Ethnicity in Zimbabwe: Transformations in Kalanga and Ndebele Societies, 1860-1990 1580464181, 9781580464185

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Ethnicity in Zimbabwe

Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora Toyin Falola, Series Editor The Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History University of Texas at Austin (ISSN: 1092-5228) A complete list of titles in the Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora series, in order of publication, may be found at the end of this book.

Ethnicity in Zimbabwe Transformations in Kalanga and Ndebele Societies, 1860–1990

Enocent Msindo

Copyright © 2012 by Enocent Msindo All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 2012 University of Rochester Press 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA www.urpress.com and Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-418-5 ISSN: 1092-5228 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Msindo, Enocent. Ethnicity in Zimbabwe : transformations in Kalanga and Ndebele societies, 1860–1990/Enocent Msindo. p. cm. — (Rochester studies in African history and the diaspora, ISSN 1092– 5228 ; v. 55) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58046-418-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Ndebele (African people)— History. 2. Ndebele (African people)—Ethnic identity. 3. Kalanga (African people)—History. 4. Kalanga (African people)—Ethnic identity. 5. Matabeleland (Zimbabwe)—History. 6. Matabeleland (Zimbabwe)—Ethnic relations. I. Title. DT2913.N44M75 2012 305.80096891—dc23 2012013542 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America. An earlier version of chapter 3 was published as “Social and Political Responses to Colonialism on the Margins: Community, Chieftaincy, and Ethnicity in BulilimaMangwe, Zimbabwe, 1840–1930,” in Grappling with the Beast: Indigenous Southern African Responses to Colonialism, 1840–1930, ed. Peter Limb, Norman Etherington, and Peter Midgley (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 115–55; an earlier version of chapter 5 was published as “Language and Ethnicity in Matabeleland: Ndebele-Kalanga Relations in Southern Zimbabwe, 1930–1960,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 38, no. 1 (2005): 79–103; and a part of chapter 6 was published as “Ethnicity, Not Class? The 1929 Bulawayo Faction Fights Reconsidered,” Journal of Southern African Studies 32, no. 3 (2006): 429–47. All are reproduced with permission.

For Essy, Jil, and Benediction

Contents List of Illustrations

viii

Acknowledgments

ix

List of Abbreviations

xi

Note to the Reader

xiii

Introduction

1

1

Ethnicity and Identities in Matabeleland

4

2

Domination and Resistance: Precolonial Ndebele and Kalanga Relations, 1860–93

30

Remaking Communities on the Margins: Chieftaincy and Ethnicity in Bulilima-Mangwe, 1893 to the 1950s

65

Ultraroyalism, King’s Cattle, and Postconquest Politics among the Ndebele, 1893 to the 1940s

93

3 4 5

Language and Ethnicity in Matabeleland

115

6

Contests and Identities in Town: Bulawayo before 1960

136

7

Complementary or Competing? Ethnicity and Nationalism in Matabeleland, 1950–79

179

Postcolonial Terror: Politics, Violence, and Identity, 1980–90

211

Conclusion

229

Notes

235

Selected Bibliography

287

Index

297

8

Illustrations Figures 2.1

Kalanga smelting forge, Dombodema, 1916

44

2.2

Precolonial map of “Matabeleland” redrawn from Lionel Decle’s Three Years in Savage Africa, 1898

46

Map showing approximate location of Kalanga communities and chieftaincies in Bulilima-Mangwe before the 1920s

73

Ndebele leaders at an Indaba at Government House, Bulawayo

86

3.3

Ndebele chiefs of the Gwaai District

86

3.4

Mazwi, an Ndebele chief with his family

87

4.1

Photograph of Chief Maduna II

109

7.1

Cartoon on the 1963 ZAPU-ZANU split

194

3.1 3.2

Tables 3.1

List of chiefs and headmen in Bulilima-Mangwe District in 1908

80

4.1

Victims of Rhodes Lobengula’s “king’s cattle” demand

112

6.1

Ratio of “aliens” to local Matabeleland people in Bulawayo, 1906–10

139

Acknowledgments For some readers, this book is potentially polemical because of the ways in which I engage some of my elders and mentors who, over the years, trained and inspired me to become a historian. For others, it may come as a welcome relief. I wish to thank many people who played a role in one way or another in my life as I worked on this book. Professor Terence Ranger, who taught me for two years at the University of Zimbabwe, played an important role in shaping my academic career in its formative stages. I greatly appreciate Terry Ranger’s continued encouragement, guidance, and engagement with my work, even though he does not agree with some of my views. I respect his disagreement and thank him profoundly for the very professional attitude he maintains, as I also do toward his work. There is no scholar whose writings I have read more avidly in my career than Terence Ranger, and I never cease to be amazed and challenged by the way he writes. During my stay in Cambridge (England), I was fortunate to meet some of the leading scholars of African history, who in their earlier years had worked with Ranger. Professor John Lonsdale, who supervised my doctoral thesis, impressed me with his deep theoretical grasp and very broad knowledge of African history and beyond. John, I am heavily indebted for the oversight and encouragement you have provided over the years. Professor John Iliffe was always amazing because of his attention to detail, and his oftentimes “photographic” memory that makes it appear he has vast information at his fingertips. The African History Group that he convened at Cambridge, whose members are now scattered across the globe, I really miss. My mother, who molded me in a great way, but unfortunately died before she saw this book, will be sorely missed. To my older brother, Maxwell (and the rest of my family), whose prayers, support, and guidance I will always cherish, God bless you. You have shaped my life and made a difference! To Essy, thank you for bearing with me during the whole research and writing process and for being such a loving wife. I am also forever grateful to my pastor, Enock Mbeveri, who has constantly given me wise counsel and support. I would not have managed without the assistance of the staffs at the National Archives, Zimbabwe; the Cory Library, Rhodes University; the Bulawayo City Council Archives; the Jesuit Archives in Mount Street, London; the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London; the School of Oriental and African Studies (which houses the London Missionary Society documents); the Cambridge Library (which houses British Foreign Bible Society archives); and the Cambridge Centre for African Studies, as well as those

x Acknowledgments at the many other research centers I visited and benefited from during my research for this book. To my many oral informants in Bulilima-Mangwe, Bulawayo, Bubi, and elsewhere, who were so generous and trusting in relating to me their life experiences at a time that was far from ideal because of the crippling economic and political crisis in their country—thank you all, taboka! siyabonga! The views expressed in this book are entirely mine. I am also deeply grateful to Baka Kombi and husband, Elijah Ndebele, who accommodated me in Madyambudzi; Mr. Talon Godzi of Brunapeg, who made his home available for interviews; Chief Sangulube, who opened his home for me in Brunapeg; Mr. Jonathan Masola, with whom I stayed during my short time in Dombodema; and my close friend Luckson Ncube, who accommodated me in Siganda Bubi. I am also thankful for the many people who helped connect me to my oral informants. You all made a big difference in my research. Tapiwa Zimudzi, whose company gave me the courage to smile during those breaks at the archives when the research work was all I could think of, I thank you. Miriam Banda, my research assistant, whose mastery of both TjiKalanga and isiNdebele came in handy for me, I thank you. Last but not least, to the anonymous reviewers who were commissioned by the University of Rochester Press to review my manuscript, and to the series editor, Professor Toyin Falola, and his team—well done!

Abbreviations APs

Assembly Points

ATA

African Teachers’ Association

BCC

Bulawayo City Council

BFBS

British and Foreign Bible Society

BSACo

British South Africa Company (aka BSAC)

CAS

Centre for African Studies (Cambridge)

CID

Criminal Investigation Department

CNC

Chief Native Commissioner

CUL

Cambridge University Library

CWM

Council for World Missions

CYL

City Youth League

FROLIZI

Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe

ICU

Industrial and Commercial Workers Union

KCS

Kalanga Cultural Society

LMPS

Loyal Mandebele Patriotic Society

LMS

London Missionary Society (later CWM)

MCS

(Sons of) Mashonaland Cultural Society

MDC

Movement for Democratic Change

MHS

Matabele/Matabeleland Home Society

NAZ

National Archives of Zimbabwe

NC

Native Commissioner

NDP

National Democratic Party

NLHA

Native Land Husbandry Act

PCC

People’s Caretaker Council

PHS

Plumtree Home Society (aka Kalanga Cultural Society)

xii

Abbreviations

PNC

Provincial Native Commissioner

PIST

Post Independence Survivors Trust

RU

Rhodes University

SOAS

School of Oriental and African Studies (London)

SRANC

Southern Rhodesia African National Congress

ZANLA

Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army

ZANU

Zimbabwe African National Union

ZAPU

Zimbabwe African People’s Union

ZIPRA

Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army

ZNP

Zimbabwe National Party

Note to the Reader Sources This book is based on research from primary sources. My sources, which are clearly referenced in the notes, include official government documents, personal reminiscences, missionary correspondences and reports, autobiographies, newspaper collections, and oral interviews conducted in Zimbabwe, the UK, and other countries. Throughout this book, although I have made use of primary written sources from several archives housed in institutions in South Africa, the UK, and other countries, the bulk of my sources came from the National Archives of Zimbabwe. Unless explicitly stated otherwise in the notes, all sources are from the National Archives of Zimbabwe.

Names Some place-names and people’s names have been spelled differently at different times in the archival records. In this regard, while trying to capture such changes and also grapple with colonial officials’ spelling errors that seriously affected the way names were pronounced and even remembered, I have attempted to represent both the historical names and the ways they are spelled today by making reference to alternative names, where possible, in parentheses/brackets or in the notes. For instance, the chiefttaincy that was historically known as Madandume is also known as Matundume, Mandundume, or, more contemporarily, as Malalume, and I felt it was necessary to represent these variations in brackets. Except where variants occur in quoted text, the language of the Ndebele will be referred to as “isiNdebele” or simply as “Ndebele language,” and the language of the Zulu will be referred to as “isiZulu.” The language of the Kalanga will be referred to as “TjiKalanga,” following their rules of grammar. I will not use the Botswana variant, Ikalanga, which has been influenced by SeTswana. I have also used TjiKalanga rules of grammar in spelling some Kalanga place-names. Therefore I have used “Madyambudzi” instead of its Ndebele variant, “Madlambuzi” or “Madhlambudzi,” except where it appears as such in some quoted sources.

Introduction This work is a comparative study of two ethnic groups—namely, the Kalanga and Ndebele of southern Zimbabwe—whose interaction dates back to when a group of people (now called the Ndebele) settled in an area predominantly under the control of the then-weakening Rozvi state to which many small Kalanga polities paid homage. The book begins with the year 1860, following the establishment of the Inyati mission station in the Ndebele kingdom. In this work, it is argued that the interactions of the Ndebele and Kalanga peoples (the two significantly large ethnic groups in Matabeleland) over a long period of time has led to the emergence of complex identities that can be defined spatiotemporally as ethnic, regional, cultural, or even subnationalist. This complexity itself further makes studies of Matabeleland quite challenging and also controversial. This book is pioneering in its examination of the interactions of the Ndebele and Kalanga and the kinds of identities that were formed as a result. It also revises major debates about the formation of identities, especially ethnicity. With the exception of this book, there has not been any comparative study of Ndebele and Kalanga ethnicity and the related identities that their interactions produced. Although there have recently been a handful of groundbreaking books on aspects of Matabeleland history, no works on the history of the Zimbabwean Kalanga people, save for my recent publications in journals and edited collections, have been published. Apart from filling this gap that exists in Matabeleland history, this book contributes to African history and Zimbabwean scholarship in three main ways. First, by adopting a comparative approach to these two different communities inhabiting the same region, the book helps unravel the complexity of identities and how these have shaped the social and political character of the peoples in the region over a long period of time—beginning with the later part of the precolonial era through the postcolonial period. By examining these identities, we realize the hidden, alternative and unofficial histories; contested claims to land, to the city, and to authority in general; the struggle by communities defined as underdogs for recognition; and the different ways by which the dominant Ndebele have dealt with others of their region over time. By examining all this, we understand the contested nature of Ndebele identity and the ways in which being Ndebele has changed. However, to fully engage with the debate on Ndebele identity, one must necessarily grasp not only the region’s complex history but also its confusing contemporary politics: in Matabeleland there are, on one hand, calls for secession, while on the other there are calls for Zimbabwe to become a

2 Introduction federalist state. At the same time, some press merely for increased political recognition and economic development in Matabeleland within the broader, unitary Zimbabwean state. There is a marked difference between Ndebele as a political identity (in which such non-Ndebele peoples as the Kalanga and others could be shareholders) and Ndebele as an ethnic identity, which is a narrower construct in that it looks for and imagines as constituent elements of its own ethnicity aspects of what are called Ndebele culture and traditions, while also remaining malleable. Historically speaking, in Matabeleland, it was possible for TjiKalanga-speaking people to associate with the Ndebele people regionally (or politically) when they dealt with the postcolonial Zimbabwean government and yet also claim Kalanga ethnic affiliation when engaging in more internal community issues, such as the election of Kalanga chieftaincies and advocacy for Kalanga language, culture, and other issues pertinent to the domain of Kalanga “moral ethnicity.”1 The second contribution of this book lies in its revisiting of the debate on agency in the creation of identities. Scholars have generally viewed ethnicity and African identities as having been created by the elites, mostly within the colonial system. This scholarship, notwithstanding its various reformulations, does not offer a sufficiently close reading of the nature of the colonial social and political landscape. It, perhaps unwittingly, exaggerates the innovative and interventionist nature of colonial rule in Africa. In this book, I will argue that the colonial state in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was not well enough organized to thus intervene and that it operated in most cases on an experimental basis and by means of “stopgap” measures. Notwithstanding their pretense to know the “Natives,” colonial officials lacked a well-rounded understanding of African social and political systems and did not have close enough ties to the African communities that would have enabled them to influence Africans and effectively enforce colonial laws. Although colonial regimes generally possessed some inventive power, this capacity was limited by their lack of knowledge and information about their subjects. For their part, Africans took advantage of these weaknesses to create and sustain alternative identities that were neither expected of them nor accepted by the colonial officials of their times. The creation of such identities, I will argue, was not always the preserve of the African elites; an important part was played by the African commoners. This book therefore revisits constructivism as theory, and extends its scope by bringing in the role of commoners in creating ethnic and other identities within their communities since the precolonial era. The resurgence of Kalanga claims to chieftaincies, which went hand in hand with their opposition to the imposition of Ndebele chiefs, for instance, is only one such struggle against imposed colonial social and political structures. The third contribution of this book is its argument that the emergence of African ethnic consciousness and ethnic identities in Matabeleland did

Introduction

3

not have to wait for the imposition of colonialism, but actually existed during the precolonial era. Most constructivists overreacted against primordialism to the extent that they unfairly discounted the precolonial roots of ethnicity. Until more recently, most social historians in southern Africa and other parts of Africa tended to accept that political identities were more important than ethnic identities in the precolonial era—and that African ethnic consciousness did not exist then.2 In this work, I argue that the early phases of the creation of Kalanga and Ndebele ethnicity can be traced to the precolonial era, especially to the second half of the nineteenth century when relations between the Ndebele and Kalanga were marked by increasing competition for social, economic, and political space. In this struggle, the Kalanga generally became a vulnerable Other, who had to fight for the survival of their sociocultural institutions under threat of political domination. The Ndebele, as conquerors, attempted not only to perpetuate political power but also to impose parameters of social and cultural control upon the conquered in an effort to make them embrace Ndebele social and political identity. It will therefore be argued that precolonial ethnic consciousness coexisted with other identities such as belonging to chieftaincy and clan. This book therefore offers an opportunity not only to develop theory but also to test it with tightly knit body of archival and oral evidence. It covers a fairly long period of history: from the precolonial, through the colonial, to the early years of postcolonial Zimbabwe. Although this is primarily a historical work, the issues examined are of equal relevance to any serious researcher in African studies. I have deliberately developed my themes as separate chapters that inform each other as one reads on. The point in doing so was to demonstrate the ways in which debates around ethnicity and other identities in Zimbabwe, and particularly in Matabeleland, relate to the wider issues in both rural and urban Zimbabwe and also to broader developments of the Zimbabwean past.

1 Ethnicity and Identities in Matabeleland Ndebele and Kalanga Ethnicity: Theory and Context Matabeleland is a restless frontier where identities (ethnic, regional, and national) have shifted and taken on different meanings with time. The history of this part of Zimbabwe is not simply a history of the Ndebele people but also a history of many other ethnic groups whose cultures, traditions, and societies have yet to be sufficiently explored and whose pasts thus remain hidden. Most of the scholars that have written about Matabeleland have simply worked under the false illusion that Matabeleland was synonymous with Ndebele-land.1 Thus, we have only disjointed and tiny bits of Kalanga past, Tonga folklore, and a bit of Venda history.2 However, there is a growing scholarship on Ndebele history, such as Ngwabi Bhebe’s work on Ndebele and their encounter with Christianity;3 Cobbing’s and Rasmussen’s works on Ndebele sociopolitical history;4 and works on Ndebele religion, ethnicity, nationalism, evictions, and postcolonial history.5 Recently, Sabelo Ndlovu studied precolonial Ndebele history from a human rights dimension. Using mainly Ndebele aristocrats as his sources and operating within the ambit of the Gramscian theory of hegemony, Ndlovu tried to find “notions of human rights and democracy” in the alleged autocracy, barbarism, and militarism of precolonial Ndebele politics.6 Ndlovu’s use of the oral testimony of Ndebele aristocrats, the zansi, as his major source of information for his work is problematic.7 His informants, mainly descendants of the precolonial ruling Ndebele elite class, tend to purvey the official version of the Ndebele past that often overlooks certain precolonial Ndebele injustices perpetrated against neighboring communities and lower classes of the Ndebele society. This sanitized “official” history runs the risk of silencing other Ndebele histories, especially that of the ordinary people who were on the receiving end of the abuse of power. Today Ndlovu’s historical work seems to play an important part in legitimizing contemporary demands for secession from the Zimbabwean state as it provides a glorified and “usable” version of the Ndebele past that seems to have been suppressed by both the colonial and

Ethnicity and Identities in Matabeleland

5

postcolonial Zimbabwean regimes. A more glaring gap in Matabeleland history, however, is the complete absence of comparative histories of the many ethnic groups in this region, a void that this book seeks to fill. This book explores the relations between the Kalanga and Ndebele peoples, whose interactions date back to the time when Ndebele rulers invaded the area mainly under Rozvi control, to which numerous Kalanga polities paid homage.8 However, since earlier periods of Ndebele history are fairly well researched by a few historians, I will not focus on those earlier years, but will begin around 1860, a year after the establishment of the Inyati mission station in the Ndebele kingdom. From this time, written records became more available to help construct a meaningful history. In undertaking this work, my aims are threefold. First, I hope to understand the nature of Kalanga and Ndebele interactions and their different responses to critical sociopolitical and economic developments during the three historical epochs: the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial; I do not intend to write a general history of the Kalanga and Ndebele peoples as such.9 The interactions of these two ethnic groups over such a long time span produced complex, at times multilayered identities that constantly informed and defined these two groups’ view of ethnicity, nationalism, chieftaincy, language, urbanization, boundaries of belonging, and other factors in Matabeleland and on its margins. The comparative study of these two groups undertaken herein helps us distinguish between those that are Ndebele by virtue of ethnic identity from those who claim a broad-based Matabeleland regional and political identity by virtue of their capacity to speak an Ndebele language and their historical cultural associations with the region. Although Ndebele ethnicity is exchangeable, it is narrower than Ndebele regional political identity because the latter is more democratized as it incorporates ethnic Others as regional political partners. Although Kalanga people generally found it politically prudent to ally with Ndebele in the region, as has been the case since the late 1950s, they acknowledge themselves as a separate ethnic group from the Ndebele and closed their doors to ethnic Others when discussing sensitive local and internal ethnic issues such as the selection of their chiefs and the promotion of their languages in their schools and when dealing with such problems as perceived Ndebele cultural encroachment in their communities. Kalanga ethnic activism must therefore not be mistaken for another instance of mindless tribalism fighting against its opponent, Ndebele tribalism. It is clear that although Kalanga people tried to prevent a perceived Ndebele cultural threat, their real work was genuinely to try to rehearse what they thought would embody true Kalanganess in their communities. Their interactions with the Ndebele were therefore not synonymous with such instances where ethnicity is mobilized as an instrument for political competition—what Lonsdale termed “political tribalism”—but

6 Ethnicity and Identities in Matabeleland theirs was a special manifestation of “moral ethnicity.”10 Although they were inward-looking when debating strictly Kalanga issues, the Kalanga nevertheless reacted to external stimuli such as the Ndebele threats, the challenges of cosmopolitanism in town and other labor settlements, and above all, the challenges of colonial and postcolonial government policies that marginalized smaller ethnic groups. Therefore, debates that communities engaged in under the banner of moral ethnicity did not themselves necessarily make ethnic communities windowless. Instead, internal community debates did often give communities the latitude to look at others as well as critiquing themselves. It was not easy to define what being Kalanga or Ndebele was, without acknowledging what it was not. Since Kalanga confronted the twin problem of imposed Ndebele moral and political ideologies, conceived out of precolonial political realities and colonially imposed ideologies and traditions, the challenge of defining and maintaining Kalanga moral ethnic communities tended to carry some mild political overtones that helped to emotionalize their cause. The second aim of this book is to revisit the popular assumption that precolonial Africans were not conscious of ethnic identities as they were of their clans, chieftaincies, lineages, and so on. I maintain instead that nineteenthcentury African inhabitants of Matabeleland were conscious of their ethnicities, and that their social structures and networks were becoming more complex than has hitherto been assumed. The other identities that they also had did complement one another and were relevant in various contexts. Although a handful of scholars now admit in principle that precolonial ethnic consciousness was possible, most of them do not actually examine the nature of precolonial ethnicity within its social, political, and ideological contexts. There is a tendency to follow generalizations that run as follows: that precolonial Africa had fluid and unstable frontiers such that people’s identities often changed very rapidly with time and that Africans possessed multiple levels of identities such as class, lineage, village, and polity.11 Therefore, it has been held that precolonial ethnicity scarcely existed and that ethnicity was a preconceived notion that Europeans invented for Africans as an administrative instrument.12 This view and similar ones were propounded by social constructivists of the 1990s and beyond, who, having borrowed from Benedict Anderson’s influential notion of the nations as imagined communities, now define ethnicity as an imagined identity.13 With a few exceptions, this scholarship still lacks a deeper appreciation of the historical evolution of African societies before colonialism and does not consider the possibility that there was, more often than not, a complementary relationship between some African chieftaincies and their ethnic identities. This relationship was sustained even in those kingdoms that drew their subjects from various ethnic communities. Emerging scholars, like Carola Lentz, now stress the existence of what they term older “we groups.” According to Lentz, precolonial models of

Ethnicity and Identities in Matabeleland

7

identity resemble “ethnic maps” on which colonial constructions of ethnicity later were drawn.14 Although this admission is a step in the right direction, it is still shy of admitting the existence of a full-fledged precolonial ethnic consciousness in Africa. An attempt at that task by Poppy Fry, who studied the Fingo, established that Fingo identity merged as individuals defined themselves in response to the social landscape of early nineteenth-century Xhosaland and developed a set of shared ideas—especially ideas relating to the division of labor on the basis of gender and to ownership of cattle wealth.15 This very commendable effort demonstrates the constructedness of identity by both elites and commoners outside the ambit of direct colonial control. However, Fry’s case does not cover the precolonial era, for the period studied is mainly colonial as the British had already taken control of most of the Eastern Cape. Moreover, Fry is silent on whether this Fingo identity was ethnic or otherwise. My careful examination of precolonial Kalanga and Ndebele history leads me to argue that because of the nature of their relations in the second half of the nineteenth century, Ndebele and Kalanga communities were characterized by increasing ethnic consciousness and the desire to guard their social and cultural institutions against perceived “contamination” by the Other. This development was born out of Ndebele attempts to control the plateau. Facing a stronger Ndebele political newcomer who also wanted to transform the social and political landscape, Kalanga people felt themselves to be a vulnerable Other, who had to fight for the survival of Kalanga symbols, ideas, language, communities, and also in some cases political institutions in the face of political domination and forced social change. Consequently, strong Kalanga chieftaincies rose up by combining Kalanga-speaking communities that had repudiated Ndebele authority. These communities became a belt of people that spoke one language, TjiKalanga; that found their common cause and unity from resisting direct Ndebele political control; that married among themselves; and that also conducted some economic transactions that differed from those of the Ndebele. These Kalanga communities formed a buffer between Ndebele and the Tswana, farther west. Although Kalanga chiefs would have benefited from this popular desire by the commoners to maintain a community at a time of upheaval and change, they were not the sole movers in the creation of this Kalanga ethnic identity. The common people, like those among the Fingo studied by Fry, played an important role. This leads us to the third focus of this book: the debate on agency and identities in Africa. Scholars generally view ethnicity and African identities as having been invented or constructed by the elites within the colonial arrangement. This argument emanates partly from a misreading of the colonial social and political landscape and an exaggeration of the overall impact of colonialism in Africa. Steeped in the later nationalist historiographies of the 1970s, which blamed colonialism for creating tribalism and other forms of disorder in

8 Ethnicity and Identities in Matabeleland the African societies, advocates of this initial version of constructivism (the “invention/creation of tribalism” thesis) assumed that since the colonial rulers had little knowledge of the Africans, they proceeded by means of inventing traditions, institutions, and ideas for the Africans. Unfortunately, this perspective needlessly reproduces the old dichotomies of the West as modern and Africa as traditional, pejoratively. The theory unwittingly presupposes that colonial rulers, notwithstanding their ignorance, presided over a gigantic, orderly, and innovative superstructure (termed colonialism); it also assumes that these rulers easily uprooted “authentic,” organic African traditions, and invented and imposed on their African subjects new traditions that suited the colonial enterprise—traditions that their African subjects easily accepted as their own.16 This perspective makes precolonial African societies appear overly simple, on the one hand, and colonial regimes and institutions overly sophisticated, on the other. Any reading of precolonial Africa demonstrates that precolonial African societies were not so loosely organized to have been unable to develop simple elements of moral economy that were necessary for the creation and development of ethnic identities. On the other hand, we have to accept that, although the colonial state had within its power the ability to make laws, imprison people, and enforce certain social aspects in defense of so-called colonial civility, the same colonial state, especially in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), was also a disorganized institution that operated in most cases on an experimental basis without a well-informed understanding of African systems and lacking close ties with African communities. Its inventive power was limited both by the colonizers’ inadequate knowledge of their subject peoples and by their inability to enforce some of their new laws. On the other hand, Africans took advantage of these weaknesses to create and celebrate their identities even against the wishes of those colonial authorities. The creation of identities was not purely the preserve of the African and colonial elites such as colonial administrators, missionaries, chiefs, educated elites, and African nationalists. Although we cannot ignore the role of the elites in creating identities and in the day-to-day African moral economy, we also need to evaluate critically the role of commoners in the same vein and indeed the elites’ interaction with those commoners, which is a much more complex relationship than many scholars appreciate mainly because of the nature of the African social and political setting with its many layers of authority and accountability. Those who may be elites in one setting may not be in another. An educated elite, for instance, remains subservient to a poor commoner who happens to be his or her father-in-law; or to his or her rural elderly folks when it comes to enacting certain shared traditions in which culture is embedded; or even those who conduct certain rites of passage and rituals in the community on behalf of all but are, beyond that, mere commoners. By not paying enough attention to the role of commoners in

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the making of identities, scholars, especially those of ethnicity, have given the wrong impression that commoners were passive recipients of ideologies rather than active agents in making and breaking societies. Most historians have found it easy to document the achievements of the elites and those in positions of power, perhaps because traditional historical practices have often conspired against the poor and also because the elites seem to have easily accessible written pasts that commoners do not seem to have.17 However, a judicious study of the archives, even of those elites and of government together with a carefully considered oral history, reveals the important part played by commoners in dealings that are normally (unfairly) credited to the elites. This book therefore revisits constructivism, castigates its limitations, and moves beyond the notion of history from above to examine the complex interactions of both commoners and elites, as well as the conflicts that existed between them in the process of creating and debating Kalanga and Ndebele ethnic identities within their respective communities. These internal debates explain Kalanga communities’ refusal to recognize imposed Ndebele chieftaincies within their communities; their tendency to circumvent both the Ndebele paramount chiefs and the successive native commissioners (NCs); their advocacy for the use of their language in Kalanga areas and in the major African newspaper in Bulawayo; their formation of a Kalanga vigilante society; their tendency to form exclusive tea parties in towns where it would have been easy simply to imagine themselves as Ndebele for the sheer benefit of numbers; their active participation in the politics of ethnic naming; their tendency to celebrate the dominance of Kalanga people in the nationalist leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), the National Democratic Party (NDP), and ZAPU since their formation; and despite the common suffering of the people of Matabeleland during the politically motivated violence meted out by the ZANU government forces in the 1980s, Kalanga people generally delineated their regional alliance with the Ndebele from their closer community ethnic activism represented by the Kalanga Muka Kwaedza Society. These developments—which were generated within the local African community (though not isolated from broader sociopolitical developments of their times) and which were hated and loathed by the colonial officials— do require some attention if we are to understand the internal dynamics of African politics and society. We therefore need to revisit the dominant theoretical positions under which identities have generally been examined. My proposal is that we accept the generality of the African people as active agents and movers in the creation of identities in Africa and as peoples that have not been simply docile recipients of ideologies formed for them by the elites. It is obviously difficult to name this theoretical perspective that I follow, but one could perhaps call it demotic or popular constructivism, a theory that offers to extend the scope of the dominant strands of social con-

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structivism by enlarging the scope of ideological players to include commoners.18 To understand how I arrived at this theoretical position, it is essential to undertake a brief historiographical review of ethnicity.

The Historiography of Ethnicity The study of ethnicity has undergone considerable shifts with time.19 Scholarship long ago shifted from primordialism, which depicted ethnic identity as natural and immutable, a product of language, blood, and soil.20 Primordialism does not explain why ethnicity as a social organizational category, if it is truly a natural given, disappears during one period and intensifies during another. It also underplays the various social groups to which people belong outside their “original” circle.21 Leaving this approach and other approaches such as Marxism, which viewed ethnicity as irrational false consciousness inimical to class consciousness, and the Modernist perspective that dumped ethnicity as an ancient identity, meant to “disappear unceremoniously into the history of museums,” to be replaced with newly acquired status of individualism protected by the state, we have to analyze the directions in scholarship of the late 1960s to post-1980s that have had a major influence in contemporary ethnic studies.22 The first is the instrumental constructivist school, which argues that ethnicity was mobilized by migrant workers to help confront their urban problems, by nationalists to build political constituencies, and by cultural elites to enhance their social status.23 Ethnicity is therefore a social and political resource, conditional and malleable.24 Although this argument has its merits, instrumentalists did not explain what was really in ethnicity (its content) that made it such a powerful tool for political mobilization. This was dealt with earlier by primordialists who thought of blood affinities, common history, and shared culture, but primordialism, as we have already demonstrated, has its own flaws. Instrumentalists and primordialists alike shared a common belief that ethnicity was fundamentally part of the social order, a basic assumption that later social constructivists contested.25 The early (1980s) version of social constructivism, which sounded like multiple instrumentalism (otherwise known as the “invention of tradition” thesis or its slightly modified version, the “creation of tribalism”), represented ethnicity in Africa as a product of inventions by colonial authorities, missionaries, and African intellectuals in their bid to create a social order of convenience. Before colonialism, it is argued, Africans did not belong to fixed tribes, but had “fluid, overlapping social networks of kin, age-mates, clients, neighbors and chiefdoms.” Tribes were thus colonial creations as administrators created new chiefdoms and native authorities, as missionaries standardized African languages and

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propagated African traditions, as African chiefs gained charge over huge territorial districts, and as the African educated elites and migrant workers produced new ethnic histories.26 To this school belongs Ranger’s analysis of Manyika ethnicity, which he suggested had no precolonial currency, having been invented by missionaries, migrant laborers, and colonial officials during the early colonial period up to about the 1940s. This identity became much more useful during the nationalist era, in the 1970s, as the politics of factionalism played into the liberation movement, ZANU.27 By considering the role of missionaries, migrants, and the colonial state, Ranger’s account sees the creation of tribalism among the Manyika mainly as an exogenous process, which is incorrect as it does not sufficiently explore the creative role of the local Africans in the process. Ranger’s strict constructivism also denies the existence of precolonial ethnic identity, and in that denial we find one of its fundamental flaws. The thesis works under a false assumption of an existing fundamental break between precolonial and colonial Africa, itself a regrettable error in judgment. The creation of tribalism thesis fails to recognize the glaring fact that what colonial officials termed the “Native problem” was actually a manifestation of efforts by Africans to either continue practicing or revive their precolonial social and political systems that they thought were being deliberately undermined by colonial regimes, regimes that were not always viewed as legitimate by most of the colonized. Although colonial rulers tried to undermine many precolonial African institutions and ideologies, it is clear that some communities still had at least a semblance of these systems in place, notwithstanding the government’s choice not to recognize them. The example of some Kalanga communities in Bulilima-Mangwe, which I will discuss below, testifies to this. Among the Ndebele there were also attempts to restore the Ndebele monarchy, although this proved ultimately unsuccessful because of the complexities involved. The invasion of the area now called Matabeleland by the British South Africa Company (BSACo) in 1893 followed an earlier invasion that had taken place just over half a century earlier (the late 1830s). This invasion by the Ndebele in areas that had mainly been under the control of Kalanga, Nambya, Tonga, Venda, amaSili, Shona, and other communities, was as violent as the colonial invasion and equally destabilizing. There is no evidence to suggest that Ndebele authority had been accepted by the people they found in the land, and in fact, Ndebele authority, not unlike the European colonialism that succeded it, had been contested by these peoples in different ways and with varying degrees of success. Therefore, we need to recognize that although new political regimes came into place, regardless of their origin, racial orientation, and methods of enforcing their policies, subject communities had their own ways of maintaining order, recreating community, and responding to novel circumstances. In other words, I am simply arguing that the colonial invasion of 1893 represented, for Kalanga people

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and others in Matabeleland, another form of invasion that they had to deal with just as they had managed to deal with the earlier Ndebele invasion. For them, colonialism represented continuity in political interference rather than a break from it. In this sense, it would be unfortunate for any serious historian of the Kalanga to locate a Kalanga sense of social and political development, including the evolution of their moral economy, only within the ambit of colonialism and ignore its manifestations in the precolonial era. By this token, I am not suggesting that all precolonial African societies had ethnic identities attached to them, but suffice it to say, in some societies, and at some stages, ethnicity became a lived identity as such African societies widened their social networks and identities beyond clans and chiefdoms in response to developing social and political circumstances, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century. The creation of tribalism thesis also undermines the role of commoners as agents in the construction of ethnicity. Leroy Vail and a large number of his contributing authors to The Creation of Tribalism relegated commoners to “people who craved for the so-called ‘traditional values’ at a time of rapid social change.”28 However, it will be shown that commoners were not as passive or reactionary as Vail and colleagues suggest. We will see how Kalanga and Ndebele commoners were, in most cases, important participants over matters that affected them, including in the debate over their identities. Some constructivists have now realized some of the flaws in this school and have, in the light of new writings, repudiated the idea of “invention” for its one-sidedness in presupposing that mainly the missionaries and the colonial rulers were the inventors. They also concede that the thesis fails to recognize the subsequent reworking of identities and institutional transformations once they are invented.29 Some now accept in principle the notion of precolonial “we groups”—in other words, some form of precolonial ethnic consciousness—but are still quick to emphasize that these networks were much more fluid than was colonial ethnicity.30 Most constructivists depend on the argument that unlike the precolonial era, the colonial regimes introduced more rigidity to formerly fluid identities by codifying customs, traditions, languages, and other cultural practices, which effectively helped to create and solidify identities. This argument oversimplifies the otherwise complex interactions between the colonizers and the colonized that were characterized not simply by Africans’ acquiescence but much more seriously by resistance, negotiation, and at times indifference as Africans responded to colonial rule. Nor does it appreciate the fact that for many centuries most African societies had sustained certain traditions and structures in place in the absence of written codes and laws by means of orality, spirituality, unwritten laws, and strong family and community structures and networks that helped to create and sustain new identities. Before we depart from this, I will quickly comment on the notion of “we groups.” Although recognition

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of precolonial “we groups” is a step in the right direction, it is important to note that, with the exception of this book, this notion has not yet been fully embraced in Zimbabwean historiography; and where it has been attempted by MacGonagle in her study of Ndau identity in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, the evidential base for Ndau ethnicity is rather too thin and vague.31 Pioneering scholars, especially Ranger and a few others, argue that precolonial identities were not ethnic but were merely political. For Ranger, precolonial Africans were organized into chieftainships, kingships, empires, and clans.32 In their coauthored work on the Shangani, Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger briefly discuss the tributary relations between Ndebele rulers and Shangwe in precolonial Shangani, and the history of Tonga and Rozvi inhabitants of the region. This discussion was included simply to highlight elements of precolonial political identities in general, and as expected, the authors do not critically examine ethnic relations in that era. They argue that in the Shangani, the inhabitants, themselves mostly Ndebele assimilados, juxtaposed Ndebele as a general identity with alternative political identities such as being Rozvi, Tonga, or Shangwe.33 The trio’s central motif in doing this was to build a case to demonstrate how colonial authorities, and later the Ndebele themselves, imagined the Shangani as the ideal Ndebele home. Taking their cue from Benedict Anderson’s reflections on the origins of nationalism, post-1990s social constructivists have come to view ethnicity as an imagined identity.34 This, Ranger believed, would allow historians to examine multiple imaginations of traditions by different players over a long time. As he put it, “Traditions imagined by whites were re-imagined by blacks; traditions imagined by particular black interest groups were re-imagined by others.”35 Reflecting on the work of scholars on identities in Tanzania (Steven Feierman’s emphasis on the creative role of African organic intellectuals, the Shambaa), South Africa (Hamilton and Wright’s emphasis on precolonial invention and imagination of amaLala ethnicity), and Kenya (Lonsdale’s distinction of “moral ethnicity” from “political tribalism” and Berman’s emphasis on the limitations of the legitimacy of the colonial state over its subjects, the Kikuyu), Ranger deployed Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities to make fundamental points about Ndebele identity.36 First, he argues that unlike the areas inhabited by the Kikuyu, the Shambaa, or the Zulu, the area that the Ndebele occupied was very large and that they came from varied origins and environments and that the symbols and practices that later came to be associated with Ndebele identities were not originally Ndebele—for instance, the Mwali cult. Second, Ranger maintains that unlike the Zulu, the nineteenth-century Ndebele state was multilingual and had many “ethnic” groups. Therefore, when the native commissioners were imported from the Natal into Matabeleland, they came in and invented a narrow Ndebele ethnicity whose membership was composed mainly of members of the royal clan. Notwithstanding this, Ranger

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argues that there was a move, especially in the 1950s, to create a broader Ndebele identity. This identity was a result of two developments: First, resistance to colonial evictions and the state’s conflict with one of the chiefs in the Matopos Hills (Chief Sigombe of Wenlock) led to the emergence of a form of cultural nationalism that later fused in Ndebele identity with other ideas about the landscape. Second, Bulawayo-based ideological entrepreneurs’ influence increased, as people like Joshua Nkomo emerged as culture brokers. Ranger concludes that there was a “debate between the different imaginings of Ndebeleness”—that is, between the aristocrats who wanted a narrow, caste-limited version of being Ndebele and the Christian progressives who imagined a more democratized Ndebele.37 Ranger’s major borrowing from Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities appears to be the term “imagined” itself. The rest represents his playing around with the meaning of the term and how it serves to explain the reconstitution of traditions, symbols, and ideas over time. Anderson’s Imagined Communities was definitely an ambitious work that tried to explain the different contexts under which nations in different global spheres emerged. Strictly speaking, it is neither a book about Africa nor a discussion of ethnicity. It is not necessary to lay out its specific weaknesses here, but the manner in which the concept of imagined traditions has been represented in African scholarship, especially as it relates to Zimbabwean history, requires some critical analysis. Although Ranger seems to have been influenced by some scholarship in Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa that, in different ways, accepted that precolonial ethnicity was at least possible, Ranger’s work on Matabeleland demonstrates that he is caught between letting go of the creation of tribalism thesis (in which he strongly believes) and adopting the new perspective that comes in with the post-1990s scholarship that he claims to reflect on and to have learned from. For instance, he describes the precolonial origins of Tanzania’s Shamba ethnicity and South Africa’s amaLala as “rare instances” in which colonialism was not required to invent or imagine ethnicity. Turning to an account of Ndebele ethnicity, he denies the existence of precolonial ethnicity by arguing that the Ndebele state incorporated different peoples; that the state came to use what were formerly non-Ndebele symbols; and that the state was multilingual.38 His argument is flawed on two basic grounds. First, he fails to examine the different ways by which being Ndebele was contested and negotiated during the precolonial era between both the ruling elites and the commoners, on the one hand, and also between the commoners internal to the Ndebele society and those who just joined it, on the other, by virtue of conquest, raiding, and voluntary incorporation, and via other means. Second, Ranger does not realize the distinction between people who simply belonged to the Ndebele state politically, or feigned belonging to it for their own safety, and those who both belonged to the state and perceived themselves as having the authority to

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partake in the Ndebele’s moral economy, in which ideas, beliefs, traditions, and symbols about Ndebele identity were being imagined and reconstituted. Moreover, Ranger did not critically examine the nature of Ndebele relations with their Matabeleland neighbors, such as the Kalanga. A more critical examination of this aspect would have been more helpful. Another point is that Ranger’s version of imagined traditions as applied to Matabeleland and elsewhere is still limited in its conception of ideological players. In short, like his earlier scholarship on Manyika identity, it is still elitist. In fact, this is a problem that emanates from Anderson’s postmodernist theory of imagined communities itself. Although Anderson examines the different developments that made possible the imagining of the nation, he is evasive about the set of ideological players involved in these processes. Notwithstanding his points about (among other things) the collapse of fundamental cultural conceptions such as centralized religion and its sacred texts, the monarchical orders that ruled under the principle of divine right of kingship, and the changes in the conception of time that made it possible for people to think about the nation, it is not clear who were the ideological players in these developments. His writing concerning print capitalism, the evolution of national languages, the rise of patriotism, African nationalism, and other topics is equally coy on the question of agency.39 Generally, Anderson’s ideological players are simply the elites. For Ranger, Chief Sigombe is the ideological entrepreneur in the Matopos, as are the urban intellectuals represented by Joshua Nkomo and people in his mold.40 In the Shangani, it is the encounter between the “modern” Christian evictees and the people they found in the “dark forest” that explains the creation not only of ethnic stereotypes but also of a wider Ndebele identity that in turn becomes consolidated as a result of the influence of rural religious elites (the cultic figures or priests) and the rising political elites from within the reserves and those with urban connections.41 In these two major texts on colonial Ndebele history, the role of the commoners is unclear but the roles of the different elites feature prominently. However, the relationship between elites and commoners is not always this simple and straightforward. As Fry has aptly demonstrated in a study of the Fingo, commoners are equally active agents in creating their identities.42 The elite-centered nature of the imagined communities model does not help explain why symbols and ideas imagined by the elites get to be so powerfully embraced to the point that most people become willing to lay down their lives for them. Mere patriotism, racism, colonialism, and other “isms” do not in themselves sufficiently explain this sacrificial element in most identities. For this reason, Anthony Smith suggests that we not only emphasize the imaginative process that creates identities but also focus on the volitional and emotional aspects that complement the imaginative aspects.43 In this sense, ethnic communities are imagined, felt (emotional), and willed (voluntary) communities. Emotion and will are not themselves

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always derived out of an imaginative process, but emerge out of real historical and contemporary points of reference and circumstances that create them. These three (imagination, emotion, and will) are interactive in enriching and foregrounding identities. However, what produces that interaction is the link between modern expressions of ethnicity and earlier “collective cultural identities and sentiments” that developed over long periods of time.44 According to Smith, himself an ethnosymbolist, the past influences the (national) present through recurrence; through continuity, whereby institutional and other processes dating back ages are perpetuated; and through appropriation, whereby generations try to rediscover, authenticate, and appropriate aspects of their assumed pasts.45 In its imaginative sense, an ethnic group appeals to those ancient elements of society and culture with a view to legitimizing and solidifying its practices. For this reason, ethnic groups usually ascribe primordial characteristics to their symbols and practices to legitimize themselves. The emotional aspect of ethnicity causes members of an ethnic group to feel for one another and defend the group and one another where circumstances permit. At times, this emotional aspect of ethnicity is taken advantage of by politicians and thus translates a people’s moral ethnicity into political tribalism. The volitional aspect of ethnicity explains why certain people cleave to their identity or at times why they struggle to renegotiate it. Because of the framework explained above, we are now able to look at ethnicity imaginatively without doing harm to the historical basis of ethnicity and the reality of symbols around which ethnicities were mobilized. Ndebele ethnicity continued to be debated during the colonial era on the basis of its precolonial symbols, ideas, and more. That explains why debates about Ndebele ethnic “purity,” Ndebele language, chieftaincies, and other traditions, which were believed to be the assemblages that made up Ndebeleness, often rallied around the reinterpreting of the past, which was done by both the elites and commoners. Kalanga ethnicity, too, emerged during the precolonial era, but was constantly shaped during the colonial era as communities negotiated and interpreted not only their old historical traditions, but also new social and political realities that arose as a result of evictions from their lands, the placement of Ndebele chiefs in some Kalanga communities, the promotion of isiNdebele by the state ahead of the Kalanga language, the emergence of a new urban politics and society in Bulawayo, the rise of nationalism, and other factors.

