This work is a school-based case study conducted amongst learners of a rural High School and the immediate community in Whittlesea in the Eastern Cape where I teach. The research was conducted by using different research methods such as worksheets, questionnaires, interviews, practical activities and observations as well as photographs to investigate three indigenous wild local vegetable food plants (imifino). The fundamental assumption of the research is that, imifino can be looked after and cared for, to become valuable vegetable food plants which can be used as supplements to the cultivated vegetable food plants (umfuno). The question was: How could this concept be brought into the curriculum? It had also been assumed that bringing knowledge of imifino into curriculwn contexts could be of benefit to South African learners. The study produced a variety of findings: • There is a general feeling that those who eat imifino are the poor. • There is a lack of interest among women interviewed in the preparation process, for example going to pick the food plants from the fields, washing them and preparing the leaves as food. • AmaXhosa males look upon eating imifino with contempt. • Some males among the younger generation are beginning to overlook tradition and are eating imifino. • Inclusion of indigenous agricultural knowledge in the curriculum was supported by learners and community members. Learners have interest in knowing about indigenous food plants. • Learners feel as Africans that they must learn about the indigenous food plants in school in order not to lose knowledge of these plants completely. • The study also identified that interpretation of learning outcomes with an indigenous knowledge focus, requires careful attention to socio-cultural factors, and not just technical/ practical factors. Previous knowledge of learners and community members about imifino was mobilized to develop a sample OBE learning programme unit (LPU /Lesson plan) for the Grade 10 FET of Agricultural Science curriculum. The case study illustrates that Learning outcome 3 of the Agricultural Science subject can be achieved if educators involve learners and community members in developing learning programmes.

This thesis is an attempt to reopen the debate on the whole question of inculturation in Southern Africa especially in light of the fact that we are now in a multi-lingual and multi-religious state. It is an attempt to rehighlight the plight of the spirituality of the amaXhosa people over the last century when missionary and imperial onslaught relegated it to the doldrums. This plunged the amaXhosa in a crisis that has left them directionless, to put it mildly. This is said because the total onslaught destroyed their self-respect and their identity and begs the question as to whether their acceptability to God was contingent on renouncing their culture especially the hidden presences - Qamata, the living-dead and the notion of evil spirits. It is precisely because of these misconceptions regarding African culture and spirituality that the thesis has a strong expository and apologetic bias primarily aimed to address, and put into proper perspective, the significance of the Supreme Being, the living-dead and the evil spirits in African culture. The issues are discussed within the broader socio-historical context. The thesis is basically comparative in that it uses Celtic spirituality and the approach of the early Celtic church to the question of inculturation as its point of departure and as a foil against which the preposterous actions of the church in Africa should be seen. This comparative element is also reflected in the unmistakable `dichotomy’ of Western religion and African spirituality, or better still, lack of spirituality, that was so fervently maintained by the missionaries and the colonialists alike. It is for this reason that I concur with Chidester (1996:xiv) that `the study of religion must find itself, once again, on the frontier’. The study is informed by this approach right through. It should be stressed, from the outset, that the idea is not comparison in order to satisfy our curiosity, nor is it comparison in order to try to authenticate and vindicate the beleaguered African culture. The central idea of the study is to expose the absurdity of the policies of the past century in this regard. The myth of the pure blooded Christianity is confronted, if not exploded. Several examples of both inculturation and continuities between Christianity and other faiths such as the Jewish founding faith are given. The subtheme of cultural domination subtly spans the whole study culminating in Chapter Four where the blacks begin to appropriate some of the Christian symbols and the whites also begin to assimilate African concepts such as ubuntu.

