The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
As promised today we take a look at the issue involving non-Nguni women in terms of their disqualification from bearing children (sons) that could succeed their fathers who were chiefs.
What should be apparent from the outset is that mothers were an important consideration for the mere reason that they were responsible for the socialisation of children. Women were the bearers of culture and transmitters of same. Further, we should appreciate that the subject that we are dealing with embraces both qualifications and disqualifications. The two should be viewed as two sides of the same coin.
However, we need to contextualise these qualifications and disqualifications. We have, in the past, tried to give due emphasis to the fact that behaviour has a basis, a legitimating worldview that underpins it. People do not just adopt certain behaviours, be they social or political arrangements without a basis or underlying belief. This we can do if we go back to the genesis of Ndebele society when it hived itself out of KwaZulu-Natal under the leadership and guidance of the founding king, Mzilikazi Khumalo, son of Matshobana by Cikose Ndiweni.
I have said it before that the fledgling kingdom had, from its very conception, twin fears that shaped a lot of political, social and cultural arrangements designed to deal with the duo. These perceived twin fears or challenges led to some social and cultural innovation in the form of crafting of socio-political arrangements which, in the final analysis, sought to ensure Nguni economic interests. Appointments of chiefs should be seen against this backdrop. Similarly, qualifications and disqualifications should be seen in the same light.
When King Mzilikazi Khumalo decided, with the tacit support of the Ndiwenis, his maternal uncles, to establish his own nation, he started off with a small population. From the very outset his followers did not constitute a homogenous society.
Within it there were people of Sotho origins for example some sections of the Nyathis that we wrote about not so long ago. Let us deal with this issue later. Our concern for now is with the numbers of his followers. Numbers, or the population, inevitably has a bearing on the continued political existence of a state. It is thought that there were no more than 500 people who accompanied the king on the northward journey. Many followed him later and did boost the Nguni component.
The first of the twin fears emanates from these limited population figures. Continued political survival was at stake. The king and his advisors had to come up with innovative social and political arrangements to deal with the first twin fear. Military defence of the state requires threshold figures.
Too few people may not succeed in defending a fledgling state. This is more so when we take into consideration that in Nguni military tradition women did not take part in fighting. We thus could safely say the new state had no more than 200 fighters when it left KwaZulu-Natal. There must have been men that were too advanced in age to take part in wars, further reducing the numbers of fighters.
Secondly, economic production presented a challenge where the population was small. The state could not be guaranteed continued economic survival when it did not possess the capacity to fend for its population. It comes as no wonder therefore, that the state countered the challenge through various military and socio-cultural strategies.
Where military or political threat was identified one response that was adopted was to migrate to a safer place — beyond the striking power. Once across the Drakensberg Mountains the Ndebele nation faced politico-military threats from the Zulu armies following the death of King Tshaka and his succession by King Dingane his brother and assassin who were keen to recover from King Mzilikazi Khumalo what they considered as stolen cattle. The Griqua, amaHiligwa/amaLawu, were another source of military threat. These collaborated with various Sotho tribes to wreak havoc on the emerging Ndebele kingdom.
The survival strategies that were adopted led to a series of settlements that were abandoned when military threats escalated.
The Ndebele had about three settlements south of the Limpopo River (Vaal/Ezinyosini: 1822-1827; Magaliesberg/Mhlahlandlela: 1827-1832; Marico/eGabheni: 1832-1837) at which they lived for five years each. Of course, the greatest military threat came from the Afrikaners in 1836-37, a time of military encounters that finally forced the Ndebele to cross the Limpopo and settle in southwestern Zimbabwe — a place they considered a safe distance away from the Zulu, the Griqua and their Sotho-Tswana allies and the Afrikaners (Boers).
At the same time, raids were undertaken with a view to boosting the population and thus quickly reach threshold figures to effectively defend the state. Defeated tribes paid tribute in various forms including grain and cattle. Amakhubathuli was a term referred to the large herds of royal cattle on the move (obviously so named because as they moved about they raised, ukukhuba, a lot of dust, (uthuli). At the same time the term came to refer to the fledgling kingdom on the move as a survival strategy.
Bravery was rewarded while cowardice was punished. At a very tender age boys quickly engaged in games that prepared them for their future roles as defenders of the state. One such game with militawry objectives was ukubhaqa insema — that is target shooting a rolling tuber. Age sets were encouraged as these helped develop some esprit de corps that would come handy when men engaged the enemy — for example amalalandawonye as part of the Godlwayo regimental praises. We could go on and on ad infinitum but suffice to say there were several arrangements on the social, cultural and political fronts that were instituted in order to deal with the first twin fear and guarantee the continued political survival of the new state. Echoes of that fear reverberate to the present.
Let us now briefly deal with the second twin fear as it is this one that has a direct bearing on the topic under discussion. We have indicated that the initial population that came out of KwaZulu-Natal was not homogenous in ethnic terms.
Even before the start of the journey there was reference to abeNhla people, the northerners, a term with both geographical and ethnic implications. In the north, enNhla, resided Sotho-Tswana tribes and apparently included Sothoised Ngunis such as the Mahlangus, Mabhenas, Sibindis, Mgutshinis, Sikhosanas, Masukus (Phenyane), Mkwananzis (uGawu, Masombukas, uMakhwentaba) and many others. These were considered to have cultures that posed a threat to Nguni culture.
What this meant was that Nguni culture was under threat from the very beginning and the situation was aggravated by the incorporation of these very same people who it was envisaged would boost the population of the Ndebele State for purposes of defence and economic survival. Social discrimination was then adopted to ensure the continued cultural identity of the Nguni.
A core component of society consisting of the Nguni was created, a core or elite set apart to enjoy positions of leadership as village/regimental chiefs/regimental commanders and controlled the institution of marriage which, if not directed and circumscribed, would have seen the swamping of Nguni culture as happened with the Shangani and the Ngoni people of Zwangendaba. As pointed out above, women were perceived as the primary players in determining fostering, nurturing and safeguarding cultural identity. Children grow up within iguma, the forecourt, a gendered section of the homestead under the exclusive control of women.
Foreign cultural influences would have entered the nation via individual households, through the socialisation processes and activities of non-Nguni women. Language would have become the first casualty. Powerful stigmas were developed to enforce compliance. Nguni men found it a terrible social transgression to marry outside the confines of Nguni ethnic margins. When, for some strange reason, a Nguni chief married a non-Nguni wife, that wife did not give birth the eldest qualifying son to succeed even if in terms of chronology he was older than the son of a Nguni wife. Circumscribing the marriage institution and effectively fencing it off with attendant social stigmas was meant to safeguard Nguni cultural identity.
There was a clear link or association between political power, economic power and enforcement of social and cultural arrangements all sharing a single purpose, that of ensuring the continued existence of Nguni culture. Even when the political situation had changed the social stigmas lingered on. Even within churches such as the Brethren in Christ Church, Nguni men still preferred to marry within Nguni social circles. Wendy Urban-Mead’s research (The Gender of Piety: Family, Faith and Colonial Rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, 2015) which focused on the BICC, showed that this was the case.
