"Hiding Cattle on the White Man's Farm": Cattle Loans and Commercial Farms in Natal, 1930-50

Abstract

n a 1950 Native Commissioner court case in the Natal Midlands of South Africa, an African man defined ukusisa, an isiZulu word normally trans lated as loaning, in the following way: If one says he has sisa'd cattle he means he has hidden cattle on a farm belonging to a European. The white Native Commissioner and attorneys met this response with some surprise and later offered the witness, Mhlakuvana Ngcobo, an opportunity to rectify his error. Arguing that his first definition was faulty because the interpretation was bad and my lawyer was not present, a less than convincing explanation, Ngcobo later offered the conventional definition of ukusisa as given to another [who] gets milk and gets paid [when] the owner takes the cattle back.' What do these contradictory definitions suggest about the ways in which colonial intrusions and the growth of commercial farming in rural Natal transformed the precolonial practice of cattle loaning? In this article, I argue that the transformation of rural land into white-owned property in the form of commercial farms brought about a parallel transformation of cattle loaning. New reasons for and means of cattle loaning led to new types of disputes, while the colonial state's customary law regime offered new forums for settling them. At the same time, the continued practices of precolonial institutions such as cattle loaning and the hidden ownership of cattle challenged white claims to domination and control.