The history of the parishes in the Diocese of Eshowe
Shortly after the Benedictines had taken over their new mission territory in Zululand, they were told by the magistrate of Paulpietersburg that "no other district had fewer Catholics than the district of Paulpietersburg" (TT 09-10-22). A priest from Inkamana visited Paulpietersburg regularly and celebrated Mass for the Catholics. For the first few years, there were hardly ever more than a dozen who came to Mass. In order to intensify pastoral work in the area, Bishop Spreiter bought a small farm on November 8, 1928, and opened an outstation. It was situated at the foot of the Dumbe Hill, about seven kilometres south of Paulpietersburg. A school was started there in 1930.
Dumbe remained an outstation of Inkamana for fifteen years. In 1942, Spreiter bought an adjoning farm of 233 acres (94 hectares) so that a proper mission station could be established. The farm had formerly belonged to Pieter Jurie Wessels (1878-1958) who was president of the South African senate (cf. chronicle of Dumbe, 1958-1959, pg. 64). The mission station at Dumbe was opened on March 2, 1943, when a priest and two brothers took up residence in one of the houses. A large priests' house was built in 1944/45, and a convent in 1959. Fr. Rudolph Reiser laid the foundation stone for the church on November 29, 1959. The church was designed and built by Bro. Candidus Mayer. Mass was for the first time celebrated in June 1960. Bishop Aurelian Bilgeri blessed the church on the Feast of Saint Anne, July 26, 1961. Saint Anne is the patron saint of the Dumbe Mission. The church, with its pointed steeple, nestling at the foot of the Dumbe Mountain, became something of a landmark in the area.
The Dumbe Mission lies in the midst of a so-called white farming area. For many years it catered mainly for black farm labourers. The success of these pastoral efforts depended a great deal on the good-will of the white farmers who could permit or deny the priest access to the compounds of their black employees. North of Dumbe was a small area which was reserved for Blacks. Because it was a so-called black spot in a white area, the residents of this reserve were for a long time threatened with expulsion. That threat was removed when the government acknowledged the area as a reserve and began establishing villages and settlements within its borders. Bilanyoni became the biggest town. It had a population of about 20 000 in 1990. From the mid-seventies, thousands of black people left their kraals on the white farms of the Paulpietersburg district and moved into these new settlements. The exodus was caused by a government decree which urged white farmers to dismiss their "black surplus labour force" and send them back into so-called Zulu reserves.
These developments had serious repercussions for the future of Dumbe as a mission station. The number of Catholics on the different outstations in the white farming area dwindled dramatically as many Catholics moved from the farms into the new settlements inside the reserve. As a result, the focus of pastoral work began to shift from the depopulated white farms to the settlements with their concentration of people. The location of Dumbe Mission in the midst of a white farming area was no longer ideal as a parish centre. It turned out to be too far away from the parishioners and too difficult for them to reach. The settlements, on the other hand, have relatively good traffic links with the district town of Paulpietersburg. It is much easier for parishioners to travel to Paulpietersburg than to Dumbe. Bishop Biyase therefore agreed to a plan to close down Dumbe and open a new Catholic parish centre in Paulpietersburg. The Diocese of Eshowe purchased a property in Paulpietersburg in 1992 with the view of transferring, in due course, the parish from Dumbe to the town.
For years the Benedictines maintained a number of schools at Dumbe itself and on the various outstations. The Dumbe Mission School, started in 1930, became a fully established primary school (class 1 to Std. 6) in 1968. The school had, however, little impact on the mission work and was therefore handed over to the government in 1970. The missionaries continued to run a hostel for pupils who lived too far away from Dumbe. But it, too, was closed down in 1972. It had lost its importance as more and more schools were built in the district making it easier for children to walk to school from their homes. A domestic school was opened at Dumbe in 1972. It kept going for three years under the auspices of the Catholic mission but eventually closed its doors because Dumbe proved to be the wrong place for such a school.
Benedictine Sisters of Twasana came to Dumbe on December 11, 1945. They worked as teachers, were in charge of the children's hostel and assisted the priest in his pastoral work. They also looked after the priest's house and the garden. The closure of the schools and the shift in the pastoral work led the superior general to withdraw the sisters from Dumbe. In December 1991, they were recalled to the mother house and the Dumbe convent was closed down.
A farm comprising 144 hectares belonged to Dumbe when it became a mission station in 1943. It had plenty of water, fed by little streams coming down from the Dumbe mountain, and relatively good soil. Several smaller farms in the Paulpietersburg district were purchased at Jagbaan, Milievlei, Rooiport, Makwabi and Nooitgedacht to give the mission a solid economic basis. They were managed by one of the brothers stationed at Dumbe. The Benedictines built schools or school-chapels on most of these farms to give the many black children who lived on white farms an opportunity to get at least a basic education. These schools served at the same time as centres for the Catholic farming communities. After 1975 they gradually lost their importance as most black people left the white farms.
Much of Dumbe's farmland was being used by the missionaries as pasture for the cattle. It also included large black wattle plantations. In 1966, eighty hectares were covered with black wattle. The sale of black wattle bark, maize and meat were the main sources of income from the farm. After the death of Bro. Herfried März in 1979, it became increasingly more difficult for the Benedictines to manage the widelyscattered farms of the Dumbe Mission. Much of the mission land was therefore leased out and eventually sold by the Diocese of Eshowe.
Parish Priests of Dumbe/Paulpietersburg
Assistant Priests at Dumbe
Benedictine Brothers at Dumbe
This page was last updated on 12.06.02 17:01:21