Jwara! Induna's Daughter

By Joyce Notemba Piliso-Seroke

Born into privilege in the 1930s. At Crown Mines, Johannesburg, she grew up in a gated compound for the mining elite. Yet she soon became aware of the harshness of the lives of the men in the barracks behind the fence. At Fort Hare she studied under ZK Matthews. Politically active, she was detained as the 1976 revolt rocked South Africa.
‘A riveting account of activism, courage and values, all within a journey of conscious living’ – Zanele Mbeki

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tafelberg
• Release date: Nov 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9780624091554

Joyce Notemba Piliso-Seroke

Joyce Piliso-Seroke, a teacher, social scientist, struggle veteran, film maker, to name a few of her society builder involvements. She is the recipient of the following prestigious honours: Father Trevor Huddleston’s ‘Naught for Your Comfort’ Award; conferred the National Order, The Order of the Baobab in Silver; the Order of Simon of Cyrene.

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9780624089810_FC

JWARA!

Induna’s Daughter

Joyce Piliso-Seroke

Tafelberg

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my parents who nurtured and moulded me into who I am; to my daughter Michele for her loving and unwavering support, and to my brothers, Clarence, Darbie and Biza for their seminal role as I was growing up and developing into the woman I am today. I have cherished the remarkable part all of you have played in my life. This is my story, told from my memory … at 86 years of age.

FOREWORD

Mrs Joyce Piliso-Seroke has produced a remarkable book that, in looking back on her life, addresses South Africa’s contemporary challenges in the economy, leadership, justice and peace, as well as the role of women in society.

At 86 years of age, Joyce Piliso-Seroke represents a generation of South African Black intellectuals who, born during the years of the Great Depression, saw the rise of the Afrikaners, the Hitler War in Europe, the establishment of the Afrikaner Nationalist empire and with it the legalisation of the apartheid ideology; the years of the struggle for liberation, and ultimately, the fall of the apartheid state and the establishment of a new democracy in 1994. Joyce Piliso-Seroke was a direct participant in much of that history. Because of that, this book is like no other. It falls on her to tell the history of South Africa over about a century. To many of the younger generations, it might read like a novel. But it is real.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke does not gloat about her achievements (and there are many!). She neither preaches nor moralises. The story is told in a matter-of-fact way, with simplicity and an endearing honesty. Much of her life is understated and one could so easily miss its enormous power. Although this is a memoir, the reader does not become overwhelmed by the power of the personality that Ma’Joyce is.

The author is a consummate storyteller. She makes her characters come alive. She produces snippets and nuggets of news and views of such simplicity that one is drawn instinctively to the truth of her story without question. And yet, she only seeks to tell ‘her truth’. Jwara! Induna’s Daughter is her personal story and nobody else’s. She does not pretend that it is a representative, generalised view of her world. It is easy to notice that so much is presented without analysis, which could be frustrating to a perceptive reader who wishes to dig deeper. The author is unapologetic. It is told with such candour that the reader is drawn in, even if to debate issues that today would be hard to understand.

I write this Preface during the week in which it would appear that much of what Joyce Piliso-Seroke and her contemporaries accomplished has been razed to the ground. The environment in our country has been sombre and depressed. During the month of August, in which we celebrate women in South Africa, our country has been wracked by a succession of femicides, and violence against women (GBV in popular language). The murder and sexual abuse of young women and girl children has become so common as to be a source of shame to this nation that is founded on constitutional values enshrined in a justiciable Bill of Rights. We know that oftentimes the perpetrators are either intimate partners or close members of the family. The nation is in a state of outrage. In part the outrage is due to the indifference of law enforcement officers, and the ineptitude of the prosecution authorities.

That outrage speaks directly to Joyce Piliso-Seroke’s lifetime of commitment to upholding the rights of women, fighting for the advancement of women in society, and seeking to establish family values at home and elsewhere – all guarantors of the safety and prosperity of women in South Africa.

Her life has been much about building communities for development, championing the struggle against apartheid, campaigning for international sanctions with admirable courage, and daring the might of the apartheid Saracens and Nyala military vehicles to protect the children of Soweto.

In the new dispensation, she became a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in the Committee charged with determining Human Rights Violations. She provides an insider’s account in this book of her work in the TRC. One wonders whether she would regard her efforts, given recent events, to have been worth it. I hasten to add that she surely would. Nothing could surpass the challenge and satisfaction of seeing the destruction of apartheid, observing the evil eyes of the apartheid security personnel squirm under interrogation and reluctant to disclose the whole truth. The real lesson, though, is that once apartheid is no more, the challenges of economic and societal development and reconstruction become urgent tasks.

I end this Preface by putting a set of posers to the author of Jwara! Induna’s Daughter. I do so mindful of the explanations that I have referred to above. I also do so in full recognition (maybe even because of the recognition) that the book is written from the vantage point of the constitutional democracy that we now enjoy. And yet, paradoxically, some would say that the issues that Joyce Piliso-Seroke struggled against under apartheid: justice for women and children, inequality and poverty, police brutality are very much with us today. While one cannot deny the benefits of democracy, the truth is that discrimination against women is a fact of life and, indeed, if one observes a catalogue of instances of police brutality from Marikana to the recent case of the cold shooting of Nathaniel Julies, a 16 year-old teenager suffering from Down’s Syndrome, at Eldorado Park, south of Johannesburg.

