African-language periodicals of the Berlin mission church during the first half of the twentieth century, Northern South Africa

Abstract

In the first half of the twentieth century members of the Berlin Mission Churchin the Transvaal (today including the following provinces: Gauteng, North-West,Mpumalanga, and Limpopo) had access to a monthly newspaper and an almanac-cum-yearbook published by the Berlin Missionary Society. This article exploresthe availability and accessibility of these publications to researchers, and thenature of the content, suggestingfuture research possibilities into these periodicals.The preliminary conclusion from small-scale assessments is that a longitudinalstudy of the Moxwera wa Babaso (newspaper) and the Thsupa Mabaka a Kereke(almanac) can shed more light on the changing culture within the Berlin MissionChurch and how church members and church leaders (German missionaries aswell as local pastors and evangelists) negotiated their changing relations in a timeof increasing government encroachment on the day-to-day existence of SouthAfrica’s black population.