Endleleni: The In-Between Journey of Landlessness and Homecoming in Black South African Lives ^†

Abstract

The violent dispossession of land in South Africa disrupted more than just homes—it severed Black South Africans from a sacred, ancestral connection to land as a source of identity, belonging, and spiritual dwelling. This article examines how forced removals displaced not only bodies but also histories, memories, and the deep-rooted sense of ikhaya (home). Rooted in the concept of endleleni (being on the road/along the road), this study explores how amaXhosa navigate the in-between journey of landlessness and homecoming. Using indigenous storytelling methodology, it reveals how land is not merely for shelter or sustenance but is intricately tied to birth, the umbilical cord, and death, making its reclamation a fight for existence itself.

1. Introduction

In post-apartheid South Africa, the scars of forced displacement remain deeply entrenched in the lives of Black South Africans, shaping their relationships to land, identity, and home. The Group Areas Act, a key instrument of apartheid’s spatial planning, forcibly removed Black families from their ancestral homes and disrupted the fabric of indigenous communities. This historical violence has given rise to a complex narrative of endleleni—the journey of displacement and survival. While many scholars focus on the material consequences of land dispossession, this paper proposes that endleleni and the concept of ikhaya (home) offer profound insights into the spiritual, cultural, and political resilience of Black South Africans.

In this article, endleleni functions as both a lived experience and a theoretical framework. It invites us to think with the road—its dust, its echoes, its silences. It urges us to listen to stories that resist colonial archives but live in the bones of elders, the songs of migrants, and the breath of those still moving, still mourning, still imagining their return. This article further theorizes endleleni as a lived experience of constant movement and survival, reshaping the understanding of home and space in the context of Black South African identity. Through the lens of decolonial theory and indigenous knowledge, it further explores the role of sacred spaces—such as land and the act of giving birth—in the reclamation of ikhaya as a site of resistance and belonging. By situating these concepts within the broader historical and political framework of the Group Areas Act, the paper aims to reimagine the significance of home and space in Black South African thought, offering a path forward for understanding resilience, healing, and transformation in post-apartheid contexts.

2. Self-Location

I write as a Black South African woman, born into an apartheid nation still haunted by the spatial and spiritual dislocations of its colonial and apartheid past. My identity is deeply rooted in the amaXhosa worldview, where land is not just territory—it is ikhaya, a living space of origin, return, and communion with ancestors. I write not from a distance, but from the road—endleleni—where home is both a memory and a prayer.

As a child womgquba1 from rural and urban transitions, I inherited stories of forced removals—of villages dismantled, of graves left behind, of umbilical cords buried in lands we can no longer access. These are not abstract ideas; they are the fragmented pieces of my spiritual geography. The land carries my people’s cries, joys, births, and burials. I write with this sacred inheritance in my bones. This journey is not only academic. It is ancestral. It is personal. It is healing. I write to re-member what was scattered, to listen to what the soil still holds, and to honor those whose footsteps were forcibly erased. My research is not a gaze from above, but a walking-with—guided by story, silence, and the stubborn hope that home can still be found, even on the road.

3. Methodology

This article is grounded in indigenous storytelling methodology, as propagated by Penxa-Matholeni (Penxa-Matholeni 2022), drawing on lived experience, memory, oral tradition, and ancestral wisdom as valid sources of knowledge. I do not claim objectivity; I claim presence. My body, my story, and my community are part of this research—not subjects, but co-journeyer on the road of endleleni.

Storytelling, in the African context, is not merely about recounting events. It is an act of restoration, re-membering, and healing. It allows us to name the pain of dislocation without being swallowed by it, to speak of ikhaya (home) not as nostalgia, but as a sacred compass that keeps calling us back—even when we are exiled.

