Janet Hodgson traces the life of Xhosa prophet Ntsikana (1780–1821) from his birth through his years as a Christian convert, evangelist, and composer of enduring hymns.

Ntsikana is known as one of the first Christians to adapt Christian ideas to African culture, writing hymns in isiXhosa and translating concepts into terms that resonated with his Xhosa community.

Even today, his hymns are among the most important in the amaXhosa churches, and he is regarded as an important symbol of both African unity and Black Consciousness.

Princess Emma, as she became known in colonial circles, was the eldest daughter of the Rharhabe chief Mgolombane Sandile, leader of the Ngqika tribe - western amaXhosa in the 19th Century. This book focuses on the life of Emma Sandile from her early years to her adulthood. Her story reads like a novel except that it is all true, based on archival sources, press reports and fieldwork. After the Cattle Killing in 1857 Governor Sir George Grey and Bishop Robert Gray planned to educate the children of the Xhosa elite as English gentlemen and women loyal to the Empire. This included Emma and her brother Gonya, Sandile's heir, who were sent to Cape Town in 1858. Emma attended the Anglican Zonnebloem College until 1863; her school mistress described this time in an unpublished journal. In 1859, Grey granted Emma and Gonya farms in the Eastern Cape to cover their schooling, making Emma the first black woman private landowner in Southern Africa. As the first black woman landowner in Southern Africa, as the earliest black woman writer in English, as the only woman to attend the Land Commission, Emma was one of the pioneers of black womanism in our country. Her courage in bridging her African tradition and the imposed western culture was without precedence. It is hoped that this window on Emma's world will give some understanding of the problems involved in religious and social change. Perhaps her courage in fighting for her rights as she weathered the storms of fluctuating fortunes will be an inspiration to those who are following in her footsteps today.

This illustrated workbook arises out of many years of leading retreats, study and quiet days on the theme of the cross in many contexts from an English Cathedral city to a South African township. The symbol of suffering and sacrifice, the cross also stands for the triumph of love over hate, life over death, hope over despair.
This includes complete outlines with prayers, readings, guided meditations and instructions for making crosses on the following themes: Crosses from around the world, Holy People, Holy Places & Crosses: Bridget, Francis, Andrew and others, Good Friday Pilgrims: living the cross, Making Crosses: yours and mine, Meditating with Crosses, and Following The Way of the Cross.

In 1857, at the height of the colonial period, as Britain was advancing its control over southern Africa and absorbing the formerly independent African chiefdoms, the Anglican Bishop of Cape Town, Robert Gray, set up Zonnebloem College on an old wine farm on the outskirts of the city. Working in partnership with the British Governor, Sir George Grey, his plan was to enrol the sons and daughters of leading African chiefs and equip them with an English, Christian education, and then send them home to further the cause of Christianity and ‘civilisation’ among their own people. This elite educational project, which was at the same time cultural and political in nature, soon gathered steam. Among the first entrants were Gonya and Emma Sandile, heir and eldest daughter of the Rharhabe chief Sandile; Nathaniel Umhala, son of the Ndlambe chief Mhala; and George Tlali, son of the great Basotho leader, Moshoeshoe I. Over the years a succession of sons from chiefly dynasties, sometimes spanning several generations, would come to Zonnebloem: the Moshoeshoes of Basutoland, the Pilanes of Bechuanaland, the Lewanikas of Barotseland, and the Lobengulas of Matabeleland. They and many others who followed in their steps would, after their education at Zonnebloem, take up careers as catechists, teachers, political secretaries, lawyers, newspaper editors and priests and serve their communities with distinction. Their stories – their trials and their achievements – are recounted here, often in their own words, drawing on a unique collection of school essays and letters to their various mentors that must form one of the earliest bodies of writing by Africans in southern Africa. This remarkable book, based on years of research and written with great sympathy, tells the little-known early history of the genesis of an African intelligentsia during the colonial period.