Love letters and amanuenses: Beginning the cultural history of the working class private sphere in Southern Africa, 1900-1933

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 337-348

  Breckenridge, Keith ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU NATAL   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL HISTORY; LITERACY; MIGRANT WORKER;

SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 0034117499     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057070050010156     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. 'Illiteracy: South Africa's Economic Time-bomb', Mail and Guardian, 7 March 1997, http://web.sn.apc.org/ wmail/issues/970307/BUS40.html 30/08/99 10:49:25.
2. K. Breckenridge, 'An Age of Consent: Law, Discipline and Violence on the South African Gold Mines, 1900-1933', PhD Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1995.
3. By the term 'private sphere', I mean an overlapping set of concerns focussed on the economic and affective management of the household, explicitly conceived in opposition to the 'public sphere'.
4. J. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, T. Burger and F. Lawrence (Trans.) (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1989), p. 48.
5. E. Fox-Genovese, 'Women and the Enlightenment,' in R. Bridenthal, C. Koonz and S. Stuard (eds), Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1987), p. 259. G. Rudé, Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Aristocracy and the Bourgeois Challenge (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972), p. 150. J. Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 179-187.
6. E. Fox-Genovese, 'Women and the Enlightenment,' in R. Bridenthal, C. Koonz and S. Stuard (eds), Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1987), p. 259. G. Rudé, Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Aristocracy and the Bourgeois Challenge (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972), p. 150. J. Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 179-187.
7. E. Fox-Genovese, 'Women and the Enlightenment,' in R. Bridenthal, C. Koonz and S. Stuard (eds), Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1987), p. 259. G. Rudé, Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Aristocracy and the Bourgeois Challenge (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972), p. 150. J. Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 179-187.
8. T. Nhlapo, 'Women's Rights and the Family in Traditional and Customary Law', in S. Bazilli (ed), Putting Women on the Agenda (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1991), p. 121.
9. D. Coplan, In Township Tonight: South Africa's Black City Music and Theatre (Johannesburg, 1985); In the Time of Cannibals: the Word Music of South Africa's Basotho Migrants (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 9.
10. D. Coplan, In Township Tonight: South Africa's Black City Music and Theatre (Johannesburg, 1985); In the Time of Cannibals: the Word Music of South Africa's Basotho Migrants (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 9.
11. R. Chartier, 'Texts, Printings, Readings', in Lynn Hunt (ed), The New Cultural History (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989), p. 170 and A History of Private Life: Passions of the Renaissance, R. Chartier (ed), A. Goldhammer (Trans.) (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 157.
12. R. Chartier, 'Texts, Printings, Readings', in Lynn Hunt (ed), The New Cultural History (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989), p. 170 and A History of Private Life: Passions of the Renaissance, R. Chartier (ed), A. Goldhammer (Trans.) (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 157.
13. M. Perrot, 'The Family Triumphant', in M. Perrot (ed), A. Goldhammer (Trans.), A History of Private Life: volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 99-113.
14. C. Taylor. Sources of the Self: the Making of the Modern Identity (Cambrige, MA, Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 395.
15. D. Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for 'Indian' Pasts?', Representations, 37 (1992), p. 9
16. See A. Ghosh (this issue); Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality'; P. Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993).
17. See A. Ghosh (this issue); Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality'; P. Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993).
18. See A. Ghosh (this issue); Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality'; P. Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993).
19. Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality', p. 9.
20. M. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Cape Town, James Currey, 1996).
21. J. Guy, 'Making Words Visible: Aspects of Orality, Literacy, Illiteracy and History in Southern Africa', South African Historical Journal, 31 (November 1994), pp. 3-27; A. Jordan, Towards an African Literature: the Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1973), pp. 37-102; J. Opland, Xhosa Oral Poetry: Aspects of a Black South African Tradition (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 1-19; L. Switzer, Power and Resistance in an African Society: the Ciskei Xhosa and the Making of South Africa (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), pp. 113-133.
22. J. Guy, 'Making Words Visible: Aspects of Orality, Literacy, Illiteracy and History in Southern Africa', South African Historical Journal, 31 (November 1994), pp. 3-27; A. Jordan, Towards an African Literature: the Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1973), pp. 37-102; J. Opland, Xhosa Oral Poetry: Aspects of a Black South African Tradition (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 1-19; L. Switzer, Power and Resistance in an African Society: the Ciskei Xhosa and the Making of South Africa (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), pp. 113-133.
23. J. Guy, 'Making Words Visible: Aspects of Orality, Literacy, Illiteracy and History in Southern Africa', South African Historical Journal, 31 (November 1994), pp. 3-27; A. Jordan, Towards an African Literature: the Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1973), pp. 37-102; J. Opland, Xhosa Oral Poetry: Aspects of a Black South African Tradition (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 1-19; L. Switzer, Power and Resistance in an African Society: the Ciskei Xhosa and the Making of South Africa (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), pp. 113-133.
