adminPathisa Nyathi
An African king always sought to stay in power for the rest of his life. The king was symbolised through the metaphor of the sun. At no time were there ever two suns in the sky. “Kaliphumi elinye lingakatshoni,” as the Ndebele were painfully taught by founding King Mzilikazi Khumalo. When the sun finally set, the one that was allowed to rise is related to the one that set. This is the continuity that retained kingship within a particular lineage. The incumbent king surrounded himself with relatives who he envisaged would show loyalty to their king and relative.
Ensuring continuity translates to the various measures that we have been dealing with which King Mzilikazi pursued.
The king enjoyed the prerogative to appoint and dismiss chiefs as he so wished. Those that showed lack of loyalty were fired.
We shall see this happening in the case of some uMzinyathi chiefs. When King Lobengula Khumalo ascended the royal throne he faced resistance from some chiefs such as Malevu Magutshwa of Inzwananzi. He also faced opposition from Chief Thunzi Ndiweni, son of Chief Mabuyana of Ezinaleni.
Chief Mkhaliphi Khumalo decided to take his life than see the point of an advancing assegai, umdikadika or ijozi or isijula. After the 1872 civil war in which King Lobengula Khumalo emerged victorious he began a serious purge of chiefs that supported the claims of Prince Nukulumane Khumalo whose fate was clouded in mystery.
Chiefs Thunzi Ndiweni and Malevu Magutshwa were some of the chiefs that were killed. Apparently, it was the Nguni element within Ndebele society which stood in opposition to the installation of King Lobengula Khumalo.
To them a person of Swazi stock was not Nguni enough. As we know, King Lobengula Khumalo’s mother was one Fulatha Tshabalala of Swazi stock. Some elements within Ndebele society were not prepared to be ruled by the son of a Swazi woman who ate zebra meat and thus had acidic saliva: “umntaneSwazi elilamath’ amunyu, abadla amadube!
King Mzilikazi did not forget his Khumalo relatives when it came to the appointment of chiefs. However, he chose them from among the non-royal Khumalos such as iNzonda kaMatshitshi. Some of them started off as regents but ended up as de facto chiefs. Enyandeni chief was Mazwi Khumalo of the iNzonda kaMatshitshi section of the Khumalos.
Their village was north of iZinala and adjoined Tshabalala Village (not the present township of that name) Son Bulagu Khumalo was reported staying at Fort Usher and later at Nkonyane Farm below the confluence of Wovi and Malunde rivers. It is this man who was reported saying to his daughter-in-law as okuyisigadla, because she was a Mhlanga of Swazi extraction.
When people were being evicted from Matobo District in the 1950s some of the descendants of Chief Mazwi Khumalo (not to be confused with Chief Mazwi Gumede , the father of Chief Menyezwa) went to Lupane. The Mthenjwa headmanship in Lupane is descended from this now defunct chieftainship.
UMzinyathi Village had its original chief in the person of Majijili Gwebu. By the time the Ndebele entered Matabeleland Chief Majijili Gwebu was advanced in age or he was among those that were eliminated in connection with the Prince Nkulumane Khumalo saga. Whichever way, Umzinyathi was led by Mkhaliphi Khumalo belonging to the Khumalo section calling itself Ngwende, ingwe yamanyathi, amanyathi amnyama angasinyamazana, ovumangoqo wokucina, uDonda weziziba, ababusa izizwe beziyenga ngengoma.
The two houses, those of Gwebu and Khumalo would alternate as chiefs sometimes under acrimonious circumstances. For example, Chief Tshibhini Gwebu, son of Zulu, was sent on a raid to the land of the BaTawana by King Lobengula Khumalo. The BaTawana were said to possess a famed big cow whose long horn and big nestled some hornets (izimpondo ezibekelela olonyovu).
Of course, there was no love lost between the king and Chief Tshibhini Gwebu who stood accused of flirting with the Gaza queens that had accompanied Queen Xhwalile Nxumalo and were then living at Emzinyathini. Chief Tshibhini Gwebu responded by naming his son Mangamani or Mangabani.
