Nguni

Lina trotted behind her mother. They were on the dirt road that ran from the lagoon, all along the shore to the lighthouse. She did three quick steps and then a little hop to change feet. Sometimes the hop came just in time for one of the puddles that lay in the road. If the puddle was too big to hop over, she had to do a two-legged jump, and then she forgot which foot was supposed to be in front, so she had to start again.

On the right were the little houses that people stayed in for the holidays. The houses were all grey. They had two windows and a stoep and were very dark, so when the front door was open you couldn’t see anything that was going on inside. The people who stayed there either sat on the stoep looking at their phones or they braaied at the concrete braais in front of the houses. They always looked at Lina and her mom when they walked past. Most of the houses were empty now because it wasn’t really holidays, except for the very last house. The children there were two fat boys who were too old to play with, but too young to be grown up. But even if they had been young enough to play with, Lina didn’t think she would ask them because they also looked at her and her mom when they walked past.

When it wasn’t holidays, nobody stayed there. Then the houses just stood and looked quietly at the sea.

They arrived at the part where there were shallow rocky pools on the beach. She had played in them the day before, making shell people who lived in the green underwater hotels in the pools. Her mom had joined in for a bit, but then her phone rang and Lina had to carry on by herself. She had put the shell people to sleep on their rocky beds and covered them with little sand blankets. She wondered if they were still there. Maybe the fat boys had come down and taken then away. Or maybe stepped on them. Or maybe they had just come to inspect things, and then gone away.

Lina didn’t look up, but she knew by the way the puddles were getting bigger, that they were coming up to the little hut on the right where people had written things and drawn pictures all over the walls, even on the outside. Her mom stopped walking and said, Oh no, in the way that made Lina panicky. She looked where her mom was looking, to the left where the road dropped down to the beach. A cow was lying there, not moving, and Lina saw that there was a tiny bit of blood on her back legs and the skin was scraped away.

Oh God, her mom said, but she didn’t move. Lina stood next to her and stared at the cow. The stomach moved up and down just enough so that you could see it was breathing. It’s still alive, said her mom, and scrambled down the slope onto the beach. Lina went after her. Right away the cow panicked and kicked her legs, but she couldn’t stand up. She was lying on top of the rocks at a funny angle and her stomach was a huge mountain. Is she sick? I don’t know Linnie, I think she fell down here in the dark last night. She might have broken one of her legs or something.

The cow scrabbled her hooves in the coarse sand and brought her head up. She shook it from side to side and the horns were very long and curved and sharp. Shhh, said her mom, and went closer. The cow dropped her head back onto the sand and lay still. Shhh, said her mom, and knelt down at the head, right next to one of the horns that was sticking up into the air. Hello cow, said her mom. Hello cow. Then she put her hand on the cow’s cheek and held it there for a bit. Lina could see the cow’s brown eye with its long lashes looking at them.

Her mom stroked the cheek and said, Hello cow, what did you do, you silly girl? Lina knelt next to her and looked at the long horn and the eye. Here, touch her here.

Lina reached forwards and put her hand on the cow’s face. The hair was hard but also soft, and she stroked downwards, towards the big nose. There was a tick next to the eye and she wanted to pull it off, but she knew, because Oom Hans had told her, that you never just pulled a tick off, because the head stayed behind and drank the blood.

The cow’s body was dark brown with little white speckles like drops of milk. Where the horns came out of her head the hair was tufty and orange and grew like Lorax hair. The cow sighed and watery snot flew out of her big nostril. Wait cow, said her mom, and she scooped out a little hollow for the left eye because it was wide open and getting sand in it. The left horn was buried.

The cow said, Mwhooo, in a long, low, sad way.

Lina’s mom stood up and made a phone call. Hello Allan, she said. Ja, there’s a cow lying on the beach on the way to the lighthouse. It’s obviously fallen, and it can’t stand up. Ja, it’s still alive. Do you know who to call? The police maybe? It’s from that little herd that wanders around down here. Okay, call me back.

