Talk:Mfecane

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Untitled

Please read Elizabeth Eldredge's article, "Sources of Conflict in Southern Africa, c.1800-30: the 'Mfecane' Reconsidred " Also your depiction of Shaka and the Zulu as the main catalyst is a bit outdated.

POV

I don't think this article, as currently written, fits Wikipedia's NPOV guidelines. As the previous anonymous commentor said, the article (or at least the lede) is somewhat outdated considering Shaka as the main actor. This article should, in a more balanced way, present Cobbing's alternative thesis earlier, without taking one position as to the true cause. LittleDantalk 04:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent plan, should be done with Holocaust articles well adding all the Revisionist articles, but please give the primary sources for each argument. --41.151.219.125 (talk) 14:57, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy

I removed the following from the "Controversy" section of the article, because it is unsourced, and also because I'm not sure what it has to do with the Mfecane, or with controversy concerning the Mfecane.

After the defeat of Phungashe by a combination of Khohlwa house of the Buthelezi, The Zulu under Shaka and The Mthethwa, Ngqengelele the son of Phungashe's brother Mvulane became an eminent person in Zululand. His brother Khoboyela who was sick when they came from Mcakwini to live with Senzangakhona, had died. Ngqengelele excelled in medicine and military and brewery and food processing and coocking and as a result the Khohlwa house of the Buthelezis was given land between Ulundi/Mahlabathini, Babanango, Vryheid, Nongoma and Phongola bordering Nongoma and Vryheid and neighboring, The Zulus of Usuthu in Nongoma, The Ntshangases in Dlomodlomo, the BaQululusis in Vryheid, the Zulus of Gazini in Ceza, the Zondos in Gluckstad, the Mpungoses in Ulundi, the Zungus in Mahlabathini, the Mbathas in Mahlabathini and the Zulus of Hhamu at Ngenetsheni in Ngotshe.
The Buthelezi land of the Khohlwa house of Mvulane can be divided into Ngome also known as Bathenjini or Dibikazi under the eldest son of Ngqengelele, Mahlabathini also known as Kushumayeleni or Madaka under Mnayamana to great grand father of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Gluckstad also known as Mpithimpithini under Mnyamanda's son Maphovela and Ngotshe also known as Mbongombongweni under Khoboyela's son Klwana.
Mbangambi was married to 80 wives excluding maidens and he built his great place in Ngome and named it Bathenjini. many houses came out of Bathenjini, namely and one of them is Dibikazi. Many houses also came out of Dibikazi and one of the is Thathela. Many houses came out of Thathela and one of them is Landinkomo. Gibisizungu the son of Mbangambi was converted into Christianity and he became a priest towards late 1800. He was a phefeni regiment and brother Mthandeni was Uve regiment and they built their house above referred to as Landinkomo.
Gibisizungu worked as a priest in Ngome and the house in which he lived is still visible in Sihlengeni, from Sihlengeni he moved to Babanango with his sons. and his brothers' sons. to Babanabgo and from Babanango to Mahlabathini and from Mahlabathini to Maphophoma in Nongoma. This movement was after his father's(Mbangambi) land was taken by the boer after the Mandlakazi Usuthu war.
His son Josiah Built his homestead in Nkonjeni Mahlabathini and he named it Kwabhekindoda. Buthelezi gave birth to Shenge, Shenge gave birth to Ndaba, Ndaba gave birth to Ngwane, Ngwane gave birth to Mvulane, Mvulane gave birth to Ngqengelele and Khoboyela, Ngqengelele gave birth to Mbangambi, Santinga, Mnyamana and others, Bangambi gave birth to Gibisizungu, Mthahdeni and others, Gibisizungu gave birth to Santshuntshu (Josiah), Josiah was married to Mahlatshwayo okaMhlaza and they gave birth to Gcinumona (Romanus), Gcinumona gave birth to Senzo (Senzosenkosi Lawrence), Manafuthi (Alexius), Bongumusa (Zaire) and Phathakahle. All the sons of Gcinumona are still alive and Senzo has given birth to Daluxolo (Ziyanda), Aviwe and Lukhanyo.
A claim for Mbangambi's land has been instituted and the documents for it return has recently been signed and his descendent who are scarred in Mahlabathini, Babanango, Vryheid, Mtubatuba and other areas are expected to return to their ancestral land and probable claim their chieftainship which was placed under Mpithimpithini by white regime.