The recognition of the close link between the lifestyles of 'indigenous' and 'local' people and biodiversity is widely acknowledged as crucial, not only for the survival of biological diversity but also for the protection of cultural diversity. Most discussions centre on the argument that cultural diversity can, through a wide variety of uses and practices, sustain and conserve biodiversity, particularly in many developing countries. However, local people's relationship with natural landscapes and the extent to which they value biodiversity has not been fully explored and is in most cases misunderstood, which in fact undermines the bio-cultural diversity link. This misunderstanding exists primarily because the majority of environmental or ecological research conducted so far has been oriented towards economic valuation, in quantifying the estimated value of plants and fauna utilised by local people. As a result, biodiversity is primarily treated as a commodity, with wild harvested plant products being classified as either having subsistence, or commercial and medicinal value. This approach is narrow and conceals the critical, profound noneconomic values of biodiversity among local communities in everyday life. Literature indicates that biodiversity and natural landscapes also include less tangible values such as spiritual, cultural, psychological and social values (e.g., sense of place, place attachment, and psychologically restorative effects) which are crucial to human well-being. This suggests that human-nature interaction is complex, and that the meanings and values that people ascribe to natural landscapes cannot be solely reduced to economic values. Nevertheless, to date, studies investigating these less tangible values have received little attention in South Africa. As a result, we have very little understanding of what local and indigenous communities value or appreciate with regard to natural landscapes, beyond their general economic significance. This study seeks to address this particular limitation by exploring non-economic values of natural landscapes and their significances to local people while illuminating the complexities inherent in human-nature interactions. I argue that the purely economic valuation of natural resources is simplistic and biased, and therefore does not represent the complete meaning and significance that natural resources may hold for local communities and households. Therefore, this study takes an innovative psychological approach to explore in detail the everyday lived experiences of the amaXhosa in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It seeks to investigate the cultural, spiritual, and psychological values that ordinary people attach to natural landscapes in the peri-urban and urban communities of Ndlambe Village l and Grahamstown respectively. This research also aims to study the general perceptions of and meanings ascribed to the natural landscape (referred to by the amaXhosa as ihlathi lesiXhosa). In addition, it carefully integrates the Phenomenological and Transactional approaches to investigate how the amaXhosa engage, interact, and find meaning within the natural landscape. Furthermore, the study explores the impact of such landscape experiences on local people's spiritual and psychological well-being, demonstrating it link to bio-cultural diversity and conservation. The major findings in this study reflect that ihlathi lesiXhosa provides a place for peace and tranquillity to enhance psychological restoration. Moreover, ihlathi contributes towards redefining and strengthening personal and cultural identity; and provides spiritual satisfaction in everyday life. Overall, the findings of this study indicate that i!liathi lesiXhosa plays a profound role in both the personal and social lives of many amaXhosa in the Eastern Cape in that it appears to improve their lives. Therefore, the evidence in this study suggests that, among the amaXhosa, biodiversity and natural landscape management processes should not aim to address and promote ecologicallbiological and economic values in a compartmentalized manner independent of other social, cultural, psychological, and more specifically the spiritual values of these features. An increased understanding of these more intangible values and local people's value system of biodiversity could help towards implementing improved biodiversity conservation and landscape management strategies in South Africa. These insights would not only help us to address the challenges of the previous conservation framework but would also encourage a more inclusive, mutual benefiting process that respects local people's values and needs.

This thesis examines three contestations involving human remains which have arisen in the Eastern Cape over the past fifteen years. It shows that the value or meaning attached to human remains is constructed through the socio-historical dynamics out of which these contestations arise. The meaning and value of human remains is neither inherent nor neutral. In Ndancama's case, the need for housing in Fingo Village led hundreds of poor residents to settle on the township's Old Cemetery in 1972. Basic material needs trumped concerns for those buried in the cemetery. When the post-apartheid municipality sought to provide sewerage and housing infrastructure for Ndancama in 2003, its development plans were constrained by new heritage legislation which protects historic cemeteries. Residents insisted that their infrastructural needs were of primary importance. In 1993, the unearthing of human remains at the Old Military Cemetery in King William's Town created a thirteen year long saga which was only resolved with the reburial of the remains in 2006. The presence of the remains proved problematic for a number of reasons. Local authorities failed to rebury the remains speedily. The burden to store them fell on the Kaffrarian Museum which came under fire because this was considered unethical in the postapartheid era. The identity of the remains became a bone of contention in 2006 when the new Amathole District Municipality concluded that the remains were those of victims who died in the 1856-57 Great Cattle Killing. The remains and their reburial became symbols of past injustice and present restoration of African heritage. The 1996 quest by 'Nicholas Gcaleka', a 'self-styled' chief and traditional healer, to search for King Hintsa's skull in the United Kingdom provoked unprecedented public engagement with the incomplete narrative on the fate of Hintsa's body. The power to represent history, and the methods through which historical truth is discovered were at the heart of the contestation. Elites such as the Xhosa Royal and the white scientific establishment were considered neither credible nor authoritative on this historical matter. Public support for Gcaleka revealed that many South Africans sought just recompense for colonial injustices.