In the cow’s armpits were ticks and warts. Its skin was stretched tight over the ribs and Lina thought about all the stomachs in there, lying piled up on one side, stuffed full of grass and making the cow feel uncomfortable. The tail flicked up and there was snot and blood on it, and poo too.

Shit shit shit, said her mom.

They walked all the way to the lighthouse and her mother didn’t speak. Lina kept skipping, except that it became too tiring where the road curved away from the beach and went up the hill where it was bushy and a lot of monkeys lived, so she just walked. She fell behind and her mom stopped. Can you go a tiny bit faster? We’re almost there and we can look out for whales and dolphins at the ruins, she said. Lina went faster, but she kept falling behind, so her mom had to stop again and say the same thing.

Below the lighthouse, at the ruin of the old hiking hut, they stood on the slab above the concrete pool and looked out at the ocean. There was a big, rusted pipe lying on the rocks below them. They waited for quite a while, but they didn’t see any whales or dolphins. Not today, said her mom and they turned and went back up the hill, which was steep and sandy, and it took a long time to reach the top. It was like walking up a sand dune, except it was in a forest. Halfway up, a big piece of steel lay in the bushes. It looked like the other half of the rusted pipe.

When they arrived back at the spot, the cow was still there. Lina’s mom got on the phone again. Lina climbed down the embankment and said, Shhh, hello cow, and the cow knew it was her, so it lay quietly without shaking its horns. It looked at her with its big eye and said, Mwhooo.

Allan, hi, it’s me again. This cow is still lying here. Did you find out who she belongs to? Something needs to be done here. Ja, okay, call me back.

They waited next to the cow for a while. Lina stroked the big bony face and touched the grey nostril to feel the breath coming out. Her mom walked around the cow and felt along the spine, then she said, Okay, Linnie, let’s go. We could be here for hours waiting for these people and it’s turning cold.

When they were back on the road her mom phoned again. Allan, listen, it’s eighty metres from the two-kilometre sign, beyond that, on the left, below the road, on the rocks. Did you find out? Okay. Malan, the captain? Okay does he know who the owner is? Alright, let me know. She can’t stay out here another night.

They went past the grey houses but the boys weren’t there. Maybe they were on the beach near the lagoon, body surfing. Their stomachs would scrape on the sand if they did that.

In the afternoon Lina watched Kicking and Screaming. She had watched it fourteen times and she still liked it. Her mom sat at her laptop in the dining room doing work. After a while she stood up and went across the lounge onto the deck. What is that bloody racket, she said. Lina couldn’t hear a racket because she was at the part where Coach Western had been drinking too much coffee and he became very loud and active and shouted at everyone, including Coach Dittke, who said he did not want to be the juice boy and then stormed off to his car.

Her mom got on the phone. Hi Allan, it’s me. Do you know what that noise is? Sounds like a motorbike gang going nuts. It’s Saturday afternoon. What the hell? Okay, call me back. She went back to her laptop but then five minutes later, in the middle of the soccer match where Coach Western was now completely crazy from all the coffee and because he badly wanted his team to win, but really just to beat his father’s team, she walked back out onto the deck. This is just not on, she said. Linnie, can you pause that and run down and open the gate? We’re going to find out what this bloody noise is all about.

Lina closed the gate and climbed in the front. She was allowed to be in the front when they were here because mostly it was only dirt roads. They drove down to the main part of town and parked the car. What the hell, her mother said, and opened her door. Linnie, stay here, she said.

A bunch of people were standing around and in the middle of the road two men on motorbikes were making donuts. They were going round and round and there was smoke coming from their tyres. The people stood on the pavements. Some of them were drinking beers. Lina watched her mother walk up to one of the men. She leaned out of the car and heard the man say, Yes, Ma’am, Captain Malan. Ja, it’s a charity ride. The guys are raising funds for an old-age home in East London.

