AFRICANWARSANDWHITEINVADERS
brother with brother, chief with subjects. Nongqawuse's converts were
known as amatbamba, "soft" believers, who submitted to the common
will and accepted the truth of the prophecy; those who rejected the proph-
ecy were known as amagogotya, "hard" unbelievers, who pursued their
own individual interests.l?
Chief Sarhili was skeptical at first, but after going to Mhlakaza's home-
stead to investigate, he became convinced that the prophecy was authentic
and threw his immense prestige behind the movement. Most Gcaleka
chiefs followed suit, and the movement spread across the Kei river, where
Sandile, the principal Ngqika chief, eventually participated. It stopped
short of the Mfengu. According to one tradition, the ancestors had no
message for the Mfengu.e?
A sensitive historian of these events, J. B. Peires, considers that "the
believer/unbeliever divide followed no clear pattern of kinship, age, gender,
or social class." He also considers that the believers wer<~ engaged in "a
popular mass movement of a truly national character, uniting both chiefs
and commoners . .. in a communal defence of their way of life." Peires
adds: "The 'soft' party of believers saw themselves as properly loyal and