Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Zululand, 2005. / This dissertation seeks to take up the challenge of contributing to such an understanding of chieftainship by looking at the chieftainship succession disputes in the Cele clan of Phungashe and AmaNgwane clan of Bergville in the Province of KwaZulu -Natal, South Africa. The incorporation of indigenous political structures within the wider South African state has a long history, starting from the movements of people from one area to the other, the formation of smaller chiefdoms and bigger chiefdoms and to the rise of the Zulu kingdom. The entire process of Zulu state formation has been through a series of succession disputes which exist among many clans even nowadays. Also, the role of successions runs from the arrangements of indirect rule at the latter part of the nineteen-century to the pivotal role played by traditional leaders in the homeland administration and after 1994, the recognition of the institution, status and role of traditional leadership in the country's first democratic constitution and the enactment of the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act. No. 41 of 2003 which makes provision for the establishment of the Chieftainship Dispute Resolution Commission.

Bibliography: pages 131-146. / There is presently considerable debate as to the forms of relationships established between hunter-gatherers and their non-forager neighbours and whether relationships which are documented as having been established significantly affected these hunter-gatherer societies. In southern Africa, particular attention has been paid to the effects of such contact on hunter- gatherer communities of the south-western Cape and the Kalahari. The aim of this thesis has been to assess the nature and extent of relationships established between the south-eastern San and southern Nguni and Sotho communities and to identify the extent to which the establishment of these relationships may have brought about changes in the political, social and religious systems of south- eastern hunter-gatherers. General patterns characterising interaction between a number of San and non-San hunter-gatherer societies and farming communities outside the study area are identified and are combined with archaeological and historiographical information to model relationships between the south-eastern San and southern Nguni and Sotho communities. The established and possible effects of these relationships on some south-eastern San groups are presented as well as some of the possible forms in which changes in San religious ideology and ritual practice resultant upon contact were expressed in the rock art. It is suggested that the ideologies of many south-eastern San communities, rather than being characterised by continuity throughout the contact period, were significantly influenced by the ideological systems of the southern Nguni and Sotho and that paintings at the caves of Melikane and upper Mangolong, as well as comments made upon these paintings by the 19th century San informant, Qing, should be interpreted with reference to the religious ideologies and ritual practices of the southern Nguni and Sotho as well as those of the San. Other rock paintings in areas where contact between the south-eastern San and black farming communities was prolonged and symbiotic may need to be similarly interpreted.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2008. / Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences, University of Glasgow, 2008. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Oslo, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [291]-304) and index.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Northwestern University, 2000. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-06, Section: A, page: 2423. Adviser: Jonathon Glassman.

This study explores severe mental illness in a South African ru~al district, moving, as with a zoom lens, from the macroperspectives of (i) Xhosa culture, and (ii) biomedicine, to the lived experience of the individual. Its methodology, predominantly qualitative, employed anthropological and psychological procedures. The fieldwork (1988-1989)encompassed a three month stay in the village of Msobomvu. Patients continued to be tracked informally until June, 1995. The empirical research has three parts. In part one, the person with a mental illness was contextualized within Xhosa cosmology and social attitudes. The cognitive and social ecologies were tapped through the narratives of high school and university students at different stages of a Western-biased education. Social attitudes regarding mental illness, and confidence in treatment by traditional healers and the hospital, were also evaluated. Traditional attitudes and supernatural beliefs of illness causation persisted in spite of Eurocentric education, with a concurrent increase in the acceptance of Western-type causal explanations commensurate with continued education. Part two considered the the patients in relation to (i) the biomedical framework (the mental and local hospitals), and (ii) their readjustment to the community after hospitalization. Data came from patient charts, interviews with medical staff, and follow-up visits in the villages. Socio-political and economic issues were salient. Part three case-studied people identified by the village residents as having a mental illness. Resources for treatment - traditional healers, mobile clinic, and village health workers - were the focus. The traditional healing system, and biomedicine, were compared for effectiveness, through the course of illness events. While biomedicine was more effective in containing acute psychotic episodes than treatment by the traditional healer, lack of appropriate resources within the biomedical setting had disastrous results for patient compliance and long-term management of the illness, particularly in people with obvious symptoms of bipolar disorder. The mental hospital emerged as an agent of control. While Xhosa culture provided a more tolerant setting for people with a mental illness, the course of severe mental illness was by no means benign, despite research suggesting a more positive outcome for such conditions in the developing world.

South African historiography has tended to follow the Great Trek and to avoid the area between the Kei River and Natal. As a result, hardly any attention has been given to an unspectacular but significant chapter in the story of relations between black and white in the nineteenth century. The purpose of this thesis is to explore this by-way, and to examine the relations of the Amampondo and the Colonial authorities at the Cape and Natal between 1830 and 1886. For the greater part of this period these relations were governed, nominally at least, by the Treaty of 1844, and an attempt has been made to assess its value as an Instrument regulating the dealings of a European power and a native tribe. The Treaty System, of which it formed a part, was the creature of a day. Built up between 1334 and 1844, it was swept away by the Frontier War of 1846 and the Bloemfontein Convention of 1854. It has therefore been necessary to ask why the Mpondo Treaty remained a living force for so many years after its counterparts had been abandoned.

This study presents the religious dynamics of the Wolaitta Kale Heywet Church through the work of her evangelists in southern Ethiopia from 1937-1975 and seeks to determine why there has been such phenomenal growth within the Wolaitta church and, through the agency of her evangelists, church development in southern Ethiopia. Other writers associated with the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) have attempted to explain this rapid growth during the Italian occupation (1936-1941) and subsequent years. Through a varied investigation of the historical, political, religious and socioeconomic situation of Wolaitta, this study attempts to bring further understanding and insight to the work of mission. Chapter One provides historical background on southern Ethiopia. The advance of Christianity into the South was through the instrumentality of the so-called Solomonic Northern kings together with the Orthodox Church evangelists in the 15th and 16th centuries. Historical documents produced by Ethiopians as well as Europeans who were in contact with the South are used. Several maps, portraying southern Ethiopia by European travelers, geographers and missionaries, prove helpful in attempting to understand the location and dislocation of the former Kingdom of Damot. Wolaitta oral history furthermore incorporates Damot far into the South. A brief linguistic survey of the languages of southern Ethiopia reveals the stability of the ethnic groups in the South for over one hundred and fifty years. A discussion of the numerous Wolaitta clans assists the reader in understanding the diversity contained within Wolaitta. It was from within this homogeneous grouping of clans that the Wolaitta Kingdom evolved in the middle of the 17th century.

M.A. (African Languages) / Please refer to full text to view abstract