The Sunday News
THERE was pomp and fanfare. Thousands of Ndebele troops were gathered at the royal capital. King Mzilikazi was the centre of attraction as the officiating person. The occasion was the annual reed festival when the king chose maidens to join his burgeoning harem of queens. Beautiful maidens paraded past the king. He made his choice: a Mguni girl won the attention of the monarch. As fate would have it, one of the progeny of this stunningly beautiful girl would be a daughter-in-law for Princess Sidambe Khumalo.
Marieke Clarke and I tracked down the said girl, one Fakubi Fuyane (nee Mguni) to get the scintillating story. “Pathisa, you have come to get the secrets of our ancestors?” she says displaying the beauty that she inherited from the maiden that attracted royal attention. I was sitting close to her at her homestead in Lupanda, Lupane. On the previous day and a half we had been undertaking intensive interviews of Antony Magagula at his homestead close to the banks of the Gwayi River, in an area known as Masungamala.
She obliges and the story begins. After the king had chosen the Mguni maiden, one of the close confidants of the king had his own eyes set on the same maiden. His name was Mphubane Mzizi, a famed traditional healer for the king who belonged to the aMazizi ethnic group. As the story is told it was this Mzizi man who played a decisive role in the clashes between the Ndebele people and the followers of one Magodonga (Mahlangu). Doctor Mzizi resorted to medicinal and spiritual interventions to effect defeat on Magodonga.
Mzizi went beyond merely setting his eyes on the stunningly beautiful Mguni maiden. He went on to do the most treacherous thing —impregnating the Mguni girl. Mphubane Mzizi was fully aware of possible repercussions of his reckless actions. He was not prepared for the worst penalty. He denied paternity of the baby boy that was born to the Mguni maiden.
The Ndebele had their own version of a paternity test. The test was applied, but only when the baby had grown up to crawling stage. A number of people sat down, forming some kind of circle and placed the baby boy whose paternity was in question at the centre. He was to identify, in the presence of all and sundry, his father. The baby boy was accordingly placed at the centre, surrounded by curious and apprehensive people. Indeed, the baby once left alone, started crawling, ukuhayazela and went straight to its father who was also in the circle. Mphubane Mzizi was the man identified by the innocent baby boy.
Accusations were piled on Mphubane, the royal doctor. Why did he deny paternity until such a test had to be administered? He was not evasive, indicating to the stunned onlookers that it was fear of royal reprisal that made him deny responsibility.
However, in order to protect the distraught Mphubane Mzizi from the royal act of vengeance, it was decided that the baby boy would use his maternal uncles’ surname of Mguni. That way the boy and his progeny became Mguni instead of Mzizi. It is important to point out that this particular Mguni house is not the same as that of Magubela, the Madlalas.
Fakubi went on to give an eloquent rendition of the Mguni family praises:
EMguni
EMphankomo
EMsezane
ENambeni
EMadiyaha
EMtsheyele
EMbinda
ELugogo
Fakubi was apparently not au feit with the Mzizi family praises. However, she acknowledged that her father Msombuluko was referred to by the Mzizi surname rather that the Mguni one. Fakubi was born at Tshayile (Shiloh) a farm first established by the Reverend Thomas Morgan Thomas of the London Missionary Society at Inyathi Mission. The Welshman had quarreled with the other missionaries at Inyathi. Fakubi’s father Msombuluko worked for Captain Henry Huckle Phillips who then owned the farm.
Her grandfather was Mtshede, (knighted with ugcobo (isidlodlo and belonged to Imbizo regiment), a brother to Sikhombo Mguni the illustrious Ndebele fighter who participated in the eastern campaign against the white colonists in the 1896 Imfazo II. Chief Sikhombo Mguni was in charge of eNtembeni Village at the time when Mvuthu, Xukuthwayo’s son and heir was still a minor. He was in charge of iZinkondo, a village that hived off from uMzinyathi when it was felt it had exceeded the limits of sound and effective administration due to increased population.
Msombuluko worked as a cook in the Phillips household. Siyatsha Fuyane was manager on the same Phillip’s farm, so he knew the little girl at Tshayile and her parents. Msombuluko’s wife was one MaKhanye (uMwelase). It was Siyatsha Fuyane, husband to Princess Sidambe, who saw the young lady first. “There is a girl that I have seen that I think you should propose love to,” said Siyatsha to his eldest son Wilson Lethizulu Fuyanane. Indeed, Lethizulu started ukugangaya, ukukhombisa.
Meanwhile, Siyatsha died, in the process outliving her royal wife Princess Sidambe. The latter was also advanced in age and needed someone to help with household chores. It was Princess Sidambe who was now pushing for the marriage of Fakubi Mguni to Lethizulu. Indeed, Antony Magagula whose mother Pombo was the daughter of Princess Sidambe was dispatched to Tshayile with a royal injunction to bring with him the identified girl.
Antony set off and delivered the royal message to Msombuluko who in turn summoned his wife MaKhanye to listen to the story from one Princess Sidambe who they knew well. The two dared not turn down the advances of the royal princess. Indeed, Fakubi packed her meager belongings and set off to the Fuyane homestead accompanied by Antony Magagula. This was an initial visit to afford Fakubi the chance to see the Fuyane homestead (ukubona umuzi wakoFuyane).
In the fullness of time Msombuluko arranged the ritual called ukucola and a team of women, umthimba was put together to accompany Fakubi to the Fuyane homestead. The umthimba went to Noli Mguni’s homestead before proceeding to the Fuyanes. Noli was a brother of Msombuluko and thus an uncle (ubaba omncane) to Fakubi. Noli kept some cattle, izinkomo zamasiso, belonging to his brother Msombuluko who arranged that one of the beasts be slaughtered for the wedding party, umthimba.
The wedding party then proceeded to the Fuyane homestead. Fakubi was duly married to Lethizulu in 1954 and assisted with the household chores. That pleased the heart of the royal Princess Sidambe who died four years later in 1958 after instructing her relatives that she be taken to Chief Mabhikwa Khumalo’s homestead in Jotsholo. She suffered intestinal problems and later succumbed to death. Her remains were interred next to the cattle kraal-a practice befitting of a royal princess.
