Information About & Videos About South Africans' Gwijos

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest Update: September 8, 2021

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series on South African sports team singing amagwijos (singular "gwijo") during rugby games, cricket games, football (soccer) games, and during school sports events.

Three videos of the Gwijo Squad are also included in this post.

The Addendum to this post presents information about the sport of rugby and information about South Africans singing during those games. Information about rugby is also included in this post as that sport is unfamiliar to me and to many other people in the United States.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/10/south-african-students-from-queens.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. Part II showcases a video of students from Queens college singing a gwijo during a rugby game. Selected comments from that video's discussion thread are also included in this post. The Addendum to that post showcases a YouTube video of South African soldiers singing the same song (with a few comments from that discussion thread, including the lyrics to that song).

The Addendum also presents information about rugby, a sport that isn't well known in the United States.

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The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the founder/s and members of the Gwijo squad and thanks to those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-south-african-song-mtaka-mama-thina.html The South African Song "Mtaka Mama" ("Thina Siyazalana") With Lyrics & English Translations for four examples of this song, including the two examples that are showcased in that post.

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INFORMATION ABOUT SOUTH AFRICANS SINGING GWIJOS (IGWIJO OR AMAGWIJO)
Excerpt #1:
From https://www.soccerladuma.co.za/fan-park/update/ten-words-from-mzansi-s-football-dictionary/304884#targetText=%E2%80%9DIgwijo%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9CAmagwijo%E2%80%9D,dressing%20rooms%20just%20before%20games. Ten Words From Mzansi's Football Dictionary, By Captain Alzheimers June 2, 2015
..."”Igwijo” or “Amagwijo”

The words simply means ‘song.’ These songs are sung in stadiums by fans and by players in dressing rooms just before games."...
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"Football" in that title means what people in the United States refer to as "soccer".

"Igwijo" (gwijo) is the Xhosa singular term for "song" and "amagwijo" is the Xhosa plural term for "songs". However, due to the influence of English language even though those terms are incorrect in Xhosa language, the word "gwijos" appears to be most often used online to refer to both the singular and the plural form of these types of songs.

Consequently, I'm using the term "gwijos" in all of these pancocojams posts on this subject.

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Gwijos were sung by school students before they were sung at sports events

"Gwijos" are sung to demonstrate and reinforce unity and to raise the spirits of the team and others singing these songs.

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Excerpt #2
From https://www.newframe.com/gwijo-squad-the-new-sound-of-south-african-sport/ Gwijo Squad, the new sound of South African sport 20 ; By: Sibusiso Mjikeliso , Photographer: Ihsaan Haffejee,  Jun 2019

This article was first published by New Frame. [under Creative Commons Attribution]

"It is said that freedom wasn’t free. And that, when democracy was negotiated, the last vestiges ceded into the hands of white minority control were the land and rugby.

Rugby was at the heart of the former rulers’ chests – almost literally so, when you consider the constant wrangling over the existence of the Springbok badge and its position on the World Cup jersey. The sport gave meaning to so many, within the segregated confines and among those marginalised.

However, time has brought a new generation and a breath of fresh air into the sport. They call themselves the Gwijo Squad and as far as disruptions go, they are the noisy new neighbours chanting in the west stand.

You might have seen them on some obtrusive viral video, perhaps sent unsolicited to your neighbourhood watch WhatsApp group. They sing songs of jubilation, elation and devastation. To the uninitiated ear, they sound like “struggle songs” but they are, in fact, the chants that reverberate through Xhosa initiation ceremonies, weddings and, of course, rugby matches in the Eastern and Western Cape provinces.

You might have even asked yourself, “Who are these people, really?” Perhaps you might question what they want at old rugby coliseums such as Loftus Versfeld, Ellis Park and Newlands.

More than a concert of predominantly black African, Xhosa-speaking rugby fanatics, the Gwijo Squad is made up of individuals determined to create a movement that could end in the true unification of a sport that was used as a powerful tool to suppress black people.

[...]

[photo caption] "1 June 2019: The Gwijo Squad started as a group of rugby fans from the Eastern Cape who took the spirit of igwijo with them to Gauteng, initially to support first black Springbok captain Siya Kolisi in his inaugural assignment against England at Ellis Park in June 2018."

[...]

Igwijo and the trouble it caused
In many ways, [Xhanti] Madolo has always been the guy at the forefront of a wave of change. In high school, he was the rugby cheerleader and courted trouble at post-1994 Dale College in King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape for his penchant for igwijo.

“We sang the school songs with pride and vigour, but we mixed things up with igwijo the year I took over as cheerleader [in 2000],” he recalls.

