Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraphy
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Nongqayi, the Nightwatchman
- 1 The Frontier Dandies
- 2 Johnny Fingo
- 3 Langalibalele, the Black Beast
- 4 Cetshwayo, the Photogenic King
- 5 The Rickshaw Puller and the Kitchen Suit
- 6 The Black Watch
- 7 A Man Named ‘Cash’
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - The Black Watch
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 September 2025
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraphy
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Nongqayi, the Nightwatchman
- 1 The Frontier Dandies
- 2 Johnny Fingo
- 3 Langalibalele, the Black Beast
- 4 Cetshwayo, the Photogenic King
- 5 The Rickshaw Puller and the Kitchen Suit
- 6 The Black Watch
- 7 A Man Named ‘Cash’
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
He then pointed out that he, who worked many hours administering the law for Government, had no salary; he had a good mind to stop doing this work and go back to the mines where he used to earn ten pounds a month as a ‘boss-boy’.
In 1940, Max Gluckman – the famed founder of the Manchester school of anthropology – published the article, ‘Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand’, in which he described what looked, superficially, like the opening of a bridge in Northern Zululand. The events took place in pre-apartheid South Africa, known then as the ‘Union of South Africa’. On the surface, the ceremony seems to oscillate between the strict protocols of officialdom and the informalities that emerge with prolonged contact between those in power and the people over whom they rule. For Gluckman, this was the meaning of a social situation.
A social situation is thus the behaviour on some occasion of members of a community as such, analysed and compared with their behaviour on other occasions, so that the analysis reveals the underlying system of relationships between the social structure of the community, the parts of the social structure, the physical environment, and the physiological life of the community's members.
As might be expected of this approach to culture and society, Gluckman spends most of the article describing who belonged to which community or social structure, and his preference was for distinguishing between ‘European’ and ‘Zulu’ even though he admits that, by virtue of daily and continuous contact, all could be called ‘Zululanders’.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The NightwatchmanRepresenting Black Men in Colonial South Africa, pp. 117 - 136Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2025
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.