Challenges in Matabeleland History The biggest challenge in the study of Matabeleland history is dealing with sources. Apart from the dearth of written sources on certain districts to the

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margins of western Zimbabwe, there is also the matter of changing memory, reconstituted traditions, and the problems created by scholars’ tendencies to write politically correct and usable histories. Defending his use of oral sources gathered mainly from historical Ndebele elites for the study of Ndebele history, Sabelo Ndlovu stated: “The Ndebele of present day Matabeleland are still closer to the events that took place in the Ndebele state in the nineteenth century due to cultural and linguistic affinities and continuities.”46 Nothing could be more oversimplified than this assumption. Although there are certain continuities from the Ndebele past, a number of things have nonetheless shifted over of time, and certain traditions and codes of practice have taken on new meanings, while others have long been discarded. Some people who had been “Ndebele” have repudiated Ndebeleness, and some who had been Kalanga are now being referred to as Ndebele. By means of the Ndebele policy of political assimilation, which underpinned the political and spatial growth of the state, certain traditions were definitely reconstituted. Historians studying this region must be aware of this situation and treat the social history of this region, like others, as a history of people undergoing changes as a result of a number of influences. The memories of the peoples of Matabeleland have been shaped by many events, such as the wave of evictions from their land, which created new societies; droughts and related catastrophes; rising nationalism, which also led to the emergence of a new regional Matabeleland identity; urban challenges; and also the postcolonial political instability in the region. Most of these events have overwritten memory to such an extent that the interpretations of past events that remain are subjective and personalized. In short, Matabeleland has a very deep history of multilayered crises. These crises have caused instances of selective amnesia and remembrance whereby people choose what to forget about the past and what to remember depending on its perceived importance to them. Events are not totally forgotten, nor are they necessarily remembered except when another crisis unfolds.47 What people are often ready to tell a researcher may reflect merely what they consider important or what they think the researcher wants to hear. In some cases, communities volunteered information with the idea in mind that once their history is written down, they would be able to use it as a legitimizing source for their claims to land, restitution, and other gains. As historians, we never rely on oral testimony alone but also use our reflections from the archives and even information from earlier oral reminiscences to further interrogate our sources and also in part as provocation to the forgetting “sages” so that in turn their recall improves. In most cases when informants relate a story, they do so under the assumption that the interviewer is seeking information that he or she does not know; yet this is not always the case, because we often have prior knowledge based perhaps on archival research or other sources, however incomplete that knowledge may be. So although

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I relied on my fieldwork to gain much information, I did not approach the task of interviewing naively. Matabeleland is a “postconflict” region that has also been beset by other problems like drought and bad governance. Although its people are seeking to move on with their lives after gukurahundi atrocities, for which none of the state actors has accepted responsibility and apologized, they often rethink their past and reinterpret it in the context of the present situations. The period of the rise of African nationalism, which later saw the split in the nationalist movement between the Zimbabwe African Peoples’ Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) coupled with the postcolonial massacre of Matabeleland people in the 1980s, created and cemented a new regional Ndebele identity. For this reason, a new researcher to Matabeleland may find it difficult to delineate elements of Kalanga identity from those that are Ndebele when one arrives in the region for the first time. Today, some Kalanga people can be both regionalist (Ndebele) and Kalanga ethnic patriots at the same time. A person’s devotion to either of these identities depends on individual perception of their importance. For some Kalanga people in Bulilima-Mangwe, however, there was a strong feeling that a growing regional Ndebele identity needed to be checked to prevent its negative impact on Kalanga ethnicity. In Madyambudzi, Plumtree, an old man (whose name I have withheld) told me privately after the interview, “You . . . people must help us. We are being oppressed by these Ndebele people a lot. You see, they come and live with us here, but they do not respect us. They do not even want to learn our language!” But interestingly, when one interviews politicians and Ndebele cultural activists who wish to see greater Matabeleland reconstructed as a unified whole, with only one social and political identity, one gets a quite different view—one that justifies the informant’s current political project. My awareness of these different interpretations of the past has been helpful, and I have therefore used their views with caution. This does not mean that the accounts of commoners are in any way more truthful than that of the politicians because even commoners can have their diverse agendas. However biased the views of both commoners and Ndebele elites of today may be, I came to understand the complex nature of individual memory and the plurality of versions of the past as shared with me by different informants at different moments.48 Another challenge concerning research in Matabeleland is the problem of trust. First, researching in a region that has undergone extreme postcolonial violence is seldom easy, especially when researchers are sometimes viewed as outsiders. Second, Ndebele oral informants differed in terms of their idea of what a researcher was entitled to know and what he or she could not be allowed to know. When I approached Chief Kaisa Ndiweni of Ntabazinduna, once a very famous old Ndebele chief (but now deceased), there were things that he could not tell me about Ndebele political history

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on the grounds that I was a “commoner” with “no right to know the secrets of the Ndebele kings.” The fact that there was such a perspective that aspects of the Ndebele past had to be hidden from researchers and the public was itself an interesting discovery for me as it demonstrated individuals’ sense of history and claim to the Ndebele legacy and memory. Some of these secrets would, however, be divulged by others, such as commoners and even some Ndebele elites who saw history differently and wanted certain things to be exposed. Third, when I undertook research in Matabeleland between 2002 and 2003, the region, like most of the areas across the country where the opposition Movement for Democratic Change had won elections, the local communities had set up their own networks of “community gatekeepers” who would not welcome strangers unless they were convinced that they posed no obvious political challenges. In Mphoengs, for example, close to the Zimbabwe-Botswana border, I was greeted with suspicion by such “community gatekeepers,” mainly headmen and other local political leaders. My research was conducted during a very challenging moment. I began barely a year after the violent elections of 2002, and for this reason some people initially suspected me of being a government spy and vowed that they would not help me. In one incident, I spent close to two hours at one of the political parties’ offices in Plumtree being “vetted,” having been mistaken for a spy and saboteur. In an effort to convince them that I was a genuine researcher, I produced my research letter, which proved useful. I was later released unharmed, but because I was keen to ensure that the research got completed, I continued with my fieldwork. In most cases, people did not want to be tape-recorded, so I stopped using electronic devices altogether and resorted to traditional notetaking. Luckily for me, I knew some of the area’s important politicians from my days at the University of Zimbabwe, and that connection helped to calm informants’ nerves. Researching in archival sources was a different matter altogether. Some archival access was unrestricted at the National Archives in Harare and Bulawayo, in the Bulawayo City Council, and in many private archives. However, government district archives were not easily accessible because of bureaucracy and political paranoia, just as ZANU-PF archives were also inaccessible to researchers.49 In the various archives, I found precolonial texts and manuscripts relating to Ndebele and Kalanga cultures, religion, marriages, and recorded aspects of what missionaries, explorers, hunters, and others described as the African people’s “daily” lives. These often had their own Eurocentric biases, but the archival materials are voluminous. Because they come from usually unconnected sources, if they corroborate one other, the historian must count it joy. For those that do not agree, it was possible to correlate them with oral transcripts produced in the early colonial period by native commissioners or with records of early commissions of inquiry, ordinances, acts, and other official documents, and also with the new oral

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research that I did in Bulilima-Mangwe, in Bubi, and in Bulawayo. I also benefited immensely from NCs’ reports and other correspondence relating to Matabeleland and attempted to compare the records of different NCs in different districts to get the broadest picture of my areas of interest. In these documents, one does not expect to find huge chunks of information on the ways in which commoners have tried to define their identities, yet the little that is there is useful. Where NCs reported of “the people,” they did not simply imply chiefs or other intellectuals, but commoners too. Although statistical records such as tax reports serve to show us whether most people paid taxes or not, they cannot tell us why people did not pay. However, the mere knowledge that people in Bulilima-Mangwe generally evaded paying taxes could be an important starting point for an inquiry into why this was the case. There were also other sources that proved helpful in my efforts to demonstrate the different ways by which commoners and emerging African elites interacted with state power. Indigenous newspapers, one of which started publishing in the early 1930s, were useful, as were the governmental delineation reports that were published in the mid-1960s. I had expected nationalism to have overshadowed popular memory about ethnicity during this time, but these reports showed that people still struggled for local ethnic rights.50 One such report on chieftainship problems in Madyambudzi, for instance, unexpectedly highlighted much detail relating to the Kalanga commoners’ protest against the colonially imposed chief Mpini. Court records have also proved illuminating, especially for my urban history chapter, as they have also been an immensely valuable source for other historians elsewhere.51

Summary of Chapters The book is divided into nine chapters. The core chapters, 2 through 8, are designed to follow identified critical themes that I believe will help us identify changing identities in this region. In the chapters, I try to maintain a delicate balance between covering these individual themes while also paying attention to chronological concerns, so that future researchers have enough leeway to expand their work by building on the foundation laid herein. I could not, for instance, undertake a complete analysis of nationalism and its interactions with ethnicity for the whole period up to the postcolonial era—that would require a book of its own. The same applies to issues of chieftaincy; urban ethnicity, language, and other themes explored here. In chapter 2, I discuss the notion of precolonial ethnicity. Employing Kopytoff’s frontier theory with some modifications, I argue that contrary to suggestions that precolonial Africans had general political identities that revolved around chieftainships, kinships, and other political associations,

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the nature of Ndebele and Kalanga interactions transformed Matabeleland identities into broader ethnicities.52 Among the Kalanga, the desire to mold and sustain stronger chieftainships, especially after the Ndebele intrusion into the area that was formerly theirs, called for the need to mobilize community on the basis of what were imagined and felt to be shared social and cultural symbols, which made it easy for people to identify themselves as socially and politically identical. Kalanga chieftaincy and ethnicity were themselves not always mutually exclusive because those chieftainships emerged in the contexts of efforts to create a community out of the survivors of Ndebele raids and displacement. Among the Ndebele, ethnicity emerged through a different social and political process. Although the insistence by the ruling class on typically zansi cultural symbols did, to a limited extent, inform their broader political vision, there was nonetheless an attempt by the same ruling elite to promote a narrow Ndebele ethnic identity that they thought would give them the required social and cultural control. Ndebele commoners, however, did not respond to this elitist project in unison, but responded in different ways according to their assessment of the expected overall benefits from the decisions made and also according to their prior level of assimilation into the Ndebele society. Although some accepted this narrow Ndebeleness (where being pure Ndebele meant imagining Zulu/ zansi cultural symbols), so as to partake of the benefits of an ethnic insider, some wanted Ndebele ethnicity to be “democratized” so that it would encapsulate a hybrid of traditions reflecting the different origins of the people that made up the Ndebele state. Thus, Ndebele ethnicity emerged and was continually fashioned as a result of enduring dialogue and competition between different groups of the Ndebele political citizenry. Chapters 3 and 4 are directly related in the sense that they each examine Ndebele and Kalanga societies after the fall of Ndebele precolonial political power and the inception of the colonial administrative structure that included new colonial chieftainships. In chapter 3, I examine the changes that took place in emerging Kalanga communities that were situated in areas such as the Bulilima-Mangwe where precolonial Ndebele “traditions” had not been firmly consolidated. Essentially Bulilima-Mangwe had been on the margin of the precolonial Ndebele state, where, notwithstanding the presence of Ndebele garrisons there, Ndebele power had been generally contested by Kalanga communities, and even those Kalanga who lived within the Ndebele villages. With the inception of colonialism and the collapse of central Ndebele political structures after 1894, some of the Ndebele political communities easily fragmented and respect for those “organic” Ndebele chieftaincies dropped to its lowest level. In general, established Ndebele chieftaincies lost the support of many former hole people (members of the low Ndebele caste, also called amahole) who took advantage of the inception of a colonial government to repudiate their lowly status in favor of

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associating themselves with a Kalanga moral and political community and other rival identities. This development caught the colonial administrators by surprise because they had thought that Ndebele control over the area was a given and that they had reinforced it sufficiently by promoting some Ndebele chiefs into head chiefs and lowering Kalanga ones into headmen. The breaking apart of Ndebele social structure that went hand in hand with the breakdown of central political control was a welcome development for Kalanga community elders and commoners who saw a window of opportunity to strengthen Kalanga moral community and also make a case for official Kalanga chieftaincies. They consequently resisted the colonial project of promoting Ndebele chiefs ahead of their Kalanga counterparts, which they viewed as an attempt to perpetuate outdated Ndebele authority. They demonstrated their misgivings by defying the native commissioners’ orders; by refusing to submit to those imposed Ndebele chiefs, and also by refusing to pay colonial taxes. In chapter 4, I will argue that although colonialism invented some chieftaincies and tried to promote a semblance of “pan-Zuluism” as an elite Ndebele identity modeled along the lines of the precolonial zansi aristocracy, this project was not acceptable to most Ndebele people, especially the commoners and even some of the Ndebele elites. This manipulative brand of colonialism was ultimately a failure because of the general lack of popular support, the deep tensions between different categories of Ndebele elites in their search for the ultimate overall “tribal” representative of the people following the death of the king, the state’s ignorance of the internal structure of Ndebele society, and the disputed nature of the reinterpretations of Ndebele traditions in a new political context. In highly “Ndebelicized” communities, there was little support for “invented” colonial chiefs as more legitimacy was ascribed to the supposedly “traditional” nineteenth-century chiefs who were imaginatively linked to “pure,” unadulterated Ndebele ethnicity. Another development was the resurgence of Ndebele royalist activism, which threatened to “purify” and redefine Ndebeleness in a narrow, “Ndebele as Zulu/zansi” sense. This further divided the Ndebele elites from their commoners and also wedged gaps between different categories of the Ndebele elites themselves—for instance, some Ndebele chiefs versus members of the royal family. The Ndebele commoners’ decision to resist this narrow, exclusive royalist activism was not only dictated by their paranoia that the royals were attempting to restore the ancient regime; it was also triggered by their desire to sustain broader, popular perceptions of Ndebele ethnicity that took no account of caste divisions. Building on the thesis that language differences and internal community language debates anchor ethnic identity, chapter 5 deals with the manner in which language was used by both Ndebele and Kalanga in negotiating their ethnic identities, as well as in defining the parameters of ethnic citizenry.

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The official recognition by the colonial government of isiNdebele as the language of Matabeleland gave it an unfair advantage over TjiKalanga and other Matabeleland languages that were not officially taught in most schools. This chapter brings in the varied reactions that both Kalanga and Ndebele people had to the introduction of isiNdebele as a language of instruction in Matabeleland. Within the Ndebele community, there were huge debates regarding what the real language of Matabeleland would be called. Some ethnic puritans wanted the language to be called isiZulu, while others wanted it to be termed isiNdebele, to foreground its indigenous origins in Matabeleland. Although isiNdebele was later accepted as a broad regional language, especially in the 1940s and 1950s, to which was attached no particular ethnic meaning, Kalanga-speaking communities still insisted on constantly checking isiNdebele to prevent it from making further inroads into Kalanga communities. In the mid–nineteen hundreds, Kalanga people went as far as advocating for their language to be used in the public arena in place of isiNdebele, even in cosmopolitan Bulawayo. Although these everyday language debates within ethnic groups were first and foremost triggered by missionary and colonial language policy, the debates were not themselves guided by the colonial rulers; rather, they highlight the ways in which Africans debated among themselves as they struggled to define their ethnicities. This sort of evidence is of more importance to understanding African ethnicity than is the old, established “elite, colonial manipulation” model propounded by an earlier generation of social constructivists. Although the colonial government tried to promote the use of isiZulu because of its cost-effectiveness, as did a few missionaries, it will be shown that debates about the sociological implications of this move did preoccupy the Africans more than it did the missionaries and the government, who at that stage were concerned more about the economics of education than about social engineering. One has to keep in mind that up to 1923, the state was under the control of a commercial venture, the British South African Company, which laid a foundation for the administrative structure of the country, although some structures were slowly revised after 1923. For its part, the BSACo was more concerned about how to make more money than about ensuring sound colonial administration and social engineering. Since language debates were so closely tied to ideas of ethnic purity, the debating of language in colonial Matabeleland was closely connected to the broader debates about Ndebele and Kalanga ethnicity up to the early 1960s.53 The emergence of towns offered another arena in which ethnicities would be debated and redefined. Chapter 6 examines the evolution and sociology of the urban space, with particular emphasis on the nature of urban ethnicity and the struggle for the control of Bulawayo town. Located in the heart of Matabeleland, Bulawayo is the second-largest city in Zimbabwe, and it was built on the site of the former capital of the Ndebele king Lobengula.

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This chapter begins with a brief background to the emergence of Bulawayo, explaining how the ethnic character of the city developed since the founding of the city, followed by a discussion of the violent clashes of 1929 and then other struggles between the Ndebele and other people for the control of the social and cultural space in town. From this, it will become clear that although African people did not always think of themselves in terms of ethnicity because they had other valid identities and associations such as trade unions, political parties, territorial dance societies, resident associations, workmates associations, and so on, they nonetheless also strongly attached themselves to ethnic groups and homeboy associations for purposes of urban integration, social and economic security, and entertainment, as well as for language affinity and other factors. Contrary to simply labeling urban violence as hooliganism or a mere show of class distinctions; boxing as simply a desire for recreation; or street-naming contestations, advisory board electoral politics, and urban competition as merely essential and standard aspects of urban life, this chapter examines salient issues relating to ethnic identity formation in the city and how urban Africans imagined, felt, and associated themselves with certain home and communal traditions tailormade within the urban setting. This Bulawayo chapter deliberately ends around 1960 to allow the reader to transition easily to the chapter that follows, which examines the interactions of two problematic identities: ethnicity and nationalism. Chapter 7 examines how ethnic groups responded to the rise of “nationalism” in the 1950s and onward.54 The chapter begins with a critical examination of the broader social and political situation facing the African people in the 1950s, including the mushrooming of ethnic and regional associations that threatened possible nationalist unity, especially in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Thereafter, I examine the critical question of the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism. Ordinarily speaking, the emergence of nationalism required the creation of an imagined collective Zimbabwean community of abantwana benhlabathi (children of the land) who were smart enough to transcend the so-called parochialism of ethnicities and other particularistic identities.55 Although African nationalism partly arose out of an imaginative process of identity formation, there were other compelling factors that made it easier for Africans to come together into this one identity.56 Collective racial segregation and other pervasive forms of colonial violence made it easier for Africans to stick together, notwithstanding their internal differences. However, this nationalist identity had to coexist with older forms of African identities, and ethnicity was one of them. Contrary to the standard assumption that ethnicity was inimical to nationalism, I will argue that at the foundation of the nationalist movement in colonial Zimbabwe, ethnicity and nationalism were not inherently opposite identities. At the time of the emergence of African nationalism, the Africans viewed

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these two identities as complementing and enriching one another in different ways. The chapter also tests this hypothesis in explaining the 1963 split from ZAPU (temporarily called the PCC, or Peoples’ Caretaker Council, in the early 1960s) that led to the emergence of another faction, called ZANU, to which Robert Mugabe and others belonged. This split has been generally understood to have been caused by Shona and Ndebele tribalism when in fact there were other factors in play. This split polarized ShonaNdebele relations, while at the same time defining a more regionally amenable Ndebele identity as a political expression. This regional identity became the most important legacy the Zimbabwe postcolony inherited, and it would have severe ramifications for unity, going forward. In the light of the recent Zimbabwean political and economic crises, which point to the failure of the promises made by the nationalist leadership—and even the failure of nationalism itself—scholars are forced to critically examine the goals of nationalism, and in the process of doing so, a number of questions emerge, some of which are beyond the scope of this work. Was nationalism merely about anticolonialism or was it simply the desire for independence, in which case should it simply be viewed as a struggle for power? Was nationalism merely a xenophobic, antiwhite movement? Was nationalism really about defining a nation? What answer did the movement give to critical questions like “Who are we”? Who should be part of us within the nation? It seems that the nationalist leaders of the 1950s viewed “nationalism” in a loose sense and did not have a clear definition of what they meant by the nation. Southern Rhodesian Africans gave little thought to who would comprise the future national citizenry. To nationalists, the desire for freedom, justice, and self-governance was paramount.57 Since my major task in chapter 7 is to debate nationalism and its interaction with ethnicity, the liberation struggle itself is not my concern, nor are other broad issues of the 1970s up to 1979, when the negotiations for independence finally led to a transitional government. For me, nationalism is not synonymous with the struggle for independence, although it was certainly one of the driving factors behind this struggle.58 Therefore, although some of the events of the 1970s are important, an in-depth consideration of them is not necessary for this work. There is generally a rich scholarship covering different aspects of that period, so I find it prudent merely to summarize that historiography below before delving into the next chapter. Except for Ranger, Alexander, and McGregor’s work on Matabeleland and Bhebe’s on Midlands, researchers covering the post-1950s in colonial Zimbabwe have focused mainly on Mashonaland. Research by Masipula Sithole unearthed internal contradictions within the “nationalist” parties between 1963 and 1979.59 He viewed the successive party splits, the birth of new parties, the confusion in ZANU, and the formation of the Patriotic Front (PF) as evidence of “struggles within the struggle.” Sithole believed

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that nationalism was doomed by the hunger for power and by inter- and intraethnic factionalism within the nationalist leadership. Sithole, once a member of ZANU, used inside information for this analysis. His work is stronger on internal ZANU politics than it is on ZAPU, since he relied heavily on anti-ZAPU (pro-ZANU) writings to construct a ZAPU history. In his account of the 1963 split, which led to the formation of ZANU, he relied on the account of Shamuyarira, an ardent ZANU supporter. Consequently, Sithole does not bring in ZAPU’s view of the split. He also failed to reflect on the position of the general populace in these “struggles within the struggle,” though as a political scientist writing as events unfolded, he had the opportunity to easily gauge the public’s perception of these events. However, his attempt to unmask nationalism was important and I hope to develop it further. In his 1985 work on Makoni, Manicaland, Ranger took the challenge to examine the relationship between guerrilla movements and popular peasant political culture.60 He argued that by the time the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) guerrilla warfare began in the 1970s, peasants already had a revolutionary consciousness that emerged as a result of government interference with peasant agriculture that reached its peak in the mid-1930s. ZANU took advantage of this discontent to gain support, hence the growth of ZANLA guerrilla operations in Makoni.61 Ranger’s argument helps explain the complex question of why mobilization of Africans against the Rhodesian Front regime was possible in the first place. However, Ranger’s work gives the impression that peasants were a unitary mass, and this overlooks the classes and other pertinent divisions among them. If there was any peasant consciousness, it would only have been one that was born out of locally “shared” discontent rather than any broad-based ideologies of African nationalism. Ranger also did not examine the role of coercion, a tactic that ZANU used to garner peasant support. Ranger’s work, however important, has been criticized by Norma Kriger, who thought that Ranger had narrowly construed the concept of peasant consciousness and overstated peasant resentment against the state and whites in the sphere of agricultural production.62 Kriger focused instead on coercion as a means that guerrillas used to gain support. She also examined the conflicts within the revolution, which she explained as conflicts that emerged as a result of generational differences and also due to popular opposition to chiefs.63 However, I think coercion alone does not sufficiently explain the success of mass mobilization. We have to merge Ranger’s and Kriger’s views and, in addition, add the influence of religion in mobilizing popular politics. Mission stations were important as they provided medical services, food, shelter, and other logistics. Ngwabi Bhebe critically examined the relations between church and guerrillas in Lutheran schools in Mberengwa and the un-Ndebelecized parts of Matabeleland.64 In some parts of Matabeleland,

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however, nationalism imagined an un-Christian and anti-Christian outlook, with the guerrillas and leaders more often violating the church than partnering with it for their own cause. Notwithstanding this, nationalism was not painstakingly secular for it sustained strong belief in the spirit mediums and shrine culture that were an essential part of traditional African religious systems. Using the case of Dande in Mashonalanad Central, David Lan’s work examined the role played by spirit mediums and indigenous African belief systems in the liberation war.65 According to Lan, mediums and guerrillas made an alliance in which the latter were to respect mediums and obey the rituals in relation to the care of the environment, the slaughter of animals, sexual practices, and other subjects.66 In exchange, spirit mediums were to use their moral authority to influence common people to support the guerrillas and to help cleanse the liberation movements of all alleged witches and sellouts.67 However, it must be asked why, if spirit mediums were so powerful as to be able to prohibit illicit sexual conduct, they failed to stop the horrific, rampant abuse of women during the liberation war by members of ZANLA and the youth at the pungwes (night meetings).68 This having been said, it does not mean that the appeal to African spirituality was always unsuccessful in popularizing nationalism, and aspects of this will be reflected on in this work, especially with regard to the earlier period, the 1950s. In their work on Matabeleland, Ranger and Mark Ncube have already made important conclusions about the role of spirituality in the guerrilla war in the Matopos Hills.69 Even Joshua Nkomo, a leading nationalist leader, stressed the importance of Africans’ attachment to their traditional religions in their efforts to negotiate freedom from colonialism.70 Until the mid-1990s, the history of nationalism was not well researched in Matabeleland. The year 1995 marked an important turning point for the historiography of Matabeleland with the publication of two volumes edited by Ranger and Bhebe on Zimbabwe’s liberation war.71 In his opening remarks in one of these texts, Dumiso Dabengwa, who was a ZIPRA chief of intelligence and commander, said, “The history of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle is yet to be written. . . . [It] . . . is still a long way from being produced and will only be achieved when the chroniclers of the struggle are no longer afraid to confront the truth head-on and openly, and have rid themselves of the biases resulting from our recent political pasts.”72 Dabengwa’s paper offered a general, nonacademic description of developments from the time ZAPU was formed to its militarization in the late 1960s, its relationship with ANC South Africa’s Umkonto WeSizwe, its split in 1971, and the aftermath. Dabengwa’s account does not prove his assertion that the 1963 split was masterminded by divisive opportunists. It also glosses over the deep-seated problems that ZAPU had in the 1970s when it lost important leaders from its ranks and does not explain the nature of ZAPU’s relationship with its supporters. He also did not highlight ZIPRA’s military strategy, as one might expect from a former ZAPU War

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Council secretary and chief of intelligence that he was. This gap was closed by Jeremy Brickhill, whose work is important not only for military historians but also for social historians.73 He unearthed ZIPRA’s mobilization and underground recruitment strategies. He argued that ZIPRA was successful because both the party (ZAPU) and the army (ZIPRA) had a warm relationship. However, a critical examination of the internal politics of ZAPU is yet to be done, and this was not Brickhill’s task. Part of this was accomplished by the two recent publications by Ranger and colleagues.74 In Voices from the Rocks, Ranger began his analysis of the rise of nationalism with the late 1940s when African protest in the form of local movements like Sofasihamba and Sofasonke sought the help of wider political associations such as the African Voice in their fight for land rights. He believed the people of the Matopos took this “legacy of self-assertion and confrontation” into the liberation movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s.75 However, Ranger did not think nationalism could be explained only in terms of these earlier movements or of the threats of renewed evictions and opposition to African councils. He instead believed that there were new developments that led to the widening of Ndebele identity. This wider Ndebele identity became a statement of unity between progressives and traditionalists, literate and illiterate, Christians and non-Christians; and as such, this unity could not be broken by the native commissioners despite their attempts to purvey a narrow Ndebele identity (Ndebele as Zulu) against nationalism.76 These efforts to widen Ndebele identity were made possible by the tendency to encourage the learning of isiNdebele; by the campaign against exclusive, narrow associations such as the Sons of Mzilikazi; by the influence of Bulawayo urban intellectuals (and their doctrine of hierarchical identity whereby one man could have three identities such as ethnic [e.g., Kalanga], regional [e.g., Ndebele] and national [e.g., Zimbabwean]); by the placement of Ndebele regimental military traditions at the service of nationalism (such as the role of Nqama Ndebele traditional chief Sigombe Mathema); and by the reimagination of Ndebele history so as to make the Mwali shrines a key element within it.77 It is to the latter that Ranger devoted more attention. Ranger’s views about the influence of Mwali originated from his 1995 work with Mark Ncube already cited. The reimagination of the Matopos shrines as an “essential part of Ndebele political order” symbolizing African ownership of the soil was two-pronged. It both “represented and gave legitimacy to the nationalist struggle to regain the land.” According to Ranger, this imagination was a collaborative project of various sections of the people such as the Bulawayo cultural nationalists, especially Joshua Nkomo, and the work of the inhabitants of the Matopos themselves, “whose commitment to the shrines and graves intensified as they were threatened with eviction and agrarian interference.”78 Voices from the Rocks is perhaps Ranger’s best work on nationalism.

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In other parts of Matabeleland like the Shangani, the influence of spirit mediums was complemented by the emergence of African initiated churches that were independent of European missionary control, such as the Zionist group of churches, which the post-1930s evictees brought into the reserve from Filabusi. The rise of Zionism and spirit mediums further eroded the authority of the Protestant churches in the Shangani area during the war period. Intransigent, communist-trained guerrillas increasingly took an anti-Christian stance—at times threatening “to shoot God.”79 Guerrillas often appealed to the services of izinyanga (traditional healers), isangomas (clairvoyants), and iwosana (spirit mediums) and the Zionists to heal war injuries; to gain popular support, and for general spiritual protection.80 Just as in the Matopos, the Nevana cult introduced a midweek rest day, Thursday, which guerrillas exploited for military training.81 During the transition to guerrilla warfare, around 1969, one isangoma openly criticized the colonial government,82 showing the extent to which they aligned with the nationalist movement. Considering the weight of evidence, the influence of religion in the development of nationalism cannot be discounted, but the arguments for it need to be reinforced. Alexander, Ranger, and McGregor did not explain the emergence and development of nationalism in terms of religion alone. In their four chapters on nationalism in Violence and Memory, the trio examined the rise of nationalism, the role of chiefs in the war, ZIPRA’s underground operations, and guerrilla-civilian relations. They clearly demonstrated that nationalism was fostered by local rural leaders, and was not simply imported from towns.83 This is almost the same argument Ranger made in his Voices from the Rocks. Chapter 8 deals with postcolonial violence in Matabeleland. The brutal murder and violence perpetrated mainly by the ZANU-PF government agents on Matabeleland and Midlands will be viewed here not only in the context of postcolonial power politics but also as a legacy of the animosity that developed between ZANU and ZAPU after the 1963 split. The terror that was visited upon the people of Matabeleland was an attempt by ZANU to destroy its political opponent, ZAPU, which had won almost all seats in Matabeleland in the first general elections of 1980. To destroy ZAPU, the ZANU-led government had to attack ZAPU’s real ideological front, Ndebele regionalism.84 However, this did not pay dividends as the extremity of the violence perpetrated only served to strengthen relations between different ethnic groups in Matabeleland and in the process consolidate a wide Ndebele regional identity. Interestingly, in the midst of this violence and increasing regionalization of Matabeleland, some Kalanga people still found compelling reasons to advocate for the recognition of Kalanga language and culture through their Kalanga Muka Kwaedza Society. In the next chapter, we will find out what the situation was like in Matabeleland before colonization, particularly in relation to Ndebele and Kalanga identities.

2 Domination and Resistance Precolonial Ndebele and Kalanga Relations, 1860–93 Conquest, Social Engineering, and Kalanga Responses The growing historiography of ethnicity has led to considerable shifts in scholarship from the mainly instrumentalist invention of ethnicity thesis, which was popular before the 1990s, to the notion of ethnic communities as imagined communities (post-1990s), which emphasizes the fact that ideologies and traditions constantly shift and take on new meanings once they are constructed. These changes have led some scholars to recognize precolonial origins of ethnicity.1 With the exception of a recent work by MacGonagle on Ndau identity in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Zimbabwean social historians like Ranger, Alexander, and a few others who have mainly written on colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe have yet to accept that precolonial Zimbabweans had ethnic identities.2 Most historians of precolonial Zimbabwe have generally concerned themselves with aspects of African political and military history and paid little regard to the social and ideological bases underpinning those societies, including ethnic identities. In denying precolonial ethnicity among the Ndebele, Ranger suggested that the construction of a narrow Ndebele ethnicity began in the colonial era.3 Although Ranger believes that precolonial Africans had multiple identities, chiefly political and clannish, he does neglect the wider ethnic arena in which these identities were located.4 In this chapter, I will argue that the nature of Ndebele and Kalanga relations left many Kalanga communities with little choice except to reorganize themselves into stronger political entities that found their expression in developing a shared sense of Kalanga ethnicity. The expansion of Ndebele social and political control brought about challenges that risked destroying or completely changing the social, political, and economic landscape of

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the Kalanga, who had inhabited the land before the arrival of the Ndebele. The risk was greater with every Ndebele advance, both geographically and socially, as the Ndebele enforced their social and cultural institutions across the land. On the one hand, Ndebele geographical expansion meant the squeezing off of Kalanga polities; on the other, the establishment of Ndebele social institutions meant the loss of Kalanga language and other Kalanga traditions. Consequently, Kalanga-speaking communities resorted to mobilizing on the basis of assumed common origins, common language, geographical proximity, common culture, and whatever shared traits they could conjure so as to deal with the risk at hand. In other words, the creation of Kalanga ethnicity went hand in hand with Kalanga political responses such as the formation of bigger Kalanga chieftainships in the areas bordering the Ndebele kingdom and the Ngwato. Because the creation of ethnicity was both a social and a political process, there was a close relationship between chieftaincy and ethnicity. However, the creation of Kalanga ethnicity was not the preserve of the ruling elites (chiefs, spirit mediums, and ruling elders) alone, and they were not the only ones who had a legitimate interest in having ethnic communities. Although the elites would have encouraged and perhaps benefited much more from the formation of ethnic groups, commoners had their own interests too. First, their families refused to surrender to the Ndebele society on their captors’ terms as social underdogs; such a scenario had other serious social repercussions as well, like from which tribe you could marry, who could claim lobola proceeds, and even who had the right to own cattle. Second, by resisting Ndebele influence, their communities were most likely to remain intact, and so were their trading relations with the Tswana and other groups farther to the west. This explains why commoners took much interest as active agents in the formation of their ethnic identities.5 However, unlike among the Ndebele where commoners were divided into a minority of royalist sympathizers, who allied with the ruling elites in favor of an exclusive “Ndebele as zansi” ethnicity, and the majority of hole origin who wanted a more inclusive Ndebele ethnicity, most Kalanga commoners and their chiefs seemed to have, at least for some time, foregone their petty political squabbles and tried to unite against the major challenge of Ndebele acculturation. This was one of the motivations for the formation of more complex Kalanga polities and social networks that superseded their stateless societies that had existed before the Ndebele intrusion. The development of Kalanga ethnic consciousness and growth of their polities does not mean, however, that there were no Kalanga people who accepted Ndebele identity, for there were also some political benefits in so doing. To understand the nature of Ndebele and Kalanga history during this period (1860s onward), one needs to have a fair appreciation of politics and society on this frontier. Below, I will briefly examine Igor Kopytoff’s frontier theory and aspects of Hermann Giliomee’s work on the eastern frontier with South Africa, adding

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some modifications to help in understanding the shaping of the political and social institutions in this region.

Theorizing the Frontier Precolonial southern Zimbabwe was a restless frontier that experienced a number of changes over a period of time. Changes in this region did not start only with the Ndebele invasion of the area, but had been happening since the post–Great Zimbabwe era in the fourteenth century or perhaps dating to the tradition called the Leopard’s Kopje culture of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.6 Since the arrival of the Ndebele, however, local politics and society shifted considerably with formerly small Kalanga communities beginning to mobilize to form stronger, larger Kalanga chieftaincies. Let us turn to an examination of two related African frontier theories, those of Igor Kopytoff and of Elphick and Giliomee.7 Kopytoff’s internal African frontier theory attempts to explain the processes by which new polities emerged, out of which eventually developed new societies and new ethnicities. According to Kopytoff, Africa has experienced ceaseless flux among its populations, so much so that in comparison to inhabitants of other continents, Africans are relatively recent occupants of their present habitat. Because of this fluidity some ethnically ambiguous societies have developed.8 Kopytoff sees the African frontiers as politically open areas between clustered organized societies but internal to the larger region in which those societies were found. These he called“internal” or “interstitial” frontiers, which he describes metaphorically as follows: If then one were to look down from on high upon an ethnographic map of pre-colonial Africa, one would observe what might be likened to a meteorological map projected from a weather satellite, in which mature societies and polities will be represented by numerous blotches of dense light clouds and frontier areas by the meandering dark channels between them. These channels might be narrow or wide, with abrupt or uncertain boundaries depending on whether the control by the mature local metropoles of their peripheries extends far or near, whether it was strong or weak, whether it stopped suddenly at the boundary or it petered gradually out beyond it.9

Kopytoff did not make it clear what he meant by “mature societies and polities,” and this categorization is potentially problematic. Recognizing that his metaphor conveys an objective picture of small spaced frontiers as areas of sparse population and weak or nonexistent political institutions, Kopytoff suggested that the frontiers also arise out of subjective definitions of reality. In some cases societies may define neighboring areas as lacking legitimate

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(or“strong”) political institutions and being open to intrusion and settlement, as was the case of Kalanga areas in the eyes of Ndebele invaders. One member of the Ndebele elite whom I interviewed confirmed this mythical view of the frontier. He said, “When the Ndebele came in here, the area was just an empty piece of land, a land of elephants and Bushmen only.”10 Even if the frontier had been inhabited by organized polities at the time of the Ndebele conquest, it was still ordinarily perceived by the new invaders as void of institutions. The frontier was therefore not only a political definition of existing geographical space but also an arena in which to impose sociopolitical, cultural, and other ideological practices, including ethnicity, on the conquered subjects. According to Kopytoff, the emergence of larger, new polities and societies meant that smaller ones would shrink or disappear and their populations redistribute themselves into new groups.11 However, this assumption underestimates the resilience of politically weaker states and their capacity to transform their social and political character. As will be argued below, Ndebele and Kalanga relations were characterized by the twin processes of incorporation in some communities and resistance in others, depending on their particular circumstances. Kopytoff’s thesis assumes that societal change is externally driven, because he seems to depict the frontier societies as essentially conservative and, by extension, liable to serving as appendages of the metropoles. Recent work by Ogundiran on the Yoruba hinterland demonstrated that the seventeenthcentury Osogbo frontier was not an institutional vacuum but a hive of activity. He argued that the frontier had its own preexisting social order and its own thriving economy; that new frontiersmen failed to impose their own religious systems; and that early Osogbo did not have to wait to draw its energy from the metropolis, but also drew from its interactions with its neighbors and from intrafrontier migrations that enriched its cultural landscape.12 Therefore, transformation on the frontier was not always a result of pressure from newly arrived outsiders alone. The Kalanga and Ndebele case, however, presents slightly different problems from that of Ogundiran’s Osogbo and even from aspects of Kopytoff’s theory. Although the Kalanga had their strong religious rites, to which the Ndebele ended up submitting, as well as their own economic and social practices and also language and culture, they were militarily weak and their state systems had, until the Ndebele invasion, evolved on a different path compared to that of the Ndebele newcomers. Consequently, the evolution of Kalanga chieftaincies and ethnic identities would have taken a different form, or even possibly slowed down, had they not been exposed to Ndebele intrusion.13 This is not to say that that the development of Kalanganess was directly a result of Ndebele influence, for not even the Ndebele would have liked to see strong Kalanga communities developing. Kalanga ethnicity arose out of both planned and knee-jerk responses to Ndebele and Ngwato dominance in the region, which threatened to further squeeze the Kalanga out of the frontier or to destroy the notion of community among them.