“We needed to take the cheering to another level, because our team was on another level and the culture was changing. We started bringing in the more popular traditional songs: “Ntombi emnhlotshazana … Yinton’ le uyenzayo, ayilunganga (Fair-skinned girl, what you’re doing is not right)”. And we readapted struggle songs, replacing names like Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela with the first team captain.

“The boys took to it, but the teachers on the other hand had other opinions. They banned igwijo. I don’t know how many times I have been called into the headmaster’s [James Haupt] office because of igwijo.

“Then Grey High School [from Port Elizabeth] threatened not to play against Dale if amagwijo would be sung at rugby matches. They said they were ‘savage songs’ or something like that. But it was too big a thing, too big to contain. They couldn’t fight it and it grew into something that is now the norm in the passages at the school.”...
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The Gwijo squad also sings during cricket matches. View the video given as #2 below.

Update: October 28, 2018
There are also YouTube videos of South African soccer team members singing in the locker room before games: Here's one link to a compilation of some of those videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiCr5X0awS8 South African Soccer Songs Compilation
laughter.mr, May 27, 2018

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Excerpt #3:
From https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/workplace-inclusivity-unsung-gwijo-thabo-moloi "Workplace Inclusivity"​ - The Unsung Gwijo
Published on August 20, 2019, Thabo Moloi
“Zizo jik’ izinto, Thula mntan’am! Wen’ukhalelani, thula mnatan’am!” [loose translation: things will turn around, you can stop crying now my child] I sing this at the top of my voice in celebration of Sbusiso Nkosi’s second try against Argentina at Loftus this past Saturday. A part of me can’t help but be emotional at the political significance of such a powerful song in the context of a challenging South African landscape marred with a complicated history. I’m on my second Strepsils lozenge desperately trying to keep up with the Gwijo Squad who have been shaking the stands non-stop with iconic gwijos. A gwijo is an African chant used to commemorate important cultural events. It is how black people have traditionally come together to celebrate, to mourn, to show solidarity and remind each other of the defiant spirit inherent in all of us. Rugby is still a predominantly white sport and the stadium is packed with over 90% white fans but the Gwijo Squad helps me forget that I’m a minority in these spaces. The Gwijo Squad not only helps me find my voice but allows me to be a part of an important moment in South African sports and sing at the top of my voice that I belong here.

I would’ve done anything to have a Gwijo Squad help me navigate some of the lonely corridors of corporate South Africa. I could never shake off the sinking feeling that I was an outsider. I was always peeping through thick bullet-proof glass ceilings wearing imposter syndrome like a freshly dry-cleaned well-fitted blazer wondering if I will ever get called to come inside. The crazy part is that I loved my job and was really good at it. The disconnect was that I felt I had to be someone else to get the social currency needed to navigate the water coolers and canteen food lines.

[...]

I left my job to build a training and development business that will be an empowerment gwijo to help the disenfranchised people in my community navigate some of the socio-economic challenges our nation is plagued with. It is proving to be way harder than anything I have ever experienced because for the first time I need to be myself fully and trust that this will be enough. I realise it takes great courage to bravely show who you really are in the intimidating stadium of life with very few people rooting for you. But this is something I need to do to give myself and the people around me more assurance that we belong here. Whatever space we endeavour to be in, endeavour to find meaning, happiness and wealth in, we belong here. Just as we are, we belong here."...

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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Video #1: Gwijo Squad changing the face of South Africa Rugby



TRT World, Oct 3, 2018

The Springboks versus the All Blacks is one of sport’s great rivalries. The South Africans beat the ABs in New Zealand in September, and when Siya Kolisi's team attempt to repeat that success in Pretoria this weekend, they'll be supported by traditional AmaGwijo songs. As Lungani Zama reports, it's a sign the Springboks are beginning to finally represent all South Africans.

[...]
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Here's a comment from this video's discussion thread:
Bernie Baatjies, 2018
"I can just imagine how super intimidating that would be for teams that come play in SA if we all eventually sing Gwijo in the stands....WOW... Goosebumps"

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Video #2: Gwijo Squad | Cricket at the Bullring SA vs Sri Lanka T20 (short version)



Gwijo Squad, Mar 28, 2019

On Sunday 24 March, the Gwijo Squad went to cheer the Proteas at the Bullring. It was a T20 match against Sri Lanka.

The Squad had over 110 members in attendance.
In true Joburg weather fashion, the skies opened up and a typical afternoon Joburg thunderstorm proceeded to postpone the match for just over an hour.
That did not stop the Squad from singing and keeping the energy going.