24. J. Guy, 'Making Words Visible: Aspects of Orality, Literacy, Illiteracy and History in Southern Africa', South African Historical Journal, 31 (November 1994), pp. 3-27; A. Jordan, Towards an African Literature: the Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1973), pp. 37-102; J. Opland, Xhosa Oral Poetry: Aspects of a Black South African Tradition (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 1-19; L. Switzer, Power and Resistance in an African Society: the Ciskei Xhosa and the Making of South Africa (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), pp. 113-133.
25. J. Opland, 'The Image of the Book in Xhosa Praise Poetry', Current Writing, 7, 2 (October 1995), p. 44.
26. Natal Archives Depot (hereafter NAD) PMG 46, GPO3/1895 Obscene letter sent through post to native of Impolweni Mission station complaint from Reverend JAS Scott, 1895, 15 December 1897.
27. G. Coka, 'The Story of Gilbert Coka', in M. Perham (ed), Ten Africans (Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1963), p. 276.
28. Interview, Ngilambi Sohlathi by J. Mzayifani and K. Breckenridge, 17 October 1992.
29. J. Guy, 'Making Words Visible', p. 16.
30. I. Schapera, 'The Native as Letter Writer', The Critic: A South African Quarterly Journal, 2, 1 (September 1933), p. 20.
31. I. Schapera, Married Life in an African Tribe (New York, Sheridan House, 1941), p. 9.
32. Ibid. Malinowski goes on. 'Indeed, it would have been probably better if the author had given us a brief appendix including a native glossary with its English equivalents, and maybe even a few characteristic texts in native which illumine and document the tribesman's ideas on procreation, kinship, legitimacy, and other typical Bantu aspects of sex, marriage, and family.'
33. Ibid.
34. Jean and John Comaroff asked Schapera directly about the 'ethnographic basis of Married Life in an African Tribe'. His answer mentioned written survey responses from female informants but makes no reference to the letters. J. Comaroff and J. Comaroff, 'On The Founding Fathers, Fieldwork And Functionalism: a Conversation With Isaac Schapera.', American Ethnologist, 15, 3 (1988), pp. 559-560.
35. Schapera, 'The Native as Letter Writer', p. 21.
36. Schapera, Married Life, p. 46. An extended version of the same letter, although edited, was published in 'The Native as Letter Writer', p. 24.
37. Schapera, Married Life, p. 46. An extended version of the same letter, although edited, was published in 'The Native as Letter Writer', p. 24.
38. Schapera, Married Life, p. 147.
39. Schapera, Married Life, p. 145.
40. Schapera, Married Life, p. 144.
41. Schapera, Married Life, p. 152.
42. C. van Onselen, 'The Reconstruction of a Rural Life from Oral Testimony: Critical Notes on the Methodology Employed in the Study of a Black South African Sharecropper', Journal of Peasant Studies, (April 1993).
43. Discussion with Jones Mzayifani, Vukile Khumalo and Keith Breckenridge, Isiyaya 19/10/1996. See also the instructions for disposal on the exquisite love letter above: 'These letters have got secret matters, you mustn't lose them, if you don't want to keep them bum them all in the fire'. Schapera, 'The Native as Letter Writer', p. 24.
44. Chartier (ed), A History of Private Life, pp. 111-159,327-361,363-395. (A final, somewhat parenthetical, point on this subject of the missing letters. In the course of my very brief stays in the village of Isiyaya, I was on several occasions witness to the writing of letters - about the fining of delinquent children and the negotiation of marriage. In each case, a school-going child took down the letter. More importantly, the same families that are currently involved in an elaborate set of correspondences make every effort to protect their archived letters, if indeed any exist, from my prying social scientist search for source material.)
45. J. Guy, 'Making Words Visible', p. 13. Guy reports that the National Union of Mineworkers estimated that 62 per cent of its members were 'functionally illiterate' in 1994.
46. P. Landau, The Realm of the Word: Language, Gender and Power in a Southern African Kingdom (Cape Town, David Philip, 1995), p. 96; N. Etherington, Preachers Peasants and Politics in Southeast Africa, 1835-1880 (London, Royal Historical Society, 1978), pp. 71-86; P. Delius, Land Belongs to Us: the Pedi Polity, the Boers and the British in the Nineteenth Century Transvaal (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 120-123, 169-178; E. Eldredge, A South African Kingdom: the Pursuit of Security in Nineteenth Century Lesotho, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 95.
47. P. Landau, The Realm of the Word: Language, Gender and Power in a Southern African Kingdom (Cape Town, David Philip, 1995), p. 96; N. Etherington, Preachers Peasants and Politics in Southeast Africa, 1835-1880 (London, Royal Historical Society, 1978), pp. 71-86; P. Delius, Land Belongs to Us: the Pedi Polity, the Boers and the British in the Nineteenth Century Transvaal (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 120-123, 169-178; E. Eldredge, A South African Kingdom: the Pursuit of Security in Nineteenth Century Lesotho, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 95.
