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Born on July 18, 1918 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela experienced an idyllic childhood in the then rural Transkei. Known for his great compassion and championing of the innocence of children, Mandela’s life was shaped by his experiences as a young boy.
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There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.
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- Nelson Mandela
GROWING UP IN THE EASTERN CAPE Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Mvezo in the Transkei. An idyllic village on the shores of the Mbashe river, Mvezo has views to the east and west, overlooking the hills and valleys of Thembuland. Although Mandela was born in 1918, the year of the great global influenza pandemic and the end of World War I, it was, he says in his autobiography A Long Walk To Freedom, “A place apart, a tiny precinct removed from the world of great events, where life was lived much as it had been for hundreds of years.�
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TRANSKEI AND THEMBULAND Roughly the size of Switzerland the Transkei used to be one of the largest of the ‘homelands’ or territorial divisions within South Africa. Eight hundred miles east of Cape Town and five hundred and fifty miles south of Johannesburg, the Transkei occupied the land between the great Kei river and the Natal border, stretching from the rugged Drakensberg mountains in the North, across to the Indian Ocean in the east.
2. A view of Thembuland, 1936 3. A Thembu man on his wedding day, early 1930s 4. A Thembu mother and child, early 1930s
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It is a beautiful country of rolling hills, fertile valleys, and a thousand rivers and streams which keep the landscape green even in winter.
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- Nelson Mandela
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Rolihlahla
Named Rolihlahla by his father at birth, it’s literal meaning in Xhosa is ‘pulling the branch of a tree’, but according to Mandela, it’s colloquial meaning more accurately would be ‘troublemaker’.
XHOSA TRIBAL HISTORY Approximately three and a half million Xhosa lived within the Transkei, the majority of whom were the Thembu people. According to tradition the Thembu people travelled south from the interior in the sixteenth century and can trace their lineage back twenty generations to King Zwide. According to Mandela the Xhosa are a proud and patrilineal people with an express and euphonious language and an abiding belief in the importance of laws, education and courtesy.
AMB
IQU
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ZIMBABWE
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BOTSWANA
NAMIBIA Johannesburg
SWAZILAND
Brandfort
S O U T H A F R I C A
LESOTHO Umtata Qunu
Healdtown Robben Island
Cape Town Port Elizabeth
Where Nelson Mandela spent his childhood
Where Nelson Mandela spent his childhood
Durban
MVEZO VALLEY Mandela’s father, Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Henry, was a chief of the Thembu people and headman of Mvezo until he was stripped of the title (and lands) following an altercation with the local magistrate. A proud man, Mphakanyiswa refused to answer a summons from the white colonial lawmaker. Mandela’s mother was the third wife of his father. When Mandela was a baby she moved to Qunu where she set up her own homestead.
6. Mvezo Valley
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QUNU His mother took three huts in Qunu, a village much bigger than Mvezo and populated primarily with women and children as the men were away working in the Johannesburg mines. Mandela slept with his siblings around a fire on a floor made from crushed ant-heaps. It was here, he said when writing from prison, he spent some of his happiest years. Days were spent herding cattle and playing with friends: stick-fighting, fishing and hunting with a sling-shot.
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We lived in a less grand style, but it was in that village near Umtata that I spent some of the happiest years of my boyhood and whence I trace my earliest memories.
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- Nelson Mandela
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9. The house Mandela built for his mother. Cattle still remain crucial to South Africa’s rural economy 10. A woman in a trading store in Qunu 11. The remains of the school and church Mandela attended at Qunu
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I was no more than five when I became a herd-boy, looking after sheep and calves in the fields. I discovered the almost mystical attachment that the Xhosa have for cattle, not only as a source of food and wealth, but as a blessing from God and a source of happiness.
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- Nelson Mandela
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The hills above Qunu were dotted with large smooth rocks which we transformed into our own rollercoaster. We sat on flat stones and slid down the face of the large rocks. We did this until our backsides were so sore we could hardly sit down.
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- Nelson Mandela
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I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonouring them.
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- Nelson Mandela
MQHEKEZWENI At the age of twelve, Mandela’s father died and he was sent to live at the Great Place, Mqhekezweni, the provisional capital of Thembuland and seat of Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, the regent of the Thembu people. Jongintaba became Mandela’s guardian and he was treated as the chief treated his other children. Mandela attended a one-room school next to the palace, the main residency of the chief, and learnt English, Xhosa, history and geography. At night he shared a hut with Justice, the regent’s only son and heir.
15. A rural hut 16. The Great Place at Mqhekezweni
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At Mqhekezweni Chief Jongintaba would preside over meetings that were open to all. Drought, the culling of cattle or new magistrate directives were often discussed. Mandela noted that everyone who wanted to speak was given a voice. It was, he said, “Democracy in it’s purest form.”
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17. A meeting at a Great Place in the 1960s
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Nelson
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No one in my family had ever attended school [...] On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why this particular name I have no idea.
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- Nelson Mandela
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19. Methodist Church membership card recording the annual membership between 1929 and 1934 20. Mandela in a class photograph at Healdtown, the Wesleyan College he attended in 1937 and 1938
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MANDELA’S FAMILY Each Xhosa belongs to a clan that traces its descent back to a specific forefather. Mandela was often called Madiba as a sign of affection. This is his clan name - the name of the Thembu chief who ruled in the eighteenth century and after whom his succession is named. Not only an appointed chief of the Thembu, Mandela’s father was a known custodian of Xhosa history and respected counsellor to the King of Thembuland. Although a member of Thembu royalty, Mandela was not in line for the throne. Rather, like his father, he was groomed to counsel the rulers of the tribe. Named Rolihlahla by his father at birth, it’s literal meaning in Xhosa is ‘pulling the branch of a tree’, but according to Madiba, it’s colloquial meaning more accurately would be ‘troublemaker’. He said: “I do not believe that names are destiny or that my father somehow divined my future, but in later years, friends and relatives would ascribe to my birth name the many storms I have both caused and weathered. My more familiar English or Christian name was not given to me until my first day of school.”
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NELSON MANDELA’S CHILDREN FUND Driven by a love for children and his desire that as much as possible they experience a happy and trouble-free childhood, Mandela founded the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund in 1995. At the time the former President pledged one third of his salary to the Fund.
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22. A Focus group with Traditional Leaders around HIV/AIDS 23. Mandela with some of his family 24. Mandela and his grandson Ziyanda Manawa
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Our children are our greatest treasure. They are our future. Those who abuse them tear at the fabric of our society and weaken our nation.
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- Nelson Mandela
Dalibunga
This is the name Mandela was given at the age of 16 once he had undergone initiation, the traditional Xhosa rite of passage into manhood. It means “creator or founder of the council” or “convenor of the dialogue”.
Photo credits 1. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Matthew Willman
13. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Matthew Willman
2. A.M. Duggan-Cronin
14. South African Post Office, A.H. Barrett
3. A.M. Duggan-Cronin 15. Peter McKenzie 4. A.M. Duggan-Cronin 16. Peter McKenzie 5. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Matthew Willman
17. H. Kuckertz
6. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Matthew Willman
18. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Matthew Willman
7. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Matthew Willman
19. Nelson Mandela Foundation 20. Nelson Mandela Foundation
8. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Matthew Willman
21. UWC, Robben Island Museum, Mayibuye Archives
9. Peter McKenzie 10. Peter McKenzie 11. Peter McKenzie 12. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Matthew Willman
22. N elson Mandela Foundation, Benny Gool - Oryx Media 23. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Debbie Yazbek 24. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Debbie Yazbek
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