Jwara (as Mrs Joyce Piliso-Seroke has come to be known fondly) proudly tells the story of her people and of her father, Mr H. B. Piliso, who became induna (a mine overseer) at Crown Mines in Johannesburg. It is important to note that the Piliso’s were part of the elite class of the Eastern Cape. They were among the early educated classes, landowning, and in the politics of that day, could exercise a vote to the Cape Parliament. They were also among the chiefs and headmen who wielded much political and economic influence in the villages. It interests me that Joyce appears to have received her political consciousness from within the bowels of ‘privilege’ to become an agitator for the rights of women. The circumstances of our upbringing do not define the kind of people that we become.

South African women may have lost the struggle for the rights of women when they appeared to support Jacob Zuma when he was accused of rape, or when they appeared to approve of the institution of polygamous marriages as exampled by President Jacob Zuma. Many in women’s formations or women’s organisations were indifferent or complicit by their silence, others actively supported Zuma’s outrageous abuse of African culture.

Today, we witness so much justifiable anger about the plight of women in society, but I do not have any sense that South Africans have a strategy or that there is in society any radical feminism that would send a message that is loud and clear. Patriarchy continues to haunt the fortunes of many a woman in our country. The nation is in dire need of a transformative feminism that is hard to come by. The new voices of younger women who are angry and uncompromising and who organise themselves to bring an end to this scourge of violence, who challenged a Jacob Zuma by protesting with placards at a prestige event addressed by the President or who organised nationwide ‘shutdown’ protests, are to be welcomed.

With Jwara’s years of activism in the YWCA and the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE), is it not time that it be acknowledged that organisations like the ANC Women’s League and, indeed, the ubiquitous uniformed Church Women’s Manyano have been more of a disgrace to the struggle for women’s power, liberation and development than they have been part of the struggle? Quoting former President of Guinea, and pioneer of the Pan African Movement, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Steve Biko reminds us that to be in solidarity with the struggle for liberation one needs to internalise the popular energy that is essential for building up a movement of popular resistance in solidarity with all the people of our country, men and women.

One gathers that Joyce Piliso-Seroke’s mother was a significant influence on her life. Her work in the YWCA gave her many of the values that have guided her ever since. I do not, however, believe that such a faith commitment suspends her critical judgement, and therefore an examination of how we could become a better society. The other way of articulating that is to ask the question: what is the value or moral system that Joyce Piliso-Seroke has found so compelling and definitive to her way of life that she has risked so much to seek to realise it? Beyond the Christian ethic, one sees very little of that affirmation. Maybe it is a vague notion of ubuntu in practice. Her work would have been richer had she articulated that.

This Piliso-Seroke memoir does not examine the critical dialectics of Leadership. Her life, after all, was an exercise of leadership from the time she was elected Secretary of the SRC at Fort Hare as a young woman in a man’s world. The art and ethics of leadership lie in the difficult decisions that have to be made as much as in the factors that go into decision-making, and not even in the popular acclaim one earns at times as a leader.

The leadership we exercise cannot just be about good and easy decisions. It must also be about the hard and, with the benefit of hindsight, poor decisions that we make. Joyce Piliso-Seroke has steered clear of any controversies or hard decisions or mistakes in life that one makes on the basis of information then available and in the emotional state of mind one may happen to be in. Many South Africans who read this work will find a lot to inspire them but not enough of the challenges that life dishes out to the best of us to ponder over.

I commend this book, wholeheartedly. I congratulate Jwara for having taken the time to write it. There are some among us whose lives are an encyclopaedia of life, politics and morality. Joyce Piliso-Seroke is perhaps among a dwindling generation of such luminaries in whose refracted glory we have had the privilege to bask. South Africa is the richer for her. I am glad that generations of South Africans will draw courage through the words of Jwara, long after she is no more. May her words forever be the guide in the lives of future generations.

N. Barney Pityana GCOB

Pretoria, 28 August 2020

SECTION 1:

MY PARENTS

Chapter 1:

The Story of My Father, Hannie Booi (H. B.)

My father was born on 1 November 1864 at Nceslinde, a village in Ngqamakwe, Transkei; he was the eldest in a family of six children. Both of his parents, Mnangwe and Manyathi, were illiterate. They had passed on by the time I was born; hence, I know very little about my grandparents. However, I am told that my grandfather had a reasonably sized plot of land and a significant herd of cattle and flock of sheep. Although illiterate, he was determined to send his first son to school.