The men on the motorbikes made more donuts and a few people clapped. But seriously, Captain Malan, said her mother. A Saturday afternoon, and this has been going on since midday. That’s three hours now. And the road is cordoned off. Were there public notices about this? Yes Ma’am, said Captain Malan. They were posted up at the Spar, on the notice board. We do this every year, it’s just for fun and a good cause. For the old-age home, he said. In Joburg this would not be allowed, said her mom. This is noise pollution. Well Ma’am it’s for the old-age home and it’s finishing at four, so we’re nearly done here.

One of the donut men stopped his bike and switched it off. He had long hair and a leather jacket with no sleeves. He looked at Lina’s mom.

She came back to the car, and they reversed and then drove along the roads between the houses all the way to the shops because the main one was closed off for the motorbike donuts. At the Spar, Lina’s mom climbed out, slammed the door and went up to the notice board. No damn notices, I knew it, she said when she got back in. They drove home and Lina thought about the cow. She wondered if the fat boys would walk that far and see her lying on the rocks. She thought they probably wouldn’t because they usually stayed on the stoep or went down to the beach closest to their house. Maybe she would ask them tomorrow if she could borrow one of their boogie boards. She remembered that she still had a bit of Kicking and Screaming to watch.

It started to rain when they were eating dinner. Pasta with mushrooms. Lina liked it but she put some more grated cheese on it. Her mom stood up and went to the deck. She came back in and picked up her phone. Allan, sorry man, I know it’s late, but do you know whether it was sorted? It’s damn cold all of a sudden, and this is one of those storms that stays all night. Do you think Malan did anything about it? Okay, send me a message, just to let me know.

She came back to the table and had some wine. Lina put more cheese on her pasta.

Lina woke up in the middle of the night. It was raining hard. She thought about the cow lying on the rocks in the rain. Maybe the sea was all the way up to her, and her nose was getting wet and she was tasting the salty water.

Then suddenly—Lina got a little fright at the suddenness of it—her mother was standing in the doorway, the light from the passage making her into a dark shape, except for the glow of the phone against her cheek. Hi, Hans it’s me, she was saying. How would you kill a cow if you didn’t have a gun? Ja, a cow. Then she turned away and Lina slipped out of bed and followed her.

In the kitchen her mother opened the drawer with the knives and took one out. She tested it on her thumb. Come on Linnie, she said, and they went out of the house and walked all the way in the dark and the rain, along the dirt road, past the grey cottages where the fat boys were asleep, and the underwater hotels, past the two-kilometre sign that glowed white in the dark.

When they reached the little slope, the cow said, Mwhooo, and they went down onto the rocks and Lina’s mom went to the head of the cow and said, Shhh cow, and she felt along the head to the soft ears, which Lina remembered now were a much lighter brown than the rest of the body. Then her mom put her hand under the cow’s mouth and pulled the head upwards and the horns were curved in the air, shining brightly in the darkness, and she took the knife and sliced all the way around from the right ear to the left ear and a lot of blood came out of the cow, very black and shiny in the rain.

“The cattle were always there, in the midst, not in some far-off cattle post.”
—Marguerite Poland, David Hammons-Tooke and Leigh Voigt, The Abundant Herds: A Celebration of the Nguni Cattle of the Zulu People, 2003^[1]

“Cattle were the focal point of Xhosa existence. Life literally circled around them since the huts of an umzi were grouped in a semi-circle around the cattle kraal, with their entrances facing it. The direction was eastwards, towards the sun.”
—Noël Mostert, Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa’s Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People, 1992^[2]

“Cattle-based pastoralism, including dairying, was probably practised throughout northern Africa by about 6,000 years ago and gradually moved south, pushed by desire to escape the increasingly hostile climate of the Sahara. Herders with cattle, sheep and goats spread into eastern Africa […] shortly before 4,000 years ago and had become widespread across the region by 3,000 years ago.