‘Ulwaluko’ (the male initiation custom) has been practised for generations by many cultures in South Africa and in Africa as a whole. AmaXhosa are amongst the population groups in South Africa within whom this custom has survived pre colonially and through the colonial and apartheid eras up to the current democracy. While this custom was reserved for older, mature and senior boys in the past, there is evidence that nowadays immature and junior boys as young as 12 years are taken to the initiation school. This study sought to understand how these newly graduated initiated men (amakrwala) cope with their multifaceted identities, as learners in a secondary school and as adults in the community. The study also seeks to explore a leadership style that can be sensitive to the needs of ‘amakrwala’ at school. This is a qualitative study which used interpretivism as the research paradigm. Phenomenology is the research design and phenomenological interviews were used as the data gathering tools. The findings reveal that there are tensions that exist between modernity and tradition in socialising amakrwala. The school represents the modern space and the home and community are the traditional spaces. In the formal school environment there is minimal or no recognition of the new identity of the ‘amakrwala’. At school ‘amakrwala’ are seen as learners. Their identity and status remain unchanged from what they were before they went to the initiation school. However, in the community and at home, they are elevated from a childhood to an adult status and their identities are thus re-shaped.

This thesis covers a period of drastic change in that part of Xhosaland later known as Victoria East. Chapters one and two deal with the clash between the Glasgow missionaries at Lovedale and the amaXhosa who were expected to simply discard their way of life in favour of the new dispensation. Chapter three explains the arrival in the Eastern Cape of the amaMfengu, formerly called abaMbo, and their role in the divisive policies of the colonial government. Chapter four recounts the brief interlude (1836-1846) during which the colonial government tried but ultimately rejected a more equitable model of cross-border relations known as the Treaty System. The final chapter deals with the introduction of direct rule over the newly-created district of Victoria East, and with the policies of Henry Calderwood, its first magistrate, which were artfully constructed to perpetuate ‘Divide and Rule’ so as to maintain a comfortable life for the white settlers in the border area.

Funeral leaders share the ministry of comfort with others. They make a specific religious contribution towards restoring life or decontaminating from death, which affects the faith and hope of the bereaved. Their ministry responds to a need of the bereaved by affirming community in the face of death. It is based on spirituality and grounded in the biblical and apostolic tradition; it is carried out in a catholic contextualisation. The leaders' insertion into both the cultural background and the religious realm encourages contextualisation. Their verbal proclamation is done in various ways and is linked to ritual. It reflects the three dimensions of the model employed in pastoral theology by taking life seriously, interpreting it in the light of faith, and leading a celebration that opens up the future of the participants. The leaders' proclamation is sincere when they link cultural family-procedures and church rituals in a parallel way. Sincerity suffers when community leaders, used to provide a comprehensive service, cannot preside over the promised celebration of the Eucharist, which could be the culmination of the rite of passage. Their ministry remains incomplete because of factors beyond their control. It nevertheless contributes to justice in many ways, in particular by deploying local people. While the ministry is carried out independently, it depends on collaboration with the pastoral staff, in particular the priests. They safeguard the quality of ministry by formation and through supervision. The collaborative formation contributes to the cultural insertion of the local and expatriate staff and enhances their competence. This collaborative ministry serves the bereaved, the community of faith, and theology. It allows the development of a contextualised liturgy, and a local theology. It is a step forward on the road towards a genuine form of community ministry in this particular African context. It corresponds with contemporary secular approaches towards leadership and management. African approaches emphasise the need for contextualised management forms. They assume the compatibility of different practices employed in different contexts. The comprehensively grounded ministry seems to contribute to the avoidance or overcoming of some of the grave shortcomings of ministry as provided in the past. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D.Th. (Missiology)