If someone has sources and a good reason for including it in the article, by all means restore it. Eastcote (talk) 18:02, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The click consonant representation in IPA

I don't know how isn't it an error to add [k] before the click [ǀ] which was formerly transcribed as [ʇ] in IPA? [mfɛˈʇaːne] = [mfɛˈǀaːne]. Kwamikagami reverted my edit and claimed that it's not an error. It is either this one is wrong [mfɛˈʇaːne] and should be [mfɛˈkʇaːne] or that one is wrong [mfɛˈkǀaːne]. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 00:30, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the "k" makes no difference except that it's a bit easier for most people to read. See click consonant. Wells even cited this WP article as an example of how difficult to read the pipe symbols are, making the name look like "Mfelane". — kwami (talk) 01:16, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just asking, is Wells a Wikipedian? Lguipontes (talk) 01:45, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, a phonetician. See here.[1] — kwami (talk) 02:36, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I know who Wells is. I was just amused that he reads the articles on Linguistics here. I should know better, many friends and relatives (including both parents) say that being a teacher is learning along your whole life, but still it surprised me. :) Lguipontes (talk) 02:46, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Where in the article does it say you are free to substitute [ǀ] with [kǀ] for legibility?! All of my browsers display the click symbol differently from l. If there is an objection on the symbol, you may use the old symbol [ʇ]. When IPA states that your use is standard, we will go with it. You can't simply invent what you think you like and the [kǀ] did not solve any alleged problem, it only introduced another one! "for most people" is your assumption. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 12:29, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The click may be confused with the lateral approximant in all 3 PCs in my house, and all 3 navigators me and my mother use to the exception of IE in her WinXP as we don't use it for anything afraid that it will get a virus in a mysterious way.
But yeah, by Kwami's argument, I'd expect the transcription to be in variation with [tǀ] if using a voiceless stop before a click really doesn't change anything. Perhaps he meant that k + click is an allophone of the click phoneme. Lguipontes (talk) 13:40, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, | and k| are orthographic variants, either stylistic or theoretical. (The k shows it's voiceless oral; g| would be voiced oral and n| voiced nasal.) Some people prefer one, some the other, and preferences switch back and forth. This is covered in the click article. — kwami (talk) 00:54, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I went to the page. It uses diacritics (not full IPA letters) to indicate voiced and nasal articulations, but the tenuis one is transcribed as the basis for those others (i.e. a plain click symbol). But then if you say so, it is because you are used to this style somewhere else, it just isn't in that page. Indeed, true, found it: Click consonant#Transcription Lguipontes (talk) 05:11, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Death Toll, Eldredge views on Cobbing, more Current sources, etc.

EDIT: Following the reverts to my other edits, I would like to clarify the rationale behind them and propose how to move forward with addressing a lot of the serious issues with this article.

It's perfectly reasonable to be wary any time a change is made to any article about mass killing considering that more often than not, these things are the acts of denialists or others with suspect motives. These actions shouldn't be arbitrary. They should be subject to the strictest of scrutiny.

However, equal scrutiny should be applied to the process by which this or any other information finds its way to Wikipedia, which brings us to 88.104.219.76, who over the course of three days in October 2013, made a flurry of disruptive edits on random genocide-related articles. In addition to page blanking and edit-warring, 88 mounted a passionate defense of genocide-denier Guenter Lewy.

One can't be sure, but it appears that a person read a book by a genocide-denier, got jazzed on genocide and decided to go on a Wikipedia bender. But the crowning achievement of 88's short Wikipedia career — the one that stuck — is his contribution to the Mfecane article, which has remained ever since. Four out of Five of the sources are those originally supplied by 88. And though it gives the impression that this figure is credible and well sourced, all the sources can effectively be reduced to one: settler historian George McCall Theal.

  1. The primary source (Maj. Samuel Charters) that Theal's estimate is based on. Charters received this estimate from Henry Francis Fynn (discussed in detail below)
  2. A Mfecane article on Encyclopaedia Britannica (Note: in its current form, it does not contain these estimates)
  3. A 1969 book titled Terror and Resistance, which cites Theal but notes the earlier skepticism of South African historian Eric Walker.
  4. A pop history book by National Review columnist and former Bush advisor Victor Davis Hanson, which instead of using the term "mfecane," refers to up to 1 million "victims of Shaka's imperial ambitions." This conceptualization of the mfecane as interchangeable with the "wars of Shaka" is severely dated, to wit it resembles the state of historiography before the the term "mfecane" was even coined.

So putting aside the fact that this long-standing edit was made by an anonymous editor who is creepily enthusiastic about the topic of genocide, all the sources used are irrelevant, primary or in the very best instance, academic yet severely dated.

