Mongameli Mabona - His Life and Work

203 Pages·2020·3.28 MB·English

by  Ernst Wolff

Mongameli Mabona

Mongameli Mabona
HIS LIFE AND WORK
Ernst Wolff
Leuven University Press
Published with the support of the
KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access
This work is based on the research supported in part by
the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant No 81228)
and KU Leuven
Published in 2020 by Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain /
Universitaire Pers Leuven. Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium).
© 2020, Ernst Wolff.
This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Non-
Derivative 4.0 International Licence.
The license allows you to share, copy, distribute, and transmit the work for personal
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Attribution should include the following information:
Ernst Wolff. Mongameli Mabona: His life and work. Leuven, Leuven University Press.
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Further details about Creative Commons licenses are available at http://creativecommons.
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ISBN 978 94 6270 255 4 (Paperback)
ISBN 978 94 6166 361 0 (ePDF)
ISBN 978 94 6166 362 7 (ePUB)
https://doi.org/10.11116/9789461663610
D/2020/1869/66
NUR: 731
Layout: Friedemann Vervoort
Cover design: Daniel Benneworth-Gray
Illustration on cover and p. 2: Mongameli Mabona (Private collection Family Mabona)
To Mongameli and Marta Mabona,
their children and extended family

CONTENTS
Preface 11
PART 1 - LIFE 15
1. Xhosaland: A history of confrontations 19
1. A snapshot of Xhosa life in the mid eighteenth century 19
2. Accelerated change: A typology of mounting conflict 23
3. A changing region in a changing world 25
3.1 Spread of Boers and British expansion 26
3.2 British domination and its effects on Xhosaland and beyond 28
3.3 Changes from the Xhosaland perspective 29
3.4 Changes from the broader South African perspective 34
2. (Dis)Union: The world of Mabona’s youth (1910 to the
mid 1950s) 41
1. International and Union politics 41
2. The economy 44
3. Separation – reserves – labour 45
4. Transkei: Culture, religion, education 49
5. Resistance nationally and in the Transkei 51
3. Enter Mongameli 53
1. Birth and first years 54
2. Early childhood in Qombolo 56
7
8 Mongameli Mabona
3. Life in Zigudu – Catholic background (1) 61
4. Ixopo – Catholic background (2) 67
5. Pevensey – Catholic background (3) 72
6. Early priesthood 75
4. Italy 77
1. Italian society after World War II 78
2. Everyday life in Rome 80
3. Mabona, the student and researcher 82
4. Further intellectual work 85
5. Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists: Alioune Diop and
Présence Africaine 88
Excursion: The journal Présence Africaine 89
6. Preparing for Vatican II 98
5. Back home? Apartheid, St. Peter’s, SPOBA 103
1. Apartheid 103
2. Apartheid education 106
3. The South African economy in the 1960s 107
4. Resistance 109
4.1 The ANC and the PAC 110
5. Life back in South Africa 113
5.1 Lumko 113
5.2 Independent ethnographic studies 116
5.3 Poetry 118
5.4 Lecturer at St. Peter’s in Hammanskraal 119
6. London and Switzerland: Politics or anthropology? 129
1. SOAS 130
2. The Azanian People’s Liberation Front and other politics 131
3. Family life 133
4. Continued research 135
9
PART 2 – WORK 139
1. Lux: The first impetus 143
2. Présence Africaine: Writing for a wide public 152
3. “The depths of African philosophy” and The outlines of African philosophy 159
3.1 General appraisal: South Africa’s first African philosopher? 164
4. Dissertatio ad lauream in Facultate Juris Canonici apud Pontificiam
Universitatem Urbanianam 165
5. “The nuclear blast of spring”: Poetry 167
6. Writings of a South African priest 170
7. Anthropology and religion 174
8. Interlude: The publication spurt of 1996 178
9. Diviners and prophets: The last, incomplete, work 180
9.1 Final appraisal 186
Timeline 189
Mabona primary bibliography 191
Notes on the sources for interviews and biography 195
References 197