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Kopytoff suggested key processes affecting frontier development that he explained very well in his work, for which a detailed description is thus needless here. With a few exceptions, Kopytoff’s framework helps explain the early phases of Ndebele infiltration. However, it does not explain many other inequalities of power well after the establishment of the Ndebele state. Moreover, by seeking to examine critically the evolution of conquest societies, his theory is generally silent in relation to the preconquest histories of the communities that the frontiersmen found in existence. One cannot use it to flesh out critical aspects of the pre-Ndebele phase of the Kalanga. Hermann Giliomee has attempted to fill this gap. In his study of social transformations in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, Giliomee distinguished two frontiers he named the “open” and “closed” frontiers. In the former, small chiefdoms or ethnic groups had conflicting claims to land and had no single government to exercise undisputed authority. These he termed stateless societies.14 In the closed frontier, there was increasing control by one powerful government, with the result that the weaker felt obliged to obey or face total exclusion, which meant they were to be driven off the frontier.15 In the first phase (1780–1812), the Xhosa coexisted with British colonists from the Cape and had generally mutual, less competitive relations. In the second phase, which saw the arrival of more colonizers (for instance, the 1820 settlers), pressures on land increased, giving rise to competition for this scarce resource. Consequently, the colonizers made moves to close the frontier by expelling the Xhosa, whom they now viewed as adversaries. They also encouraged more colonists to come in and also used the remnant of the Xhosa people as cheap laborers.16

Kalanga before Ndebele Infiltration Since the second half of the fifteenth century, the area (now Matabeleland) has been a region of political and cultural exchange, invaded and settled by one power after another, beginning with the Torwa, a state whose development coincided with the fall of Great Zimbabwe in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Torwa and the subsequent Rozvi history summarized below illustrate one form of invasion and cultural policy on an open frontier almost matching the model Giliomee suggested in his study of the Eastern Cape frontier. The Ndebele conducted an entirely different type of invasion and had a different way of relating to their neighbors. We must understand the Torwa and Rozvi situation first in order to grasp some aspects of Kalanga history. Not much information is known about the Torwa from written records, but Beach, corroborating the obscure Portuguese accounts with oral evidence and archaeological findings, argued that stone buildings found at the Torwa capital, Khami, resembled those at Great Zimbabwe.17 On this basis,

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it is generally believed that the builders of these dzimbabwe (houses of stone) were descendants of Great Zimbabwe. These occupiers of Khami later saw themselves as Kalanga, although it is difficult to establish when they became Kalanga. Oral research done by Kumile Masola, a Kalanga researcher in the 1960s, and edited by Wentzel, is invaluable as the only available extensive oral history project on the Kalanga.18 Masola’s collected accounts of Kalanga migration into the area they occupy today give a date that is almost contemporaneous with the Torwa migration from Great Zimbabwe to southern Zimbabwe. There is reference to a fifteenth-century migration, which was after the fall of Great Zimbabwe, and the resultant wave of population movements. The informants also at times talk of another sixteenth-century migration from the Mutapa, as if to suggest there was a second settlement by another group.19 The post-fourteenth-century period witnessed a general settlement into the area by people who spoke related dialects. Around the 1690s, a Mutapa state faction took advantage of the Mutapa’s preoccupation with the wars against the Portuguese and rebelled against the Mutapa state, then migrated farther south where, by trickery and also by taking advantage of the decline of the Torwa state, they took over political control of the Kalanga area.20 This became the Changamire or Rozvi state under Dombolakonachingwango.21 These Rozvi overlords came into an area that was mainly occupied by “stateless,” decentralized societies that lacked strong military structures to withstand invasion.22 Prior to the Rozvi occupation, the area had been under Tjibundule, a Kalanga chief of the Nyubi clan who had just died, and what remained were a number of petty chiefs who acknowledged no superior. Each man ruled his own clan or small group of followers, and in disputes the stronger one came off best, hence the ease with which the Mambo established his sway among them.23 This “stateless” society situation was somewhat similar to that of the Tiv of Nigeria, where power was shared between clan or lineage leaders.24 The Rozvi conquest led to the incorporation of some Torwa and Kalanga subrulers into the Rozvi state, meaning that, as a political identity, Rozvi later came to include people who were originally not Rozvi. After this incorporation the Rozvi conquerors apparently acquired the local “Kalanga” dialects, and consequently, the cultural continuity of the Kalanga was assured.25 Rozvi rulers strengthened their authority over their subject territories through marriage alliances rather than by direct conquest. For instance, one Kalanga ruler, Ndumba, who lived near Bulawayo, married a daughter of the Rozvi leader, Dombolakonachingwango.26 Since the Rozvi state was administered indirectly by way of a tributary system, Kalanga chiefs and other leaders were not deposed but remained legitimate so long as they paid tribute as a sign of political adherence. The Rozvi’s impact was not so pervasive as to create the kind of marginal tribalism that the Kalanga later developed in their dealings with the Ndebele. However, we

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see here an evolution of political complexity, from Kalanga statelessness to more solid notions of chieftainship, although these chiefs were thinly controlled by the Rozvi through the tributary system. The Kalanga and Rozvi situation I have hitherto described resembles that of the Bulozi kingdom under the Luyana kings. Mutumba Mainga distinguished an earlier Bulozi invasion from the later, violent Kololo invaders who came as a horde. When they occupied the area, the Bulozi were not always resisted by force of arms, as in some cases they negotiated with existing political authorities. Mainga suggested that their process of occupation and consolidation of Bulozi was gradual and that these newcomers “would not appear to have brought with them an evolved system of state centralization.”27 Like the Rozvi kingdom, Bulozi was founded by collaboration rather than conquest. Although Mutumba Mainga’s model explains well the Rozvi invasion, it does not apply to the later Ndebele invasion. Whereas the Rozvi were merely political overlords who posed very little real cultural threat, and preferred indirect control, peaceful coexistence, and intermarriage, the Ndebele were politically and socially assimilationist and in a way were considered to be “alien” because they had no previous genealogical, linguistic, political, economic, and cultural connections with the people in whose land they settled. This factor makes studies of Ndebele and Kalanga relations in general, and ethnicity in particular, more interesting but also complicated. We must understand another southern African “Mfecane” state, the Ngoni, and see how this compares with the Ndebele.28 A close study of polities of Nguni origin that spread and impacted southern and central Africa—such as the Ndebele, Kololo, Ngoni, and Swazi—presents an interesting picture of how, in different ways, newcomers usually assumed the authority of first-comers. Their behavior was, however, not uniform as they differed in their responses to different realities and conditions in the areas that they settled. An in-depth analysis of all these societies is not necessary here, but for comparative reasons I will briefly examine the Northern Rhodesian (Fort Jameson) Ngoni. The history of the Ngoni between 1821 and 1898 is typically presented as that of an armed people on the march and in search of a new home. They recruited most of their members from outsiders while maintaining their group’s sense of cultural continuity.29 Cattle, as among the Ndebele, were the mainstay of the Ngoni economy, and livestock supposedly belonged to the king.30 The regimental system, the placement of some regional leaders in provinces, and the commemoration of festivals such as the annual firstfruits (Nkwala or Nxwala in isiNdebele) were means to ensure the stability of the Ngoni state, as they were for the Ndebele.31 The relationship between the Ngoni and their neighbors was mainly a political one that was fostered through two policies: raids, which wearied their neighbors by continued attrition; and the recruitment of the vanquished into the Ngoni polity. The continually growing army enabled

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the state to systematically capture outsiders. Consequently, the Ngoni polity became what Barnes termed a snowball state, one that grew larger and larger as it pushed from place to place.32 Unlike the Ndebele, however, the feeble were conquered not as individuals but as communities, and they were allowed to retain their own chiefs as subordinate rulers. The institution of the Nkwala ceremony, the regimental system, and the raiding culture strikes me as a crucial similarity to the Ndebele. Nonetheless, there were more marked differences than similarities between these two groups. First, unlike the Ngoni, the Ndebele rarely retained the local chiefs upon conquering new areas, but replaced them with “pure-blooded” Nguni/zansi Ndebele or in rare cases with well-assimilated enhla (second-class Ndebele). Second, because the Ndebele were more settled than the Ngoni, they had better-established political structures. Unlike the unsettled Ngoni who believed in controlling people more than their land, the Ndebele saw the importance of controlling both people and land. Evidence suggests that it was often not easy for visitors to get into Matabeleland and see the king because the Ndebele state exercised a degree of border control. Visitors usually had to wait for more than a week (up to ten days) at some of the outposts located near the Ndebele borders. Meanwhile, messages would be sent to the king to notify him of their arrival, and unless he granted them permission, they would not enter the kingdom.33 Ndebele control over the land allowed the king and those he delegated to legislate on hunting seasons and hunting zones, to forbid the killing of certain animals, to grant mining and other concessions, and to ensure that travel within the frontier by visitors was kept under check.34 In theory, this control of land gave the Ndebele rulers more political and moral authority over those within their area, but as we will see, this was not always the case in Kalanga communities on the margins of the Ndebele state and beyond. The Ndebele also developed strong social structures such as the caste system, which was not found among the Ngoni. Whereas the Ngoni suffered many splits, the Ndebele had a powerful sense of kingship that made secession treasonous;35 for this reason, the kingdom remained generally intact despite their succession challenges. Because of these differences, the Ngoni and the Ndebele peoples developed along dissimilar lines. As to why the mobilization of the state on the basis of ethnicity did not matter among the Ngoni, nobody knows, but it is likely that the extremely unsettled nature of the Ngoni state made such possibilities either difficult or needless. A (political) distinction between the aristocracy and the conquered was enough to run that kind of state.36

Ndebele Conquest and Power What became known as the Ndebele originated as a nineteenth-century offshoot of the Nguni groups around today’s KwaZulu Natal. The Khumalo

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dynasty that formed the Ndebele zansi (upper class) was not Zulu, but part of the wider Nguni people, like the early Zulus themselves and many other clans.37 A brief synopsis of sociopolitical developments in Nguniland will aid our understanding of the molding of an Ndebele ethnicity. Nguniland of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was characterized by the development of highly competitive and complex modern kingdoms. Their development coincided with the rapid advance of African military technology in which the spear was becoming important as a weapon that was used for both destruction and for statecraft.38 Early trade with missionaries, hunters, and Boers also led to the acquisition of guns, which increased the level of violence in warfare even more. Concomitantly, the mobilization of ethnic-based alliances became a feature of political life. According to Hamilton and Wright, the processes of state formation gave rise to the potential for discrimination on ethnic grounds, between different groups within the same chiefdom.39 Violence and subordination coincided with the formation of internal ethnic differentiation. If Hamilton and Wright’s argument about the AmaLala is accepted, it seems unlikely that the Khumalo clan (later to become Ndebele ruling elites) played no part in this politics of ethnic differentiation. It is possible that that the Khumalos came into the area now called Matabeleland with an ideal sociopolitical assemblage that they hoped to sustain and impose on those they conquered, as conquerors often do, especially in frontier areas.40 This project faced two main challenges: First, since the majority of the Ndebele people were mainly those incorporated along the way and were by definition commoners, these people were not always willing to define their Ndebeleness according to the zansi aristocratic model—where being “pure” Ndebele was being imagined as being Zulu. Second, some Matabeleland peoples refused to come under Ndebele social and cultural influence and even contested Ndebele political authority, and for that reason, they advocated for different ethnic and political identities, as the case of Kalanga will demonstrate. The attempt by Ndebele ruling elites to impose parameters of social control among the conquered is striking. It illustrates the ways in which Ndebele political authority was closely tied to Ndebele social identities, including ethnicity. For the Kalanga, on the other hand, the buildup of larger chieftaincies on the margins of the Ndebele state was both part of the process of social reorganization in extraordinary times and a political response to Ndebele intrusion. Far from becoming merely a part of the Ndebele political system, such Kalanga chiefs became a popular resource in the construction of Kalanga ethnic identity. We therefore have to revisit Etherington’s view that chieftaincies were more important than “ethnic feeling,” which he maintains was virtually absent in the nineteenth century.41 Etherington’s conclusion came in the wake of his study of highly unstable migrant South African polities between 1815 and 1854, a very sensitive transitional era during which

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the British colonizers were consolidating their hold in many areas of the country. Had he concerned himself more with the internal social practices within these precolonial societies, other than the obvious broad political aspects, Etherington would perhaps have discussed different results. When the metropolitan fugitive Mzilikazi left Natal, he faced uncertain frontiers. So he left with a number of people, mostly relatives, sympathizers, and mercenaries. The journey to the “promised land” was trying and testing; they were frequently pursued and attacked by the Zulu army in the 1830s, and at one time some died of smallpox.42 After a stay among the Tswana, they incorporated some Tswana, who became Ndebelecized. In fact, it was only when they settled among the Sotho-Tswana groups that these Ngunis were labeled Litebele, Kimatebele, or in short, Tebele, which later became corrupted to Mandebele. The label, Kimatebele described their method of fighting at close quarters with the short stabbing spear, but other meanings are possible.43 This label was a way of “Other-ing” the Ndebele to distinguish them from the local people, and with time, it became generally acceptable to the Ndebele commoners. The acceptance of this label was possible despite the fact that the king and zansi aristocrats did not view themselves as Ndebele, at least in the early years of settlement in the area that later became known as Matabelelend.44 The king and his core group called themselves “MaZulu” or “BaNguni” or “Abenguni.”45 This assertion of Nguni identity was perhaps beneficial to them at the time because it possibly carried more weight than if they were to say they were simply part of the relatively unknown Khumalo clan. It was the easiest way for a weary and nostalgic minority to establish its sway among a majority of originals, who to some extent were already terrified of the Nguni, having been invaded previously by a passing Nguni group. By the time they reached Zimbabwe, the Ndebele group was made up of more Sotho and Tswana people than zansi.46 Because the rulers were a minority and risked losing their image and caste, they had to maintain an image of themselves as Zulu and thus sought to remind the majority about this identity by creating hierarchical categories through social stratification. When the already tired and homesick Ndebele finally crossed the Limpopo River, they came across the Kalanga and other Rozvi subjects. According to Masola’s oral manuscript, the Kalanga received the Ndebele humanely, just as they had treated Nyamazana, who had come and gone; but the Kalanga claimed that the latter had abused their hospitality. The traditions report how a segment of the Ndebele arrived: There arrived in our country people whom we do not know. They have small horns in the middle of their heads and they stuck their weapons in their apron belts. They are very thin; they failed to cross the cultivated ridges, so lean were they (“ngono vakahonda kunochenamisa”). Moreover they do not have food. They travelled eating their shields [sic] and they also do not have wives.

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Domination and Resistance The people of Chilagwane said to their chief: “Allow us to kill them and finish them. They have spoiled our country.” But Chilagwane said, “Do not kill them, but let them be given food, so that they may eat and live and when they have survived, they will go ahead on their journey.”47

The Kalanga were not militarily strong enough to resist the Ndebele invasion, thus a full-scale defense was not possible. Moreover, the Rozvi kingdom was terribly weak at that point.48 However, there was some small-scale fighting that resulted in the Kalanga and related groups losing and subsequently withdrawing into the mountains for refuge.49 There is more evidence, both oral and written, to prove that this period of Ndebele intrusion resulted in the general occupancy by precolonial Zimbabwean societies of mountains and highlands for refuge.50 Kalanga oral evidence suggests that some Kalanga starved to death in those mountains and that some supposedly escaped when one of the Kalanga leaders produced a potsherd with some “medicine” that “produced fire.”51 On seeing the smoke, the Ndebele withdrew crying, “Those worthless Kalanga are now bewitching us . . . we shall die and be finished today”; yet they threw spears at the Kalanga who tried to descend from the mountain.52 This sour encounter marked the beginning of animosity, ethnic labeling, and stereotyping that lie at the heart of Ndebele and Kalanga social reorganization. The Ndebele came to fear Kalanga religious, spiritual, and magical power, hence the label “witches”; and the Kalanga likewise feared Ndebele military power, hence the depiction of them as “warlike” people.53 These are categories that missionaries and colonial administrators reinforced, but did not originate. It is also during this time that the Kalanga began to label the invaders as Mapotoko, a derogatory term that most Kalanga people still use today to describe the Ndebele.54

Ndebele and Kalanga Relations after the Conquest Rather than invite their own people from the metropole, as colonizers did on Giliomee’s eastern frontier on the Cape, the minority Ndebele tried to assimilate their subjects into their polity with the initial intention of ensuring both a labor supply and state security.55 However, this was not an openhanded inclusivity but one in which the colonized, once they had accepted Ndebele authority, found themselves pigeonholed into social categories against their wishes. Within the state, one had to assume membership in the Ndebele community by taking up Ndebele cultural symbols: slitting the ears, dressing like the Ndebele, and speaking the Ndebele language. Therefore, political belonging, so far as the Ndebele were concerned, tied very closely to symbols of Ndebele ethnicity. Because belonging to the state came with other demands such as assuming Ndebele ethnicity, many Kalanga who

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considered this to be too onerous migrated to the margins of the Ndebele state where they were relatively freer to define themselves than those who remained within the Ndebele state. The Sangulube branch of the Talahundra Kalanga, for instance, migrated beyond Shashe and settled in Tati, away from regular Ndebele influence.56 It is important that we examine the situation that Kalanga found themselves in after Ndebele settlement and how Ndebele practices such as raiding, the caste system, and language policy promoted separate ethnic consciousness and even triggered internal debates within the Ndebele state about what it meant to be Ndebele.

Raiding Historians are not yet agreed about the nature and extent of Ndebele raids. Nationalist and postnationalist historians downplayed these raids arguing that early observers had exaggerated their extent in order to justify colonialism. However, since we have evidence of Ndebele raids long before colonialism and the missionary enterprise, it is difficult to dismiss this early evidence as simply written by forerunners of British imperialism. Recent scholars like Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni argue that these raids were mostly a characteristic of the unsettled phase of the Ndebele state. When the Ndebele got settled these raids decreased markedly.57 It is not clear how Ndlovu-Gatsheni could quantify this because evidence suggests that even from the 1860s and later when the Ndebele were settled, they still raided the Tswana, Kalanga, and others.58 Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s only evidence comes from an incidental reference from the pages of the Matabele Journals of Robert Moffat. This allusion might have been inserted in Moffat’s letters to justify his missionary work among the Ndebele so as to earn himself a name by making his directors believe he had influenced the Ndebele to repent from the twin evils of raiding and killing. Under Mzilikazi’s successor, Lobengula, raids continued, becoming better organized and more routine. One old Ndebele man told Windram in 1939 of his involvement in Lobengula’s army, and of the raids. He recounted how the king often called them to parade before they went, gave them clear instructions about what to do, and then allotted them a share of cattle as food for the journey. He also explained how overzealous Indunas often went on unauthorized raids, collected the loot, and concealed it from the king, who upon discovery would order them to be killed.59 Even ordinary soldiers were in the habit of conducting unofficial predatory raids to enrich themselves.60 Writing in 1862, John Smith Moffat described the Ndebele raids as Matabele’s “annual foray against the weaker tribes—[which were as] much a part of their lives as the sowing and gathering of their corn. They have lately increased the number of their firearms.”61 The Ndebele king was ultimately responsible for both the official and the unofficial

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raids, especially if they tarnished the image of the kingdom. Nonetheless, the frequency of the raids is immaterial, for all we need to know is that the Ndebele raided their neighbors, whose social order those raids usually disrupted; that at times they completely destroyed the raided society, leaving the raided groups traumatized; and that the raiding also led to demographic imbalances resulting from the capture of young men whom Mzilikazi, and later Lobengula, usually drafted into his army.62 Because of this raiding experience, community reconstruction and mobilization in the raided society would have been dictated by the desire to forestall the invading Other by forming stronger social and political solidarity networks. The creation of larger Kalanga communities, which was largely a response to these raids, required not only some form of political ingenuity but also, more importantly, the deployment of symbols, myths, and ideas of common origins, shared cultural practices, dressing, and religious rituals, among others. The fact that most of the people spoke TjiKalanga made it easy to create such a community of comrades. Simple community solidarity networks were later buttressed by shared emotions, by voluntary admission of the wounded, and also by the search for stronger political leadership. The earliest recorded evidence of Ndebele raids is found in Robert Moffat’s correspondence from 1835. Moffat, seemingly a Bakwena loyalist, but also a friend of Mzilikazi, said the Matabele had “annihilated many powerful tribes and deluged the Bakwena country with blood.”63 He reported of “the pillaging and burning of towns; . . . great slaughters” by “dancing and singing Matabele,” and the looting of cattle by Mzilikazi who considered himself a “sufferer with the right to retake his own.”64 Mzilikazi also attacked the Ngwato in the 1840s while disputing the allegiance of Kalanga and Tswana in the area between Shoshong, the Notwetwe, and the Upper Ramaqabane. The Ndebele fought those who tried to resist their power with the result that some of the Hlaping, Hurutshe, Kalanga, and other peoples sought refuge with Sekhome in the hills of the Ngwato.65 According to Cobbing, the geographical location of the Ndebele state made raids almost inevitable. Encircled by the Ngwato to the southwest, the Kololo of Sebitwane to the north, and the Rozvi and other Shona groups to the east, the Ndebele state suffered ceaseless boundary pressure, especially by the Ngwato and Shona, causing Mzilikazi to send armies in all directions.66 It is difficult, though, for us to reduce Ndebele raids to the mere politics of boundary maintenance. Ndebele raiding culture must also be viewed in the context of the demands for household labor and state security concerns and also as a part of Ndebele class and caste politics. In some cases, weaker societies were attacked for their passive political actions such as failing to pay tribute or delaying payment. Lobengula raided the Nambya and killed their chief Hwange (Zanke) “for having two hearts”; that is, for paying allegiance to both Lewanika of the Lozi and Lobengula at

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the same time.67 In 1863, there was a brutal raid witnessed by Mackenzie, who was then a missionary among the Ngwato and the Kalanga who had relocated to the land between Sekhome and Mzilikazi’s kingdom. Mackenzie recounted how Mzilikazi tried to attack the Ngwato and how news of this planned raid sent shockwaves through the neighboring Talahundra Kalanga communities under Mahuku and others under Kirekilwe. When this raid failed, Kalanga communities became easy targets condemned for their failure (or unwillingness) to supply essential intelligence information to the Ndebele that would have made the raid successful.68 A number of Kalanga communities occupied the area that both Lobengula and the Ngwato rulers considered to be a no-man’s-land. Both the Ngwato and Ndebele kings competed to control the people living in this region. This placed most Kalanga communities in a situation of having to pay uncertain allegiance to both the Ndebele and the Ngwato, while internally maintaining their local community culture, economy, and political leadership. This was observed by Mackenzie, who in 1884 wrote: Between the Matabele country and the Bamangwato there stretched an irregular line of Makalaka towns, the inhabitants of which spent a most wretched existence, having the difficult task to perform of serving two masters. They were in the power of the Matabele, who entered their towns when they chose, depriving them of their children as soon as they grew up to be of use. On the other hand, it was in their interest to keep up friendly intercourse with their old masters, the Bamangwato, because if Mzilikazi’s rule became intolerable, they hoped to be received into the town of the Bamangwato. Sometimes in the same Makalaka town there would arrive scouts from the two opposing tribes, the Matabele and the Bamangwato, to “hear the news.”69

Although Ndebele rulers expected the Kalanga in the vicinity of the Ndebele state—whom they claimed to be their vassals—to spy periodically and report Ngwato activities to the Ndebele as a show of loyalty, the Kalanga instead preferred to spy against the Ndebele in favor of the Ngwato, thus showing their contempt of Ndebele authority. This was because Kalanga had friends and relatives among the Ngwato, so it was in their interest to help the Ngwato.70 Most important, Kalanga loyalty to the Ngwato did not pose any problems to the Kalanga’s sense of self-identity whereas allegiance to the Ndebele was more demanding in many ways. Unlike the Ndebele, the Ngwato neither raided Kalanga for their children nor forced the Kalanga to speak their Ngwato language. The Ngwato were not in the habit of laughing at Kalanga attire (the long, rolling dresses made of animal hides) and the food they ate.71 Moreover, as long as Kalanga accepted Khama the Ngwato king’s diplomatic protection, they were assured of their chieftaincies and general political independence, in which inhered the idea of Kalanga community. To add to this, it would have been counterproductive for Khama

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Figure 2.1. Kalanga smelting forge, taken at Dombodema, 1916. The forge was used by Kalanga blacksmiths during the precolonial era to make weapons that they sold to the Ngwato, and also in the colonial era for other purposes. Photographer unknown. © National Archives of Zimbabwe (accession number 391/397/Y14361). Reproduced with permission.

to violate Kalanga communities because they were his longtime trading partners. Khama obtained lots of milk, wild fruits, eggs, iron plows from Kalanga blacksmiths, and grain from Kalanga farmers, especially the Talahundra Kalanga.72 So, whereas Khama saw Kalanga people as trading partners, the Ndebele viewed them as subjects with little or no rights except to serve their overlords. For this reason Kalanga people readily acted as Ngwato spies against Ndebele raiders. The destructive nature of Ndebele raids created a shared victim mentality in Kalanga communities that partly explains the creation of bigger communities led by Kalanga chiefs. In these communities, the Kalanga language became the lingua franca and was an important identity marker used by the Ndebele raiders to distinguish the Kalanga from the Ngwato. Although these communities were still at the risk of further Ndebele raids, they nonetheless allowed some of their kinsmen who served as Ngwato messengers to move freely in their area and supported them logistically. When the Ndebele invaded the region, Ngwato messengers (also called Bamangwato) who spoke TjiKalanga were not easily identified as spies. Those who could not speak TjiKalanga were often hidden away from Mzilikazi’s Ndebele attackers as missionary John Mackenzi noted in the 1860s:

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The Mangwato [Ngwato] messengers, who were often themselves Makalaka by birth, were passed off as inhabitants of a neighbouring Makalaka town; or if they were Bamangwato, and unable to speak the Sekalaka language, they were hidden in a hut or among the rocks, until the Matabele soldiers left. The intolerable severity of the Matabele has broken up this line now, the people having fled to the Bamangwato for protection; but in 1862 there was a considerable Makalaka population stretching along the southern and south-western boundary of Moselekatse’s [Mzilikazi’s] country. When the Bamangwato herdsmen advanced northwards, they trusted to the assistance of these Batalowta and Makalaka to give them secret warning of the Matabele plans.73

Although some Kalanga communities accepted Ngwato protection so as to escape Ndebele incursions, others chose to remain independent from both the Ngwato and the Ndebele. They managed this by diplomatically playing the Ndebele and Ngwato against one another. This explains why, during the drawing of the colonial border, Khama tried frantically, yet unsuccessfully, to claim such Kalanga communities as Mswazi, Madandume (also called Matundume or Malalume), Sinete, and Mengwe. This claim was quickly dismissed by NC Thomas, who for such purposes as taxation and labor recruitment, he argued that these communities had been under Lobengula and thus were to fall under BSACo rule.74 Evidence shows that most of these chiefdoms remained independent from both Lobengula and Khama, except that the Ndebele, using their regimental outposts in Bulilima—such as Gaba of Gambo, Zimnyama of Mpini Ndiweni, and Impande of Mpotshwana—tried to exercise a loose suzerainty over them by raiding them and forcing them to pay tribute.75 Decle, who spent about three years in Matabeleland, noted that the area south of the Shashani River was predominantly a Kalanga area with only one Ndebele village, most likely one of their outposts, located six miles from Mangwe.76 The area that Decle described covers most of Bulilima-Mangwe and parts of today’s Tsholotsho District, which is a huge stretch of land comprising a quarter or a third of Matabeleland. Some of the communities that refused to recognize Ndebele authority were pushed farther into the margins of the Ndebele state when two more Ndebele outposts were established. Evidence suggests that such Kalanga communities were not integrated into either the Ngwato polity and economic system or that of the Ndebele. Writing in 1871, London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary John Mackenzie described a number of villages located some distance away from the large towns of the Ngwato that were inhabited by “Makalaka refugees, who fled recently from the enormities of the Matebele sway. They chose to remain at a distance from the large town for the sake of their gardens, for it takes some of the Bamangwato who reside in the large town more than an hour to reach their cultivated fields.”77

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Figure 2.2. Precolonial map of “Matabeleland.” Gray shading indicates areas that were inhabited by precolonial Ndebele and Kalanga. Map was redrawn from Lionel Decle’s Three Years in Savage Africa (1898) and from study of other scholarly descriptions of the Ndebele state. Map by author.

The allegiance of most Kalanga chiefs to Lobengula was tenuous and questionable. For this reason, although Lobengula thought he had demoted Kalanga chiefs into headmen and placed Ndebele garrisons close to their chiefdoms to check on them, to enforce their payment of tribute, and to enforce Ndebele language and culture among them, he never won that

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loyalty and voluntary submission of those people in his kingdom. Instead, he depended on enforcing discipline by raiding and attacking those Kalanga chiefs who disobeyed, insulted, or ill-treated his regimental leaders.78 Lobengula’s draconian measures were not always successful as they instead strengthened the resolve to develop a sense of Kalanganess. Kalanga defiance of Ndebele control would not have been possible without ethnic camaraderie in the Kalanga community. Kalanga ethnic patriotism, which conveyed overtones of mild political tribalism, explains the rise of big Kalanga chieftaincies, some of which emerged as former Rozvi state headmen claimed chieftaincy and popular legitimacy to rule and to sustain notions of community and Kalanga cultural practices. A similar development was also happening in other communities farther north in and around Hwange where Ndebele raids on the Leya and Dombe (both of whom were once closely related to the Kalanga politically) cemented relations between them, leading to their creation of a bigger group that the Ndebele labeled as “abeNanzwa,” known today as the “Nambya.” These Nambya usually withdrew farther from the Ndebele margins during raids, returning to their villages in peacetime.79 Apart from its political necessity, Kalanga chieftaincy was also required to help guard societal institutions and ideologies. Chieftaincy also helped protect Kalanga economic practices by ensuring reasonable political responses to sporadic raids and the Ndebele demands for tribute. Chiefs and elders also helped ensure that smooth negotiations for trade, and continuity with longtime trade partners such as the Ngwato and other less hostile neighbors was not compromised. Mengwe, a former Rozvi headman, rose into a prominent chief with so many followers that he came to be viewed by some Kalanga as the king or the successor to the late Rozvi Mambo.80 He had power to allocate land even to prominent Kalanga chiefdoms such as that of Mswazvi.81 There were also other rising Kalanga chiefs within that huge stretch of land. When Lionel Decle passed through the Kalanga communities, he judged Mswazvi to be the largest village head of that district and Matundume (Madandume or Malalume) to be the biggest local chief of the area that was some eighty miles from Tati.82 Decle was afraid of Mswazvi, who almost declined him permission to pass through his area notwithstanding the permission he (Decle) claimed to have received from Lobengula to travel through. In order to be allowed to pass, Decle threatened Mswazvi with his gun by shooting at wild birds in the air, but even after he was eventually allowed to pass through Mswazvi’s territory, Mswazvi’s spies still followed him, and Mswazvi even instructed other chiefs not to allow Decle to pass.83 Other Kalanga chiefs such as those of Sangulube (the Talahundra) near Tati, Mninigau, and a few others also retained their chieftaincies84 so that in reality, the Tati area was neither a no-man’s-land as assumed in Samuel Edwards’s reminiscences on the Tati nor a part of Ndebele or Ngwato territory.85 At this juncture, it is possible to say with a degree of certainty that Ndebele influence was not so strong farther away from its capital and that regardless

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of periodic raids, the state did not necessarily succeed in either destroying some resisting Kalanga communities or enforcing absolute loyalty as such communities continued to live on their own.86 However, one indirect result of Ndebele interventions in Kalanga communities was the development of Kalanga political tribalism, social stereotyping, and hatred of the Ndebele. For Lobengula, the payment of tribute meant only that the Kalanga leaders at least recognized his authority, however tenuous and contested. To those Kalanga, however, tribute payment was a self-protective measure by a people who, knowing their unhappy relations with the Ndebele, wanted to prevent further destabilization. Although the payment of tribute was not what Kalanga people deemed desirable, it was nonetheless politically beneficial as it saved them from possible further scattering of their growing communities on the margins of the Ndebele and Ngwato polities and also from a possible full-fledged political incorporation into the Ndebele state. Compliance with tribute payments therefore enabled those previously smaller fluid communities to stabilize as they became less vulnerable to raids. This stability enabled them to set up stronger institutions such as chieftaincies around which Kalanga ethnicity was mobilized. Evidence suggests that Kalanga ethnicity grew during this period when previously smaller Kalanga groups recruited more members by incorporating small families of Sotho and Pedi origin at Masunga and Masojane in Tati. Their long stay among the Kalanga resulted in their becoming culturally assimilated into the Kalanga community through intermarriages and language learning.87 Although Kalanga chieftaincies that rose during this time had little power to change the overall political landscape that was dictated mainly by Ndebele and Ngwato foreign policies, they helped to foster a sense of belonging within previously disparate, “stateless” societies. They also helped sustain the Kalanga language, which became the lingua franca of the area as we already noted, otherwise either isiNdebele or Setswana would have dominated those areas. Snippets of evidence suggest that during this time the people generally called themselves Kalanga and did not identify themselves only by their chiefs’ names.88 The Kalanga also had a dress code and notions of beauty that differed from that of the Ndebele;89 they had common foods that the Ndebele would not eat, such as mice or rats; and had burial rituals unlike Ndebele practices.90 These symbols and practices helped differentiate the Kalanga from their neighbors. However, not all Kalanga people responded by imagining a radical Kalanga self-consciousness. Depending on their geographical location and the nature of their interactions with the Ndebele, some Kalanga people accepted Ndebele ethnicity as the only viable option to secure themselves against the raiding menace. Buying peace was costly, however, as it did not always translate into more freedom. Once they accepted being part of the Ndebele culture, they had to prove that they met the requirements of

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belonging to a new ethnic group. They had to change their dress; drop TjiKalanga in favor of isiNdebele, which many did;91 slit their ears; and also to be patriotic as members of the state.92 As we will see, the commoners struggled to meet these requirements and fulfilled them only imperfectly. Because they were the majority, they tried to define Ndebeleness on their own easier terms. If being Ndebele meant more than mere change of political leadership to the point that people were required to change even their language and culture, then being Ndebele in the nineteenth century was about taking up both a new political identity and its associated ethnic citizenship. The case of Ndebele incorporation of the Kalanga has some similarities to nineteenth-century nationalism in Eastern European. As Ernest Gellner argued, this ninenteeth century Eastern European nationalism was accomplished through a great deal of forced cultural engineering, which involved exchange and expulsion, forcible assimilation, and at times liquidation of populations.93 The main difference, however, is that in Matabeleland there was a dichotomy between those who held the levers of political power and the commoners who, as they became more confident as a class and interacted with missionaries (who later reduced their language into writing), unofficially controlled internal moral debates about what it meant to be Ndebele. Consequently, the definition of Ndebele became more subjective as the commoners subtly projected their own understanding of being Ndebele so that they could easily assimilate into the state. We will learn now how this sense of ethnic identity was contested through the institutionalization of the caste system.

Social Order: Institutionalizing the Caste System Ndebele society was generally divided into castes.94 Although these caste categories are no longer strong and politically enforceable today, they are often invoked when people debate Ndebeleness. Today the siblings of the former zansi aristocrats still appeal to these divisions to legitimize their claims to leadership and moral authority in Ndebele society. Descendants of the Ndebele ruling families, mainly the former zansi, often feel flattered if they are greeted by those from former commoner families as abesikhosini (those of the royalty). The caste system was initially a political arrangement that was intended to enforce the authority of the rulers and to keep the subjects in their “rightful” place. Over time, it became a facet of ethnic policy and sparked debates about being Ndebele in the nineteenth century. Because the caste system was crafted in order to give the superior classes moral authority over lower castes, these superiors were mandated to Ndebelecize their inferiors, the hole (or amahole), to ensure that they mastered Ndebele cultural, linguistic, and social practices although this assimilation did not necessarily change their social status. In some instances such

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Ndebelecization was successful, especially closer to the center of the state. When I was conducting research in Bubi (once the core of Ndebele political power), some Ndebele-speaking people told me that they were Banyai, abantu bakaMambo (Rozvi people).95 However, because they had been Ndebelecized, they could not tell me anything more about their Rozvi past. In other instances, though, Ndebele acculturation in the way envisaged by the king failed, with the result that the commoners negotiated their own sense of being Ndebele, including the creation of a subclass and perhaps subculture of their own within their caste. For instance, although the hole were generally referred to a low class and could be servants, or technically “slaves,” of the superior zansi (rulers) and enhla (middle class), evidence suggest that some richer hole emerged who also owned servants.96 Describing Ndebele society in the late 1870s, early Jesuit Catholic missionaries noted a division into three social castes: At the head of the Matebeles is the class of the Abezansi, of pure Zulu blood, descendants of the first companions of Mosilikatzi [sic] who glory in their ancestry. Their skin varies in colour from chocolate to reddish yellow. They are well made, have a skull of a European type, and in fact deserve the name of “magnificent savages” given them by the first whitemen who came in contact with the Zulus. Below are the Abenhla, descendants of the Basutos and the Barotses, incorporated with the Zulus while they were passing through the Transvaal. They used to enjoy the reputation of being excellent soldiers. The lowest class, that of the Amaholi, were only the Mashona slaves, as black as ebony, and of the true Negro type. The outcome of their military education was to engraft upon a timid nature an intense ferocity and imprudence. It has been found possible to convert them into brigands, but not into warriors, and as they are in the majority, it must be allowed that the nation has degenerated physically and morally.97

The Jesuit account above viewed the caste system in primordial terms. Jesuits viewed caste differences in racial and biological terms as in skin color, type of skull, and blood type. This does not obscure the fact that such castes were real, although they were not simply reducible to the Jesuits’ characterizations. Thomas Morgan Thomas believed that those caste divisions mirrored the geographical origins of these different peoples and their character. Like the Jesuits, however, he argued that the lower class were Ndebele slaves.98 Revisionist and Africanist historians have attempted to downplay these caste divisions by viewing the Ndebele state as a nation. Cobbing suggested that the society was divided not only into these three groups but also into captives and voluntary immigrants such as the Fingo of Bembesi and the Mazizi99—and to this, I would add the tiny, semipermanent white population that was already established in Matabeleland that included fortune hunters,

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gold diggers, explorers, missionaries, and others. Cobbing also argued that these caste categories were not rigid and suggested that King Lobengula preached the virtues of intermarriage between these groups as a national unifying ideology.100 I have not found any historical evidence that supports this assertion. To the contrary, sources demonstrate that official state policy was against marriages across castes, and those who intermarried and were reported would likely face death.101 Writing almost two decades after the collapse of the Ndebele state, things had not changed much, as missionary Elliot observed: “Abezansi pride has well kept the distinction between themselves and the rest of the population, and intermarriages are rare.”102 If there were any intermarriages, which was of course possible, it was not because state policy ordinarily allowed it, but because of three possible explanations: first, the hidden popular resistance to the confusing zansi elite project in which the policy of assimilation, which was in theory expected to have led to equality within the state, was contradicted by the caste system, which institutionalized differences and debased the lower classes; second, the misdemeanors of some zansi men who wanted freedom to choose marriage partners across the caste divide; and third, the distribution of captured women to prominent captors and chiefs as reward. Considering that there were very few zansi females, especially in the early years of the Ndebele state, and also considering that women from the hole rank generally wielded no political power, they were not often suspected to be an immediate danger to the male-dominated Ndebele state system. Moreover, because of their social background and the way they came into the Ndebele kingdom, hole women were being offered in marriage from a position of weakness, not of strength. Those zansi men who secretly married from the lower class concealed this from the king by changing the surnames of the married women and even that of the young girls brought up under zansi control. Husbands also tried to conceal the identity of their hole wives by teaching them isiNdebele so that they almost spoke like a “pure” Ndebele.103 The Ndebele king himself never married from the hole class, and there is no evidence to suggest that hole men could marry women of a higher class.104 Therefore, the assumption that the king authorized inclusive Ndebele political nationalism and marriages across castes, as advanced by revisionist historians like Cobbing and recently by Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, is not correct.105 Scholars like Ngwabi Bhebe argued that hole Ndebeles were not slaves, but were people who stayed at the king’s court and were classed as abantu benkosi (meaning “the king’s people”). If the king suspected any man of ill-treating a hole, he would order the hole to come and live in his royal care.106 Bhebe missed two vital points. First, that abantu benkosi was a statement of ownership, not necessarily of respect for the captives. Second, one wonders why those innocent people had to be captured and trafficked from their original societies in the first place.107 If historians assume that these captives were nicely

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treated in the Ndebele kingdom, is this to say that their original societies were worse off and that these servants or slaves should have been grateful for being under Ndebele control? To the contrary, historical sources suggest that even the captives in the king’s house did not feel well treated. At some point, some of the captives tried to escape and return to their families, but, unfortunately for them, were tracked down and recaptured.108 This attempt to escape demonstrates that they did not mistake their captivity for freedom. Bhebe further argued that there were intermarriages between these classes, with the majority of captive women being married to zansi indunas, thereby becoming members of the master’s family.109 His argument was uncritically accepted by Ndlovu-Gatsheni, who was otherwise hard-pressed to justify his assertion about democracy, human rights, and good governance in the precolonial Ndebele state. Considering these difficult debates, it is neither profitable to deny that the caste system and its evils were real nor useful to take the opposite extreme, such as the Jesuit view described above; rather, I maintain that there existed a relatively mild, albeit lucrative, form of internal and external slavery and slave trading. Internally, it was between the Ndebele slave owners and Ndebele slave buyers (most likely the zansi aristocrats). Because of the raiding culture and the caste system, the Ndebele polity was becoming a slave- and servant-crazy society to the extent that even the young zansi grew up with that slave- and servant-owning mentality because of the belief that such ownership enhanced one’s social status. Describing the society just after Lobengula’s coronation in the late 1960s, Thomas Morgan Thomas said: The love of slave holding is often the cause of war. . . . The Amandebele are exceedingly fond of being served. . . . The consequence is that every one, from the child of five to the man of sixty, endeavours by all possible means to become a master, and when he cannot get servants in his own country, he will go in search of them to the other lands. This has often been done by the Amandebele since our stay with them . . . having arrived at home, they either employ those whom they have captured as their own servants, or sell them to others for cattle, corn, or karosses, &c. The value of two children, about ten years of age, is that of an ox or cow. Ulopengule [Lobengula], referring to this repulsive practice of the soldiers, on the day of his coronation, declared that it was to cease.110

The other form of slave dealing was between Ndebele slave owners or raiders and white slave traders who lived in the Ndebele state. These “white Ndebeles” would then sell these slaves to other white people outside the Ndebele state, especially the “Boers” from South Africa, who used them as cheap or unpaid laborers or as wives. Describing this slave trade, Thompson wrote of ten slave traders in the Ndebele state who “made a living by buying slave

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girls, generally twenty years old, for fifty cotton blankets each. They then took the girls to the borders and sold them to other white scoundrels.”111 In another account, Thompson unashamedly admitted that he also bought one young boy from the Ndebele to be the property of his two sons. The boy who was bought in exchange for four tins of powder, two tins of caps, two bars of lead, and five yards of calico was one of those just captured by the Ndebele raiders.112 If these accounts by Thompson can be relied on, or even if we dismiss them as false, it still remains difficult to imagine that the captives mistook their captivity for freedom and that they anticipated good treatment at the hands of their captors. We must also admit that the forms of servanthood practiced depended somewhat on the attitude of the different owners of those servants.113 It cannot be denied, therefore, that some servants were treated well but that others were abused, and that girls were given in marriage without their consent. We must also agree that in most cases, the hole did not have equal standing before the law when compared to the zansi and enhla classes. In cases when a hole was violated by a zansi aristocrat, the latter usually got preferential treatment. Whereas a hole would be killed for murdering a zansi, a zansi culprit would usually escape with only a fine for murdering a hole person.114 With this in mind, the assumption that, because the king had advisers and there were checks and balances to his power and so on, there was some kind of justice and democracy in the Ndebele state is dangerously flawed. In Africa today, we have, in theory, democratic institutions and supposedly modern governments presided over by elected presidents, elected parliaments, judiciaries, and other institutions that should give legitimacy to the doctrine of separation of powers, but with all these institutions, dictatorship still thrives in most African states. But beyond these arguments, it is important to examine how the caste system related to ethnicity. To understand this, we must first appreciate that the caste phenomenon grew as a political response by the Ndebele ruling aristocrats and other members of the zansi class to the danger posed to their positions by assimilation of different peoples into the state.115 The fear of being overwhelmed by majority Others made the ordinary zansi and their ruling siblings grow afraid as they thought about their legitimacy and their future on the frontier. In politics, it is perfectly normal to view subjects as potential political opponents. The conquerors’ duty, therefore, was to find ways of keeping subjects under subjection, and in the Ndebele case they had to allay their own paranoia by dividing the society into classes in which the majority had less access to wealth and power. The Nguni king, indunas, and some zansi commoners (people who were privileged because they were Nguni but were not directly in political positions) alike in this instance claimed the highest position in the state because they had political backing. By virtue of being the conquerors, the state was first and foremost theirs, a zansi state that belonged to those of Zulu blood.116 Having been formed on the basis of an exclusive

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“Ndebele-as-Zulu” thinking, this narrow Ndebele ethnicity, in which only the purest of the Ndebele assimilados narrowly qualified, left the non-Nguni commoners of the Ndebele society with only two options. Either they had to strive to be more Zulu-like, with the assumption that this would offer them better privileges, or they had to remain less assimilated and therefore less Zulu-like, which had its own social implications especially in their dealings with the zansi. The latter scenario presented possibilities for the existence of some form of internal differentiation among the commoners within the Ndebele state. This internal differentiation was important in defining the Ndebele as this meant that being Ndebele was constantly being debated and reconstituted within the state itself at different stages and levels of the society to the extent that later-generation zansi siblings slowly adapted to a more democratized Ndebele identity than their fathers tolerated. Missionary Elliott correctly observed that although the older generation of the zansi prided themselves in their linguistic purity and imposed their language on the subjects, trying all the while to preserve their culture, their descendants held more moderate views on these issues than they, perhaps because they had given in to pressures for a more popular construction of Ndebele ethnicity.117 It is, however, important to state that the commoners’ mere acceptance of Ndebele cultural symbols did not necessarily mean that they all became Ndebele ethnic patriots. Some simply accepted Ndebele culture for legal and political convenience without necessarily repudiating alternative identities, such as being Kalanga, Zezuru, Nyai, Venda, or other ethnicities. It is therefore little wonder that a number of my informants denied being part of a public Ndebele ethnicity, even though their parents had Ndebele identity symbols. In Bubi, for instance, I interviewed people who told me that although their parents were made to slit their ears, to learn isiNdebele, and to change their dress and become Ndebele-like, they told their children (my informants) that they were not Ndebele, but Banyai or Rozvi.118 Having slit ears, the lupawu (Ndebele citizens’ identification mark), shielded them legally from raids.119 It is some of these not so emotionally attached “Ndebele” who later broke away in the early years of colonialism from their zansi chiefs to rejoin societies from which some of them had been captured. We will discuss this in the next chapter. Meanwhile, we must deal with the situation of those commoners who became members of the Ndebele ethnic community. For them, the process of imagining Ndebele ethnicity required ingenious effort. Since total ethnic purity was unachievable because of the limits of the caste system that enforced the perception that only the zansi/Nguni were pure Ndebele, becoming Ndebele meant making an unofficial break from the ideological limitations of caste and determining for themselves the meaning of Ndebeleness. At times, this involved more radical but unofficial rebuffing of the label hole by those so defined as social underdogs. In some cases there were

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attempts to revise this classification. As opposed to the official definition that described a hole as a member of the lowest class, thus rendered inferior to the other two classes, the term hole, according to Amos Mzilethi, was redefined to mean a stranger and not the original inhabitants of the land.120 As if to confirm Mzilethi’s evidence, one ninety-three-year-old man that I interviewed in 2003 argued that Kalanga were not hole. Emotionally, he retorted: “We were not holes. How can he [Lobengula] call us holes when he found us here? Hole means isithunjwa [captive]. If so where did he capture us from? Holes could have been the people that he captured when he was coming up here, not us the Kalanga.”121 In other instances, attempts to rebuff hole identity involved the deliberate “acceptance” of the Christian gospel the missionaries preached, that all people were equal before God and that God was accessible to all, something that Ndebele kings and other members of the high classes strongly denied. During one missionary sermon, Mzilikazi told the missionary that he was lying to say that the lower-class people could be heard by God just as well as the rich and those in authority.122 It is perhaps for this reason that there were more converts from the hole class than from among the zansi.123 Although some zansi sold slaves, the majority of the Ndebele were more slave keepers than slave dealers and they normally used slaves domestically.124 Slaves were also used as cattle herders, land tillers, or armor bearers and in other ways that were economically and politically beneficial to the upper classes, who benefited from a very patriarchal political structure.125 Apart from providing labor, female captives who were about to be married brought with them their lobola (bride wealth), which was paid directly to the male “owner” of that hole rather than to her original family from which she was captured.126 This scenario explains the numerous African social problems that were witnessed just after the conquest. Many zansi sought justice from NCs over the contested ownership of holes and over what they deemed to be their given right to claim lobola proceeds from their holes’ marriages.127 In theory, it could be argued that if zansi aristocrats controlled captive holes even up to marriage, then they certainly assumed moral power over them. Therefore, a hole who stayed at the zansi court would have found it difficult to avoid thinking like his or her zansi/Nguni superior. Because most hole were captured young, they would, in theory, have grown up with little knowledge of where they came from, and many of them were given new Ndebele surnames. One informant told me that her mother was captured in her youth and had her name changed to Sibanda Daweni, the surname of the zansi captor.128 In the (rare) cases where confidentiality about the origins of these captives was not breached, it was possible for the superiors to exert some social and ideological influence on their captives to the point that the latter would grow up imagining themselves as “pure” Ndebele. Nonetheless, such assimilated captives remained of a relatively lower

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social status compared to the children of the biological zansi/Nguni. The assimilated Ndebele hole still had no right to claim political power.129 In times of disputes within the Ndebele army, such as between former captives who thought themselves to be “pure” Ndebele and bloodline members of the zansi, Mackenzie argued that “when better arguments failed [the zansi] did not forget to demand what right Mashona or Makalaka dogs had to open their mouths to dispute with their superiors. . . . Soldiers who are reminded that they are captive dogs will cease to regard with interest or affection the cause of their captors. They need only a certain amount of intelligence and resolution to assert their independence.”130 In other words, regardless of the zansi’s attempts to conceal information about their assimilados’ origins, the truth would usually come out. Breaches of confidentiality and the zansi’s evident arrogance and fears of being overwhelmed by their assimilated holes were the major threats to the Ndebele king’s espoused mentorship policy. Assimilados were not allowed to represent or speak for the Ndebele in any official capacity. Even during the colonial era, some zansi wanted early colonial researchers and officials to discount any evidence given by the hole about the Ndebele past. Windram’s interpreter, Peter Khumalo, suggested that one interviewee (Mandoropa) had nothing of consequence to tell them “because he was only one of the lower class that was used for herding cattle, and would not be told anything of importance.”131 Having reviewed this debate, we now understand that incorporation into the Ndebele state was controlled because the officials expected subjects to fulfill minimum requirements so as to become full citizens, such as having their ears slit in the Ndebele fashion, speaking the language of the Ndebele, protecting the state by participating in the army (if they were trusted enough to do so), and adhering to hunting laws and regulations in relation to sacred animals. However, the contradiction stemmed from the fact that notwithstanding state officials’ insistence on these sociocultural and political requirements, which obviously imposed some constraints on new citizens, the state was hard-pressed to consolidate more quickly, numerically and politically, so they had to admit as many people as possible into the Ndebele state with the hope that their zansi members had enough capacity to train them in the ways of the Ndebele. This explains why, regardless of the state’s wish to Ndebelecize (or assimilate) its citizens to Zulu standards for the purposes of creating an overarching social identity, this social engineering from above did not pay enough dividends. In most cases, the lower-class citizens ended up determining their level of assimilation into the social and political fabric of the state depending on their own perceptions of whether the stakes were high enough for them to climb the social ladder should they endeavor to be assimilated to the required official standards. For the lower classes however, the window for political participation was narrow regardless of their level of assimilation into the society as they could not be counted as

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having equal political rights to those of the zansi and the enhla.132 The level of assimilation of the lower-class members also depended on the extent of their interactions with the zansi. Since it was difficult for the outnumbered zansi to interact sufficiently and acculturate the majority originals, the originals’ level of assimilation would have been in most cases very basic. For this reason, being Ndebele meant different things to those commoners depending on how Ndebelecized (to zansi standards) they were and also depending on their reasons for being part of the Ndebele state. Although some commoners associated being Ndebele with mastering the habits, character, and traits of their conquerors, others associated being Ndebele with having a hybrid of traditions and identities, combining that of the conquerors and that of the originals to make one new identity. For still others, Ndebele was merely a political identity of no other significance. Not all Kalanga people became part of the Ndebele state. Since assimilation into Ndebele social and political life was arduous in that one had to imagine an identity that he or she had no previous historical reference to and since the Ndebele conquest directly changed political relations on the ground, it made sense for a number of Kalanga chiefs to relocate farther off to the tributary or boundary of the Ndebele state, or even beyond the border, rather than stay close to the state center or near regimental towns where they risked being closely watched by such regiments as Gaba, Zimnyama, and Impande that were under Ndebele chiefs and relatives of Lobengula. In these marginal zones, the Kalanga had more space to create their own identities. Other Kalanga relocated beyond the Ndebele tributary areas where they contested any claimed tributary status and mobilized themselves as a separate community with a different social and political structure.

