A chief is a chief by the women? The Nazaretha Church, gender, and traditional authority in Mtunzi, South Africa, 1900-48

In a historiography that paints relations between chiefs and women as antagonistic, the history of the Nazaretha Church in Mtunzini, South Africa in the early twentieth century sheds light on conditions that allowed chiefs and women to find common ground. During the era of segregation, Mtunzini was, on one hand, subject to relatively less interference from white government officials, but, on the other, ravaged by social and economic change. In this context, the Nazaretha Church flourished thanks to the support of many chiefs and women. The religious community not only proposed new answers to related questions about health, healing, and morality, but it also afforded chiefs and women important social options amid rural decline and challenges to traditional authority. (Author abstract)