Inventing Xhosa Voice: Thomas Pringle's ''Makanna's Gathering''

Abstract

This article examines the informing conditions and conventions of Thomas Pringle's poem "Makanna's Gathering". I argue that despite its ostensible endorsement of Xhosa retaliation against colonial rule, the poem exhibits an obvious unease about Xhosa alterity that it attempts to contain by casting this threat within the conventions, borrowed from Walter Scott's novelistic treatment of gypsies, of the "wild" pic­turesque. Contrary to a received consensus that the poem is manifestly anti-colonial, I argue that, considered in the full implication of its context, it must be understood as an exhibit in the spectacle of empire rather than an indictment of it.

Opsomming
Hierdie artikel ondersoek die ontstaansagtergrond en -konvensies van Thomas Pringle se gedig "Makanna's Gathering". Al lyk dit asof dit Xhosaweerwraak teen die koloniale gesag onderskryf, is my argument dat die gedig duidelik ongemaklik is met die andersheid van die Xhosas en dat dit hierdie bedreiging binne die konvensies van Walter Scott se romans oor sigeuners of die "wild picturesque" probeer bevat. Teenoor die oorgelewerde konsensus dat die gedig duidelik anti-koloniaal is, betoog ek dat, gelees binne al die implikasies van sy konteks, die gedig die skouspel van empire vertoon eerder as om dit aan die kaak stel.