My father’s name was Hannie Booi Piliso, and he was affectionately called H. B. by his relatives, colleagues and friends. When asked about how he had acquired such an unusual name, he always repeated this story with pride: ‘It was a sweltering hot day when my father, perched on a rock while looking after his cattle, saw an agitated policeman passing by, leading a handcuffed man on foot, presumably to jail or to court in Ngqamakwe. He was so fascinated by the handcuffs that he asked the policeman, ‘Ziintoni ezi ntsimbi ezibambe izandla zale ndoda? (What is that contraption tied onto that man’s hands?)’ The sweating policeman, obviously tired and impatient from the long walk, retorted without a backward glance, ‘Ngamahanabhoyi,’ meaning handcuffs. So impressed was he by that word that he vowed to name his first child, ‘Hannaboy’. Later when he was educated, my father changed the name to Hannie Booi. H. B. always chuckled when he related that story and would say, ‘That’s me, and that is how I came to be named Hannie Booi.’

My grandfather, Mnangwe Gobingca, had been converted to Christianity by Scottish missionaries; and hence, H. B. attended the Presbyterian School in his village. He later qualified to enrol for the teachers’ course at the Blythswood Mission School, which was also run by Presbyterians. H. B. spoke English with a heavy Scottish accent, much to our amusement. When he enrolled at the school as Hannie Booi Piliso Gobingca, his white teacher, who was unable to pronounce his surname, Gobingca, decided on his own to register my father as Hannie Booi Piliso using his second name, Piliso, as his surname. That was typical of the missionaries of the time, who saw schooling as part of the process of becoming a true Christian: civilised, Westernised and able to read the Bible. They were disdainful of our African names and traditions and gave Black children so-called ‘Christian names’. At least my father’s given surname was a Xhosa name; some families were given English or Afrikaans surnames, such as Grootboom, Jack and other absurd names. After he qualified, my father retained the surname, Piliso, and so did his children and grandchildren. I thought that the change of his surname from Gobingca to Piliso would alienate him from his siblings and create confusion in the family but, surprisingly, all of his siblings and their children adopted Piliso as their surname.

As the eldest in his family, my father was the only one who was educated. I remember that his sister, Udadobawo Jerrian, came to live with us at Mavumbuka, Crown Mines, when she was widowed. Jerrian worked as a domestic worker doing laundry for white people in Mayfair, Johannesburg. She developed arthritis, and whenever she looked at her crippled fingers, she regretted never having gone to school. Girls at the time were not sent to school because they had to stay home to help their mothers with the household chores; it was also perceived to be a liability to educate a girl because when she got married, her in-laws would benefit from her education instead of her own family.

After completing the teacher’s diploma, H. B. taught at Cerubawo for a long time. He always told us how much he was indebted to his father for sending him to school against all the odds. For many years, H. B. lived with the pain of not knowing the whereabouts of the grave of his father, who had drowned while crossing the flooded Tsitsa River on horseback. His body was never recovered. Consequently, in memory of his father, H. B. pledged that he would send all of his children to school where they would be prepared for various professions.

My father’s first wife was Sikelwa, uMamqoco, née Ngxeba, and she had seven children with him, namely: Lawrence Bhabhani, Constance Stensi, William Ludumo, Silberbour Sbabalala, Clarence Katiti, Wilberforce Mathumbu and Miriam Nono. Sikelwa passed away in 1918 from a fever that had ravaged the whole village. That fever was so contagious that she had to be buried immediately. Hence, H. B., who was stationed in Cerubawa, a village in Butterworth where he was teaching, could not be at her funeral. However, he erected a tombstone in her honour.

In the absence of their mother, the younger children, Clarence, Wilberforce and Miriam, were nurtured by their eldest sister Constance, and our grandmother Manyathi, who was reputed to be a strict disciplinarian. Clarence used to tell us how he suffered under her iron hand. She insisted that the girls wore very long skirts and did not reveal their legs to the boys. I can’t imagine how restricted they must have felt.

Three of H. B.’s siblings were Monyweni, Maxinjana and Jerrian, the only girl. I don’t know the name of the fourth. Monyweni’s sons were Livingstone, Koti and Charlton. Livingstone was blessed with five daughters: Novintwembi Sibeko, Nomsa Ngubo, Nozigaba Mashwabana, Manzeli Chiume and the last-born, Nonqaba. The only son was Mbonzeleka. Charlton’s son was Mzuzwana who had a son, Zwelethu, and a daughter, Nonkululeko.

Hannie Booi was one of many educated men in his area, and he was closely associated with his cousins, Phuphuma and Khakhaza, who were also teachers. The teaching profession was very popular at that time, but there was a shortage of doctors. A missionary named Mr Cullingham encouraged H. B. and some other families in Ngqamakwe and Butterworth to consider sending their sons overseas to be trained as doctors. Consequently, my father managed to get a scholarship from the Presbyterian missionaries to send his son Clarence to Edinburgh University in Scotland; the Phuphuma and Khakhaza families also produced doctors.

H. B.’s isiduko (clan names) are Jwara, Mayara, Katiti, Mnangwe, Jiyana, and all of his children bear the same clan names.

Jwaras are descendents of Jwara, son of Nkosiyamntu Malangana – direct descendents of King Xhosa. Jwara’s two sons were Jiyana and Mazaleni, and they are responsible for the multiplication of the Jwara family to the size of the current nation – a wide Jwara clan.

