restore "a happy state of things."16
Several prophets gave expression to these ideas-most
notably, a six-
teen-year-old girl named Nongqawuse, who lived in the country of the
Gcaleka Xhosa, four miles east of the KeiRiver.Nongqawuse declared that
when she and another girl were in the fields scaring away the birds from the
corn, two men appeared and said they had died long ago:
You are to tell the people that the whole community is about to rise again
from the dead. Then go on to say to them all the cattle living now must be
slaughtered, for they are reared with defiled hands, as the people handle
witchcraft. Sayto them there must be no ploughing of lands, rather must the
people dig deep pits (granaries), erect new huts, set up wide, strongly built
cattlefolds, make milksacks, and weave doors from buta roots. The people
must give up witchcraft on their own, not waiting until they are exposed by
the witchdoctors, You are to tell them that these are the words of their
chiefs.I?
Later, she had more visions. On one occasion, she reported that "there was
another chief ...
[whose] name was Grey, otherwise known as Satan. All'
those who did not slaughter their cattle would become subjects of the chief
named Satan."18
Nongqawuse convinced her uncle, Mhlakaza, that her visions were