Introduction
A person who has isiXhosa as home language is referred to as a Xhosa. IsiXhosa is one of South Africa's eleven official languages. It is in fact, in terms of home languages, South Africa's second largest language group (17.9%) after isiZulu (22.9%). The language falls in the Nguni-languages group, other languages in this group include isiSwati and isiZulu. Unlike most other African languages, Xhosa has more than a dozen "click" sounds, probably assimilated from Khoisan speakers (previously referred to as Bushmen) over long periods of acculturation between Xhosa and Khoisan peoples. While most Xhosa's in urban areas can speak English this is less true in rural areas.

While there are Xhosa's living throughout South Africa most amaXhosa (Xhosa people) reside in the Eastern Cape while a fair portion lives in the province's southwestern neighbour - the Western Cape. A substantial number of Xhosa's live in rural areas, particularly the former Apartheid "black homelands" of Transkei and Ciskei. Thus the Xhosa culture and traditions are very much alive. This does sadly also mean that most Xhosa's are poor and have limited access to quality education.

The Xhosa's are a proud people who have played a big role in the geopolitical landscape in South Africa, and particularly the present day Eastern Cape, from early times right through to the present. Some prominent isiXhosa speaking figures in South Africa's recent history include Steve Biko, Walter Sisulu, Thabo Mbeki (current president) and Nelson Mandela (former president).

Abbreviated history
The early descendants of the amaXhosa migrated into the eastern regions of Southern Africa some two thousand years ago. Of these Nguni speaking migrants the population section that was later to be known as the amaXhosa eventually went the furthest south, all the way to the Fish River in present day Eastern Cape. Some arrived and settled here well before the fifteenth century, a migration that continued into the eighteenth century. As the amaXhosa migrated and settled further south and west they encountered Khoisan speakers, sometimes leading to the latter's enslavement but mostly to peaceful assimilation over time. From there the interesting range of clicks in the Xhosa language.

The Xhosa generally incorporated newcomers who recognised the dominance of the Xhosa chief. In fact, until the twentieth century, the term Xhosa was often used to designate territorial affiliation rather than common descent. The resulting Xhosa society was extremely diverse. Today among themselves amaXhosa still tend to refer to themselves by their various chiefdoms, e.g. Winnie Mandela is Pondo, Nelson Mandela (affectionately known by his clan name Madiba) is Thembu and Steve Biko was Xhosa.

Xhosa people had extensive contact with Europeans by the early nineteenth century, and they generally welcomed European missionaries and educators into their territory. A Xhosa grammar book -the first in a southern African language- was published in 1834. Their early and sustained contact with Christian missionaries and educators led the Xhosa to distinguish between "school people," who had accepted Western innovation, and "red people," who were identified with the traditional red ochre used to dye clothing and to decorate the body. By the twentieth century, the Xhosa school people formed the core of South Africa's emerging black professional class and included lawyers, physicians, and ministers.

This was however only after the amaXhosa and European arrivals in their territory fought long and bloody battles in the so-called Xhosa Frontier Wars in the late 1700's and early 1800's.

Traditional way of life
Modernisation and westernisation has impacted on the amaXhosa way of life. However the lifestyle of and social organisation of Xhosa people in rural areas still contains the core of early Xhosa traditions. With the exception of Xhosa migrant labourers and a small pool of professionals who mostly make a living outside of the traditional areas, everyday life for those who remain behind is remarkably similar to earlier times. The biggest difference is probably limited access to education, electricity, running water, sanitation, motorised transport and medical services.

It should also be pointed out that while urban amaXhosa may have assimilated a lot of modern values and skills they mostly hold their cultural heritage very dear. For this reason it is not strange for the president of South Africa to be lead into the chambers at the annual opening of Parliament by a Xhosa praise singer. Similarly urban amaXhosa will often consult with a traditional healer before, or in tandem, with going to a western style medical doctor.

In the rural areas most Xhosa live by cattle herding, crop cultivation, and hunting. Homesteads are normally built near the tops of the numerous ridges that overlook the rivers of the area, including the Fish River, the Keiskama River, the Buffalo River, and the Kei River. This leaves the fertile valleys free for cultivation. Cattle, serving as symbols of wealth, as well as means of exchange, pack animals, and transportation, are central to the rural economy.

Xhosa homesteads are often organised around descent groups, with descent traced through male forebears. These lineages, and the large clans formed by groups of related lineages, provide the centre of Xhosa social organisation. These descent groups are responsible for preserving ancestral ties and for perpetuating the group through sacrifices to the ancestors, mutual assistance among the living, and carefully arranged marriages with neighbouring clans or lineages. Political power is still often described as control over land and water. A powerful chief may be praised in oral histories by the claim that he had power over the land close to a large river, and a lesser chief, by the claim that he had power over land near a smaller river or tributary.

