Same war, different story: a century's writing on the Boer–Hananwa war of 1894*

Abstract

An earlier issue of this journal carried an article contextualising and interpreting a prominent praise poem performed for their leader by the Hananwa, a northern Sotho community in South Africa. While it looked into the Hananwa's oral memory of the violent subjugation of their ancestors by the forces of the South African Republic (ZAR) in 1894, this article explores white people's representations of the Hananwa leader, Mmalebôhô, over the past hundred years. It suggests ways in which white memories of Mmalebôhô, alias Ratšhatšha, can be read not only for what they reveal about the Hananwa kgoši and his community, but particularly for what they reveal about the world view of those whites who deemed it necessary to preserve the memory of the events of 1894. The first part of the survey is concerned with the earliest popular documentation of the Boer–Hananwa War. The second section illustrates how ‘academic’ interest in the 1894 conflict surged mostly after the first generation of eyewitnesses had recounted their experiences. In conclusion, it seems that white writers, in serving their own personal needs for self‐assertion by writing down their memories, were simultaneously reinforcing – indeed, creating – the hegemonic order of their day. The memories of the Hananwa, the subordinates, were not presented on their own terms in written form until the last quarter of the twentieth century. It was thus via written accounts that the prevailing white hegemony was concealing the oppositional historical consciousness of the subjugated, a consciousness which indeed contradicted that seemingly hegemonic view.