I use indigenous storytelling—through iingoma (songs), iintsomi (folk tales), traditional dances, and the clapping of hands—as a conceptual and methodological tool. These practices function as a form of (data gathering and reflection), where silences are honored, emotions are regarded as data, and the spirit is acknowledged as present and active in the research process. I use this methodology (gathering for story and reflection) as a conceptual tool, where silences are honored, emotions are data, and the spirit is acknowledged as present in the research process. The methodology resists the Western binary of the researcher/researched and instead embraces the circularity of African knowledge systems, where stories are living texts and every voice carries weight—even the voices of the land, the ancestors, and the unborn.

I draw on personal narratives, communal memory, and symbolic language—including dreams, songs, and cultural practices—to surface the layers of meaning hidden in everyday experiences of forced removal. The umbilical cord, for instance, is not just a biological image; it is a theological, cosmological, and political statement of belonging. By following these threads, I aim not to explain but to witness—to hold space for what is often left unspoken.

This methodology embraces vulnerability. It is slow, reflective, and deeply spiritual. It invites us not only to know but to feel, to be disturbed, and to be moved toward justice.

4. “They Tore Our Hearts Out”: The Group Areas Act and the Destruction of Home

The Group Areas Act (Act No. 41 of 1950) was a cornerstone of apartheid legislation in South Africa. It enforced racial segregation by designating specific urban areas for exclusive occupation by different racial groups—namely, whites, Indians, so-called coloreds, and Black South Africans. This law legitimized deep social and economic inequalities and led to the forced removals of thousands from areas such as District Six in Cape Town and Sophiatown in Johannesburg (Beinart and Dubow 1995).

The law led to the forced removals of hundreds of thousands from their homes, often relocating them to underdeveloped and peripheral areas. In the process, vibrant mixed communities were dismantled, families displaced, and the very notion of ikhaya—home—was violently ruptured.

This legislation was not merely administrative; it was spiritual assault. It institutionalized spatial apartheid and deepened South Africa’s social and economic inequalities. Although the Act was finally repealed in 1991 during the unraveling of apartheid, its scars remain visible and visceral.

A former resident of District Six (Cape Town) recalls: “They came with bulldozers and tore our hearts out. They said we were ‘non-white’, so we could not live in a place with a view of the mountain. We lost more than homes—we lost a way of life.” This quote reflects the deep inxeba elingaphakathi—the invisible wound—inflicted by forced removals: “We lost the way of life.” We lost the way of life.” This is a loss for which no restitution can truly compensate. It signifies the violent pulling of the rug from under their feet, causing them to lose balance—both metaphorically and literally. The sense of identity, once rooted in that way of life, was profoundly distorted by these brutal displacements. Louw (Louw 2025) asserts that displacement is not merely a physical reality but an ontic condition that profoundly shapes the human quest for belonging and meaning making amid loss. It exposes individuals and communities to layered experiences of homelessness, unhomeliness, namelessness, rootlessness, and, ultimately, to a sense of wordlessness and worthlessness. Expanding on this, Naidu (2016) describes such dislocation as a “cosmology episode”—a spiritual crisis or “spiritual emergency” that signals a deep rupture in one’s identity and meaning system. This rupture, in turn, disrupts more than just psychological and social well-being; it unsettles one’s ecological and spiritual orientation, challenging the very foundations of being.

In Sophiatown (Johannesburg), the late South African jazz icon Hugh Masekela once said, “Sophiatown was a symbol of our dreams, our jazz, our politics. When they destroyed it, they tried to destroy our spirit—but we kept the music alive.” The aim of such destruction was not only to dismantle communities but to extinguish the African spirit itself. What they failed to realize is that the spirit of Africa is like the coral tree—umsintsi—a tree that flowers even when stripped of its leaves (Penxa-Matholeni 2022). In its budding lies a quiet resilience, a strength that, in my view, embodies the unyielding spirit of Africans who continue to resist—even beyond the grave (Penxa-Matholeni 2022). Black South Africans inherited a life-force that no dehumanizing ideology, no violent removal, can erase. It lives on in the deep communality of ubuntu. Though our physical homes and communities were destroyed, our spirit—like the coral tree—continues to rise, quietly yet boldly, against all odds.

