uMhlakaza
Xhosa · mortal · Xhosa traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Mhlakaza was the diviner and household head who gave the prophecy of Nongqawuse, his niece and ward, its force and reach. When she described the strangers she had met by the river, he recognised in one of them the figure of his own dead brother, and, thus convinced, he proclaimed the message and carried it to the paramount chief Sarhili, so that what began as a girl's vision became a movement embracing much of Xhosaland. The historian J.B. Peires has argued that Mhlakaza was the same man as Wilhelm Goliat, a Xhosa who had earlier been a Christian mission servant, though the identification is not universally accepted. He died of starvation in 1857 as the famine that followed the cattle-killing took hold.
Domains
- prophecy
- divination
Powers
- interprets and proclaims the cattle-killing prophecy
Relations
- companion: uNongqawuseGuardian and paternal uncle of the prophetess Nongqawuse.J.B. Peires, The Dead Will Arise (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1989) (secondary)
Sources
- Mhlakaza was the Gcaleka diviner and guardian of Nongqawuse who interpreted and propagated her prophecy, carrying it to the paramount Sarhili; he died in the ensuing famine in 1857.: J.B. Peires, The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856-7 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1989) (secondary)