Regardless of which branch of the family the Jwaras fall – whether they descend from Jiyana or Mazaleni – they regard themselves as one family. According to the Zulu expression, ‘Bonke ngabesende lika-Jwara’, they are flesh and blood.

My father was a proud Jwara, and he introduced our family to many other Jwaras, including the Khakhaza, Phuphuma, Sobekwa, Sidzumo, Ndiki, Mashiyi, Gwiji and Ntwasa families who, like his Piliso family, are descendents of Jiyana.

He also introduced us to the Jwara families who are descendents of Mazaleni, the brother of Jiyana: the Soga, Majombozi, Mali and Teyise families whose clan names are Jwara, Jotelo, Mtika, Konwana, Dolo limdaka kukuguqa bethandaza.

Chapter 2:

My Mother, Ethel Mvulazana, Tells Her Story

Jonathan Ngungwini, my paternal grandfather, lived in Flagstaff, Pondoland and married Lydia Nzuzo. They were blessed with eight children: Phillip, Elijah, Isaiah (my father), Hargreaves, Hettie, Eida, Kiki and John.

Phillip was educated at Palmerton Methodist Mission. When he finished school, he became an interpreter for a famous doctor called Anderson. He so excelled at that job that he came to be known as itoliki, meaning ‘the interpreter’. Phillip built himself a beautiful house and reared cattle, horses and sheep. He was also a lay preacher at the local church. He had three children: Phillip Duma, Daisy Mbimbi and Walton Ntuntulu. They all qualified as teachers at Palmerton in the Eastern Cape. Daisy Mbimbi married Chief Fikeni’s son and came to be known as Inkosazana (Princess) by the members of her community.

Elijah qualified as a teacher and worked for Mr V. Bold, the local shopkeeper, interpreting for his customers. He married Francina Dubela and they were blessed with two sons and three daughters.

Isaiah, my father, was educated at the famous Healdtown Institution where he passed the teaching diploma with honours. He became the principal teacher at Etembeni where Reverend Charles Pamla, my maternal grandfather, was presiding minister. Mabel Pamla, his daughter, also taught at that school. Later, she and Isaiah were married and blessed with the following children: Marshall Dumisa, Durley Phezulu, Ethel Mvulazana (me) and Mabel Tembeka.

Hargreaves was also a teacher; Kiki dropped out of school and worked as a labourer; John dropped out of school and joined the Black recruits to the First World War and drowned in the S. S. Mendi disaster. I am told that John’s death was a big blow to my grandfather, who was against the idea of involving oneself in the war of foreigners, imfazwe yabelungu baphesheya, which had nothing to do with Black people in South Africa. Hettie and Eida also qualified as teachers. I sorely missed Uncle John because he always narrated interesting and humorous stories to us.

My siblings – Marshall, Durley, Mabel – and I were born in Umzimkulu. I was born on 19 December 1901 when it was raining in torrents; hence, I was named Mvulazana. Our clan names are Duma, Mthombeni, Lwandle aluwelwa; luwelwa ziintaka zon’ eziphapha phezulu.

My father bought a farm that he named ‘Middle Water’. At the age of 11, when I was in Standard 2, he died; the date was 8 October 1912; he was just 42 years old. After his death, my maternal grandfather, Reverend Charles Pamla, took us in and moved us to his farm, Vermiljoenskuil in Matatiele. He advised my mother, who was his daughter Mabel, to sell the farm, Middle Water. From the sale of that farm, he bought my mother a farm bordering his own, called Hopewell. Since my mother did not do any farming, she leased her farm to Mr Kortjas, who resided there with his family. From the rental, my mother was able to educate my sister Mabel and me.

Reverend Charles Pamla was born at Esikhobeni, Transkei in the amaHlubi settlement. He had a younger brother and two sisters. When he was asked to be Chief of the amaHlubi, he declined in favour of his brother because he wanted to be a minister of religion. Charles studied the ministry at Lessyton and ministered in the area of amaBhaca, the people of which were amaQaba, so-called heathens who were still practising witchcraft.

In that region, the women were his first converts; he later persuaded them to stop brewing beer, much to the chagrin of their husbands. The women worshipped in the hut that Charles had built next to his house, which further aggravated their husbands’ anger. There was a big bell next to the hut that was used to summon the congregants for evening prayers. That so incensed the men in the community that they came together to plot to kill Charles. Consequently, they consulted a witch doctor who was famous for eliminating his adversaries. He decided to put muthi, a spell, on the bell. And so a man was sent to warn Charles about his impending doom. But he was not fazed because he claimed that witchcraft was associated with an expression of cultural beliefs, and as such, nothing happened to him when he rang the bell. Instead, he continued evangelising, which resulted in more and more women flocking to his prayer meetings.