Xhosa Names
Traditionally children are named by their fathers often expressing joy and fruitfulness such as in names like Sipho (gift) and Nwabisa (happiness) or noble characteristics like Mandela (strength) or expressing thankfulness to God such as Siyabonga (we give praise). Early converts to Christianity were given new names (so called Christian names) and Chief Kama’s son, for example, was named William Shaw Kama. Some were named after early explorers or historical figures. Thabo Mbeki’s father for example was named Govan; other names like Livingstone, Nelson (the name given to Nelson Mandela on his first day at school by his teacher) and Wellington were more common.

It can be quite interesting enquiring from a Xhosa person, known to you by his/her Christian or English name, to what his/her original Xhosa name is together with the meaning thereof. In some cases the English and Xhosa names would have the same meaning in both languages, typically with names such as Goodman, Wiseman, Beauty and Patience. Often Xhosa's will go by their Xhosa name at home or in amaXhosa company while using their English names elsewhere. This is mainly a symptom of South Africa's multicultural nature and the fact that many of their fellow South Africans, especially white South Africans, are not able to pronounce or grasp the meaning of the original Xhosa name.

Clan names are considered more important than a surname and so to call a Xhosa person by his/her clan name is considered friendly and warm. Madiba is Nelson Mandela’s clan name (within the Thembu chiefdom). Other well-known clan names are names like Dlamini, Radebe and Mabele. A newly married woman may be given a new name by her in-laws whereas boys are often given new names on going through their initiation ceremony by elder men. Sipho (gift) is a common boy’s name while by adding –kazi the word it becomes a girl’s name i.e. Siphokazi. Also by placing –no in front it also indicates a girl i.e. Cebo is a boy and Nocebo is a girl’s name.

The Xhosa hut
Construction of the huts is the role of the woman. The old-style Xhosa huts were beehive-shaped and of thatch over a light sapling frame with a floor made of clay and dung (similar to other Nguni groups such as the Zulu's and Swazi's). This style is still retained for the lodge where boys undergoing initiation live in seclusion, though plastic sheets are now often used to make it more waterproof. The beehive shape has been replaced with thatched straight-walled rondavels. They are built with poles stuck in the ground and encircled with laths between which rocks are inserted and finally mixed with a mixture of clay and cattle dung. Wattle trees were introduced from Australia to help save the indigenous forests from over exploitation. Where trees are scarce, walls are commonly made now with mud ‘box’ bricks. The roof is built, often with pine poles and thatched with grass collected locally. A fire is made in the centre of a hut and no outlet is made for the smoke except through a single doorway. There may sometimes be two tiny openings as windows. In the more urban areas the circular layout is fast disappearing.

Households
In the past furniture and utensils were very simple and few. Sometimes the only item of furniture was a reed or grass mat on which people sat or slept. A block of wood may have served as a headrest. Basketwork, pottery (now no longer used), calabashes and a grinding stone provided most of the utensils used in the preparation and storage of food. Wooden dishes and wooden or horn spoons were made while, prior to tinder-boxes or matches, fire was made by drilling a hard stick into a softer wood. With the advent of trading stations, axes, three legged iron pots (very popular among all South Africans), buckets, basins, trunks, chairs, tables and beds were introduced.

Clothing

Two Xhosa ladies with traditional headdress and face paint, also note the beadwork.

Before woven cloth became available, the clothing that was worn was made of skins of animals both wild and domestic. Only royalty could use leopard skin. Different tribes had different fashions. In the east a small head scarf and a beaded head-ring were and still are worn by married women. Women liked to plait their hair and add attachments at the ends or the whole length. The use of beads was widespread and each area had its own colours, but as during the time of sanctions against South Africa they became hard to get, they are used less and less. Women throughout the area wore short fringe aprons of fibre cords later strung with beads. After the missionaries arrived and traders moved in there was a swing to garments of cotton cloths, blankets as well as breast covering were added. In central Transkei women are often seen with long pipes they smoke.

The most important for men was the sheath that covered their genital areas, which continued to be used until modern times. A short hide cloak was sometimes worn, as were sandals when on a long journey. The skin cloak was later replaced with a blanket. Trousers and a loincloth were introduced. Cloth headbands used to be worn to distinguish the status of soldiers, for example, soldiers praised for bravery in battle wore blue crane feathers in their headbands. Ostrich feathers and other ornaments would sometimes be worn.

They also wore fringes of monkey and wildcat skin around the waist and sometimes the neck. The Chief would often wear ivory bangles and perhaps a leopard tooth necklace together with his leopard skin. Snuff or tobacco pouches were made from the Giant Golden mole, (which is endemic to the province.)

Diviners formerly wore a kilt of animal tails, with strips of skin and many other objects around their necks and arms sometimes tied in their hair. Lately white clothing and beadwork – (particularly white clothing) is worn. The head-dress of important diviners is a cap of baboon or other skin. Boys undergoing initiation normally wear blankets, which are white with red stripes. Special costumes of palm leaf head-dresses were worn afterwards.

