Troublemaker”: Early Years

The man the West called “Nelson Mandela” went by many names throughout
his
life. Known in boyhood as “Rolihlahla” (Troublemaker), by tribal tradition as
“Mandiba,” and colloquially as “Tata” (father), he was also widely called “the
father of South Africa.”
The circumstances of Nelson Mandela’s life were both humble and exceptional.
His parents lived in the Transkei region, a remote area south of Johannesburg.
Born in 1918 in a tiny riverside village called Mvezo, Mandela was the oldest of
his mother’s four children and the only boy. His given name in his native
language of Xhosa was Rolihlahla (pronounced khol-ee-LAA-laa or KHOL-
eeshah-
shah), which translates literally to “one who pulls a branch off a tree,” or
figuratively to “troublemaker” or “one who brings trouble on himself.” His
family was not privileged or especially wealthy, nor was anyone in his family
educated, but they were of royal lineage.
Mandela’s father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, was descended from the king of
Thembu. According to the traditional rules of descent, Mphakanyiswa was the
chief of Mvezo, an official councilor to the tribal ruler, and an unofficial priest
and oral historian. Mphakanyiswa especially enjoyed passing on the stories of
the people before the whites had come; his friends and family learned their
history and culture from his orations.
Mphakanyiswa had 13 children by four wives, of whom Mandela’s mother,
Noqaphi Nosekeni, was the third. Each wife had her own kraal, or homestead
and land, in a separate village. Mandela’s mother was also descended from the
king, albeit through a different line.
When Mandela was an infant, his father became embroiled in a conflict with
the
local magistrate and the laws of the ruling country, England. Accused of
insubordination, Mphakanyiswa was stripped of his chiefdom. It was an
unexpected event in young Mandela’s life, but not a terribly traumatic one.
Because of the change in circumstances, Mandela’s mother moved with her
children to Qunu, a small village in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
The village comprised huts for a few hundred people, fields for growing corn,
and grazing lands for cattle, sheep, and goats. There were a few schools and a
shop in the area as well. Except for the distant magistrates, the shopkeeper,
and
some police officers, virtually everyone the young Mandela encountered was
black, and the society was both peaceful and productive. The racist laws of
South Africa, which were primarily laws of imperial England, had little
immediate effect on the way of life of the village, which had remained the
same
for hundreds of years. Men and women had distinct roles in that society: the
women took care of the homes, the children, and the food, as well as the
water,
which had to be carried in buckets from streams. Girls and women prepared
the
food, and the main meal was taken in the evenings, with families usually
sharing
a single dish and eating with their hands. Most men of the village spent much
of
the year away from the village, working in the mines or on distant farmlands.
Happy to be part of this safe, traditional society, Mandela grew up strong and
happy, playing outdoors with his many cousins (who were considered to be like
brothers and sisters). With the boys he played stick-fighting games, at which he
was very good and very stubborn—if he lost a stick fight, he would demand a
rematch the following day. Tall and athletic, he rode on the donkeys and calves
and hunted birds with a slingshot. Mandela said that his favorite of all the
games
played with girls was “khetha,” or “choose-the-one-you-like,” in which the
village girls were asked to name their favorite of the boys.
Mandela’s father, who visited each of his wives in rotation, usually came to his
third wife’s kraal for about one week each month. At those times Mandela
learnt
as much as he could from listening to and emulating his father. He enjoyed
hearing his father’s stories of ancient times and Xhosa warriors, and he was
fascinated by his mother’s legends.
Mandela’s father was an open-minded man who was unusual in the village in
that he had befriended some local Christians. But he himself remained faithful
tothe traditional beliefs of his ancestors, who worshipped the god Qamata.
Mandela’s mother, however, became Christian, and in time she had her son
baptized into the Wesleyan (Methodist) Church and later sent him to the
mission
school. Attending school was an honor no one else in the family had received.
On his first day in the school, seven-year-old Mandela experienced two events
of
great import. First, the boy was given the privilege of wearing a pair of cut-
down
trousers that had belonged to his father. Mandela, who would later in life be
noted for wearing fine trousers and jackets, wrote that he had never been
prouder
of any suit than he was of his father’s cast-offs. Secondly, that day his teacher
assigned each child an English name. For no reason that Mandela knows, the
name she chose for Rolihlahla was “Nelson.”
When Mandela was nine, his father, who had never visited a doctor but who
was
thought to have a lung disease, suffered from a terrible cough during a visit to
his third wife’s kraal. Soon after, he died there.
After the mourning period, Mandela’s mother told Mandela—with no
explanation—that he would have to leave Qunu. She walked with him all day,
taking him to his new home, the Great Place (or royal palace) in Mqhekezweni.
He was going to live with Chief Jongintaba Dalindeybo, the regent of the
Thembu people, who had received assistance from Mandela’s father in the
past
and had agreed to become the boy’s benefactor.