The men were dismayed when nothing happened to him, so they engaged the services of a more powerful witch doctor renowned for his powers of using lightning to destroy his opponents. He was known to carry three pouches in which he kept his muthi herbs. The muthi in each pouch varied in strength, with the muthi in his third pouch being the most potent. A messenger was again sent to warn Charles of that danger, but still, he was not fazed; instead, he took out his Bible and held it high as he sang hymns and called out praises to God. Immediately, ominous clouds began to gather, followed by ferocious thunder and lightning, which struck the hut and not his house. The witch doctor decided to use the second pouch of muthi. Again, the clouds gathered, the thunder echoed and the lightning snapped. Charles opened his Bible and started praying. Again, nothing happened to him; instead, clouds of smoke enveloped the hut. The man who was sent to witness his death was astonished to see him alive.

The witch doctor was so enraged by the apparent failure of his concoction that he resorted to his third and most potent potion. The storm roared once more, and lightning lashed out again. Throughout that spectacle, Charles prayed at the top of his voice, undaunted by what was happening around him. The lightning lashed out and struck the witch doctor dead. When the messenger went to inform the chief about what had happened, he was so astounded that he immediately summoned his subjects to a meeting and advised them to join their wives in the evening prayers. I believe that is how amaBhaca were converted to the Christian faith. Soon after that, the men helped Charles pull down the mud hut to build a church with mud bricks and a thatched roof. Henceforth, the church was always filled to capacity, and the voices of the converts could be heard from a distance as they sang hymns of praise.

A severe drought followed in the area, and all of the livestock, grazing grounds, vegetables and cornfields were destroyed. So Charles, on a particular day, asked his congregants to climb the hill to pray for rain. He had so much faith that the rain would eventually fall that he asked the people to take blankets and overcoats to cover themselves from it. They dismissed that warning as the utterances of a madman. But undaunted, he led the procession up the hill, holding his Bible in one hand and his walking stick in the other. He started the service, and soon, in his resonant voice, he led the people in singing hymns of praise, intermittently reading from the Bible. Soon the clouds gathered, the thunder roared, and the rain came falling down. When he said the benediction, the people bolted to their homes, soaked to the skin. It continued raining for days and weeks until the rivers were full and the vegetation flourished. The people were ecstatic, and the chief was so moved by the incident that he was finally converted and asked Charles to solemnise his marriage in church. Christianity thus spread throughout the Umzimkhulu district where new churches and schools were established by Charles in the following areas: Bisa, Corinth, Mvubukazi, Kroenenhoek, Cancele, Cabane and Nyanisweni.

Charles also established Ethembeni Mission, which consisted of his big house where he and his family lived, a big church in front of his house, and a school that boys and girls from the neighbouring villages of Bisa and Kroenenhoek attended. The church was well furnished with pews and had a big banner inscribed with ‘God is Love’ at the altar. The people from the outlying areas used to come for the Eucharist. Charles continued to work from that mission until his retirement.

As mentioned, he had purchased a farm at Matatiele that he called Vermiljoenskuil, where he planted wheat and mealies and reared cattle and sheep. He kept the sheep in two camps and hired several men from the location to shear them. Their wool was then packed in bales and carted by wagons pulled by 16 oxen to Franklyn Station, where the train took it to Durban to be sold. Charles also raised chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese that were fed by women who had been specially employed for that job. Others churned butter and cheese from the milk of the cows; they also made custard, which he sold to the local dairy that was also supplied by the neighbouring white farmers.

There was plenty of water for the men employed to build dams to irrigate fruit trees, orchards, maize and wheat. There was also a stable of horses that were fed from forage grown on the farm. Charles had several horse-drawn carts that were used around the farm and for carting supplies to and from the town and outlying areas. He built living quarters for his workers, and a sheep was slaughtered every Saturday to supply his family and workers with meat. He built a church on his farm that was attended by his workers and people from neighbouring farms. The farmhands’ children attended Tsoeleke School, which I attended until Standard 2.

After a while, Charles left Ethembeni Mission and went to Ntlangwini, where he was commissioned by the Methodist Church to convert the people to Christianity. While evangelising at Ntlangwini, he boarded in the house of a kindly old lady called Goxe. He built a church and school and promptly recruited his sons, Walton and Julius, as well as his grandchildren, Marshall and Durley Mayeza, to teach at the new school he had established. The teachers of the school were so diligent and God-fearing that it was no wonder it flourished. The school was registered as Palmerton, a family institution, and the Ntlangwini Mission was later known as Pamlaville Methodist Mission, named after its paragonic founder. While based at Ntlangwini, Charles visited several stations under the jurisdiction of Reverend Cunning, and occasionally, he preached at those missions.

One weekend, Charles went to Kokstad and stayed overnight to conduct the next day’s 11 am, 3 pm and 7 pm services. On Sunday, he clutched his big Bible, and dressed in his regalia, went to church, much inspired, to preach. At the end of the day, he retired to sleep in preparation for his journey back to Ntlangwini the next day. Charles was found in the morning at peace with his God and his Bible next to him. The people believed that the inspiring message of his sermons on the previous night was a divine farewell to his colleagues and congregation. He was laid to rest at the Kokstad Cemetery, which, at that time, was reserved for whites only. Charles’s family came from all over – Etembeni, Pamlaville, Kokstad – and others came from near and far to pay their last tributes.

