The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi – We did not, in the preceding articles, give a rendition of the narratives of the BaTonga per se. Our goal was to give their side of the story with regard to the fate of the Ndebele King Lobengula. There is unanimity that the head of the erstwhile Ndebele State in his northward advance passed through the lands of the BaTonga, in particular the place under Chief Nganza. It was Nganza’s chieftaincy that later acquired the name of Pashu.
That there is a claim that the Ndebele king’s burial place is a cave in Pashu’s country is not without foundation. The white colonists were aware that he did indeed pass through Chief Pashu’s country. As to whether his remains were indeed interred in the cave is a totally different issue altogether. The Ndebele were good at devising ploys to mislead pursuers and malevolent individuals. When the whites pursued King Lobengula one group cut a path through some forest and shouted the praises of the king so that the whites would believe he was travelling in that direction.
Meanwhile, the king would be moving swiftly ahead in a totally different direction.
The same strategy seems to have been applied with regard to the resting place of King Mzilikazi. Too many people some with malevolent intentions would be interested in the remains of the king. Such fears were not without foundation. The suspicions were rooted in the Ndebele and indeed in the African worldview and cosmology. The king carried in his flesh so many medicines introduced through incisions at strategic places in his body. These medicines were meant to protect the king in the metaphysical sense. As a measure to reduce the amount of these medicines in the body of the king, his flesh was not interred soon after his demise. Instead, the corpse was retained within a hut where it underwent the process of decay.
In the case of King Mzilikazi we are told that the monarch passed on at the neighbouring village of Enqameni in September 1868. His body was then taken back to his capital at Mhlahlandlela where it lay in state for almost two months. Women maintained vigil in the hut where the royal corpse was kept. In order to withstand the strong stench, they plugged their nostrils with leaves from the aromatically scented inkiza plant. Meanwhile, fresh cow skins were used to wrap the body, ukumanqalaza.
We know that two months later the royal remains were interred in a cave at Entumbane: his bones in one cave and the broken down wagon and other personal effects in another. There is a claim that his body was later relocated by very few close relatives and interred elsewhere where men and women of evil intents would be led up the garden path.
There is perhaps a more authentic claim regarding a more recent death where a similar ploy was resorted to.
When Princess Famona Khumalo, a daughter of King Lobengula and Chief Hole Masuku’s wife died at Emthangaleni, just south of the Wovi River in Matobo District, she was buried at a place where every Tom Dick and Harry knew about. However, at the dead of night her husband Chief Hole Masuku exhumed the royal princess’s body and reburied it elsewhere. Graves and their contents were prone to the activities of malevolent persons bent on harming the relatives of the deceased.
The fleeing King Lobengula is said to have passed through Dongamuzi and Mzola towards the land of Chief Nganza. There were apparently scouts that went ahead of the royal party to reconnoitre the route for him. That meant selecting a route that had least encumbrance to his movement. Chiefs lying in his chosen path had to be approached and diplomatic relations established. It was no longer time to fight wars that would attract the attention of white colonists.
The king’s emissaries took him to Chief Nganza’s place where he and his party were well received and allocated a concealed cave in which to stay. The king’s royal sanctuary was provided with round-the-clock security by Tonga guards. Meanwhile, the king was being medically treated, suggesting he had sustained injuries during his flight. It is not clear though how the king sustained those injuries. It certainly would not have been from his pursuers’ bullets.
When the Ndebele forces engaged the white colonists at Pupu the king had already moved ahead.
Apparently, the king left with Chief Nganza. The king could have been keen to conceal all trace of his movement just in case his pursuers got to the chief. They were not to find the king and his close aides with knowledge regarding his whereabouts. This was an important consideration in the flight of the king. Those with knowledge about his movement had to be put down so that his movements would remain shrouded in mystery. This came out clearly in recent interviews with Moffat Ndlovu the former Bulawayo City Council Town Clerk and Roma Nyathi, ZPRA’s first political commissar in 1965.
The king and his party meanwhile chose a treacherous route but one that could offer them protection from potential pursuers. From Pashu’s country the king went to Sianzyundu and further on to Kariyangwe. From there he and his hostage Chief Nganza and entourage followed a tributary of the Sibungwe River on their way towards the Zambezi River. In the vicinity of where they tarried a place was named Bulawayo Kraal in memory of where the king once lived and ruled from.
Here comes a claim that is perhaps not given in the historical narratives of the colonists and their historians. The king’s pursuers did get to Pashu’s country in pursuit of the king. The trekkers got to Siabhulu’s place. The people were totally ignorant of the king’s whereabouts. The people were thoroughly beaten. They may have been telling the truth since all information relating to the king was classified and kept away from all and sundry.
The pursuers were on the right track. By the time they got to Pashu’s country they met with an empty cave where the king was hidden. Receiving no joy the party proceeded to the homestead of Chief Nganza’s brother Siangoma. They met with a group of relatives wailing in bereavement of their leader, Chief Nganza. This was yet another decoy. The mound of earth that the pursuers encountered was certainly not Chief Nganza’ resting place. Their chief had accompanied King Lobengula in his march towards the Zambezi River.
Pursuers were deliberately given wrong information. They were directed towards Sinamagoza’s place, that is Lusulu.
From there they went to Sianzyundu where the horses and their riders fell down a precipice and died. Tonga hunters later found the decomposing corpses of the horses and their masters. The bodies were infested with maggots called nzyundu in Chitonga.
The one name that lives on in Pashu’s country is that of Mposwane. This is apparently a corruption of Mpotshwana. Mpotshwana was an Ndiweni man who is reputed with calling the Ndebele nation to rise up in arms in 1896 — Imfazo II. He is reputed with saying, “Madoda lolani incukuthu!”. His name today lives on as the name of a small stream in Pashu’s country.
Another name that popped up in my interview with George Nyathi is that of Magwegwe. We know Magwegwe Fuyana was a senior chief at KoBulawayo. He assumed the position following the installation of Prince Lobengula in 1870.
When the King relocated his capital in 1881 from Enyokeni to the site of the present-day State House in Bulawayo, Magwegwe retained his post as the senior chief, induna yezinduna. Again, mention of the name of Magwegwe is not misplaced; his fate seems entangled with that of King Lobengula. Was he the central figure in yet another decoy to conceal the whereabouts of the Ndebele monarch?