Funeral leaders share the ministry of comfort with others. They make a specific religious contribution towards restoring life or decontaminating from death, which affects the faith and hope of the bereaved. Their ministry responds to a need of the bereaved by affirming community in the face of death. It is based on spirituality and grounded in the biblical and apostolic tradition; it is carried out in a catholic contextualisation. The leaders' insertion into both the cultural background and the religious realm encourages contextualisation. Their verbal proclamation is done in various ways and is linked to ritual. It reflects the three dimensions of the model employed in pastoral theology by taking life seriously, interpreting it in the light of faith, and leading a celebration that opens up the future of the participants. The leaders' proclamation is sincere when they link cultural family-procedures and church rituals in a parallel way. Sincerity suffers when community leaders, used to provide a comprehensive service, cannot preside over the promised celebration of the Eucharist, which could be the culmination of the rite of passage. Their ministry remains incomplete because of factors beyond their control. It nevertheless contributes to justice in many ways, in particular by deploying local people. While the ministry is carried out independently, it depends on collaboration with the pastoral staff, in particular the priests. They safeguard the quality of ministry by formation and through supervision. The collaborative formation contributes to the cultural insertion of the local and expatriate staff and enhances their competence. This collaborative ministry serves the bereaved, the community of faith, and theology. It allows the development of a contextualised liturgy, and a local theology. It is a step forward on the road towards a genuine form of community ministry in this particular African context. It corresponds with contemporary secular approaches towards leadership and management. African approaches emphasise the need for contextualised management forms. They assume the compatibility of different practices employed in different contexts. The comprehensively grounded ministry seems to contribute to the avoidance or overcoming of some of the grave shortcomings of ministry as provided in the past. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D.Th. (Missiology)

A qualitative research design and an ethno-nursing research method were used to identify cultural factors influencing Xhosa women's health seeking behaviours associated with breast lumps. Focus group interviews were conducted to obtain data. The research results revealed that these Xhosa women with breast lumps did not disclose some cultural factors which influenced their health seeking behaviours associated breast lumps. Registered nurses, sharing the same culture and language as the Xhosa women, revealed that Xhosa women with breast lumps sought treatment from traditional healers, prior to seeking medical care from the hospital and/or clinics. When they arrive at the hospital/clinics the breast lumps have often progressed to advanced ulcerated breast cancer, with poor prognoses and poor treatment outcomes. Xhosa women lacked knowledge about the management of breast lumps. Health promotion efforts should address this issue at Primary Health Care services in the Eastern Cape. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