When the Methodist Church celebrated its centenary in 1982, Charles Pamla’s ministry in the Methodist Church was affirmed. He was remembered, along with other stalwarts, in prayer: ‘We remember Methodist men and women, the Pamlas, the Archbells of Your Universal Church, who brought Your Word to fallow Africa to spread scriptural holiness throughout the land and upheld the goal of spiritual perfection.’ It is estimated that Charles Pamla was instrumental in 25,000 conversions. He had been ordained in 1871 as one of the first four Blacks in the Wesleyan Methodist ministry in South Africa, and he was the first African Superintendent Minister. His most important ministry was at Etembeni (1890–1909), where the membership increased from 300 to 5,000 during his time.

My family was very proud of our grandfather, and through his teachings, we vowed to educate our children in Christian schools and bring them up with the Christian values of love, selflessness, respect and caring for others, as we were encouraged to do by him and our parents.

When my grandfather opened the school at Pamlaville, I left Tsoeleke School to do Standards 5 and 6 there. After completing Standard 6, I was sent to Endaleni Industrial Girls’ School in 1917 under the jurisdiction of the Methodist Church headed by Reverend A. W. Cragg. I did the Industrial Course, and we were taught cooking, sewing, laundry, baking, crocheting, how to lay a table, budgeting and how to run a home. After Endaleni, I was sent to Emgwali Girls’ Institution (1918–1919) to do a teaching course. The school principal was Miss McGregor, who was assisted by Miss Fleming, Miss Robertson and Miss Douglas. Miss Graham was the boarding mistress in charge of the cook, Aunt Sarah, and the gardener, Oom Dumi, who also chopped the wood and drew water from the well, while we girls did the rest of the manual work. We took turns cleaning the staff rooms, dining room and dormitories. During the week, the girls wore mufti (civvies), but on Sundays, we wore the school uniform – white dresses.

The African staff members included Miss Maqidlana, Miss Koti, Miss Skhenjane and Miss Nazo. They ate with us in the dining hall, while the white staff had their own dining room. We were not allowed to speak across our tables, and if we did so, we were punished. There was a roster of girls who collected the dishes from the table and took them to the kitchen and another one for the girls who washed the dishes. There was a box room where we stored our luggage, which was always kept under lock and key. The beds were neatly made and inspected by Miss Graham. We lined up in fours when we marched to church.

We were taught isiXhosa, Sesotho, English, history, geography, arithmetic, map drawing, scripture, physical education and methods of teaching. My favourite subject was history. Besides the many rules that were enforced, we had to adhere to the following dictates:

•Never drag your feet when you walk in the house or classrooms.

•Cut your nails and comb your hair in the bedroom only.

•Sit upright at the table.

•Never put your elbows on the table when eating.

•Always put the back of your hand on your mouth when coughing.

•Always be cheerful when you talk with others.

•Give thanks for anything given, however small.

•Take small helpings at a time when eating, and close your mouth when chewing.

•Always apologise when in the wrong.

We were severely punished when those rules were not adhered to. The standard punishment was to wash all the dishes alone. I remember, with a smile, my best friend Gertrude Mdledle, who was born with six toes on her right foot. Whenever she approached Miss McGregor, she would deliberately drag her feet, and when admonished, she would reply, tongue in cheek, ‘Remember, Miss, I have an extra toe to carry,’ which would be followed by hearty laughter from all the girls. The examination in the third year was very stiff, but I passed in second class. My mother used to say that I was as brilliant as my father, Isaiah.

When I was at Emgwali, I would spend my June holidays with my Uncle George Pamla in Butterworth. That is where I met H. B. when he was teaching at Cerubawo School. It was my uncle who encouraged me to marry him, even though he was much older than me. My uncle believed that older men were more considerate than younger men and that it was better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.

After completing my teachers’ course in 1919, I taught at Antioch Methodist School for two years. The following year, I married the widowed H. B. Piliso at the age of 22. After our marriage, we left teaching and transferred to Crown Mines in 1923, where my husband was appointed the assistant compound manager and worked with Mr J. W. Lawrence, the chief compound manager.

I was H. B.’s second wife, after his first wife, Sikelwa Mamqotso, had died. As mentioned, they had seven children. Although I was younger than some of his sons, I managed to get on amicably with them. Our African understanding of family does not accommodate terms like ‘stepchildren’ or ‘half-brother’ or ‘half-sister’. All siblings, regardless of their standing in the family, are referred to as brothers and sisters, just as I referred to my husband’s children as my own. The youngest daughter, Miriam Nono, stayed with us at Crown Mines and taught briefly. Nono was close friends with Grace Sidzumo, H. B.’s niece who stayed for some time with her brother Shadrack at Crown Mines. Grace and Nono would deck themselves out in swanky clothes when they attended social functions in the city. They attracted many suitors, but their major attraction was tennis. Those two young ladies just loved to play tennis and they were regulars on the courts in Crown Mines.