The earliest animal husbandry in southern Africa is associated with transhumant pastoralist speakers of Khoisan languages. While recent archaeological research has shown that cattle were present in westernmost South Africa by the early first millennium AD, several hundred years earlier than previously thought, whether the spread of domesticates occurred by demic expansion or cultural diffusion remains contentious. Archaeological, genetic and linguistic data do, however, support a model of demic expansion of ethnically and linguistically distinct Bantu-speaking farmers into southern Africa. They carried with them the remainder of the founding population of the region’s cattle, as well as other domestic plants and animals, metallurgy, and ceramics distinct from those of earlier pastoralists.”
—Ann Horsburgh et al., “The Genetic Diversity of the Nguni Cattle Breed of African Cattle: Complete Mitochondrial Genomes of Haplogroup T1”, 2013^[3]

“The Nguni is a well-known transboundary indigenous southern African cattle breed. It is classified as a Sanga type breed, under the subspecies Bos taurus africanus, and is understood to be an admixture of the humped zebu (Bos indicus) and humpless (Bos taurus) which originated from North Africa.”
—Matome Madilindi et al., “Genetic Diversity and Relationships Among Three Southern African Nguni Cattle Populations”, 2019^[4]

“The Nguni cattle breed is named for their historical association with speakers of the Nguni language, one of the most southerly members of the Bantu family of languages.”
—Horsburgh et al.^[5]

“The great diversity in the colour and pattern of Nguni cattle can be classified according to certain perceptions of what the colour patterns resemble and signify. The system of naming is highly complex and, although primarily used for purposes of identification, it is, nevertheless, characterised by metaphorical and allusive language … Many of the terms must be of ancient origin, for, all over Africa, cattle terms are linked with birds, plants, trees and a variety of other concepts, and demonstrate the pastoralists’ preoccupation with their herds. Each term reflects a whole range of experience, connecting one apperception with another.”
—Poland, Hammond-Tooke and Voigt^[6]

“Among the Xhosa, a number of older terms for colour patterns specifically connected with birds or animals, and with a strongly allusive content, have given way to adaptations from Afrikaans, such as ibantom (pied) and ivelimeyisi (from vaal muis, or grey mouse).”
—Poland, Hammond-Tooke and Voigt^[7]

“Historically constructed and referred to as the ‘frontier wars’ dating from 1779 to 1878, this set of clashes and conflicts exemplified the move from disruption to the total onslaught of colonial imperialism upon the land of the Xhosa, the destruction of its organic structures and the indoctrination of the people to serve the interests of colonial governance.”
—South African History Online, “The Cattle Killing Movement”^[8]

“On 31 March 1835 the British invaded Xhosa territory east of the Keiskamma River and on 10 May Governor D’Urban extended the colonial boundaries to the Great Kei River.”
—South African History Online, ”Transkei”

“Mlanjeni led the people to believe through vague insinuations and enigmatic utterances that some great event was about to reveal itself, though he did not say exactly what it was or how exactly it would occur. In order to bring this event to fruition, however, it was first necessary to rid the world of the ubuthi (evil substance) which was poisoning the earth all around. It was on account of this ubuthi that the great drought of 1850 was burning up the country, that the baking land refused the plough, that the cattle were like skeletons from lack of grass, and that the people themselves were suffering grievously from hunger.”
—Jeff Peires, The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing of 1856–7, 1989^[9]

“Lungsickness spread like an evil fire as infected oxen transported it along the waggon roads of the Cape Colony. By March 1854 it had reached Uitenhage …

The Xhosa could see the disease coming and took all the precautions they could to escape from it. They drove their precious cattle to mountainous and secluded places. They quarantined all strange and colonial cattle within their borders and prohibited the introduction of others. They fenced kilometre after kilometre of pasturage …

Xhosa losses from lungsickness ran at about 5,000 cattle a month.”
—Peires^[10]

“In April 1856, near the Gxarha River along South Africa’s Eastern Cape frontier, a Xhosa girl by the name of Nongqawuse received a message that only she could hear: ‘Tell that the whole community will rise from the dead; and that all cattle now living must be slaughtered, for they have been reared by contaminated hands …’”
—Andrew Offenburger, “The Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement in History and Literature”, 2009^[11]

