The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
LAST week we referred to the categorisation of Ndebele regiments. In particular, we referred to intelligence gathering regiments/villages, izihlabamkhosi/izikhuza and those whose names are of cosmic origins such as Inkanyezi.
Further, there are regiments that were named after cultural artefacts such umgoqo, plural imigoqo, that were used to secure the entrance into a cattle byre.
There were still regiments that were named after fierce animals, those that are known to be ferocious fighters. An example in this category is Inqama, the ram. Another good example is Inyathi, the buffalo. When it came to animals, the tame and weak ones were not used to give their names to regiments. The shrewd hare was one such.
Today we take a look at the naming of the regiments that constituted what we referred to as isiphika.
We have alluded to isiphika or rather iziphika surrounding the two Bulawayos.
We gave emphasis to their defensive and security roles. Given that Ndebele royal towns were never located at one permanent site, it meant regiments constituting isiphika relocated in tandem with the seat of power.
In order to illustrate that point we made reference to Inhlambabaloyi, sometimes referred to as Inhlambane under its first chief Thambo Ndiweni, a descendant of Madanga.
Inyathi, the buffalo, was a name appropriately given to a regiment.
A buffalo is a ferocious fighter. Buffaloes have robust and extremely sharp horns.
When they launch an attack, they will come together, surround the enemy and deal ruthlessly with it. It is this known fighting prowess of the buffalo that led to the crafting of a proverb that embraces its behaviour.
Here then is a case where categorisation embraces observed behaviour and an animal.
It is, in the first instance, an animal that is chosen. Secondly, the animal is chosen on account of its known behaviour.
The proverb is, “inyathi ibuzwa kwabaphambili”. Literally, this means you inquire about the buffalo (its manner of fighting) from the elders.
It is important to know that “abaphambili” is not referring to those in front. Rather, it is referring to the old ones who have been around, on earth, longer. They have, on account of their longer experience, come to know more things than younger persons with shorter experience.
Figuratively, it means advice is sought from those with requisite knowledge gathered through experience.
Inyathi as a name has a lasting legacy. There is a high school in Bubi which bears the name.
In Bulawayo there is a youth club in Mpopoma named Inyathi. For our purpose today, we want to look at Inyathi as the Ndebele seat of power during the reign of King Mzilikazi and identify isiphika that surrounded it and, where possible, try to render the origin of the names of those regiments.
Inyathi was the seat of power after Amahlokohloko II which was located near present day Gloag High School.
Amahlokohloko I was where Reverend Dr Robert Moffat found King Mzilikazi in 1854 during his first visit when the Ndebele were domiciled north of the Limpopo River. It was west of Isiphongo Hill off the Bulawayo-Inyathi road.
By the 1850s King Mzilikazi had relocated to the north of Ngwigwizi River, along a stream that was a tributary of the former. At the time, the environment was better watered and, as a result, there were river reeds, imihlanga, that grew in the area, hence the reference name of Emhlangeni which has since become the name of the adjacent primary school.
Reverend Robert Moffat’s second (1857) and last (1859)visits found the king staying at Inyathi. Clearly, Inyathi has a lot of heritage, both Ndebele and Christian missionary which has, unfortunately, not been tapped into by the successor to the London Missionary Society (LMS), the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA).
There were a number of regiments/villages that constituted isiphika at the time to adequately offer defence and security to the Head of State, King Mzilikazi.
It ought to be known that isiphika formed a ring or circular formation around a capital town. So it was with Inyathi or Emhlangeni as it was also referred to. Inyathi referred to the regiment while Emhlangeni referred to the natural environmental attribute. The river reeds that abounded.
Let us start in the east. The one regiment/village found to the east of Inyathi was Ujinga, sometimes referred to as uJinga lukaMletshe. Insiza Store, along the Bulawayo-Harare Road, is part of the area where Ujinga was located.
The place was appropriately termed, in the locative form, as Ojingeni.
Mletshe Ndiweni was the chief. He was succeeded by his son Nkomo whose sister Queen Mahwe (spelt as Marwe in old literature) was wife of King Lobengula. She lived at Ojingeni. Her unmarked grave, indeed the case with most Ndebele royal graves, is not far off the road from Insiza to Inyathi Mission.
At the time of occupation, Ujinga residents, then under Chief Nkalakatha, were evicted from their traditional homes of rich soils to be relocated where a team of whites had, in 1894, identified the Shangani Reserve (Nkayi/Lupane) where the defeated Ndebele were to live.
Johan Colenbrander was one of those who ventured into the Dark Forests to mark off the place designated for the Ndebele. The Nkalakatha chieftainship still exists in Nkayi and has absorbed people from another regiment/village to the east that was part of isiphika.
That regiment was Izinyanga, locative Ezinyangeni. Ezinyangeni was a name referring to the traditional doctors, in particular the Mloyi people. The village and its people were sometimes referred to as Ezinyangeni zikaMzondo. Mzondo Mloyi was the chief of the people of Ezinyangeni. The area was at the turnoff from Bulawayo-Harare Road to Shangani Mine, extending as far as Shangani Railway Siding.
It is important to appreciate the geographical spread of a village/regiment.
Ezinyangeni homesteads, like any other village, were scattered over a wide geographical area. This was not true of the arrangement of royal towns which were compact in consideration of defence and security. In the latter case the homesteads surrounded Isigodlo where the King and Queens lived.
Isiphika was beyond these homesteads constituting the Peripheral or Commoners Enclosure surrounding the Royal Enclosure.
The area occupied by Izinyanga consisted of fertile soils. When land was being expropriated Ezinyangeni people, then under Chief Duha Mzondo Mloyi were evicted and relocated in Nkayi, an area comprising sandy soils and thick dark forests, Emaguswini amnyama.
When several villages were being pushed into more or less the same area, that resulted in overcrowding. Some of the chieftainships were abolished or reduced to a headmaship. Izinyanga has its chieftainship abolished while its people were placed under Chief Nkalakatha Ndiweni. Many of these people are found at Guwe, Gwiji and Ezinyangeni.
Not so long ago there were efforts to resuscitate the chieftainship.
The efforts seem to have hit a brick wall. Ezinyangeni is today remembered through the UCCSA school and church where nationalist Welshman Hadane Mabhena had his homestead which was destroyed by Gukurahundi. Ezinyangeni is not far from Nkayi Administrative Centre, just off the KweKwe-Nkayi Road.
To the north of Inyathi there was Inqobo, locative Enqotsheni. We have already given the origin and meaning of the name of the regiment and that Mthini Mphoko Ndlovu was the chief of the village, umuzi or ixhiba.
What we may need to point out here is the general policy of carrying out evictions and concomitant relocations.
Those villages in the northern part of the state were relocated further north while those in the east were relocated further east. Villages in the western part of the state were pushed further west, for example to Tsholotsho.
Those in the north such as Ezinyangeni, Inqobo, Ujinga and others were pushed further north to Nkayi and Lupane within the designated Shangani Reserve.
Of course there were exceptions to this general rule. For example, there were people from Emakhandeni in the east who, under Chief Siphoso Dlodlo, Ezinyangeni homesteads, like any other, were scattered over a wide geographical area.
Ezinyangeni homesteads, like any other, were scattered over a wide geographical area. Ezinyangeni homesteads, like any other, were scattered over a wide geographical area.
