Daniel Vananda: The Life Story of a Human Being |
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Alice animals assegai Avalon Bantu became brandy broke calabashes camp cattle child constables Corporal Konza Daniel Vananda dark door dreadful endeavour Euro European eyes face farm feet fell felt Fingo fire flesh flock flood Flotov followed forest gazed Gcaleka girl goats gorge grew haggard band hands head heart herd homestead Jim Coki Jim's Johannesburg Jotello and Sondaba Kaffir Kei River Kentani King Williams Town knew kraal labour latter little Tyali looked Ludidi Lydia Maggie magistrate Maseru morning mountain Native never night old Hlanga old Kondolo old Nomani old Songelwa once passed pasturage pean police Port Elizabeth prisoner Qwati race reached reim Rossdale seemed sheep side slaughtered sleep Sobekwa soon soul South Africa steep Stephen Vardy stood strong Sub-Inspector Tembu tion told took torture valley Vardy's wandered White Man's Winterberg woman women young
Popular passages
Page xi - Native labour has been the most copious, the most efficient and most amenable of any unskilled labour of which industrialism has had experience ... It is commonplace to say that in South Africa ninety-nine hundredths of the unskilled labour of the present day is performed by Black Men. So much the Natives have done for us. What have we done for them? This is a terrible question which will call for an answer on the day of the Great Assize. In the meantime the Native may learn the art of combination...
Page xi - ... writer, and his Leaven makes all the subsequent works seem gauche and naive in this respect. The next full-scale work to tell the 'Jim Comes to Joburg' story is WC Scully's Daniel Vananda of 1923. Subtitled The Life Story of a Human Being, Scully's work has one intention — to exemplify this thesis: That the Native is being demoralised and degraded morally and physically, is literally and awfully true. This is apparent to any unbiassed observer on the outskirts of any city or large town where...
Page vii - ... this exploitation — have not been effected of set purpose; they are more the result of ignorance — of lack of imagination than of malice prepense. They are probably due to the essential infirmity of human nature, and afford an additional illustration of the truth of Hazlitt's principle: — that no one people is fit to be entrusted with authority over another, and that any relation falling short of equality between two races occupying a given area, leads to what is practically the enslavement...
Page 97 - ... Although the number of men sent was comparatively small, and took little part in actual hostilities, the incident undoubtedly was the means of arousing a new estimate of the value of the British Colonial Empire. Public attention had for some years been directed to the large influx of Chinese, and it was felt that the time had arrived when something should be done to stop indiscriminate immigration of this character to the Colony. This was, for the time being, effected by the Chinese Restriction...
Page 187 - ... to a mission education, petty crime in King Williams Town, a spell as a tenant farmer under a good land-owner, a trick played on him by a bad black policeman, a broken marriage — and then, for the penultimate chapter, Johannesburg. He travels in the bare train: 'At length they reached the Rand ... without whose output of lubricating gold the axles of those wheels which drive the mill of the world's commerce might long since have burnt at their bearings and fallen into ruin' (pp. 187-8). These...
Page vii - Scully remarks further: This degradation — this exploitation — have not been effected of set purpose; they are more the result of ignorance — of lack of imagination than of malice prepense. They are probably due to the essential infirmity of human nature, and afford an additional illustration of the truth of Hazlitt's principle: — that no one people is fit to be entrusted with authority over another, and that any relation falling short of equality between two races occupying a given area,...
Page x - ... Being (1922), William Charles Scully came nearer the truth about racial antagonism in South Africa than other writers of his time. He points to the economic exploitation of the Africans, the institution of the 'civilized labour' policy which gave preference to the whites. 'Previous to the Union of South African States, thousands of Natives were employed upon the railways at a daily wage of one shilling and sixpence. Afterwards, however, all were dismissed, their places being taken by poor Europeans...
Page 103 - The scorched garden of this lonely man's heart through which love, elemental and terrible as sudden flame from a sleeping volcano, had swept so destructively, once more became verdant. With the change came back the old longing for human companionship. The pensive, gentle face of Alice, her daintily budding figure, her fawn-like eyes and her delicate hands haunted his walking dreams.
Page 57 - Daniel had grown tall and strong, with limbs and body of almost perfect symmetry. His features were of that Egyptian cast which, among the Natives, so often accompanies a hue of dark bronze. His cheek-bones were high and his nose finely cut and slightly aquiline; his lips were full and sensitive.
Page 90 - Vardy was one of that tragic band of human creatures who are cursed with vision clear enough to enable them to see just a little farther than their fellows, and who are consequently doomed to permanent estrangement from their kind.