The Value of Cattle (2)

Question 1

What was the significance of land for the Xhosa?

Answer 1

The land was exceptionally significant in the lives of the Xhosa; it gave them everything that they needed, and their institutions revolved around it.

Question 2

In conjunction with the land was the significance attributed to ____. Both these entities formed the central ___ of the Xhosa society.

Answer 2

Cattle

Basis

Question 3

What was the practical value of cattle?

Answer 3

On a practical level, cattle provided milk and meat for the people. Its’ hides provided material and its’ dung, fertile for the soil as well as fuel. Its’ bones could be used for tools.

Question 4

Why were cattle so valuable?

Answer 4

Cattle were also an indicator of wealth and status because it was a central unit of value used to trade. Men gained wives through the provision of lobola – payment made in cattle. Fines and tributes were paid by cattle. Thus, cattle in Southern Africa held more value than mere sustenance.

Question 5

“The cow’s function is to connect, to bridge, to ___. Cows exist in a ____ space between the human and the ____, the physical and the spiritual, the alive and the ancestors, the worldly and the universal.”

Answer 5

Invoke
Liminal
Divine

Question 6

Cattle were deeply knotted to the heart of the homestead, to the community and to the individual. How was this indicated?

Answer 6

For example, by the patterns of settlement and movement of the Xhosa as they always placed the grazing needs of the cattle as a priority. The cattle enclosures of a homestead were regarded as a divine and sacred space.