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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | 'The Abandoned Mother': Ageing, Old Age and Missionaries in Early and Mid Nineteenth-Century South-East Africa |
Author: | Sagner, Andreas |
Year: | 2001 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
Volume: | 42 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 173-198 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | missions elderly Xhosa History and Exploration Religion and Witchcraft Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Historical/Biographical Cultural Roles Sex Roles |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3647258 |
Abstract: | This essay examines issues of ageing and old age in Xhosa-speaking communities in South Africa in the early and mid-nineteenth century. Drawing primarily on records of the Wesleyan Methodist and London Missionary societies, the article analyses the construction of Xhosa ageing, old age and death in missionary writings. The primary medium of missionary reflection was the figure of the 'abandoned mother', modelled on contemporary British metaphors, that represented yet another atrocity story for legitimating the mission enterprise and the emerging colonial regime. The article argues that there were fundamental contrasts in the images of ageing and dying of the Xhosa and those of the missionaries. Early nineteenth-century Xhosa strove after 'this-worldly' concerns and longevity rather than for the Christian sense of spiritual eternity. Although poverty in old age and dying in the bush were real, the descriptions by missionaries of misery in old age and the construction of the image of the 'abandoned' elderly must be seen as part of the missions' broader civilization project. Notes, ref., sum. |