Cry the Beloved Country

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

Book review by Teresa Friedlander, copyright 2010, all rights reserved


If the 2010 World Cup Soccer Tournament was South Africa’s “coming out” party, then the nation did herself proud; hosting 32 teams and as many as three million spectators in 10 venues. From June 11 through July 11, 2010, the world watched as elimination matches whittled the field down to Spain and the Netherlands, ultimately giving Spain its first World Cup title. Throughout it all, we heard the buzzing of vuvuzelas, the plastic horns blown by South African spectators in a new “fanfare for the common man”. How far South Africa has come since the days of Apartheid – constitutional racial segregation – and, before that, the so called “Pass Laws” which required Blacks to carry documents at all times. To see the smiling faces and to hear the joyful noises of the Black South African fans one could never guess that as recently as 1990, these good people were denied the rights and benefits of full citizenship.

The story of South Africa has many parallels to that of the United States of America: European nations colonized parts of it, marginalized the native population, and exploited the abundant natural resources. Civil unrest between various factions led to a unified government and the ruin of the native people, who lost their cultural and tribal identities. Where the stories diverge is in terms of civil rights. The southern United States’ economies were built on slave labor and after that was abolished in 1865, these states enacted so called “Jim Crow” laws to legalize segregation of the races. At no time in our history, however, has slavery or segregation been the law of the land. Indeed, the questions of slavery and whether Africans might be entitled to full citizenship vexed the attendees of the first Constitutional Convention of the United States of America. It took another century after slavery was abolished to invalidate state laws favoring segregation, and the better part of fifty years hence to make racial discrimination completely unacceptable.

South Africa’s story is also different from ours in terms of the dominant culture. The Netherlands was the first European nation to colonize southern Africa in the 1600s and descendents of these settlers , or the Boers, make up a significant part of the current population. Great Britain also established colonies in southern Africa by the beginning of the 1800s. The discovery of diamonds and gold fueled competition for dominance of southern Africa and a series of civil wars ensued. Great Britain won the second Boer War in 1902, after losing the first Boer War in 1881, and thus gained control. In 1909, the British Parliament created the Union of South Africa, giving it the same status as Australia and Canada, a dominion under the monarchy. The new government passed the South Africa Act which created a strong central government and facilitated laws severely limiting the civil rights of Black South Africans. The ruling majority was mostly English-speaking, but Afrikaans was widely spoken by both Black and white South Africans. Therefore, in addition to racial segregation, South Africa was divided by language.

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, tells the story of Black South Africans during this sorry chapter in that nation’s history. It is a tragic and beautiful novel about a Black minister who has watched the social fabric of his tribe disintegrate while the young adults migrated to shanty towns on the outskirts of the big cities to look for work. The Pass Laws Act of 1952 required that all Blacks over the age of 16 carry a pass book at all times, to prove their identity, residency, employment status, and permission to travel. Failure to produce the pass book on demand was grounds for immediate imprisonment. Alan Paton, a white South African, worked in the prison system and became intimately familiar with the degrading impact of the pass laws. He learned of the lost generation of Blacks who abandoned their tribes and families in search of employment in Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg, Bloemfontein, and other large cities. He understood the devastating effect of these migrations on the women, children and old people who were left behind. As the main character, the Reverend Stephen Kumalo, laments “when people go to Johannesburg, they never come back. They do not even write anymore.”

In the story, the Reverend’s sister and son had both disappeared into Johannesburg and would have remained missing had he not received a letter from a fellow priest informing him of his sister’s ill health. This news caused the Reverend and his wife to acknowledge that their son, Absalom, would never need the money they had saved for his education in the tribal school, and so they decided to use that money to send the Reverend to Johannesburg to give aid and comfort to his sister. At the train station, a neighbor asked the Reverend Kumalo to ask after his daughter – another missing person – who was in the employ of the daughter-in-law of the local white landowner. In the end, the Reverend, the white landowner, the Reverend’s son, the missing girl, the white landowner’s daughter-in-law and grandson discover their lives are intertwined by a tragedy resulting from the tribal breakdown that sent Absalom and his peers to Johannesburg. Out of this tragedy, a beautiful friendship grows which promises to heal the land laid waste by overgrazing cattle and inappropriate land cultivation.

