My Chief and I |
Alan
Site Admin
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Suppose you're right. I've moved it
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Coll
Guest
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I found the book too much, even if about Durnford.
Too 'gushy' and one-sided. I gave my copy to Dawn. Coll |
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Peter Ewart
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Thanks, Coll. As I said, I'm not too worried about the opinions of Miss Colenso being too one-sided or "gushy" as that is to be expected. I do, however, think it is beautifully written, well constructed and - what is interesting to me - enlightening in intricate detail on the prejudices of the colonists/settlers (particularly in and around Estcourt) and especially as far as Durnford was concerned after the BRP episode.
As you know, he was in and around Estcourt a good deal in the mid-1870s and as so many specific (fictional?) incidents and conversations are recorded, I'm interested in knowing her sources, or whether every little bit had come straight from Durnford when he was alive. If she remembered (or recorded) all these details before he died (mid 1870s?) I still wonder whether she based Wylde on anyone - someone who could, just, have passed on the information which she can never have acquired as an eye-witness, because she wan't there. Clearly, much of this work, describing his experiences in 1875, is perfectly authentic but I can think of no Estcourt character who would even have dreamed of assisting her, with the exception, perhaps, of Macfarlane's brother. For all its polemic, I think it's quite an important book. It's "gushy" style, of course, is no different from that of any other lady of that period and background. It's just that we tend to write slightly differently these days. P. |
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Keith Smith
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Peter
I too have a copy of 'My Chief and I' and I feel much the same about it as others - far too adoring to be digestible. One must, however, bear in mind that it is a panegyric to Miss Colenso's personal hero. As such, it is almost as high-flown as Pliny the Younger's encomium to Trajan. Had you noticed, by the way, that Atherton Wylde shares her initials with her hero's christian names? KIS |
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Keith Smith
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Peter
I had another look at my copy of 'My Chief and I', which was published by what is now University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. The extensive Introduction, by M.J. Daymond, includes his description of the work 'as adventure-fiction, as a polemic and historical record'. He also gives reasons for Colenso assuming a male persona: 'For a young woman to intervene in international politics and to take on the role of champion-at-arms is unusual even today. In Frances Colenso�s day, particularly in a remote colonial outpost, it was extraordinary. It necessitated her disguising her identity, and so she followed the example of many other women writers�she created a male persona for herself. Her Atherton Wylde is a young Englishman who arrives in Natal just after Langalibalele�s arrest. This disguise was necessary for many reasons. Propriety demanded that Frances conceal her own feelings for Durnford whose estranged wife was living in England. As no woman could have travelled with Durnford�s work party in the remote mountain regions of Natal, plausibility demanded that she create an author-narrator who could have had first-hand experience of the events she presents. Finally, given Durnford�s own exemplary purposes in employing the Ngwe, prudence demanded that the Colenso name should not be too closely associated with the publication of his exploits. At the time of Frances�s writing, hostility in Natal to the Colenso family was such that it might have damaged, not furthered, Durnford�s cause.' My copy also includes a sequel called 'Five Years Later', previously unpublished. KIS |
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Peter Ewart
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Keith
Very many thanks for that. It was exactly what I was looking for in the way of opinions cast by those trying to describe Frances Colenso's work and method. I only skimmed through the work some years ago but recently re-read it properly. My copy is only a modern reprint with no intro or anything but I've been fascinated by the way she records events and conversations which took place many miles from her but which, on the whole, seem undoubtedly to have taken place in more or less the way she has described them. I've no problem with the florid language at all, as it reflects (a) her character, upbringing and adherence to the Colenso "cause" (b) provides us with an accurate insight into her own thinking, misguided or otherwise and (c) because it is more or less what one would expect, being virtually identical to the style of so many women who acted or wrote in support of the mission field, whether in this country or S Africa. There were shoals of them and they all wrote in the same way! Her two aims were obviously intertwined. As well as being her paean to the deceased Durnford's memory, it's clear that this work is also a powerful attack on the Natal government and the settler mentality with regard to the huge black majority in their midst. It couldn't be one without the other, I suppose. I don't know how widely it will have been read, but it will have come as a rather nasty, unwelcome barb to the colonists only a year or so after they had seen their ambitions for "responsible government" dashed from their hands and would have been another reminder of all the bitterness which followed Bushman's River, the Langalibalele trial, Pine's recall and the Colenso protests about the amaNgwe etc. I wonder how long the work remained genuinely anonymous. A number must have suspected the Colenso "camp" from some of the clues. I wondered about her sources but, since writing the other day, I suspect both Jabez Molife and even Hlubi himself may have provided detail (if only via the published reports as fas as the BRP incident was concerned, but possibly additionally directly to the Colensos). I think she must have recorded (or memorised) in detail many of Durnford' conversations with her and her father on the matter in 1873 and 1874. The last two sentences of Daymond's piece are, of course, spot on. There was enough nastiness directed towards her faction without attracting more. And Durnford's support for the amaNgwe was at least the equal of his criticisms of the Natal Carbineers as far as the causes for the colonists' vitriol towards him were concerned. In many respects, Frances Colenso's style is not so much "gushing" as steely, targeted as it was at the Natal establishment, not surprisingly given the beleaguered position of her family at Bishopstowe. Peter |
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Dawn
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I still have that book, Coll, in preparation for our court of inquiry. We will make use of it yet! I'm sure I can gush if I put my mind to it...
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AMB
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Interestingly, of the several hundred books in my library pertaining to the AZW, my copy of My Chief and I is one hardly [if ever!] opened. So, thank you, Peter: I'm off to read it now!
AMB |
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My Chief and I |
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