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Worksheet: From Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom
(Extract 1)
My mother presided over three rondavels at Qunu which, as
I remember, were always filled with the babies and children of my
relations. In fact, I hardly recall any occasion as a child when
I was alone. In African culture, the sons and daughters of one's
aunts or uncles are considered brothers and sisters, not cousins.
We do not make the same distinctions among relations practised by
Europeans. We have no half-brothers or half-sisters. My mother's
sister is my mother; my uncle's son is my brother.
Of my mother's three huts, one was used for cooking, one for sleeping
and one for storage. In the hut in which we slept, there was no
furniture.
We slept on mats and sat on the ground. I did not discover pillows
until I went away to school. The stove on which my mother cooked
was a three-legged iron pot that rested on a grate over a hole in
the ground. Everything we ate we grew and made ourselves. My mother
planted and harvested her own mealies. After harvesting the mealies,
the woman ground the kernels between two stones. A portion of this
was made into bread, while the rest was dried and stored in pots.
Unlike mealies, which were sometimes in short supply, milk from
our cows and goats was always plentiful.
From an early age, I spent most of my free time in the veld
playing and fighting with the other boys of the village. A boy
who remained at home tied to his mother's apron strings was regarded
as a sissy. At night, I shared my food and blanket with these same
boys. I was no more than five when I became a herd-boy, looking
after sheep and calves in the fields. I discovered the almost mystical
attachment that the Xhosa have for cattle, not only as a source
of food and wealth, but as a blessing from God and a source of happiness.
It was in the fields that I learned how to knock birds out of the
sky with a slingshot, to gather wild honey and fruits and edible
roots, to drink warm, sweet milk straight from the udder of a cow,
to swim in the clear, cold streams, and to catch fish with twine
and sharpened bits of wire. I learned to stick-fight - essential
knowledge to any rural African boy - and became adept at its various
techniques, parrying blows, feinting in one direction, striking
in another, breaking away from an opponent with quick footwork.
From these days I date my love of the veld, of open spaces,
the simple beauties of nature, the clean line of the horizon.
Lesson plan: Long Walk to Freedom -
fact, fiction and opinion | Lesson
plan: Facts about me | Lesson
plan: Pupils' own biographies
From the Nelson Mandela online resource
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