‘Coolie’ Christmas and the beauty of simplicity…
KIRU NAIDOO AND SELVAN NAIDOO
There exists very little insight into how indentured Indians celebrated Christmas from their time of arrival to South Africa in 1860. One rare account was provided by Jean-Baptiste Sabon, who started to work with the newly arrived immigrants as part of the missionary work of the Roman Catholic Church.
Tamil-speaking Father Jean-Baptiste Sabon gave an account of the first celebration of Indian Catholics attending midnight mass at St Joseph's Chapel: “Knowing that there was to be Midnight mass, these children, without telling me, went and borrowed the biggest drum in town, and about midnight, to the astonishment of the Protestants, they wended their way to the chapel to the beating of the drum.
“They also brought an elaborately decorated crib with angels hanging on threads to decorate the church. After Mass, they were joined by another band, together with two men playing violins, and all spent the night in the church, singing hymns. You will see by this that, though the Indians are not perfect – far from it – there are some among them who are more zealous than many other Christians elsewhere.”
Away from central Durban and on the sugarcane plantations, Christmas was not celebrated on the plantations but was a day of rest from the slave-like conditions of everyday life. On Christmas day, the Kutum (family) would have spent precious time together, sitting down to enjoy a simple meal that brought momentary joy to their hardworking existence. To them, little was a feast.
For well over 120 years since the first indentured workers arrived on the Truro, the majority of people from indentured ancestry wallowed in abject poverty. Renowned academic, Dr Mabel Palmer noted that in 1922: “The great mass of Indians were very poor, and they frequently occupied land on the outskirts of the town, which meant that every approach to Durban was littered by untidy and insanitary Indian shacks, while the actual conditions were even worse that they appeared from the outside. The shacks were badly built cottages of four rooms. Each room was usually inhabited by a separate family and the cooking was usually done in a communal shelter erected at the back.”
South Africa’s first Indian female doctor, Dr Kesaveloo Goonaruthnum Naidoo, confirmed this in her autobiography Coolie Doctor where she wrote about the conditions of the 1930s after she had returned from studying medicine in Edinburgh:
“During my home visits, I discovered the depth of Indian poverty. The staple diet was mealie rice, dholl, herbs, potatoes and pickles. Protein was sadly lacking, meat, fish and chicken beyond their reach. I enjoyed the visits, but felt helpless against the poverty…”
Indian Christians comprised five percent of those who entered the colony of Natal as indentured labourers. The Truro, the first indentured ship to reach Natal, brought with it an estimated 87 Christians. Reverend R Stott arrived in Natal in 1861 establishing the Indian Methodist mission by 1862 and most importantly starting the very first school for Indian children.
When the Indian indentured labourers were discharged from their indentured contracts, they were faced with the challenge of creating their own culture and community amongst poverty and restricted facilities. Through this challenge, Christian missionaries stepped in to assist Durban's deprived Christian and Hindu communities. There was a growing need for an education system to eradicate poverty and unhealthy living conditions of the Indian community; hence there was a priority to set up missionary schools.
Initially, Father JB Sabon who knew Tamil and worked with the Indian community of Durban and North Coast set up a night school. He started the first Indian school in Durban and brought Tamil literature from Ceylon. He got pupils of all ages and adults involved in his school, although it was a Catholic initiative; it was open to all religions in the community. The school offered basic education skills to help in finding employment.
In 1904 Father Rauol Maingot came to Durban and he spent most of his time with the Indian community and getting involved in missionary work. He encouraged the move of Saint Anthony School in 1906 from the church to a well-furnished building in Victoria Street. The school started with 8 teachers, and good education facilities, and was graded as excellent by the Head Inspector in 1910. Saint Anthony’s church and school continued to strive for excellence in both academic and social spheres. In the 1980s the church became an active place where many UDF meetings were held to mobilise the masses. The church became a place of memorial for activists’ funerals like those of Rick Turner, Griffiths, and Victoria Mxgenge.
Indenture brought with it many consequences and developments in a broader religious and sociological narrative. The unseen problems it posed to authorities of the dominant culture and developments for acculturation all but helped in creating a diverse South Africa, as we understand it today. In the depressed economy of today, Christmas among the well-heeled is still celebrated with surfeit that ignores its spiritual significance. Commercial obscenity denies that simplicity of living that our indentured ancestry had become so familiar with.
Perhaps as we celebrate Christmas, we ought to remind ourselves of the hardships of our ancestry and that the beauty of life lies in simplicity, not surfeit.
Kiru Naidoo is the author of Made in Chatsworth, and Selvan Naidoo, authored Out of the Rough, Papwa, A Player Denied