A Lion Amongst the Cattle

Peter Delius presents a carefully crafted and powerfully argued study of politics in rural South Africa from the 1930s to the 1980s. Although focusing on the former Pedi kingdom, he addresses a broader set of issues about the lived experiences of African societies forced onto the reserves.

Delius carefully documents how these communities bore the burden of nurturing new generations of migrant workers, sustaining their families during their long absence from home, and caring for those discarded by the mines and factories of South Africa - the old, the dying, the disabled. He also demonstrates the enormous ecological toll of rural apartheid in terms of soil erosion, land degradation, and environmental mismanagement.

But A Lion Amongst the Cattle is more than just a story of social, economic, and ecological disaster. In Delius's creative hands we see how rural peasants and migrant workers creatively cope with and at times struggle against the brutal impact of apartheid in the countryside. At the heart of the book lies a comparison of two dramatic revolts. In 1958 migrant workers and villagers took up arms to defend the few freedoms that remained to them.

In 1986 youthful "comrades" set out to purge their communities of oppression and misfortune; in the process they turned to killing witches. The book not only explores anti-apartheid struggles in the countryside, but also the conflicts within Pedi society over the legitimacy of chieftaincy, the viability of a market economy, and the very meaning of democracy.