Nono married Paul Mosaka, a politician who served in the Native Representative Council and retired to business. They had four children and Paul insisted on giving them SeTswana names: Kgositsile, Boipelo, Ofentse and Naledi. Nono’s friend, Grace Sidzumo, married Hofmeyer Mbere, famously known as Hoffie, a real dandy. Their eldest daughter, Nozipho, was named after my eldest daughter, Nozipho; and their son, Jiyana Mgojo, was named after one of the Jwara ancestors, Jiyana. My children affectionately called him Jiji.

H. B. and I had four children together, who were known as the Junior House because I was his second wife. My first child, Muriel Nozipho, was born in 1925. The following year, Mr Lawrence and H. B. were transferred to Modderbee Mine, Boksburg, to help quell some trouble there. As my second child, Isaiah Langwin Dumakude, was born in Modderbee in 1927, we nicknamed him ‘Modderbee’ and addressed him as ‘Darbie’, a shortened version of that nickname. In that same year, we returned to Crown Mines. My third child, Sydney Mweli, was born in 1930; we named him Mweli, which means ‘one who sailed’, because at that time, our son Clarence had sailed to Scotland to enrol to study medicine in Edinburgh; later on, we referred to him as Biza, which means ‘Booi’, as in Hannie Booi. My youngest, Joyce Notemba (Tembie), was born in 1933.

As induna, H. B. received many visitors; hence, we entertained frequently. I was assisted by his relatives from our extended family, one of whom, Ann Bottoman, née Maneli, a Jwara, became my favourite and closest friend. My children lovingly called her Mrs Botes. She came to live with us after her husband died, and she taught at a farm school in Fortuna. We used to cook and bake and exchange recipes. She loved singing and taught my children Christmas carols.

I was also attached to H. B.’s niece, Vuyelwa Gobingca, who would visit us frequently with her sister Dorcas from their home in Kimberly. Vuyelwa and I had been in the same class at Emgwali Industrial School, where we fostered the Jwara relationship and became good friends. When Reverend James Jolobe took an interest in Vuyelwa and wished to marry her, she was doubtful as James was widowed and much older than her. I encouraged Vuyelwa to take the plunge as I had done with H. B. Fortunately, she accepted the Reverend’s proposal, and they got married, and like me, she never looked back to regret her decision. Out of that union came Bridget Nobelungu, Monde and Peggy. Later, Nobelungu and Tembie were at Healdtown together where they sealed their relationship.

My home was always abuzz with visitors from all over the country. Some of those I remember were Mr Hamilton Masiza, the cricketer from Kimberly; Chief Poto from Pondoland, who was always accompanied by Mr Lockington Bam; his advisor, Phakathi; Mr Sakhwe, a member of iBhunga, the Transkei Legislative Assembly; Dr Moroka from Thaba Nchu; King Moshoeshoe from Basotholand, now Lesotho; Reverend W. B. Rubusana from East London; Mr and Mrs Ben Mazwi from Queenstown, and Professor Jabavu, Founder of Imvo Zabantsundu.

H. B. also cast his eyes beyond Crown Mine’s issues. He worked closely with A. W. Champion, uMahlathi of Durban, and Mr Clements Kadalie wodumo lwe Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, who fascinated audiences with his firey speeches. H. B. would travel to Durban to attend meetings with them. He was also closely connected to William Ballenden, Chief Municipal Officer dealing with African matters and part of the leadership in Johannesburg. In 1934, when the Prince of Wales visited South Africa, H. B. was a member of the local preparatory committee with Dr A. B. Xuma.

As a young man, Nelson Mandela’s first stop when he left Transkei was our home. When Oliver Tambo was teaching at St Peter’s School in Rosettenville, he stayed with us during weekends and coached our son Darbie in mathematics. Students who came from the Cape to study medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School could not be accommodated in the white student residences, so some of them, namely Dr Eldridge Rwairwai and Dr Diliza Mji, stayed at our home. They would also bring their colleagues, Mchasa, Tyamzashe and Nomoto Bikitsha, one of the first Black woman doctors, to our house to study.

Apart from teaching and entertaining, I was active in several cultural groups and church committees. I joined a cultural group called ‘Daughters of Africa’, started by Miss Tshabalala from Natal, who introduced the concept after her visit to the USA. One of the programmes was about how to budget, and there were talks about our African culture. I was the secretary of the Fordsburg Methodist Church Women’s Manyano (Mothers’ Union) and one of the founder members of the Zenzele YWCA in the Transvaal, along with Bertha Makau, Dora Shuping, Johanna Mabuza and Mabel Modiga. We invited Madie Hall-Xuma, an African-American woman married to Dr A. B. Xuma from Sophiatown (and former president of the ANC) to join us to help enrich our programmes from a global YWCA perspective. I was the treasurer of the Johannesburg YWCA branch for a long time and saw the movement grow under the capable guidance of Phyllis Mzaidume, the first general secretary of the Transvaal YWCA. She worked with Mrs Margaret Hathaway, who was seconded from the USA YWCA to develop the work of the organisation in South Africa. Margaret became a good friend and would always drop in at our home in Crown Mines at unexpected hours.

