Dange in the sources
The imiDange (Dange) were, in Soga’s history, one of the older Xhosa clans that settled on the Fish River and were among the first to meet colonists there, before the Gcaleka and Rharhabe divisions of the Xhosa existed. Their chief in the 1770s was Mahote, son of Mdange, and in a later border war the clan fought under Botomane.
What the sources say
An older Xhosa clan. Soga lists the imiDange with the amaGwali, amaNtinde and amaMbalu as clans that first came into conflict with the colonists at the Fish River in the middle of the eighteenth century; they are “Ama-Xosa” but “neither Rarabes, Gcalekas nor Gaikas”, because they were formed before those divisions existed (p. 88). He says some of these clans were settled on the Fish River as early as 1703 and were the first tribes met by Dirk Marx in 1755 (p. 126). He gives imi- (a plural prefix of the sixth class) as the prefix for Dange, Dushane and Ganu, chosen “purely by phonetic requirements” (p. 60).
Mahote and the 1779 war. In 1779 Langa of the amaMbalu crossed the Fish River “together with the Imi-Dange under Mahote”; Soga says the cause is obscure, quoting Theal on the story of a man of the Dange caught stealing a sheep from William Prinsloo of the Boschberg, who shot him and raided the Dange cattle (p. 126). Elsewhere he writes that Mahote, “son of Mdange”, was driven back by the Boer commandos of Joshua Joubert and Pieter Ferreira, but did not at once retire across the boundary; the Dange and Gwali refused peace terms and fought on for two months, with Khoikhoi helping the Dutch (p. 134).
A frontier war. In a war on the colonial border that follows his account of Somerset’s agreement with the Gaikas (probably 1818 to 1819; the passage does not date it), Soga lists the clans in the field as the amaNdlambe under Mhala, a section of the Ngqika under Tyali, the amaJingqi under Maqoma, “the Imi-Dange under Botomane”, the imiDushane under Siyolo and the amaMbalu under Nqeno, and notes that, apart from Maqoma, Tyali and Mhala, these were not Rharhabe or Gaika clans but “of the older Xosa stock” (p. 190). See Botumane, Maqoma and Tyali.
Cautions
Soga’s statements about the Dange are scattered across several chapters and rest on Theal for the early wars; we have not seen the primary Cape records. His genealogical table shows the names Mdange, Mahote and Botomane in one family but the scan is garbled, so we do not give a descent. We do not know whether present families called Dange descend from this clan. Soga was a Xhosa-born mission doctor and historian who wrote in 1930 from tribal informants and the older colonial histories; his tables are partly garbled in the machine-read text, and he often says that a clan’s place in the genealogy is uncertain.
Izithakazelo and totem
We found no Dange praise poem or totem in the sources we read. If you belong to the imiDange and recite your praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
Do you belong to the Dange? Tell us your izithakazelo and what elders say about the family’s history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.