In an effort to nip this in the bud, Plaasjapie, added as source for the figure, the seminar paper by Cobbing and Wright, i.e. the paper which Cobbing launched his assault of the the settler paradigm of historiography. Dr. Cobbing would probably be pretty amused to see himself sourced in defense of someone whose work he described using terms like "nonsense" and "fiction."

The paragraph of the section titled "Where we are and how we got here" in which the 2 million figure appears begins: "The basic propositions of mfecane propaganda are blissfully simple..." When viewed in context, Cobbing is not asserting that the figure is true, but the opposite. He is simply repeating the narrative that he is attacking as an "alibi" for settler colonialism.

This critique of Theal is hardly unfounded. On page 233 in his "Compendium of South African History and Geography," Theal describes Cape Colony as the "only civilized government" on the continent and all outside it is governed by "independent barbarians." He then says that soon the "stream of European occupation" will flow across the land, spreading the "benefits of civilization." Theal's writing oozes the familiar colonial ideology of the "white man's burden." And pointing out his colonial bias isn't controversial or radical in any way. It's noted in practically every recent scholarly discussion of Theal, including biographical research like that of Christopher Saunders.

Also, Etherington reports that John Wright, the other scholar cited by Plaasjapie "has lately joined the call for the word mfecane to be dropped, because his research has led him to doubt both the depopulation hypothesis and most of the migration stories."

While there isn't any independent evidence to support Theal's estimates, there is a pretty clear paper trail documenting their origin. In a 2004 paper Etherington discusses the lineage of that estimate.

Even more uncertainty pervades discussions of loss of life. Natal trader Henry Francis Fynn told Samuel Charters in 1838 that "not less than 1,000,000 human beings were destroyed" by Shaka, the Zulu king. Theal extrapolated from this and other uncertain reports from the highveld to reach a total "nearer two millions," telling readers that "compared with this, the total loss of human life, occasioned by all the wars in South Africa in which Europeans have engaged since first they set foot in the country, sinks into insignificance."

The original source is Henry Francis Fynn, which makes it still more suspect in light of the revelations about Nathaniel Isaacs (referred to reverently on the Mfecane page as a "European adventurer") in a 2006 book about Shaka Zulu:

Nathaniel Isaacs, who wrote about Shaka in Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa, published in 1836, wrote to a fellow author, Henry Francis Fynn, advising him to smear Shaka and his successor, Dingane: "Make them out to be as bloodthirsty as you can and endeavour to give an estimation of the number of people they have murdered during their reign[s]." This would help sell Fynn's book and encourage British annexation of Zulu lands, which would mean a "fortune" for both authors

Etherington goes on to explain: "In contrast, evidence for widespread depopulation due to purely African conflicts in the 1820s consists of hearsay—unlike the very solid evidence for mortality due to colonial aggression. One of the regions most often cited as an epicenter of violence in the 1820s was, according to numerous eyewitness reports in the 1830s, the home of large and thriving populations"

Both Etherington and Cobbing point to the ludicrous methodologies used to estimate death tolls at the time, including the grisly calculations of death by cannibalism put forth by former missionary cum amateur historian D.F. Ellenberger:

Let us estimate the number of cannibals at a minimum, say 4,000. Say each one ate one person a month, and we arrive at the total of 48,000 persons eaten during one year; and during the six worst years, between 1822 and 1828, at the appalling figure of 288,000 devoured by their fellows. If we allow for those eaten during subsequent years, it is easy to arrive at a total of 300,000.

Etherington further elaborates on the difficulties of conducting headcounts among "tribes" defined by Europeans using chief names that weren't persistent ethnic identities, and other historians have pointed out that on a list of tribes Theal claims were completely wiped out, he purposefully overlooked several that were still extant.

The chain of evidence resembles a game of telephone across nearly two centuries: Fynn—who is documented as having received a suggestion from Isaacs to inflate Shaka's death toll—provides the figure of 1 million in his writing, which travels by way of Charters to Theal, who arbitrarily tacks on another million based on a selective reading of shaky secondhand evidence. It is then scrutinized by Walker and MacMillan in the mid-20th century but they don't offer an alternative figure, so it's repeated with qualifications in 1969 book, which is cited on Wikipedia by a fan of a genocide denier.


My suggestion is to create a separate section for discussion of the death toll and maybe another for the evolution of historiography with respect to the conceptualization of the term, the meta-narrative, periodization and the relative and role of actors. There are several different paradigms in South African historiography of the Mfecane: settler/colonial, Zulucentric, Afrocentric and finally a holistic paradigm that emerged post-Cobbing.