We held meetings in our homes because we did not have venues, and whenever a member hosted a meeting, they had to make sure that their home was spotlessly clean and bake cakes and prepare high tea. My jam tarts were always in demand, and there was still enough for members to take home. My daughter Tembie and the other girls in my home hated those meetings because of the hard work involved, and at the time, I never dreamt that Tembie would develop an interest in the YWCA and later become National General Secretary and World Vice President. I am so proud to know that the seeds I planted over the years yielded such a productive crop.

I was a member of the Independent Order of True Templars (IOTT), a temperance movement, which some people scoffed at by referring to it as meaning ‘I Only Take Tea’, and I was the secretary of its Crown Mines branch, the Light of Crown Mines. All of the branches in the Transvaal formed a regional body, the Northern Grand Temple. I became the first woman and layperson to be Grand Secretary of that body, since all of my predecessors had been men who were ministers of religion, including Reverend J. H. Mahlamvu, Reverend Mokoena and Reverend Mahabane.

When H. B. died in 1947, I was 46 years of age, in the prime of my life. He had been supportive and encouraging and was so proud of me. He had wanted me to dress smartly and had opened accounts for me at John Orr’s and Greatermans in Johannesburg. He had been a good husband, companion, friend and adviser. Whenever I had speaking engagements, H. B. would help me with ideas and make me rehearse my speech, not once, but several times, until he was satisfied.

When H. B. fell ill, I took leave from school to nurse him, my sister, Mabel Cingo, came from Kroonstad to be by my side and help me, and Dr Godfrey, our family doctor, made daily calls from Fordsburg. H. B. maintained his sense of humour right up until his death on 1 November 1947. Although his passing was a great loss to the children and me, our grief was cushioned by the presence and care of several relatives, notably my sister-in-law, MaSindane, who remained with me for a month after his funeral, keeping me busy, fussing over me and comforting me and the children. That is such a beautiful African tradition.

When all of my relatives had left my home, I felt empty and lonely, since my older children were not living with us and both Mweli and Joyce (Tembie as I lovingly called her) were at boarding school. Fortunately, I had to go back to my school where I found solace in teaching, which eased my grief and loneliness a bit. We had to vacate the nduna’s house but, fortunately, as the principal of the mine school, I was saved from the mine’s practice of removing the breadwinner’s family from the home provided by Crown Mines in the event of his death or termination from work. Hence, we occupied another house next to our former home. The saving grace is that my brother, Marshall Dumisa Mayeza, known to us by his first and second initials, M. D., succeeded my husband as induna, and when they moved into their home, they filled the emptiness into which I had been plunged. My sister-in-law, MaTshabangu, known as A. V., had been a constant friend, confidante and colleague from the time she joined me at the school I had started in Fordsburg. So once more, I was surrounded by loving relatives, and both of our homes were hives of activity. M. D. also entertained lots of visitors, and he strengthened the family ties. Once more, laughter and singing filled the air.

Nozipho, my eldest child, had married quite early and was living away from us in Sophiatown with her family. Hence, I always looked forward to Tembie’s homecoming from boarding school for added cheer and help with chores at home and errands such as paying my accounts in the city. She was mature and responsible and soon became a companion in whom I confided. I never thought that at my age, I could get valuable advice from my child and count on her. When she was growing up, she had always been her father’s daughter. Now, I was happy that she had transferred that warm relationship to me. She spoilt me so much that I became dependent.

At 60 years of age, I retired from teaching and left Crown Mines and moved to Soweto. My social life changed drastically, and I became very lonely. One of the executive committee members of the Northern Grand Temple, Mr Lutya, who was working for an insurance company in Johannesburg, encouraged me to join them as a canvasser. I became the first woman canvasser of that company, and I enjoyed the job immensely. It brought me into contact with people I knew and exposed me to various clients whom I visited in their homes. I brought in a lot of business because I was well known. The myriad students I had taught, members of my church, organisations to which I was affiliated and relatives became my clients.

Since I travelled by bus and train, which were so irregular and inefficient, I would get home late. My children did not like that job, and because there was so much crime in the townships, they worried about me travelling at night. After a lot of persuasion and coercion, and against my will, I gave it up. I cannot complain because they were considering my safety, and they have looked well after me. Even at my age, I still travel a lot, visiting relatives in the Transkei, Kroonstad and everywhere, attending family celebrations, weddings, funerals, the unveiling of tombstones – and as the revered ‘living ancestor’ of the family, I am always the main speaker on such occasions.

Now, I have all the time in the world to sit and ponder and marvel at God’s grace and mercies over me, which have sustained me throughout my life. I think of my husband’s unstinting love, care and unwavering determination to provide and protect me and our children, even though after his death, our family circumstances changed. But understandably, life cannot be easy and smooth all the time. I’m grateful that the Lord has given me the strength and faith to sustain H. B.’s legacy so that my children and grandchildren and many others should enjoy a better life. Hence, I have always found solace in the Methodist Church hymn, ‘Bulelani kuYehova, kuba ububele bakhe bungonaphakade (Give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy endures forever).’

SECTION 2:

MY