SOUTH AFRICA: The Transkei Puppet Show

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Matanzima, a paramount (super) chief, never bothered to submit the issue of independence to a referendum. His National Independence Party swept the territory's parliamentary elections last month, partly because he took the precaution of jailing virtually the entire leadership of the opposition Democratic Party as a "threat to law-and-order." He acted under Proclamation R-400—a preventive detention law that he inherited from South Africa and intends to keep.

A onetime lawyer and part-time farmer who raises cattle and sheep, Matanzima rules in a chiefly style. On state occasions he is preceded by a "praise singer," wrapped in a leopard's skin, who shouts of great deeds, real or imagined, by "Matanzima the Mighty." Among the new buildings being erected near Umtata is a $345,000 mansion for the chief.

Criticism is not welcomed. When the celebrated South African play Sizwe Banzi Is Dead was presented in Umtata, Matanzima was furious at its barbed references to the Transkei's independence as meaningless. Though the play has been hailed both in the U.S. and Britain, Matanzima closed it down and jailed Xhosa Actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona (who appeared in it on Broadway last year) on the grounds that the play was "highly inflammatory, abusive and vulgar."

Coat of Arms. Superstition and tribal customs still abound in the Transkei, though there are many signs of modernization. The lobola (bride price) was once reckoned only in cows (ten was the average). Today transistor radios are increasingly acceptable as a partial substitute, and so are Western-style clothes. Livestock farming is the main occupation, but there are factories for making matches, textiles and cutlery. A university is planned that will ultimately cost $80 million (though at present only 6% of all Transkeian children reach secondary school). The territory even has a new coat of arms—two leopards, a bull, an ear of corn and a cog wheel representing hoped-for industry.

In theory, Matanzima's nation will have a population of nearly 3.3 million Xhosas. In fact, only 1.8 million of these actually live in the Transkei; most of the others live permanently in South Africa, but from now on they will be citizens of the Transkei—not of South Africa. The Transkei's 10,000 whites will still run much of the commerce and own some of the best farm land, though South Africa is buying out some white farms and businesses and turning them over to blacks at a low cost. (Indeed, Matanzima and his younger brother George, who is Justice Minister, have bought into hotels and liquor stores at rock-bottom prices under this system.)