I think the article would benefit by not getting too bogged down in the particulars of Cobbing's argument. Instead, it should be placed within the broader picture of scholarship. The most important result of the Cobbing controversy was the lively debate it sparked and the paradigm shift it helped to engineer. The article scarcely cites the work of the scholars who participated in that debate: Hamilton, Richner, Etherington and Eldredge. The one exception is Eldredge, who is mainly enlisted to corroborate how wrong Cobbing was. While Eldredge refuted some of Cobbing's core claims—namely his chronology and allegations of slave trading against British missionaries—she did say that other assertions were correct, and like most scholars, she recognized that Cobbing raised some legitimate questions RedHermit1982 (talk) 10:10, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Boer trek" as a cause

This is my first edit of a wiki page, so feel free to correct me if I do anything incorrectly.

Having read the article, to me it looks like adding the "boer trek" to the list (in the summary section of causes) of causes is completely random, seeing as it wasn't even mentioned as a cause anywhere in the article.

I think that's enough reason to remove it.

Even if it isn't, some good referencing would be needed to support this as cause (seeing as this was a bit early to be a consequence of the so called "trek".)

This might look like hair-splitting, but in a part of history that has so much tension associated with it, I think it is vitally important - a casual insertion like that can really be unnecessary fuel to a fire, especially if it is inaccurate! Corne Swanepoel (talk) 08:34, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As follow up: this article gives the time period of the Mfecane as from 1818 to 1840, where as the first trek entered the area in 1837, the aftermath of which was certainly not felt for a year or two afterwards. Corne Swanepoel (talk) 08:44, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]


"New consensus" buried at bottom of article

If there is indeed consensus that the Mfecane wasn't entirely driven by Zulu expansionism, that should also be in the lede. Park3r (talk) 15:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All the articles I've read on the subject do indeed agree on this point. To quote from the summary of a 1992 conference of Mfecane historians, "There is general acceptance of the need to get rid of the idea of one big event - call it "time of troubles" if you will - which involved a lot of violence as well as state-formation and had a single origin in the rise of the Zulu state." In light of this decades-old scholarly consensus, this Wikipedia article is sorely in need of updating. Of course, the full dynamics of the Mfecane are not yet understood, and its temporal and geographical boundaries vary across sources. I have no doubt updating this article will be a fairly labor intensive process, and one which might arouse some contention. Accordingly, I will give notice to WikiProject Africa and wait for some more editors to weigh in before I begin working on it. I'm listing my sources below, and I look forward to a constructive process.
Eldredge, Elizabeth A. "Sources of Conflict in Southern Africa, c. 1800-30: The 'Mfecane' Reconsidered." Journal of African History (1992): 1-35. https://jstor.org/stable/182273.
Etherington, Norman. "A Tempest in a Teapot? Nineteenth-century Contests for Land in South Africa's Caledon Valley and the Invention of the Mfecane." Journal of African History (2004): 203-219.
Omer‐Cooper, John D. "Has the Mfecane a Future? A Response to the Cobbing Critique." Journal of Southern African Studies 19.2 (1993): 273-294. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057079308708360.
Saunders, Christopher, "Conference Report: Mfecane Afterthoughts," Social Dynamics, December 1991, Vol.17(2), pp.171-177.
Wright, John. "Political Mythology and the Making of Natal's Mfecane." Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines 23, no. 2 (1989): 272-291. Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 01:58, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

YES. Seriously, move the Cobbing "controversy" to the second paragraph and dump the word "conspiracy". 2601:441:4400:1740:A05D:4F7E:2567:31F0 (talk) 12:21, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, the History sections of the Xhosa and Zulu articles, and probably other articles, need to be edited so they don't repeat the outdated assertions on this page. 2601:441:4400:1740:A05D:4F7E:2567:31F0

Agree. And I am happy to help as well. The reason these things haven't been done its because its a lot of work. But this article and many others related to the topic are now so far away from present day academic discussions that they barely overlap anymore. If we can get a few people to work on this we can finally take these articles out of the 19th century and bring them to the 21st. That said, present day discussions have moved a bit further from the Cobbing controversy as well. I will see if I can locate some sources that are even more up to date. Francoisdjvr (talk) 13:49, 2 July 2021 (UTC) Francoisdjvr (talk) 11:45, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Splendid, thank you. I will begin work today and post proposed revisions here as I complete them. Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 18:29, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Pliny, I've been looking at some of the sources I have at my disposal, and I think the Cambridge History of South Africa, vol. 1, ch. 5 had a very good discussion on the topic. It includes a short literature review of past views on the topic, and then a regional breakdown on the different factors involved in the Mfecane or 'Time of Troubles' or whatever we should be calling it. It builds on the earlier work of people like Cobbing and Hamilton, but is a bit more up to date. If you haven't already you should have a look at it. Francoisdjvr (talk) 11:46, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I'll see if I can get ahold of it! Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 04:45, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Three Different Ways to Move Forward