Language Policy When the Ndebele conquered the land, they brought with them a full cultural package, although they later succumbed in religion when Mzilikazi recognized Kalanga gods and annually sent a black bull to Mwali shrines as an offering in recognition of the originals’ rainmaking powers and their spiritual authority over the land.133 As for the language, the king and his zansi followers would not let their “Zulu” language be subdued by TjiKalanga, the majority language, or by Setswana, which King Lobengula (and some of his leaders) spoke so fluently that he could correct Setswana interpreters during the early phase of missionary work at Inyati in Matabeleland.134 Although Mzilikazi later provided his own official interpreters to help the missionaries, these preachers had reservations about working with Mzilikazi’s interpreters, whom Morgan Thomas described as people “who were themselves heathen, and were thus ill qualified to be the medium through

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whom to convey spiritual truths to the native mind.”135 For their community visits to the people, the LMS missionaries relied on the services of young Ndebele-speaking commoners who accompanied them and taught them the language.136 It would seem, then, that the making of isiNdebele, the language that missionaries later spoke well, was not dictated by the Ndebele elites at the king’s court but by the commoners who spoke a local adaptable isiNdebele that was different from isiZulu, as we will discover below. The fact that the king and his zansi aristocrats viewed their language as isiZulu and not the isiNdebele spoken mainly by the commoners illustrates the extent to which they understood language not merely as a communication tool but as an instrument of power, ethnic pride, and superiority. Like his predecessor, Lobengula wanted isiZulu, not isiNdebele, to be the official language of the state.137 The difference between isiZulu and isiNdebele was politically and ethnically pertinent. Although isiNdebele could be called a dialect of isiZulu, it incorporated some words that were unintelligible to isiZulu speakers. Some isiZulu words had also acquired completely new meanings. Thus, isiNdebele was a language that developed out of social adaptation, yet isiZulu was seen by the rulers as the “original” language to be enforced over the citizens if they were to be pure Ndebele. Because of their limited experience among the Ndebele and the Kalanga, and because their first servants and interpreters were Zulu-speaking South Africans, the Jesuit Catholics initially thought that the Ndebele people’s language was still isiZulu;138 Later experience would teach them that isiNdebele differed notably from isiZulu, as Father Groonenbergh, writing in 1880, indicated: “At the moment, we are studying the language of the Matabele, whose grammar is less difficult than isiZulu, from which its vocabulary notably differs. . . . Already, Father Law can express himself with fluency and no longer needs an interpreter.”139 These early Jesuits and other missionaries learned the local language more from their interaction with the commoners with whom they traded; whose diseases they treated, and who served them in different capacities than from the Ndebele court, which was more of an official political arena than a relaxed social space where language could be easily learned.140 Although it might have been important for commoners to try to master the language of their conquerors and speak it like them, doing so was fraught with practical difficulties: first, they could not read; and second, their speech was hardly influenced by the zansi population, which they greatly outnumbered. For the hole servants who lived with their masters, language instruction was carried out through daily conversation as they served their masters and interacted with others, but this was only the spoken version, whose rules of grammar were not always explicit.141 However, for the rest of the commoners who lived in their own villages and had limited direct contact with the zansi elites, it was neither easy nor desirable to speak like

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a Zulu and to imagine themselves as Zulu in a society where even the mastery of the language would not move them up the social ladder, from being a hole to becoming enhla or zansi. There was no direct incentive to make them desire to become closer to their superiors in speech and culture. For the mere purposes of belonging, it seemed adequate for the commoners to demonstrate a working knowledge of the language, and this was not synonymous with speaking isiZulu. The commoners’ version of the language reflected a particular democratic and demotic thinking about being Ndebele, which differed markedly from the elitist mind-set of their masters. Commoners defined being Ndebele as being able to fit into a new, broader, inclusive, collective ethnicity that offered them greater social mobility. Although Ndebele leaders were anxious to incorporate more citizens into the state for purposes of labor and security, they were more demanding in that they expected their subjects to mimic Zulu culture and language and other aspects of Zulu identity. The observation by missionary Elliott that the zansi class had “so thoroughly imposed its speech on the subject people that a very large number of them cannot speak or understand the language of their childhood” was not too exaggerated. Elliott noted, however, that notwithstanding this attempt to force-feed isiZulu, the purity of this language had thoroughly deteriorated, and that the younger generation of the Ndebele cared less about preserving this language in pure form than their fathers.142 Years later, Mtompe Kumalo, son of a zansi family and LMS pastor, corroborated Elliott’s view about the imposition of the language and other cultural symbols: “Mzilikazi slit the ears of them all, and taught them how to fight in the fashion of the south and to speak the language of the Matebele. When they had learned they were given the rights of citizens.”143 Mtompe Kumalo’s account glorifies royal power and gives an impression of a very forceful king who had people slit their ears and learn his language whenever he wanted them to. It is one of those uncritically accepted Ndebele histories. It is also true that some commoners may have learned isiNdebele voluntarily. Bullock, for instance, stressed that the Shona young men who were conscripted into the Ndebele army were enthusiastic to learn the language, perhaps under the illusion that with time they would be viewed as “pure Ndebele” and become eligible for high military command.144 Ndebele commoners may therefore have learned isiNdebele for different reasons. For some, learning the “king’s” language was important as a survival tactic. One needed to have some knowledge of isiNdebele to be able to plead his or her cause before the chiefs and to be able to sing praises and recite poems before the Ndebele court where necessary. The popular usage of isiNdebele in the state explains why when missionaries first visited the Ndebele state they did not appear to realize that there were other languages spoken in the area.145 The Kalanga were rarely mentioned until the late 1850s when LMS missionary Robert Moffat asked for permission to

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visit them and Mzilikazi retorted that they were “not worth visiting” because they were “worse than beasts.”146 Years later in 1885, Lobengula, his successor would tell the Catholic missionary Father Prestage to go preach among the Kalanga who were under his Mpande regiment in Plumtree perhaps with the view that the gospel would make them more governable. He said, “Well . . . go to Empandeni and teach the people there. The kraal of Umpandaan [sic] is one of the worst in the country.”147 Even though Ndebele commoners spoke isiNdebele, their version of the language was not similar to isiZulu, which state officials expected them to speak; rather, they constructed for themselves a more widely used and homegrown hybrid language called isiNdebele. Having been formed as a result of popular usage and not by state policy, isiNdebele represented acceptable social, cultural, and ethnic adaptation by the commoners. In the absence of literacy to enforce written isiZulu, isiNdebele became the de facto lingua franca of the state, ahead of the narrow and elitist isiZulu.148 The use of isiNdebele was so pervasive that even the king’s sons could no longer speak “pure” isiZulu, although they still imagined a Zulu ethnicity and still thought they spoke isiZulu. Elliott, who during his meeting with Mzilikazi’s sons and “other Zulus” seized the opportunity to compare the language as spoken by them with that given in a Zulu lexicon that he had at hand, recalled that the young men “were amazed when Mr. Sykes read off to them the Zulu form of certain words which had become changed in the Setabele dialect. They recognized some of the expressions as still used by the old men.”149 There was generational change in language use, with the younger generation borrowing many other local words so much that missionaries Elliott and Sykes concluded that isiNdebele was a language developed by the corrupting of isiZulu. Although the zansi Ndebele could not accept the reality of this change because of their quest for a narrower “Ndebele-as-Zulu” identity that gave them ethnic superiority over their perceived “less pure” subjects, the commoners viewed this language change as correctly mirroring the Ndebele society of their times. The Jesuit Catholic missionaries who initially used isiZulu in Matabeleland also later realized that although isiNdebele would have initially been a dialect of isiZulu, this language had become thoroughly reworked and transformed. The Catholics who came to Empandeni, a Kalanga area in BulilimaMangwe long inhabited by an Ndebele regiment, Impande, wrote in 1887: The language spoken by these people, called SiNdebele, may be described as a local Zulu, being somewhat corrupted, as the offshoots of the parent stem generally are, by expressions borrowed from neighbouring tribes and through separation from the country where the imported language has its habitat of home. There are in the neighbourhood several kraals of the Makalakas, who in former days were little better than the slaves of the more courageous Matabili, and are yet a rather despised race.150

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Notwithstanding this observation, the Catholics insisted on instructing people in isiZulu, assuming its priority over the locally made isiNdebele, in part because the Bible was readily available in isiZulu. It was also politically correct for them to teach in the preferred language of the zansi elite. Although all missionaries recognized that the language had considerably changed, they responded in different ways. While Catholics thought in terms of reinforcing isiZulu, others like Thomas of the London Missionary Society considered respecting the popular language, isiNdebele. Thomas Morgan Thomas, who had spent more time among the ordinary people (albeit at court) than the Catholics, made it clear in his report to the directors of the LMS in 1860 that “The language of this people some thirty years ago was Zulu, but such great changes in the sounds and meanings of words have taken place in it as spoken by the Matebele at present and such a number of Zulu words have been replaced by Sechuana together with Sekalaka’s that Zulu proper would not be understood by this tribe, hence the necessity of translating the Bible into Setabele [sic].”151 Thomas’s argument would be reinforced years later by one of the longestserving native commissioners in Matabeleland, Robert Benzies. Benzies’s remarks highlight some changes that happened in the transition from isiZulu to isiNdebele and how married women and some commoners (perhaps those married to the zansi against state policy) had been responsible for this. He argued: During many years of wandering and since their occupation of Matabeleland, the Amandebele took wives from various tribes with which they came into contact. Most of these women had to learn the language of their husbands and in doing so must have introduced incorrect pronunciations of words somewhat akin to their mother tongue, and they naturally introduced words from their own language. These of course would be passed on to their children, both by these women and slaves, and although the language is very similar to IsiZulu it has become a new dialect and many words used would not be understood in the Natal and the form of some Zulu words would not be known. The greatest change is in the form such as “Tshiya” for “Shiya.” “Lina” for “Nina” and so on. There has also been a general softening of the language particularly with words containing the letters “K” and “G” [he gives many other examples]. . . . This has been done to such an extent that anyone not very apt in phonetics or without a knowledge of the root of the language finds great difficulty in distinguishing between the two letters. . . . Some time ago I handed a IsiNdebele book, which is used by many students of IsiNdebele, to a well-educated Matabele to read through in order to get his opinion on it. He returned it to me in the fullness of time and told me it was very good. “But” he added, “What language is it in?” I told him and he was rather surprised to hear that.152

It is therefore clear that the conquered and women who married up from the enhla and the hole never spoke their master’s language proficiently, but

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brought many loanwords from Setswana and TjiKalanga, Shona, Venda, and other languages into isiZulu and transformed it as a result. Language contact and change demonstrated the commoners’ own sense of social adaptability by contrast to the narrow elitism of their conquerors. To the king linguistic purity was not just a political requirement but an attempt to imagine and impose a different, restrictive ethnic identity. One is therefore persuaded to concur with the argument that Thomas Morgan Thomas put forward to the LMS directors in his attempt to justify the need for an Ndebele Bible. Although the use of a Zulu Bible would have been popular at the court and also cost-effective for the London Missionary Society, which already had a Zulu Bible, it was not popular with commoners who had to receive instruction, hence the need for a vernacular Bible more acceptable to the people. What seems clear, then, is that among the Ndebele, there was an unsanctioned debate about what language was suitable for them as a people—an aristocratic version of the language, one that the king wanted to keep rigid for the sake of maintaining the state’s official zansi face; or a commoner version, one adapted and changed by the majority of the people identifying as Ndebele. Thomas swerved in the direction of the commoners, whom he interacted with more and who taught him that language. I am not suggesting that there was overt activism or advocacy against the king’s isiZulu, but rather saying that the society was renegotiating its present and future using language in an acceptable civil way that may not have been so overt to the ruling elites as to be considered either politically incorrect or a case of sabotage of their sense of identity. Thus understanding these subtle debates about language, which were internal to precolonial Ndebele society itself, especially as between the elites and commoners and even collectively among the commoners, helps us realize and distinguish popular Ndebele social culture from an Ndebele high political culture. It also helps us realize that in some ways, commoners saw themselves broadly as having legitimate rights to claim Ndebele ethnic citizenship as defined on their own terms. As missionaries learned the language, their spoken isiNdebele was tested and approved for its intelligibility as they conversed with and conducted sermons among the ordinary people. It was not at the king’s court where they learned and mastered the bulk of their spoken isiNdebele. Thomas’s account explains this succinctly: “I asked three old men who had been to the service if they understood my Setabele to which one of them replied that the words they did understand well for they were certainly their own but the doctrines which I preached being new and strange to them, they did not thoroughly comprehend them but that they loved and would—in the long run—be able to understand them.”153 Therefore, we cannot doubt that the earliest production of isiNdebele language neither depended solely on the inventions of the missionaries nor

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on the zansi bureaucrats who insisted on the use of isiZulu, but rather on the ordinary people who spoke it in church and in their day-to-day conversations. These included Tswana, Kalanga, Karanga, and other peoples within the Ndebele state who obviously spoke the isiNdebele that they made for themselves, however different it was from that of the king and other zansi.154 In 1863, Thomas produced the Izihlabelelo zomsebenzo wo Morimo ZeSentebele (Ndebele Hymns for the Service of God). As one would deduce from such terms as “Morimo” for God, there was some Sotho or Tswana influence in the language and hence no surprise in the current use of mlimo in isiNdebele. IsiZulu speakers would use “Unkulunkulu” or “Uthixho” instead of “uMlimo” for God. Four other isiNdebele books were published at Kuruman Press between 1864 and 1866, including two primers and two catechisms.155 Their writers are not known, but probably they were the work of either Thomas or William Sykes, the only missionaries who did Ndebele translations in Matabeleland at that time.156 Although debates about language and its ethnic dimensions were crucial for the peoples in the Ndebele state, there is little evidence that there were any such debates among the Kalanga, perhaps because there is generally little written information on the Kalanga people in most of our historical sources of the time. This is because most of the writers of the time and later were more interested in recounting their dealings with the Ndebele elites than with the Kalanga who were thought to be an Ndebele underclass. We do, however, have snippets of evidence that suggest that Kalanga people on the margins of the Ndebele state understood themselves as a large community of people that spoke related dialects. Although some of the adult Kalanga men understood isiNdebele by 1910, for the political advantage it offered, their women, with very few exceptions, spoke only TjiKalanga as they never learned isiNdebele.157 In 1902, almost a decade after the BSACo invasion of Matabeleland, H.  M.  G. Jackson, the NC for Matopo District, wrote of a distinct language that was spoken by the tribes of Matopo, but because colonial policy dictated that isiNdebele was the official language of Matabeleland, he hastened to say that all spoke Matebele with more or less fluency.158 All this perhaps illustrates the attitude of the Kalanga and others toward language and their identity. Kalanga reaction to Ndebele language dominance appears to have been the same as their instrumentalist use of Setswana in their dealings with Khama’s people. As early as 1859, Mrs. Helmore wrote of the Kalanga as a people who “understand Sechuana but among themselves they speak quite a different language.”159 It was obviously beneficial for the Kalanga to learn isiNdebele for purposes of trade and exchange and also perhaps to feign as Ndebele where necessary without necessarily letting their own language become extinct as it was beneficial for their domestic and social well-being as well as their religion, for they worshipped the gods of the Matopos Hills in TjiKalanga. It is therefore no

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wonder that there were large stretches of Kalanga communities beyond the Ndebele borders where TjiKalanga was a lingua franca. Concluding Remarks on Agency and Precolonial Ethnicity We are now able to say the following about this period of Matabeleland history: First, more than seeking political status, commoners negotiated their ethnic status in the Ndebele kingdom. There was an emergent commoner interest in giving themselves a different ethnic ascription, discrete from their general Ndebele political identity. As political citizens, they belonged to their zansi/“Zulu” overlords, but they were not Zulu by ethnicity, and for this reason, future studies of Ndebele society need to always distinguish these two—political belonging and membership in an ethnic group. Second, because of their political and military insecurity on the frontier, the zansi insisted on a cultural and linguistic assimilation to “Zulu” standards among their conquered subjects. They were nonetheless worried that this might create a popular political consciousness of equal rights, however difficult it was to speak as a pure Zulu. Consequently, they decided to officially forbid intermarriage, especially hole men with zansi women, in order to preserve caste divisions, while in theory encouraging everyone to speak “isiZulu.” This created a confusing scenario in which the conquered subjects would have almost split into two, depending on their level of interaction with their masters. Those living with their masters were more likely to exude a deeper level of assimilation into Ndebele society with a view to upward social mobility, which was, in a way, a vain pursuit, while others accepted becoming Ndebele in a more democratic sense and debated Ndebele ethnicity from that standpoint. The latter, being the majority, subverted the king’s sociocultural policy with the result that the Ndebele language and society that emerged from these not so overt exchanges and negotiations were different from what the elites originally envisaged. One must reckon that even in this precolonial era, identities were not always invented and imposed by the elites or even by agents external to Africa such as missionaries who settled among the Ndebele in the nineteenth century. Among the Kalanga, successful individuals were mainly those who escaped to the margins of the Ndebele state where Ndebele interference was negligible. These people helped craft a sense of Kalanga ethnic community by cleverly tying claims to chieftaincy with the sustenance of aspects of Kalanga identity, especially language and culture. Kalanga communities did realize their identity in their struggles for survival against Ndebele invasions and in their dealings with the Tswana-speaking communities of the Ngwato to their south.

3 Remaking Communities on the Margins Chieftaincy and Ethnicity in Bulilima-Mangwe, 1893 to the 1950s Historiography, Chieftaincy, and Kalanga Ethnicity The period from the 1890s to the 1950s was characterized by crucial political changes that influenced Zimbabwean society and culture. Not only did the British colonial officials become the new political overlords, they also tried to reinforce their presuppositions about their subjects. Under the guise of reinforcing African traditions, they attempted to institutionalize chieftaincy and make chiefs function as if they were organic, traditional leaders when in reality some of those chiefs had been reduced to colonial pawns without popular legitimacy, the izindunyana zaka makiwa (white people’s minor chiefs). Such chiefs usually became infamous with their people, who neither ascribed to them a representative mandate nor recognized their legal right to adjudicate in chiefs’ courts. This hostility to imposed chiefs was clear in Bulilima-Mangwe, a predominantly Kalanga area where the colonial administration attempted to place some Kalanga communities under Ndebele chiefs. In parts of Bubi, however, where commoners were generally Ndebelecized, the debate about “tribal” representation revolved around the ideology of nineteenth-century Ndebele kingship from which commoners expected “real” Ndebele chiefs to draw their legitimacy. Essentially, the struggle was not just about the nature and source of the chiefs’ political authority; it was also about their ethnic identity. In areas where people were ruled by perceived ethnic strangers, the contesting or rebelling society often retold local histories that justified ethnic separateness so as to legitimize its claims for an alternative chieftaincy. There has been earlier research on chieftaincy in colonial Zimbabwe, beginning with the work of the sociologist J. F. Holleman. Holleman examined the history of the Nhowe chieftaincy and its contested claims, and to

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this he added an interesting analysis of the problems that chiefs faced as members of the African councils. Because they were under pressure from both the government and their people, chiefs had to please both sides by reinventing themselves as both traditionalists and modernizers, and none but Chief Mangwende did this very well.1 Holleman’s excellent work, however, does not examine the processes internal to the African community that would explain the behavior of the chiefs at different times. In the early 1970s, another scholar, A.  K.  H. Weinrich, did research on chieftainship among the Karanga with particular emphasis on their response to colonial policy; their succession and power struggles; and like Holleman, their reaction to the challenges of councils. Weinrich also examined the influence of education, the cash economy, and westernization on chieftaincy.2 A decade ago, historian David Maxwell carried out research among the Hwesa of the Eastern Highlands but with a different focus. Maxwell made two main points about Hwesa chieftaincy in the early colonial period. First, in this marginal region where Christianity took decades to penetrate, chiefs manipulated traditional religion to legitimize themselves.3 Second, chieftaincy was nonetheless highly contested as rivals substantiated their claims with their own versions of history.4 Maxwell’s points of focus were the interaction between chiefs and religion and the conflict between royal definitions of their Hwesa ethnicity, to the exclusion of commoners and outsiders. He suggested that later changes in Hwesa ethnic identity, from the restrictive self-definition of the royals to a more inclusive Manyika identity, were a product of colonial and missionary encounter at a time when modernity began to matter as an element of ethnic self-definition.5 Like Holleman and Weinrich, Maxwell did not examine the importance of commoners in the politics of chieftaincy and ethnicity but instead worked within the established social constructivist narrative that examines mainly the workings of the elites in politics and ideological formulation. Until 1999 when Ranger published the groundbreaking book Voices from the Rocks, studies of Zimbabwean chieftainship had only covered Mashonaland. Ranger’s book devoted a chapter to the Nqama chieftaincies of the Matopos Hills. Ranger’s concern was to unravel the role of colonial chieftaincy in the complicated processes leading to the adoption of a broad Ndebele identity in the Matopos.6 According to Ranger, colonialism did not only reduce the influence of the proud and uncooperative Chief Dhliso, who had served under Lobengula, but it also disengaged Dhliso from paramount chieftaincy by creating three more petty chiefs from leaders taken from the Nqama area. The intention was to instill jealousies among the chiefs and to cultivate divisions among their followers to make the area more governable. By 1897, Hluganiso, Nkonkobela, and Mtuwane had been appointed chiefs, and by the 1920s, Hluganiso, described as influential and rich in cattle, had been elevated into head chief. Ranger admits, however, that these three

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men had been important figures during Lobengula’s time. Mtuwane had been connected with the Matopos shrines, and was not, therefore, a precolonial chief.7 He described how these chieftaincies were moved to Wenlock, an “empty” stretch of land in the area inhabited for generations by pockets of Nyubi and Sotho people. Ranger noted that those chiefs framed a common Ndebele identity, which they sustained by deliberately balancing the forces of tradition and modernity and forging an alliance with the modernizing tendencies of urban intellectuals of the Matabeleland Home Society (MHS) to fight against evictions.8 Ranger’s account demonstrates the extent to which chiefs, attempting to cope with social change, cleverly exploited their interaction with both native commissioners and African urban intellectuals. Nonetheless, his account does not explain the specific response of the Nyubi and Sotho commoners to the establishment and extension of Ndebele chieftainship over them. It does not sound convincing that their incorporation into Ndebele chieftaincies automatically entailed their imagining of an Ndebele ethnicity. Perhaps Ranger should have gone a step further to analyze the community’s internal sense of ethnic identity that goes beyond the broad regional and political Ndebele identity he emphasizes in his work. Even this broad regional identity was not a given, especially before the 1960s. When I was doing research in Brunapeg, I met an old man from the Matopos who denied that he was Ndebele by suggesting that he belonged to a separate, earlier Rozvi-Nyai political identity. He was so desperate to prove that he was not Ndebele that he produced his national identification card, which showed he was Nyai, and he further argued that the Nyai-Rozvi culture had survived despite Ndebele intrusion and its reinforcement by the colonial government.9 He had also been active in challenging the colonial evictions of the 1940s that Ranger wrote about in Voices from the Rocks. Although this chapter builds on some of the foundations laid by earlier scholars, it goes beyond certain key assumptions underlying the work of these earlier historians about the role of colonialism in ideology formulation and community reorganization. I will examine a few critical issues in order to highlight aspects of the communities’ renegotiation of their own identities during and after the inception of colonialism. Using BulilimaMangwe District (Plumtree), which is mainly a Kalanga-dominated area in the borderlands of southwestern Zimbabwe, I will demonstrate that the end of Ndebele rule opened room for the renegotiation and consolidation of Kalanga ethnicity by easing the Ndebele political pressure that usually worked to suppress Kalanga identities. The demise of the Ndebele state also automatically opened up spaces for the former Ndebele servants and slaves to renegotiate their identities. The end of colonialism saw an increase in Kalanga claims to chieftaincy and land, claims that came as a surprise to the otherwise ignorant colonial administrators who had promoted Ndebele

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chiefs in Kalanga-dominated Bulilima-Mangwe on the assumption that the Ndebele were the rightful rulers of the peoples in that part of the country. We have already discovered in the previous chapter that the Ndebele’s rule in Bulilima-Mangwe was contested and that their jurisdiction over some Kalanga communities was tenuous. To legitimize their claims to chieftaincy, it was important for the claimants to gain the support of the commoners by proving that they were the rightful traditional leaders who would represent and revive age-old Kalanga traditions and at the same time work in the interest of the common people in dealing with a new and modern colonial system. To match their commoners’ expectations, these (unofficial) Kalanga chiefs defied the native commissioners and imposed Ndebele chiefs by encouraging their people to evade taxation, refusing to surrender them as low-paid laborers, and opposing their being placed under the jurisdiction of Ndebele head chiefs (head indunas). It was not enough, however, for these claimants to find their legitimacy within the context of the modern politics of resistance alone; they were also expected to demonstrate at least a semblance of “organic” chiefly status and sound knowledge of Kalanga society, history, and culture. Interestingly, most of them rose from families whose forefathers had served either as chiefs or as headmen during the precolonial era and had resisted Ndebele authority on the margins of the Ndebele state. By the end of the nineteenth century, most of those Kalanga leaders had built strong Kalanga chieftaincies, had engaged in shrewd dealings with both Ndebele and Ngwato, and had constituted a belt of communities speaking one language, TjiKalanga. We therefore have to understand Kalanga responses during this period (the 1890s to the late 1950s) in the context of the communities’ capacity to imagine traditions and history, plus their sense of political astuteness that allowed them to take advantage of the loopholes in the colonial system. This chapter demonstrates that commoners were not passive participants in the creation of their identities. By moving beyond the grand view that presents history as a narrative of the agency of colonial bureaucrats and the African elites to a representation of Matabeleland history from below, we are able to examine communities’ internal political thought and the ways they shaped their own identities.

Negotiating Ethnicity, Remaking Communities The fall of Ndebele power brought considerable excitement among commoners in Matabeleland. To some Ndebele commoners, classified as the hole, this demise presented them an opportunity to renegotiate their status and their identities and, for those who were Ndebele slaves or servants, an opportunity to free themselves from their masters. Similarly, Kalanga chiefs

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claimed authority over most Kalanga communities in Bulilima-Mangwe on the basis that they were the organic representatives of those communities. Native commissioners interpreted these developments as merely temporary administrative hitches characteristic of regime change. It is no wonder that although their early monthly and annual reports reveal deep-seated anxiety about the unsettled conditions in their districts, they were still anxious to assure their superiors that they were in control of the situation. Because of their lack of intimate knowledge of the history of the communities they ruled, colonial officials were too confused to understand what was going on and thought that many Kalanga communities that had been supportive of government during the 1896–97 wars of resistance were turning rebellious. Taking advantage of the collapse of Ndebele central political leadership after 1894 and the sociopolitical vacuum created by the 1896–97 wars when most prominent Ndebele leaders fled to the Matopos Hills for refuge, most of those with the status of slaves and servants freed themselves and rejoined their original families and former villages. Others who were not so much slaves but mere non-Ndebele inhabitants along with some holes within Ndebele regimental kraals sought more freedom by moving away from such kraals, as happened in Insiza, Mberengwa, and other places.10 Strong regimental towns such as Gaba (also called Gapa) under Gambo of BulilimaMangwe, who did not fight in 1896, also suffered heavy desertions between 1893 and 1897.11 One old Ndebele informant, Mazizi, who was Gambo’s headman, stated in 1894 that “Gambo has not now so many people as he had with him in the King’s time” because many of his “Maholies” had left him.12 As they left Ndebele society, many of these people looted cattle formerly belonging to the Ndebele state that regimental leaders kept on behalf of the kingdom. Gambo’s kraals lost a lot of these cattle.13 However, in some cases, Ndebele chiefs voluntarily surrendered their former captives to their real families as happened to Paulos Ndlovu’s mother, a former Ndebele captive.14 In other cases, some Ndebele divorcées and unmarried girls took advantage of political change to marry whomsoever they wished against the established demands of Ndebele patriarchy and the caste system. In 1909, for instance, one of Qugwana’s wives was divorced by him and she subsequently married a Kalanga man called Pepe.15 In the same year, Qugwana’s daughter, Silibazi, fell in love with Pepe’s half brother, Sikumbula, who got her pregnant and then offered to marry her. Sikumbula was once Qugwana’s “slave,” and according to Qugwana, Sikumbula was a man of too low status to marry his daughter.16 Qugwana refused to accept lobola for his daughter on the basis that Sikumbula “is a Kalanga and Qugwana and his children are Matabele.” Qugwana sent his son to go and tie up the girl (Silibazi) and bring her to an Ndebele man, Madhloli, so that she could be forced to marry him. She fled from Madhloli by night.17 This case opened up debates about whether Ndebele should marry non-Ndebele, which had not been the

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case officially before, as many cases of such marriage proposals were occurring after the breakdown of the precolonial Ndebele kingdom.18 In the late nineteenth century, many southern African societies had become increasingly stratified into rich/poor and slave/master social formations because of differential access to wealth that had its roots in the ruling class’s monopoly over trade and regulation of scarce resources.19 This inequality corresponded with a constantly reinforced institutionalized political and social order that included slavery, servanthood, and claims to bride wealth. The breakaway of former slaves and servants meant that most Ndebele chiefs and zansi Ndebeles lost the right to claim lobola (bride wealth) from their former hole girls, who claimed to have rediscovered their families from which they had been abducted.20 This loss created tensions between the families of the former slaves and those of their former masters. Under the guise of protecting tradition, NCs often reinforced this tension when in some cases they ruled in favor of former Ndebele masters and forced lobola to be paid to them, perhaps to buy Ndebele loyalty to the British South Africa Company.21 The seemingly “rebellious” behavior of former social underdogs in the early colonial era, which was obviously not sanctioned and not even expected by the authorities, refutes the major tenet of the mid1980s instrumentalist historiography about the invention of traditions, including ethnicity and African customary law.22 Commoners sought new identities, and to craft these they did not necessarily need colonizers to create and uphold them. On their reincorporation into Kalanga society, former Ndebele captives and others who left Ndebele society suffered a temporary identity crisis, depending on their prior level of assimilation into that society. The new societies they joined had their own sets of expectations for newcomers. Although Kalanga communities, like any ethnic community, tenaciously strove to maintain their shared identity and check external influences, they also tried to open their frontiers to a few outsiders and their “lost” brethren with a view to swelling Kalanga numbers. Newcomers into Kalanga communities had to strive, however hard this was, to cope with the “new” society and learn to become Kalanga. In a community that tried sympathetically to consider their plight but that was also aware of the danger these “newcomers” might pose to the society if they did not change their old ways, these “newcomers” were treading sensitive ground. Many gradually gave up Ndebele culture, and former Ndebelecized parents deliberately stopped teaching Ndebele culture to their children.23 This led to an erosion of Ndebele culture and language to the extent that even missionaries who wished to teach in isiNdebele (because it was cost-effective to produce literature in one Matabeleland language) admitted that the area was dominated by the Kalanga and acknowledged TjiKalanga as the lingua franca of BulilimaMangwe.24 One early 1920s Kalanga migrant told me how her family slowly

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reincorporated themselves into Kalanga culture. In this transition, popular pressure and the desire to rediscover their past were both important factors as Mrs Ndlovu suggests: I married a Kalanga man because I am a Kalanga person, it is only that we spoke isiNdebele and my husband knew that. I was born in Mandawi in the Gwai. My parents relocated with us to Ndolwane [Kalanga area] where my grandfather lived. That is where I grew up. My parents wore amabetshu, slit their ears in the fashion of the Ndebele, and even put on izidlodlo [Ndebele head rings]. At Ndolwane our culture became compromised between Ndebele and Kalanga. We of the second generation that grew up in Ndolwane never slit our ears, we stopped wearing head rings. My father who brought in the Ndebele head gear later threw it away because he had taken up the Kalanga way of life. The local people used to laugh at my father because of his amabetshu and the head ring, so he had to put them away.25

The Kalanga sustained and strengthened their ethnic community by incorporating their formerly lost brethren as the case described above suggests. They also cemented their sense of togetherness by victimizing Ndebele people among them and making them feel they were an “ethnic Other.” The Kalanga public displayed their antipathy to those Ndebele people who, after the 1896–97 wars, wanted to return to their homes within Kalanga-dominated areas where Ndebele raids had occurred and where the missionary who operated among the Kalanga had almost been robbed. Consequently, a strong animosity developed among the “friendlies” (Kalanga) and ex-rebels (Ndebele) that took on an ethnic dimension.26 To avert this retribution, missionary C. H. Reed played a huge part in protecting the victimized Ndebele people. He reported: Matebele who after the war wished to return to their homes were insulted and ill-treated by the friendly Makalanga who were in the vast majority here partly because these Matebele had wished to kill and rob me and had actually taken part in raiding this district while the Makalanga had taken the other side. To protect them, I felt it necessary to gather them around me and make them as it were my personal and immediate followers, which was most readily shown to other people by bringing them into my own town.27

Another notable development was the general return of some Kalanga communities from the fringes of Bechuanaland (Botswana) where they had sought asylum from Ndebele raids. The Talahundra Kalanga under Gerere, for instance, left the Tati area of Botswana and came to Matole in the Manzamnyama area of Bulilima-Mangwe. After Gerere’s death, Kalanga elders chose Sangulube (Tshankuluba) to lead them.28 Sangulube claimed the chieftaincy, and in 1897 the government recognized him as a subsidized

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chief. Native Commissioner Thomas remarked in 1903: “Sangulube—the last of the subsidized Chiefs has a very small following—he does his work in a most satisfactory manner.”29 This return of former Kalanga refugees and the resurgence of Kalanga ethnic patriotism fueled new popular claims for land and chieftaincies. The returning Kalanga, who in the precolonial era had become heroes of resistance against both Lobengula and Khama, and the locals who freed themselves from Ndebele authority together created an opportunity to construct more solid Kalanga communities. To understand this development, we need to review the politics of colonialism in BulilimaMangwe and the chieftaincy question.

Kalanga Chieftaincy and Ethnicity in Colonial Bulilima-Mangwe Nineteenth-century Bulilima-Mangwe was ruled by a number of small Kalanga chiefs, some of whom often formed alliances or combined in the second half of the century, to resist Ndebele control. In their neighborhoods there were several Ndebele outposts or regiments led by Ndebele chiefs such as Gambo of Igaba, Mpini Ndiweni of Osaba (Zimnyama), and Sindisa (chief Tshitshi’s father) of the Mpande regiment.30 With the inception of colonial rule, British officials further elevated these existing Ndebele chiefs, causing most Kalanga chiefs to report to the government through them, seemingly to further marginalize the Kalanga politically. Gambo, who collaborated with the BSACo in the 1896–97 wars, was immediately promoted to become head chief of the district. The chief native commissioner described Gambo as a “very reliable and loyal” chief who exercised “very great influence with the natives.”31 He earned a subsidy of £5 per month, a huge figure at that time.32 The government installed other Ndebele chiefs including Ngazi (Wasi), Mbambeleli, Mahlatini (an Ndebele assimilado), and Mazwi (whose kraal later became part of Bulawayo District). The government also recognized loyal Kalanga chiefs, such as Tategulu, Nkolomana (Nyiga), Magama, Malaba, Luswina (Tjingababili), Mate, and Sangulube.33 Numerous formerly important precolonial Kalanga chiefs remained unofficial, therefore unsubsidized. Chieftaincies of the once powerful Mengwe,34 the unpredictable and difficult Nswazvi, Matundume (aka Madandume or Malalume), Bango, Gonde Tshuma, Mninigau (Nilikawu, also called Hikwa) of Dombodema,35 Nlevu (Mlevu), Soluse (Solusi), Sinete, Nkaki, Langabi (Langapi), and Sitshungulwana of Mahlabatini36 all remained unsubsidized.37 It is clear that some unsubsidized Kalanga chiefs had more kraals and more followers than their subsidized Ndebele counterparts. Matundume, for instance, had 1,248 people under him compared to the Ndebele subsidized chief Ngazi (Wasi) with 1,020. Similarly, Kalanga chief Mninigau had 1,160 followers compared to the subsidized Mate’s 319.38 Prominent Kalanga chief

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Figure 3.1. Map showing approximate location of Kalanga communities and chieftaincies in Bulilima-Mangwe before the 1920s. Map by author.

