adminIT were the Afrikaners under the leadership of Andries Hendriek Potgieter that were the decisive factor in pushing the Ndebele beyond the Limpopo River. The Marico Valley was the last settlement of the Ndebele under King Mzilikazi who had earlier settled at two places (the Vaal: 1822-1827 and Mhlahlandlela: 1827-1832).
The Zulu attacks (1828 and 1837) together with those of the Griqua (amaLawu/amaHiligwa) and some Sotho-Tswana groups were responsible for the movement of the Ndebele nation which appropriately came to be referred to as the migrant kingdom. The Afrikaner attack of 1837 was the more devastating. The forced departure of the Ndebele at a time when crops were in the fields points to a hurried departure that was not planned or expected.
Recourse to the division of the Ndebele into two groups also bore testimony to a serious threat emanating from the Afrikaners who were armed with guns.
For our purposes in this article, we are interested in the resulting two-year separation between the two sections: aMnyama angankomo and amaKhanda that were led by Khondwane Ndiweni and aMhlophe and iGabha that the king himself led. The latter went through Botswana and proceeded to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans: utshani bude buseMahalihali, kabutshi nakutsha. Bothi nyakana butshayo buyokutsha nemitsha yamadoda (the grass is tall at Mahalihali. It does not burn, but when it burns, the men’s manhood sheaths will also burn).
The two-year separation of the two sections led to two problems. Only the king was authorised to order raids on other ethnic groups. This was a well calculated measure to ensure that booty from a raid was accounted for. The king had control over the wealth that the raiding party brought back home: children and livestock. Khondwane and his men, most likely with concurrence from the senior queens, Mwaka Nxumalo and Fulatha Tshabalala, decided to anoint Prince Nkulumane the heir apparent, as the de jure and de facto king of the Ndebele.
Prince Nkulumane was a minor at the time and that meant effectively that it was the chiefs, headed by Khondwane Ndiweni with the tacit support of the queens who were calling the tune. Raiding was thus sanctioned and the parties were departing from Gibixhegu the chief village where Khondwane Ndiweni was chief. The man that the king had trusted on account of being his maternal uncle proved to be treacherous. It was the same uncles that had led Prince Mzilikazi to leave KwaZulu-Natal and start his own state that was doing the same with Prince Nkulumane.
Secondly, the two-year separation led to some men in the Khondwane Ndiweni party to believe the king was either dead or lost, meaning effectively that the groups were not going to meet up again. Some men began flirting with the women; in particular the queens whose husbands were in the party that King Mzilikazi led in a north-westerly direction.
While all this intrigue was going on one man, Mkhithika Thebe, was steadfast that the king should be sought out as he believed the king was still alive. Oral traditions are unanimous that Mkhithika set forth to look for the king. Indeed, he caught up with him and reported the treachery that had taken place. The king fumed. “There are never two suns in the sky. No sun ever rises before the other has set,” he declared angrily.
The Swazis under Queen Nyamazana were already in the area not very far from present-day Bulawayo. Word got to them about the treacherous incident that had taken place. “Sekonakele phakathi kwamakhosikazi”, things have gone wrong among the King’s queens. It was thus the installation of Prince Nkulumane and the flirtation with the queens and other women that incensed the king.
The Swazis knew King Mzilikazi was close to where they had settled. Apparently, the King, who later went as far as the hill called uMfaz’umithi, instructed his soldiers not to attack the Swazis. “They are our relatives,” he said.
However, it was a different story when it came to the erring chiefs and queens. They were dispatched to the land of the ancestors. While researching on the history of the Bhebhes, we came across a story that some maidens were killed in order to act as “mats”, amacansi, during the burial of the queens.
Some chiefs were put to death while others made good their escape. Notable among the survivors were the members of iziMpangele, a regiment which included the Mahlangus and their relatives. The soldiers fled across the Limpopo River back to South Africa. Among the survivors was Mveleleni Mahlangu. At the time of his escape his wife had a young child who was appropriately named Sivalo.
The young son, it would turn out, was to be the last, isivalo, born to Mveleleni’s widow who herself remained behind when her husband fled with the rest of the men. The name Sivalo would later become that of a chieftainship in Nkayi with Sivalo becoming its first chief in the post-colonial era.
Bongani Ndlovu