The Sunday News
Cultural Heritage with Pathisa Nyathi
WE are at Bhekeni, in Ntabazinduna, also known as eManxeleni after two hills to the west. A sizeable gathering of related people has got together at Captain Nyathi’s homestead. Some few years back Captain, a veteran ZPRA cadre, organised that I interview him and his relatives regarding their history. Indeed, they made some immense contribution towards the Nyathi history research that I was undertaking a few years back.
The occasion is a tombstone unveiling ceremony for Mgobo Nyathi the ancestor of the Nyathis who are gathered today (26 September 2020). A solemn service was conducted by a Methodist pastor followed by a short walk to the cemetery where Mgobo, injakazana ebukhali eyaqeda abakoSilolwane was buried.
Mgobo donned isidlodlo the proud headdress for men arrived in Zimbabwe with the Ndebele people under King Mzilikazi at the end of the 1930s. He was featured in the book of the Nyathis, titled, “The History and Culture of the Babirwa People of Botswana South Africa and Zimbabwe.”
After I had given an account of the history of the Nyathis, it was time to interview some people who were part of the crowd that was gathered to honour their ancestor, Mgobo.
One of those that I interviewed was Ngqali Ruth Dlamini, nee Nyathi who was born on 3 November 1933 at Gadade, the site of the battle that pitted Ndebele soldiers against white invaders in November 1893. Her father was Mthuso and her mother was a MaNdebele from eGabheni. Mthuso’s siblings were Mewuza, Zibomvu, Jikisa and Bikiwe.
Ngqali’s life story touches on numerous themes and historical episodes that are important milestones in the history of Zimbabwe. Ndebele society was organised on the basis of regiments, imizi or amaxhiba. That of her father was known as Insingo under the command of Somabhulane Dlodlo the eloquent man who gave a clear and moving narrative of Ndebele history when Ndebele chiefs were gathered eSidulini in the Matobo Hills in 1896 during a meeting where Cecil John Rhodes was in attendance to arrange a ceasefire.
Ngqali, who was given the name Ruth when she attended school, grew up on Whitesrun Farm which runs from Ntabazinduna to Filabusi. The whites who were running were those who, when the Ndebele soldiers were advancing during the Battle of Gadade in November 1893, found themselves outside a laager that had been made.
The said whites were trying to bring in some horses that had strayed far from where the white soldiers were gathered inside the laager, umgwalo. While they were out there the Ndebele soldiers approached them and they ran for dear life, hence the name of the road.
Following defeat of the Ndebele during the Anglo-Ndebele war the state collapsed and whites got busy looting cattle and land. Ndebele people found themselves squatting on farms that had prior to 1893, been their land. Ruth Ngqali found herself being born to parents who had become squatters on Whitesrun Farm where an Afrikaner man, one Terrblanche lived.
In 1943 when World War II was raging, she went to enroll at David Livingstone Primary School which was run by the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa. The Head of school was Mr Tazibona. William Manond was on the staff at the time. In 1950 she completed Standard 6.
When the British South Africa Company (BSAC) took over Rhodesia following conquest, it did not bother to provide education to African children. Instead, it built schools for their own white children and established schools such as Eveline, Montrose, Milton, Coghlan, Gifford and several others.
Provision of African education was left to various Christian missionary denominations such as the Roman Catholic Church (they opened St Patrick’s) Anglican Church (who opened St Columba’s). Both schools were in Makokoba Township.
It was not until 1945 that the first primary school for Africans in Bulawayo was opened. The school was Mzilikazi Primary School. White headmasters were in charge then. Only in 1946 was the first African secondary school opened.
The school was Goromonzi Secondary whose first Head was one Mr Mills who died in 1951. Ruth Ngqali was among the few girls that enrolled at Goromonzi. She was there from 1951 to 1953 when John Hammond was principal after having replaced Mr Mills.
Hammond was principal of Tsholotsho Agricultural School which was attended by men who would later become leading nationalists in Zimbabwe. When malaria wreaked havoc at the school, on account of many places with stagnant water, it relocated to Umzingwane. The likes of JZ Moyo, Joshua Nkomo, Edward
Ndlovu, Boysen Mguni, Lazarus Nkala and Stephen Jeqe Nkomo attended the two institutions.
Ruth Ngqali had faced some challenges with payment of school fees following the death of her fether in 1948. His grave is at Gadade. Among the students at Goromonzi at the time were Herbert Ushewokunze who would later become a medical doctor following training in South Africa.
There was also Walter Kamba, the man who would, after independence, become the Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe (UZ.). While at Goromonzi he was the Headboy. He would later marry Angelina Dube who used to stay with George Silundika in Highfield Township. She became the first black Director of the National Archives of Zimbabwe.
Among the girls at Goromonzi was Sarah Chavunduka from a family that produced university graduates including Gordon Chavunduka, a leading Sociologist who became Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe after Walter Kamba. There was also Dexter Chavunduka in the agricultural field. Before 1963 the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland catered for students from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Teaching was one profession that was open to Africans in Rhodesia alongside Nursing. Teacher training colleges were established by various Christian denominations. Christian denominations established teacher training facilities. The Salvation Army opened Howard, while the Brethren In Christ Church opened Mtshabezi. It was to Dadaya that Ruth Ngqali Nyathi turned to train as a teacher in 1954 and stayed till the end of 1955. She enrolled for a two-year Primary Teachers’ Higher Certificate (PTH).
Dadaya is associated with Garfied Todd who set up the mission under the auspices of the Church of Christ. He had arrived from New Zealand and ended up as Prime Minister of Rhodesia during the days of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
At the time when Ruth attended Dadaya a Mr Napp was Principal. Among the students at Dadaya that she remembers were Mrs Elizabeth Madida from Mtshabezi and Mrs Jane Noko from Bethel in Gwanda South. There was also Japhet Mabaleka whose younger brother was Mark Mabaleka who had a twin sister. On the staff were Lot Senda, who later in life acquired a legal profession and Amos M P Sibanda who became a school head in Bulawayo.
(To be continued)