Cry the Beloved Country reads like an epic poem, with almost musical phrasing. The opening line of the book, “There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it.” is repeated several times like the refrain of a sad song. Mr. Paton understood the profoundly degrading effect that segregation had on both the people and the land as well as the deep sense of longing for things to be different on the part of so many. Those lush green hills of the opening line were off limits to the Black South Africans’ starving cattle, the traditional measure of a man’s wealth.

Mr. Paton’s dialog captures the essence of the Zulu language and its almost exclusive use of the present tense. This has the effect of bringing out the forgiving and compassionate nature of the Reverend Kumalo and the gentleness of the rural Zulu people. Once corrupted by the big city, however, the Blacks quickly become bitter and angry and lose all sense of morals. Life in the shanty towns is brutally ugly and crime is rampant, and the language reflects this.

In the decades since Cry the Beloved Country was published, South Africa has changed profoundly: the Pass Laws were replaced by Apartheid, officially consolidating political power and wealth in the ruling white minority population; Apartheid fell to global pressure; Nelson Mandela – a Black South African who had spent years in prison – was elected president; and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, FIFA, voted to hold the 2010 World Cup in the Republic of South Africa. Life is still far from perfect in this nation of 50 million people, 80 per cent of whom are Black, but things are getting better. The 2010 World Cup was a celebration of progress, if not perfection.

"Where the Rivers Run North"

Where the Rivers Run North by Sam Morton

Book Review by Teresa Friedlander (copyright 2008)

During the 20th century, Americans learned about the “wild west” by watching cowboy and Indian movies and television programs featuring one-sided and often inaccurate versions of the events which shaped the western United States. Fortunately, historical documents and recorded personal histories exist which tell more of the whole story. Sam Morton, a horse trainer who splits his time between Palm Beach County, Florida, and Wyoming, was fortunate enough to meet some of the descendents of the old-timers and through them heard stories of the humans and horses who made history in northern Wyoming and southern Montana – a place once called Absaraka. He embarked on a multi-year research project to collect these stories and knit them together with imagined conversations based on his understanding of the main characters. The result is a highly satisfying and insightful version of what happened – when, why, how – and who was involved.

The histories of America and horses are as tightly woven together as a tapestry. Modern horses arrived on this continent with European explorers. Some managed to escape domesticity and form great wild herds. Others were stolen or captured by Native Americans. The natives quickly became master horsemen, riding with neither saddles nor bridles into great battles against competing tribes and, inevitably, the white encroachers on their ancestral lands. While there were some unprovoked acts of aggression on the part of the Native Americans – Shoshone, Crow, Blackfoot, Lakota Sioux, et al. – against the white settlers, the natives were mostly on the defensive, clinging desperately to their way of life on lands that had always provided everything they needed to survive.

Waves of white men moved west in the 1800s following the Louisiana Purchase, including soldiers commissioned to “eliminate the Indian problem”. For the natives, this was a time of great confusion and pain. Everything changed very quickly: game disappeared, once friendly tribes turned on each other, and weapons which had been employed since the stone age became obsolete. Moreover, the natives did not understand the white Americans’ notion of land ownership, nor did they quickly enough learn how deceitful and corrupt many of these people could be in their desire to lay claim to land for cattle grazing and homesteads. The result was genocide with the surviving natives being herded into small and inhospitable “reservations’ overseen by tribesmen who had been co-opted, as a matter of pragmatism, by the victorious United States army. Mr. Morton takes a journalistic approach to the history; he describes the events objectively and does not apologize for the tragic and wanton acts of some of the more notorious characters, but rather lets the facts speak for themselves. There are moments in the book when he could easily have slipped into sentimentality as people of all stripes recognized that something precious was being lost to them forever. By avoiding this trap, Mr. Morton allows the reader to focus on the stories and absorb the lessons.

Crazy Horse, a Lakota Sioux warrior, figures prominently during the period when worlds began colliding. In Mr. Morton’s book, he was something of a loner and did not care to accumulate resources. Rather he shared what he had with needy members of his tribe. His reasoning was that he could always steal more horses and kill another deer. This did not endear him to the father of the girl he loved, and so he lost out to a lesser man. Rather than pursue another woman, he redirected his energy and became one of the fiercest and most cunning warriors in American history.

