NATIVE POPULATION OF SA, CENSUS 1921: (Page 5)
• Urban native male population increased by 7%
• Urban native female population increased by 50%
• (Over 10 years)
• Since this consensus, there has been even further increases in urbanisation.
• E.g., drive to town used to be exclusive to men – now more frequent for men to settle their
wife in the town where they work. (This leads to more urbanisation).
REASON FOR THE MOVE FROM RESERVES TO URBAN AREA (JHB)
Older generation and parents:
• Reserves are underdeveloped.
• Native must have money for urgent needs.
• Land shortage (because of overcrowding).
• Food shortages (due to droughts).
• Lack of money to pay taxes.
• Need money to pay taxes.
• Money to satisfy needs that came with being in contact with a higher civilisation.
• This economic pressure was what made it impossible to continue rural existence.
Younger unattached men and women: (Page 6)
• Wanted to go earn the high wages that were apparently earned in JHB.
• Release from parental control
• Release from tribal discipline
• Buy pleasures – clothes, good food, furniture.
• JHB had a glamorous allure to it, in comparison to a remote kraal.
FARM VS TOWN LIFE:
Perspective of young rural girl:
• Town = New dresses, tea, bread, shoes, hats
• Farm = no money, same dress for months, no cars, no shoes, use top of stockings as hats.
Perspective of older people:
• Loved their rural life, reminisce it.
THE YARDS – ROOIYARD (Page 7)
• The place where young Natives eventually stabilise in town – “yard slums”.
• Rooiyard still exists in JHB.
• Insanitary
• Unhealthy living conditions
• There was an impeding closure of the yard 1933.
• The owner of made improvements: cement bins instead of tin, whitewashed some rooms,
built an iron screen to divide the yard in two.
, • Yet, the owner didn’t follow his instructions that were given: to fumigate the rooms, cement
the yard floor and build new lavatories and washrooms.
• Feb 1934: demolition order.
• Rooiyard is no longer in existence.
THE YARD AND ITS ROOMS (Page 8)
• Consists of 5 stands, 1183 square yards, 107 rooms, a shop.
• So many rooms = congestion. Two cement garbage bins serve all the residents.
• 6 bathrooms in total (3 men, 3 women) – but normally an unusable state.
• 1 washing room with two taps – only 1 ever works. Single tap serves all the residents
(women queue for hours to fill their paraffin tins with water for domestic purposes).
• 29 rooms are brick – rest are made of iron and thin wooden planks, with rotten floor boards.
• Cross-ventilation is not possible in 63 rooms – built back-to-back.
• Roofs are mainly not rain proof.
• Complaints are futile.
• Massive tins outside are used to store beers (page 9).
• Candles are only source of light.
• Rooms have resources that come with moving to an urban area – beds, curtains, benches.
• Possession of furniture = social status in Rooiyard. (Page 10)
• Very little survival of Bantu material culture left.
BANTU VS URBAN
• Young girls prefer lipstick to facial tattooed lines of the older women.
• Imbeleko is replaced with blankets.
• Native manufactured utensils are replaced with pans and pots.
• The facilities for the purchase of ready-prepared mealie meal and ready-stamped mealies
have rendered the wooden pestle and mortar and winnowing basket nearly obsolete.
• Native handicrafts are dying out.
• This absorption of European culture is permanent (children do not know how to use native
culture manufactured items).
• It is only poverty which stops natives from truly adopting these ways.
• “At present the Native is eagerly grasping whatever lies within his economic reach, but the
next step will be the sifting of essential from inessential.”
ROOIYARD POPULATION (Page 11)
• Av number of people per room = 3.58. But this doesn’t include all the family and friends who
come to ‘temporarily stay’.
• Besides 11 indians, four cape coloureds, and one hottentot – rest of residents are of ‘bantu
stock’- drawn from 11 different bantu tribes.
• There is no drama between the tribes – they all congregate and live in amongst each other.
(Page 13)
• Very low infant mortality rate
• Death rate = 133 per 1000. Often occurred in first year of child’s life.
• Many miscarriages.
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