Article Title：Archaeology in the service of the community: Repatriation of the remains of Notetha Bungu
Abstract：
tNontetha Bungu was a Xhosa prophetess and religious leader who became active in the 1920s in the rural hinterland of the Eastern Cape after she had survived the influenza epidemic of 1918. The government of the time, fearing the possibility of a political uprising after the Bullhoek massacre of 1921, arrested Nontetha as part of a crack down on religious sects. She was declared insane and was transferred to Weskoppies Mental Hospital in Pretoria after her followers repeatedly marched to the local asylum to demand her release. Nontetha died in 1935 of liver cancer at the age of 63 years and was buried in a pauper's grave. By the time notification of her death reached the family she was already buried and the government refused exhumation. In 1997 with the aid of Robert Edgar, an American scholar, who resolved to help the family find the grave and bring the remains back, the grave was traced to the Rebecca Street Cemetery. As the inscription only stated 'Nontetho--male' and paupers' graves usually contain two or three individuals, it was requested that the remains should be studied by anthropological methods to confirm the identity. The remains were excavated in 1998. According to the records the remains of Nontetha Bungu were the upper of two burials. It was concluded that the exhumed remains were those of an older (over 50 years) black, female individual. Lytic/destructive lesions were present especially on the skull. It is not possible to make a positive identification on the above information only but, as the documentary evidence, age, sex, race and pathology corresponded, it was decided that the remains were probably those of Nontetha Bungu. Nontetha Bungu was ceremonially reburied in the Eastern Cape on 25 October 1998 at the church of which she was the founder.
Keywords: repatriation; Eastern Cape; physical anthropology
DOI: 10.2307/3888858
Source：SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL BULLETIN
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