Heart of Redness Essays

Heart of Redness Essays Heart of Redness Essay Heart of Redness Essay 15 October 2013 Heart of Redness Paper The cattle killing movement in the 19th century has proven to be a complex topic, and it is difficult to unravel the different perspectives held about this historical event. Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda is a historical fiction novel, which portrays the different viewpoints held about the cattle killing, both while it was happening, and in the aftermath in almost present day, and portrays a lot of the personal feelings held about the cattle killing. The JAH Article, The Central Beliefs of the Cattle Killing, by Jeff Peires gives the different views on the cattle killing from the perspectives of istorians. In Heart of Redness, the tension between the Believers and the Unbelievers has built up immensely, and the historical reasons (and misbeliefs) behind the Believers and Unbelievers original views on the cattle-killing, as shown in the article, are important in analyzing the struggle for these two groups to cohesively live together. The Believers felt strongly that the cattle killing was necessary in order to purify the amaXhosa and allow for the ancestors to be resurrected and replenish their stock with new fields, and healthy cows. Peires states that a lot of historians pin he cattle killing movement on tradition. The amaXhosa practiced purifying themselves, and sacrificing before the lung sickness arose, but historians and anthropologists are mistaken in calling it traditional in any way. As Peires puts it, Whatever traditional patterns may have existed in Xhosaland before 1856, they certainly did not include mass destruction of basic subsistence needs or the expectation of an imminent resurrection of the dead (Peires, 44). The Believers would not have risked the lives of the entire community without truly believing that he ancestors would be resurrected. Peires mentions that the Xhosa believe that the dead are still walking among the living, but in a different form, so their resurrection is very plausible thought. This combined with the fact that people were devastated by the lung sickness in the cows, and the hope that they could be saved was very appeasing. They truly believed that this was the most effective way to ensure their prosperity. They also believed that witchcraft among the amaXhosa caused the lung sickness to contaminate the cattle. In Heart of Redness, Mhlakaza says The existing attle are rotten and unclean. They have been bewitched. They must all be destroyed. You have all been wicked, and therefore everything that belongs to you is bad (Mda, 54). The Believers thought that it was necessary to go through a cleansing stage in order to regain healthy cattle, because they thought the lung sickness was due to their bad behavior. Although killing all the cattle and burning the crops was extreme, and not very plausible, their reasoning behind the movement is spiritually based and Justifies their actions. On the other side of the spectrum, the Unbelievers efused to kill their cattle, because they did not believe that the ancestors would return with the slaughtered cattle, but that the cattle killing would cause the amaXhosa to be left even more devastated. They thought that the actions of the Bellevers were going to Tar. Atter lwln Klllea some 0T lwln- lwlns cattle ana trampled over his crops, he begins to burn the homesteads of the Unbelievers. Twin-Twin is outraged, and hid the rest of the cattle before the Believers killed all of them. After the First and Second Disappointments, the Believers began to fade in their trust in the cattle killing movement. This also gave the Unbelievers more reason to go against the cattle killing, and many people began to question the prophets. King Sarhili is especially wavering when he says, How can we trust these prophets when they fail to keep there word? Until the prophets keep their word I shall command that the slaughter of the cattle should stop (Mda, 130). The Unbelievers take this as a sign that the Believers are wrong in their position, and they end up siding with the colonizers on the issue of cattle killing. Although the cattle-killing movement as a whole was not plausible, a lot of the heories held by the colonists are even more incredulous. When the British governor says, This whole cattle-killing movement is not Just superstitious delusion. It is a plot by the two chiefs cold-blooded political scheme to involve the government in war, and to bring a host of desperate enemies on us, he implies that he thinks that the chiefs (Believers) are promoting the Cattle Killing for personal gain rather than communal gain through war (Mda, 135). Although the Cattle Killing movement itself was not as plausible a theory as the philosophy of those who did not participate, hese assumptions that the British were making about the Believers a re extreme. Not only is this fact portrayed in Heart of Redness, but Peires also states that this theory was a very commonly held belief among Governor Grey and the colonists. That being said, those who were spearheading the cattle-killing movement were not necessarily looking for war (although they believed that the ancestors would drive away enemies) but are looking for their ancestors to return with the prosperity (cattle and crops) of the amaXhosa, free of lung sickness. Peires states that after the first ailure of the prophecies, in August 1856, the believers seem to have reached the conclusion that they had erred in excluding the whites and the Christians, showing that the Believers were looking more for the well-being of the amaXhosa, rather than the downfall of the white settlers (Peires, 56). In Heart of Redness, this is portrayed when Mhlakaza invites the colonists to Join them in the cattle killing, so that they may experience redemption as well (Mda, 133). This clearly shows that the intentions of the Believers was to raise the lives the of amaXhosa, and not to start a war that would rive away the white settlers. Of course, the British refused to kill their cattle, and although this led to more tensions between the Believers and the colonists, the British ultimately decided to go with the more rational of the two sides. Both the novel and the article show that the cattle killing is a complex issue because it pits the spirituality of the amaXhosa against rational thought about depleting their already shrinking supplies. The lung sickness in the cattle brought many rifts into the Xhosa community, and the schism between the Believers and Unbelievers is still present in many current events today.