Let My People Go. Albert Luthuli
I recall with a glow how he assigned to me the special task of preparing his fire each evening, and how he said to me once: “Son, I have not been cold since you came!”
Sometimes the cleavage between village affairs and those of the household disappeared. One incident, indelibly engraved on my memory, brought the trials of chieftainship into the house with a rush. A furious woman entered, hotly pursued by her husband. My uncle and an adviser found themselves in the middle of a “civil case” before they knew it had begun.
“She has deserted me!” shouted the man, throwing overboard all pretence at manners. “Look at her! There she stands in the very clothes I have provided!”
This was the last straw for the deserting woman. She stripped herself completely naked, rolled her clothing into a bundle, and threw it at the man. To cap it all, my uncle and his induna bolted from the scene like terrified horses. It was a revelation to us children – that a woman could make a chief run.
Had the household been a European one, I should probably have been lonely, since my cousins, Martin’s daughters, were all grown up. But, as is frequent in African society, my uncle and aunt were the guardians and caretakers of various children and relatives, and I had company enough, particularly that of a girl-cousin, Charlotte. It was a secure and happy household, and the moving spirit in purely domestic affairs was naturally my aunt. She was a woman of deep piety, very prominent in church affairs. In her dealings with the children of the house she did not distinguish in one detail between her own children and the children of relatives, either in discipline or in care. Largely because of her influence, the home was conducted as a Christian home should be. Although there was no formal religious teaching at home – this was dealt with in church – family prayers in the evening were as invariable as supper.
The children took their part in the routine work of the household. This was not irksome, and there was no great labour in it. Apart from making my uncle’s fire each evening, I was allotted such tasks as fetching water – for in Groutville the traditional Zulu distinction between male and female work tended to disappear. Over the weekends I did a certain amount of weeding in the lands, and herding.
All the time, unconsciously, I was busy absorbing the Christian ethos of home, and church congregation, and the social ethos of the community. As in earlier times, it was still (as it is today) a mixed community of heathens and Christians, of relatively well-educated people, and people with no literacy at all. Looking back, I realise that I was aware at the time of the distinction between Christian and non-Christian. But a fortunate feature of Groutville life was the fact that distinction did not mean discrimination. Somehow, we did not imbibe with our faith the sense that “Christians are better”. In spite of great differences of education and outlook, Groutville has managed to throw up no élite cut off from the ordinary life of the village.1
During this early phase of my life in Groutville, my mother and my brother and his family came home permanently. They severed their connection with the Adventists and returned to the Congregational Church as in former years. On the family site which had been occupied by Ntaba, a new house was built. I left the home of my uncle Martin, and for the rest of the time, until I went away to boarding school, I lived in the care of my mother.
Being a child, I did not then realise the extent to which my mother laboured to ensure my education. I saw her then as an extremely industrious woman. She was diligent about her small fields – a very successful vegetable gardener. In addition to her work on her fields, the lack of ready cash and the lack of capital to work the whole of the land, forced her to walk regularly five or six miles to Stanger, the nearest European settlement, in order to earn a few shillings washing clothes – a far cry from the royal household of King Cetewayo. When she had earned what she could, she returned to her garden. Over the years, although my uncle helped now and again, the sweat of her brow provided nine-tenths of my education.
Since one of my brothers died before my birth, and the other was grown up and married, I was virtually an only child. Yet my mother’s discipline did not waver any more than her devotion did – a thing for which I am deeply thankful, because without discipline I suppose I might easily have turned out a spoilt mother’s boy.
In 1914, having reached Standard 4 in the Groutville school, I continued my education at the Ohlange Institute – a boarding school. This school had been founded by Dr Dube, and at the time when I went to Ohlange he was its principal.
As it happened, I was there for only two terms, so I cannot say that the school made any particular impression on me. Wartime conditions, which brought a shortage of food to Africans, made life somewhat rough-and-tumble after the disciplined courtesy of Groutville. I remember that it was risky to close one’s eyes during the grace before meals – the food might disappear before one opened them. The monitors who brought food from the kitchen generally needed guarding.
I remember how Dr Dube dealt with complaints from the boys about the quality and quantity of the food. “Well, boys,” he said, “times are hard. Would you like me to return your fees2 and then you can look after yourselves?” The boys recognised the principal’s dilemma and left it at that.
At the end of the year, having passed my examinations, I was transferred (my uncle had intended this all along) to a Methodist institution at Edendale, near Pietermaritzburg. It was at Edendale, I think, that I began to wake up and look about me.
That is to say, I woke up and looked about after I had run the gauntlet of initiation. I had already encountered this at Ohlange, but there I was relatively protected by the number of Groutville boys already at the school. At Edendale, initiation could be unpleasant and disconcerting. I well remember, for instance, my astonishment when a menacing group of older boys surrounded me and insisted that I should be thrashed – because (so they said) I was too forward in answering questions in class. Oddly enough, I have forgotten whether they carried out their threat or not.
The main novelty of life at Edendale was that for the first time I was taught by white teachers. (There was one African teacher on the staff.)
Looking back from the present, I realise that it may seem odd that we were not particularly conscious that they were Europeans. From our point of view in those days they belonged to the genus Teacher, and our discussion of them followed the usual lines: “How far can you go with him? Is she easy to lead up the garden path? Is he harsh? Is she even-tempered?” It did not occur to us to explain their idiosyncrasies by the colour of their skins. The behaviour of Europeans did not interest us: the behaviour of teachers absorbed us. We respected justice, sympathy and understanding, and resented caprice.
One relief which Edendale brought was the end of corporal punishment. Except on one occasion, when I was among the “victims”.
In my first year there I was involved in a strike, an unusual one for those days in that it was not about food. An indifferent disciplinarian on the staff had a way of punishing boys by causing them to carry stones from the river to the school. Eventually the boys objected for the good reason that their parents could not afford to replace clothes damaged in this process. The principal came down, when the matter reached him, on the side of authority.
The boys were angry. They boycotted the classroom and talked quite seriously of leaving the school altogether. Then the “strikers” were called in to interview the principal one by one. Each boy leaving his office was taken to one or the other of two classrooms – the sheep were being separated from the goats.
When my turn came (far down the queue, for I was among the youngest) I found that the principal was being assisted by an African clergyman, the Rev. Msimanga. The principal opened with a question:
“Are you willing to carry stones, Albert? Yes or no?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you really know what you’re doing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re being misled, you know, by the older boys.”
“No, sir.”
The principal turned to Mr Msimanga:
“You’d better take this boy home with you and pump this out