Selected 20th and 21st century representations of tribalism and modernity in South African literature: reassessing socio-historical process through (re)considerations of works of verbal art

Opening with a brief historical contextualisation, the article takes the reader back to humanity’s prehistoric origins in southern Africa, then to its (and mankind’s) earliest known culture, that of the San/Bushmen, followed by the (returning) migrations of Khoikhoi and Bantu peoples to the area. Usings even literary texts, discussed in their order of composition, the article discusses these evocations as representing a spectrum of ways in which regional tribal cultures were, are or may be seen.The Khoikhoi elder Hendrik’s tale, told as well as transcribedin Afrikaans [now available in an English translation], is the first text; it addresses the ability of a tribal culture to correct aleader’s power abuse by means of verbal art and skill. Secondly, the great Xhosa poet S. E. K. Mqhayi’s advocation of a balance between tribal and Christian values is addressed, followed by Bessie Head’s critique of women’s denigration, seen as facilitated by Batswana tribal and modern cultures. Lauretta Ngcobo in her second novel evokes a dignified rural black woman’s struggles with the exclusionary and oppressive effects of both apartheid and Zulu tribal customs, while Zakes Mda’s novel achieves a wise and ironically tinged balance in depicting tribal traditionalism and modernity in a Xhosa village. David Donald’s is a delicately empathetic evocation of a dwindling Bushman culture besetby both white and black incursions in early colonial times, while (lastly) the essay considers the recent novel by Thando Mgqolozana which warns, in a devastating account, of the physical and psychological harm effected by the deteriorating practice of circumcision of young males among the AmaXhosa. This mosaic of texts establishes the strengths as well as the dangers of a range of southern African tribal cultures over arange of time and in different settings.