Migrancy and Male Sexuality on the South African Gold Mines

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 14, Issue 2, 1988, Pages 228-256

  Moodie, T Dunbar ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84928844643     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: 14653893     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057078808708172     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Migrancy and Male Sexuality on the South African Gold Mines
2. T. Dunbar Moodie (with Vivienne Ndatshe and British Sibuyi)
3. British Sibuyi is a student in history at the University of Cape Town. I was kindly sent a transcript of his interview by Patrick Harries.
4. This project was conducted in Thabong township and was funded by a grant from the Anglo-American Chairman's Fund.
5. It is significant that official enquiries into ‘unnatural vice’ took place at the insistence of missionaries working on and around the compounds and not at the request of management who turned a blind eye to such affairs. 8 Taberer Report, 1907, Chamber of Mines, 1899-1910, N series, N35 (I am indebted to Charles van Onselen for a copy of this document).
6. For an account of the authority structure on a gold mine in the seventies, see T.D. Moodie, ‘Formal and Informal Power Structures on a South African Gold Mine’, Human Relations, August 1982.
7. Philip and lona Mayer, ‘Socialization by Peers: The Youth Organisation of the Red Xhosa’ in Philip Mayer (ed.), Socialization (London, 1970). “ Taberer Report, 1907.
8. Transvaal Archives, files of the Government Native Labour Bureau (henceforth NLB), 229, 583/15/145, 16/2/16, Replies to Circular from Director of Native Labour on Unnatural Vice.
9. NLB 374, 110/28/110, TTGC 1928 Session, 4/5/28.
10. Transvaal Archives, files of the Department of Native Affairs (henceforth NTS), 2091, 213/280, 30/11/28.
11. Transvaal Archives, evidence to the Native Economic Commission (henceforth K26), Vol. 8, p. 8241. An earlier version of this paper received similarly angry responses from black Southern African commentators at a Yale Southern African Research Program workshop in Spring 1987.
12. “ Many workers mentioned this as a fact, although several later described relationships with town women. Apparently the truth of the matter was that management discouraged forays into town but could not actually legally forbid them. As a result, novices tended to obey the informal advice given them at initiation whereas more experienced men were liable to ignore it.
13. According to Philemon, amongst the Tsonga (Shangaans, Mozambicans) ‘mine marriages’ were accepted, indeed taken for granted by women (including wives) and elders at home and relationships might extend beyond a single contract ('when the time to go back arrived, one partner would inform the other through a letter so that they could [meet] at a stipulated place… on the mines').
14. The evidence here is from the reports of theological students who kept journals while working on the mines under the auspices of the Agency for Industrial Mission (henceforth AIM) in the winter of 1976. Copies of these materials are housed with SALDRU at the University of Cape Town.
15. H.A. Junod, The Ufe of a South African Tribe, Vol. I (New York, 1966) p. 294.
16. See Philip Mayer, Wives of Migrant Miners, vol. 3 of Migrant Labour: Some Perspectives from Anthropology (Grahamstown, 1978), pp. 116-26; also, Monica Hunter, Reaction to Conquest (London, 1961), pp. 203-10. 1976 Welkom mine study, Induna interview, 28/7/76; copies of this material are in my possession -originals are held by Anglo-American Corporation.
17. AIM, 1976 Theologians Group Report; Mines No. 1. 1976 Welkom Mine Study, Tsebe statement, 6/7/76.
18. According to the Tsonga informant, young men were paid very generously in kind. The Mpondo reported payments in cash. There are other differences between the information from members of the two groups which probably reflect genuine differences in practices.
19. Taberer Report, 1907, p. 2.
20. K26, vol. 8, p. 7229.
21. Several Mpondo men interviewed by Vivienne Ndatshe stated that being on the mines was like going herding or to faction fights. One simply abstained while away from one's girlfriend or wife, implying that sexual activity was ‘natural’ in certain situations and abstention was ‘natural’ in others.
22. Mayer, ‘Socialization by Peers’, p. 16.
23. p. 2.
24. p. 492.
25. pp.492-3.
26. For a tentative discussion of the origins of this name see Charles van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand: II New Nineveh (London, 1982), pp. 179-89.
27. NLB 229, 583/15/145.
28. Mayer, Wives of Migrant Workers, p. 28.
29. The Tsonga informant, Philemon, was of the firm opinion that it was impossible to refuse. ‘There was no other way’, he said. ‘One could hardly escape it. If somebody wanted you, he would hardly give up. I mean, he would go so far as sending people to come and propose to you on his behalf - until you agreed’. And if all else failed, he would use witchcraft.
30. AIM 1982, Noyakaso.
31. AIM 1982, Mashwana.
32. I am indebted to Leroy Vail for this reference.
33. Vivienne Ndatshe and I interviewed Ryna Dushu in Pondoland in November 1984. A tape of the interview (no. 6) is on file at the African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.
34. AIM 1976, Thabane.
35. The best early history of the liquor trade on the Rand is undoubtedly Charles van Onselen.
36. Transvaal Archives, Native Grievances Enquiry, evidence (henceforth K358), 15/10/13, p. 10.
37. K358, 27/4/14, p. 43.
38. K26, vol. 8, p. 7652.
39. K26, vol. 8, pp. 7445, 7929, 8346-7.
40. See for instance Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (New York, 1979) for the relatively recent development of companionate marriage amongst the privileged classes in England and Michael Young and Peter Wilmott, Family and Kinship in East London (London, 1957) for the continuance of role-segregation among working-class English in the twentieth century.
41. Isaac Schapera, Married Life in an African Tribe (Harmondsworth, 1971).
42. Junod, Ufe of a South African Tribe, p, 493; NLB 261, 263; Transvaal Archives, files of the Department of Justice, JUS 421, 3/1220/26.
43. Transvaal Archives, files of the Secretary for Native Affairs, SNA 46, 1540/02; HLB 229, 583/15/145, Randfontein South report.
44. See, for instance, William Beinart, ‘Joyini Inkomo: Cattle Advances and the Origins of Migrancy from Pondoland’, JSAS 5 (1979).
45. I rely heavily here onthe Mayers’ work on traditional Xhosa.
46. See note 19.
47. Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, Up Against the Fences (New York, 1985) Chapts. 10-12.
48. Much of the rush to the cities in the 1930s and 1940s was from the white farms, however.
49. See Alan Jeeves and David Yudelman, ‘New Labour Frontiers for Old: Black Migrants to the South African Gold Mines, 1920-84’, JSAS 13 (1986).