“Pastoralism, the ancient heart of Xhosaland, was dying; men were being reluctantly dragged into women’s work. The terminal illness of a cattle-culture on too little land, the desperate attempts to launch an agrarian revolution on inhospitable terrain, the flight of the poverty-stricken to ill-paid employment eKoloni, the conquest which warriors could not reverse, the erosion of gender and generational orders: these trends were all starkly apparent.”
—Helen Bradford, “Akukho Ntaka Inokubhabha Ngephiko Elinye (No Bird Can Fly on One Wing): The ‘Cattle-Killing Delusion’ and Black Intellectuals, c1840–1910”, 2008^[12]

“Nongqawuse’s peasant contemporaries saw little reason to structure a segment of their past around ‘Cattle-Killing’. The concept is absent from their iziganeko: understandably, since the coup de grâce to pastoralism, collapsing for a decade, was administered as Europe’s diseased beasts invaded southern Africa.”
—Bradford^[13]

“The past is, after all, multivocal and elusive. There is no reason to believe – or even hope – that consensus will ever be reached over the ‘true story’ of the Cattle-Killing.”
—Sheila Boniface Davies, “Raising the Dead: The Xhosa Cattle-Killing and the Mhlakazi-Goliat Delusion”, 2007^[14]

“Under the Bantu Authority Act of 1951, the Transkei became, in 1959, the first region to be established as a Territorial Authority; and in 1963 it became the first Bantustan to be granted ‘self-government’.”
—South African History Online, ”Transkei”^[15]

“Because there are more peasants than the land can support, the government has introduced periodic reductions of stock, and has limited the privilege of owning at all. Only those who have arable allotments are allowed to graze stock on the pasturage, and the total number of stock owned is limited in accordance with the carrying capacity of the pasturage.

The peasants claim that this measure is intended to impoverish them. It bars the door of opportunity to those who may not own cattle or may not graze all the cattle that they wish to acquire.”
—Govan Mbeki, South Africa: The Peasants’ Revolt, 1964^[16]

“The truth is that apartheid is losing its stake fast in the Transkei. Open terror, imposed for too long, will fire violent resistance …

The Transkei, show-place of the Bantustan scheme, could well be the first battlefield on which apartheid will be defeated.”
—Mbeki^[17]

“Under the new democratic dispensation in South Africa, the Transkei and all other homelands were incorporated into South Africa in 1994.”
—South African History Online, “Transkei”^[18]

“A joint regional conservation strategy can be developed and informed decisions made for future breeding programmes and sustainable utilisation of the Nguni cattle breed across southern Africa … This will ensure regional food security and economic growth.”
—Madilindi et al.^[19]

“High genetic diversity among indigenous cattle enables farmers to select stock or develop new breeds in response to changing climates, new or resurgent disease threats, new knowledge of human nutritional requirements, and changing market conditions, social, and cultural needs. The benefits would be permanently lost in the case of the extinction of indigenous breeds. It is, therefore, imperative to catalogue and take conservation measures to avoid an irremediable loss to this reservoir for genetic diversity and allow sustainable use of cattle breeds in their local environments.”
—Mapiye et al.,  “Stategies for Sustainable Use of Indigenous Cattle Genetic resources in Southern Africa”^[20]

“All domestic cattle derive from the auroch (Bos taurus primigenius), the extinct wild ox of Europe, which stood 1,8 metres tall at the shoulder and had spreading, widely curved horns. Two main lines were domesticated from this ancestor: Bos indicus and Bos taurus.

B. indicus, the humped, short-horned Zebu, was domesticated in the Near East in about 5000 BC, and in the valley of the Indus River. It was introduced to Africa at an early stage, probably via the Horn and East Coast, through trade contact and Arab coastal settlements. The humpless, long-horned B. taurus was domesticated in Africa, either in Egypt or, as has been suggested recently by genetic research, in the area of the original heartland of the Bantu-speakers in the Niger-Cameroon region of West Africa.”
—Poland, Hammond-Tooke and Voigt^[21]