adminWHAT is clear so far is that the last Ndebele king’s fate is shrouded in ENDURING mystery. No one can say definitively that they know exactly what happened to King Lobengula. The resulting lack of knowledge has far wider implications.
The absence of closure on the subject has many implications. Some people argue that the king’s remains were not captured by his white enemies. That is translated in some quarters as an indication that his erstwhile state shall one day arise.
Yet to some there is a possibility that he and some of his followers crossed the mighty Zambezi River and went to live among his Nguni relatives in the north-eastern part of Zambia. And yet to others he died in Zimbabwe and his remains were interred at some cave in Chief Pashu’s country.
All that we can do is to give the varied accounts regarding the king’s fate. As we do so we are cognisant of the fact that we have not heard the last concerning the king. His fate will never completely abandon the lips of his descendants.
Supposing he crossed the Zambezi River where would he have gone? Even before we attempt to answer that question, we need to appreciate that the king and his party would have sought to conceal their tracks. The whites would have pursued him if they got information that he was somewhere across the Zambezi River.
His pursuit would have been very likely given that the country to the north of the Zambezi River was subsequently conquered by the same white people who conquered Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The Rhodesian authorities would have taken a keen interest if they got to know that King Lobengula was living somewhere in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).
The king, one would expect, must have assumed a new identity in the form of a new name. In fact, a story is told that he assumed the name of Ndabazimbi, meaning matters are bad, back home. Even some people in his entourage changed their names and surnames.
Efforts were made to conceal their Nguni identity which was apparent from their names and surnames. It is known that during the heyday of the Ndebele State King Lobengula’s armies undertook raids into Zambia. Not far from the Zambezi River is a place called Simangani, a corruption of Sibangani, which was so named in recognition of the bad relations between the Ndebele and Tonga people who lived in the area.
Accounts are narrated of how the Ndebele, poor at water navigation, relied on Tonga boatmen to ferry them across the Zambezi River.
In fact, there were occasions when the Tonga chose to fix the Ndebele by abandoning them on some isolated islands in the river. This was, however, not always the case as the Tonga loyally performed their duties and facilitated the crossing of the river by the Ndebele soldiers. Even today there are stories among the Ndebele concerning their soldiers attacking one Mbizakazibulawawa, a chief in Zambia.
Apparently, Mbizakazibulawa’s people possessed powers that gave problems to the raiding Ndebele soldiers. There was a time when the Ndebele contracted smallpox following a raid on Mbizakazibulawa.
In 1893 when the white colonists attacked Matabeleland there were a lot of soldiers who had been quarantined following their contracting of smallpox after a raid on Mbizakazibulawa. Anyway, what is important is that the Ndebele were familiar with the territory across the Zambezi River. In any case, even if they did not possess intimate knowledge of the area, the Tonga would have assisted them.
The Ndebele were not the only people to leave KwaZulu-Natal during the time of Mfecane in the first quarter of the 19th century. The other people that left at more or less the same time travelled under Zwangendaba Jele. It was this group of people that as they travelled through present-day Mozambique became known as the Ngoni, a corruption of Nguni by the Tonga in that country. King Zwangendaba’s people turned eastwards and entered Zimbabwe and went up the Tuli River where they forcibly induced the Babirwa to flee back into South Africa.
A few of the Babirwa were killed by King Zwangendaba’s people. Finally the group got to the Zambezi River at the time when there was a solar eclipse. Among them were some who fear got the better of them and decided to return. It was this group under the leadership of Queen Nyamazana Dlamini that retraced its footsteps and got to Intaba-zika-Mambo and killed the Lozwi ruler. Among these returnees were the Dlaminis, Kunenes, Tshongwes, Mhlangas, Magagulas and Magadlelas, amongst many others.
When the Ndebele under King Mzilikazi arrived on the scene Queen Nyamazana’s people were incorporated into the new Ndebele nation. King Mzilikazi is said to have married Queen Nyamazana.
Meanwhile, King Zwangendaba and his followers trekked further north through Zambia, Malawi and finally got to Tanzania. They retraced their footsteps back to Malawi and finally settled at Chipata, formerly Fort Johnston not far from the Zambia-Malawi border. Through intelligence the Ndebele were aware of the existence of this group in Zambia.
They also knew about the Shangani people who had also fled KwaZulu-Natal during Mfecane. That Nguni state was to the east and the two nations maintained relations and accepted boundaries that each would not violate by invading beyond.
There was indeed a lot of movement of people between the two states. For example, when I was working on Alfred Nikita’s (Rogers Mangena)biography I got to know that the Mangenas had originally been part of the Shangani/Gaza State and later moved to be part of the BaDuma (the Moyos). It was no surprise therefore to find the Mangena’s occupying the eastern sections of the Ndebele State such as Emakhandeni. ZPRA commander Mangena lived at Fort Rixon but his father and other relatives were pushed out to Mwenezi when their land was alienated to create farms for the white colonists.
There were other people that left Gazaland (land of the Shangani of King Sotshangane Sithole) to live within the Ndebele State. The Mhlangas were one such people.
King Lobengula, keen to marry a woman who would be the senior queen, sent Chief Lotshe Hlabangana to get him one such woman, named Xhwalile Nxumalo the daughter of King Mzila. Indeed, Queen Xhwalile and her entourage arrived at Enyokeni (Old Bulawayo) and the new senior queen was in due course dispatched to Emganwini village (now the name of a township in the city of Bulawayo) where she lived. Some of her maids went to live at Emzinyathini under Chief Tshibhini Gwebu who was accused of flirting with them. Chief Tshibhini Gwebu responded by naming his son Mangamani, the allegations were all lies, he was saying.There were other people who left KwaZulu-Natal at the same time. One of these was Ngwana Maseko who with his followers settled in Malawi. In due course these other people lost their Nguni languages when they married indigenous women, in particular the Chewa and the Tumbuka, bayekethisa as Nkosana Dlodlo would put it.
King Mzilikazi was to be the only one to craft marriage policies that ensured IsiNdebele continued to be spoken by his followers. He controlled the marriage institution; hence the IsiNdebele language is still very much alive today.At the time when King Lobengula set forth to the land of the Ngoni, King Zwangendaba’s son had become the ruler. His name was Mphezeni. Interestingly, King Lobengula had a son by the same name. Mphezeni was one of the three royal sons that were whisked out of Matabeleland by Cecil John Rhodes ostensibly to receive western education in the Cape.
Was the similarity in names a coincidence or something else?
In the next article we turn to the matter of the two names and try to find out if the Ngoni of today still possess memories of the last Ndebele king, Lobengula.
Online Reporter