5. We Were Uprooted Even in the Womb

The forced removals of Black South Africans were more than logistical displacements—they were spiritual dismemberments. The tearing apart of communities under apartheid laws like the Group Areas Act severed not only people from place but also womb from soil, memory from landscape, and birth from belonging. It was not just homes that were lost, but the sacred geography of ikhaya—the spiritual and ancestral grounding that defines what it means to be fully human in African cosmology.

Among the amaXhosa, life begins on the ground—on the land. This is where the baby is born; the mother gives birth while lying kumahambehlala (on the grass mat), close to the earth. After the umbilical cord falls off, it is carefully buried in the ground—either inside or outside the home, depending on the clan’s custom. At death, the body is brought back home to be reunited with the buried umbilical cord—a sacred homecoming. The Group Areas Act disrupted this cycle, violently severing the bond between the person and the land and destroying the possibility of this spiritual reunion.

In amaXhosa ways of knowing, land is more than terrain—it is a living archive. It holds the umbilical cord, cradles the bones of ancestors, and listens to the voices of the yet-to-be-born. To lose the land is to lose the very coordinates of identity, memory, and destiny. The title of this section, “we were uprooted even in the womb”, captures this intergenerational trauma, where dispossession begins before birth and extends beyond death. The forced removals not only displaced people from space but also dismembered sacred ties between the body, the earth, and the soul.

6. Endleleni Eya Ekhaya2: Reclaiming Sacred Ties to a Dispossessed Land

The concept “endleleni”, emerges from the amaXhosa proverb: “Amaqobokazana angalala endleleni, yazini kunyembelekile.”, (very loosely translates as when the young maidens sleep on the road, something is at stake). Amaqobokazana—young maidens—are named not for their age but for their bravery and the sacredness of the mission they undertake. When they sleep endleleni, something precious is at stake. Hence the wisdom “Balala bebambe umkhonto ngobukhali”—they sleep holding the spear at its sharpest point (Penxa-Matholeni 2020, 2021, 2022). Endleleni symbolizes resilience, bravery, and strength. It is not about the destination but about the experience of being not-yet-home.

Rooted in the concept of endleleni—being on the road—this section explores how Black South Africans live in the sacred in-between: the suspended space between home and homelessness, between memory and erasure, and between being and becoming. Endleleni is not just a physical journey but a spiritual posture, a theology of movement, mourning, and relentless return. It resists finality. It refuses erasure.

In this way, reclaiming land is not just about restitution—it is about resurrection. It is the return of the blood flower from scorched earth. It is a sacred act of remembering with our feet, replanting the stories that bulldozers tried to bury, and finding ikhaya again in the sacred dance between the living, the dead, and the land.

In my earlier work (Penxa-Matholeni 2020), I described endleleni as a diasporic space—where Black South African women made meaning out of rupture, rooted themselves in unfamiliar places through ritual, memory, and communal care. I now extend that theorization, positioning endleleni as a collective African wound and a map of survival.

Endleleni names what it means to live after forced removals—not only in terms of geography but also existentially. It is a theology of displacement—rooted in the lived experiences of those who have been uprooted, silenced, and marginalized by systems of colonialism and apartheid. This theology does not emerge from places of comfort but from the pain of loss, forced removals, and spiritual dislocation.

It is a politics of longing—shaped by a deep yearning for home, dignity, and restoration. This longing is not only for a return to physical land but for a reclamation of identity, memory, and belonging that has been denied to generations.

It is a spirituality of becoming—a process of reimagining the self and the divine in contexts of rupture. It invites us to engage with faith not as a fixed doctrine but as a dynamic journey toward healing, justice, and communal wholeness. It speaks to the fragmented experiences of those living without access to ancestral land yet who still carry a sacred sense of ikhaya—home as covenant: with land, with life, and with lineage.

