The Xhosa people of the south-eastern part of South Africa have been involved in migratory labour for three generations and more. This study is concerned with the experience of migrant labour among the Gcaleka, who form part of the Xhosa cluster, and who reside in the Willowvale district of the Transkei. It is primarily an attempt to examine and understand the ways in which conservative ("red") Gcaleka society has adapted to the institution of large scale, oscillating labour migration, by looking at the "meaning" of migrant labour to the people involved, and in terms of the relationship between rural social structure and going out to work in town or mine. Much of this meaning and of the relationship between structure and migration is evident in certain ritual and symbolic actions which are associated with a labour migrant's departure from and return to the community. The bulk of the study, therefore, is taken up with a description and analysis of these "rituals of labour migration". An attempt has been made also to relate the rituals of labour migration to the structural principles of society and to underlying moral and religious beliefs and values, and also to the wider Southern African socio-political framework of which the Gcaleka are part. During fieldwork constant reference was made by informants to (ukwakh' umzi) the importance of "building the homestead" and the role of migrant labour in this. The procedure followed here, therefore, after having dealt with basic "background" material and having given an indication of the economic dependence of Gcaleka on migrant labour, is to take the individual homestead as a central reference point. Certain important aspects of social and religious life (kinship, ward section organization, economic relationships and the ancestor cult) are discussed from the point of view of the homestead and the relationships between homesteads in order to outline basic social organizational principles and to identify the socio-economic importance and cultural meaning of migratory labour to conservative Gcaleka. This leads into a discussion of Gcaleka morality in an attempt to demonstrate that the two basic organizational pr inc iples, patrilineali ty and neighbourhood, and their interrelationship, have a counterpart in moral thought. This discussion involves also some tentative ideas regarding the nature of the relationship between morality and religion in this society. All this, it is hoped, provides a basis for the description and analysis of the rituals of labour migration, which follow and which express, inter alia, the importance of the homestead, the organizational importance of kinship and neighbourhood, and certain basic moral precepts. Particular attention is paid to the most elaborate and spectacular of these rituals, the umsindleko beer drink. A separate section is devoted to an attempted analysis of the rituals in terms of Van Gennep's well known schema of rites de passage. Here the absent migrant is viewed as being one who has been separated from society and who has entered a liminal state, to be incorporated back into society once he returns from work. The extent to which liminality is accompanied by the experience of what Victor Turner calls "communitas" is also considered. The general conclusion is that the rituals of labour migration serve as a cultural device to rigidly separate the world of work from the morally superior home reality, to reinforce acceptance of the culturally determined role of migratory labour and migrant labourers and to relate the migratory experience to rural social structure in such a way that the threat of migrant labour is overcome and the rural structure strengthened. To answer the question of why this standpoint towards labour migration has been adopted, it is necessary to outline the position of the Gcaleka within the political economy of Southern Africa, and it is argued that the maintenance of conservatism and the interpretation of migrant labour in terms of the rural structure is largely a response to this position