New Information on the Early Life of Engenas Lekganyane

New Information on the Early Life of Engenas Lekganyane March 2019 About six years ago, dissatisfied with the extent of existing information, I set about trying to write a new biography of Engenas Lekganyane. It was obvious that Lekganyane was the most important religious figure in southern African history (at least from 1900 onwards), and that the extremely sparse set of records available around his life needed to be upgraded with new source material. Despite living in the United States and having to work in six different languages, I expanded the relevant data set relating to Engenas quite dramatically. Two weeks ago I found some new materials, more by luck than by design, which shows that our received understanding of Lekganyane’s background is incorrect. These new materials include the first known written references to Engenas and his father, Barnabas. They also show that almost all sources of information about Lekganyane, whether written or oral, have made the same basic mistake about him. As a result, I too have made the same error. The truth about Lekganyane’s background is difficult to describe, so in order to clarify the situation it is necessary to understand the basic misconception that has been made about him. Engenas Lekganyane was NOT a subject of the Mamabolo chieftaincy Almost every description of Lekganyane, whether made by government officials or by ZCC members, maintains that Lekganyane was born and grew up in the Mamabolo chieftaincy. This information is false. Why did everybody get this wrong? The answer is that Lekganyane was a resident of the Mamabolo Reserve from about 1920 to 1931, when he was expelled by Chief Athlone Mamabolo. At the time of his expulsion, Engenas was living on his own homestead, next to which he was building the first ZCC church (which also he abandoned). Engenas also attended school for three years inside the Mamabolo Reserve, most likely between 1904 and 1909. He was also closely related to many residents of the Reserve. These incontrovertible facts seem to make it obvious that he was a long-term Mamabolo subject. Unfortunately, knowing these details leads to incorrect conclusions. Engenas’s father, Barnabas Matsilane Lekganyane, was not a resident of the Mamabolo reserve, although he was born there. Instead, he lived most of his adult life on privately-owned farms. While it is true that Engenas attended the Presbyterian primary school in the Mamabolo Reserve called Mahlanhle as a teenager, he did not live inside the reserve at the time. The obvious reason that Engenas chose to attend Mahlanhle was that it was located right on the border of the Mamabolo territory, and hence it was easier to access than the other schools located more centrally. The truth about Barnabas Lekganyane and his family is that they were followers of a chief who failed to obtain recognition from either the Transvaal Republic or its successor, the Union of South Africa. As a result, this group was denied any “native reserve” of their own and were forced to scramble to obtain residence on White-owned farms. The life they lived, then, was highly insecure, resulting in constant movement. Many members of this group ended up, like Engenas, becoming private landowners in their own right. Engenas Lekganyane’s Early Life: Explained in Simple terms Sometime around 1870, the Mamabolo chieftaincy suffered a split following the death of Chief Seloane. Figure 1 Royal line of Mamabolo Chieftaincy. Source: Short History of the Native Tribes of the Transvaal. 1905. The elder brother, Mankweng Mamabolo, was chosen as successor, but had to resort to force to impose his claims on his younger brother, Sekwala. As a result, the Mamabolo chieftaincy split, and Sekwala moved north with his followers and settled on land controlled by Chief Dikgale (see Map 1) Map 1 Locations of Dikgale and Mphome. Kgopa at the bottom is the site of the modern-day Zion City Moriah. Engenas Lekganyane’s father, Barnabas Matsilane Lekganyane, was a supporter of Sekwala. He moved to Dikgale with Sekwala and settled there. So did Barnabas’s brother Adolf Lekganyane. The rest of the Lekganyanes, though, were not supporters of Sekwala, and remained behind. Barnabas’s wife, Sephora Raphela, also came from a family that also remained with Chief Mankweng. Engenas Lekganyane was most likely born in Dikgale around 1885. Neither he nor his parents were baptized by the Mphome Lutheran mission, so we will never know his birthdate. We can speculate that Barnabas fought in several wars alongside his fellow Mamabolo for the Pedi paramount Sekhukhune in the 1870s versus Boer and English forces. However, he was not a rich man, and obviously survived primarily through growing crops rather than owning cattle. At the time of Engenas’s birth in 1885, Barnabas and Sephora were not baptized and were probably not yet using their European names. Barnabas’s brother, Joseph Mahlakanye, had been baptized in 1879 and was a Lutheran. Many of Sephora Raphela’s male relatives were also believers, although her father, a sangoma, was one of the key figures who had opposed the introduction of Christianity in the area.. In 1895, when