Sol Plaatje Quotes

There’s always a return to the ruins, only to the womb there is no return. [191]

So long as there are two men left on earth there will be war. [169]

Never be led by a female lest thou fall over a precipice. [57]

The viewpoint of the ruler is not always the viewpoint of the ruled. [70]

The foolish dam suckles her young while lying down; but the wise dam suckles hers standing up and looking out for approaching hunters. [104]

One party went to far away Zimbabwe and returned with pack-oxen loaded with ivory, rhinoceros hides, lion skins and hog tusks. They reported finding a people whose women dug the mountain sides for nuggets and brittle stones, which they brought home to boil and produce a beautiful metal from which to mould bangles and ornaments of rare beauty. That was the Matebele’s first experience of gold smelting. [182]

Chief Moroka was not as great an orator as most of the Native chiefs but he excelled in philosophy. In that respect his witty expressions and dry humour were equal to those of Moshueshue, the Basuto King. He spoke in a staccato voice, with short sentences and a stop after each, as though composing the next sentence. His speeches abounded in allegories and proverbial sayings, some traditional and others spontaneous. His own maxims had about them the spice of originality which always provided his auditors with much food for thought. [104]

I shall return to Kunana, walk around the old place and venerate the ground where lived and worked my mother-in-law whom I never saw. I shall go down to the field of carnage, bestride the old battlefield, and say: Here fell the noble Rolong woman who gave birth to my faithful Mhudi. Somewhere here lies the remains of the woman who mothered my wife and nourished every fibre of her beautiful form. Then I will call to her spirit and say: Come down from the heights and approve the feeble cares I am trying to bestow on the noble treasure thou hast bequeathed to me. My mother, O cradle of my wife! That after all my pains and nursing, thou shouldst have been hounded out of this life without receiving a pin from the worthless fellow who wived thy noble offspring! [159 – 160]

That exactly is how my father and mother met and became man and wife. There were no home ceremonials, such as the seeking and obtaining of parental consent, because there were no parent; no conferences by uncles and grand-uncles, or exhortations by grandmothers and aunts; no male relatives to arrange the marriage knot, nor female relations to herald the family union, and no uncles of the bride to divide the bogadi (dowry) cattle as, of course, there were no cattle. It was a simple matter of taking each other for good and or ill with the blessing of the ‘God of Rain’. The forest was their home, the rustling trees their relations, the sky their guardian and the birds, who sealed the marriage contract with the songs, the only guests. Here they stablished their home and names it Re-Nosi (We-are-alone). [41]

She wondered if they too were classed into tribes such as the people are on earth. Can it be that the stars also engage in fighting sometimes, and if so, did they kill one another’s wives and children? Could it be that the thunder and lightning and hailstones that accompany the rain at times were the result of aerial battles. [60]

He’s a liar!’ shouted his astonished companion from the bush hard by: ‘Kill him, he’s alone.’ [128 – 129] They were at first very timid, scampering away whenever a Boer would move himself; but growing bolder and bolder they addressed to them first a few simple queries, and were highly amused at De Viller’s peculiar pronunciation of the native language. [114]

Man, Ra-Thaga, I always told you that you had a brown skin over a white heart, but you wouldn’t believe me. [161]

The Bechuanan know not the story of the Zungu of old. Remember him, my people; he caught a lion’s whelp and thought that, if he fed it with the milk of his cows, he would in due course possess a useful mastiff to help him in hunting valuable specimens of wild beats. The cub grew up apparently tame and meek, just like an ordinary domestic puppy; but one day Zungu came home and found, what? It had eaten his children, chewed up two of his wives and, in destroying it, he himself narrowly escaped being mauled. So, if Tauana and his gang of brigands imagine that they shall have rain and plenty under the protection of these marauding wizards from the sea, they will gather some sense before long. ‘Shaka served us just as treacherously. Where is Shaka’s dynasty now? Extinguished, by the very Boers who poisoned my wives and are pursuing us today. The Bechuana are fools to think that these unnatural Kiwas (white men) will return their so-called friendship with honest friendship. Together they are laughing at my misery. Let them rejoice; they need all the laughter they can have today for when their deliverers begin to dose them with the same bitter medicine they prepared for me; when the Kiwas rob them of their cattle, their children and their lands, they will weep their eyes out of their sockets and get left with only their empty throats to squeal in vain for mercy. ‘They will despoil them of the very lands they have rendered unsafe for us; they will entice the Bechuana youths to war and the chase, only to use them as pack-oxen; yea, they will refuse to share with them the spoils of victory. ‘They will turn Becuana women into beasts of burden to drag their loaded wagons to their granaries, while their own bullocks are fattening on their hillside and pining for exercise. They will use the whiplash on the bare skins of women to accelerate their paces and quicken their activities: they shall take Bechuana women to wife and, with them, bread a race of half man and half goblin, and they will deny them their legitimate lobolo. With their cries unheeded, these Bechuana will waste away in helpless fury till the gnome of offspring of such miscegenation rise up against their cruel sires; by that time their mucus will blend with their tears past their chins down to their heels. Then shall come our turn to laugh. [178 – 189]

