We are aware of our origins, but not enough to go there. We may be able to identify a tribe, but we may not necessarily be proficient in their language. We acknowledge a surname, but not the clan honours that ought to come after it. We frequently participate in rituals as spectators, not understanding the procedures, their significance, or our role in them.
I call these the diluted tribes.
It wasn't an accident. Black people were violently separated from white spaces as well as from themselves by the Group Areas Act and apartheid's larger system of segregation. In quest of employment, survival, and opportunity, men and women were compelled to relocate from their rural homes to Johannesburg. The city requested distance in exchange for wages from mines, factories, and domestic workers. The actual cost of that movement was something that many were unaware of at the time.
Living in townships means being surrounded by individuals from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, languages, and cultural practices, all crammed into areas created for work rather for continuity. Occasionally, when there was money, time, transportation, or a funeral, culture became something that was practiced. Tradition changed from being an everyday occurrence to an infrequent one.
A sacrifice was made by the first generation.
Modified by the second.
The fragments were inherited by the third.
The loss is more evident when we consider the grandchildren of individuals who emigrated to Johannesburg. Many people lack confidence when speaking their native tongue. Some are able to comprehend yet are unable to respond appropriately. Others don't know either. Rituals can be frightening. It feels strange to slaughter an animal. Names of clans are only partially remembered. We've seen traditional beer, not produced it.
Although we are aware of our cultures, we don't necessarily practice them. This isn't a failure. It is inherited. Knowledge that is transmitted by proximity, repetition, and observation was shattered by apartheid. Culture cannot be learned in a vacuum. You pick it up through participation, everyday observation of elders, and gradual correction. That rhythm was broken by townships. Parents put in a lot of overtime. Grandparents lived far away. Ceremony was subordinated to survival.
Dilution is what's left. Enough culture to sense its absence. Not enough to make you feel complete. However, a lot of people who were born in townships feel guilty about this loss, as though they made the decision to distance themselves. Diluted traditions, however, are structural. They are the result of policies intended to erode communal ties, forced urbanization, and migrant labour.
Dilution does not, however, equate to elimination. It is possible to recover fragments. It is possible to relearn languages. It is possible to investigate clan names. While they are still here, elders can be questioned. Our grief is a sign that something is important, not a sign of nostalgia.
Perhaps our generation's responsibility is to intentionally rebuild continuity rather than go back to a "pure" past, which may no longer exist. Not quite but to be honest because memory is still carried by diluted tribes and when memory is respected, it can lead to healing.
when someone asks me a question about what I am, I will be sending them this article. It’s a well written explanation of how some of us grew up being multilingual yet our true identity remains blank.
I am following your explanation of "dilution of tribes ", I am struggling with your central thesis, perhaps it creates a number of assumptions. Anthropological speaking i don't understand if people become "diluted " cause they are the offsprings of migrant labours. This seem to suggest that people are homogeneous, do not evolve and it further assumes that identity is fixed.
Language, culture evolve, those are determined by the community to which you grew up that particularly community represents its own unique cultures that it has made notwithstanding, being different therefore it is not in anyway inferior or "diluted", for Instance, AmaZulu are not a homogeneous people even if you do to SANDTON such that it is often a false dichotomy to then say someone is "real Zulu" and someone isn't.
I don't think you produce evidence of the dilution thereof, Mbe Mbhele writing for the Mail and Guardian addresses the Township question.