BENEDICT WALLET MBAMBATHA VILAKAZI

Benedict Wallet Vilakazi 

by

H. I. E. Dhlomo

Benedict Wallet Vilakazi was born at Groutville Mission Station, near Stanger, Natal, in 1906—an important year in natal history, because in that yea the Government promulgated the Poll Tax Law on a divided and defeated Zulu nation after the battle of Ulundi, and one of Dinuzulu's minor chiefs, Bambatha, always looking for some excuse to act, led thousands of Zulus to oppose the tax with arms. They lost the battle and Bambatha was killed.

That is the year when Vilakazi was born, and that is why he was given the pet name of Bambatha.

Like most mission children, he attended school as a matter of course. In those days education meant almost invariably a teachers' course.

So Vilakazi became a teacher, but showed no marked ambition. The change came later when he was called upon to decide between two teaching posts, one in a comparatively remote and lonely rural post, and the other near a town, with all the attractions.

He chose the rural post. It was turning point in his life. He began to take keen interest in private studies and received such excellent assistance from the Catholic priests with whom he worked that he became one of the leading African scholars in Latin and preferred to read Virgil and other Latin classics in the original, not in the English translation, which he regarded as inferior.

These contacts had profound influence on Vilakazi as artist, scholar believer. Born and bred a Protestant, he soon turned a Catholic.

After Ixepe, he taught at Marianhill and at Ohlange. The Marianhill-Ohlange period seems to have affected his soul deeply and produced attitudes that were to colour the rest of his life. First, he was married, then his father died, and, last, he lived with boastful African graduates from Fort Hare , who despised anyone who had no university qualifications. In these and related events lies a story of drama and pathos that his biographers only can have the space to tell. It peeps in his mystical poem, “ Unokufa ,” the dirge “ Sengiyekholwake ,” in the more personal lyrics, and in the prophetically morbid pieces on the subject of death, e.g., “ Masengifa .” Vilakazi's preoccupation with this subject almost justifies those who argue that persons who die young show many signs of it before they pass away.

In his B. A. course Vilakazi specialized in African studies. On completing his B. A., he was appointed to the Bantu Studies Department of the University of the Witwatersrand . Thus he became the first African to teach in a European university, a sensational achievement in those days .

His reactions to city life in Johannesburg must have been those of a shocked and disillusioned man. He found a sophisticated African Society little interested in academic degrees as such, but in talent and achievement in all walks of life. A talented jazz band leader or successful business man were ranked higher than an unproductive graduate and were more popular and respected.

These unhappy incidents coupled with the unlimited chances and vast, un-chartered virgin fields of endeavour and achievement, spurred him on. Here were opportunities not only to build his fame and fortune, but to avenge himself at some who had belittled his part-time acquired education and degree. He could pay back by reading for degrees in a university in comparison with which Fort Hare was a minor institution. In quick succession he completed courses for the B. A. (Hon.) and M. A. degrees. Later, by examination, he got his D.Litt., the thesis of which many African scholars and writers hope will be published as he had intended .

There was [a] method in all this. He intended to follow up the D.Litt. degree by a Ph. D. either at Cambridge or Oxford . He also expected that his research work and literary contribution---he had planned to publish two books at least each year---would bring him honorary degrees. He did not intend to go abroad until he had reached the highest niche in this country. In the process of his development and progress many things happened to sear his soul and affect his attitude towards life and certain classes of individuals.

Some think he never could have attained these things, for he was often haughty, aloof, cold and deliberately rude to the highly-placed Africans against whom he had a grudge, although he was warm, social and friendly to the rank and file. . . .

This they maintain, could be verified by his progress in poetry. In his first book, Inkondlo ka Zulu [Zulu Poetry, 1935], he is an ivory-tower artist, concerned with himself, weaving beautiful phantasies, and blind and deaf to his surroundings and the cruel fate of his people. In his second work, Amal' E'zulu [Zulu Horizons, 1945], he identifies himself with the struggles, fears, aspirations, sacrifices and the indomitability of his people. Some critics say that this proves, among other things, that Vilakazi did not in fact know the depth of pain, want, humiliation and frustration in his personal life. He only awakened to these not by means of personal experience, but objectively through the evolution of his artistic and patriotic instinct----his genius.

Although Vilakazi lived more or less the “traditional” isolated life of Right Wing scholars and writers and did not identify himself actively with the political and social struggles of his people, he played an active part more than once in African politics. He openly supported Mr. A. W. G. Champion against Mr. A. W. Ndlovu in the Native Representative Council elections, and, later, Chief A. Luthuli against Mr. H. S. Msimang. His political admiration for Mr. Champion sealed his differences with Dr. J. L. Dube, with whom there had been differences on personal grounds. Until that time he and Dr, Dube had been great friends. Vilakazi had helped do research work that had proved Dube the most outstanding claimant for the honorary doctorate in philosophy that the University of South Africa intended to confer upon an African. He had assisted Dr. Dube in other directions. Up to that time it was whispered that he would succeed Dube as principal of Ohlange if he wanted the post. Vilakazi's political essays put an end to all this .

Vilakazi had three main ambitions. First, to make his times the Vilakazi Age in Bantu literature; second, to be one of its leading scholars and greatest men; third, to wrench from European experts certain academic fields in which he would be recognized as a leading authority. There is no doubt that when he died he was already the most outstanding figure in Bantu literature as original writer, critic and research scholar. Academically, he had outpaced many who had an advantage of many years' start before him.

But it is doubtful if the present will be called his age for time was against him, but in favour of his equally determined rivals. True genius and the highest quality only can defy time, as in the cases of names like Keats, Shelley, Schubert and others.

As we began, so let us end. Vilakazi came to be regarded as the cultural Bambatha of his people. He waged great battles for their cultural glory. One of his novels is based on the story of his namesake. Besides being the pioneer African lecturer in a European university, editor (of the Catholic African Teachers' Magazine), a member of the Senate of the Catholic University in Basutoland, and serving on many cultural and educational committees, he wrote three novels, two books of poetry, original theses of his M. A. and D.Litt. degrees, and (with Professor C. M. Doke) the new standard Zulu Dictionary . Together with a well-known Natal politician, he was planning to establish an educational institution in Natal on the pattern of some famous Negro universities.

A number of poetic tributes were paid him when he passed away at an early age, for the people felt that . . .

“The glory has departed. Yet the

the glory

Still remains in thy victorious

Crown and story.”