Ornaments
The Xhosa have a love for ornaments and beadwork, in particular. Seeds of the coral tree, shells, bone or ivory, claws and teeth as well as pieces of roots were used before glass beads were introduced. Ivory arm rings (awarded by the chief) indicated some had medicinal or magic values, which is probably why the missionaries tried to discourage people from wearing such ornaments. There was also a concern that they were prepared to barter valuable items such as cattle for a handful of buttons and beads. When mission work first began at Weslyville such items were nevertheless given as payment for construction work in the absence of any currency. They could then afterwards trade these items for cattle.

In 1780 one pound of beads was the equivalent of one cow. As the price went down, the beads were used as ornaments to decorate clothing and other objects of value. Certain styles, patterns and colours were chosen in different areas but there was no ‘language of colour’ as found among some northern Nguni (e.g. the Zulu's).

Initiation of Boys
The Xhosa boys went and still go through a traditional transition from boyhood to manhood marked by the abakweta circumcision ceremony. In the past, every Xhosa youth had to go through this ceremony before he was considered to be a man. It is still a strong tradition in rural areas (where it is a communal matter and a number of boys undergo initiation together) and to a lesser extent in the urban centres. With the coming of spring, the circumcision operation was performed. Today it is usually postponed to the Christmas holidays.

Xhosa initiates with white clay covering, blankets
and a plastic covered beehive shaped hut in the background.

The age of young boys entering the ceremony varies. The boys live in a special hut constructed for the purpose of surviving away from the villages. They are instructed in their conduct, disciplined and taught ethnic loyalties that will be expected of them as adults. They live frugally, undergo endurance tests and may not be visited by any female. The disciplinary training today is not as harsh as it was in the past, but the process may still occasionally result in death, normally through botched circumcisions (a very controversial issue that receives lots of press coverage in South Africa and is the subject of much political debate nationally).

The boys whiten their bodies with white clay and usually wear a white blanket to protect them from evil and to show that they are in a state of separation. For the traditional dances, they wear reed skirts, caps and masks. The huts, costumes, bandages and other items used in the rituals are then burned as the boys are driven to a river with initiators ceremonially beating them as they go towards the river. They are not allowed to look back and plunge into the river and wash away the white paint (clay) from their bodies as a sign that boyhood is being stripped off and removed from them.

When they emerge on the opposite bank, they are no longer boys and are then painted with red ochre and receive from their fathers a new blanket or suit of clothes. The boys return home and will usually wait the customary four years before they marry.

The Cattle Kraal
The centre of the homestead, physically and spiritually, is the cattle-kraal, (a circular enclosure of interlaced poles or brushwood, or stone, in which the cattle were kept at night). The wooden pole gate faces the principle hut. Either the interior of the kraal itself or the space between its gate and the door of the hut is the men’s meeting place, where at chief’s places laws and lawsuits are heard. Sacrifices and ceremonies are held there and in the past grain was stored in a deep pit dug in the floor. In the past chiefs were buried in the kraal, but the head of an ordinary homestead was buried just outside the gate.

Cattle
Great importance is still attached to their cattle, which is mostly the domain of the men who show great devotion towards them. It places in perspective the great sacrifice the Xhosa made in carrying out the great cattle-killing episode following the Eighth Frontier War. By killing their cattle and destroying their crops, it had been prophesied by 16-year-old Nongqawuse that the whites would be driven into the sea, that their ancestors would rise from the grave, and abundant crops and cattle would appear. This tragic episode in Xhosa history lead to great suffering, starvation and thousands of deaths.

Women are mostly not permitted to have any contact with cattle. It was one of the earliest forms of capital in South Africa, the medium of exchange and standard by which wealth was measured. With cattle they would pay lobola (a bridal price) to the parents of the girl they wished to marry. Today cattle are often still used in the payment of lobola although hard cash is mostly preferred.

In killing a beast for a village feast or for an honoured guest, a man can demonstrate his generosity. On one occasion when the missionary Rev Shaw stopped over in a chief’s territory and he had no cattle to slaughter due to the ravages of war, he gave the Rev Shaw an elephant tusk instead.

Cattle allowed for greater mobility and the grazing and stealing of cattle became a primary issue in the lead up to the first few frontier wars (the encroachment of white settlers onto Xhosa land was the main problem). Milk was left to curdle in a hide sack or calabash of sour milk, amasi, and was the staple diet of adults. Fresh milk was given only to children. Butter was used for cosmetic purposes, the hide used for shields, traditional clothing and bags. Spoons, snuff boxes, and containers were made from the horns. Many of these traditions still endure and amasi is still a favourite with most black South Africans.

Dung is not used as a fertiliser but as fuel and for preservation on the hut floors (although cement floors are making their way into rural areas). Oxen are used as pack animals as well as for riding or racing. The women tend to do all the work in the fields and around the homestead. The task of looking after cattle normally falls on young boys (Nelson Mandela tended his father's cattle as a young boy).

Cattle are closely connected with the religious life of the Xhosa. Ritual sacrifices at certain times are means of maintaining good relations with the ancestral spirits who are believed to control health and prosperity.