What a superb way to end the cricket season before the lads gear up for the Cricket World Cup.

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Video #3: Understanding the Gwijo Squad movement



SABC Digital News, Sep 6, 2019

The 12th man, player 23, they go by many names: supporters play a crucial role in filling up the dead air in a stadium on game day.
Of late the Springboks have had their own dedicated group of supporters, with their own identity, who set up shop in a part of the stadium and never stop singing and dancing. It's an incredibly positive phenomenon, and for more, we are joined by Chulumanco Macingwane, chairman of the Gwijo Squad, and Nondwe Maqubela, the manager.
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Here's my transcription of a brief portion of this televised discussion (at around 1:46 to around 3:40 of this video). Additions and corrections are welcome.

(Interviewer) : [The summary given above followed by this.]
"So you're here to tell us about amagwijo. It's more than what we see in the stadiums, it's a rich tradition. Amigwijo is a Xhosa tradition. Tell us more about it"

Chulumanco Macingwane (C.M.): "The word igwijo is a Xhosa word, but the practice of gwijo, the singing of these traditional songs that take the form of a leader and respondents is something that is completely ubiquitous in the country. It exists in every single one of our cultures which is why it resonates so much with people of all cultures. Incidentally, I was explaining to some, to some really enthusiastic White supporters today that when you see a gwijo squad or a group of Black people singing gwijo, don't assume that everyone speaks the language that they are singing in. We might be singing in isiXhosa and there might be Venda people and Sotho people and such but it's because this thing exists in all those cultures. So whatever language it is being sung in, they, it resonates with them and they take right with it [I'm not sure of these words]. Why we felt that if a Venda dude can learn a Xhosa gwijo, it should not be that much difficult if at all for an Afrikaan say to learn a Xhosa gwijo. So that's why..."

(interviewer): "It's for everyone."

(C.M.): "We felt that we needed to bring the spirit of gwijo absolutely to every color, creed, language". Yes.

interviewer: "So, it's songs to get you through hardship. Rugby is particularly apt. Those players on the field have a lot of pressure. But it's the captain Gqoboka who has clicked so effortlessly with the Gwijo Squad. Tell us about that relationship."...
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Nondwe Maqubela begins by saying that the gwijo squad supports the National Rugby team, the National Cricket team, and one other national team (I didn't understand that word, but maybe it was "soccer")...

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Video #4: ACE FC|THEMBA LASE KASI|COMP PART ONE|AMAGWIJO|SHOTS BY YOLISWA|SOCCER



Yoliswa Mbathu, Jun 8, 2018

Hey Hey Heeeeeey!!!

Dropping another one, this is a compilation of amagwijo by Ace FC which is a soccer team established in Khayelitsha, Cape Town...

This is how the gents always enter the field, their spirits are forever high and ready for the upcoming clash."...

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ADDENDUM: INFORMATION ABOUT THE GAME OF RUGBY
From https://www.rulesofsport.com/faq/what-s-the-difference-between-american-football-and-rugby.html#targetText=Although%20American%20football%20is%20played,players%20are%20in%20the%20USA.&targetText=Rugby%20is%20popular%20in%20European,Zealand%2C%20South%20Africa%20and%20Argentina. What's the Difference Between American Football and Rugby?

"American football and rugby are in many ways similar sports, both featuring a great amount of physicality, running, and aggression.

This is not unsurprising when you realise that American football and rugby are related with American football developing from rugby in the 19th century. However, there are some fundamental differences between the games.

Geographic Spread
Although American football is played in many different countries across the world, by far the most players are in the USA. Rugby however has a far bigger geographical spread. Rugby is popular in European countries such as England, Scotland, Ireland Wales and France, as well as southern hemisphere countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina. It is also one of the fast growing team sports in the USA.

Object of the Game
The object of American football is to score more points than the opposition team by carrying the ball behind the opponents touch line (called a touchdown). Teams can also score points by kicking the ball between the posts which is known as a field goal.

The object of rugby is very similar, but the ball must be carried behind the opponents touch line and then placed down which is called a try. Points can also be scored by kicking the ball between the goalposts (known as a conversion/drop goal/penalty kick) depending upon the circumstances.

Ball
American footballs and rugby balls look similar at first glance but they are different. Rugby balls are about 27cm long and weigh about 1lb whereas American footballs weigh a few ounces less but are slightly longer at 28cm. American footballs also feature more pointy ends and a seam, both of which make it easier to throw.

Number of Players
Rugby teams are much larger than their American football counterparts. Rugby teams have fifteen players on the pitch at any one time whereas American football teams have just eleven."...

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This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series.

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