Mswazvi had the largest number of followers (1,948) of all chiefs in the district, even surpassing Head Induna Gambo, with 1,737 followers, and Mpini, with 1,500, both of whom had been prominent precolonial Ndebele indunas.39 Notwithstanding their command of huge communities, the BSACo chose not to officially recognize these Kalanga chiefs, which showed the extent to which colonial governments tried to ignore Kalanga chiefs’ claim to chieftaincy in favor of the Ndebele, whom they mistook for having a more legitimate claim to power. However, the fact that NCs continued to pay close attention to the activities of these unsubsidized chiefs illustrates that the BSACo government recognized their importance and influence within their communities. The difference between a subsidized and a nonsubsidized chief seems to have been more politically drawn than real, as it was simply a measure of the level of political loyalty that chiefs showed to the government. In these early years, Kalanga chiefs generally faced a conundrum. In a changing community, where chieftaincies were being redefined, with mass migrations into reserves and new areas, the popularity of Kalanga chiefs in the eyes of their followers would mainly have depended on the degree to which they protected their people against a marauding and oppressive government that exacted hut taxes and made other demands. Figure 3.1 shows the approximate location of some of the communities and chieftaincies referred to above. Since this map was reconstructed from my study of archival government documents, the input of oral informants,

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and earlier maps of Matabeleland, it shows only the proximate location of those communities in question before 1920. Due to persistent removals of Africans into native reserves and elsewhere, some of these communities are no longer where they were before the 1920s and 1930s—so much so that a different map would be required to document their present location. Moreover, communities like Nswazvi, Madandume (Matundume/Malalume), and Mengwe later relocated to Botswana, although some of them returned later. Because the state refused to recognize some of the Kalanga chiefs, notwithstanding their having large communities, the postwar period was characterized by struggles for recognition and resistance to government policies by these chiefs and their people. This passive resistance was, in part, galvanized by the general feeling of betrayal among the Kalanga, especially those who had helped the government during the 1896–97 wars. Communities in the country, including those previously on the fringes of the Ndebele kingdom, usually cooperated with the returning diasporic Kalanga communities under chiefs like Mengwe, Sinete, Mswazi (Nswazvi), and others. This diaspora of Kalanga had previously drifted to the vast expanse of land dividing the Ndebele and Tswana kingdoms to avoid direct Ndebele influence.40 After the war, there was a popular feeling that the government was going to reward the Kalanga people for their loyal service as “friendlies” during the just ended conflict. The government frustrated this expectation, perhaps for two reasons. First, it was uneconomical to have too many chiefs on the payroll. Second, the BSACo government was under the illusion that since the country had been ruled by the Ndebele with Kalanga either as Ndebele servants or slaves, the Kalanga lacked legitimate political authority, and thus their claims for recognition were frivolous. This official position did not deter the Kalanga from making representations to Native Commissioner Thomas, who thought it was significant enough to relate at length in his 1899 annual report: The attitude of natives in this district, towards the Government has continued to be the most satisfactory. . . . The majority of natives in this district remained loyal during the rebellion of 1896, and did good service for the Government. Necessarily, they lost heavily in various ways—for the rebels greatly harassed them, but, the only occurrence, which greatly caused dissatisfaction amongst them, was the making of peace with the rebels in the Matopo Hills. This feeling at one time ran so high that some of them said . . . that it would have paid them better to have joined the rebels—who had free possession of the country. . . . The whites had not only forgiven them, but received them into favour, placed them on an equal [position] with themselves [the loyals], and not only has it not executed the leading rebel Indunas . . . but made them Government Indunas and gave them salaries; and also horses to ride. At the commencement of the year . . . disquieting rumours circulated through the District but a stop was put to them, and confidence fully re-established by my holding of an “Indaba” with all the Indunas, and leading headmen of the district.41

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The chief native commissioner (CNC) for Matabeleland had noticed this unrest, even if he mistook it for the “traditional” enmity expected between “natives”: “There is still some amount of ill feeling amongst the ‘friendlies’ and ex-rebels, but this is characteristic of the Natives of South Africa. They are more bitter against each other than they are against the Whites and a division amongst themselves caused by war takes years and years to conciliate.”42 Kalanga people and their chiefs had ways of expressing their displeasure, even if the native commissioners were slow to realize this. The restrictions of language, inaccessibility of certain marginalized areas, lack of knowledge about the internal politics of African communities, and the fact that the NCs presided over huge unmanageable districts made it difficult for them (NCs) to understand the finer details of African political and social life. In January 1897, the deputy administrator in Bulawayo called chiefs for a big Indaba (meeting or discussion) ostensibly to attend to their political issues. The outcome of this meeting, as reported by the CNC, is important as it helps us to understand Kalanga feeling: At this Indaba the boundaries of the . . . Native Commissioner Districts were carefully described. . . . Native Commissioners were formally introduced . . . Indunas . . . formally appointed . . . and . . . salaries . . . [and] duties . . . explained. . . . Each head Induna was made directly responsible to the Native Commissioner of the District in which he lived, of which District the Native Commissioner was made Paramount Government Representative. All subIndunas were told that they were responsible to the Head Induna. They were reminded of their promises to . . . C. J. Rhodes that they would hand over all those who were implicated in the cold-blooded murders of defenceless whites at the commencement of the last Rebellion. The whole Indaba went on éclat, causing the restoration, on both sides, of a great deal of that confidence, which the Rebellion had shaken; and the assembled Indunas swore allegiance to the Government of the country, and expressed their very great satisfaction at the arrangements made, and especially that they would have only one man in the district to look to as a Representative of the Government.43

The CNC was mistaken to assume that this administrative arrangement was well received. Some Kalanga chiefs soon demonstrated their disquiet especially in relation to the requirement that they report to the government through Ndebele head chiefs as this undermined their own authority. In Bulilima-Mangwe, where most head chiefs were Ndebele, colonialism reinforced Kalanga subordination as it had in the Matopos.44 In response, prominent Kalanga chiefs including those who had held power in disputed territory between Ndebele and Tswana lands and in the margins of the Ndebele kingdom repudiated Ndebele control. They only belatedly obeyed under duress to placate the government. However, as we will discover later, this obedience was temporary. Thomas described their attitude thus:

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Remaking Communities on the Margins At that time [June 1897], Umswazi, Mandundume [Madandume or Malalume], Sinete, and Menu [Mengwe] came to me and said they did not wish to report through the Government Induna to me, but wished to report directly to me themselves. I explained to them that I could not entertain their application until . . . they had shewn their desire to please the Government and be loyal to it. On enquiry I told them, I found that they had persistently ignored and defied the Government Induna. . . . A couple of weeks ago, I ordered them up to the office to pay their hut tax. I also ordered Mpini (the Government Induna whom they are under) to be in attendance. On their arrival, I ordered them to report themselves to Mpini—they flatly refused. I gave them 24 hours to consider the matter—they still refused. I should mention that, after the first meeting a couple of months back, Menu at once reported to Mpini. Umswazi had not come up in person but had sent his son. I have placed Umswazi’s son and Madandume under arrest, and have sent for Umswazi. On Umswazi’s arrival I propose giving him an opportunity of redeeming himself by reporting to Mpini, when I shall punish his son and Madandume for their personal disobedience. If Umswazi persisted in his present course of action, I shall send them all to Bulawayo. . . . Although apparently a small matter, it is not so. . . . If Umswazi has his own way, Umnigane, Madandume, Mautenga, Madhlambuzi, Sinete, etc. will all demand the same exception to the law. I feel perfectly certain that Umswazi’s attitude is due either to the communication with Rauwe or with Khama’s people.45

The NC was probably wrong to blame this attitude of Kalanga chiefs on the stubborn chief Rauwe who lived in Khama’s territory, as if to suggest these local Kalanga chiefs lacked political initiative. It is true that Rauwe was generally a difficult chief. In one later incident, he orchestrated a fight against London Missionary Society missionaries in Selepeng over beer drinking, complaining that the Christian teaching was serving to “split apart his tribe.” Consequently, missionary work failed in Selepeng and the London Missionary Society closed its station.46 However, the Kalanga chiefs were also subject to internal pressures and had the support of their people in defying the government.47 The chiefs were under pressure to demonstrate leadership in a crisis and work in the interest of their people or else they would lose followers. In the above-mentioned NC’s report, we learn that Mengwe only reported back after two months, having openly defied Mpini before the commissioner. We can only infer that he had taken time to consult his ruling elders on the proper course of action to take. Kalanga communities also showed their disquiet by withholding the legally required hut tax by taking advantage of the loose control of the Rhodesia-Bechuanaland border to escape into Botswana with their people, as they had done during Lobengula’s time. They then reappeared claiming to be under Khama’s jurisdiction. In 1899, Mswazi, Sinete, Matundume, and their people who lived on the Rhodesian side of the border refused to pay tax to the BSACo and fled as far as Palapye in Botswana.48

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Another tactic was to appease African messengers by committing themselves to paying the tax, but then taking no action, as did Mswazi in 1899. Others like Matundume and his people were more radical and “threatened to thrash the messenger and said they would not pay unless Khama told them to do so.” Worried and clueless about how best to deal with these united and evasive communities, the native commissioner suggested “that Khama be requested to order these Natives to come and pay what they owe. Of course if it were possible I could enforce payment by arresting the headmen, but they are all over the border.”49 This pattern of resistance in Kalanga communities proves not only the popularity of their own chiefs as against the unpopularity of imposed rulers, but also the salience of Kalanga ethnicity that became a resource for political mobilization. The Kalanga chiefs would have encouraged this defiance in order to get more followers so as to justify claims to chieftaincy. Evidence suggests that this tendency by the Kalanga to evade taxation continued even until the mid-1920s. By then, loyalty to progovernment chiefs was already on the wane. This was not helped by the tendency of Africans to volunteer their labor beyond the border, which made tax collection and loyalty to chiefs problematic.50 When asked by officials why they were not collecting the required taxes, chiefs in Bulilima-Mangwe usually blamed the government for having taken away their power to punish their people. They also complained that most men had gone to work in South Africa and could not send money home. Whenever the chiefs tried to force those still in the district to pay, the people simply left the villages and never returned. This movement was possible because migrations before the 1930s were more haphazard than after the 1930 Land Apportionment Act. Ndebele chiefs also complained that their headmen, mainly Kalanga, were not cooperating in tax collection, suggesting that such headmen colluded with their people. Chief Mafindo, who held the chieftaincy after Gambo’s death, seemed to indict his headmen for not cooperating: “When we say to the headmen, ‘Where is the money?’ they say, ‘This one is away; that one has no money.’” A similar remark came from Chief Makwela, who complained of both the people and headmen and how the chiefs’ control had become so loose. He complained: “We tell them. They tie up their blankets and go, we never see or hear them again. All the answer we get from the headman is, ‘We have no money.’ We can’t beat them as they deserve, the Government will not let us chiefs beat them as they deserve. We chiefs are losing our authority.”51 To make matters worse for the government and its shaky economy, these communities often refused to send their men to work as laborers in the towns, mines, and farms at a time when the state and industry desperately wanted their labor. In 1901, Bulilima-Mangwe chiefs Tategulu, Magama, Mate, Mbambeleli, Ngazi, and Mahlatini were reported as having “not interested themselves in the collection of labor since October 1900,” as they

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had only collected a few men from their areas for the Government Labor Board, a negligible number in comparison to the required quota.52 Some Kalanga communities also responded by migrating to Botswana. Fearing the board’s resort to forced labor conscription, which in Thomas’s words “thoroughly terrorised the natives,” some communities like Mswazvi’s migrated to Botswana, jeering at those who remained as fools.53 In other cases, Kalanga people preferred to work as temporary laborers for Chief Mphoeng, who had just migrated from Botswana to settle in Southern Rhodesia. They used the proceeds to pay the required hut tax, thereby saving themselves from surrendering their labor to the white settlers.54 The BSACo administration thought that by increasing the range of taxes, Africans would be further squeezed economically and this would drive them to accept low-paying jobs.55 Kalanga communities also had the option to owe allegiance to Khama because they had dealt with his government in the precolonial era. The Ndebele had no such option. They could sell their beasts to meet heavy taxation, migrate to South Africa, try to evade taxes, or just tender their labor, especially given that a number of their senior chiefs in Bulilima-Mangwe cooperated with the government. Kalanga communities fought hard to reject imposed Ndebele chiefs. Two factors cemented this attitude. These were the remaking of popular Kalanga history and the mobilization of an imagined collective ethnic consciousness. Community elders made concerted efforts to construct a Kalanga history that emphasized the distinctions between Kalanga and Ndebele people in terms of their origins and past experiences. There were also attempts by the Kalanga to lay indigenous and spiritual claim to the land they settled in, creating a collective sense of shango yaBakalanga (Kalanga territory). Faced with the Kalanga’s perpetual tax evasion, their unwillingness to volunteer labor, and their tendency to migrate between Botswana and Rhodesia, the Native Affairs Department sought to understand this evasive people’s history, their self-perception, and their sense of political territory and loyalty. When the NC interviewed Nswazvi and his people, they recounted how they had been captured by Ndebele and carried off as slaves, and how most of his father’s people later fled to Khama’s country for refuge. Interestingly, Nswazvi commented that “when the White men conquered the Matabele we hoped that Makalaka headmen would be made independent Indunas, but the Government has continued to rule the Natives through the Matabele Ndunas, so they would prefer to join Khama.” However, the NC strongly believed that Nswazvi wanted to remain in Southern Rhodesia.56 Kalanga history was vital to these ruling elders. First of all, because of their history of politically induced migrations, they developed a sense of political mobility as a group that took no account of geopolitical boundaries. Although political boundaries were important to them, they could not

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be maintained because of warfare and invasions. Secondly, they now wished to take advantage of the new political regime (administered by the BSACo) to retain their present territory, whose recognition necessarily meant to them the legitimization of their chiefs. Thomas found Matundume’s history interesting as a claim to both land and legitimacy: Madandume’s men assert that the country never belonged to Khama’s people. Their forefather, Madandume had got some land from Menu who was chief of the country from the time immemorial. They had always been on friendly terms with Khama’s people although not subject in any way to Khama’s forefathers. . . . Madandume says the white people have thrown them over by giving the ground they live [on] to Khama. . . . They have not been subject to him by any shape, or form since the Banyai, Swazis, and Matabele [became] their liege lords, first under Gambo’s father and since his death.57

Matundume’s version of history emphasized difference and separation. His stress on never having been under Khama and of the invasion of their land by the Ndebele reveals the sense in which Kalanga identified themselves as a separate people, and how they used this notion to justify claims to chieftaincy and land. When the NC came to interview Mengwe in the same year, the group’s chief spokesperson, Tjini, estimated to be over eighty years old, gave its view. He spoke of Mengwe’s authority, of his power over land allocation, and of the Kalanga separation from Khama, the Rozvi, Swazi, and Ndebele to whom they only paid tribute for their safety. Tjini made strong claims to land based on ancestry. He argued: We have no wish to leave the rule of the white people, but [they] have thrown us away, and we have no wish to leave the country where the bones of our ancestors lie buried. This land belonged to Menu and never to Khama, but we must stick to our country. When Khama says the land belonged to his Fathers he lies, and he knows he lies. Menu’s country extended to the west of the old road from Shoshong [Mangwato] to the Pandamatenka running along a sand belt that crosses that road more than half-way from Menu’s Pandamatenka.58

Summarizing his findings at Mengwe’s kraal, the native commissioner said: Menu and his people concurred with Tjini in what he said. I would beg to state that the old Menu died in 1896. . . . He would probably [have been] over 100 years of age and it is acknowledged by all the Makalanga, Matabele and other authorities and traditions that he was paramount Chief of the West of Matabeleland. His son who reigns over the small remnant of his Father’s domains has only just been appointed by the tribe to take his Father’s place.59

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The BSACo could not endure these argumentative communities and their claims. Suspecting that Khama had lured these dissident communities into his kingdom by promising them ammunition and the right to retain it, which the BSACo government had pronounced illegal, and also cognizant of the fact that they had refused to report through an Ndebele head chief, the NC half-heartedly recommended that they be allowed to come under Khama’s control. This meant that the BSACo government lost a potential £800 per annum in hut tax.60 We have so far discussed the response of some Kalanga to the early years of BSACo rule. We will also examine later responses to state-imposed Ndebele rule. Although the new Ndebele chiefs were empowered to rule over generally wider areas than before and had higher status than Kalanga chiefs, their power was now more ceremonial than it was under Lobengula. The commoners became aware of this and tended to defy some of the chiefs. Mpini Ndiweni was the earliest to suffer this embarrassment, and he endured it for a long time. During Lobengula’s reign, Mpini’s Osaba regiment and Gambo’s Gaba had captured many Kalanga, Shona, Venda, and Sotho people, some of whom deserted him soon after the 1893 war. By 1908, the government had downgraded some Kalanga chiefs to mere headmen (see table 3.1). Table 3.1. List of chiefs and headmen in Bulilima-Mangwe District in 1908 Chief

Ethnicity

Headman

Section in charge of

Gambo

Ndebele

Makile

Mlisa at Gambo’s kraal

Soluse

Soluse’s, Mlevu’s, and neighboring kraals

Budjana

Mahlabati

Mahwatshu

Mabugundwana

Sitjungulwana

Bulawayo people

Bukope

Mlisa at Mpini’s Kraal

Buhu

Emapaneni

Mnigau

His own people

Mloyi

His own people

Masendu

His own people

Madlambudzi

His own people

Mazwi

Mpini

(continued)

Ndebele

Ndebele

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Table 3.1. List of chiefs and headmen in Bulilima-Mangwe District in 1908—(concluded) Chief

Ethnicity

Headman

Section in charge of

Mbembeleli/ Mbambeleli

Ndebele

Madhlulane

Kraals near him

Magama

Ndebelecized

Sigamulo

Kraals near Godzo and Umguzana

Gombambizi

Kraals on Zuzumba

Nonyane

Kraals he had always controlled

Mahamba

Kraals he had always controlled

Kalanga

Ngazi

Ndebele

Tetegulu

Kalanga

Dubulo

Kraals at Mandau

Mahlatini

Ndebelecized Kalanga

Fusi

Kraals on the Gwaai River

Nyiga (Nkolomana)

Ndebele

Magawu

Nkolomana’s portion of the Zimnyama

Makwa

Mlisa at Mjiga’s kraal

Malaba

Kalanga

Obodo

Kraals he had always controlled

Sangulube

Kalanga

Umdanga

Kraals he had always controlled

Source: NB 3/1/14, NC Bulilima-Mangwe to the CNC Matabeleland, July 2, 1908; NB 6/2/1, Half Yearly Statistical Report on the Mangwe District, Matabeleland, September 30, 1897.

Unsubsidized Kalanga chiefs such as Sitjulugwana, Madyambudzi, and Mninigau (Nilikawu chief of Dombodema and Tegwani areas) were demoted to subsidized headmen, ranked just above kraal leaders.61 They reported to the government through Ndebele chiefs. Others such as Mlevu lost not only their chieftaincy but also their headmanship. Troublesome chiefs like Mswazi, Madandume, Sinete, and Mengwe later fell into the Bechuanaland Protectorate when borders were redrawn. As the above table shows, Mpini controlled more headmen than any other Bulilima-Mangwe chief. However, this does not mean Mpini had effective control over them; in fact, most of them were disloyal to him. By contrast to the chiefs of Wenlock in the Matopos who successfully grafted a broad Ndebele identity onto people who were previously not Ndebele, Mpini failed to create a community that shared a broad Ndebele identity, due in part to the dominance of Kalanga people in his area.62

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Mpini’s appointment followed that of his father, Langapi, who was deposed for participating in the 1896 uprisings. Reportedly, Mpini had “a large following—but is not very popular amongst the natives. On the whole he discharges his duties well.”63 Government authorities clearly respected him, despite his unpopularity that came from the fact that he foisted his power on communities that detested Ndebele rule. Mpini was not alone in this predicament. Reports about chiefs such as Mahlatini and Magama in Bulilima-Mangwe revealed a general disrespect for Ndebele chiefs. Chief Mahlatini, who was originally installed by Lobengula to rule over a regiment that was not originally his own, commanded little respect, notwithstanding his good administrative style.64 His “people” paid little heed to his instructions even when they emanated from the government. The NC reported that commoners boasted they would not listen to chiefs anymore since they no longer had the power they had enjoyed under Lobengula.65 This same problem bedeviled Chief Mafindo, Gambo’s successor in the mid-1920s.66 Elsewhere, outside Bulilima-Mangwe, some Ndebele chiefs faced similar problems. In Insiza, some hole men broke away from the powerful Ndebele chief Somabulane and built their own small kraals outside his jurisdiction, although they still paid taxes through him. Asked why they had done so, they said they had no complaint against their “father” but merely wished to live apart.67 In Bubi, once the center of the Ndebele kingdom during Mzilikazi’s reign, the quest for original, “organic” Ndebele chiefs was crucial. Tshwapa and Uwini (or Uwili), both Ndebele chiefs whom the government had appointed against the wishes of the people, could not enjoy the throne because of public pressure. In Uwini’s division, people refused to obey him and refused to appear before the NC, who sent six different messengers, who returned with the message that “they were not going to listen to the ‘izundunyana zaka makiwa’” (white men’s minor chiefs).68 This popular response was an onslaught not only against manufactured chieftainships, but against colonial power in general. The NC tried to explain this resistance as mischief stirred up by the zansi, whom he thought were the majority in Bubi. He levied fines of 10/– (ten British shillings) each on the twenty men summoned, arguing that their behavior represented residual Ndebele resistance to government authority, and attributing it to the fact that “for a long time past, there has been in this district, no visible demonstration of the power of the Government.” He continued, “The Matabele are savages and need an ocular and tangible proof of the power of the Government constantly before them to make them accept its existence.”69 Government officials saw this Bubi incident as part of Ndebele resistance to colonial power, but it was also an internal community issue. People did not wish to come under the government-appointed chiefs, who lacked legitimacy in their eyes. For Africans, traditional political authority did not come from the government, but was conceptualized both as spiritual and as negotiated at

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a local level. In the same district, Bubi, courageous people lined up charges against Chief Tshwapa of Inyati, presented them to the NC, and asked for Tshwapa’s ouster. They accused Tshwapa of abusing his office, extorting money, beating people under him, and “not looking after our own interests.”70 The chief native commissioner suspended him for three months but remarked: “Some Indunas have reported . . . that their people refuse to obey them, and I do not doubt that Tshwapa has met with the same difficulty, and in order to enforce his instructions . . . has taken . . . to use stringent measures; thereby incurring the enmity of his people.”71 This issue of chiefs with “no tribal goodwill” was serious not only in the transitional period, from the precolony to the colonial era, but also for decades after the occupation of Matabeleland. In 1914, for instance, Ndebele people petitioned the government to extend the terms of reference of the 1914 Native Reserves Commission to include investigations on the appointment of chiefs and issues of land tenure because they were not satisfied that these issues had been handled properly.72 Because of their disregard of Africans’ opinions, government authorities ignored this petition, but this did not deter African resistance to the new chiefs in Matabeleland. Whereas in areas that once constituted the core of Ndebele society debates about the legitimacy of chiefs centered on the precolonial zansi aristocratic model, the situation was different in Kalanga areas, where chieftaincy debates directly related to broader ethnic issues. This makes the struggle for authority in Bulilima-Mangwe different from what was happening in central Ndebele areas. We will return to Mpini to understand the politics of chieftaincy and identity in Bulilima-Mangwe. Because his area once hosted a regimental kraal, Mpini ruled over people of different ethnic loyalties. Apart from Ndebele precolonial assimilados, he also ruled over some Africans expelled from mission stations for various reasons including drunkenness and polygamy, whom the Catholics labeled as “obnoxious natives.”73 Desperate for land, these people became Mpini’s clientele. However, these Empandeni evictees led by Headman Tjingababili, Malaba, and Tshitshi continued to emphasize their own separate histories.74 In a way, it was possible for clients to settle under a chief of a different ethnic group so long as that chief allocated them land and ruled them well. The mere fact that chiefs found themselves empowered from above yet unable to exercise that power below for fear of losing followers shows that the colonial project of inventing chieftaincies, symbols, and ideas was itself not always as successful as imagined. Around 1918, the government decided to remove a number of communities from areas that it declared either Crown lands or private state farms, as in the case of Ramaquabane (or Ramakwebane), where Mpini ruled.75 When colonial officials advised Mpini and his subjects to move from Ramakwebane Reserve to Semokwe Reserve, the people had lacked

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unanimity in “tribal opinion” on the course of action. While some wanted to move to Semokwe Reserve, others wanted to go to Nata Reserve. Facing this dilemma, which sent a clear message about his limited authority over these diverse subjects, Mpini showed indecision and did not demonstrate the voice of command expected of a prominent Ndebele chief. Rather than simply dictate what he wanted his “followers” to do, Mpini, to his detriment, instead allowed the already divided headmen to decide what they wanted. Posselt, the native commissioner for Plumtree, observed Mpini’s attitude as “purely passive, but his headmen and kraal heads realized they have now to move and must make a selection.”76 The division of Mpini’s followers was unavoidable, and forging community consensus was unlikely. First, Mpini’s vacillation was exploited by ambitious Kalanga headmen who wanted to secede with their people, relocate to new areas, and ask the government to recognize them as chiefs. Because of his old age, Mpini could not always outwit and control these insubordinate Kalanga headmen. He died in 1920 and was succeeded by his son Ndabakayena.77 Cognizant of the problems that his late father encountered as he ruled over various Kalanga headmen, Ndabakayena did not find it prudent to accept the addition of any new Kalanga communities to his chieftaincy. His attitude toward the Talahundra Kalanga section was very clear. When Chief Sangulube, the Talahundra chief, died in the 1920s, a new chief, Koto, arose who proved difficult to contain. Koto ruled for most of the 1920s and the early 1930s. He defied the government to the extent that his Talahundra people gained a reputation for being notorious rent and tax defaulters.78 Because he accused Koto of failing to assist the NC “in any way” and for “countless infringements” of the law and “hiding of tax defaulters,” Posselt recommended Koto’s demotion to headman under Ndabakayena Mpini.79 Koto was deposed in 1937. The NC’s assumption was that the community of “Sangulube would be better if controlled by a Chief of Mpini’s standing.”80 The government had faith in Ndabakayena Mpini, yet Ndabakayena did not believe in continuing his father’s policy, which had already proved unpopular, of enhancing the chieftaincy’s status by incorporating and ruling huge groups of “ethnic Others.” He declined to incorporate the Talahundra, citing their “distinct tribal customs.”81 Ndabakayena recommended that a Talahundra chieftaincy be revived instead as it was difficult to assume leadership over a community that evinced other loyalties and identities. Consequently, the government raised Sitimela, a “progressive” and amenable Sangulube headman, to assume the Talahundra/Sangulube chieftaincy in 1938. Sitimela moved his Sangulube community to Brunapeg Crown Land away from Mpini’s area.82 This tendency of a small community to reinforce its own power by moving farther away from paramount chiefs was common in other districts.83

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With the stripping of chiefs’ powers under the 1927 Native Affairs Act, official chiefs further lost power as both ethnic representatives and innovators of tradition. Through the act, a chief was redefined merely as “a native appointed by the Governor-In-Council to exercise control over a tribe as chief or deputy of a chief,” and tribe meant “a number or collection of natives forming a political organization or community under the control or leadership of a chief.”84 Evidently, government had redefined both chieftaincy and the notion of “tribe.” The new definition authorized chiefs to rule over people of other ethnic groups so long as they fell within the chief’s political geography. Moreover, the definition of tribe ceased to be sociocultural but became mainly geopolitical. Although the above colonial arrangement was meant to make governance possible in a country where massive evictions disrupted the established order, it created problems for some chiefs. For others, however, it was a welcome opportunity to legitimize claims to chieftaincy as the case of the Talahundra below will show. Because most Africans still believed that their hereditary chiefs were representatives of their ethnic traditions, they resisted the authority of the new chiefs placed over them. In report after report, NCs complained of the chiefs’ failure to ensure “proper control of their people.” Native Affairs Department officials even feared that the loss of chiefly power was causing moral degradation to the extent that some recommended the placement of an all-powerful white reserve superintendent in each native reserve.85 The government did not realize that the Africans simply wanted their own hereditary chiefs to continue to rule over them regardless of where those chiefs lived. What the NC Insiza observed in 1934 was common in most parts of Matabeleland: Chiefs and Headmen carried out their duties well. Their duties are certainly difficult in this district on account of the territorial disposition of clans and tribes. The majority of the natives “konza” [pay respect] to their hereditary chiefs irrespective of where they live, and this leads to various difficulties and tends to render the authority of the local “Induna” or “Umlisa” [headmen] nugatory. This desire to “konza” to the hereditary authority, can, I think be made great use of in giving effect to the provisions of the Land Apportionment Act.86

In Bubi, people assaulted headmen and chief’s messengers, in defiance of chiefly power.87 Responding to this general decline in their power, head chiefs like Ndabakayena Mpini and Tshankwa attempted to raise their personal standing by trying to assert some authority over the people.88 Instead, as the native commissioner in Bulilima-Mangwe correctly observed, they had little influence as they were no longer viewed as traditional authorities: “The position of most chiefs has undergone a profound change. From being a

Figure 3.2. Ndebele leaders at an Indaba at Government House, Bulawayo, 1899. © National Archives of Zimbabwe (accession number 391/397/TL4806). Reproduced with permission.

Figure 3.3. Ndebele chiefs of the Gwaai District, 1890s. © National Archives of Zimbabwe (accession number 391/397/TL4005). Reproduced with permission.

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Figure 3.4. Mazwi, an Ndebele chief with his family, dated 1890s. The description on the back of the photograph reads: “Mazwi, an Ndebele chief, with his family at his kraal near St Aidains, Bembesi. His chief wife, a daughter of Lobengula, is standing behind.” © National Archives of Zimbabwe (accession number 391/397/ TL3970). Reproduced with permission.

patriarchal head of a clan, when one of his principal functions was to preside over the religious ceremonies and propitiatory sacrifices of the tribe, . . . he has almost lost the exercise of his priestly office. He is now restricted mainly to the execution of certain purely administrative orders and police duties, shorn of dignity and authority.”89 With the increasing institutionalization of colonial chieftaincy, chiefs lost cultural legitimacy and the legal powers that formerly came with the office. They ceased to be trusted as impartial patrons in local chiefs’ courts.90 Their subjects sometimes flouted their orders and contested their judgments. By 1936, the NC Bulilima-Mangwe observed: “With people who have lost all sense of tribal control, and who will naturally resent the reinstitution of control . . . , the Chiefs and Headmen have passed through a period of severe trial. In many petty disputes settled by chiefs one of the parties has appealed for the matter to be heard by the Native Commissioners. Often also, cases of disobedience of their orders have been brought in.”91 It is clear that what was lost was not the assumed traditional “tribal” control per se, but the legitimacy of those that had been put in control. The post-1930 Talahundra Kalanga situation and that of the Madyambudzi Kalanga community will clearly reinforce this observation.

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Among the Talahundra Kalanga who moved as a community under chief Sangulube from Matole to Brunapeg in 1939 (having resisted being subordinated to chief Mpini and by convincing the NC that they were ethnically different from the Ndebele), chieftaincy remained important so long as it was Kalanga.92 Their tendency to emphasize social and historical differences from the Ndebele continued as late as the 1960s. When the Internal Affairs Division was collecting evidence for the community delineation exercise, Kalanga informants claimed that “they were never incorporated into the regiments of the Amandebele or in any way influenced by that people.”93 As chapter 2 demonstrated, these Talahundra were part of those Kalanga communities outside the Ndebele state’s boundaries. When the Talahundra reached Brunapeg in 1939, they occupied a Native Purchase Area that they regarded as Kalanga land by legal entitlement, having collectively bought it from the government; otherwise the Talahundra branch of the Kalanga had no legitimate historical claims to that particular piece of land. Thereafter, they mobilized a segregationist Kalanga ethnicity to justify their control over their new land, in almost the same way the Shangaans did in South Africa.94 In legitimizing these claims, the notion of an organic Talahundra chieftaincy became important. The Brunapeg evictees mixed modernity and tradition in interesting ways. Their unwillingness to intermarry with other ethnic groups, their claim for “traditional” chieftaincy to be recognized, and the continuity of Kalanga rituals did not deter the embracing of modernizing tendencies such as new methods of cultivation, soil conservation, use of animal manure and fertilizer, and their settlement in planned villages. They also invited Roman Catholics from their former area to teach literacy and Christianity with the result that Brunapeg became an established Roman Catholic mission. Around 1947, Stimela, their appointed chief, who was a “modern man” and a London Missionary Society member, died. This being the time when the government was trying hard to cut back on expenditure on African affairs, colonial officials quickly declared this chieftaincy to be redundant. They consequently extended the territory of Ndebele chief Tshitshi so that it covered the communities once under Sangulube, Hobodo, and Hasiate (Gasiate), a Sotho who originally migrated from Botswana and settled in the neighboring Mphoengs area.95 Kalanga people made considerable efforts to lobby the government through their lawyer, who argued that since these people had always had their own chief, it was difficult to understand why they suddenly had to come under an Ndebele chief.96 In protest, they refused to recognize Tshitshi’s authority and referred no legal cases to him for adjudication. They instead settled most disputes by themselves and awaited the return of Patrick (Stimela’s son) from South Africa to install him as chief. Meanwhile, the unsubsidized headman Madimabi acted for him. He “failed” to do his job well, so the government temporarily placed Sangulube’s people

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under headman Hasiate of Mphoengs, who reported to Chief Tshitshi.97 Expressing his bitter memories and emotions of the Talahundra elders over this issue, one informant, hitting the table, said, “Tshitshi was and is of no consequence to us. He never came here during his whole lifetime to advise us on anything. He is and was never legitimate before us.”98 Although it is possible that the informant, himself a member of the Kalanga ruling family, might have exaggerated this history, the complete agreement between the evidence of the delineation report and his testimony tendered four decades later is too striking to be false. The issue of restoring the Kalanga chieftaincy that had been declared redundant during the colonial era was a sensitive issue to my informants at Brunapeg. They had hoped that the postindependent Mugabe regime would quickly address this issue, but the pace at which the government was moving to addressing the chieftaincy issue was painstakingly slow. As we concluded one of our conversations, one informant said to me, “We are still waiting to get our chief from the Government. The chieftaincy of the Talahundra will never die!”99 On the other side of Plumtree, Bulilima, the period after the 1930s was equally interesting. In the late 1940s Chief Mpini was transferred from his Zimnyama area to another area farther north-east (to Nata Tribal Trust Lands), in Bulilima, where he became the official head over numerous Kalanga chiefs who were thus reduced to headmen. By the late 1930s, most reserves were suffering overpopulation, and instead of making more land available, the government took the approach of enforcing drastic and extreme conservation measures through the Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA). The Madyambudzi people (also spelled Madlambudzi) resisted these measures as the chief, Madyambudzi Madzete, and his people refused to perform contour ridging and to use manure, arguing that they would not abandon the methods of agriculture they had inherited from their fathers.100 When I asked one woman about contouring, she said, “Taka tilamba kuti hakuna minda inotsiwa njizi!” (We did not want to dig rivers in our own fields!).101 The Madyambudzi resistance illustrates the fear some chiefs had of losing popularity among their own people should they embrace government projects without sound consultations with their communities. Chief Madzete had often called meetings to test how his NC’s orders would be received, but his Madyambudzi people frequently refused to do what was not in their best interest.102 Apart from sanctioning resistance to the use of manure and digging of contour ridges, Madzete and his people annoyed the government by refusing to destock and to allow a native council in Madyambudzi.103 Madzete was therefore seen as an impediment to the state’s development goals, and he was deposed by the British in 1947 after having served as chief since the early 1920s. The government tried to find chiefs who would cooperate in mobilizing their people to adopt modern

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farming methods and to accept rural African councils. Out of a desire to extend his territory, Mpini capitalized on the situation, masquerading as a modern, progressive Ndebele head chief. Colonial officials transferred him to the Nata Reserve, where he proceeded directly to replace numerous Kalanga chiefs, such as Madzete (Madyambudzi), Masendu, Hikwa, Sikhatini, Gonde, and Ndolwane.104 With the deposition of Madzete in 1947 and the abolition of his chieftaincy, the area came under Mpini. A formerly lower-ranked man, Mangubo, became the headman over Madyambudzi’s area.105 This arrangement was unpalatable to the Madyambudzi people, who, almost twenty years later, were still bitter against the government for the deposition of Madzete. This report of community delineators clearly illustrates this point: This arrangement [to replace Madzete with Mpini] has proved to be incompatible with the requirements of the Madlambudzi people and tribal custom. The people are unable to see how the Government could completely abolish the chieftainship and impose a “foreign chief” rather than install the heir of Madzete. Several delegations have approached Government requesting the resuscitation of their chieftainship but to date their attempts have not been successful. At present the Madlambudzi board is agitating for the removal of Mangubo from office and his replacement by Jesse to the headmanship. This line has been taken as it is thought that there is little hope of Government recognising Jesse as headman over Mangubo rather than for him to hold no position at all. Headman Mangubo has been placed under considerable pressure and many of his followers have turned against him, due mainly to the fact that he will not abdicate in favour of Jesse. Quite understandably Chief Mpini, who is now dead [by 1965], opposed the resuscitation of the chieftainship as this would have meant that he would have to give up his newly acquired ilizwe [country or area].106

The Madyambudzi community became ungovernable because people refused fealty to Mpini on the basis that his authority was “foreign,” a familiar term in ethnic language. This protest and others in the district were enough to inform the NC Bulilima-Mangwe that contrary to the practice of appointing chiefs because of their perceived loyalty or their service to the NCs, the “interests of the administration would be better served by confining chieftainship to those who are chiefs in the eyes of their own peoples.”107 When I interviewed some of the Madyambudzi people about their experiences under Mpini, they held the suspicion that Mpini had been planted by the government to oppress the Kalanga, and for this reason, they thought that their defiance was justified: We concluded that the Whites were friends of the Ndebele and had made an alliance with the Ndebele against us the Kalanga. The people vowed not to

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listen to Mpini. However, Madyambudzi sent some cases to Mpini for trial, but Mpini still feared Madyambudzi because even when some cases were sent to him, he was never sure of how to handle them decisively. He still had to ask Madyambudzi to continue to help him solve those cases. This explains why the people continued to call Madyambudzi as their “iHe” [chief] rather than as the “Sobuku [headman].”108

Madyambudzi’s loss of the chieftaincy caused administrative confusion, as people waited for the restoration of their original chieftaincy, as the delineation commissioners reported in 1965: This upheaval of tribal structure has led to confusion within the Mpimbila area, particularly as control over the pattern of settlement has disappeared and this has led to complete confusion within the izigaba of the various headmen. A further consequence has been the division amongst the people, those in favour of the appointment of Jesse as headman and those supporters of Mangubo. The official headman has himself been placed in an unenviable position and the majority of the people appear to be against him now, merely because he is the headman and not Jesse. The position of the administration in this area had been weakened, and there is considerable hostility towards the Government for deposing the chief and not making allowance for the succession of his heir. It is felt that the resuscitation of this chieftainship would be advantageous, particularly as this may restore to the area some form of order and control, while it will also enhance the popularity of the administration in the eyes of the people.109

Beyond Colonial Inventions: Kalanga Agency The colonial encounter was as difficult for the colonizers as it was for the colonized. In the early years, neither the British colonizers nor the Africans were fully in control. As Europeans later tried to impose their authority on Africans and to develop tighter systems of control, especially after the late 1920s, they faced different responses ranging from compliance to ambivalence and open opposition. In Kalanga areas in Bulilima-Mangwe, colonial policy toward chieftaincy was determined by the government’s apparent laissez-faire attitude toward Ndebele aristocrats. Fears of a possible Ndebele uprising meant that the colonial administration had to try its best to placate Ndebele chiefs by promoting them ahead of Kalanga chiefs, whose claims to represent their people had popular support from their commoners. By so doing the government thought it was simply maintaining the historical status quo. This reflected either or both of two possibilities: that the colonial administrators were ignorant of politics and society in the margins of the Ndebele state where different Kalanga communities had maintained an

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uneasy relationship with the Ndebele over a long period of time; or that they simply wanted to deliberately suppress the Kalanga by ignoring their claims to history and identities while upholding the Other, which was typical of colonial rule in Africa. Precolonial Ndebele control in most Kalanga areas had been weak to the extent that certain Kalanga chiefs had held sway in those areas. This BSACo policy created unforeseen administrative difficulties such as Kalanga people’s unwillingness to pay taxes, refusal to tender labor, repudiation of Ndebele authority, and tendency to migrate away from Ndebele influence. It would also leave a legacy for the postcolonial Zimbabwean government, which is taking rather too long to address the issues of chieftaincy in Matabeleland (and creating its own new problems in the process). Moreover, like the colonial regime, the ZANU-PF government has continued to abuse chiefs to gain votes during key elections, rationalizing that chiefs were not expected to “bite the hand that is feeding them.”110 In asserting their own agency, some Kalanga people laid counterclaims to political authority by retelling a history that demonstrated their independence from Ndebele and Tswana control. They also imagined and entertained the idea of an undisputed precolonial Kalanga community, Kalanga territory, and Kalanga ethnic identity, notwithstanding how difficult a task it was to articulate these claims. We realize, therefore, that popular ethnicity was closely allied with claims for power in Kalanga communities. This ethnic identity was not exclusively a creation of the colonial state and did not necessarily need to be. In fact, the government did not wish to uphold Kalanga ethnicity, but tried to revive Ndebele control over Matabeleland under the guise of enforcing tradition. As the case of Bulilima-Mangwe demonstrates, this move was inept and unsuccessful. Lastly, it is essential also to note that the further development and deployment of ethnicity and the politics of chieftaincy in Bulilima-Mangwe since the early colonial era were part of a similar process that had started in the precolonial era as the Kalanga resisted Ndebele influence.

4 Ultraroyalism, King’s Cattle, and Postconquest Politics among the Ndebele, 1893 to the 1940s Political Authority, Ethnic Rights, and the Ndebele Legacy Having just examined the postconquest situation in Bulilima-Mangwe in the preceding chapter, which raised critical issues about the creation of identities on the margins of the colonial state, it is important that we also examine the issue of who speaks for the Ndebele “tribe” and the source of political authority among the Ndebele after the demise of the kingdom. This is another neglected issue in Matabeleland history that will yield important ideas about the contested nature of Ndebele identity. Taken together with chapter 3, this chapter helps us understand salient aspects of ethnicity, politics, and struggles in rural Matabeleland from colonization to the late 1940s. Related to the question of who speaks for the Ndebele is the broader question of the source of political authority. Ndebele royals and most chiefs who were closely allied to the nineteenth-century Ndebele monarchy posed, in the early colonial period, as living heroes. Their move to restore the Ndebele monarchy—feared and obstructed by the colonial rulers—solidified the already existing division between commoners and remnants of the Ndebele ruling class. It represented another extreme reaction, one not expected by the colonizer, who thought that the Ndebele had been placated enough by the elevation of some of their chiefs into head chiefs and also by the payment of allowances for the upkeep of the Lobengula family. The“restoration movement, which is still an issue in Matabeleland today, aroused debates about the commoners’ freedom and status should the aims of the ultraroyalists be achieved.1 It also provoked debates about the varied interpretations of ethnic rights and Ndebele people’s right to the king’s legacy, especially the “king’s cattle.” The chieftaincy issue, Ndebele royalist claims, and the socalled cattle question were the focus of much sociopolitical thought among the Ndebele as well as among those Kalanga who had accepted a share of

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“royal” cattle from the government during this period. During my oral interviews in Bubi, I was stunned to find how serious these matters were taken and how they are interpreted today. I discovered how bitter certain people had become about those cattle and how others simply exonerated themselves, claiming that the cattle in question were taken by (unidentified) others, and not by their family members. Commoners tended to blame chiefs for having looted the royal cattle. Some chiefs would not even speak openly to me on this issue.