The fallout between the two houses led to the name Mthonzima, who is the Gwebu man who was whisked from Plumtree to become chief of Umzinyathi — thus successfully snatching the chieftainship from the Khumalo line.
Umzinyathi, located on the headwaters of Umzingwane River on the site of EManqeni Farm owned the late anesthetist Dr Jahalamajaha Dlamini, was an old ixhiba ruled over by induna sankosi and it spawned several villages such as Intshamathe, under the Xabas, uDukada, uYengo later under Chief Mlugulu Khumalo, uGodlwayo under the Mafus, aMatshetshe under the Masukus (oNqamakazi) and Intunta under the Mkhwananzis (oMpande yamadoda).
We also see another village being led by a Khumalo man. The village was known as iLanga located east of present day Cement Siding on the Bulawayo-Harare road. The chief of the iLanga Village was Nungu Khumalo who belonged to Dunga kaMamba, okaKlekekleke, uMthiya kaMafu who was succeeded by son Silevu. During the time of land alienation the chief of Elangeni was Sambane who together with his people initially settled at Esigodini due to problems relating to transport logistics. Later the evictees settled in Ntabazinduna only to be evicted once again.
This time, in 1967, they went to settle in Binga District. By that time Chief Sambane Khumalo’s people were so few they could not constitute a viable chieftainship.
There were other villages whose chiefs were non-royal Khumalos. Khisi Khumalo, also belonging to uNgwende, was in charge of Amanguba Village just north-west of Inyathi Mission.
Wherever the royal capital town was located, there were a number of fringing villages which constituted isiphika, some protective zone to ensure enemies did not access the king. Amanguba were part of isiphika at the time King Mzilikazi Khumalo lived at Emhlangeni with Queen Loziba Thebe, okaPhahlana as Indlovukazi. Chief Madliwa Khumalo okaTshoko represents this chieftainship which today is in Nkayi across the Shangani River.
Finally, there was one village within Amakhanda section known as Insinda whose chief belonged to the Inzonda kaMatshitshi section of the Khumalos. Jahana Khumalo was chief of Insinda in the colonial period and he and his people were spirited out of Emakhandeni to Gokwe, only to come back recently to re-establish their chieftainship in more or less the same area that they occupied in the pre-colonial period.
Any of the royal sons, born of a king and not a man, was regarded as a potential future king, generally referred to as Umntwana.
One of such sons was Prince Sibhamubhamu Khumalo the son of King Mzilikazi Khumalo who is said to have escaped across the Zambezi River and settled among the BaRotsi in Zambia. As a matter of fact, there are many Ndebele people in that part of Zambia who got there at the time of the Anglo-Ndebele war of 1893. The son of Prince Sibhamubhamu Khumalo, Prince Mathuphula Khumalo, was the only royal son who became chief in Tsholotsho District.
When we get to individual chieftainships we are going to identify some that fell by the way side, at the time of colonization or were demoted to headmanship or completely abolished in 1951.
One example is that of Mbuyazwe Village which was under the Nzimas. We do know that Zimema Gumede the father of Mazwi, born in the 1990s and died in 1924, married Singaphi Khumalo the daughter of Matele Khumalo. He was succeeded by son Chief Menyezwa who at the time of his installation was already married to MaNzima the daughter of Tshabhadana Nzima a brother of Mkhombo Nzima who was the chief at Mbuyazwe just north-west of Bulawayo.
We need not point out that the Ndebele kings married daughters of prominent chiefs while the same prominent chiefs became sons-in-law of the kings. One example will illustrate the point. Chief Thunzi Ndiweni was the brother of Queen Mpoliyana Ndiweni the mother of Prince Njube Khumalo. Queen Mpoliyana Ndiweni got married to King Lobengula Khumalo. Chief Faku Ndiweni on the other hand, married King Lobengula Khumalo’s sister, the one Princess Nedlana Khumalo a daughter of King Mzilikazi Khumalo and mother of Nyangazonke Ndiweni.
It was a maze of relationships which created a well-knit network of political and socio-economic power relations within the Nguni section of Ndebele society.
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