48. P. Landau, The Realm of the Word: Language, Gender and Power in a Southern African Kingdom (Cape Town, David Philip, 1995), p. 96; N. Etherington, Preachers Peasants and Politics in Southeast Africa, 1835-1880 (London, Royal Historical Society, 1978), pp. 71-86; P. Delius, Land Belongs to Us: the Pedi Polity, the Boers and the British in the Nineteenth Century Transvaal (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 120-123, 169-178; E. Eldredge, A South African Kingdom: the Pursuit of Security in Nineteenth Century Lesotho, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 95.
49. P. Landau, The Realm of the Word: Language, Gender and Power in a Southern African Kingdom (Cape Town, David Philip, 1995), p. 96; N. Etherington, Preachers Peasants and Politics in Southeast Africa, 1835-1880 (London, Royal Historical Society, 1978), pp. 71-86; P. Delius, Land Belongs to Us: the Pedi Polity, the Boers and the British in the Nineteenth Century Transvaal (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983), pp. 120-123, 169-178; E. Eldredge, A South African Kingdom: the Pursuit of Security in Nineteenth Century Lesotho, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 95.
50. P. and I. Mayer, Townsmen and Tribesmen: Conservatism and the Process of Urbanization in a South African City (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 28. See also C. van Onselen, The Seed is Mine: the Life of Kas Maine A South African Sharecropper, 1894-1985 (Cape Town, David Philip, 1996), for an extended account of the constraints on the expansion of literacy amongst rural South Africans.
51. P. and I. Mayer, Townsmen and Tribesmen: Conservatism and the Process of Urbanization in a South African City (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 28. See also C. van Onselen, The Seed is Mine: the Life of Kas Maine A South African Sharecropper, 1894-1985 (Cape Town, David Philip, 1996), for an extended account of the constraints on the expansion of literacy amongst rural South Africans.
52. NAD, SNA I/1/241, 574/1897; Chas Green: Refuses to read letters or receive moneys for natives from their friends and relatives in Johannesburg, 1897, 26 March 1897.
53. P. and I. Mayer, Townsmen or Tribesmen, p. 35. On the Highveld the definition of distinct 'School' and 'Traditionalist' communities seems to have been much more fluid, in large part, probably, because of the relative weakness of mission activity. See, for example, Kas Maine's manoeuvring for amanuenses in C. van Onselen, The Seed is Mine, pp. 75-76, 138, 178, 202, 269, 279.
54. P. and I. Mayer, Townsmen or Tribesmen, p. 35. On the Highveld the definition of distinct 'School' and 'Traditionalist' communities seems to have been much more fluid, in large part, probably, because of the relative weakness of mission activity. See, for example, Kas Maine's manoeuvring for amanuenses in C. van Onselen, The Seed is Mine, pp. 75-76, 138, 178, 202, 269, 279.
55. W. Beinart, 'Worker Consciousnes, Ethnic Particularism and Nationalism: the Experiences of a South African Migrant, 1930-1960', in S. Marks and S. Trapido (eds), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa (London, Longman, 1987).
56. C. Kell, 'Teaching Letters: the Recontextualisation of Letter-Writing Practices in Literacy Classes for unschooled Adults in South Africa', Unpublished paper, Cape Town, 1998, p. 7, and see p. 8 for informant's account.
57. Interview, Lahlekile Mphephanduku by V. Khumalo and K. Breckenridge, Isiyaya, 19 October 1996. We can see a similar collective project of translation in Kell's research of contemporary practices of reading letters amongst isiXhosa speakers in the western Cape. Here too the economy of letter writing amongst the migrant population encourages the collectivization of the private sphere. 'I used to be tactful, skip the bad message until I call other people there', one of her informants described the difficult task of relating bad news, 'then tell, that is if you know something is not well, then you read it as is in front of people who can help me to ease the situation.' C. Kell, 'Teaching Letters', p. 8.
58. Interview, Lahlekile Mphephanduku by V. Khumalo and K. Breckenridge, Isiyaya, 19 October 1996. We can see a similar collective project of translation in Kell's research of contemporary practices of reading letters amongst isiXhosa speakers in the western Cape. Here too the economy of letter writing amongst the migrant population encourages the collectivization of the private sphere. 'I used to be tactful, skip the bad message until I call other people there', one of her informants described the difficult task of relating bad news, 'then tell, that is if you know something is not well, then you read it as is in front of people who can help me to ease the situation.' C. Kell, 'Teaching Letters', p. 8.
59. Interview with David Sogoni by V. Khumalo and K. Breckenridge, Isiyaya, 19 October 1996.
60. Twala cited in V. Khumalo, 'Ekukhanyeni Letter-writers: Notes Towards a Social History of Letter Writing in KwaZulu-Natal, 1890-1900', Unpublished paper, Ann Arbor, 1999, p. 13.
61. J. and J. Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 34.
62. R. Chartier (ed), A History of Private Life: Passions of the Renaissance, vol. III, A. Goldhammer (Trans.) (Cambridge, MA, 1989), pp. 124-144.
63. K. Barber, 'Reasons for Writing: Autonomy, Self-realisation and the Public in the Yoruba Intermediate Classes', Unpublished paper, Birmingham, 1995, p. 7.