Crazy Horse saw battle against Generals Terry, Custer, and Crook – at Big Goose Creek, Little Bighorn, and Rosebud Creek – and survived them all. He was a master strategist and equestrian athlete who tempted fate daily. Crazy Horse set up numerous ambushes which gave the battlefield advantage to the Native Americans. In the end, however, there were simply too many white soldiers with too much firepower and after decades of increasingly defensive fighting, the remaining Indians surrendered and gave up their land. Crazy Horse eventually accepted his fate and reported to the Red Cloud Indian agency, however when he saw that he would be a prisoner, he changed his mind.

With the Native Americans out of the way, rich and powerful Europeans and Americans set up massive horse-breeding and cattle ranching operations. Horses had always been integral to ranching, but in the aftermath of the Civil War, a horse shortage led to conflicts arising between cattlemen and horse-breeders over grazing rights. Mr. Morton explains these conflicts and through anecdotes brings the principal characters to life. The result was that open range lands were fenced and wild horses were hunted for bounty.

Great fortunes were made for a time by top horse breeders. At their peak, some ranches could boast as many as 30,000 animals. Horses were in great demand for cavalry, agriculture, and industry. In addition, big cities needed horses to pull cabs, streetcars, and wagons. With plenty of people working these very profitable ranches, horse sports became a popular past time. Rodeos came about because cowboys enjoyed showing off their bronco-riding and calf-roping skills. At the same time, horse racing in the United States became formalized as did the ancient game of polo. Breeders improved the quality of horses which were suitable for different types of work and sports. The people behind these enterprises had money to burn and as in Europe and Asia, polo, hunting, and dressage became elite activities, accessible only to the very wealthy.

Where the Rivers Run North chronicles the lives of some of the founders of American horse sports: Oliver Henry “Noll” Wallop, the 8th Earl of Portsmouth, is one of the main characters. In early adulthood, he came to America and fell in love with the land at Little Goose Canyon, near Big Horn, Wyoming. In 1889, he bought several hundred acres and called it OH Ranch. He lived on this ranch, forsaking his title in England, until his father’s death required that he either return to England or abdicate – a wrenching decision. His contemporaries included Edith and Geolet Gallatin who, in addition to horse breeding, recognized the value of Crow culture and collected the tribe’s art and artifacts. Their collection now resides in the museum at the University of Montana in Missoula, MT.

The Boer War, World War I, and World War II consumed hundreds of thousands of horses for cavalry as well as horsepower. American breeders couldn’t produce horses fast enough to keep up with the demand. Then came the rise of the automobile and the demand for good, useful horses collapsed. The big western ranches scaled way back or ceased to exist. Without the existence of large organizations dedicated to promoting equestrian sports, it is likely that the equine population in the United States would be much smaller than it is today.

Where the Rivers Run North tracks the American story of humans and horses through the present time, but the full story began in prehistoric times. It is hard to imagine the human race evolving beyond hunter-gatherers without these great animals. They gave us speed and power which enabled our species to cultivate vast tracts of land so that we could stay in one place and form civilizations. Horses moved us and our possessions across great distances allowing us to expand our population and find new food sources. Without cavalry horses, many wars might have ended differently and warfare would likely not have moved beyond hand-to-hand combat.

While this book is enjoyable and informative, it suffers from a too-thin bibliography. Polo, drill team riding, and dressage all derive from cavalry training and I found myself wishing to know more about how the organizations behind these sports came to be. In addition, Mr. Morton cites many statistics regarding the equine and Native American populations, but does not provide his sources for this information. My final criticism of this book concerns the editing: numerous typographical, grammatical, and usage errors throughout the book suggest that the book was rushed to print and/or published on a very low budget.

Within the last 100 years, the importance of the horse to humanity has been greatly diminished as the internal combustion engine replaced true horsepower in agriculture, industry, and transportation. It is quite likely that a child growing up in the new millennium might never see or touch a horse, let alone ride one. We humans have short memories and don’t give much thought to the role horses have played in our history. Where the Rivers Run North gently reminds us that who we are is largely because we tamed and learned to love these great beasts. Now that horses are used almost exclusively for pleasure and sport they often enjoy long, healthy, and happy lives. The flip side of this is that their very survival depends on our willingness and ability to support them. The days of open range land are long gone.