The Xhosa people were almost led to commit suicide in the 1800's by a fourteen-year-old "prophetess"; who claimed she had received a message from the ancestors.

The Xhosa people are naturally superstitious and if anyone should have a dream or vision, it is taken very seriously. This almost spelt disaster for them in the 1800's. A young girl called Nongqawuse, who was part of the Gcaleka clan, received a message from the ancestors which almost led the Xhosa people to commit suicide.

Nongqawuse, who was born in the Kentani district and raised by her witchdoctor uncle, was fourteen years old when she was sitting on a rock at a pool near the Gxara River. She then saw the faces of her ancestors appearing in the pool. They told her that they would drive all the white settlers out of the country. A huge wind would come up and blow all the settlers into the sea. But first, as an act of faith to prove their belief in the world of the spirits, the Xhosa would have to kill all their cattle and destroy all their crops. Xhosa religion taught that the ancestors appreciated a sacrifice of cattle because that was a man's most valued possession. Those who refused would be turned into frogs, mice and ants, and would be blown into the sea by a mighty whirlwind.

For ten months a kind of madness possessed the Gcaleka and other Xhosa clans. They killed their livestock (it is estimated that the Gcaleka killed some 300 000 to 400 000 head of cattle) and burned their crops until they had nothing left but their family.

The day of their salvation was to be the 18^th of February 1857. On that day, Nongqawuse predicted, a blood-red sun would rise, stand still in the sky, and then set again in the east.

As the great day dawned, the Xhosa people sat waiting. The sun rose. It made its slow passage across the hot February sky. A gentle breeze blew off the sea as the sun set in the west. Darkness fell on a ruined and starving nation. The day had turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary, beautiful, summers day.

About 25 000 Xhosas died of starvation. Others survived only through the intervention of neighbouring communities and European settlers.

As for Nongqawuse, she was petrified because the deluded people would have torn her to pieces. She fled to the King William's town area to find safety with the British. For her own protection, she was kept for a while on Robben Island. She spent the rest of her life on the farm Glen Shaw in the district of Alexandria in the eastern Cape. She died in 1898.