adminI WAS relaxing in a spacious house in Crick Road, Oxford in the United Kingdom in the year 2014 when an old fashioned telephone shattered the peace. On the other end was Lawson Mabhena, the then news editor for the weekly Sunday News. He was relaying the sad news that Chief Solomon Sivalo Mahlangu of Nkayi District was no more. He wanted me to pen an obituary for the old chief who died at the mature age of 93 years.
My mind quickly rushed to an earlier occasion when Bulawayo dentist Dr Cikose Ndiweni asked me to accompany her to Sivalo area across the Shangani River. She was on a trail to locate a grave of one of her ancestors. Sadly, it was a failed mission as the grave was no longer identifiable. Nkayi is devoid of stones which in some parts of Matabeleland are placed on graves, thus rendering them identifiable for long periods.
I had the opportunity then to meet the incumbent Chief Sivalo, the son of Mleke kaSivalo the original chief. We had occasion to discuss the history of the Mahlangus. It was interesting to note that his rendition of their history tallied with the version that Gareth Mahlangu, one time councillor in the Bulawayo City Council, gave. Theirs is a history that is closely linked with Ndebele royalty. He premised his presentation by eloquently rendering the royal song, “Inkosi Yasidabula Ngamandla.”
On 9 November 2016 the late chief’s successor, Edwin Bhululu Sivalo Mahlangu was installed as chief at a colourful ceremony presided over by the Minister of Rural Development, Promotion Arts and National Heritage, Cde Abednico Ncube.
Unfortunately, at the time of his installation I was in Gaborone attending a cultural function organised by Sibanye Cultural Society during which I was presented with a shield in recognition of my role in documenting Ndebele culture and history over the decades. It was sweet and welcome recognition by those for whom I have laboured researching and writing their history and cultural heritage for posterity.
All the same, I remembered my conversation with the frail Chief Sivalo and decided to pen this piece that is informed by that very interaction. The Reverend Paul Bayethe Damasane who attended the installation ceremony gave me some few snippets regarding the function. The story of the Mahlangus starts way back when King Mzilikazi Khumalo of the migrant Ndebele kingdom met them at a time when they lived at Ndubazi in present day Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. The Mahlangus were part of what would later be known as the Transvaal Ndebele.
Their group included people of other surnames such as Mabhena, Sibindi, Sikhosana, Masombuka, Masuku (Phenyane), Mkhwananzi (Gawu, Makhwentaba), Jubane, Mgutshini, Ndlovu/Mthombeni (Gegana), inter alia. These people were originally part of the Nguni ethnic group that descended from a man named Ndebele, the youngest of the brothers that included Xhosa (ancestor of the Xhosa). Luzumani (ancestor of the Zulu) and Swati (ancestor of the Swazi). Centuries ago these people hived off from their Nguni relatives, crossed over the Drakensberg Mountains and settled in the Highveld among the Sotho/Tswana peoples.
King Mzilikazi Khumalo and his people attacked these Sotho-ised Ngunis who were under chiefs Magodonga Mahlangu, Sibindi and Mabhena. Chief Magodonga Mahlangu is reputed for having had magical powers which King Mzilikazi Khumalo could not match. Chief Magodonga Mahlangu was able to get himself submerged under water with a flaming firebrand and emerge after a while with the brand still alight. King Mzilikazi Khumalo tried to match his adversary but failed. It took his senior doctor Mphubane Mzizi to break the jinx. Dr Mzizi kept close watch over Chief Magodonga Mahlangu with the intention of locating where he did his ablution. After doing that, Dr Mzizi stealthily went to collect a small piece from the chief’s faecal matter.
That way, Dr Mzizi empowered his own master and ensured Chief Magodonga Mahlangu’s power was no more. Instead, it was King Mzilikazi Khumalo who would then execute the feat that was hitherto associated with Chief Magodonga Mahlangu. King Mzilikazi Khumalo ordered the execution, through impalement of Chief Magodonga Mahlangu by means of a sharpened stick. Quite many of the people were rounded up and incorporated into Ndebele society.
Chief Magodonga’s people were conscripted into a regiment called IZimpangele and their cultural incorporation began before the Ndebele came to south western Zimbabwe. After two earlier settlements south of the Limpopo River the Ndebele finally settled on the headwaters of the Odi River where they clashed with the Afrikaners under the leadership of Andries Hendriek Potgieter, uNdaleka.
The Ndebele monarch split his people into two groups, the one he led himself and included Igabha under Maqhekeni Sithole and Amhlophe under Gwabalanda Mathe.
The other group he placed under his maternal uncle Khondwane Ndiweni among which was Umzinyathi led by Majijili Gwebu and Amakhanda under Dlundluluza Dlodlo. Some of Chief Magodonga Mahlangu’s surviving relatives were in this latter group which struck a north-easterly route till they settled along the Umzingwane-Insiza- Incema Rivers in about 1839.
Among these relatives was one man by the name of Mveleleni Mahlangu.