The road—indlela—becomes a site of memory and resistance. It is where Black South Africans bury their umbilical cords in exile, grieve the erasure of their homes, and yet continue to birth new forms of life and defiant hope. Land is remembered not merely as property but as a spiritual companion, a witness to suffering, and a custodian of belonging.

7. Exploring Ikhaya: Sacred Spatial Belonging

In African indigenous thought, ikhaya is not merely a building; it is the land itself. The connection to the land runs deep within the African soul. Birth takes place efukwini (the place of birth), where the infant’s inkaba (umbilical cord) is buried in the ground, awaiting the eventual reunion of body and earth at death.

Ikhaya is not just a physical dwelling but a sacred spatial and ontological marker, intertwining land, life, death, and lineage. The cyclical movement between birth and death within the same space sanctifies ikhaya as both origin and destination. In this context, land (umhlaba) is not a neutral entity but a living archive of memory, spirituality, and ancestral presence (Penxa-Matholeni 2019; Nabudere 2005; Nwoye 2011). The act of giving birth at home is not only a physical process but also a cultural ritual, affirming continuity, community, and identity (Penxa-Matholeni 2021). Similarly, burial at ikhaya restores the deceased to the soil that nurtured them, reaffirming the inseparable bond between land, body, and spirit (Chisale 2019). This challenges colonial–Christian binaries that have historically rendered home and land as secular or purely economic spaces. Instead, ikhaya emerges as a decolonial sacred space—a site of healing, resistance, and relational belonging where life begins, ends, and remains in conversation with the ancestors (Oduyoye 2001; Mkhize 2020).

Understanding ikhaya through this lens invites a re-evaluation of spatial justice, gendered embodiment, and the ethics of care within African epistemologies.

When discussing migration in South Africa, we refer not only to physical movement but to the migration of the spirit. We carry the spirits of our ancestors endleleni. As we navigate endleleni, we meet new people, give birth, mourn loss, and carry all of this in our spiritus as we move. The metaphor of endleleni captures the power and bravery of women in vulnerable spaces, striving to correct injustices. It embodies a sense of displacement, being in unfamiliar territory without a clear roadmap, where the journeyer is jolted out of normalcy. This liminal space becomes a highly creative one, forging new ways of living and establishing new relationships where communality, humanity, and relationality can flourish (Penxa-Matholeni 2024).

8. Conclusions

The violent severing of Black South Africans from their land was more than a geographic disruption—it was a spiritual and generational wounding. As explored in this article, the Group Areas Act and the broader colonial logic of displacement dislocated not only bodies but also memories, umbilical ties, and sacred orientations to ikhaya—home.

Using indigenous storytelling methodology—rooted in traditional songs, metaphors, traditional dances, spiritual embodiment, and communal memory—this paper has centered the voices, silences, and lived experiences of those who live endleleni—on the road—between landlessness and homecoming. This storytelling is not anecdotal but enacted through the structure, imagery, rhythm, and cosmological grounding of the paper itself. The road becomes text, the body becomes archive, and the silence becomes testimony.

Storytelling here is not a technique but a way of knowing, remembering, and resisting. It allowed for the surfacing of truths buried by dominant narratives and offered space for healing through ancestral memory. By telling these stories, we do not simply recount the past—we reclaim sacred ties to the land, reassert spiritual presence, and declare that we were never fully dispossessed.

To be uprooted in the womb is to carry a fracture from the very beginning. Yet, endleleni offers not just mourning but also motion—a sacred journey that holds both loss and longing, rupture and reclamation. The journey toward ikhaya is thus both literal and spiritual. It is a re-membering of self, community, and land. Reclaiming land becomes more than political—it becomes theological, ancestral, and existential.

In the end, this article affirms that ikhaya is not just a place to return to but a way of being that we carry within us. To walk endleleni is to refuse erasure, to honor the sacred, and to keep storytelling as a path home. In this sense, the indigenous storytelling is the method—it moves as we move and heals as we remember.