Ntsikana: his great hymn and his enduring legacy on black consiousness

Abstract

Ntsikana's quest for blackness was neither moulded nor fuelled by anti -white bias. His silent advocacy of black consciousness was not a reaction to the imperial enemy, who happened to be white. He did not perceive himself as black because the colonial enemy was pale. He did not project his African face because the enemy was European. His understanding of his own spiritual identity seemed to be independent of who the political adversaries were. His black African consciousness was not tailored to the political opportunism of the time but emerged spontaneously out of the depth of his African soul. It was not a binary conflict of black versus white.It would be fair to say that Ntsikana's black consciousness was untainted by hatred towards the white race or European civilisation. His opposition was to the oppressive nature of white colonial rule, which in his view threatened to alienate his beloved African people from their African identity, their independence, and their land. His symbolic importance influenced both isiXhosa music and literature, inspired the founding of religious movements, and contributed to a wider black unity and nationalism during the early 20th century.