[Preface]:In 1862 Grahamstown acquired the dignity, pride and responsibility of full municipal status by its own Act of Incorporation. Ibis Act marked the consolidation of Grahamstown's era of local government by its vigorous and far-sighted Municipal Board of Commissioners, which was established in 1837 and has been examined in depth in K.S. Hunt's thesis on Grahamstown municipal government up to 1862. Clearly, the year 1862 is the logical beginning for a further study of Grahamstown's changing position in the Eastern Cape and its development in the practice of local government during the crucial decades of the 1860's and 1870's. But the choice of 1882 to mark the end of this thesis is in some ways arbitrary. 1882 does not appear to be a turning point, a year of major significance in either the history of Grahamstown or of the Colony as a whole. Besides the convenient time-span of twenty years, there are various factors which, taken together, explain why 1882 is a useful date of demarcation from which to take stock and review Grahamstown's economic, political, social and municipal position after two vital decades in its history. In the civic sphere,the opening of Grahamstown's Town Hall made tangible,in solid Victorian design,a long held ambition of the City Councillors. Buildings, in Victorian attitudes, throughout the British Empire, were regarded as very important civic symbols. One can learn much of Grahamstown Victorian attitudes from the lengthy process of attaining a Town Hall. A much more elaborate ceremony surrounded the opening of the Jubilee Tower, an occasion for assessing the influence of Grahamstown's Settler heritage on the development of the town. Municipal problems concerning finance, water and "native" locations remained thorny questions as they had throughout the period 1862-32. Generally 1882 was a year of transition for Grahamstown and the Colony as a whole. Economically it appeared to start prosperously but 1882 actually marked the beginning of a severe depression which lasted until 1386. It is important to consider how Grahamstown’s economic development relates to the overall economic picture of the Cape Colony at this juncture. Though ostrich feather prices remained high in 1882, the ensuing depression was caused partly by the rapid overexpansion of the industry but most important of all, by a reaction to an inflated era of confidence during the diamond boom years of the 1870's and their consequent easy Bank credit plus intense speculation. Politically 1882 also appeared a year of transition. How to maintain the uneasy peace after the Basuto war remained a constant challenge to Scanlen's ministry. The beginnings of active party conflict in the workings of responsible government were evident only in embryo. The rapid growth of the Afrikaner Bond was to change this. Specifically in relation to the practice of local government in the Cape Colony, the General Municipal Act No. 45 was passed during the Parliamentary session of 1882, enabling any town to seek incorporation. The query is raised as to how far the modus vivendi of the Grahamstown municipality helped frame the clauses of this general Municipal enabling Act. For these various reasons, as well as the additional one that twenty years was found to offer a manageable research unit, 1882 has been decided on as the limit of this thesis. This thesis aims, through a careful examination of Grahamstown's economic, political but particularly civic development, to determine and trace the nature of the Grahamstown community's response to the challenge of the gradual isolation of the 1860's and 1870's. Grahamstown's civic history provides fascinating insights into the structure of the entire community and its attitudes and values. Study has been made of the following major primary sources for the history of Grahamstown 1862-1882: the Grahamstown Municipality records, complete except for incoming letters and housed in the Cape Archives, und the Grahamstown newspapers for the period. The most prolific as well us the most valuable newspaper source of the period is The Grahamstown Journal, a newspaper with a tradition firmly bound up with the formulation of frontier as well as Grahamstown thought, kingpin of the network built up by the successors of Robert Godlonton, the "architect of frontier opinion". It has to be treated with caution as a source because of this very bias. The Council Minutes themselves, meticulously recorded in the Town Clerk's copperplate Victorian script, are scrupulously objective, recording blandly proposers, seconders and fates of motions. What might appear the bare bones of a detailed study of the municipal records yet reflects the economic climate of the town, political opinions, class and race attitudes, civic pride, concepts of public health and charity. The newspapers are a vital addition to the Municipal records themselves. The weekly meetings received faithful, accurate and very copious coverage from press-representatives present at every ordinary meeting. Indeed these reports give a vivid immediacy to the meetings and reveal opinions, pressure groups and lines of conflict within the Council, on issues important and trivial. These, at times lively and enlivening, sometimes stormy meetings, are reported with an authenticity which makes one suspect that often words of speeches were given verbatim - personalities of the Councillors certainly emerge distinctly. Full newspaper coverage is also given to the meetings of the Albany Divisional Council. The annual reports of the Civil Commissioners and Resident Magistrates, which appear in the Parliamentary Blue Books of the period, provide some valuable economic comment on the vicissitudes of life in the eastern frontier districts from 1862-1882. Such information builds useful background for a study of Grahamstown's economic and social development. Efforts have been made to locate probable sources of family papers of one of the most influential Grahamstown families of the period, the Wood family, but to no avail. If any exist they would without doubt have given interesting insight into the business connections of leading Grahamstown men and possibly given an indication of how far civic and political connections linked with religious and family influences in Victorian Grahamstown. Jim's Journal, manuscript in Cory Library, is a record of letters sent home to England by James Butler, while on a visit to the Cape,1876-79 for his health. He provides illuminating glimpses into the day to day life of Grahamstown from a Quaker viewpoint. Taken together, these sources provide considerable insights into the life and times of Grahamstown in the second half of the nineteenth Century. A municipal study examines an area in its totality: it encompasses a study of minutiae within the context of general trends. This fact alone suggests that there are many sources on the history of Grahamstown which have not yet been discovered, but this assessment is submitted on the basis of a thorough study of those which are currently available.