Engenas was about ten, Jacob Sekwala Mamabolo moved with his people away from Dikgale and took possession of sections of two farms known as Turfloop and Cyferkuil (see map 2) These farms were located where the University of Limpopo and the municipality of Mankweng are located today. Both farms were owned by a pair of White brothers from Polokwane, the Israelsohns. The Lekganyanes lived there for 8 difficult years. Map 2 Transvaal government map showing Cyferkuil and Turfloop (in red) next to the Mamabolo Location (called ‘Mabul’s Location). Jacob and his people attempted to buy Turfloop through the Israelsohns, although in the Transvaal Africans could not own private land and could only live on a designated “location”. Since Jacob Sekwala Mamabolo was not a recognized chief, he did not receive a location. Since he was in an impossible situation he tried to obtain Turfloop through intermediary White men, the Israelsohn Bros, who were to purchase the farm for him and allow him to live on it. Cyferkuil farm had a different arrangement. In exchange for living there, Jacob Mamabolo’s group had to work for the Israelsohns one day a week for six months a year, and two days a week for the other six months. When Jacob’s group first arrived, they had about 100 men and 500 total people. They found that the Israelsohns had other Africans on these farms, and that these people refused to leave. In order to take possession, Jacob’s group had to expel them using force. A fierce 4-day battle ensued, a number of people died, and Jacob’s people took over parts of the two farms. During 1896, things began to go wrong. A second year of severe drought occurred. The rinderpest epidemic hit southern Africa and over 90 percent of the cattle died, along with much game. Lots of Mamabolo died of starvation. When the South African War began in 1899, new forms of instability began. The Transvaal government forced many African men to serve its forces as labourers, and also confiscated much of the available stored food. Jacob Mamabolo’s people, unlike the larger group in the Mamabolo location, were spared the worst effects of the conflict. They remained on Turfloop and Cyferkuil and seem to have done fairly well, although chaos and disruption were all around them. Nor did things get better for Jacob Mamabolo’s group once the war ended. The arrangement with the Israelsohn brothers collapsed, and Jacob Mamabolo ended up in three different court cases with the brothers. One of the reasons that the situation changed was that, with the British having defeated the Afrikaners, Africans could now own their own farms. Jacob and his people had paid the Israelsohns about £400 in 1895 for Turfloop, but still owed £500. He and his inboekseling (ex-slave) secretary, Piet Maila, tried to alter their documents to show that they owned Turfloop and that they had lent the Israelsohns £500 in 1895. Meanwhile, Jacob ordered his people on Cyferkuil to stop working for the brothers as per the previous arrangement. His people also still had guns from the war, and Jacob refused to hand them in to the government as he was supposed to. In other words, he took up a very aggressive posture and tried to gain control of Turfloop farm through a mixture of intimidation and legal action. Jacob’s strategy backfired. His documents were not convincing and the new British administrators were not fooled. They also distrusted him due to his belligerent attitude. The new British Native Commissioner, then, agreed with the Israelsohns when they petitioned to expel Jacob Mamabolo’s group from Cyferkuil in 1902. He also ordered a policeman to seize some Mamabolo cattle so that they could be sold if Jacob’s people damaged the property while they were leaving. In this atmosphere of rising tension, the British police overstepped their authority and confiscated all of the Mamabolo cattle and livestock. Because Barnabas Lekganyane owned six head of cattle and some goats, and because Engenas was approaching adulthood, their names appear for the first time in writing in connection with these legal disputes (see Document 1 below) His livestock was confiscated for over a year. Document 1 Engenas Lekganyane’s (no 96 “Engnasus”) name appears for the first time in written form in a 1903 Transvaal Supreme Court document Although Jacob Mamabolo lost in his bid to gain control over Turfloop and Cyferkuil farms, he did successfully get his cattle back after petitioning the Transvaal Supreme Court. In the meantime, his people were allowed to remain on Cyferkuil to the end of 1903. Because the new British-dominated Transvaal government refused to recognize Jacob, he now had the same problem as before, namely, where to live. Lacking money to buy a farm, he rented a portion of a farm called Vierfontein (see map 3) adjacent to the main Mamabolo location. In other words, he was living next door to the group his father had seceded from some thirty years earlier. Most of his people could not stay with him, and most moved onto local White farms. Barnabas Lekganyane was highly fortunate as events evolved. Vierfontein farm was government-owned. For reasons that were never fully explained, Barnabas and some other of Jacob’s