko so ku xelwa kwe nkomo 1857 (1924)
Mary Waters wrote this play (in isiXhosa), which reads at times as a religious moral tale. See Martin Orkin, "Contesting Prevailing Discourse: Nongqause and The Girl Who Killed to Save," presented at the History Workshop (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, 1987), which was later published in his book, Drama and the South African State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991). |
"Namjikwa: A Tale of the Cattle-Slaying of 1858" (1908)
This peculiar short story by Sanni Metelerkamp romanticizes Nongqawuse's intentions and draws upon hackneyed characterizations of Africans. This was republished in 1935 as "The Prophetess: A Tale of Cattle-Slaying, 1857." |
