The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
INTEREST in the interior of Africa fired imaginations of all kinds of Europeans. Africa was, in their wildest of imaginations, the backburner which held scope for economic exploitation and the fulfilment of their adventurous zeal. In due course, they began venturing out of ports from places such as England with some of them coming ostensibly to bring light to the Dark Continent. The London Missionary Society (LMS) was a product of efforts that sought to bring down the walls of denominationalism in the perceived grand effort to proselytize Africa, an “outpost of paganism” that they sought to bring under the clutches of Christianity.
For the LMS, their interest and zeal were ignited in particular by the dispatches of adventurous missionary Dr David Livingstone. Dr Livingstone travelled as far afield as Luanda in Angola from which he communicated his experiences on the African continent. He travelled down the Zambezi River and saw the marvellous and enchanting falls which he quickly named after his own queen in England, Queen Victoria. The world would then say Dr Livingstone had discovered the Victoria Falls when, in actual fact the Tonga and Dombe people lived nearby and knew about the falls.
If the African continent was to be penetrated, for whatever reason, it was imperative to weaken and preferably completely destroy those tribes that were perceived as warlike and therefore impediments to the march of Christianity. For the LMS, such tribes were the Kololo (Amagololo) under the leadership of Sebituane (uSibindwane). The Sotho speaking tribe had been catapulted as far as the Caprivi Strip by Mfecane whose epicentre was in the trading and enslaving coastal areas of South Africa.
The second group was that of the Ndebele under King Mzilikazi Khumalo. Once again, this was a tribe that had fallen victim to the resource-driven trials and tribulations which saw a few hundred followers of King Mzilikazi Khumalo the son of Matshobana and Cikose Ndiweni leave the area to seek independence for his people. The direction that they took, informed by the position of the military cauldron and that taken by earlier military leaders who hived off from South Africa and travelled in a north-easterly direction, saw them drift towards the north west. The direction taken by King Mzilikazi Khumalo placed him and his followers directly in the expansionist push that the Afrikaners would take in 1835, the famed Great Trek. For the never-say-die LMS Scottish missionary, Dr Robert Moffat, the Ndebele advanced in the direction of his intended advance into the areas of the BaTswana and BaSotho.
It came as no surprise that Dr Moffat undertook two visits, in 1829 and 1835, to the Ndebele monarch at a time when he and his people were still domiciled south of the Limpopo River, uBengwane. On the second trip he was accompanied by another group of adventurers keen to document the diversity of flora and fauna species in the interior of Africa. The expedition was led, as pointed out earlier, by Dr Andrew Smith who had started off from India, a British colony at the time.
Another visit into the interior was undertaken by Captain Richard Cornwallis Harris in 1836. Like Dr Livingstone and Dr Moffat, he documented experiences along his journey. That way, he captured some elements in the history and culture of the Ndebele people. Though Dr Moffat had visited the Ndebele monarch in 1835, he made sure he maintained contact so as to nurture and entrench his romantic relationship with the Ndebele king. His persistence and perseverance would, in later years, yield the results he so desired through the establishment of the first LMS mission station, indeed the first Christian outpost in Zimbabwe, Inyathi Mission in December 1859. Wrote Captain Cornwallis Harris, “Although the tyrant had not opposed the establishment of the Mission (at Mosega) its presence was far from agreeable to him, so he withdrew from Mosega (p75).”
The perceived Dark Continent abounded with strategic minerals such as diamonds and gold. Mineral prospectors would not be left out. Soon, Africa’s diamonds would grace the crowns of European kings and queens. Diamonds were discovered towards the close of the 1860s at Kimberley. Gold would soon follow when it too was “discovered” initially at Tati in present day Botswana. Discovery of these minerals excited imaginations of yet another type of European, the colonist who sought to conquer African kings and chiefs and acquire unbridled exploitation of African resources, both minerals and the land. One of the missionaries at Inyathi Mission, Reverend Bowen Rees gave a lucid account of imperial machinations regarding the Ndebele State.
Captain Cornwallis Harris records that he was welcomed into the interior by Dr Wilson who superintended a mission station at Mosega near the sources of the Marico River. However, these were the missionaries that relocated to the land of Moshoeshoe, a Mokwena, when the area came under firm Ndebele settlement with Gwabalanda Mathe as chief in the area. The king had relocated to Egabheni, a section of the State under the leadership of Maqhekeni Sithole.
It has been suggested that the new section, ixhiba, was so named in view of the fact that the incorporated and assimilated Sotho/Tswana people outnumbered the original Nguni group that came out of KwaZulu-Natal. The word “gabha” indeed has several meanings. These days it refers to a tin container. For example, informants who trained under ZPRA in Angola in 1977-79 were referred to as abafana begabha, the tin boys. Their Cuban instructors both at Boma near Luso and Luena gave them very little food, rice and banana, in small tins with more or less horizontal handles. Their (Cubans) argument for meagre portions was that they had to get used to surviving on limited food rations. Indeed, it did pay dividends when the Angolan-trained ZPRA cadres went to engage the enemy in the front.
Ukugabha also means to eject stomach contents, particularly early in the morning prior to consuming food. Emetics are used to induce vomiting as a way of reducing acidity in the body. Ndebele soldiers, prior to embarking on long haul raids, started off with ukugabha which was performed at the royal town which, nearly in all instances was the springboard of military expeditions. It was so done to ensure resources, in the form of booty, were controlled by the monarch to avoid the emergence of other secondary sources of political and economic power. The soldiers were better positioned to endure long journeys, sometimes beyond the Zambezi River to places such as KoMbizakazibulawa in Zambia where Ndebele armies contracted smallpox, isikhwaribhana, in 1893.
Finally, ukugabhela means to overwhelm. Two meanings are evident in this case. Initially, it means to outnumber numerically. However, it may also imply to overwhelm in terms of power. Certainly, incorporated Sotho/Tswana people did not overwhelm the Nguni in terms of military power. The latter ensured they remained in full control, politically and economically. However, the Sotho/Tswana incorporates, Abenhla, did numerically outnumber the Nguni, Abezansi. The Sotho/Tswana incorporates sought to identify with the Nguni to a point where their ethnic identities were conveniently concealed in order to be associated with a more prestigious Nguni identity. To this day this remains a big hurdle to a full comprehensive appreciation of ethnic identities of formerly Sotho/Tswana people who ventured south to acquire new Nguni identities.
Captain Cornwallis Harris observed in his movements within Ndebele territories the presence of ox wagons belonging to the Erasmus family. The ox wagons had been captured by Ndebele soldiers and taken to the king to show off their valour. The wagons had canvass covers that the Ndebele viewed as a roof, uphahla. To this day the people of Ematshetsheni, then under Chief Sifo Masuku pride themselves for being, “Abathwali bophahla, indlu kayivulwa”. For some, reference to “abathwali bophahla” has been lost as they regard uphahla today as meaning the roof of a hut. This does not come as a surprise given that sometimes name tags outlive their meanings which remain clouded and concealed in the thick mists of history.
