BOOK REVIEWS101Rhodesia, 1974), she was only the second female writer in Ndebele (now thereare three and about the same number in Shona),Umendo (Married Life) is a novel portraying the story of love andmarriage, and the lives of the three main characters in the book. Gugu, thegirl, is torn in her choice between two young men, Thulani and Ndaba. Sheends up marrying Ndaba, and this choice results in an unhappy marriage.Central to the theme of the book is a Ndebele proverb: 'Ukwenda Akuthu-nyelwa Gundwane' (lit. No mouse is sent when one is to marry, i.e. troubleswhich may be in store for one (in married life) cannot be predicted). Butthere is hope for Gugu in the end, when her drunken and irresponsible hus-band is stabbed to death by a gang of young people, and a revival of herformer relationship with Thulani is possible.Umhlaba Lo! (What a World!) is a work of drama, a play which looksat the life of a country girl who passes Form VI, but fails to get a place forfurther education or any form of professional training. In desperation, shegoes to the city to look for any type of job. First, she is forced by circum-stances to live with a very cruel aunt (her maternal uncle's wife) who vents afamily vendetta on the unfortunate girl. In an effort to escape from this, shelands in the company of morally corrupt friends ŁŠ and her eventual triumph,despite these trying circumstances, makes very interesting reading.Miss Makhalisa is good at using dialogue to add variety to her style,and to make her narrative vivid. This technique makes her characters comealive. In places, she employs good figurative language: imagery, simile andmetaphor, as well as an effective use of ideophones, all of which combine togive a colourful, vivid and picturesque narrative. Her words abound withtypical Ndebele aphorisms and telling proverbs.Her books are interesting and relevant to our times, in that theydeal with contemporary problems that people face in their day-to-day lives.She has won a number of Rhodesia Literature Bureau awards (First Prize forQilindini in 1970; Second Prize for the manuscript of Umendo in 1972; andFirst Prize for the manuscript of Umhlaba Lo! in 1976) and in 1978 theKingston's Literary Award, organized by P. E. N. International (First Prizein the Ndebele section).She is a keen observer of human character, and her main charactersare well drawn. But the minor characters suffer from a certain neglect andat times seem to get lost somewhere in the middle of the scene. They fail toplay an effective supportive role to the main characters In her works, andthis detracts from her otherwise promising work. She also has a rather toosimplistic view of life's complexities. Her works invariably have a happyending. A couple of people die now and then, but the main people alwaysseem to survive to the end; thus, her works have a very predictable ending.At times her plots rise in tension, and they approximate the height of tragedy,but she brings them down to a 'happy ending', creating an anti-climax in thereader's mind.University of RhodesiaCM. SILEYATrekking In South Central Africa 1913-1919 By C. M. Doke. [Johannesburg],South Africa Baptist Historical Society, 1975, 188 pp., no price indicated.This interesting book is infuriating to use Š no details of where it ispublished, how or by whom it is edited, or what or where exactly its sources102BOOK REVIEWSare. It appears to be partly from the diary of the Revd Joseph Doke (Clement'sfather), partly diaries of Clement and partly his reminiscences, written inabout 1973. This lack of professional editing is a pity because the book isvaluable in its own right for its descriptions of missionary life in NorthernRhodesia and also useful for its glimpses of Clement Doke as a missionary(a relatively unknown period of his life which ended in 1921) and as anovice teaching himself Lamba.R.S.R.The Tonga People on the Southern Shore of Lake Kariba By A. K. H. Wein*rich. Gwelo, Mambo Press, 1976, 109 pp., Rh$l,80.This work is essentially an exercise in descriptive ethnography on a limitedscale. The field work on which it is based was conducted by the authorduring the month of June, 1974, and the wealth of material presented onthese pages is yet another attestation of Dr Weinrich's well known abilityfor prodigious output under limiting circumstances, a point remarked on byProfessor Colson in her foreword. The book is a valuable addition to Rho-desian ethnography since published material on the South Bank Tonga issparse and fragmented. Dr Weinrich is incorrect in asserting in her pre-face that 'nothing has so far been published' (p.10) on these peoples; variousarticles have appeared in Nada, the Zambesi Mission Record and the Proceed-ings and Transactions of the Rhodesia Scientific Association, but this workis the most extensive and cohesive collection of data we have to date. Inparticular the volume is of value in presenting us with considerable materialon contemporary aspects of Tonga culture under conditions of re-settlementafter the building of the Kariba Dam forced a move of these people to newareas with consequent environmental changes.Presentation of material is well organized, with chapters provided onhistory, changed ecological conditions, traditional and modern politics, kin-ship, religion and other cultural features. As a preliminary sketch of Tongalife the work gives an over-view not available to us previously. Of particularvalue and contemporary interest is Dr Weinrich's material on Tonga aware-ness of modern national political issues. A fondly held stereotype in Rho-desia of the Tonga is that they represent the archetypical isolated traditionalAfrican, preoccupied with the mundane affairs of wresting a living froma harsh environment and with a political awareness that does not extend be-yond the horizons of the remote areas of Tonga settlement. Dr Weinrichdemonstrates that this is patently not the case; the effects of national andinternational political policies have impinged on Tonga society in variousways which have not escaped the attention and comprehension of the Tongathemselves. Their grasp of the implications of these issues, coupled withtheir pride and sense of ethnic independence, has led to a political assertive-ness and maturity which compares favourably with that of other ethnicallydefined black groups in Rhodesia. Dr Weinrich also makes the interestingpoint that this political maturity has not been dependent on formal educationor technological advance, items in which the Tonga have been relatively dis-advantaged in the Rhodesian context.Unfortunately the value of the work is vitiated at points by inadequatespecification regarding sources, particularly in respect to survey data. Re-ference is made at various points (pp. 56, 64, 99) to sample censuses with