HISTORY OF THE ABAMBO, GENERALLY KNOWN AS FINGOS (1912)

A very scarce copy of the original 1912 edition published in Fingoland, Transkei.

It is a former library copy and is bound in modest navy blue cloth with gilt titles on spine.

There is a two page review of the 1962 facsimile reprint by C. Struik bound in at the rear.

101pp. Contents clean with minimal library markings on the preliminary pages (see images).

'The book has considerable historical interest. It recounts the extraordinary story of those African Israelites, the Fingos, who, homeless and broken, were enslaved by other African tribes, but who gradually regained their strength and their freedom, notably because they were such staunch allies of the Europeans during the border wars. But all this is also a background to the achievements of the 1820 Settlers.' - 1820 Settlers Magazine (1962)

'Ayliff and Whiteside's work is an historical account of the Abambo people that begins with their settlement in the Buffalo River Valley below the Drakensberg in Natal in 1800. The account describes their defeat by the Zulu in approximately 1818, and their subsequent dispersal as the Fingo to the Transkei, where, according to the authors, they lived as servants to the Xhosa before being "liberated" by the British Government. Descriptions follow of the War of the Axe and Mlanjeni; Fingo tribal expansion; the Disarmament Act; and the Glen Grey Act. The authors write from a colonialist perspective, and accounts of the religious beliefs and practices tend to be superficial. List of Fingo chiefdoms, genealogical trees, and names of chiefs and headmen are appended.' - David Chidester, African Traditional Religion in South Africa: An Annotated Bibliography