Ultraroyalism and the “King’s Cattle”: Njube and Nyamanda The 1893 defeat at the hands of the BSACo meant that the Ndebele had to think hard how to replace the dead (perhaps disappeared? or exiled?) Lobengula, whose elimination from the political scene partly led to the 1896–97 wars.2 After the wars, some members of the extended royal family felt they were not sufficiently rewarded, in contrast to some of Lobengula’s immediate family who were given subsidies by the government.3 Nyamanda and Tshakalisa, Lobengula’s sons, became chiefs, contrary to Ndebele custom as it was not improper to “demote” Ndebele princes into chiefs.4 Njube, the would-be claimant to kingship (the oldest son to be born when Lobengula was already king), was taken (or trafficked) to South Africa in 1899 after Rhodes misled the Ndebele elders that he was simply taking him away to give him a good education and that he would return him thereafter.5 Efforts to secure Njube’s return to take up Ndebele kingship proved fruitless, despite the Ndebele royal elites’ attempts to engage the BSACo government through their lawyer Dyason since 1901. The government rejected Njube’s own application to return home for just two months;6 government officials suspected that key Ndebele chiefs like Mtshane Kumalo, Somabulane, and Mlugulu were behind the move to install Njube as king in the hope that he would restore their former precolonial political status.7 The new colonizers were justifiably suspicious of Ndebele intentions and even feared another Ndebele rising. The government was not so sure if the Ndebele had been defeated enough to submit to the new government. The CNC doubted, however, whether Ndebele commoners would support their zansi chiefs in this project, although he was wrong to attribute this to the fact that the commoners were happy with the new colonizer: With reference to our conversation on Njube the King’s son, I understand that Mr. Dyason has approached you (as he says on behalf of some of the principal Indunas of Matabeleland) with a view of securing the release of Njube to this country presumably as head of the Matabele nation. Before accepting Mr. Dyason’s statements, I think he should be called upon to furnish the names

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of the Indunas referred to. Personally, I very much doubt whether he had been approached by any of the principal Indunas of Matabeleland. I am aware that Njube is very anxious to return to this country and assume control of the natives here, but that it is the wish of the natives themselves is not the case, they are quite contented with one present form of Government, . . . [and wish] to be directly responsible to the Government through their Indunas.8

The death of Lobengula, the government’s refusal to return Njube to Matabeleland, and the degrading of once powerful figures like Mtshane, Somabulane, and Mlugulu, who were in leadership positions during the 1896 war, all created a political vacuum among the Ndebele. For this reason, some chiefs and Ndebele cultural nationalists tried to lobby the government during this period for at least some official recognition of one leader that would be the overall spokesperson of the Ndebele. This restoration movement, however, divided Matabeleland chiefs into ultraroyalists and those who, although they would have claimed royal blood or had been chiefs during Lobengula’s time, wished to move on, perhaps because they knew that it was impossible for the government to accede to the royalists’ demands or that they stood to benefit more from rendering their loyalty to the government as chiefs than they would under the previous regime. It is also true that this schism was fostered by the BSACo administration to make Matabeleland more governable.9 Reporting on the issue, the CNC for Matabeleland praised himself for this schism: “At present there is absolutely no cohesion amongst the natives, each little tribe is, as it were, opposed to the other, albeit; a certain amount of jealousy has naturally arisen amongst the indunas. This jealousy has been fostered by me as I am of the opinion that it is the most politic form of governing the natives.”10 Despite government’s efforts to resist royalists’ claims, the royalist agenda remained important for some of the Ndebele chiefs. However, most of the lower-class commoners could not support this ultraroyalist activism because they suspected that the movement was backward-looking and would return them to the unfavorable nineteenth-century political situation. In 1898, Mtshane Khumalo (former Ndebele army commander) called the first extraordinary meeting of chiefs at his kraal near Bulawayo (at Sauerdale). Also in attendance were Dhliso (Matopos), Somabulane (of Insiza), Makhapavula, Hlanganiso, Mhlahlo, Mangubo, and representatives of Faku and of Mapisa (Matobo), of Mlugulu (Matobo), and of the late Nkonkobela.11 The meeting discussed issues such as loss of land; the looting of Lobengula’s cattle by the state (and the ordinary Matabeleland people); the ill-treatment and shooting of Ndebele people by white people; and more important, the appointment of Njube Lobengula as king of the nation, a subject that was introduced by Mtshana and Karl Khumalo.12 Colonial officials viewed this political move as open defiance of colonial authority. In

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Malema District; for instance, chiefs were called in for hostile questioning about this meeting as they had violated pass regulations to attend it.13 Notwithstanding attempts to silence the royalists, the move to return Njube and appoint him as the Ndebele king continued secretly, with only glimpses of the royalists’ activities reported to the NCs through their African spies. An unsettling rumor spread throughout Matabeleland that Njube would return and be installed as king. There were also secret attempts by Mtshane and royal sympathizers to build the prince’s indhlu (dwelling).14 His possible return became a topic of considerable interest to the colonial administrators, who viewed it as politically undesirable to the ordinary people and the new imposed chiefs, who feared possible backlash and degradation of their newfound political status should Njube be made king. Ordinary people felt Njube’s return would mean a restoration of the precolonial economic situation and the old ethnic relations in which Matabeleland citizenship was defined by the royals. The possibilities of Njube ordering cattle seizures from commoners and some of the chiefs aroused genuine fears. The danger of such cattle confiscations was that the commoners’ newly found status of cattle ownership was going to be reversed, and this would have a grave impact on their ability to pay lobola and on their general status.15 In Matabeleland, cattle were very important in mediating gender relations and in enhancing the general status of the male head of the house. Fears about the possible impact of the return of Njube were expressed to the Bulilima-Mangwe NC by his spies, and he reported in detail as follows: On returning to my district . . . , I heard from one or two trustworthy natives that there was a disturbing rumour going the rounds of Matabeleland to the effect that “when Njube would be made king—very shortly—he would take all the cattle, goats and sheep from all the natives in the country who are not “thoroughbred” Matabele—and would treat as enemies all those who had remained loyal to the whites during the late rebellion of ’96. Further that when the whites desert this country (which they will do soon) the “friendlies” will have to go too—or the chief Njube will wipe them out.” As I have already called up the Indunas of this district for the purpose of giving them my final instructions before commencing to collect hut tax, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to question them re:- this rumour. I did so—and they all declared that they knew nothing of it. Only Mazwi said, “Well, it sounds a very likely sort of rumour to come from the Matobo, as they are constantly talking in this way there.” I then realised that Mazwi had heard the rumour and that all probably knew it—so I said no more at the time. Subsequently Mazwi came to me and said, “You were quite right about that rumour. It has gone right through the country and we have all heard it, but did not care to say so as we did not know where it originated, and were afraid of being credited with knowing more than we do know about the matter.” He also said that when

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the Indunas denied all the knowledge of the rumour he made up his mind to come to me alone and tell me what he knew of it. This rumour is only a rumour yet, but is indicative of the mischievous intrigue to which the late rebel Indunas, and the King’s son, Njube are parties. He evidently looks on himself as the future King of the Matabele—an idea which should, for the peace of this country, be removed from his mind, and the minds of the Matabele, as soon as possible.16

In 1903, Njube sent a lawyer to collect money from the indunas in Matabeleland to finance a trip to England, ostensibly to see the queen and represent the Ndebele’s plight.17 He urged his sympathizers not to disclose this detail to progovernment chiefs like Gambo, Mazwi, Mpini, and Sikombo, whom he considered to be sellouts.18 To forestall the move, the government tried to pacify Njube by granting him £150 to start a farming business, conditional on his agreeing “not to go back to Bulawayo whether for holiday, visit or anything.”19 At a meeting between Matabeleland chiefs and the British high commissioner of South Africa in 1906, chiefs again lobbied for Njube’s return. This nagging lobby was misunderstood by the BSACo government as secessionist. The reality, however, was that the Ndebele merely wanted a “tribal” representative, someone “higher than the ground,” as they made clear to the high commissioner in 1906: “Yes, we are chiefs for we are in charge over kraals for the government and are men of the Government. We know of the Great King who is as high as the clouds. Although we are the Government Chiefs, we are only a rabble. We formerly had a chief, he was not as great as the King, he was only a little higher than the ground and we now have nobody to speak for us.”20 The high commissioner snubbed this request and impudently told the chiefs: “I know Lobengula has left a son, Njube by name. I will look after Njube, the men of the Matabele may be sure the King will see that Njube is well cared for, but Njube cannot come back as the paramount Chief of the Matabele. As I have said, King Edward is the Chief. On that I have spoken.”21 This official repudiation of Ndebele kingship led ultraroyalists to exercise power unofficially. By 1907, Njube and his supporters had organized secret emissaries who took messages to Matabeleland. In 1908, a government detective intercepted one of Njube’s letters, in which Njube requested from his people “intodhlana lesinkwa” (a proverb, probably meaning he was requesting something to eat). Jackson, the NC Fort Usher, translated this as a request for tribute from the people, therefore a political act that had to be stopped. He therefore recommended that Njube’s pension be increased instead.22 Because he suspected that there was a link between Njube and the African educated elites in Matabeleland, the NC recommended that Njube’s letters be censored.23 Once again, this showed how paranoid the government was and how fearful they were of a possible Ndebele insurrection.

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Furthermore, the government tried to “detribalize” Njube by claiming that he was now a “child of the Government,” thereby denying Ndebele authorities their moral responsibility over his affairs. They counted Njube as their adopted, educated child, their “modern” man who was no longer expected to be traditionally accountable to the Ndebele tribe. This threw Njube into a predicament when he was about to decide on a marriage partner. He was torn between the voice of the Ndebele royal elders who would choose a bride for him from his own “tribe” and the possibility of marrying a good-looking Xhosa woman that he had met in South Africa. Although marrying the former would have made him a good Ndebele child, he had not had the chance to see and get to know this Ndebele woman better; he thus chose to marry the Xhosa woman. Consequently, one of Lobengula’s former powerful men, Mapisa, wrote a letter to him in protest advising him not to take the Xhosa girlfriend (who was, incidentally, a daughter of a Xhosa chief). Njube had to postpone his marriage pending Mapisa’s final word on the matter.24 Cognizant of this problem, the CNC asked the NC Matobo to persuade Mapisa to waive his objections. He advised, “Should he [Mapisa] remain obdurate, you should inform him that he has no say in the matter, Njube being now the ‘Child of the Government,’ and that he will be better advised to withdraw as gracefully as he can from an absolutely untenable position.”25 Njube’s marriage to the Xhosa woman was a victory for the government that wished to estrange him from the Ndebele elders. The CNC applauded the marriage, which he interpreted as a clear defiance of Ndebele tribal power.26 When it came to paying lobola for that marriage, Njube sent his representative Mtupane to Matabeleland to collect money and cattle for the dowry.27 One could speculate on Njube’s motivation for this move. Njube seems to have believed that the Ndebele people had a collective ethnic obligation toward him. For its part, the government was keen to prevent this collection of money and cattle, and therefore, the CNC for Matabeleland seized the opportunity to reiterate that, Njube being a “child of the Government, the responsibility in regard to lobola rests with the Government who are now considering the question.”28 However, Njube was determined to connect himself with his people. In his letter to the CNC in 1909, the educated Njube (then with a diploma in law) strongly protested that the government was treating him like a prisoner by denying him his right to return home (since he had completed his studies). He also accused the CNC of practicing “colour bar” on him (implying that he felt unfairly treated on racial grounds) and challenged the government to tell him which act of Parliament forbade him to go back home.29 Had Njube returned to Matabeleland, he would have helped intensify the already topical debates about equal rights and the ownership of wealth among the Ndebele, especially the rights of the Ndebele lower classes to inkomo zobukosi (king’s cattle). When Lobengula died, most of these cattle

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were seized by the BSACo regime, which later redistributed some of them to the Matabeleland people, district by district, as is evident from the 1895 Matabeleland Cattle Distribution List.30 In some cases, cattle were trafficked across the porous border by some Kalanga to Tati, in Botswana, where they were either sold or kept by their relatives.31 Most of the state cattle, however, appear to have been looted by chiefs, including Gambo, Mpini Ndiweni, Dakamela, Kahlu Ncube, Malaba, Sivalo, Maduna, and Masuku, as well as many amadoda (Lobengula’s prominent men), while some cattle remained with Queen Lozikeyi, and others remained state property.32 Evidence from the 1914 Native Reserve Commission demonstrates clearly the inequality in access to cattle in Matabeleland, which gives credence to the view that some Ndebele chiefs looted these state cattle more than others: “Your Excellency’s Commission has found that certain Matabele chiefs are very wealthy in cattle, and may give the following instances:- Chief Gambo, Nata Reserve, owns approximately 5000 head; Chief Hole, Matopo Reserve, 5000 head; Chief Maqina, Matopo Reserve, 3000 head; Chief Nyangazonke, Matopo Reserve, 2000 head; Chief Mpini, Ramaquabane Reserve, 2000 head—this does not include sheep and goats.”33 The belief that some chiefs had looted these (Ndebele state) cattle became a source of suspicion and friction that further divided the Ndebele royals at one level and also strained the relationship of the royals to some Ndebele chiefs. Chiefs like Gambo tried to conceal the identity of the cattle in his possession by zealously implementing the cattle-branding scheme that the government had just promulgated at a time when others still resisted it. This branding made the royal claims more difficult to prove, as we will discover later in this chapter. Gambo also successfully encouraged other people in Bulilima-Mangwe (which was predominantly Kalanga) and elsewhere in Matabeleland to brand their cattle and to cease anticipating the return of Njube.34 This branding move was not so successful in Matopo, Insiza, and Mzingwane districts, which had had a more powerful Ndebele presence than BulilimaMangwe during the precolonial era.35 When Gambo went to the Matopos Hills, where the Ndebele fought their 1896–97 war, where Mzilikazi was buried, and where an elitist version of Ndebele identity (Ndebele as Zulu) was being imagined, he was strongly resisted.36 The people claimed that the cattle were for Lobengula’s heir and so they could not agree to brand them. When the NC came to inquire about their resistance to cattle branding, they simply pretended not to have understood Gambo’s message.37 The varied interpretations of rights over the king’s legacy ensured there would be divisions between some chiefs and the Ndebele royals, and this schism weakened the position of the ultraroyalists, who were thus not assured of the support of most of the chiefs in Matabeleland in their quest to enforce Ndebele culture, to retain monopoly over the cattle, and to assume a place as the organic intelligentsia of the Ndebele people. Over and above this, the

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Ndebele royals were not assured of the support of the commoners. Ordinary people believed that the so-called king’s cattle were Ndebele “tribal cattle” and not Lobengula’s personal property. These cattle were not, therefore, the preserve of the zansi aristocrats, but were meant for the Ndebele commonwealth. On the surface, it would appear that this struggle for cattle rights was just an economic issue. A critical examination demonstrates, however, that the struggle mirrored salient debates about ethnicity and socioeconomic status among the Ndebele after the demise of the state. Had the zansi continued to manipulate cattle wealth, as they did during the precolonial era, this would have reinforced the caste system because this caste ideology thrived on unequal access to wealth that mirrored one’s status and also one’s ethnicity. Now that those formerly defined as hole could own cattle and had slightly improved their economic status, could he also not easily marry a zansi woman if he wished? The Ndebele royalists thought that hole men had no cultural and political right to take a wife from among the zansi, or to claim the “king’s cattle” or any other part of his legacy. Zansi men whom I interviewed and at least one former hole descendant believed that lower classes did not own cattle before 1893, so they were not entitled to the “king’s cattle.”38 Nyamanda, Lobengula’s oldest son, was of the same view more than eighty years ago. During his interview with the NC Bubi, he argued that the “king’s cattle” were private cattle (belonging to the king), not tribally owned, and on the king’s death, they were inherited as private property by his successor. He recommended that the government divide them equitably between the late king’s sons, obviously because he was an interested party.39 The cattle debate, which mirrored struggles mainly between the royalists and commoners and reflected their different interpretations of traditions, also helped inform debates around Ndebele ethnicity up to the 1940s. This division made it difficult for the diverse sections of the Ndebele to conjure a uniform, accepted ethnicity, with the result that being Ndebele meant different things to different people. For those Ndebele people who could trace their family histories back to the Nguni, being Ndebele was imagined in a primordial, biologically deterministic sense whereby pure Ndebele was synonymous with being “Zulu” or at least being a direct descendant of the people who came from the Natal. Such people thought that they automatically qualified into this narrow Ndebele identity by virtue of blood, when in fact their forefathers were in reality neither Zulu by ethnicity nor by biological origins, nor by political origins (because they were just a tributary people that even contested Zulu power). For these puritans, all other Ndebele were not Ndebele enough, and they expected these inferior Ndebele to learn from them what it meant to be pure Ndebele. In the earlier chapter on precolonial identities, we discovered how difficult this was. For those commoners of non-Nguni origin, being Ndebele simply meant the ability to speak isiNdebele and belonging geographically to Matabeleland. In Bulawayo, being

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Ndebele entailed joining Ndebele societies and participating in Ndebele activities, and in the late 1950s, being Ndebele was also construed by others as being part of a general regional Matabeleland identity.40 Ideological division between the Ndebele people on what it meant to be Ndebele further complicated the situation for the royalist movement, which was not optimistic about gaining the support of the majority of their commoners. The remarks made by the CNC in his attempt to convince the Administrator’s Department that it was politically dangerous to allow Njube to return to the country demonstrate his awareness of this fact and the general situation in Matabeleland: A very large section would view with grave concern the return to this country of the late Lobengula’s son, although they do not openly say so, and their confidence in the government would be shaken. They have accepted their position, and recognize that under this administration they have absolute security of property, irrespective of status, which was not the case during the regime of Lobengula. There is however a section of the Matabele who, to all intents and purposes, as I have already stated, are just as well disposed toward the government, but who do not favor the policy of equal rights for all natives in so far as the acquisition of wealth in the form of cattle is concerned. It is this particular section who keep constant communication with Njube, and who advocate his return. With these facts before us, looking at the matter from a political point of view, the return of Njube to the country would force the two opposing sections to look upon each other with suspicion, it would be the one topic of interest to the natives, not only in Matabeleland but also in Mashonaland, to which province a large number of “Holis” returned after the rebellion, the whole country would become unsettled, reprisals would set in, cattle would be seized, and Njube himself could not help being influenced by certain of the Chiefs, with the inevitable result that the peace of the Country would be endangered. For the peace of the country, there should not be the shadow of any doubt in the native mind in regard to Njube’s return, and convincing proof of this is necessary. It would be impolitic for the Government to even entertain Njube’s claim for cattle. When I visited him at Port Alfred I took particular care to go into the question, and in his presence his own mother and the envoys from Matabeleland disclaimed all knowledge of his cattle, but as the “king’s” son in Matabeleland he would be supported by his advocates.41

The CNC was right to claim that Njube had his advocates. When the chiefs and prominent Ndebele leaders met the high commissioner in 1909, these advocates unanimously requested a paramount “chief” over them. They argued that people were now too scattered and that one induna would help unite them: “What we want is one Induna. Your Excellency lives too far away from us to submit our complaints. That is our great complaint.”42 In June 1910, Njube died, and this was a big blow to the royal family, yet royalism as an Ndebele elite ideology did not die down.43

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After Njube’s death, there were attempts to install Lobengula’s son Nyamanda as king. Like Njube, Nyamanda tried to raise money to go to England to make representations on the issue of the Ndebele kingship and the general plight of the Ndebele people.44 Nyamanda wanted the government to treat him and his people the same way Khama, Lewanika, Dinizulu, and Moshoeshoe were treated, as these had remained paramount rulers. He complained that his people’s grievances were being ignored and that they were being levied monies whose use the government could not account for.45 Cleverly or incidentally, he did not spend his energy on claiming cattle from commoners; instead, he targeted his rival Gambo of BulilimaMangwe, the government’s favorite chief. He petitioned the government to allow him to claim his cattle from Gambo and other izinduna (chiefs), but the government declined.46 The careful inclusion on the royals’ agenda of issues that affected the general body of Ndebele people, such as taxes and land deprivation, helped Nyamanda gain some measure of sympathy from some of the Ndebele leaders and commoners. This enabled him to masquerade as the tribal spokesperson of the broad Ndebele society. For this reason, some Ndebele secretly raised the money for Nyamanda’s trip to England, although some of the commoners contributed to this fund under duress.47 When government officials asked the people why they contributed that money, some professed ignorance about it, yet others claimed that they understood the high commissioner had sanctioned the move;48 this raises the question whether they may have been cheated by Nyamanda into believing that the High Commissioner had done so or simply wanted to escape censure from the government. Nyamanda gained favor by “urging a popular grievance and voicing a popular cry . . . for more land . . . and in this way increased the number of those who regard him with favour.”49 While it is unclear whether Nyamanda was demanding his own piece of land or land for the Ndebele people collectively, some zansi Ndebele would have interpreted Nyamanda’s move as championing Ndebele land rights, which would be viewed as a good move against the detribalization brought about by the unplanned native reserve system. Early evictions to the newly created reserves had destroyed, scattered, and left some Ndebele communities without stable leadership, and therefore, Nyamanda’s movement came at the right time.50 In 1919, Nyamanda and Sintinga (both sons of Lobengula), with Madloli, Mrwaba, and Joyi Kumalo, brothers and sisters of the late king, wrote a letter to the high commissioner, “for themselves and the people of the Matabele tribe and others in Matabeleland and Mashonaland.” They argued: The children and relatives of the late King Lobengula as well as the tribe of the Matabele people have now no piece of land of their own individually or collectively; no place in which to dwell comfortably and freely in a country formerly

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held by them. The members of the late King Lobengula’s family, your Petitioners, and several members of his tribe, are now scattered about on farms so parcelled out to the white settlers, and are practically created a nomadic people living in this scattered condition under a veiled form of slavery, they being not allowed individually to cross from one farm to another, or from place to place except under a system of permit or pass, and are practically forced to do labour on these private farms as a condition of their occupying land in Matabeleland.51

Nyamanda complained that the native reserves were “situate[d] in unhealthy districts and consist[ed] of forests where wild beasts obtain, some places are dry and uninhabitable.”52 Because native reserves took in diverse ethnic groups and tended, generally speaking, to be subject to excessive control by the government, some Ndebele people contributed money with the view to buying land exclusively for the Ndebele in areas that were formerly occupied by their late kings. Memories of their traditional social and political pasts made it difficult for them to come to terms with the new colonial system. When the 1925 Carter Land Commissioners interviewed some Ndebele elders and the Bulawayo-educated elites, they stated that they preferred that land be set aside “between here and Gwelo, in the vicinity of the land which was occupied by the former Matabele regiments.”53 A similar view was aired by a Martha Ngano, a Fingo woman who was an activist and teacher in Bulawayo. She stressed that most Ndebele people had told her that they did not understand this issue of purchasing land but, instead, “simply want land which belonged to the king, as they consider that is native land, and it is free. That is the land for which they only pay their tax.”54 Others suggested that land be purchased by the “tribe,” and thought that people would better “club together away from the European farmers as otherwise there could be no friction.”55 Some views were stronger and more direct, blaming the white settlers for deliberate “detribalization” of the Ndebele: The Matabeles are a little bit puzzled. There are some other tribes round about Bulawayo, and they ask why it is that the Europeans are trying to scatter the Matabele natives, and they consider that it is the desire to get them mixed up with other tribes. They cannot understand how the white people do things. The Matabele think that the white people are trying to finish them altogether, and that is the reason why they do not wish to go to the Reserves. They would rather stay with their masters than to go to Reserves. If you shift them to Selukwe, the Mashonas are there, and if you move them to Plumtree, you get another tribe. They do not want to be shifted. They also say that the Europeans think that they are not loyal subjects of His Majesty the King.56

During an interview held between the CNC, Nyamanda, and his crew (a few years before the Land Commission), Nyamanda stated that he needed land for the Ndebele people. He said:

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My heart tells me that I should live in a country where my father’s people were. I have asked my people for money to buy land, and it would be decided by Your Honour what land should be given to me. I have authority to get the money from the people; they themselves gave me the authority. I put the matter before the people and they agreed to buy land with the money. I am not exacting money from the people. I simply put the matter before them, and it is for our mutual benefit to acquire this land. All we want is for the Government to say: “This is a tract of land for Lobengula’s people.” The land I want is from Ntabasinduna to Mawala Kopjes, and then to Passe Passe, thence to Magokweni Drift on the Khami River, thence down to the Railway line, including all land watered by the rivers flowing into the Zambesi.57

Scared of Nyamanda’s influence, the colonial administration tried to silence him as they had done to Njube. The CNC advised that Nyamanda be given land for himself, and not for the tribe, and that the land be given by right of purchase (as a Native Purchase Area), a suggestion that was also made by the NC in Bubi, where Nyamanda lived.58 Government officials also reminded him that he was not Lobengula’s rightful heir because he was born before his father became king, and therefore could not speak for the Ndebele.59 They argued that he was a private individual who, because of his birth, was debarred by Ndebele custom from becoming Lobengula’s successor.60 Nyamanda died before accomplishing his mission. The former nationalist historian Terence Ranger viewed Nyamanda’s agitation as promoting a wide “National Home Movement” for the Matabeleland people.61 To the contrary, there was nothing truly national about the movement, as it never involved other peoples of Matabeleland such as the Kalanga, Venda, Nambya, or Tonga, nor even other sections of the Ndebele people themselves, including some prominent zansi Ndebeles, whom Nyamanda hoped to attract. Interestingly, the organization dubbed “National Home Movement” does not exist in the primary sources that Ranger used, and it could be argued that this was his own invention that was intended to give a nationalist face to an otherwise local, sectarian movement. Nyamanda’s hidden agenda was nothing other than an attempt to promote Ndebele royal elitist culture, which seemed to be under threat after the demise of the Ndebele state. The movement was therefore a “family pressure group looking to a traditional past.”62 Nyamanda thought he would take advantage of the disquiet among those of Ndebele royal blood about their degraded status in the new political regime. Unfortunately, the royalists were too divided to help his ambitions. Nyamanda failed to attract most of the leaders of the zansi class to his side, perhaps because some Ndebele chiefs feared government reprisals. Chiefs who had benefited from the loot of the so-called king’s cattle after the fall of the Ndebele state feared the possibility of losing them should Nyamanda’s claims be successful. Moreover, there was also no consensus as to who was

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the overall spokesperson of the zansi, so much so that Nyamanda’s movement began without having consulted widely within the ranks of Ndebele leadership. When Nyamanda’s movement was at its peak, Kalanga chiefs tactically pledged loyalty to the government and said that they “wanted nothing to do with Nyamanda and his intrigues.”63 This demonstrated the extent to which different communities in Matabeleland weighed their options in engaging the colonial government. For the Kalanga, to picket the government through Nyamanda would mean tacit acceptance of Ndebele control over them. In Kalanga communities, Nyamanda’s clamor for an exclusively Ndebele land remained a matter of obscure and rumored conversation over beers.64 In Bulilima-Mangwe (also known as Plumtree), the NC after assessing the political and general situation in 1920 concluded: “The Natives are law-abiding and obedient. The aspirations of a certain section of the Matabele, that one of the Royal House might be placed over them, found no favour or reciprocal feeling in this district except perhaps in the minds of a few psychopaths, but on the other hand met with a particular cold reception by the population of the District as a whole.”65 It seems to be the case, then, that although Nyamanda’s movement was not as widespread as Ranger made it appear, a portion of Ndebele did support this royalist move, hoping to regain their lost land and also to benefit from a retraditionalization of the society. Nyamanda’s support was certainly a bit more sizable than historian R. S. Roberts makes it. This brief marriage of convenience between a few Ndebele commoners and the royal family lasted for about a decade. Their relations soured with the coming of the late Njube’s sons from South Africa, and this development further divided Ndebele society.

Royalist Extremism of Grandsons: Albert, Rhodes, and the “King’s Cattle” Rhodes and Albert Lobengula were Njube’s sons, and thus Lobengula’s grandsons. The two were born in South Africa, where their father later died in 1910. In the mid-1920s, the government allowed the two to relocate to Southern Rhodesia, but these learned and energetic young men proved to be too ambitious for the Southern Rhodesian government’s liking. We need first to capture the events just after Nyamanda’s death. After Nyamanda’s death in 1929, Ndebele ultraroyalists attempted to install Nguboyenja Lobengula as the paramount ruler. By this time, the royals had dropped the claim for a representative of the whole Ndebele society in favor claims for the narrower interests of the Khumalo clan—perhaps with the mind that the government would consider this request to be more reasonable. They now desired that a chief for the Khumalo clan be

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appointed from among Lobengula’s sons and that “land be set apart so that the Clan could live together and not be a scattered brotherhood as they now are.”66 The Khumalo deputation wrote a letter complaining of having no family or clan head, when other clans each had a head “who shared their customs and their joys, and bereavement, and who was the immemorial fire at which a Clan . . . warms its hands.”67 As noted, Ndebele politics had further narrowed from ethnicity to clan, and this made the royalists more unpopular. Still suspicious of their intentions, the CNC thought that the advocacy for a Khumalo clan leader was an “insidious flank attack” by the royalists to achieve the election of an Ndebele paramount chief that they had attempted for the past thirty years.68 To weaken the move, he advised that the Ndebele be kept scattered and divided. This meant the royals would remain irrelevant and ineffective as possible tribal representatives, unlike what happened in Zululand where colonialism did not completely wipe away Zulu power, but kept Dinizulu as paramount chief, who proved to be important in Zulu ethnic nationalism. The CNC advised that the royals’ claims be turned down: “Our steadfast policy in the past has been to oppose the building up of unity among the Matabele which would have been a danger; the policy of divide et impera, was, in effect, adopted, and became our more or less direct rule and scattered Reserves were able to avoid the evils that followed the Zululand settlement. I am in full agreement with the decision that the request of the Kumalo deputation should be refused.”69 With chiefs already divided over the issue of Ndebele royals, the government emerged the winner as Nguboyenja could not be installed as chief of the Khumalos. Ndebele oral history claims that the government summoned all Matabeleland chiefs for a meeting and hid Nguboyenja in a tent where he could hear the conversation. At the meeting, the CNC then asked chiefs whether they would like to recognize Nguboyenja as Ndebele head. Most of the chiefs shouted, “No! No! No!” Thereafter, Nguboyenja was brought out of the tent, saw the chiefs himself, and was told by the officials that his chiefs had rejected him. He lived with this trauma until he died.70 Rhodes and Albert Lobengula came to Matabeleland when the royal family was in its weakest state. Unfortunately for them, these two ambitious young men worsened the relations between royals and commoners, on the one hand, and further divided the royals from some of the Ndebele chiefs, on the other, including those who had been loyal to their grandfather Lobengula. The Lobengulas tried to venture into both modern and traditional affairs of Matabeleland. They tried, for instance, to participate in broad “national” politics through their association with the Bantu Voters Association, which attempted to make Rhodes the chairperson of the Wenlock, Matopos, branch.71 The association advocated “a more equitable distribution of land of the Colony between Europeans and Natives.”72 Because it was feared as “the nucleus of a young native party, whose ambition would be

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to restore one or other of the Lobengulas to a position of paramountcy,” the Superintendent of Natives for Bulawayo recommended that the two young men be warned against such political associations, or risk deportation.73 Thereafter, there is no evidence of their participation in the broader political arena. What became more contentious was their role in the Matabeleland Home Society, a culture group formed around the time they came to Southern Rhodesia, in which they revived the “king’s cattle” debate. The arrival of Rhodes and Albert in 1926 created a great deal of apprehension among the commoners and the chiefs about the future. In Insiza, the division between chiefs over these royals was noticeable. When a message was sent to the chiefs to come and welcome these visiting grandsons, only four—Maledaniso, Sedhlu, Mdala, and Mzamane—turned up. Paramount Chief Maduna and his group, consisting mostly of those of the former Godhlwayo regiment, snubbed the welcome event. The acting NC’s explanation for their attitude is almost compelling: The “Abe Godhlwayo” contingent and others have paid no attention to this message and I am of the opinion, the reason is that they own a large number of cattle that was at one time regarded as “King’s Cattle” and they fear that they may be called upon to part with some of them. They excuse themselves by saying that the message was not conveyed in the proper manner. Chief Maduna is the leading light in this connection and others take their bearings from him. There can be no doubt that Albert, assisted by some of the older chiefs, will try to establish some authority over the late King’s Domain and this attempt will be unsettling to some extent in the future as it will naturally take time to gain influence.74

It was only a matter of time before the assertions of the acting NC Insiza proved true. These educated royals (Albert and Rhodes) imagined a sense of nineteenth-century royal authority, which they themselves had never before witnessed. This authority carried with it a sense of entitlement to their grandfather’s legacy and more. However, this sense of entitlement was born out of the nature of their upbringing in the Union of South Africa, where they had not generally lacked in provisions during their school days at St. Matthews College in Keiskamahoek in the Eastern Cape. While at St. Matthews in 1919, they usually demanded support, often by issuing threats to both the Southern Rhodesian government and the missionaries, more often than not, to ensure that they lived up to the expectation of their peers, who saluted them as princes and also begged money from them.75 One of my informants who witnessed some of their activities in Bubi said: These boys still wanted to operate like Lobengula. Even chiefs feared them so much that they could not dare say anything bad about them in their sight. They took girls as wives by force, which is why they were not popular here.

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When they arrived some people were happy about them, but with time, we were so fed up with them. So many children were born out of this forced sexual intercourse with the grandsons of Lobengula.76

As if to quell their activities, the governor of Southern Rhodesia called a meeting of all chiefs in the Shangani Reserve in the presence of Albert and Rhodes. “Your King is King George and I am his representative in this Country,” he said. “Albert and Rhodes have no status and must do nothing without consulting their Native Commissioner. . . . These words are particularly for Albert and Rhodes who are present at this meeting.”77 What later led these grandsons into trouble was their seizure of cattle from common people and a few targeted Ndebele chiefs on the pretext that they were recovering “king’s cattle” that were allegedly stolen by those people in the 1890s. In some cases, Rhodes and Albert seemingly were caught up in the internal politics and jealousies among some Ndebele chiefs and members of the royal family. Apart from the two simply harassing people on their own, they relied heavily on certain “culprits” being pointed out to them by their sympathizers and relatives, such as Chief Dabengwa Kumalo of Bubi, Makwelambila, and some of the late Lobengula’s queens.78 The existence of this network of informants made the cattle seizures more systematic than they would otherwise have become. The only apparent targets were those who were perceived to be against the ever-festering ultraroyalist political ambitions. For this reason, the seizures affected mainly non-zansi Ndebele commoners, some Kalanga in perceived Ndebele areas, and a few Ndebele chiefs who were viewed as opponents of the royal house. In principle, the move was more about punishing perceived political opponents than about making a real case for ownership of the cattle, and it had the effect of further dividing the Ndebele people instead of uniting them. What is interesting is the language that these grandsons of Lobengula used in claiming the cattle. In one instance, Rhodes went to Matsholokwane’s place and said, “I am hungry, I want the cattle of my father.”79 Matsholokwane told Rhodes about the history of his own cattle, of how after the war (1896–97), the NC gave him a cow branded “CC” (for Chartered Company) that the government had looted after Lobengula’s abandonment of Bulawayo in 1893. He showed him its progeny. The young Rhodes said he wanted to sell even that progeny, a total of twenty-eight head. Giving evidence in court, Matsholokwane stated that he was afraid to the point that he could not even dare to argue against Rhodes, a member of the royalty.80 He instead sought redress from Chief Maduna, who advised him to report to his former chief Ntola (Ntole) of Mzingwane, who in turn advised him not to give those cattle to Rhodes.81 In another case, a man named Mtetema lost all 150 head of his cattle to Rhodes, who quickly branded them as his own.

Figure 4.1. Photograph of Chief Maduna II, n.d. Note his colonial attitude, especially the image of authoritarianism and power, as well as the obvious tensions between modernity and tradition in his dress. © National Archives of Zimbabwe (accession number 92/14318). Reproduced with permission.

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Mtetema’s father had received 47 head by Lobengula to herd on his behalf. By 1930, this stock had multiplied to 150.82 More important is the drama at Chief Maduna’s place in December 1931. Rhodes drove to the chief and talked to him privately about the “king’s cattle.” The chief resisted him, saying he was not even the heir and telling him that “there were others with stronger claims” to kingship even before his father Njube. Angrily, and to demonstrate his power as a royal child, Rhodes retorted, “Old man, do you know to whom you are speaking?” Maduna told him that, under Lobengula, the Godhlwayo regiment had not had king’s cattle, adding that he (Maduna) had his own cattle, that there was nothing called king’s cattle, and that Rhodes was young and misguided. Rhodes departed irate, only to pass by Maduna’s place after a week, whereupon the chief said to him, “If you are hungry, I will give you a cow to milk and a young ox to kill or sell.” In reply, Rhodes threatened him: “I will teach you. You will suffer for this.”83 Maduna’s evidence suggests the existence of conflict over political authority among the Ndebele leaders. It also helps us decode important verbal expressions and interesting social debates about Ndebele ethnicity and identity. Maduna, a traditional and original Ndebele chief, was more privileged than Rhodes. He also had experienced Lobengula’s rule and had legitimate and compelling historical claims to chieftaincy. However, he did not believe it was necessary anymore to continue to advocate for the parochial royal family’s interests. The vulnerability of his economic position in the face of a demanding royal family member (Rhodes) and his interest in the modern political scene (i.e., concerning the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union) dictated his antipathy to the royals’ project of restoring Ndebele kingship. This project entailed the purification of Ndebele ethnic identity by reimagining and restoring precolonial (royal) elitist culture and privilege. This would open up new debates about who had rights to resources in the state, a debate that made uncomfortable people like Maduna who had benefited immensely from the “king’s cattle,” notwithstanding his respect for Lobengula’s legacy. Therefore, regardless of his reservations about Rhodes Lobengula’s demands for cattle, Maduna cleverly negotiated with Rhodes with a view to solving their differences internally, without having to report a royal grandson to the police. This explains why Maduna reportedly told the NC that he offered to give Rhodes cattle if he were hungry, and also said to Rhodes, “I did not want ill-feelings between us.”84 The same appears to be the case for other witnesses who, although they were evidently grieved by the way Rhodes demanded cattle from them, would not openly say that they were forced to give up their cattle, for this would mean Rhodes might get convicted.85 Although some Ndebele commoners felt obliged to do certain duties in honor of the royals, because royals represented an important element of Ndebele history and identity, they were not free to let royal politics

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overshadow this obligation. Interestingly enough, Rhodes’s “I am hungry” rhetoric was pregnant with meaning for members of an ethnic group. It was also a kind of sophisticated “legalese,” and a humble way of asking for cattle from tribal members.86 It nonetheless appears that Rhodes, himself a member of the educated elite, transposed between two meanings—the ethnic one that gave him a good starting point in negotiating his right to the cattle, and the political one that was based on a false notion that all cattle in Matabeleland were “king’s cattle.” When Rhodes and his entourage came to Zimela, he told him that he was hungry. Zimela slaughtered a goat for them, but Rhodes still complained of hunger, whereupon Zimela offered him two head of cattle. It could be argued that the two head that Zimela gave Rhodes were a donation, given as an expression of Zimela’s own sense of ethnic obligation to help a struggling member of the royal family (without asking for the opinion and jurisdiction of an ethnic outsider or government official). Had Rhodes simply accepted these and left, Zimela would possibly not have reported him to the government. The other demands that Rhodes then made on Zimela were political and could therefore be reported to the chief and be criminalized under colonial laws. Crown witnesses admitted that “natives would have gladly made a contribution from their herds to the children of Lobengula.” Nevertheless, “to be required to surrender every head they possessed was . . . too much of a sacrifice to be made willingly and without coercion.”87 It is unfortunate that Rhodes took advantage of his people’s sense of ethnic obligation in order to loot them. He threatened Zimela, “Are you playing, only offering two head to be killed for my escort and myself?” When the man offered him twelve head, Rhodes insisted that he give him the other cattle he was hiding. The following day, Rhodes returned with an impi (a Ndebele army) and seized thirty-five head, twenty of which belonged to another man, Baleni. At Koviyo’s place, he repeated his “hunger” spiel. Koviyo testified: “When Rhodes came to me this year, he told me that he was starving. And simply because he is the descendant of the late King Lobengula, I had pity on him and I offered him 17 head of cattle.”88 As Rhodes extorted people of their cattle, he even misrepresented the government by claiming that he had been granted the authority to collect these cattle.89 In early 1932, Rhodes Lobengula faced extortion charges. He was convicted, but the sentence was then wholly suspended. The courts found that the cattle Lobengula “owned” were cattle he kept in trust for the tribe. His ownership of such cattle as king (most of which he got through raiding forays and fines from convicts) extinguished his private ownership, by absorbing or submerging it into a higher claim from the Ndebele point of view.90 In defiance, however, just after the judgment was pronounced, and again later “in the presence of numerous natives,” Rhodes shouted, “I pay no heed to what the judge said, it does not affect [me]; I shall collect my cattle.”91

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After the court ruling, he still maintained that the question of the cattle was not settled, and “as far as he knew, they had not been adjudicated to belong to the Natives.”92 The story of the ambitious Rhodes ended with his later return to the Union of South Africa and a separation from his brother, who obtained a farm in Filabusi, where he later died.93 From an analysis of the state’s witnesses for this trial, it is clear that most of the people who testified that Rhodes Lobengula had taken away their cattle were not of zansi Ndebele origin. Only a few were Ndebele who might have been victimized by Rhodes for being against the reestablishment of Lobengula’s kingdom, a clear case being Chief Maduna. When I analyzed the Preparatory Examination Record (see table 4.1),94 I realized that Rhodes predominantly targeted ethnic Others. The tendency to target people who were perceived to be either of amahole (low Ndebele class) origins or those who lived in Matabeleland but claimed alternative ethnicities such as the Tonga, Kalanga, or Sotho, when in fact records prove that most of the people who had taken a larger share of these so-called king’s cattle were Ndebele of Nguni origin (especially chiefs), is Table 4.1. Victims of Rhodes Lobengula’s “king’s cattle” demand Name of witness*

Ethnic origin

Place of origin

Zimela

Tonga

Fort Usher

Baleni

Tonga

Fort Usher

Kahlu Sekhane

Sutho

Guswini farm, Plumtree

Kanda

Kalanga

Bango area, Bulilima-Mangwe

Bango (Banko)

Kalanga Chief

Bango area, Bulilima-Mangwe

Sikafu

Kalanga

Bulilima-Mangwe

Mashabi

Kalanga

Bulilima-Mangwe

Makweni

Tonga

Fort Usher

Ntanjana

Tonga

Bango area, Bulilima-Mangwe

Tshaga

Ndebele

Nsobo Kraal, Gwanda

Maduna

Ndebele+Chief

Filabusi, Insiza District

Koviyo

Tonga

Gwanda

Ngengebuga

Tonga

Gwanda

Source: S 138/270–271, Albert and Rhodes Lobengula, Trial for Extortion, Evidence Collected from various witnesses—Preparatory Examination, 1931. *These are the victims who testified in court.

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extraordinary. It compels us to conclude that this cattle seizure was a smokescreen. The motive was to target perceived ethnic Others who were viewed as having no right to any share of the legacy of the Ndebele state. This helps us to understand why, from their testimonies, most Kalanga sought to deny Ndebele history by claiming to possess no knowledge of the Ndebele king’s cattle, and by emphasizing that they had always had their private cattle despite having benefited in one way or another from the 1894–95 distribution of cattle. Bulilima-Mangwe got the biggest share of the cattle in the 1895 distribution. About 11,450 cattle went to the Africans of that district, followed by Belingwe District, which got 8,425.95 Neither district had a strong Ndebele presence because, historically, these districts had been peripheral regions where Ndebele control was contested. The cattle issue was therefore two-pronged: although it helped distinguish zansi Ndebele from Ndebele commoners, it left Kalanga who possessed Ndebele “tribal cattle” traumatized and insecure. Therefore, the following conclusions reached by Thomas, the then retired NC Bulilima-Mangwe, were not an exaggeration: It appears that since the occupation of this country, nearly forty years ago, the Matebele have kept the Makalunga [sic] and other tribes, on tenterhooks—telling them that someday the white people would leave the country—and then the Matabele would be in power again. So, they have frightened them into marking the progeny of the King’s cattle with the King’s earmark—and on different occasions, have made collections of cattle (really forcible although ostensibly made freely) for Njube and his sons. Naturally, the thoroughbred Matabele tried to take the cattle from the Makalanga, and other subordinate natives, to whom they were given by the Government—and in many cases, they took them as natives were afraid of them and did not complain to the N.C. In every such case brought before me, I made the Matabele return to the natives to whom they had been given. Under the King, these Matabele had no personal ownership in the cattle, but only the use and control of them, under the King.96

Tradition, Schisms, and the Failure of Ndebele Elites In his groundbreaking writing on the Ndebele state just after the 1893–94 Anglo-Ndebele war and the 1896–97 wars of resistance, historian Julian Cobbing argues that the Ndebele state was not destroyed by the wars, but that it remained an ongoing concern. He argues that the Ndebele polity was transformed, although he does not make it clear what kind of transformation this was.97 Notwithstanding efforts to revive the Ndebele kingdom to make it operate within the ambit of the colonial setting, the institution of kingship was never revived after Lobengula, and the colonial administration only paid lip service to the care of the royal family. Moreover, the

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divisions between different chiefs in Matabeleland grew. What emerges is that there was in Matabeleland a crisis of organic intellectuals. On the one hand, the royal family’s call for a tribal spokesperson fell on deaf ears, as it did not necessarily have the support of the majority of the people, including some of the Ndebele chiefs. On the other hand, some of the chiefs did not even have the popular support of their people. Unending debates and contests within the Ndebele society—especially between the royals and the chiefs (for example, some royals versus Chief Gambo and Chief Maduna), and also between members of the royalty (for instance, Nyamanda Khumalo versus Tshakalisa Khumalo)—demonstrated the fact that different categories of Ndebele elites differed in their understandings of their position and responses to the colonial state system that was imposed on them. The most important questions were: How would the deposed or degraded elites manage themselves? What was their sense of rights and responsibilities in this new political order? For some, it was essential to conform and take advantage of opportunities that presented themselves (for instance, receiving a share of the “King’s Cattle” and partake in new political activities, yet remain ruling as chiefs), yet for others, it was important to be seen taking a defiant stance against the government. Interestingly, neither the conformists nor the deviants got their way. Because of the confusion between them, traditional Ndebele political elites (chiefs and royals) were not in a good position to sufficiently mold and represent overarching Ndebele social and political culture in an era of transformation. This is not to say that these elites ceased to be symbolically important to ordinary Ndebele people, but just that they were too divided to have one voice. Clearly, some of them were too selfish to endear themselves to the commoners. The cattle question, for instance, illustrates just how the royals got it wrong and by that token separated themselves not only from the commoners but also from key Ndebele chiefs of the time. Rhodes and Albert Lobengula seemed to have affected Matabeleland politics in two ways. One was their attempt to negotiate traditional politics in the rural areas, which, as we have seen, was not so successful. The other one the deployment of their South African urban experience to work with the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), which championed not only workers’ rights but also some grievances of the rural people. The two are also credited with having introduced the game of football (soccer) to Matabeleland in the form of the team that morphed into Highlanders Football Club, to which most Ndebele people strongly attach themselves even today. Rhodes and Albert Lobengula also bolstered the power of an already existing Ndebele organization, the Matabeleland Home Society, which allegedly encouraged the Bulawayo ethnic clashes of 1929, which we will examine later.

