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Pathisa Nyathi
IN 1829 King Mzilikazi Khumalo welcomed Reverend Robert Moffatt of the London Missionary Society (LMS). At the time, the Ndebele king and his people lived in the present day Pretoria area (Magaliesberg Mountains). They had been in the area from 1827 following their forced removal from Ezinyosini on the Vaal River (uLikhwa). It is important to appreciate why Reverend Robert Moffatt was welcomed by the monarch who never converted to Christianity till his passing on in September 1868.
In about 1820 King Mzilikazi Khumalo led his people from Esikhwebesini River area where they lived near Ngome Mountain. That was following the cataclysmic dispersal from the south-eastern seaboard. General Sotshangane Nxumalo and General Zwangendaba Jele had already proceeded ahead of General Mzilikazi Khumalo. Mzilikazi Khumalo was not king at the time of his departure. His followers hardly exceeded 600 strong.
From the outset, his migrant kingdom was faced with twin fears. The first was possible military defeat by his enemies, possibly leading to annihilation of his fledgling state. His departure was not without military challenge. The Zulu, under King Tshaka Zulu engaged him in military battle and the confrontations are immortalised in his heroic praises.
Inkom’ ezavul’ inqaba ngezimpondo
Ngoba zavul’ iNgome zahamba
Two regiments, namely iZimpohlo and uMbelebele were sent against him. However, General Mzilikazi Khumalo did manage to get his way through the Ngome Mountain. More military encounters awaited him and his soldiers. It should be borne in mind that women did not participate in war, as per Nguni military tradition. That would have meant fewer soldiers at the General’s disposal. That constituted the first threat to the fledgling migrant kingdom.
Mzilikazi Khumalo needed to beef up his forces by incorporating more men into his army. That he achieved in two ways. At the time of his departure from KwaZulu-Natal there was general insecurity which led to some people voluntarily joining his forces. This was the case, for example with AmaHlubi of the slain King Mpangazitha —the Dlodlo people who joined the Ndebele at eZinyosini.
There were also people who were not going to voluntarily join his marching armies. Raids were thus waged on tribes along the way, resulting in their involuntary incorporation or assimilation. This was particularly the case when the Ndebele were over the Drakensberg (Izintaba Zokhahlamba). The Ndebele were in the area of the Sotho-Tswana people with a culture that was different from their own Nguni culture. That presented the king (since elevated to king along the way, ukwenyuswa) with the second twin threat to his kingdom.
It was a tricky situation for the king and his people. They needed to achieve a threshold number of soldiers to allow them to effectively defend the State militarily. Now that they were in the area of the Sotho/Tswana people they could no longer beef up the numbers by incorporating Nguni people. They had no choice other than to incorporate non-Nguni people. Political survival demanded incorporation of non-Nguni elements.
As the migrant kingdom pushed further away from Nguni speaking areas, military threats increased. There were many Sotho/Tswana people who resisted incorporation. There were also some people who were neither Nguni nor Sotho/Tswana. The Griqua (aMalawu/aMahiligwa) were some of these. The Griqua posed a serious military threat to the continued existence of the mobile Ndebele State. They possessed firearms and rode on horses, thus making them move very swiftly. The Griqua also made alliances with the Sotho/Tswana tribes in their wars against the Ndebele.
However, King Mzilikazi Khumalo continued to raid and incorporates Sotho/Tswana groups and managed to ward off those groups that posed threats to his state. There was need to create responses to ensure continued existence of the state. There were times when, instead of standing to fight, the Ndebele moved off en masse to areas where there was less threat. The first encounter with the Griqua was when the Ndebele were settled at eZinyosini. Settlement in the area was short-lived as a result of harassment by joint Griqua and Sotho/Tswana forces.
Ezinyosini was settled from 1823 to 1827. More threats were to follow, thus forcing them to move to Pretoria where the king lived at Mhlahlandlela till 1832. As will be seen later, the Ndebele were to move away from Magaliesberg under new threats. Their final settlement was at Mosega (Egabheni) from 1832 to 1837 when the Afrikaners forced them across the Limpopo River. Moving away thus became a survival strategy that the Ndebele adopted to get out of danger that posed a threat to the political and cultural sustainability of the State. While measures that ensured political sustainability of the State were being effected, simultaneously another threat emerged, namely cultural swamping by the Sotho/Tswana who soon outnumbered the original Nguni.
It behoved the king and his advisors to solve the problem posed by the twin threats. Apparently, the strategies did work as Nguni culture, albeit somewhat diluted, did continue to exist. Further, the political entity also existed till a much greater force motivated by the desire to obtain gold and establish empire destroyed the state in 1893. All these considerations led to diplomatic manoeuvres, foreign affairs policies and social and political engineering that were both creative and innovative.
King Mzilikazi Khumalo and his people acknowledge the military superiority of guns over spears. Harassment by the militarily superior Griqua made the king decide to secure a source for guns. Prior to the arrival of the Reverend Robert Moffatt the king had had two traders, Schoon and McLuckie demonstrating the working of firearms. King Mzilikazi Khumalo’s imagination was fired. He needed a source for the firearms to tilt the scales of war in his favour.
Two antagonistic interests were to align. The LMS was pushing the agenda of proselytising what they perceived to be pagan tribes in the interior of southern Africa. Hitherto, Kuruman was the most northerly station in the area of the BaThlaping. At the same time, the king saw in Reverend Robert Moffatt the possibility of securing firearms. The king had rightly calculated that weapons that he needed were available from the south-from white people with whom Reverend Robert Moffatt was in touch with.
The Ndebele, as a people, were quite content with their spirituality. They did not require a religion that Reverend Robert Moffatt promised. This view is borne out by the fact that the king never converted to Christianity till his death, nor did his followers abandon African Spirituality in favour of Christianity. Different hopes and agenda brought the two men together in a relationship that has been perceived as lasting friendship which, in the final analysis, led to the establishment of an LMS mission station at Inyathi Mission on 26 December1859.
The year when the two met for the first time in 1829 was immortalised in the name of the king’s heir apparent, Prince Nkulumane Khumalo. A royal wife, uMdlunkulu/iNdlovukazi had been secured from among the Ndwandwes/Nxumalos. Her name was Mwaka Nxumalo and had had her first-born child as Princess Zinkabi Khumalo whose younger brother was Prince Nkulumane. Princess Zinkabi Khumalo got married to Mbiko kaMadlenya Masuku the chief of Zwangendaba Village. The heir apparent was so named because he was born at the time when Reverend Robert Moffatt from Kuruman was visiting the king for the first time.
The ritual of naming sought to capture events that surrounded the birth of a child. It was a form of record keeping or documentation. Names were never picked from a basket and thrust on a newly-born baby.
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