Oh no, Nonnie,’ protested Ra-Thaga emphatically, ‘you White people have a way of writing down conditional promises and treating them as debts.’ [191]

The forests shook with the awful thunder of the guns, which stirred a wild agitation among the denizens of the day. Terrified game of every description scattered in all directions and fled for dear life; oxen bellowed in surprise and wild hounds yelped, wolves and jackals ran as though possessed by a legion of devils. Wild birds rushed out of their nests and protested loudly against the unholy disturbance of the peace of their haunts. [145]

I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me, because I am black For the Sun hat hath looked upon me. My mother’s children were angry with me, They made me the keeper of the vineyards But my own vineyard have I not kept. [79]

In future, anyone spoiling for human blood may go and join the Matebele and there slake his thirst for blood. They are the only nation I know who delight in bloody accidents. [98]

Let the enemy try conclusions with me and the vultures shall gorge themselves with his flesh and the ants shall fatten on his blood. [137]

I am going to leave this place while the leaving is good. [139]

That will not do, for your people will not tolerate me. If they get enraged by nothing more than a drink of water out of their water-pail, they are not likely to allow me a place near their Captain. [159]

A man was not made to live alone. Had it not been for Mhudi, I don’t think you would have known me at all. She made me what I am. I feel certain that your manhood will never be recognized as long as you remain wifeless. [160]

Urge him, even as I would urge all men of my acquaintance, to gather more sense and cease warring against their kind. [170]

Where is the God, this Spirit, that made all these things? Does He not stroll round sometimes and examine His handiwork, and even me? I wonder how long it took Him to make this immense universe? Is He satisfied with it all and with me? Surely He cannot be pleased with the Matebele or with Ton-Qon; and if they too are the creatures of the God of Life, what did He make such people for? Did He also make the dreadful venomous replies that infest the land, I wonder? And if so, why? [60]

The travelers after leaving Tlou’s village, where De Villers and his friends were hiding, took a rest under a shady tree at the foot of a hill, where they fell asleep. On awakening they beheld half a dozen Matebele emerging from a thicket in the depression below their hiding place. Naturally, the sight struck terror in them. For a moment they knew not what to do. But the younger man, more resourceful than Lepane, suggested to the elder that they were less likely to be seen if they hid in separate places. So advising Lepane to press close up to the tree-trunk he crawled through the grass and the bushes to find another hiding place. This plan might have worked very well had not Lepane’s nerves unfortunately given way at the near approach of the foe. Terror-stricken, Lepane before being bescried shrieked aloud. ‘Oh, spare me!’ he cried. ‘I will tell you of some undesireable persons in King Mzilikazi’s country. Just let me live, I tell you, I am not alone.’ ‘He’s a liar!’ shouted his astonished companion from the bush hard by: ‘Kill him, he’s alone.’ [128 – 129]

A hasty dog always burns his mouth. [192]

Umnandi would willingly have given up her beauty and stately mien and forgotten her skill in cookery, in return for the birth of a baby boy as a present for her husband and his people. She would gladly have gone through fire and water if the end of it was to nurse a royal child of her own. She took counsel with famous herbalists from Basutholand, Swaziland, Bechuanaland and Bapediland; she went through painful and disgusting ordeals on their advice, just for the hope of becoming a mother; but these wizards accomplished nothing beyond filling her heart with a succession of hopes, each of which in turn proved worthless. [80]

Lightening fire is quenched by other fire. [102]

Kings sometimes beget dross. [103]

The cause of the rumpus, he said, was that Boers at their own homes never allow black people to drink out of their vessels. The Boars cannot understand why black peoplewhen visited by white men show no such scruples. De Villiers added that whenever Ta-Thaga had been served at the Hoek is was always from vessels reserved for the use of Hottentots and were he not a Morolong he would have paid for his presumptuous action with a lacerated back. [112]

Strange to relate, these simple folk were perfectly happy without money and without silver watches. Abject poverty was practically unknown; they had no orphanages because there were no nameless babies. [3]

The quarry of two dogs is never too strong. [106]

He noticed further that no Boer ever interceded when a Hottentot was flogged; that in punishing Hottentots the Boers used dangerous weapons, the most familiar being the sjambok made of sea-cow hide, or the buckle end of a belt. Further he noticed that the number of lashes they applied to their servants was excessive and sometimes appalling. In these cases, the Boer onlookers would gather around and even assist the castigator. [111]

During the few days she travelled with them, she had been charmed by Hannetjie’s disposition, which seemed to her a shining contrast to the general attitude of the other Boers. [188 – 189]

The Van Zyls, especially, and the others Boers at Khing, feeling outraged at De Villiers’s treatment of the Kaffir and his wife, regarded these acts of generosity as being grossly extravagant. Indeed, they began to doubt the sanity of the young man. [189]