5 Language and Ethnicity in Matabeleland Language, Society, and Identities In the last two chapters, we discovered how Kalanga commoners, chiefs, and headmen resisted a colonially crafted hegemonic project to subject them to Ndebele political and social control. We also saw how divisions among the Ndebele elites made it difficult for strong ideological entrepreneurs to arise in rural Matabeleland before the 1940s. It is important to discuss another arena in which Ndebele and Kalanga ethnicity was negotiated—the politics of language making and control. Building on the thesis that language difference provides an anchorage for ethnic identity, this chapter examines the use of language by the Ndebele and Kalanga to express their ethnic identities from the 1930s.1 To the Kalanga, debates about TjiKalanga were born out of a quest for ethnic revival and the desire to resist a developing broad-based Ndebele identity, given the official sidelining of the Kalanga language after 1930. For the Ndebele, debating isiZulu and isiNdebele illustrated different social and moral standpoints about the meaning of being Ndebele, which is central to any analysis of Ndebele ethnicity. The Ndebele people were divided between those who advocated the use of isiZulu on the belief that, sociolinguistically speaking, Zulu was their impande (root). Those who preferred isiNdebele advanced a different argument: that using isiNdebele represented the cultural and linguistic adaptability of a people, and that the Ndebele were not essentially a subset of the Zulu people of South Africa. In reviewing this issue, we will desist from assuming that language debates and the associated ethnic meaning attached to those debates were a preserve of the Ndebele and Kalanga elites, as most social constructivists have often assumed. We will try to examine the complex interaction of both the commoners and the elites in debating their language and ethnic identity during this period. In an earlier research work that depended mainly on missionary and British and Foreign Bible Society documents, I discussed language and identity politics in precolonial and early colonial Matabeleland.2 That work demonstrated how the commoners “spoiled” what Ndebele kings thought to be their pure language, isiZulu, and taught the missionaries isiNdebele instead of isiZulu, the language of power. I also noted how the Kalanga’s refusal to

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accept instruction in isiNdebele led to some (limited) missionary efforts to translate the Bible into TjiKalanga. In this chapter, we will further explore the developments from the 1930s to 1960. In this period, the relationship between language policy and popular ethnic consciousness is even clearer. Except for Derek Peterson’s work on language in colonial Kenya, which demonstrated the conflict between European linguists and Gikuyu readers over political projects, and a recent work by Diana Jeater, this subject has not been sufficiently explored, especially in western Zimbabwe.3 Jeater’s recent work demonstrated that because some missionaries arrived among the Ndau and started to preach in Zulu without regard to the local language and to understanding the “native mind,” they later realized after a few decades that their message had remained ineffectual. This put them under pressure to learn Ndau so that they could “put the truth in the vernacular.” However, learning Ndau alone was not enough without also undertaking to understand African modes of thought and the roots of heathenism; therefore, even those translations into Ndau were fraught with difficulties.4 Jeater further stressed that court translators, who were white, often failed to translate certain terms and phenomena into useful statements in court because of the lack of cultural parallels between English and Ndau.5 Her work is a step in the right direction. However, she does not place much emphasis on the many processes that were ongoing among the Africans themselves as they debated about the fate of their languages. Her focus was more on the inventiveness of missionaries and how Africans responded to those innovations. This is a much more differentiated focus from my present work, which puts less emphasis on colonial and missionary constructions. Jeater’s work obviously complements such works that were already in public knowledge on colonial ideology, instrumentalist linguistic constructions,6 working misunderstandings between colonial rulers and Africans,7 and the invention of ethnicity through language.8 While these were useful efforts at analyzing language politics, we can go further to decode the input of commoners in language debates and to recognize how these debates often informed Africans’ sense of ethnic identities. Recently, a few Zimbabwean language scholars have examined the role of the postcolonial Zimbabwean state in the politics of language and also how formerly marginalised language speakers like the Zimbabwean Tonga have defied the status quo by lobbying for the use of their language in Zimbabwean schools.9 This scholarship is commendable, but these efforts need to be complemented by a deeper historical examination of the issues. Language is socially constructed. As an ideological tool, it centers on the linguistic awareness of its speakers and the nonreferential (hidden and symbolic) functions and meanings inscribed in it.10 Being a social construct itself, language is often used to construct and reinforce identities by creating an us-versus-them dichotomy, in which labeling plays an important role in the politics of identity.11 Because of language’s social embeddedness, there

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are often struggles between “dominant” languages and “minority” ones as minority language speakers demand greater linguistic space in newspapers, communities, schools, and offices and at political gatherings and elsewhere. This struggle epitomizes attempts by marginalized ethnic groups to fight overt discrimination and their perceived loss of power, thus giving credence to the view that language loss is part of a wider political process of social, cultural, and political displacement.12 In some cases, this struggle for language assumes a political meaning, justifying political secession by a language community. Among the Kalanga of Zimbabwe, however, language debates remained part of Kalanga moral ethnicity, expressed through poems and jealously sustained in Kalanga stronghold areas. In Bulawayo, the demand for isiNdebele assumed serious competitive proportions against Shona and other languages. Before the 1960s, it also carried overtones of mild political tribalism as debates about isiNdebele revived debates on Ndebele ethnicity. To better understand this debate let us first examine in brief the broader colonial language policy, in particular the recommendations of the government’s language consultant, C. M. Doke.

Doke’s Recommendations and Official Language Policy after 1930 Outside Matabeleland, missionary societies produced different print versions of local languages. Missionaries among the Manyika produced a Chimanyika version of the Bible, those in Fort Victoria (now Masvingo) produced the Bible and booklets in Karanga, those in Mount Selinda produced ChiNdau, and those in parts of Mashonaland produced Zezuru.13 Even if the societies had wanted to smooth out the differences between these dialects, it would have been difficult to do, given the extent of the differences.14 The need to adopt one language for instruction and missionary work in Mashonaland had been considered by missionaries as early as 1915, but missionary power politics hindered their ability to agree on the modalities.15 More concerted attempts to unify the languages into one Shona were made as a result of two developments: first, pressure from the state, which wanted one language adopted for educational and administrative purposes in Mashonaland; and second, the launch in 1926 of Mashonaland Quarterly, published by the Dutch Reformed Church at Morgenster, to which both missionaries and the new mission-educated African elites contributed articles. Without a unified Shona language, colonial officials, missionaries, and literate Africans were exposed to a wide range of dialects, and this exposure set on course debates about which language to use—which in turn influenced official language policy. According to Jeater, the Mashonaland Quarterly represented “an alliance between missionaries and government officials as a means of communicating state policy to literate Africans.”16 However, regardless of

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these developments, before 1930, the peoples of Mashonaland continued to speak four main dialects, namely Karanga, Ndau, Zezuru, and Manyika. In Matabeleland, a number of languages were used, namely isiNdebele, TjiKalanga, Venda, Tonga, Shangwe, Xhosa, and a few others. By 1930, the Wesleyan Methodist, American Methodist, Anglican, and Catholic missionaries in Mashonaland had outgrown their initial boundaries and were expanding into other dialect areas. This process coincided with the settler government’s increasing interest in “native” education.17 The Department of Native Education faced a difficult task of providing education to Africans who were divided into different language and tribal zones that had allegedly been “created” or “invented” by the missionaries.18 Although the colonial regime supposedly rigidified these linguistic divisions by codifying language, these languages actually predated missionaries and colonial rule, despite their having been largely unwritten and presumably fluid in terms of linguistic boundaries.19 The more the missionaries extended the mission frontiers, the more new dialect areas they covered, and the more difficult and expensive it became for them to produce numerous translations of Biblical and academic texts. At the same time, the government was torn, in terms of language policy, because of these linguistic divisions. Against this backdrop, the government appointed C. M. Doke, a South Africa-based professor of Bantu languages, to “thoroughly study the language position throughout the country, with a view of advising the Government upon a uniform orthography and a possible unification of the dialects for standardisation of an official language for that part of Rhodesia inhabited by the Shona-speaking peoples.”20 Doke overstepped his directive and made recommendations for Matabeleland as well. After just a year of research, Doke made several recommendations. The most serious and most confusing was the first: “That there be two official native languages recognized in Southern Rhodesia, one for the main Shona-speaking area, and one for the Ndebele-speaking area.”21 By way of clarification, he added: “By the main Shona-speaking area, I mean the area covered by the Zezuru, Karanga, Korekore, Manyika, and Ndau groups, and would add to these the non-Shona areas south of the Karanga. By the Ndebele-speaking area I refer to the part delimited as such . . . and for the purpose of official communication with the people, would add to that the area covered by the Kalanga group in Wankie, Nyamandlovu, and Bulalima-Mangwe [sic].”22 To take the Shona proposals first, Doke attempted not only to combine what he called dialects, but also to classify non-Shona groups as Shona for purposes of education and administration. When the government accepted his recommendations, missionaries took steps to unify Shona’s “dialects.” This effort was met with much protest from some of the affected African people, who thought this move eroded Africans’ sense of self-determination

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in general. African Methodist leader Mr. Rusike, for instance, gathered a number of blacks and whites and protested: “The Europeans are trying to impose upon the poor natives of Southern Rhodesia a ‘Whiteman’s language,’ a language concocted for the natives by Whitemen.”23 Others, like Solomon Mutswairo, a Zezuru teacher at Howard Training Institute, argued in defense of “tribal languages,” pointing to the unintelligibility of the Karanga-biased version of the New Testament that the missionaries had produced.24 In this process, Shona language debates had turned into the politics of ethnicity, pitting Zezuru against Karanga. With this context in mind, we may return to our Matabeleland scenario, where Doke created much more chaos. It was his Recommendation 8 that sparked language debates in Matabeleland: “That for the Western Area, Ndebele or Zulu be recognized as the official language, and that for educational purposes this official language be used in the following districts: Insiza, Mzingwane, Matobo, Bulawayo, Bubi, most of Nyamandlovu, and portions of Bulalima-Mangwe [sic], Gwanda, Belingwe and Gwelo.”25 Doke recommended the use of Zulu on the basis that Zulu had more published literature than isiNdebele and on the assumption that Zulu was “well understood by Ndebele speakers.”26 For TjiKalanga-speaking areas he made the following key recommendations: That unified Shona should not be applied in this area. That Kalanga be recognized for literacy and educational purposes, but not as an official language. That an orthography be adopted for Kalanga as proposed in paragraph 162. That no school books or other books be published in the Lilima or Nambya dialects. That in view of the extension into the Tati Concession and Bechuanaland of the Kalanga and Lilima peoples, the Native Education Department of the Bechuanaland protectorate be approached to participate in the preparation, production, and cost of the necessary literature in Kalanga.27

Doke did not recommend government support for the production of reading material in TjiKalanga. Instead, he thought it was supposed to be Botswana’s problem, yet the Kalanga in Botswana were in a similar predicament as Setswana obviously had more political backing in the protectorate.28 This recommendation, which by extension denied Kalanga language any official status, greatly influenced colonial language policy from 1930 onward. With TjiKalanga marginalized, most efforts to promote it after 1930 came from below rather than from state officials or missionaries. In this way, Kalanga language activism came to assume an ethnic connotation as language revival was intricately linked to the survival of Kalanga culture, traditions, religion,

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and chieftaincies and to a continued sense of community.29 In this manner Kalanga ethnicity assumed a modern imaginative nuance that also appealed to an equally important sense of precolonial ethnicity.

Matabeleland after Doke: TjiKalanga, 1930 to the 1940s We just saw how that Doke’s recommendation left TjiKalanga a minority language compared to the official isiZulu. Missionaries of the London Missionary Society, with some financial support from Methodists at Tegwani and from local Kalanga adherents, had raised £10 in the mid-1920s to produce a Kalanga New Testament.30 They engaged the local people as translators. This project was initiated primarily because of local protests by ordinary people and their chiefs against the use of isiNdebele and Setswana Bibles and other books in their area.31 When Doke visited Chief Habangana in 1930, the Kalanga chief told him that he wanted his people instructed in their own tongue. The same chief made similar remarks to the director of education for Bechuanaland Protectorate, and in this he did represent popular Kalanga aspirations.32 Kalanga language debates thus came to be an essential part of a self-critiquing Kalanga ethnic community to which Kalanga chiefs owed their legitimacy and to which Kalanga commoners appealed in their resistance to government policies. The clamor for TjiKalanga grew after 1930, eventually influencing even the Kalanga in Botswana, who were in a similar situation with respect to the state-backed Setswana.33 Through Reverend Whiteside of the local LMS, Kalanga activists wrote to the society’s secretary requesting that it pay attention to the need for Kalanga literature and claiming that the Kalanga “exceeded the Amandebele by tens of thousands.”34 These figures were probably exaggerated in an attempt to promote Kalanga patriotism, as we know that in other areas that were formerly Kalanga (such as the Matopos and Insiza), isiNdebele had made inroads during the time of Lobengula.35 However, more important than the Kalanga letter to the LMS was the local resistance to learning isiNdebele. In the mid-1930s, there were still communities where schoolchildren could not speak isiNdebele. When the visiting LMS missionary Neville Jones came from the head station, Hope Fountain, he felt useless when he tried to preach in isiNdebele at the Kalanga-dominated mission stations in Tjimali, an escarpment close to the Semokwe River. Missionary Whiteside reported: That TjiKalanga ought to be taught is becoming more and more evident. Neville Jones visited schools in the Tjimali area, in order to relieve me at the end of last month, and on his return expressed the view that if these schools are placed under a Hope Fountain Missionary, he ought to learn TjiKalanga as

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well as IsiNdebele. He found how useless he was when he came into touch with children who knew only their mother tongue. I hope that when a new missionary is sent to Dombodema he will be instructed to learn TjiKalanga, and to leave IsiNdebele alone until he has mastered it, for most of the outstations are among the Bakalanga folks, and those which are not among the Bechuana. . . . I am convinced that until we can reach the women with the gospel, most of our work will be ineffective, and we can only reach them by talking to them in their own language.36

Whiteside’s letter to his directors makes it clear that isiNdebele was not so popular in Bulilima-Mangwe, especially among the Kalanga in Tjimali, regardless of missionary attempts to enforce it. Speaking isiNdebele was associated with accepting Ndebele dominance. Chiefs like Rahala of Plumtree, for instance, had long resisted speaking isiNdebele at meetings with colonial officials in Bulilima-Mangwe, suggesting that they use English instead.37 This situation in which both commoners and chiefs were intractable made it difficult for the LMS, the largest missionary enterprise in Bulilima-Mangwe, to impose isiNdebele in Kalanga areas. Nonetheless, other missionaries such as the Methodists at Tegwani, Catholics at Mpandeni, and Seventh-day Adventists at Solusi did use isiNdebele. It is therefore essential for us to understand the Kalanga response in such areas. First, we need to understand local histories and geographies before we can understand Kalanga attitudes toward the use of isiNdebele. Empandeni, for instance, was formerly a precolonial Ndebele regimental town, and therefore it already had a reasonable Ndebele-speaking population before the 1890s;38 so when the Catholics arrived in 1879, they had to use the official language of the state, which was easier for them, considering the ready availability of isiZulu readers. Solusi was also a mixed-ethnic frontier, near Gobulawayo, the Ndebele capital. It also had some preexisting forms of Ndebele history as well. Tegwani was also not far from the Ndebele regimental towns Gapa and Zimnyama, so the area had pockets of Ndebele population too. However, we have already seen that the Wesleyan Methodists later realized that there was growing demand for Kalanga literature for their own use; for this reason, they tried, in their small way, to help the LMS promote Kalanga literature. However, they could not do more as TjiKalanga, being neither Ndebele nor Shona, had already been left to struggle with its identity crisis after Doke. In the missionary project to unify Shona, TjiKalanga was left out on the grounds that “this dialect has gone off tangent altogether on account of its isolation.”39 This made the Kalanga’s position even more difficult, but this difficult situation only served to strengthen Kalanga resolve to promote their language. Many Kalanga children were thus made to learn isiNdebele, and it is important to understand the responses of both these students and their parents. For this, I rely on oral informants, most of whom were students in the

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1930s and the late 1940s. These informants corroborate Reverend Whiteside’s evidence quoted earlier. At some schools where isiNdebele was taught, such as in Solusi, Empandeni, Tegwani, and their respective substations, the differences between speakers of proper isiNdebele and those who spoke improper (or “broken”) isiNdebele often mirrored ethnic differences. With colonial support, isiNdebele became a language of superiority and modernity. Its speakers also boasted the language’s glorious precolonial currency. Speakers of good isiNdebele, themselves mainly Ndebele by ethnicity, laughed at isiNdebele learners, who were of Kalanga origin, for not speaking it properly.40 According to Buyile Maseko, who attended a Seventh-day Adventist school in the 1930s, most Kalanga pupils had no option save to try to imitate Ndebele speakers, yet still spoke “broken isiNdebele.” Therefore, it was easy for the Ndebele to identify non-Ndebele, and vice versa.41 In other places, such as Tsholotsho, Kezi, Gwanda, and the Matopos, people competed to be good Ndebele speakers, especially because of its regional importance.42 This was corroborated by Rev. Makhoba Khulube, a Kalanga who taught in Kezi in the mid-1940s. Khulube said that in the Matopos, speaking isiNdebele was such a necessity, as a way to broaden interactions at sports and other interschool functions, that students had to learn it regardless of their love for their own language, TjiKalanga.43 Thus some Kalanga accepted isiNdebele as a symbol of modernity and because it helped ensure regional interaction with other Matabeleland peoples. The response of Kalanga students and parents in other places was more radical than at Maseko’s school. Although isiNdebele was the official language of instruction and a symbol of modernity in higher schools, most uneducated Kalanga people neither promoted nor appreciated isiNdebele since its imposition in their areas revived their memories of precolonial Ndebele violence on Kalanga communities.44 In Chief Bango’s area in the 1940s, for instance, the Kalanga tried to challenge the LMS and the Salvation Army—the latter of which was based at Usher Institute, where Kalanga children received instruction in isiNdebele—to produce Kalanga literature so that TjiKalanga could be taught at higher levels. This attempt failed and their children continued to be taught isiNdebele. However, inasmuch as parents saw learning isiNdebele as an academic transaction, they tried to strip it of any associated social and cultural meaning; and indeed, there was no Ndebele community in the Bango area to reinforce its social meaning. This created non-Ndebele speakers of isiNdebele, whose perfection of the language was of little concern to them. Most schoolchildren became bilingual, learning both the official and classroom language (isiNdebele) and the language of ethnicity (TjiKalanga).45 To guard against losing TjiKalanga, most parents encouraged their children not to speak isiNdebele outside the classroom. This conservative attitude was common in Kalanga

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communities of Bango, Dombodema, Tokwana, Ndolwane, Madyambudzi, Nswazvi, and many others.46 In these areas today, Kalanga language and culture are still strong, notwithstanding the fact that successive governments, including Robert Mugabe’s, have done very little to promote this language and culture. L. Ndlovu’s testimony illustrates this argument quite clearly: At school, they taught us a bit of TjiKalanga, but most of the books were isiNdebele. We had Ndebele hymn books as well. The LMS used both Kalanga and isiNdebele because they had few TjiKalanga books. Our parents tried to have TjiKalanga taught in the schools, but they were not successful. At home, parents did not want us to speak isiNdebele, so we had to use only TjiKalanga. The parents just did not want us to speak in isiNdebele, but I do not know why they did not successfully convince authorities to print TjiKalanga. I recall my father would often say to me, “You leave that Tjipotoko at school, and do not enter with it in my yard!” Though we spoke isiNdebele in the class, outside the classroom, we still spoke TjiKalanga by ourselves. The parents thought we would lose our language. Today we are still pure Bakalanga.47

In some places, students also took responsibility for sustaining TjiKalanga. At times they did so violently and actively revived ideas of Kalanga culture, history, and traditions and represented being Kalanga as more modern than being Ndebele. Because of the nature of society in the 1930s and 1940s, it was common and acceptable for Ndebele children to fight and also compete with their Kalanga counterparts at schools. It happened that as some of the Kalanga reported to their parents of the struggles they had with their Ndebele schoolmates for superiority and other factors, Kalanga parents did not help the situation. They inflamed ethnic hatred against the Ndebele children by linking the new violence of their Ndebele schoolmates to earlier Ndebele precolonial political violence, and at the same time nostalgically reviving notions of precolonial Kalanga history and the Kalanga-Rozvi kingdom, which the Ndebele had invaded. This often gave these school clashes some ethno-political flavor. Mrs. B. Moyo (Baka Kombi), a former Kalanga teacher, told me how Ndebele and Kalanga speakers related at school when she was a student in the early 1930s. Her account was clear, and I will quote it extensively to make the point: I did my Sub A, Sub B and Standard 1 at Vaka. It was an LMS school that promoted the learning of TjiKalanga. I then went for Standard 2 and 3 at Zimnyama, where I began to learn isiNdebele. There was no TjiKalanga there, because Zimnyama was a higher school and had no books for TjiKalanga. When I went to that school in the early 1930s, Ndebele children often beat us, saying that they did not want us Bakalanga at that school. . . . They wanted us to speak their Tjipotoko like them, saying that Zimnyama was a Ndebele school. However, they still did not want to teach us their language. There was

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so much competition in our class, and Ndebele students would not help us learn some isiNdebele words fearing that we would perform better than them in the examinations. Whenever Bakalanga got top positions in class, fights often broke out after the lessons and at times on our way home. Mapotoko usually labeled us Mahikalanga and hole and we also labeled them Mapotoko. We used to tell our parents of the severe beatings and suffering at school and we almost gave up on schooling. However, the parents encouraged us to continue going to school, telling us that they had also been treated the same way by the Ndebeles before colonialism. In response, we formed a strong Kalanga group so that whenever Mapotoko fought us, we would collectively defend ourselves. We began to boast of our being Kalanga, the way we built our houses, the way we ploughed our fields, and the way we dressed as Kalanga. We wore modern dresses yet some Ndebele wore misisi [hides]. We also boasted of the history of our Mambo.48

We have just seen how the politics of language became part of the politics of ethnicity among commoners. We must also assess the situation of Kalanga intellectuals in the colleges in the 1940s. In Southern Rhodesia, there was no Kalanga teacher training college. The first two LMS mission stations, Inyati and Hope Fountain, were in Ndebele core areas, Inyati in Mzilikazi’s former capital and Hope Fountain some few kilometers from Lobengula’s last capital, Bulawayo. Apart from specific courses where English was the medium of instruction, students got a thorough preparation in isiNdebele, in the hope that they would teach the language when they graduated. This meant that Kalanga intellectuals entering vocational training schools like Inyati and teacher training schools like Hope Fountain were to continue leaning isiNdebele there. I was fortunate to find several elderly men who underwent training at such institutions in the late 1930s and 1940s. These included Makhoba Khulube (Hope Fountain, 1941–42), Jonathan Masola Kumile (Hope Fountain, 1943–44, Tiger Kloof-Cape Province, 1945–47), S. W. B. Moyo (Hope Fountain, 1940–41), and Rev. Amos Mzilethi (Inyati Boys, 1928–33). All are Kalanga, except Reverend Mzilethi, who is Ndebele. Mzilethi had studied at Inyati and is the man who translated the full Ndebele Bible, together with Rev. James Pelling, between 1960 and 1977. Reverend Mzilethi told me that he used to teach Kalanga fellows to speak “proper isiNdebele,” and that this language is different from isiZulu. Though exonerating himself, he told me that others motivated the Kalanga to learn isiNdebele by negative means of laughing at those who could not speak it properly.49 We have already seen how this was also a common practice at lower schools. Because speaking isiNdebele at college was linked to ideas of superiority; Ndebele social and political history, and ethnic pride, which tended to reinforce notions of Kalanga historical inferiority, the politics of speech tended to create and harden interethnic feelings. Ndebele peer-pressure and the

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neglect of TjiKalanga in schools made Kalanga feel “as if it [TjiKalanga] was the language of slaves.”50 Precolonial Ndebele political superiority was reinforced as the colonial government not only recognized Ndebele chiefs in Kalanga areas, as noted previously, but also officially recognized isiNdebele ahead of all other languages in Matabeleland. Kalanga students would make do by proving that they were intellectually more competitive, and this was especially the case at Hope Fountain, where many Kalanga student activists, who were themselves former students of Inyati Boys Training Institute, were reasonably represented. At Hope Fountain, Kalanga student teachers competed with those who spoke isiNdebele; the latter obviously had an advantage in isiNdebele examinations because it was their mother tongue. Mr. S.  W.  B. Moyo told me that even if he had tried to compete to speak and write the best isiNdebele, it was to no avail. The other problem he faced was that he felt Kalanga were deliberately discriminated against by the institutional education system.51 He thought that their isiNdebele teacher and pastor, Rev. Mtompe Kumalo (a descendant of the former Ndebele ruling family), was deliberately out to discredit Kalanga students and did not assess their learning in a fair and transparent manner. He argued: How could you score more marks when you are Kalanga and you are taught by Mtompe Kumalo? In all other subjects I would do far better than Obadiah Mlilo, a Ndebele student. Our trainer, Mr. J. Fraser, would often say “without isiNdebele, Moyo is number 1; when isiNdebele is added, Mlilo is number 1.” Mtompe favored Mlilo a lot. Overall, I think we Kalanga at Hope Fountain were doing far better than the Ndebeles. I do not hesitate to say that.52

It is not possible to determine whether Mtompe favored Mlilo to the point of acting unprofessionally. However, other evidence confirms his general attitude toward Kalanga. Although he was a trained LMS pastor, his pride in being a part of the royal family was often too difficult to hide. It is said that oftentimes before he preached, Mtompe Kumalo would address people in the following manner: “Ngifun’ ukukuluma lani maNdebele akhithi” (I want to talk to you our Ndebele people), to the annoyance of the white people at Hope Fountain, Kalanga, Shona, and other students in the church service.53 When I first heard this, I thought it was an exaggeration by Kalanga intellectuals. However, Mtompe Kumalo’s impetuous and emotional disposition was confirmed by another LMS minister, Amos Mzilethi, an Ndebele man who was junior to Kumalo but had worked with him. “When Mtompe had an idea,” he said, “he would ram it into people and utter whatever he wanted.”54 When I went to Dombodema, around one hundred kilometers from Bulawayo, Mr. Khulube volunteered the same information. When I asked him about how church services were conducted at Hope Fountain, he quickly remembered Mtompe Kumalo’s services:

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Mtompe Kumalo was a very tribalistic man. He would preach nothing else save tribalism. He used to say, “Akunga Makalanga kwakuyi kudla komkonto. Sikhotha igazi lakho.” [These despicable Kalanga were food for the assegais. We licked their blood from the assegais.] This was wild preaching that did not promote reconciliation. He cared less about what we were, us the Kalanga. Of course when he spoke, he knew that there were so many non-Ndebele people around. After the services, we analyzed his words. We often felt annoyed by the manner he emphasized his words with clenched fists. He spoke with the authority and attitude of the Mandebele.55

Such were the experiences of Kalanga people in the face of perceived isiNdebele invasion. But we must also survey attitudes among Ndebele speakers toward the question of what language was the most suitable for the Ndebele as it highlights internal debates about Ndebele identity. Matabeleland after Doke: isiNdebele-versus-isiZulu Debate, 1930s–50 The isiZulu-isiNdebele issue involved four players: government, missionaries, Ndebele intellectuals, and ordinary Ndebele. The government’s position, in line with Doke’s view, was shaped by the fact that many Zulu textbooks were already in circulation. Some colonial officials were of the view that the Ndebele society of the time was becoming degenerate and needed to recapture its lost Zuluness. This entailed the appointment of chiefs who looked authentic, mainly those who were thought to be of pure Zulu blood and the promotion of isiZulu ahead of isiNdebele. However, because colonial policy was not clear on whether to use isiNdebele or isiZulu in schools in the early years, the officials of the Native Department were not in agreement over this Zulu-ization of the Ndebele, as some wanted isiNdebele ahead of isiZulu in schools. Anxious to solicit public opinion, the Department of Native Education called for an “all stakeholders” conference in 1936 in Bulawayo to debate the language question. This involved native commissioners; former NCs; the superintendent of natives; court interpreters; and representatives of all missionary societies, including African ministers such as Mtompe Kumalo (LMS, Hope Fountain), Paul Hlazo (Ngwenya Mission), T. D. Samkange (Methodist Mission), H.  B. Mashengele (LMS, Essexvale), P. Mletshwa (Catholic, Empandeni), A. M. P. Achulu (Salvation Army, Bulawayo), S. S. Mabusela (Ntabazinduna), and W. M. G. Tshiminya (Presbyterian).56 Heated debates at this conference showed that neither the Native Department nor the Native Education Department was decided on the issue. The NC Plumtree (Posselt), together with Catholics and Methodist missionaries who had long taught and promoted the use of isiZulu, represented “the parent group,” which wanted a return to isiZulu on the basis that it was the “root language,” impande yaMandebele. They clashed with the “defensive group,” led by the LMS and the inspector of

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Native Education, who preferred isiNdebele on the grounds that it was homegrown and had lost its connections with Zulu.57 A third group, the “medium group,” led by Robert Benzies, an experienced NC who was fluent in isiNdebele, admitted that the language had changed so much that many would not understand isiZulu. However, they still believed that since the Zulu language possessed a substantial published literature, it would be best if isiZulu were the medium of instruction.58 The conference produced no consensus, but the majority apparently favored the use of isiZulu. Months later, at a conference of the Native Section of the African Welfare Department where Ndebele people were not sufficiently represented, the majority recommended the use of isiZulu.59 Debates at both the Native Affairs Department Conference and the African Welfare Section demonstrate how different groups of people viewed the language issue in Matabeleland, not only their ideas of language but also their views of the nature of Ndebele ethnicity—whether it was local or foreign, “pure” or “defiled.” More important was the debate raging within the African community from which we can decode more indigenous perspectives. Among Africans, the availability of books was not an issue. What preoccupied their language debates were issues of history and Ndebele identity, not the technical side of literature that worried government and missionary societies. Elsewhere I demonstrated how commoners and aristocrats secretly struggled for the legitimacy of their respective languages.60 While commoners wanted a more inclusive isiNdebele, the Ndebele royal court insisted on the politically significant isiZulu.61 The period after 1930 saw a revival of such debates. Interestingly, these came at a time when colonialism had ravaged the society and the royal family was becoming irrelevant, because it was at variance with the majority of the people. Interest in “going back to the roots,” which meant imagining Zuluness, was less significant, although that view was strongly held by its exponents. These included Zulu and Xhosa African teachers from South Africa, local ministers at institutions where isiZulu was taught, commoners mainly of zansi origin who took pride in a sense of Zulu history, remnants of the Ndebele ruling family, and those chiefs who claimed zansi origin. It is important to remember that isiNdebele had lost many isiZulu words because of social change, physical distance of the Ndebele people from Natal, and local adaptation; many other isiZulu words had become unintelligible in isiNdebele.62 Writing in 1936, D. Moyo argued that there were many isiZulu words that were unknown and not used by isiNdebele speakers, such as “Amajikijololo, Ukukotoza, Incwane, and Ukuzindhla,” among others. He further argued that many of the people who originated from Zululand no longer understood many isiZulu words; that since many of the school teachers were foreigners who were struggling even to understand isiNdebele, they would be further confused by having to teach isiZulu at the same time; that although some textbooks were in isiZulu and the people used isiZulu at

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some schools, students did not speak isiZulu at home; and lastly that “Readers and writers of ‘The Bantu Mirror’ must bear in mind that we are trying to prepare books and ORTHOGRAPHIES for the coming generation and not for [the] past generation. Sindebele books will be of a better form, and will not cause any disagreement among us.”63 Advocates of isiZulu had other reasons that went beyond promoting a narrow Ndebele ethnicity. For Methodist minister and nationalist ideologue Rev. T. D. Samkange, the use of isiZulu was in the interest of African unity. He thought it would be more convenient that tribes be united under one language than that they remain the babel they were. He had in mind the formation, through one language, of larger identities that united Ndebele, Zulu, Xhosa, Shangani, Pondo, Fingos, and Swazi as one group; a second cluster that involved Sotho, Tswana, Barolong, Pedi, Bakwena, and Barotse; and a third cluster involving Zezuru, Manyika, Makaranga, Ndau, Korekore, Budya, and tributary tribes. He thought it would be easier to develop literature to educate all southern Africans in this way rather than having to develop a separate literature in each minor language.64 Samkange fell into the mainstream defense of Ndebele-Zulu history. As a Methodist minister, he was arguing for the use of isiZulu because the Methodists had long made use of isiZulu texts in churches and at their few schools in Matabeleland, but when writing to the Bantu Mirror, he could not make this explicit because it was indefensible; instead, he chose to argue from another angle. He averred: It is unjust to the Amandebele to say that, because they came to this country as Colonialists conquered it, they should be alienated from their main language and tell them to use a mixture of Zulu and Sikalanga words as their standard language. The British people all over the world use the language of their mother country and not a mixture. If you ask the British people in this country or suggest to them that they should use Kitchen Kaffir in their schools, you would be insulting them; why then ask the Amandebele to use the Colonial language in place of Zulu? What is it that has made my friends to advocate Sindebele? I believe it is because they were told that they were also a nation, and that they should be hostile to the Zulu language—their own kith and kin? Is it fair and Christian? Divided, we fall; united, we stand!65

Some of Samkange’s views were reinforced by Zimvu, who said that since Mzilikazi’s language was isiZulu, it was imperative that people be taught isiZulu, just as the English promoted their language in their colonies. He argued that isiZulu was in fact the Ndebele national language, being the impande of isiNdebele; that advocates of isiNdebele were linguistically ignorant; that they had been deceived by the LMS; and that they wanted to remove zansi children from the Ndebele category.66 In the same vein Samuel Nkobi, a Rhodesian student in Pretoria, clarified his vision. He hoped to

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salvage the lost Ndebele-Zulu generation by teaching their children isiZulu. The children would in turn teach their mothers and fathers isiZulu, the original language of the Ndebele people.67 This debate therefore had more to do with the writers’ view of Ndebele identity and ethnicity than just the language itself. Learning isiZulu was considered to be the best way by which the Ndebele would regain their ethnic purity. Samkange totally misunderstood the situation in Matabeleland. Advocates of isiNdebele favored the language for the reasons that isiZulu narrowed Ndebele identity rather than expanded it and was the language of only one section of the Ndebele, the zansi. IsiNdebele, by contrast, was understood by all and therefore profitable for reasons of popular ethnic patriotism. According to A. M. Sibanda, who was obviously not zansi, isiNdebele as a language reflected the true ethnic position of the Ndebele, who, from the time they left Nguniland, became “a new tribe with a new language, SiNdebele.”68 The Ndebele were so completely cut off from the Zulus that Zulu ministers and teachers who had been imported into Matabeleland had “failed hopelessly.”69 To Bati Soneni, another isiNdebele advocate, tampering with isiNdebele would mean that “the soul of our people would be buried alive.” It would provoke “unpleasant feelings” if the dialects that people had taken generations to develop could simply be “reduced by the stroke of a pen.”70 For Robert Sinyoka, another isiNdebele defender, who had taught for twenty-two years, isiNdebele was “our beauty, our national identity, and our life. We do not want foreign languages introduced amongst us.”71 By maintaining that position, Sibanda, Soneni, and Sinyoka, and others like them whose names suggest they became Ndebele by assimilation, were negotiating and defending their homegrown ideas of Ndebeleness. Many advocates of isiNdebele viewed the promotion of isiZulu as a concerted form of linguistic genocide. It was an attempt to wipe away what remained of Ndebele ethnic identity, an “atrocity” against all future Ndebele generations.72 Should isiZulu be used, the name Matabeleland would become meaningless because, as E. M. Halimana said, “We will be no longer Mandebeles and this will be the first thing in the history of life.”73 Halimana’s argument made points similar to those by C. C. Ngcebetsha;74 however, it degenerated into an emotional outburst in which he poured out vitriol against proponents of isiZulu, so poisonous that it could not be published. Advocacy for isiZulu was viewed by some as an attempt to revive tribal feelings between those who could still “trace their descent accurately to their Zulu grandfathers” and those who had become fully Ndebele by naturalization, thereby opening the possibilities for “bitter antagonism.”75 For them, isiZulu as a language would cultivate political tribalism, whereas isiNdebele echoed conventional Ndebele moral ethnicity. While isiZulu became the language of instruction in most schools, it did not become widespread as a spoken language since children did not use it

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in their homes, where isiNdebele retained its power.76 Indeed, most students did not enjoy reading isiZulu literature as they did not understand it in the way they understood isiNdebele, and as the stories in such literature were not even relevant to their Ndebele society.77 In Tsholotsho, for instance, where the government dumped many evictees in the 1940s, a mixed community of Kalanga and Ndebele developed. This further complicated the language situation. While students learned “proper isiNdebele” (which was isiZulu) in school, at home and in the community they continued to speak isiNdebele.78 For zansi patriots, however, there was no problem with learning isiZulu. Mr. Fuyana, who was a student in the mid-1940s, told me that learning isiZulu and reading isiZulu literature that depicted images of Tshaka, Dingane, and other warriors was not offensive to the zanzi. He said that literature depicted “a history that any other Kumalo and any other Nguni person would have enjoyed; we enjoyed it because that is where our roots were.”79 This reinforces what Sibanda said about some Ngunis from Southern Rhodesia during those years wanting to be known as “boys of ezansi,” that is, imagining themselves as Zulu or Nguni.80 This variation in attitude toward language meant that people differed in the way they defined Ndebele ethnicity, and key to this difference was not just the language itself, but the connections between language and precolonial political realities. To represent Ndebele as Zulu was elitist, and it unfairly restricted popular claims to Ndebele ethnicity. From the mid-1940s to early 1950s, the struggle between an imaginative aristocratic Zulu identity and a popular Ndebele ethnicity continued to matter. Advocates of Ndebele ethnicity still distinguished between Ndebele people and Ngunis.81 On the other front, the Matabeleland Home Society (MHS), an Ndebele pressure group, tended to sit on the fence. While it promoted the use of isiNdebele, it was also keen to be seen promoting the Ndebele ruling class, out of a desire to court the royal class to its side so as also to be seen representing authentic Ndebele traditions in towns and elsewhere. With increasing emphasis on isiZulu in school and the dilution of isiNdebele in town, Ndebele language activists also made representations on the need to revive isiNdebele and to suppress Lapalapa (a mixed language labeled “Kitchen Kaffir”), Shona, Nyanja, and TjiKalanga in Bulawayo.82 Because of this, isiNdebele nearly became the lingua franca of Bulawayo, had it not been for the continued activism of Shona, Kalanga, and other people in the same town. The promotion of Ndebele ethnicity, through isiNdebele, preoccupied most of the 1950s, as we will come to see below.