followers were also allowed to settle and farm on other parts of Vierfontein, and could do so without paying rent of any kind (see Document 2) So Barnabas and his family settled on the edge of the main Mamabolo location at Vierfontein. Map 3 showing Vierfontein farm to the west of Mamabolo location and Mahlanhle school. Document 2 1910 Transvaal document showing names of Jacob Sekwala’s followers on Vierfontein farm. Barnabas and his brother Adolf are listed. Izak Robodiba became Engenas’s father-in-law in 1918. This move to Vierfontein allowed Engenas, who was now about eighteen or nineteen years old, to go to school for the first time. The school he went to was run by a Free Church of Scotland mission led by the Rev William Mpamba. In 1895, just as Jacob Mamabolo’s group were leaving Dikgale and moving to Cyferkuil, Chief Setlomola Mamabolo rejected his past alliance with the Lutheran church due to quarrels over land. To replace them, he invited the Free Church of Scotland to start a mission on his location. This new mission, called Donhill, was placed right next to the homestead of Kamela Raphela, an uncle of Engenas’s mother, Sephora Raphela. Many of the Raphela family were converted Christians, although Sephora’s father, a sangoma, would not convert. Kamela Raphela had been converted to Christianity as a migrant worker in the Cape Colony in the 1870s, and was the leading member of the Donhill congregation. He had also preached prior to the arrival of Mpamba, although he was not formally recognized. One of his nephews, Ignatius Raphela, was also a prominent believer, and Engenas was probably named after him. Engenas is known is to have attended a mission school called Mahlanhle for three years (see map above). A look at the map below shows why he did this. Mahlanhle (named after Rev Mpamba’s sister-in-law, Annie Mahlentle, who was probably the headmistress) was located very close to Vierfontein farm. It was not the main Donhill mission school, which had far more pupils. It would appear that the Lekganyanes became Christians after their move to Vierfontein. Engenas, according to his son, Edward, was baptized into the Free Church of Scotland. Meanwhile, Engenas’s father, who had previously been called Matsilane, now shows up in records as Barnabas. We do not know the African name of Engenas’s mother, Sephora, but we can speculate whether she took the name “Sephora” after the first Mamabolo woman to convert to Christianity. The first “Ziphora” was baptized as far back as the 1860s on a Boer farm, and was a well-known figure among Mamabolo believers such as Kamela and Ignatius Raphela. In 1910 Engenas left home and began a period of migrant labour in Boksburg. He then joined the new Pentecostal movement there. He was a fervent believer, and formed a congregation of the Apostolic Faith Mission in the Mamabolo Location (see Map 3 above) when he returned from working in Tzaneen in early 1915. For reasons that are unclear, Engenas was not given a preaching license at this time by the Apostolic Faith Mission. Only in 1918 did Engenas get one, although he soon went and worked at the Zebediela irrigation project for the next few years. By the early 1920s, though, he was back and living full-time in the Mamabolo location as the head of the newly-formed Zion Apostolic Faith Mission, aka “Five Mission”. Based on a number of different oral traditions, it is undeniable that he was a resident there until 1931, when he was expelled by Chief Athlone Mamabolo. He had his own homestead and fields in the southern portion of the location, and was in the process of constructing a church building for the church he had founded in 1925--the ZCC (see picture below). Engenas Lekganyane’s abandoned church in the Mamabolo Location His father, Barnabas, meanwhile, left Vierfontein in 1922 along with Jacob Mamabolo and settled on Doornfontein, north of the Mamabolo Location. When Jacob tried to buy another farm in the early 1930s, Barnabas was no longer alive. Conclusion What does all this mean? It is highly doubtful that Engenas was born near the sacred Mt Thabakgone in the Mamabolo Location as he later claimed. He was almost certainly born at Dikgale. He only moved into the vicinity of Mt Thabakgone in 1904 when his family relocated to Vierfontein farm. Engenas Lekganyane only became a subject of the Mamabolo chieftaincy and a resident of the Mamabolo Location around 1918-20. This was not by virtue of birth, but by virtue of his status as the leader of Zionist congregations based there. So his status was similar to that of the Rev William Mpamba, who moved to the location when Donhill mission began. Engenas’s early life was an unstable period. His community, the Jacob Sekwala Mamabolo faction, was unable to control its own land and was permanently unsettled for over fifty years. This may explain Engenas’s strong attachment to Mt Thabakgone, which he adopted as his spiritual home even though it was not really where he was from. Engenas, like many of the men who came from the Jacob Sekwala Mamabolo faction, was also obsessed with owning his own farms. He, along with dozens of others from his community, eventually became a private landowner in the 1930s.