This study focuses on the response to Christianity in southeast Africa - which witnessed the greatest missionary activity -and seeks to answer a few simple questions. Why did some Africans choose Christianity? Why did most Africans reject it? What kinds of people went to live at mission stations? How did life in African Christian communities differ from life in heathen communities?
These and other issues are addressed through a comparative biographical study of the lives oftwo Qwabe cousins, Musi and Nembula, whose names and exploits were first recorded in the 1840s. Musi remained a heathen, established himself as a chief of the Qwabe, and was succeeded by his son who was deposed by white authorities in the aftermath of the Bambatha rebellion. Nembula was baptised; he became manager of a sugar mill and an ordained Congregational minister. Later, while Musi's son awaited the mantle of Qwabe chieftainship, Nembula's son was completing studies at Chicago Medical College, eventually to return to Natal.