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Chieftainship in Transkeian Political Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

David Hammond-Tooke
David Hammond-Tooke
Affiliation:
Professor of Social Anthropology and Head of the Department of African Studies, Rhodes University, Grahamstown
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Extract

In November 1963 the inhabitants of the Transkeian Territories, the largest block of Bantu reserve in the Republic of South Africa, went to the polls to elect representatives for a Legislative Assembly, upon whom the responsibility for the government of this, the first so-called ‘Bantustan’ to achieve a limited form of self-government, is to be laid. The election was the culminating point in a series of changes in the administrative structure of the area which have been characterised by an emphasis on the institution of chieftainship as the basis of local government. After approximately 60 years of rule through magistrates (later supplemented by a system of district councils) the Bantu Authorities Act of 1955 was introduced, giving greatly enhanced powers to the Chiefs, who now became the heads of the tribally-structured Bantu Authorities.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , December 1964 , pp. 513 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

Page 515 note 1 Viz. Xhosa, Thembu, Mpondo, Mpondomise, Bhaca, Ntlangwini, Xesibe, Bomvana, Hlubi, Bhele, Zizi, and Mfengu. See also Hammond-Tooke, W. D., ‘Segmentation and Fission in Cape Nguni Political Units,’ in Africa (London), xxxv, 1, 1965.Google Scholar

Page 516 note 1 Some difficulty in the use of tenses has been experienced as the magisterial system still operates in the Transkei, although it is slowly being Africanised and many of its functions taken over by tribal and regional authorities, as discussed below.

Page 516 note 2 There are 26 districts in the Transkei, each under a magistrate (Bantu Affairs Commissioner), and subdivided into an average of about 30 locations, each under under a headman. For a description of the administrative structure in the Transkei, see Hailey, Lord, An African Survey (London, 1945 edn.), pp. 346–73Google Scholar, and Rogers, H., Native Administration in the Union of South Africa (Johannesburg, 1933Google Scholar).

Page 517 note 1 An Africal Survey, p.353.

Page 523 note 1 A similar role-conflict situation was a feature of indirect rule in British colonial dependencies. See, for example, Fallers, L. A., ‘The Predicament of the Modern African Chief:an instance from Uganda’, in The American Anthropologist (Wisconsin, 57, 1955 edn.), pp. 290–305Google Scholar, and his Bantu Bureaucracy (Cambridge, 1956) especially pp. 196–203Google Scholar.

Page 525 note 1 As, for instance, Perham, M., ‘A Restatement of Indirect Rule’, in Africa (London, 1934 edn.), pp. 321–34Google Scholar. She writes ‘[Indirect Rule] may, indeed, stand or fall according to the expression it affords to the potential energies of the educated class]. See also Brown, R., [Indirect Rule as a Policy of Adaptation] in Apthorpe, R. (ed.), From Tribal Rule to Modern Government, 13th Conference Proceedings of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute (Lusaka, 1959) pp. 49Google Scholar–56.

Page 526 note 1 House of Assembly Debates (Pretoria, 9 05 1962Google Scholar.

Page 526 note 2 Proceedings of the Transkeian Territorial Authori (Umtata, 1962Google Scholar Session.

Page 527 note 1 Proceedings of the Transkeian Territorial Assem, Special Session, December 1962, p. 19.

Page 527 note 2 Ibid. p. 20.

Page 528 note 1 Proceedings of the Transkeian Territorial Authority, 1961.

Page 529 note 1 Proceedings at the Meeting of Members of the Transkei Legislative Assembly for the Purpose of Electing Office Bearers, etc. (Umtata, 1964, p. 9.Google Scholar