The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856-7 - Tapa blanda

In 1856 the Xhosa tribe of South Africa slaughtered all their cattle, cut down their crops and sat back to wait for their ancestors to rise from the dead. By the end of the following year they themselves were dead, mostly from starvation... . This must be the only case in human history of mass suicide on such a scale for the sake of a religious fantasy. It seems incredible that there has never been a book on the subject before. In an attempt to disprove the thesis that this was just an inexplicable reaction of a primitive people, Mr Peires sets out to prove that the cattle killing was a logical response to the Xhosa predicament ... . In the face of such evil Mr Peires turns to the only identifiable devil - the British and in particular Governor George Grey ... .The phenomenon defies logic. It is simply one of those eruptions from hell which Africa sometimes experiences .... Anyone who thinks that South Africa's problems began with the Afrikaners and apartheid should read this book - Richard Dowden in THE INDEPENDENT The reading of history - especially South African history - has been all but ruined in our school system. Peires restores it by combining a magical mystery tour with the elegant baroque of the Victorian novel. At weighty moments he breaks the text, offering the impatient mind a quick route to a new section, or with a considered pause to reflect on the wider issues at work in the mid-19th century. It is an especially liberating style and a fine example of the imaginative, thoughtful historian's craft. ...The genre heightens the pathos of this gory and desperately sad tale; a tale which changed the balance of power in South Africa. - Peter Vale in THE WEEKLY MAIL

The story of Nongqawuse, a young girl whose prophecy in 1856 of the regeneration of the living and the resurrection of the dead caused 100,000 Xhosa to kill their cattle, destroy their crops and slowly starve to death, is one of the most extraordinary in history, and has defied explanation over 130 years. The author draws on private letters, spy reports, oral traditions and obscure Xhosa texts to explain the motivations behind both the prophesy and the slaughter. North America: Indiana U Press; South Africa: Jonathan Ball