millet, melons, beans, bananas, sugar cane, peas, and pumpkins. 3 Cattle was very significant in the provision of food (both for meat and milk); other livestock included poultry, goats, and sheep.When nature provided in abundance, life was abundant; conversely, changes of the season, times of scarcity, and drought made life hard.A number of safeguards helped them to absorb part of the shock of these vicissitudes: they stored grains, diversified their crops, provided each other with mutual support, and engaged in trade.Much of daily life focused on providing for basic needs: farming and herding, constructing huts, working leather, etc.But beyond attending to their immediate needs, people were involved in a variety of activities, including mining iron and ochre and manufacturing spears and other tools which they could use to work, hunt, or fight.They worked ivory and made pottery.They also cultivated and enjoyed tobacco and dagga.They traded cattle, copper, iron, and beads to create wealth, rather than as a means of subsistence.These goods offered a general means of exchange for goods and labour, functioning as a form of currency. 4 The goods were also exchanged as a form of speculation.Trade relations connected the Xhosa through various intermediaries with other peoples living farther to the north-east (the Hlubi) and the north-west (the Kwena), but also with neighbours closer by, such as the Mpondo.Trade included dagga, elephant tusks, and other valuables.Accumulation of goods was fairly limited, with the notable exception of cattle, the kingpin of the Xhosa economy.Cattle was an essential medium of exchange in social relations (for instance, in payment of labour, in establishing marriage agreements between families, etc.).It also served as a symbol of authority.Different levels of wealth existed, but in Xhosa society these differences were limited.Regarding the social importance of cattle, Mabona would later write: Those of us who have seen the tailend of this cattle culture can only say that those who have not experienced or seen it can scarcely have an idea of what it was like and meant.Anybody who wants to understand the southeastern Bantu, though, must understand this background in all its implications. 53