‘’ndiyindoda! ‘’ (i aM a Man)

At the circumcision ceremony, Rolilahla Nelson ( tatomkhulu) Mandela was given the name, Dalibunga, ‘Founder of the bunga’, the traditional ruling body of the transkei. Xhosa traditionalists considered the new name more acceptable than either Rolilahla or Nelson. After their wounds had healed, their families, friends and local chiefs gathered for speeches, songs, and gift-giving. the main speaker was Chief Meligqili and, ‘’after listening to him... Rolihlahla Nelson Dalibunga, tatomkhulu’s ‘’gaily coloured dreams darkened’’.

‘’We are slaves in our own country’’, said Chief Meligqili, “We are tenants on our own soil... we have no control over our own destiny in the land of our birth... among these young men are chiefs who will never rule because we have no power to govern ourselves; soldiers who will never fight for we have no weapons to fight with; scholars who will never teach because we have no place for them to study. these gifts today are naught, for we cannot give them the greatest gift of all, which is freedom and independence’’.

It was a powerful, well detailed, and honest indictment of overseer rule but, Mandela confesses, he did not want to ‘’hear’’ those words. he was ‘’cross rather than aroused by the chief’s remarks’’ and dismissed them as the ‘’abusive comments of an ignorant man who was unable to appreciate the value of the education and benefits the white man had brought to (their) country’’. Nonetheless, Meligqili “had planted a seed” and although Mandela “let that seed lie dormant for a long season, it eventually began to grow” and, “later (he) realised that the ignorant man that day was not the chief but (he, himself)”.