The Sunday News
I HAD least expected the journey. The Unesco Harare cluster office meanwhile had other plans. Some European nation, a Unesco State Party, had set aside funds to sponsor a delegation to attend Zambia’s Ngoni annual Nchwala (inxwala) ceremony. The year was 2011; the last weekend of February. I was tasked to put together a small team to undertake the trip to Zambia.
My immediate task was to constitute a three-member team that would be accompanied by Mulekeni Ngulube in charge of culture at the Harare cluster office. One member of the delegation was to be a traditional leader — a chief. The chief that immediately came to my mind was Malaki Masuku in the northern part of Matobo District.
Sadly, at the time he was under the weather and as a result could not travel. I then had to approach another traditional leader that I could get hold of over the phone. Indeed, I got hold of Chief Gampu Sithole whose ancestor Chief Maqhekeni was a leading chief under King Mzilikazi. He was one of the chiefs that constituted umphakathi, the inner circle of chiefs that King Mzilikazi consulted on important issues.
Based at Emagogweni, his chief village, Chief Maqhekeni was in charge of several newly established villages. He had become the head of Igabha, when the Ndebele were still in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Sotho incorporates were enlisted into villages that came under the authority of Chief Maqhekeni. These Sotho people soon outnumbered the original Nguni, hence the term igabha meaning to outnumber.
At the time of arrival in present day Zimbabwe Chief Maqhekeni saw many of the local incorporates fall under his charge as part of Igabha lamasandle. Villages such as Amabhukudwana, Inqama, Izinala and Inyamayendlovu were all aligned to Amagogo. This is to say they were spawned by Amagogo. When a village exceeded the threshold some sections of it were hived off to constitute a new village ixhiba under a chief appointed to look after it.
The idea of hiving off sections of an overpopulated village remains with regard to Intemba, a village located near Koce River. Intemba was, at the time of King Lobengula, under Chief Xukuthwayo Mlotshwa, the father of Mvuthu. A word that refers to the process of hiving off comes from the way an animal skin was trimmed with an adze. The word is ukuncela (hence the name isancele) and the off-cuts are referred to as izinkondo.
When time came to hive off a section of Intemba the new ixhiba that was formed was appropriately named Izinkondo, the off-cuts from Intemba. Sikhombo Mguni was placed in charge of Izinkondo. As we said in an earlier article, Chief Sikhombo Mguni was in actual fact descended from Mphubane Mzizi, King Mzilikazi’s traditional doctor. Mphubane, as we reported, had impregnated a maiden chosen by the king during umhlanga ceremony. Mphubane then pushed paternity to a Mguni man. Indeed, there are many Mzizis in Esigodini and elsewhere who, as a result use Mguni as a surname on account of Mphubane’s fear of royal repercussions.
The other person that I included in the team was the Reverend Paul Bayethe Damasane who at the time was in charge of the Division of Sport Arts and Culture within the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture. We were to go by road using Reverend Damasane’s car. Early in the morning we took off and the three of us were joined by Mulekeni Ngulube who comes from Malawi. As you can tell from her name, her parents were some of the people that were incorporated into Zwangendaba’s migrant nation as they struck north.
Our aim was to put up for the night in Lilongwe the capital city of Malawi and in the morning the following day proceed to Zambia. Our route was the Mutoko road from Harare. Our port of entry into Mozambique was the Nyamapanda Border Post. I had not travelled along the route before. So for me it was an opportunity to sample the new places. Of particular importance to me was the hut architecture. It certainly was different from that which we encountered near Harare.
One thing that struck me were several bags placed by the roadside. We later learnt that these were bags containing charcoal. The people burn wood to obtain charcoal that they use as a source of energy for lighting and cooking. There were several market places that we came across. On sale were several commodities such as fish and some fruits. Items of clothing were also on sale. I took a keen interest in the baskets that they made. We were told that the people were of Tonga origin.
We continued to descend. It was clear there was a river beyond which has a low river valley. Indeed, we soon got to the Mazowe River-quite vast and very different from the small river not far from Harare. There was intense heat all the way. In fact, the heat got more and more intense as we continued to descend. We got to a turn-off to the massive Caborra Bassa Dam. We were travelling through the Tete Province of Mozambique where Zanla forces joined Frelimo in 1972. Our descent ended when we got to Tete town.
There was visual evidence of a growing settlement. New residential buildings, warehouses, factories and other infrastructure were sprouting from the ground. Tete was no longer the small sleeping settlement that it had been. Now the heat reached its peak. Sweat drenched our bodies. It was time to refuel-both the car and us. A short distance from where we had our meal we could see the massive bridge looking like the Birchenough Bridge across the Save River in Manicaland.
Apparently the bridge was undergoing refurbishment. One of the lanes was closed. Cars crossed in one direction at a time. Looking down from the bridge, the Zambezi River waters seemed still, but menacing. There was on the other side of the Zambezi River evidence of development. However, the old run down settlements still existed. From here we began the ascent that would take us to Lilongwe in Malawi.
Here there was evidence of an increasing amount of rainfall. The forests got thicker and thicker as we went along. The grass was lush and green. We got a puncture to the car tyre that presented us with an opportunity to view the landscape which was quite picturesque. The variety of tree species was much wider in comparison to the low lands in the Zambezi Valley.
We then got to the Mozambique-Malawi border. The border post seemed a very busy one as there were several heavy duty trucks bearing containers. Here and there we saw men playing intsoro on portable boards. The wooden boards had hinges and could thus be closed and taken home in the evening. We were then in Malawi with its imposing mountains. It was a sight to view and wish one were a bird to soar high and sample the natural beauty of the land.
Now there were patches upon patches of maize fields. It was a good cropping season and maize seemed to dominate followed by tobacco. Soon the sun was swallowed by the darkening horizon. We entered Lilongwe and headed for a hotel where we spent a restful night. We looked forward to the following day when we would be on the final leg of our trip to Mpezeni’s country of the descendants of King Zwangendaba’s people.
