Episode 76 – The vicious battle of Amalinde and the messianic force of Makhanda

Things were beginning to move along the eastern Cape frontier, through the region known previously as the Zuurveld, the Albany district, with its rocky rivers and ravines, thorny bush covered recesses, rolling grasslands and magnificent mountains.
The Great House of the amaGcaleka had sorted out its differences, these were the amaXhosa based east of the Kei River, and Hintsa had managed to take control of clans who were drifting away.
He did this by both guile and blood, for example Hintsa engineered the massacre of 17 councillors of the Ngqosini clan who had been tricked into joining a hunting expedition. Things weren’t all happiness and light in Xhosa country, however stunning the landscape appeared.
Hintsa then looked westwards, and naturally his eyes alighted on the territory controlled by Ngqika, and Ngqika’s nephew and his opponent Ndlambe. It was time to take sides in their decades old dispute and Hintsa decided to support Ndlambe, basically because he hated Ngqika who had humiliated him in the past as he grew up.
Hintsa decided that he’d humiliate Ngqika in turn, and recognized Ndlambe as the rightful ruler of the amaRharhabe branch of the amaXhosa. Ndlambe was also on the move, so to speak, he’d reconciled with his son Mdushane who’d been vacillating about whether he’d support his dad, or his uncle Ngqika.
Uncle Ngqika was angered by Hintsa’s slight. A local war was brewing.
It wasn’t the only man who’d come to appreciate Ndlambe’s rule – the other was an amaXhosa commoner called Nxele, who’d become known as a wardoctor. The past fifty years had seen the amaXhosa and the colonials clashing constantly, with the amaXhosa forced to watch their land being overrun by these strange people from across the sea. The amaXhosa began to seek supernatural help in their mission to reverse this loss.
The problem was, amaXhosa ancient otherworldly forces appeared too weak to do the job, they needed a new and more diverse bit of magic, and along came Nxele and others who were to mould Christianity and amaXhosa animism in a unique new philosophy.