The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of Their Independence

Abstract

In this, the first modern history of the Xhosa, the author relates the story of one of the most numerous and important indigenous peoples in contemporary South Africa, from their consolidation, through an era of co-operation and conflict with whites (whom the Xhosa regarded as uncivilized) to the frontier wars that eventuated in their present position as a subordinate group in the modern South African state. Incorporating their own oral and written testimony into a modern historical and ethnographic framework, the author examines the response of the Xhosa to the successive challenges of contact with whites; the adaptation of Xhosa cosmology to Christianity; the increasing dependence of the Xhosa on military technology in defense of their lands. The House of Phalo takes its place in a growing body of literature that measures the impact of white rule on African peoples in South Africa.