adminPathisa Nyathi
KING Lobengula was seated with some men in his royal court under isagogwane tree. Persons arriving at the royal court extolled and chanted the king’s royal praises till they took up their seats. They performed ukugiya through which they artistically demonstrated how they acquitted themselves in battle, showing in particular how they felled an enemy or two. As they got closer to the king they went down on their knees but still shouting laudatory praises at their king.
On this particular day there appeared a small boy, a captive who brought bad news to the king. At some nearby village one man kept goats, ukusiselwa imbuzi belonging to the king. A he-goat, impongo died and the people who looked after the goats sent the boy to inform the king. They reckoned the captive boy, owesihlangu or isoka or imbovane or ilalaze who was not fluent in SiNdebele would, through his broken SiNdebele, charm the king.
The young lad, arms raised high, got closer. “Ngizebika Nkosi!” I bring some message my Lord and king. “Sondela mfana!”
Come closer, urged one old man.
“Khuluma!” Say what brings you here.
“Isiwewe senkosi sivuke sifile!”
The king was puzzled by the message, as expected.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Isiwewe senkosi sivuke sifile!”
This was a case of applying language usage from a foreign language and literally translating it to SiNdebele. A he-goat woke up dead, is the literal translation. How does a dead goat wake up? In some languages this is perfectly alright but not in SiNdebele. The king realised that the young boy was still an amateur in SiNdebele and laughed it off heartily. The boy was given some spiked meat, eyoluthi as his provision on his return journey.
We tell this humorous story to show that there was time when the king attended public court with men. Apparently, Ndebele women did not attend court, inkundla.
Most of the time the king was inaccessible to the public. Visitors were kept at bay till permission had been granted by the king for the visitors to meet him.
We are still dealing with H Vaughan-Williams and his sketch of Umvutshwa royal satellite town. The one section he identified was what he termed the royal sanctuary, some private quarters for the monarch. Royal seclusion was in line with the people’s worldview, all calculated to ensure his security, both in metaphysical and physical senses. Royal food was prepared by trusted men who supervised some amasoka who prepared food. Amasoka or imbovane were captives who the king trusted as they never harboured any ideas of wanting to take over power from the king. These were, as a general rule, well fed and introduced to the martial arts of the Ndebele and indeed, became expert fighters who defended King Lobengula when in 1872 uMbiko kaMadlenya Masuku the chief of Zwangandaba and others threw the nation into a bloody civil war.
Royal food was closely guarded and kept within the royal sanctuary where insila kept a close look on it. Insila provided close security to the king. When the king died he was killed to provide a mat for him. A story is told of one such insila kaTshaka by the name of Jeqe Mlilo who sensed imminent death after the assassination of his boss in 1828. He sought some pretext to help him escape. Jeqe, who was King Tshaka’s insila, took to the heels till he got to the land of the Xhosa. Those who pursued him never caught up with him, in the process earning for himself the following praises, “umzila kawulandelwa, owulandelayo uyazibambelela.”
A person of king epitomised both the state and the nation. The state of the nation took after his personal circumstances. This is the reason why when the king was captured that was tantamount to national defeat. When King Lobengula left his royal capital in November 1893 he vowed, “Sengihamba kodwa angisoze ngibanjwe yisandla seSili” I am going but no hand of a white-skinned person (a pejorative reference to a white person) shall touch me. Indeed, whites failed to capture the king even when they were very close to him across the Shangani River.
From time to time the person of king had to be strengthened with special royal herbs ukutshwama. Certain intelezi medicinal formulations were applied on his person to ensure danger did not stalk him. Even when cornered, he was expected to escape through the use of uphunyuka bemphethe. The king needed some secluded place where the traditional doctors would attend to him.
Ukuchinsa was important for the king. He partook of the first fruits where newly ripened crops were mixed with herbs and milk and applied on the knees in a ritual called dolo qina, literally knee be strong. Lower level ukuchinsa medicines were then administered throughout the country to instill effortless loyalty to the king. The king used his royal sanctuary to have the medicines administered on his person.
King Mzilikazi had some interesting encounter with King Magodonga. A nation could be subjugated on the basis of metaphysical defeat. Amalibho, tests of strength, were applied. King Magodonga went for such a metaphysical test of strength. King Magodonga was able to plunge into a pool of water with a burning fire brand and emerged the other side with the fire brand still burning. When King Mzilikazi tried to conjure the same feat he failed dismally. His doctors hatched a plan to match King Magodonga’s doctors.
King Mzilikazi’s doctors spied on the movements of King Magodonga. What they were looking for were his faeces, more specifically the top most bit of faecal matter known as ilunda. This was a way of accessing medicines that King Magodonga had consumed. Once armed with ilunda of his adversary, King Mzilikazi’s doctors used their own herbs to neutralise King Magodonga’s power and prop those of their king.
Indeed, King Magodonga lost his supernatural or metaphysical powers and King Mzilikazi got the better of him and had him killed and his people incorporated into the burgeoning migrant Ndebele nation. This emphasizes the need for the king to have a private sanctuary where his faecal matter, urine and sweat and other wastes would not be accessed by those with evil intentions. For the Ndebele people and other African groups overcoming another nation and ruling the subjects was not merely a physical exercise but very much a metaphysical one.
We are reminded of the story of how Tjilisamhulu king of the BaLozwi defeated the BaKalanga by marrying off his daughter Bagedze to him. Bagedze was requested to cut off the supernatural tuft of hair on the Kalanga king and bring it back to him. That is how the kingdom of BuKalanga lost power to the BaLozwi, so Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu tells us. It is these intrinsically African spiritual interventions which are not appreciated by white historians who hold cosmological views that are diametrically opposed to those of Africans.
Online Reporter