Pondo, noun

/ˈpɒndəʊ/
Forms:
Also Ponda, Mpondo /(ə)mˈpɔːndɔ/.
Plurals:
unchanged, Pondos, Pondoes, amamPondo, amamPondos, or amaPondo, amaPondos, occasionally Amaponda.
Origin:
IsiXhosaShow more IsiXhosa amaMpondo ‘the people of Mpondo’ (the founding chief); see also ama-.
1.
a. A member of an isiXhosa-speaking people of the Nguni group, from the northern half of the former Transkei (now part of the Eastern Province); Gonaqua sense 2; Mambookie; Mbo sense 1. Also attributive. See also Mpondomise.
1824 Brownlee in G. Thompson Trav. (1827) 209A tribe called Amaponda, who live on the coast to the eastward of the Tambookies.
1828 W. Shaw Diary. 29 JuneThe country is occupied by the Amapondo Nation, whose principal Chiefs are Fakoo and Umyaykie...The Amaponda nation, of which we saw a few kraals near the Umtata, are easily distinguished from other nations, by the singular manner in which they dress their hair.
1835 A. Steedman Wanderings I. 249The Amapondo tribes, called Mambookies, whose territories extend from the Bashee to the River Umsikalia, about thirty miles beyond the St. John, or Zimvoobo River.
1836 R. Godlonton Introductory Remarks to Narr. of Irruption 210It will be seen that the Tambookies, or Amatembu and the Amaponda, or Mambookie tribes are both branches, in a direct line, of what the colonists usually term the great Kafir family.
1837 F. Owen Diary (1926) 15Faku, the chief of the Amapondas.
1838 F. Owen Diary (1926) 120The Amaponda country — Faku’s tribe — beyond the Umzimvubu between Port Natal and Caffraria.
1847 ‘A Bengali’ Notes on Cape of G.H. 23The most powerful of all are the Caffres, composed of three great tribes, the Amakosoe [sic], the Tambookies, and the Amapondas.
1855 J.W. Colenso Ten Weeks in Natal 124The old chief, Faku, (of the Amampondo Kafirs,) when lately visited by Mr. Shepstone, granted him all his requests but one.
1871 C.M. Yonge Pioneers & Founders 258The next tribes, the Amapondas, were scrupulously honest.
1872 Wesleyan Missionary Reports 79Should peace continue a few years between the Pondo and Tembu tribes, we may calculate on this becoming the centre of a wide and extensive field of usefulness.
1882 C. Du Val With Show through Sn Afr. I. 205All went on smoothly until some Pondos, a tribe on the southern border..converted a number of cattle belonging to the Boers into a movable feast.
1884 Cape Law Jrnl I. 223These are the Amaxosa Kafirs, Fingoes, Tembus, Amampondo, Xesibes [etc.].
1908 D. Blackburn Leaven 33The native personal attendant..complained that he was being molested and insulted by ‘the kafirs’. He was a Pondo, an educated mission boy.
1949 M. Wilson in A.M. Duggan-Cronin Bantu Tribes III. 11Up to the time of the famous chief Faku, who died in 1867, the Mpondo are said to have formed one tribe; then they divided under two of Faku’s sons into independent sections, the Qaukeni and the Nyandeni.
1949 J. Mockford Golden Land 118Five main tribes inhabit the Transkei — the Xosa, Tembu, Baca, Pondo and Fingo. They occupy an area roughly the size of Switzerland and total, according to the 1946 census, 1,300,000.
1964 M. Benson Afr. Patriots 104Although thousands of Pondo had gone year after year to the mines, he (sc. Oliver Tambo) was the first to go to boarding school in the great city.
1964 N. Nakasa in J. Crwys-Williams S. Afr. Despatches (1989) 345I am supposed to be a Pondo, but I don’t even know the language of that tribe.
1968 F.G. Butler Cape Charade 9If everybody who got drunk at New Year was sent to work on the road, the road would be past the Langkloof, past the Setlaars, past the Xhosas and past the Pondoes, right among the Zulus by now.
1976 Family of Man Vol.6, 80The Pondo are one of the tribes living between the Indian Ocean and the Drakensberg Mountains...The tribe is composed of a nucleus of 46 related clans which trace descent from a common ancestor, Mpondo. Many members of 21 other clans, unrelated to the descendants of Mpondo have subsequently accepted the authority if the paramount chief and have so become members of the Pondo.
1987 E. Prov. Herald 9 Oct. 9Her father, President Botha Sigcau, was a paramount chief...Chief Botha was King of the amaMpondo, which makes the premier a real princess.
1990 H. Allan in Style Oct. 61No wonder the Zulus are asking ‘Who is this jumped up Pondo?’
b. comb.
Pondoland, see quotation 1973.
1913 G.E. Cory Rise of S. Afr. II. 230A wave of bloodshed and destruction, which, beginning in far-away Zululand, spread in all directions until it reached Pondoland in the south, [etc.].
1973 H. Potgieter in Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. VIII. 651Pondoland,..Region on the Transkei coast between the Mtamvuna and Umtata Rivers, bordering on Natal in the north and divided by the Umzimvubu River into East and West Pondoland, each with its own chief.
1983 Fair Lady 2 Nov. 139In Pondoland schoolchildren look after the cattle after classes.
2. The form of isiXhosa spoken by the Pondo peoples.
1919 H.H. Johnston Comparative Study of Bantu & Semi-Bantu Lang. I. 298The [Xhosa] dialects include Feñgu, Baca and Pondω words.
1919 H.H. Johnston Comparative Study of Bantu & Semi-Bantu Lang. I. 797The divergent dialects of ?ōsa, such as Isi-pondω, Isi-ba¿a, Feñgu, &c.
3. A type of tobacco.
1941 C.W. De Kiewiet Hist. of S. Afr. 251Boer tobacco or the notorious ‘Pondo’ leaf which caused experienced smokers to blanch.
A member of an isiXhosa-speaking people of the Nguni group, from the northern half of the former Transkei (now part of the Eastern Province); Gonaqua sense 2; Mambookie; Mbo sense 1. Also attributive.
The form of isiXhosa spoken by the Pondo peoples.
A type of tobacco.
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Pondoland

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IsiXhosa
pom-pom, nounn.pondok, nounn.
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