Re-membering Local African History – Translating the Biography of Muhlaba I of the VaNkuna into English

Abstract

SummaryThis article explores translations and potential functions of a biography of King Muhlaba I (ca 1864-1944) in reshaping memory in local and wider South African history, acknowledging the contributions of the Nkuna people as members of the South African community. Muhlaba I led the Nkuna people (a Tsonga group) from the 1880s into modernity, through the South African War and two World Wars. In their 1957 Xitsonga biography, Nkuna authors P.M. Shilubana and H.E. Ntsanwisi describe this leader as a wise ruler, proponent of education and judge who administered indigenous restorative justice, and negotiated the space between his people’s traditional lifestyle and modernity. The article suggests possibilities for transparent and accountable, and thus ethical, translations of the text within the limitations imposed by the local translation context. It considers the question of why more translations of this text, especially in English, need to become available in a post-colonial context, given that it covers the life of a man in the colonial era, and was compiled during the apartheid era. It also contends that it is important to preserve both the 1957 biography and a 1963 Afrikaans translation as historical artefacts. The article argues that availability of this text in English would widen knowledge of Nkuna involvement in national and international historical events, and would complement academic and popular sources on African perspectives on South African history.