Mythology of the Origin of The Number Gangs in South Africa
A cultural narrative defines a community’s shared identity. If all members know, share and pass on the story from generation to generation, a continuity of belonging is established, providing credence to the existence of the community. The narrative may have the outlines of historical facts, but is often coloured in with folklore, interpretations, imagination and fiction, turning mortal men first into legends and then banishing them into the shadow world of mythology.
When Odysseus, king of Ithica returning from the Trojan War, descended into Hades, the Underworld, he met the shadow of Achilles, hailed stil today as the greatest warrior of all times. Achilles famously told him, “Speak not a word of comfort to me about death. I would rather be a slave on earth to a poor man than king over all the lifeless dead.” And so the warriors of ancient times recede into the mists of time, to become empty shadows, and their greatness only lives on in the imagination of men. The Iliad and Odyssey are both stories told by Homer, narratives of patches of history, memories and imagination, stitched together with the thread of mortal men’s need to believe in heroes, role models, mentors, warriors, whom they could emulate, to establish their own identity.
Bards sang and recited the stories. A narrative is fluent, like a river’s current carving away at rocks, or cave paintings fading with time, so laws and regulations, previously set in stone, can change. Yet what remains important is that every member or new recruit should know the narrative – it is an oral history.
Nongoloza’s legend
Thus, from the ashes of Nongoloza’s gang the Ninevehs, the Number Gangs were born and this is their narrative, not only literally tattooed on the skin of the members but also embedded in their skin, staining their blood.
Po was an inyanga, or wise man who noticed the young men who left his village to work in the mines never returned and around 1812, he set out to Delagoa Bay, (modern Maputo in Mozambique) to investigate what had happened to them. Po reached the mines and saw young African men working themselves to death in the bowels of the earth to mine White men’s gold. This was not good.
Po settled in a cave near Pietermaritzburg in Kwa-Zulu Natal where he first recruited a Zulu youth called Nongoloza. The following morning he recruited a youth from Pondoland, called Kilikijan. Eventually the group grew to 15 members. Po taught them a secret language, Sabela, and he taught them to rob the pay wages at the mines. They also robbed the colonial military camps, supplying provisions, uniforms and weapons to the camp.
Po needed to regulate his band and instructed them to write his commandments in blood on a white rock in one of the caves. This was Po’s law, much like Moses received the Ten Commandments set in stone. Po also instructed Nongoloza and Kilikijan to buy a bull called Rooiland from a farmer, however they killed the farmed and brought the bull home. The hooves, legs, eyes, ears and skin of the bull were preserved. The skin was then pressed against the rock to make an imprint of Po’s law.
