Crowds Of Xhosas Gathered At The Pool Poem by Gert Strydom

At the Gxara River in the Transkei
a pool between some trees and flowering plants
is linked with one of the most emotional
and painful stories in history.

At the pool a young medium named Nonqawuse
spoke with the ancestral spirits
while bathing and looked into the water
seeing their faces.

They promised to drive the white man away,
provided that the Xhosa nation
would destroy all their own cattle and crops.

The Xhosas were disturbed by news
of this revelation
and travelled from near and far
to speak to her
and her witchdoctor uncle Mhlakaza.

Crowds of Xhosas gathered at the pool
with its red flowering aloes
peering into the water,
with a lot claiming to see
the faces of their ancestors there.

Some people even claimed
to see whole armies of ancestors
eager for war against the white man
and only waiting on the Xhosa people
to follow their instructions.

Then the insane instructions was followed through
with cattle being slaughtered
and most of the crops being destroyed
and only the very small Ngqika
section of the tribe not adhering to it.

The majority of Xhosas
waited in vain on 18 February 1857
for the sun to rise blood red,
the land to be filled with fat cattle,
new crops to appear
and vast armies of spirits
to go out in battle
against the white man.

It was a tragic dawn
with the Xhosa nation facing starvation
and ironically the Xhosas survived only
through the white man
reacheding out a hand of friendship
and feeding them
and by the compassion
of some neighbouring tribes
who had been oppressed by them before
and it’s estimated
that some twenty five thousand people
did die from this tragedy.