In regards to the rewrite of the article we've been discussing, the more I brush up on my research the more I believe that we have three main ways to go about this. Since the "Mfecane" is in large part a historical (mis)construction, we can either focus on comprehensively explaining an actual historical period of political changes accompanied by violent state expansion/formation (with a relatively minor focus on how the "Mfecane"'s historiography) or focus on explaining how the historical concept of the "Mfecane" was initially constructed and how scholarly understanding of it changed over time (with a relatively minor focus on a full history of political upheaval). The first option is problematic inasmuch as the definition of the "Mfecane" period's extent and key events differ from account to account, meaning that we would have to make a lot of editorial choices in where to draw geographic and temporal lines and what events to focus upon. The second option is simpler in that we need only discuss the "Mfecane" as a historical/scholarly concept, focusing mainly upon how different narratives (namely the Shaka-centric version) emerged. However, it is problematic in that it wouldn't provide nearly as much information on a real (though ill-defined and insufficiently understood) period of political change in Southern Africa that otherwise doesn't really have a convenient name. Finally, we could also try to both explain the "Mfecane"'s historiography and provide as comprehensive an account of actual historical developments as we can. Needless to say, that substantially increases the complexity of the task. How do the rest of you feel about this? Perhaps most importantly, what do you think will be most useful to those looking this topic up on Wikipedia for the first time? Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 05:02, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing "problematic" about competing accounts - this is called HISTORY. We provide as much sourced information as possible for each and note changes in understanding over time where possible. Even where previous understanding is found to be totally false that should be noted as it is of relevance to individuals conducting research (using older sources or otherwise). Compare with Wikipedia articles on Evolution, for example. Harami2000 (talk) 09:14, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed New Lede

Hello everyone. As per the discussion above, I'd like to propose the following as a (draft) replacement for the current (outdated) lede. I left the sources in parentheses here, but of course they'd be properly formatted in the article itself. I'm looking forwards to your input:

"The Mfecane is a historical period of heightened military conflict and migration associated with state formation and expansion in Southern Africa. The exact range of dates that comprise the Mfecane varries between sources. At its broadest the period lasted from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century CE, but scholarship often focuses on an intensive period from the 1810s to the 1840s (Epprecht 83). The concept first emerged in the 1830s and centered on the actions of Shaka Zulu, who was alleged to have waged near-genocidal wars that depopulated the land and sparked a chain reaction of violence as fleeing groups sought to conquer new lands (Epprecht 144, Wright 286). Since the later half of the 20th century this interpretation has fallen out of favor due to a lack of compelling historical evidence (Epprecht 115, Wright 287). Current scholarly understanding revises the mortality figure significantly downward and attributes the root causes to complex political, economic, and environmental developments (Epprecht, Omer-Cooper, Saunders, Eldredge). The Mfecane is significant in that it saw the formation of novel states, institutions, and ethnic identities in Eastern Southern Africa. The historiography of the Mfecane is also historically significant, with different versions having been employed to serve a range of political purposes since its inception as a historical concept (Epprecht 114, Wright 286, Etherington 68)." Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 07:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I second this. Special:Contributions/TheSands-12 22:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think that looks great Pliny the Elderberry and would encourage you to be bold and make the change. It might need to be edited a bit so that it complies with Wikipedia's citation style (using footnotes) but that is not material to the substance of the addition and can be done later or by another editor.--Discott (talk) 13:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Chicken

Fyfvvunff Jhvg 41.87.179.102 (talk) 20:26, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tribes

Other tribes that were involved have been excluded. There's a need to revisit this article TwinMosia (talk) 07:10, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Rewriting the Article

Hello everyone. I am currently working on a full rewrite of the article based on more recent and reliable sources and wanted to check in concerning the organization of the rewrite. The main issue is whether to organize the article in chronological order (trying to list all events that could be described as part of the Mfecane) or by region (Natal, Highveld, etc.). The first option of doing everything chronologically is more narratively pleasing, but because a lot of different things were happening in different places at the same time, it might lead to the article jumping confusingly between places and events that don't necessarily have much to do with each other. A simple list of major events year by year is a second option (with the benefit of being clear to understand and much easier to write), but may be too much of a simplification. A third option would be to focus on specific regions (ex. Mfecane in the Highveld) where we could put together sort of sensical, chronological narrative. What do you all think would be the best way forward? Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 02:33, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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