The two groups were separated for two agricultural seasons, a situation that made the holding of Inxwala ceremony a big challenge as only the king presided over the ceremony. Further, only the king had authority to order raids. Faced with that challenge, Khondwane Ndiweni and chiefs of villages such as UMzinyathi, AMatshetshe, INtshamathe, UYengo, UGodlwayo INtekelo, INdinana, INxa, INzwananzi, INsinga and INsinda, inter alia, decided to install Prince Nkulumane Khmalo, King Mzilikazi Khumalo’s heir apparent whose mother was Mwaka Nxumalo.
One man, Mkhithika Thebe, uMhlodlwana umfokaNkolotsha decided he was not going to be party to the treachery and trekked in a westerly direction in search of the king. The king had been assisted by the Leya people to find his route to Matabeleland. On hearing about the installation the king fumed over the treasonable act of the chiefs. “Selingonele umntwana. Lalibona ngaphi ilanga eliphuma elinye lingakatshoni?” (You have spoilt my son. No sun ever rises before the other has set). Khondwane Ndiweni committed suicide while other chiefs were executed following a trial at Ntabazinduna Hill. Others such as Dambisamahubo chief of Godlwayo are said to have managed to escape.
In the ensuing chaos, some men, afraid they had flirted with royal wives, chose to run away. The chief village among these settlers was Gibixhegu not far from present day Falcon College. Intunta under Mhabahaba Mkhwananzi was also close by at Bushtik. Izimpangele, fearful of terrible royal retribution, chose to run away to their original home prior to incorporation.
Among the men who belonged to Izimpangele was Mveleleni whose wife, a Mabhena, was expecting. Mabhena did not manage to run back with her husband Mveleleni Mahlangu. Wife Mabhena gave birth to a son who was aptly named Sivalo, for he was going to be the last child, isivalo, the plug, now that his mother was without a husband. As we often point out, our names and the ritual of naming are forms of historical and cultural documentation.
Sivalo would later become a prominent man in King Lobengula Khumalo’s capital town known as KoBulawayo. Together with Sihuluhulu Mabhena, now represented by the Deli Chieftaincy in Nyamandlovu, they supervised royal matters within Isigodlo at the time when Magwegwe Fuyane was induna yezinduna at KoBulawayo. This was the time when Sivalo Mahlangu’s fame blossomed. He would later be a close ally of Queen Lozikeyi Dlodlo. He was in the party that accompanied King Lobengula Khumalo in his flight to the north. It was Sivalo Mahlangu and Sihuluhulu Mabhena who were given gold by the fleeing king to shoo for peace. The two white rascals never passed on the gold to their bosses and stood trial in Bulawayo for their criminal behaviour.
In fact, soon after King Lobengula Khumalo set off towards the north, it was Sivalo Mahlangu who was dispatched by the king to return and torch KoBulawayo which the invaders found still smouldering.
It was Sivalo Mahlangu who took care of the royal wives beyond the Shangani River following the military engagements at Pupu on 4 December 1893. Among the returning queens was Lozikeyi Dlodlo okaNgogo and her inhlanzi, Mamfimfi Dlodlo okaMletshe Dlodlo, mother of Princess Sidambe.
The cheeky white colonists identified an area, a native reserve where they were going to settle the vanquished Ndebele people.
These were the Gwaai (Tsholotsho) and Shangani (Nkayi and Lupane) Native Reserves. Sivalo Mahlangu was later appointed a native chief and, like other chiefs, adorned the half moon insignia that depicted in relief, the image of a lion that appeared on the BSAC badge.
A friend of the LMS Church missionary Reverend Bowen Rees (uLesi), a Welshman who baptised Welshman Mabhena, the late Matabeleland North Governor who was later named after the missionary. Welshman Ncube too was indirectly named after the same missionary. His mother lived at the Makuni Mabhena homestead at Ezinyangeni, an outstation of Inyathi Mission.
Sivalo is best remembered through a picture in which he is shown carrying on his laps little Rees’ boy child, Llewellyn.
As early as 1911 some Ndebele chiefs had already trekked to Nkayi in search of pastures for their large cattle herds. Chiefs Sikhobokhobo Nxumalo, Madliwa Khumalo, Tshugulu Tshabalala were among the pioneers alongside Prince Tshakalisa Khumalo,
USintingantingasenkosi, a son of King Lobengula and younger brother to Prince Nyamande Khumalo. Chiefs Sivalo Mahlangu, Dakamela Ncube, Nkalakatha Ndiweni, Duhamzondo Mloyi of Ezinyangeni followed soon thereafter. The late comers got very little land.
For example, both Chiefs Dakamela Ncube and Sivalo Mahlangu chieftainces have areas that cover a single ward. Some chieftaincies were either abolished or demoted to headmanships. Unstable political situations, notably, the war of liberation in the seventies and Gukurahundi in the eighties led to delays in appointing substantive headmen in the Nkayi District.
As we got to the Mahlangu cemetery, Chief Solomon Sivalo pointed out to me the graves of his ancestors from Sivalo the original through Mleke his own brother, whose younger brother Masotsha was father to Peter Sivalo Mahlangu, the famous educationist. The new chief, who was installed last week on Wednesday, was born in 1945. He has six girls and a single son.
His line is assured of extension, given the Ndebele law of primogeniture where there is vertical succession from father to the eldest qualifying son.
Online Reporter