For Prof Jeff Guy
I received the news of
Professor Jeff Guy’s passing while I was at another fountain of knowledge, the
National English Literary Museum (NELM) in Grahamstown, doing work-related
research about writers and poets of the Black Consciousness era, focusing specifically
on those that left us this year, namely Mbulelo Mzamane, Mafika Gwala and Chris
Van Wyk.
While reading at NELM I
received two text messages in close succession, bringing news of the departure
from this life of yet another outstanding South African: the text messages came
from Yvonne Winters my former boss, retired Head of Campbell Collections, UKZN.
I immediately called Prof Catherine Burns. For some reason I had not checked my
emails on Tuesday 16th. Had I done so, I would have seen e-mails from Cath and
Meghan and other friends, sending beautiful tributes to Prof.
I had the pleasure and
honour of working with Professor Jeff Guy at Campbell Collections, UKZN and I
was privileged to see him many times in action during the famous UKZN History
Seminars. Sometime in 2007 I went to Professor Jeff Guy’s office at Campbell
Collections, to discuss a seminar that we were organising, and while discussing
the seminar he asked me about my family history. I mentioned my grandfather,
Chief Jerome Cele of Inchanga (Fredville), the elder brother to my grandfather
Leonard Cele (L.R.) on my paternal side, and I also mentioned some family
members on my father’s maternal side, the Gumedes of Inanda, specifically my
great grandfather, the Rev Posselt Gumede, and his son my grandfather Dr I.B.
Gumede. A few days later, at the UKZN History Seminar, Percy Ngonyama was
giving a presentation about Adams College. During the discussion Prof Guy
pulled out a copy of The New African : a study of the life and work of H.I.E.
Dhlomo by Professor Tim Couzens, and he mentioned the Rev Posselt Gumede and
Dr. Innes Gumede, as some of the people that are linked to Adams College, and
are mentioned within the aforementioned book. After the seminar he lent me his
copy of The New African, and in this way, superb mentor that he was, he
indicated to me that I could carry out research into my family. By giving me
The New African after I had mentioned my family to him a few days before for
only a few minutes, he encouraged me to explore new sources: and now he had
gone and found information about my family, thus helping me find an angle as a
librarian, archivist, heritage professional and student of history. Before
meeting Professor Guy I was an avid reader of history books, novels, poetry,
biographies etc: however I didn’t have a paradigm or an angle. By pointing me
towards my family history, while linking it to early African intellectuals, and
giving me the bible of early African intellectuals (The New African), he gave
me direction.
From early 2005 to late
2006, as curator and researcher at Luthuli Museum, I did a great deal of
research about Chief Albert Luthuli; then, in December 2006, I started to work
with Prof Guy, and in 2007 I began attending the History Seminars, and I
discovered that I had been researching Chief Luthuli as an isolated figure, not
within the context of the other African intellectuals of his era. When Prof Guy
helped me find an angle I became a better researcher and librarian and this in
turn helped me assist my library-users and researchers more effectively. Prof
Guy and the History Seminar taught me to connect events and people in history.
Inspired by Prof Guy’s points made during the Adams College discussion during
the History Seminar, and by The New African, I began researching my family
history, looking for material at Campbell Collections, where I indeed found
valuable information. After one of the TAP meetings, Meghan Healy Clancy
invited me to contribute an essay about the Gumedes of Inanda for publication
in the book Ekhaya.
When I told Prof Guy that
my grandfather, Leonard Cele, three months before he was killed by lighting at
the age of 41 in 1954, had written two articles in Ilanga Lase Natal about the
history of the Cele people and that in one of the articles my grandfather said
he was planning to write a book for his grandchildren - meaning me and us long
before I was born - Prof Guy said that I must find time and write about the
Cele people.
Prof Guy loved and lived
history day in and day out. I remember he once came to Campbell Collections
with his eyes looking tired and strained: when I asked about this, he said he
had been writing the whole night before. In August 2008 I visited kwa Ceza and,
while driving along that gravel road, I remembered that in the preface of Prof
Guy’s famous and classic Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom he thanks the staff of
kwa Ceza hospital for having given him accommodation when he was doing
research. When I was back in Durban I asked him about the trips to kwa Ceza
back in the late 60s and early 70s. And he shared with me that he had done
these trips, driving a VW beetle and accompanied by the then Prince Zwelithini,
currently King Zwelithini ka Nyangayezizwe ka Solomo ka Dinuzulu ka Cetshwayo.
And he told me that while doing research he was introduced to Princess Magogo
ka Dinuzulu.
When Prof was talking
History, you could sense passion coming from within him. Prof Guy was not only
a writer, preserver and defender of History, but he also loved the Archives,
the Libraries, Museums, Old Government Publications, Old Maps, historical
knowledge generally: as long as information illuminated the past, specifically
south-eastern Africa in the 19th century, Prof would love it. My consolation is
that Prof Guy left this world after doing what he loved most, and that is
discussing History. When Yvonne and Cath told me that he had left us after
attending a conference on Colenso, I was consoled, and thought what perfect
timing that was. In the Campbell Collections Reading Room in 2008, when I told him
that I was reading his book: The Heretic: a study of the life of John William
Colenso, 1814 – 1883, he said to me “Mwelela, of all my books that is my
favourite”. Being a master at drawing in all the threads of an argument to
present a virtuoso conclusion, he left us in the brilliance of yet another
great conclusion, in the conference paper he had lately delivered. Like a true
Zulu warrior he left us in the action after the action. I once said to him
“Prof I love the way you conclude your papers and books”; my favourite was the
way he concluded a paper about Harriet Colenso, with a letter from Harriet
Colenso to the Rev John Langalibalele Dube. And who can forget the conclusion
of The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom where he writes: “The Zulu nationalist
movement today, whose leaders are in many cases the direct descendants of the
men who fought the civil war, and who draw consciously on the Zulu past, is a
force which will still affect the course of southern African History.”
For me it is symbolic
that I received the news of Prof’s passing while doing research (he would
approve!): I was in a fountain of knowledge, the National English Literary
Museum. I felt like Noel Mostert who wrote in his book Frontiers: The Epic of
South Africa’s Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People, that he had been
working in the State Archives in Cape Town when, emerging from there one
afternoon, he was confronted by the headlines of Steve Biko’s death. While at
NELM I told fellow-researchers about Prof Guy’s passing and we were all aware
of our sense of loss.
The ‘Zulu National Poet’
of the 1930s and 40s Dr. B.W. Vilakazi wrote the following lines of poetry
after the passing of his father: “I SHALL BELIEVE…/ I shall believe that you
have died/ When bird-calls brightening the air,/ When night-dark skies
festooned with stars,/ When haze of dawn and mist of dusk/ Whose fading glow is
pale as moonbeams -/ Have vanished forever from the earth./ I shall believe
that you have died/ When rooted mountains and rushing streams,/ The winds that
blow from north and south,/ The winter’s frost and glittering dew-drops/
Scattering pearls upon the grass -/ Have vanished forever from the earth./ To
me your fall was like a star’s…/”
A reviewer once described
the Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom “as a monument to scholarship of the
highest order”: how true - Prof Guy himself was a living monument to
scholarship of the highest order, and the abundant fruits of his life’s work
should inspire those whom he taught and influenced to produce high-order
scholarship worthy of his memory.
Mwelela Cele
Steve Biko Centre:
Ginsberg: King William’s Town (eQonce)
