adminMagagula
Gutshwa agoduke
Yakalala
Lin’ elibahle njengohlamvu lophoko
Mahota(not clear)
BhulankulU
Lina elaphekwa lelitshe
Kwatsha ilitshe kwasala umuntu
Ngoba lingabaNgongolothi
Ulwandle kalumelwa
Luwelwa zinkonjane
Ngoba zona ziphapha phezulu
THE above praise names are an excerpt from the family praises of the Magagulas as furnished by Antony. While his own ancestors were cowed by the mighty Zambezi River and beat a quick retreat, his relatives proceeded with Zwangendaba Jele to Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania.
An interview with Magagula will show him as one who is deeply steeped in the history and traditions of the Ndebele. That comes as no surprise given his royal connection. Research over several decades by this author has revealed that those associated with royalty are custodians of history and cultural traditions.
The royal elite were the repositories of the nation’s traditions. Not only were they in the forefront of preserving the national heritage, but they used that heritage to legitimate their rule. Even when conquest took place, the royal houses remained as pockets of national memory. The history and traditions lingered on when the rest of the people were keen to abandon the old ways and extol the new ones. Royalty had vested interests in the past in which they formed the political, economic, spiritual and administrative reference point.
We saw this to be the case when we interviewed Chief Malaki Masuku of Khumalo. A descendant of the combative Hole who fought gallantly during Imfazo II (1896) his grandmother was Mfamona (Famona) Khumalo a daughter of King Lobengula by MaMkhwananzi. Long after the demise of the Ndebele State in 1893 the Hole household continued to be a veritable source of historical information and traditions.
Princesses, like the princes, were beneficiaries of the trappings of power during the heyday of the Ndebele State. They, as part of royalty, together with other privileged groups such as the chiefs, stood to lose the most when the state was destroyed. In the fading oral traditions during the post-colonial period, the royal elite remained as centres of a nostalgic past where they called the tune.
So, we discover that this is true of Antony Magagula. His royal connection is not with the Swazi people under Queen Nyamazana Dlamini. This group was assimilated into Ndebele society in which they were not the most privileged.
King Lobengula’s ascension to the throne was contested on the very fact that his mother Fulatha Tshabalala was of Swazi extraction. When Prince Njube, King Lobengula’s rightful heir, married a Xhosa woman he too faced a similar problem, namely that a Xhosa woman cannot produce an Ndebele heir. It was this consideration that led Prince Njube to marry a woman whose lobola was produced by the nation. Ndabayecala was the name of the son.
Instead, Magagula was connected to the royal Khumalos. His mother was one Pombo a daughter of Princess Sidambe Khumalo the daughter of King Lobengula. Following the falling out of favour of Queen Xhwalile Nxumalo who was destined to the chief queen, Lozikeyi Dlodlo took up and played that role.
However, Queen Lozikeyi did not have a child. In line with Ndebele tradition, the Dlodlos availed the king with another Dlodlo woman to become surrogate wife to him. That surrogate wife, inhlanzi in SiNdebele, was one Mamfimfi the daughter of Mletshe Dlodlo. Mletshe was a close relative of Ngogo the cultural father of Lozikeyi from eNqameni. This is to say Ngogo was not his biological father. She and Mazha were born of the same man.
Tradition dictated that the inhlanzi’s child, the eldest in particular, was taken to be the child of the aunt or sister without a child. In fact, Mamfimfi herself did not immediately conceive. The services of a gynaecologist were solicited. His name was Sidambe of the Ncube totem and was of the Nyayi stock. Once again, tradition was clear on issues like this. The child resulting from such gynaecological intervention was named after the doctor or his ethnic group.
There are several names that come to mind in this respect: Nyamande (King Lobengula’s eldest son), Majinkila (Dliso Mkhwananzi’s son), Hole (mother attended to by a Kalanga doctor — ihole) and of course Sidambe herself. In essence, therefore, Sidambe became Lozikeyi’s daughter. Even when the latter died from influenza in 1919 the latter inherited a large herd of cattle on account of being the only child and heir to the Queen of the Ndebele.
Princess Sidambe got married to Siyatsha Fuyana, the son of Mantilingwane from eSizindeni. Siyatsha lived at eNgagwini not far from the Thekwane River along the present Bulawayo Victoria Falls road. His father’s home was close to the Mawala Mountains-ewatheni lentaba. When more and more land was expropriated, the people who used to occupy prime land were evicted. Siyatsha moved to the upper reaches of the Bubi River where Goodwood used to be. It was here that Siyatsha, the man who once undertook a journey to KwaZulu-Natal in search of his kith and kin, married Princess Sidambe. Siyatsha had other wives: Simangamanga Tshongwe the mother of Wilson Lethizulu, Myanga and Manene; MaKhumalo the daughter of Jabhi.
Jabhi Khumalo came from KwaZulu-Natal with some whites for whom he acted as wagon driver. His co-driver was Mbhele. By virtue of being a royal princess, Sidambe took precedence over other wives of Siyatsha irrespective of whether they had been married earlier than her. Whoever had hitherto been senior wife was relegated to a lesser status — as uKhutshwekhaya, the one evicted from the main homestead. She wielded more power than her own husband — by virtue of authority rubbed on to her by the fact of being the daughter of a king.
The offspring from the Siyatsha-Princess Sidambe marriage was Pombo, who got married to Mzimubi, Magagula’s father. In fact, Mzimubi left in protest when the young Antony was taken to Princess Sidambe’s household where he literally became her son. Mzimubi protested that Princess Sidambe was abusing royal privilege to deprive him of his son. He left in a huff never to be seen again.
Magagula thus became his grandmother’s ‘‘son’’. The grandmother was no ordinary person; she was a royal princess from whom Magagula imbibed the royal stories and traditions. Through Magagula’s accounts we are able to glean some historical information generally lost to those without royal connections.
Online Reporter