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HistoryThe Ndzundza Ndebele are an Nguni people who originated in the areas of present day Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and the Northern provinces, formerly the Eastern and Northern Transvaal. King Musi, a great diplomat, led his people to settle among the Tswana and Pedi, where they intermarried and engaged in cultural exchange. It is believed that early Ndebele house structure and house-painting strategies were adopted as a result of these relationships. Ensuing family battles caused one group of Ndebele to go farther north into Zimbabwe. Of the groups that stayed in South Africa, the Manala and the Ndzundza, it is the latter who have developed abstract house-painting schema and who are recognized globally as the Ndebele of South Africa. (Van Vuuren, 1994)Until 1883, the Ndebele were powerful landowners and fierce warriors, able to maintain their vast farm holdings in the highveld area against encroaching Boer farmers. At this time, the Boers (armies of the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek) managed to overcome the Ndzundza under chief Nyabela, confiscate all of their land, and parcel it out to their own farmers. Along with the land, Ndzundza families were distributed as indentured servants to work the farmlands they had owned. This period of indenturement stretched into the 20(th) century, the final vestiges loosening only in the past four years. Indenturement and Apartheid in South Africa are akin to African American slavery and segregation to the extent that both were governmental decrees and both needed further government action to be ended.Wall ArtOut of each of these white-on-black repressive experiences, expressive symbols were developed by artists within the subordinate groups. Often, these examples of creativity (images, forms, songs, etc.) were signs which could be "read" as messages by the oppressed group. Like the African American quilts -- "instruments of cultural transmission" (Freeman, 1996) -- that frequently served as guideposts to slaves in transit, the wall paintings of the Ndebele became guideposts for indigenous persons passing farm buildings set far back from the road. They announced: "We are Ndebele. Ndebele live here." Loubser (1994) confirms that "owing to the difficult circumstances of the Ndzundza, the paintings became an expression of both cultural resistance and continuity." White farmers, who "saw themselves as politically more powerful and culturally superior," viewed this cultural form as decorative and harmless and thus allowed it to continue.
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