Language Debates in the 1950s In Bulawayo, the struggle for ethnic space manifested itself through language and other means. As we will discover in the next chapter, Bulawayo

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emerged with a strong foreign outlook because of the nature of early colonial labor recruitment. Between the late 1920s and the 1950s, however, more Ndebele and Kalanga people flocked to Bulawayo.83 This created not only an employment crisis, but also an identity crisis for the city. A struggle to control Bulawayo developed, which found expression primarily in the politics of naming places, streets, and buildings and in the quest for linguistic dominance in the press. Because the struggle now involved ethnic outsiders, internal debates within Ndebele society on the Zulu-Ndebele issue were at a low ebb in the 1950s. The focus was now more on the public expressions of Ndebele ethnicity than on private, internal debates related to linguistic purity. What also made the Ndebele-Zulu debate less important was the MHS’s recruitment drive. To become stronger, the MHS needed to widen its net to bring some Kalanga into the fold. This attempt had in fact begun slightly earlier, in the mid-1940s, but with little success. In the late 1950s, there was also a need to create one language of nationalism, and isiNdebele was better placed than any other in Matabeleland. Ever since the monthly (and then weekly) Bantu Mirror began publishing in 1931—initially as a Chewa, Shona, English, and Ndebele newspaper—Bulawayo intellectuals often had the opportunity to write for the paper in their own languages. From 1936, the presence of isiNdebele in the newspaper increased to such an extent that by 1950 it was commonplace to have various contributions, except headline news, in isiNdebele. With spoken isiNdebele gaining more ground in urban areas over and against Shona, Nyanja, and TjiKalanga, it became the lingua franca of the town. At a time when printed TjiKalanga was still invisible in the Bantu Mirror (before the late 1950s), Ndebele patriots wanted more space in the same paper, demanding that isiNdebele be used not only in the paper’s main sections but also in its weekly supplement, ostensibly in the interest of “justice and commonsense” for the Ndebele.84 This demonstrates the extent to which Ndebele language politics had become a matter of tribal justice and tribal power, the defense of which justified the need to exclude other languages from the public domain. This particular quest for more isiNdebele came a year after Kalanga activist Mapisa’s request for TjiKalanga in the Bantu Mirror had been turned down by the editor, on the grounds that Kalanga people could understand isiNdebele, reflecting the official sympathy for isiNdebele over other Matabeleland languages.85 The isiNdebele debate, clearly an ethnic one, was not confined to the press. In Bulawayo, where Ndebele people were latecomers, most Native Department clerks, interpreters, and messengers were non-Ndebele. These clerks angered the Ndebele by the manner in which they represented isiNdebele in government notices: isiNdebele always came last, after English and Shona, giving Ndebele commoners and activists a feeling that their language was being treated as a third-class language in their own home.86

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Even when public announcements and company advertisements were made through loudspeakers, those Shona in government and in advertising companies often used Shona, leading Ndebele people to suspect a deliberate attempt by the Shona to “murder” isiNdebele.87 Where announcers tried to use isiNdebele, their Ndebele listeners condemned their isiNdebele as “impure” and desired that a “real Ndebele” person be employed at the location superintendent’s office in Makokoba, to make the announcements “in clear Sindebele.”88 The politics of language was becoming intricately linked to the politics of employment and ethnicity. Ndebele language activism also had an impact on churches, especially those led by non-Ndebele. In the Salvation Army, for instance, where the leadership was predominantly Shona, the church used mainly Shona in their services. This created such confusion that when it came to singing hymns, Shona and Ndebele people chose to sing their separate languages at the same time, rendering the service cacophonous.89 This persistent confusion led to a fistfight in one church, and at some point the preacher was struck with a stick as he stood in the pulpit. This conflict in 1959 was only stopped by the police.90 In an earlier incident, some Shona and Ndebele “Christians” at St. Columba’s Mission, in Bulawayo, quarreled over what language to use in church. This degenerated into a fight that was joined by “Matabele ruffians armed with sticks and knobkerries.” These tribal patriots entered the church and “put a stop to Chishona [Shona language] immediately.”91 In the peripheral zones such as Gweru, parents fought and won against the Native Education Department‘s decision to stop teaching isiNdebele at St. Matthews School on the grounds that there were fewer Ndebele than Shona children there.92 In another notable case, MHS members Brown Luza and Mazibisa took the Empandeni matron to task for introducing the Shona language at Empandeni mission school in Bulilima-Mangwe.93 Elsewhere, Ndebele writers deplored the fact that Ndebele people were less united than they ought to be. In 1959, a Bantu Mirror correspondent, “Ndebele,” wrote from the Inyati Reserve to encourage the Ndebele of Bulawayo to stop being controlled by “the Shona minorities.”94 The definition of minorities has always been an integral part of the sociopolitics of language. In Bulawayo at this date, however, it seems that the Ndebele remained far less numerous than the Shona.95 This view by “Ndebele” was therefore meant to reinforce the image of Bulawayo as an Ndebele town, showing how the politics of speech had become a part of the politics of ethnicity. There was also an important relationship between language and the politics of history, memory making, and ethnocartography. This was evident in the struggle to name places, streets, and public institutions in Bulawayo. While the Shona people, who had taken an earlier lead in the African advisory boards, wanted their history and their ancestors remembered

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in Bulawayo, the Ndebele would not accept the perpetuation of this “foreign” outlook in the traditional kraal of Lobengula! This is where the whole problem lay. Essentially a linguistic issue, naming was actually an element of practicing and perpetuating one’s ethnic identity and power.96 Once given, a name perpetuates the memory of the named person, event, or phenomena. Normally, heroes so commemorated would have been powerful leaders around whom ethnic identity was imagined. In 1955, the Shona-dominated advisory board persuaded Bulawayo town councillors (all of whom were white) to accept the name Rufaro (which means “happiness” in Shona) for a Western Commonage No. 3 Township (now Njube), the biggest Bulawayo African township of the 1950s. They argued that the name reflected the reality that tribes were happy to live together in Bulawayo.97 This defense of Shona ethnic pride, from a column in the Bantu Mirror, was an intelligent one, in that relations were in fact less amicable than was suggested. The name Rufaro offended Ndebele people, who protested against it, preferring instead an Ndebele name. They wanted “the right name for the right place” to avoid “untold harm” to the people of Matabeleland. Rufaro, they said, had no historical meaning in Matabeleland and was intended to destroy the Ndebele power to name.98 To some, Rufaro was a clear expression of Shona tribalism, since the Shona had several times tried to name places after their precolonial chiefs, such as Mutasa and Chivi, and their living hero D.  A. Masunda.99 Rufaro was thus viewed as an attempt by Shona to “impose their will” on the “quiet and peace loving” Matabele.100 In response to this struggle to name Bulawayo, the MHS discussed a motion to forbid Shona people from taking part in matters affecting the Ndebele;101 however, this did not have much effect as the Shona quickly condemned the motion as “tribal.” As the Ndebele were busy with the politics of language monopoly, Kalanga people were struggling to get newspaper coverage. Although the Kalanga spoke their own language in their homes, it had not been promoted to an instructional language in high schools. Regardless of earlier demands for TjiKalanga in the newspapers, this language was totally absent from the newspapers until after the mid-1950s. The Kalanga people saw the introduction of their language in the papers as an opportunity to enhance their status and visibility in Matabeleland, since they would transcend the label of “minority group” and become ludzi lukulu, [a big “tribe”].102 At one point, the Kalanga, who were well represented in the African National Congress, wanted TjiKalanga to become the official language of Matabeleland politics, giving it a regional status.103 But Ndebele activists and politicians would have none of it. The struggle for TjiKalanga, associated with resistance to the notion of an inclusive regional Ndebele identity, gained ground in the mid-1950s with the formation of the Kalanga Cultural Society.104 This movement, which threatened to weaken the evolving regional Ndebele identity, boasted strong links

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with other Kalanga people on the Botswana side of the border, who were in the same situation, suffering minority status at the hands of the Tswana.105 There had been a close cross-border relationship among the Kalanga for years, with teachers from Botswana coming to Southern Rhodesia to teach Kalanga and vice versa.106 At the community, level, Kalanga people in Bulilima-Mangwe took advantage of the loose border controls to maintain informal contacts with their counterparts in Botswana.107 This is still happening today. Some Southern Rhodesian Kalanga activists in Botswana even wrote to the press from Francistown, demanding that the Bantu Mirror publish in TjiKalanga on the ground that Kalanga was the first tribe to occupy Matabeleland, and must not be disadvantaged.108 Initially, the Bantu Mirror did not accept these Kalanga demands because the paper lacked trained personnel to edit TjiKalanga. In addition, the new African home-produced tabloid the African Home News discouraged Kalanga activism and condemned it as tribalism that sought to destroy unity, so it never published in TjiKalanga. Only the Bantu Mirror gave some space to TjiKalanga, albeit belatedly. This was in response to a Kalanga campaign against the injustice of the Mirror’s use of Chinyanja, a Malawian language, in the press, while ignoring TjiKalanga, a local language. In 1960, TjiKalanga replaced Nyanja in this newspaper.109 The Bantu Mirror became a platform for announcing Kalanga meetings, generally in TjiKalanga, thereby excluding all those who might have been interested but were not Kalanga readers. People at these meetings discussed the promotion of Kalanga identity, through literature and the use of TjiKalanga in schools, thus giving birth to the Kalanga Literature Association in 1960.110 This association aimed to promote Kalanga in the Bantu Mirror, to publish Kalanga texts, and to lobby both the Southern Rhodesian and the Botswanan governments for TjiKalanga to be taught in schools in their districts, instead of isiNdebele.111 The Kalanga also announced their vision of constructing their own school where TjiKalanga would be taught, in order to uplift the Kalanga ludzi (ethnic group).112 This project did not materialize, perhaps because it lacked wider political support. The press also became a platform for celebrating Kalanga living heroes such as successful businessmen like Simon Phapho and cultural activists and educationists like Gwakuba Ndlovu.113 It was also used for teaching and to remind those who had imagined an alternative ethnicity that they were Kalanga.114 In addition, the press regularly lampooned those who did not want to promote TjiKalanga.115 Those who still wanted to promote lulimi gwebangwe (other people’s languages) were labeled shameful people who boasted of wearing other people’s clothes, only to be reminded by the owner that “you have stained my clothes.”116 Speaking isiNdebele would have given Kalanga people no say in negotiating its “purity,” nor would it have allowed them to sufficiently express their ideas, symbols, and traditions

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that had ethnic significance. In TjiKalanga, however, they could pride themselves on the growth of their tribe.117

Debating Languages, Defending Identities In this chapter we examined the connections between language and ethnic identity, and the ways in which Ndebele ethnic identity was conceived by different groups. While some educated elites from Zululand together with missionaries, government officials, and Nguni Ndebeles (abezansi) tried to promote Zulu language and culture, most commoners, who did not share the Nguni heritage, were concerned with giving Ndebele identity its indigenous outlook, and not viewing it as an offshoot of the Zulu. This provoked debates about who a real Ndebele was and whether the Ndebele shared commonalities with the Zulu. Popular opinion held that being Ndebele entailed a hybrid of traditions mixed to form a new ethnic group, discrete from Zulu. Language debates therefore naturally provoked internal debates within ethnic communities as people tried to define themselves in ethnic terms. By the 1960s, the focus on defining an Ndebele was no longer the priority it had been in the 1940s. It was assumed that a generic Ndebele identity in Matabeleland was “given.” With the rise of African nationalism and, before that, the increasing competition between ethnic-based societies in town, Ndebele was now being imagined as a broader regional identity in which willing Kalanga could join. Whereas some Kalanga were overwhelmed by, and thus claimed fellowship in, this wider Ndebele identity, others were more concerned with questions of their own ethnicity. In the 1950s, Kalanga ethnic patriots were busy trying to promote Kalanga ethnicity in schools and through the press. But the activists of the 1950s were not operating in a vacuum. They had the support of their parents, who in the 1930s and 1940s had maintained Kalanga ethnic identity by resisting growing Ndebele influence in the schools of their time and by teaching their children Kalanga language and culture at home. Some of these children became key Kalanga activists in the 1950s and beyond. Because the Kalanga community in Matabeleland also maintained links with the Botswana Kalanga, who were in the same situation, this connection made the clamor for their ethnic space a transnational demand.

6 Contests and Identities in Town Bulawayo before 1960 Background, Context, and the Argument Bulawayo’s colonial phase began in 1894, following the 1893 Anglo-Ndebele War, after which Lobengula burned down his capital and left. In the vicinity of Bulawayo were Ndebele settlements that were not quickly abandoned. However, those people whose homes fell within the town boundaries were rendered squatters, and their homes were recommended to be burned.1 Symbolically, the government erected its Government House, Cecil Rhodes’s official residence, on the site of Lobengula’s former palace.2 Since then, Bulawayo became Rhodesia’s major industrial hub and the headquarters of Rhodesian Railways, with a high demand for industrial labor. In the early years, however, most of the local (Matabeleland) people were generally unprepared for town life, especially when it came to offering themselves for wage labor. Consequently, the new businesses in the town and its surrounding areas sought laborers from southern, eastern, and central Africa, and from among the Shona. Thus, Bulawayo began as a predominantly foreign town, from the viewpoint of the Ndebele and other peoples of Matabeleland, as it was inhabited in its core mainly by Africans of other ethnicities and different geographical origins, contrary to what Yoshikuni and Ranger have assumed.3 There were, of course—apart from Ndebele workers in the police, postal service, clerical service, and other occupations—a few prominent Ndebele inhabitants in town, some of whom were born in the “Native Location” (Makokoba) like Siphambaniso Manyoba, who became a prominent Ndebele activist,4 and others like Jojo Mkatjane, originally from the Shangani reserve, who by 1930 already appeared to have lost touch with the rural sensibilities of his home.5 There were also remnants of Lobengula’s family, such as Queen Moho, who usually housed visitors from the royal family when they came to town;6 the children of Muntu (Lobengula’s brother), who deserted their father when he became a pauper in BulilimaMangwe and went to Bulawayo for “immorality”; and perhaps a few others.7

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To this number should be added local women already living in Bulawayo by 1897 whom the NC Malema stereotyped as “prostitutes”8 and others who, by contrast, formed a reasonably prosperous class of women who made money from leasing their properties to urban male workers.9 By 1910, Bulawayo’s alien African population had risen to 25,086 from 11,359 in 1906. Locals (from all Matabeleland peoples combined regardless of ethnicity) were still outnumbered, rising from 6,345 in 1906 to 12,739 in 1910.10 Although this chapter begins with a brief exploration of the period before the late 1920s, I am more concerned to examine developments since the 1920s up to the early 1960s. It is during this period that more Ndebele and Kalanga people began to permanently settle in Bulawayo in response to traumatic evictions from their land and other demands of the colonial monetary economy. By saying this, I am not suggesting that there were no earlier Ndebele people in Bulawayo and its vicinity,11 but that, comparatively speaking, they were usually fewer than those who were classified as “aliens.”12 This does not mean that prior to the 1920s Ndebele were socially and politically docile and only woke up in the 1920s following their influx to urban areas, contrary to what Ranger thinks that I suggested in my earlier work on the 1929 fights.13 My earlier work, which Ranger is obviously aware of, demonstrated some form of Ndebele activism before the 1920s;14 however, this activism was not very successful, as I argue, because there were not enough Ndebele in town to create a strong organizational base. By studying aspects of Bulawayo’s history, we will discover how identities in town changed since the early colonial era. Urban areas are usually just examined as cosmopolitan spaces, to the neglect of ethnicity. In this chapter, it will be argued that the development and deployment of ethnicity in Bulawayo was a result of the complex interactions between different people who imagined ethnicities in their attempts to “tame” the city. The city was, first and foremost, an alien and possibly traumatizing space for most of the early urbanized Africans. Its economy was predominantly monetary and depended heavily on capitalist labor regimes. The social setting itself made it critical for people coming there for the first time to give primary attention to their personal security before they could fully integrate themselves into town life. Consequently, joining or forming new associations or groups of acquaintances was very important—but these had to be people whose languages, cultures, and values were easier to understand, at least for a newcomer. This became part of the foundational thinking behind the formation of urban ethnic groups that, once formed, had to constantly mold and rebrand themselves in relation to changing circumstances and needs. Because the competition for control of the city required popular support, it was necessary to create a broad-based Ndebele identity and others. However, it was not always clear who qualified to be Ndebele in Bulawayo. An examination of the evolving Ndebele identity reveals a slow movement

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from a narrow definition to a broader, regional one inclusive of Kalanga and other people from rural Matabeleland, whose ethnic identities would be submerged. This had its own problems as it seemed to overshadow other smaller ethnic groups, hence the move by the Kalanga in the 1940s to advocate for their separate identity by promoting Kalanga ethnicity, not only in towns but also in the rural areas, as we discovered in the previous chapters. In the following section, I will do a brief overview of the Bulawayo situation before 1929.

Overview: 1894 to the 1920s Bulawayo was declared a town in 1894. Since its future depended on African labor, a “Native Location” called Makokoba was established. It was a defined as “a portion of the Town extension or of the common pasture lands of the Town of Bulawayo . . . reserved for the huts or dwellings to be occupied by the Native races such as Kaffir, Zulus, Shangaans, Mashonas, Matabeles, Bechuanas, Mangwatos, Fingoes, Basutos, Hotentots, Bushmen, and the like.”15 The British South Africa Company’s definition of“Native Location” sounded cosmopolitan, and there was no clear social policy on how the Africans were to dwell there and what kind of houses were to be built. What brought the different and largely distant peoples to Bulawayo in the early years was the local labor shortage. This shortage was exacerbated by the locals’ negative attitude toward wage work, especially in the surrounding mines. This negative attitude was often misunderstood by colonial officials, who naively thought this was essentially a manifestation of traditional nineteenth-century Ndebele arrogance. Commenting on the Ndebele’s antipathy, the chief native commissioner said, “They are essentially a fighting race. They never had been used to work except tilling their own lands, and it is only a few years back that there was a change in the country. One can hardly be surprised at their dislike for anything like labour.”16 Some local people came to town temporarily, not to seek work but to see the area and visit friends. These individuals were mainly viewed as undesirable “loafers.”17 Other early observers like Wills and Hall made nastier but more informative remarks: Manual labour is very distasteful to them—Matabele especially—and so long as their actual bodily wants of the most simple kind are supplied, they prefer to look on, rather than to take active part. The idea of continuous labour is entirely novel to them, and a few months’ work will earn them enough to live in idleness for a year or more. Farming suits their tastes better than employment in the mines. Private enterprise has been for some time past in treaty with some tribes north of the Zambesi, and a large number of workers have been induced to come into Southern Rhodesia.18

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Colonial officials lacked knowledge of the operations of the indigenous African economies that they found in place. These economies were not solely sustained through monetary means, but relied on other forms of trade and exchange and also production at a household and village level to sustain a simple life for the poor, although a more sophisticated linkage to the international economy had begun at the level of the state elites. Therefore, it was difficult to convince local people to accept low-paid labor in the early years. In fact, the Ndebele, Kalanga, and other Matabeleland peoples had a number of better alternatives to offering themselves to do low-paid labor. They could live as subsistence gardeners or work in South Africa, where the pay was generally higher than in Southern Rhodesia.19 Moreover, their chiefs, especially Kalanga chiefs, would not cooperate with the government in labor recruitment;20 their people chose instead to take advantage of the loose international border to cross into Botswana when the labor recruiters tried to round up able-bodied men from the villages.21 When the CNC asked every chief to supply a certain number of laborers, chiefs like Tategulu, Mahlatini, and Magama of Bulilima-Mangwe, who were asked to supply a hundred men each every three months, brought in only twentyeight, thirteen, and thirty-one laborers, respectively.22 The CNC Matabeleland also attempted, in vain, to secure local labor by threatening local chiefs that “tribal” aliens would be introduced among their people if they failed to provide laborers. This reference applied mainly to the introduction of the Fingo, who were called “Cape Boys.”23 Because these methods were unsuccessful, labor recruiters looked beyond Matabeleland for laborers, especially before 1920. Evidence suggests that foreign laborers continued to flow into Bulawayo even after the late 1940s, creating more competition for the available jobs.24 Table 6.1 shows the ratio of locals to “alien” laborers between 1906 and 1910, illustrating a relatively slow increase of locals.25 Table 6.1. Ratio of “aliens” to local Matabeleland people in Bulawayo, 1906–1910 Year

Local

Alien

Total

1906

6,345

11,359

17,704

1907

7,673

17,937

25,610

1908

10,368

20,563

30,931

1909

10,689

21,948

32,637

1910

12,739

25,086

37,825

Source: ZAD 3/2/1, Report of the Native Affairs Committee of Enquiry, 1910–11.

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The first jobs available were mainly in the mines outside Bulawayo. Because of the inadequate safety facilities, most foreigners soon deserted the mines for Bulawayo. Other forms of work available in town were more attractive than the laborious and risky mine work; as a result, desertions were common, especially by the “Zambezi boys” (mostly Tonga of either Southern or Northern Rhodesia and some people from Gokwe), Shangaans, Shona, Fingos, and others.26 The NC Bulawayo was correct when he said, “The Natives, both alien and indigenous, shew a preference for work in the town rather than in the country, no doubt attracted by higher pay and less monotonous work.”27 This migration from mines to town by different peoples confirms that the tribal stereotypes advanced by some labor recruitment agents and NCs were nothing more than old colonial myths and stereotypes. Philip Jenkins of the Rhodesian Native Labor Bureau had argued in 1906: We ought to know what tribes our boys belong to. Some tribes will prove good mine workers, others bad. If you do not get to know the tribes where your good workers come from you do not know where you should push recruiting most and where is the greatest proportion of failures. As this recruiting is costly I suggest that we know these things, even though it may take some work and trouble to find them out.28

Laborers did not appear to mind relocating to towns if they offered better opportunities. Those who had built bigger social groups in mines were more likely to find it challenging and insecure to leave their network of friends, family, and tribesmen for a new, unfamiliar place like Bulawayo. In the early nineteen hundreds, it was common to find certain mines dominated by people of a particular ethnic group, who often fought and competed against those from other ethnic groups in other spheres. In 1901, for instance, the inspector of compounds for Matabeleland, No. 3 Division, noted that at Morven Compound “the Zambesi and the Shangani Boys objected to live with the Matabele.”29 And in Selukwe an organized tribal fight occurred between the “Zambesi” (a reference to Africans who came to Bulawayo from the Zambezi valley) and the Shangaans at Tebekwe Mine in which about four hundred or five hundred men armed with sticks, assegais, and axes were engaged.30 Although the flocking of people to Bulawayo was desirable for employers, it was unplanned. It created an accommodation crisis that was seized upon by the more experienced urbanites, the so-called Cape Boys (predominantly Fingo and Xhosa), who erected makeshift structures that they rented out to the desperate laborers.31 Notwithstanding the recommendation of the CNC a year earlier (1901) when he advised the government to build five hundred houses to cater to prospective employees, the BSACo regime offered nothing in that regard.32 By 1913, with the exception of

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skilled laborers, the general labor shortage that had engulfed Bulawayo in the early years was history. Bulawayo reportedly had a “more than adequate” labor supply, and had a “large floating population” wandering among all the principal employment centers.33 This suggests that the unemployment crisis that Phimister and van Onselen ascribed to the early 1920s depression had actually started much earlier than the two scholars had appreciated.34 Early settlers of urban Bulawayo were in different senses both “cosmopolitan” and “ethnic.” They interacted freely at workplaces through a created convenient medium of communication, Lapalapa (also called “Kitchen Kaffir”), a mixture of numerous languages and “broken” English.35 Lapalapa, viewed by contemporary employers as a language “adequate for the ordinary purposes of life,” was respected as an emergent language that extended, according to Tudor Trevor, “from Durban to the Congo, and in almost every kraal someone can be found to understand it.” Some employers like Trevor believed that learning “Kitchen Kaffir” would make them better communicators with Africans than those who were proficient only in individual African languages.36 The NC Bulawayo wrote of the “mixed character of [the] Native population.”37 At least to many early urban dwellers, this new cosmopolitanism was not necessarily a move toward detribalization and the birth of ambiguous identities. Evidence suggests their tendency to congregate by homeboy and ethnic loyalties. There was also a construction of new ethnicities. While Nyasaland, for instance, meant a place of origin, it became an ethnic label used by both Ndebele and Shona to describe people from Malawi, and at times it described foreigners in general who had become fulltime urban dwellers.38 Moreover, though the manner in which early Bulawayo workers constructed their dwellings and villages appeared haphazard, it reflected, rather, their attempts to congregate as ethnic groups, as the NC Bulawayo reported in 1910: “In Bulawayo, Natives from all the tribes of South and Central Africa are to be found, while large numbers of Aliens have built Kraals and are living under a semblance of tribal conditions, in the vicinity of the town.”39 Because of people’s tendency to settle together by ethnicity, by 1929 certain areas had come under the sway of “foreigners,” such as Shona, which led to trouble for Ndebele people attempting to pass through a Shona kraal area, especially in Riverside.40 This mutual hostility must have emerged from both real and imagined precolonial animosities and the newly emerging politics of urban control born out of urban insecurity. A common complaint of the Ndebele and even other people in Bulawayo was that the Shona were insolent. Accusations of insolence would hardly have been lodged against urban newcomers; to the Ndebele, the Shona saw themselves as in control of the city morally, economically (being lucratively employed), and socially. They were rumored to have corrupt dealings with the colonial bureaucracy

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and thus could commit crimes with impunity.41 Because of all these advantages, they bullied their weaker competitors—something they had been doing since at least 1925.42 Apart from wanting to live with their “homeboys,” most rural migrants also preferred to work with friends and acquaintances from “home.” Colonial authorities mistook this tendency as a natural ethnic preference for certain types of work. Thus, the NC Bulawayo said: “The Aliens, to a greater extent monopolise the house work, while the Mandebele continue to prefer employment as drivers, store and office boys, Policemen and similar outdoor service. The aliens being more careful in their work and cleanly in their habits make better indoor servants than the Mandebele.”43 It was not ethnicity per se that made people specialists in certain trades compared to others, but other compelling socioeconomic factors. Working with homeboys meant no hassles of learning isiNdebele or other languages. It also made a foreigner feel socially and economically secure. It was a way of making one another feel at home in a foreign country.44 Colonial agents, however, must have reinforced these homeboy loyalties by reserving certain jobs for specific ethnic groups. We have realized how workers tried to define themselves by ethnicity. However, these same ethnic patriots were also prepared to widen their social networks when it came to the question of their marriage and sexual lives, presumably because they were too far from their originl homes to marry from their “tribe.” Thus, sexual relations with local Ndebele women, especially unmarried women whom NCs tended to label “prostitutes,” were rampant both in towns and in mining compounds.45 A report of the NC for 1910 clearly illustrates this point: Only three marriages have been registered during this year and one of the parties already had a family of five children when they registered. The Natives living in Bulawayo and in the vicinity are mostly aliens, the men of whom seldom marry girls from the Matabele villages, but cohabit with the feminine wives of the country. These people come together and separate as their convenience and inclination dictates. Many of the habitual labourers are from the North, such men may live with a woman for years, but she is generally left behind when the man returns to his own people, and in such cases the woman again contracts an alliance with some other male of the floating population.46

Because men did the bulk of paid labor in the town, most women were self-employed, if not unemployed. Moreover, since colonial regulations considered them illegal in town, they were treated as a rare “commodity” in early Bulawayo. By 1915, about seven hundred men were officially registered as resident in the Bulawayo location, and all but two of them were unmarried, at least according to colonial law. The rest, according to the assistant

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police commissioner, relied on about 250 adult females who lived in the locations on their earnings from “prostitution.”47 The police commissioner appears to have unfairly judged all such women to be prostitutes in order to give the impression that they were illegal and unwanted persons in town. Evidence suggests an emerging middle class of women who owned property and relied on renting out their huts.48 However, some who had no alternative means of survival did turn to prostitution. Although sexual relations prompted in some cases a breaking of the limits of ethnicity, they also informed ethnic debates in Bulawayo and also partly fueled ethnic-related violence. Sexual relations between Shona men and Ndebele women, for instance, attracted the ire of some elderly “respectable” Ndebele inhabitants of the town, who began to voice their displeasure in 1914, through two exclusive Ndebele ethnic associations: the Loyal Amandebele Patriotic Society49 and the rival Ilihlo Lomuzi, which later became the Matabele Home Society. The Loyal Amandebele Patriotic Society consisted of men who, by reason of their education, however little they might have received, and their attachment to Ndebele culture were both modern and traditional: on the one hand, they desired modernity and decency in town; on the other, they sought to observe strict Ndebele laws. But by today’s standards, they could perhaps be condemned as xenophobic. The Bulawayo superintendent of natives described the Loyal Amandebele Patriotic Society as a “native movement for the suppression of immorality,” who complained that their women were being lured into prostitution by ethnic Others.50 In other words, ethnic patriots—in this instance, urban Ndebele men—tended to be possessive of women of their ethnic group, fidelity to whom they saw as a moral obligation expressed by desisting from marrying ethnic Others. For this reason, ethnic patriots wanted women expelled from towns and mining centers: “We very much wished to know whether the mines are proper homes for our women. Our Society asks that you will not overlook this point—that women are not mine labourers. What they do is to leave the husbands with whom they exchanged vows at the Native Commissioners’ Offices and run away to the mines.”51 The Patriotic Society’s desire to eradicate from “their land” (i.e., Bulawayo) this societal decay demonstrated the extent to which its members believed they held the moral high ground in the town. They also seemed to play around with notions of both modern Christian ideals and traditional Ndebele social and political values. On December 15, 1915, they made a special call to all urban Ndebele people: Wake up! Wake up! Wake up Amandebele Your land is in great danger of being wiped out. The law of the great God within or written in our heart and our ancestors’ hearts is being broken. The Christian law and the law of Mzilikazi is being broken down by prostitutes.

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They are selling their bodies to evil men for money, clothes, utshwala [beer]. They have brought disgrace to our nation. The white people are despising us. They go from kraal to mine, from mine to Town Location carrying syphilis wherever they go. Syphilis is the curse of prostitution. . . . Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! The judgement of God is upon us. Now we are to break down and kill this evil. The A.P. Society will lead you to break it down by the help of the Almighty God. . . . Honour the King and keep his laws.52

The activities of this group after 1916 are unknown, but it seems to have existed until it was replaced in the early 1920s by the more organized Matabeleland Home Society (MHS), an outgrowth from the formerly docile movement called Ilihlo Lomuzi, which coexisted with the Loyal Amandebele Patriotic Society.53 The exact date of MHS’s formation is unknown, but it seems to have been around 1922.54 Unlike its predecessors, the MHS worked hard to turn “foreign” Bulawayo into a “real Ndebele town.” By the time of the demise of the Loyal Amandebele Patriotic Society, the society’s issues had not been addressed. The number of women continued to increase in town either because they had been neglected by their husbands who went to South Africa and never returned or because they simply sought empowerment by freeing themselves from the burden of polygamy, which was still rampant in rural areas, and from the cultural system that allowed girls to be pledged in marriage when they were still underage. These women tended to marry foreigners in towns against the wishes of their aggrieved ethnic male counterparts. The status and role of women in town remained a heated issue as late as 1928 and beyond.55 By the 1920s, migration of Matabeleland people into Bulawayo was on the increase. This was partly a result of the 1920–21 economic depression, and also to a larger extent a result of their evictions in the mid-1920s from private locations and white-owned farms where they had been settled all along, having for more than two decades either resisted or been too slow to relocate to the Reserves.56 Official statistics, though imprecise because of the inefficiency of the early urban administrators in computing the so-called floating population or even the number of unemployed urban inhabitants, reveal that by 1921, Bulawayo had about 2,258 Ndebele inhabitants (incorrectly classified as 2,223 Ndebele, 22 zansi, and 13 enhla).57 It also had a large number of people of the Shona group: 355 “Mashona,” 12 “Bakorekore,” 131 Manyika, 18 Zezuru, 1 Budya, 54 “Bahungwe,” 3 Njanja, 1,075 Karanga, among others, making a total of 1,649 people.58 This figure demonstrates an increase in Ndebele settlement in town resulting in a greater presence than was the case years before. However, the figure is misleading in that it does not tell us the actual number of other Matabeleland peoples, like the Kalanga, Venda, Sotho, and Nambya, who might simply have been lumped into the category Ndebele. This numerical growth enabled Ndebele people

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and others from the region to form more active ethnic-based associations and other social platforms than before. Such organized platforms, which provided opportunities to discuss shared experiences, included African (home brew) beer drinking venues, tea parties, and boxing groups, among others. These developments bear a relationship to the 1929 Bulwayo “faction fights” that can inform our understanding of Bulawayo history.

The 1929 Bulawayo Faction Fights The fights that broke out in the last days of December 1929 marked an important turning point in the administrative structure of Southern Rhodesian urban areas, particularly in Bulawayo. As a result, beginning in the 1930s, the colonial regime was forced to focus on urban African affairs more than it had before. There was, for the first time, a need to control urban housing, entertainment, and sport, as well as to tighten up the hitherto loose and chaotic urban administration. There was also an attempt to give Africans a facade of control through the newly enacted native advisory boards. Even more important, an effect of the 1929 fights in Bulawayo was the increase in ethnic politics, which together with other alternative urban identities made the town’s history more complicated. For this reason, it is imperative that historians have a fair understanding of the 1929 Bulawayo faction fights or even earlier events before probing the later period.

The 1929 Faction Fights: Historiographical Issues A major piece of research on this subject by economic historians Ian Phimister and Charles van Onselen appeared in the Journal of Southern African Studies in 1979. In the article, the two scholars argued that the 1929 Bulawayo fights, far from being manifestations of “mindless tribalism,” were explicable “only in the general context of the town’s economic and geographical situation within the regional political economy, and specifically only in the context of the conditions, controls and constraints existing in the Bulawayo location and railway compounds.”59 They maintained that this violence was primarily a manifestation of “intra-working class conflict . . . an expression of competition within the working class about limited job opportunities.”60 To buttress their argument, the duo wrote of the fall in cattle prices from 1921 to 1923 and of a short-lived boom in tobacco sales that gave African farm employees a temporary respite but that was followed by a steep fall in prices of agricultural products between 1928 and 1930, which resulted in a great retrenchment of laborers from white-owned farms. This brought about a “sharp increase in African participation in the [urban] labour

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market.” In Mashonaland, where the fall in tobacco prices was more acutely felt, an unemployment crisis hit the Shona hard.61 Consequently, these economically tottering Shona looked to Bulawayo for jobs, offering themselves as cheap laborers and thereby displacing Ndebele who, because they had worked for longer in town, were demanding better wages, which employers were not prepared to pay during the 1930s Great Depression. Consequently, Ndebele found themselves squeezed out of the labor market at a time when their rural assets were also being eroded by the Great Depression. This situation, plus the lack of police control within the Location, made the fight possible.62 In short, Phimister and van Onselen suggest the following: first, the coming of new foreign (largely Shona) people into Bulawayo and the lack of policing over the location’s population resulted in the concentration of foreign migrants in the location; and second, since Shona were the majority of the latecomers, they occupied low-wage jobs, if they found work at all. Those who could not get jobs became loafers, petty criminals, and gamblers. In a bid to give credence to their class-based view of the conflict, Phimister and van Onselen tried to catalog three “classes-in-formation” among Africans in Bulawayo in the late 1920s. These “classes” are, first, the “tiny African petty-bourgeoisie” comprising small traders, businessmen, and school teachers; second, the working class (the largest group); and third, the rapidly expanding “underclass” composed of the unemployed, which at times merged with the “lumpen proletariat.”63 It is this last group that the authors blame most for disturbing the “decent” urban natives. Curiously, they concluded that since the Shona were the most recent migrants, they would have occupied (at least temporarily) this criminal group. However, they offer no evidence to prove that the Shona were the largest group of recent newcomers to Bulawayo in the late 1920s. Their main statistical evidence (provided on pp. 15–17) relates to figures of total African employees, total loss of jobs in agriculture, and increasing crime rates, all at the national level without reference to the Shona or any other specific group of people. Therefore, these figures do not by themselves prove that the new migrants were mainly Shona. Notwithstanding this lacuna, the two scholars continued with their class line, arguing that “the first outbreak of the trouble followed the socioeconomic cleavages outlined above, and not purely ‘tribal’ divisions, . . . nor did the trouble emanate from all Shona.”64 Explaining the first violent outbreaks on Christmas Eve, Phimister and van Onselen suggested that these were mainly in the form of robberies and gang assaults on workers. As for the second outbreaks beginning on December 27, it is suggested that these were about workers attacking recent migrants, “which explains why the Location, home of most new migrants was the subject of persistent attacks.”65 To shrug off the “tribal animosity” thesis, they pointed to the involvement in the fiasco of “Northern Natives” on the side of Ndebele in a fight against Shona, but this is hardly enough to buttress their argument.

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Contrary to the line taken by Phimister and van Onselen above, evidence suggests that the violence was organized and had a specific target. For the Ndebele and people aligned to them, the enemy was the Shona, not just any new poor immigrants. The Shona were a group of people thought to include Manyika, Karanga, Korekore, and others who spoke seemingly related dialects or languages and who apparently came from the area that had been demarcated as Mashonaland. In their collectivity, whatever the case might be, Ndebele and other Bulawayo people sought to fight a named people they labeled as “Mashona.” Evidence also suggests that the fighters did not necessarily target newly arrived Shona alone, but any Shona, old or new. One Shona victim of the attack on the Railway Compound, Mtero, a crippled storekeeper, lost £21 cash and goods worth over £80 when his property was burned while he was in hiding.66 It is highly unlikely that a man with so much money could have been a newcomer to Bulawayo. Reporting in the Chronicle, a source that the two authors used (albeit selectively), also suggests that a large number of the Shona who were attacked were in fact decent workers, and not loafers. Apart from living in company accommodations—that is, the Railway Compound—they also had valuable possessions. The Ndebele and “aliens” who raided the compound, where about three hundred to four hundred working Manyika (a Shona group) lived, gathered and burned between “nine or ten huge piles” of clothes; (then) prestigious items such as bicycles, which loafers and poor urban newcomers could not afford to buy; and other belongings.67 They then drove the Shona out of the compound.68 With the above in mind, it is naive to maintain that the fights were between established workers and new immigrants. It is reasonable to argue that if some Shona were new immigrants, so too were some Ndebele, Kalanga, Northern Rhodesians, Tonga, Nyasalanders, and others. It is misleading to look at Shona newcomers and ignore Ndebele and Kalanga newcomers, who maintained ties with their rural homes, where they withdrew for weekends to see their wives, attend to their property, and do other chores.69 If the conflict was between “old” and “new,” why then did the fights target an ethnic group, the Shona, even though those who fought the Shona might have been a mixed crowd of both Ndebele and aliens? The sources have not a single instance of “old” Shona teaming up, say, with “old” Ndebele against either “new” Shona or “new” Kalanga, or anything relating to newcomers at all. It is therefore time, with due respect, to debunk the reductionism of the late 1970s historiography that pigeonholed everything through specific lenses, such as “class struggle,” “labor,” or other explanations. The article by Phimister and van Onselen is part of that historiography. Beyond seeing this struggle in terms of Marxist historiography, which reduces history to a story of class struggle, we need to find the connections between ethnicity and class, for instance, and also examine potential relationships between social forms such as sport and ethnicity. Ethnicity is influenced by many

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things, including labor, sport, class, politics, and culture. Without denying outright the impact of the Great Depression on urbanization and Africans’ reactions to the unstable colonial economy, I would contend, however, that these explanations alone are insufficient. Since the publication of my work on the 1929 faction fights in the Journal of Southern African Studies in 2006, there has been further interest in this subject, as reflected in Ranger and Chikowero each contributing their own different perspectives. Chikowero takes up one strand of Phimister and van Onselen’s argument about the lack of sufficient control mechanisms in the Bulawayo African Township to explain the fights. He was concerned in particular about relations of power, whereby electricity as an item of modernity was being denied to the subalterns.70 Clearly Chikowero did not fully engage with my argument, for at no point did I assume that urban resources were being shared equally, but I simply argued that lack of sufficient controls alone were not in fact the cause of the 1929 violence. Otherwise, Chikowero’s effort is commendable as it extends Phimister and van Onselen’s argument in another direction using postcolonial theory. Ranger’s Bulawayo Burning benefits directly from my criticisms of Phimister and van Onselen, which the author accepts. However, although Ranger agrees with my advancing of a moral economy approach as opposed to the political economy argument of Phimister and van Onselen, his own explanation differs from mine. He argues the following: that “the 1929 violence was about who could define ‘style Burawayo’ [sic]” (meaning that there were generational differences amongst Bulawayans in terms of their perceptions of the town’s popular culture); that long-term Ndebele town dwellers in alliance with their propertied women and educated South African migrants “determined the social patterns of the Location”; that these long-term town dwellers were challenged in the late 1920s not by a lumpen Shona invasion but by “young men who claimed to represent modernity”; that the 1929 violence was neither long planned nor purposeful but arose “in an atmosphere of rumour and myth in which the boasts of the ‘insolent’ young men created a panic, with phantom armies marching through the Bulawayo bush”; and lastly that ethnicity as defined by the categories Shona and Ndebele in Bulawayo was still something in the making. Ranger’s observations are important but are not without their limitations. First, I have already demonstrated very clearly above that there were relatively fewer Ndebele people than “aliens” in the early years before the 1920s. Second, it is naive to assume that Ndebele people always had the support of the South African migrant workers in Matabeleland, especially before the fights. There is clear evidence that many of the Ndebele had issues with most of the “Cape Boys,” and migrants in general, whom they suspected of sexually abusing “Ndebele” girls and women—and I have already examined this aspect. Any such support given earlier by migrant Fingo elites, such as Martha

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Ngano, and possibly by a few other activists was not really about championing the cause of the Ndebele as an ethnic group, but about securing the broader political rights of Matabeleland people—with Matabeleland not to be confused for Ndebele-land. While there is also evidence of support by South African migrants especially from the 1940s and onward when Fingo people like Ngcebetsha ventured more into Southern Rhodesian politics, this was mainly because of the broadening of the agenda of the Matabele Home Society and also because of Ngcebetsha’s wish to ensure that the news tabloid he started later on got at least some followers. He also wanted to garner enough votes to become a member of the Bulawayo Advisory Board, given that people tended, at some stage, to vote along ethnic lines.71 The third limit of Ranger’s observations concerns Ranger’s assumption that the faction fights were about young men whose popular culture, dressing style, and behavior annoyed the elderly Bulawayans. If this were the case, then why did the attacks take a mainly ethnic instead of generational line, regardless of ethnicity? Ranger’s argument that the elders were annoyed by the youths’ style and representations of modernity that seemed to conflict with Bulawayo’s old Christian ideas of progress and development comes from his reading of denunciations of this youth tendency in the Native Mirror, which later became the Bantu Mirror.72 Obviously pressed for evidence, Ranger seems to have forgotten that the Bantu Mirror started publishing only two years after the 1929 faction fights, and it seems far-fetched to assume that mere denunciations of the youths’ high fashion and ideas of progress in or after 1931 had anything to do with what had happened two years earlier. Even if we assume, for argument’s sake, that the fights did not take any ethnic line, or that they were not triggered by ethnicity, we still must accept that the mere existence of rumors of a “tribal” nature—such as accusations that corrupt Shona people had paid money to the NCs so that they be allowed to kill the Ndebele; that Mashona were insolent; and that Shona were taking Ndebele women—proves the prior existence of underlying fears and prejudices of an ethnic nature. Therefore, any serious analysis of the events leading up to these fights and of the fighting itself cannot trivialize the role of ethnicity. Ranger’s fourth attack on my argument is premised on his view that the “ethnic” categories Ndebele and Shona were still in their formative stages and that “ethnicity in Bulawayo in 1929 was very much in the making and very flexible.” To buttress his view, Ranger argues that key organizations, which would have rallied Ndebele and Shona into stronger ethnic movements before 1929, only emerged later. The Matabele Home Society, for instance, formally emerged in 1929 and the Sons of Mashonaland in the 1950s.73 I will briefly respond as follows: First, Ndebele ethnicity did not have to wait for the formation of the elitist MHS, and moreover MHS was formed in 1922 (as I indicated earlier).74 Second, I have already demonstrated that

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organizations like Ilihlo Lomuzi and the Loyal Mandebele Patriotic Society had already started fighting for Ndebele ethnic purity much earlier, since 1914. Third, although there may not have been a solid ethnic group that commonly referred to itself as Shona at that point, there were people who were and had been historically labeled by the Ndebele and others as Amashona, or Amasvina (Shona), for the Ndebele did not know the different ethnic and clannish differentiations among those people to their north who spoke related languages or dialects. The mere existence of this ethnic label meant that in the case of animosities across identities, it would have been easy for the Ndebele to say, for example, this one is Shona and this one is not. Issues of self-identification and labeling are much more complicated than what Ranger makes them out to be in his criticism of my argument. Ethnicity is realized not only by virtue of self-definition, but also as a result of prolonged labeling that ends up being accepted. We will now examine the 1929 fights more closely.

Reporting the Fights The fights were sensationally reported in a Bulawayo government-controlled newspaper, the Chronicle. The headlines, in bold letters, read, “Knobkerrie Warfare in Bulawayo: Matabele and Mashona in Combat.” It described “an ugly situation” that “developed in Bulawayo on Friday and continued through the weekend, when native intertribal disturbances broke out,” resulting in two people killed and about forty to fifty injured.75 How the December 29, 1929, violence started was described as follows: First indications of trouble were about 3:15 pm when the Police at the District Camp and the Town Office received messages from the residents in Lobengula Street near the town location that a large and noisy crowd of [Shona] natives had collected.76 A force of mounted police from district headquarters and town police, armed with batons, immediately went to the spot and succeeded in dispersing the crowd without difficulty. Shortly afterward, however, the situation took a serious turn when a force of between 300 and 400 natives were seen marching across the veld from the railway location in the direction of the Bulawayo location, shouting and waving sticks, and behaving in an exceedingly bellicose manner. Each of the natives was well armed, their weapons including heavy studded knobkerries, bicycle chains attached to short sticks which could be used with tremendous effect, large and apparently well-sharpened axes, knives, some of which had blades 10 to 18 inches long, and several were armed with bayonets.77

When the police intervened, most of the people who had prepared for the fight disappeared, hiding in dongas and bushes or seeking shelter with

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relatives nearby. At night some Ndebele and other “aliens” invaded the Shona-dominated Railway Compound. In utter excitement, they piled up and burned belongings of the Manyika people (a Shona group), in a public display of both anger and jealousy: Just when things were at their quietest, shortly before eight o’clock, urgent messages were received at the town and district police headquarters that the railway location was being burnt down. A rosy glow of flame in the southern sky lent colour to the report and all the available forces, with the exception of a number of troopers left on guard at the Bulawayo location went as quickly as possible to Raylton. As the railway compound was neared, a tremendous noise of shouting and screaming could be heard and flames were seen everywhere. On arriving at the location, it was found that all the clothing, bicycles and belongings of some 300 to 400 Manicaland natives living in the location had been seized by the Matabele, placed in nine or ten huge piles and set alight. In the light of the raging fires, natives could be seen around, shouting war-cries and threats and waving sticks, knobkerries and knives, inciting each other on to kill the Mashonas. The police surrounded the compound, but did not venture inside, the savage spectacle of the jumping, screaming, shouting natives continuing until the fires had burned down.78

As police withdrew from the location and went to the Railway Compound, those belligerents from the location who had dispersed earlier now regrouped, just before ten o’clock at night. Almost three hundred of them attacked Shona and destroyed their huts. These zealots were soon joined by “their tribesmen” in the location. In the fracas, one was killed. The gangs would attack and, on seeing policemen, disappear into the bush, only to reappear when the policemen had left and continue the attack. A total of 150 people were brought to court for public violence.79 While this was a large number, many perpetrators may not have been caught, so the actual number of participants may have been much higher than the figure estimated by the Chronicle. The fights caused Shona to flee in fear. Feeling threatened, they did not return until January 2, 1930.80 The Shona had clearly become a threat and their eviction from the Ndebele town had become necessary. Such sentiments were often expressed at social platforms such as beer drinking venues, and even during one crucial official meeting with the NC: “Why are these people here? We do not go to their country and molest them and take their jobs and wives. Let us drive them out.”81 Evidence from the Chronicle is corroborated by members of the newly formed trade union the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) who, at a meeting called by Superintendent of Natives Carbutt, alleged that the Ndebele intended to drive the Shona out of Bulawayo.82 According to Masoja, secretary of the ICU, the Ndebele and “alien natives” did not wish the Shona to reenter the location or live there again.83 Other

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Ndebele activists like Mdutshwa, from Bubi, made more open remarks: “These Victoria natives are the ‘Ringleaders’ of this trouble, and it would be advisable if the Government put them back to their own country as they will continue to be a source of trouble if left in Matebeleland. They have given a very bad ‘Spirit’ to the Manyika.”84 The fights, described in detail in the Chronicle, help us understand the violence but the Chronicle does not shed light on its causation; whatever conclusions one draws remain speculative. The days before December 29 were hardly peaceful, but they received little press coverage. The preparations for this fight were not captured in the media, but it was subsequently discovered that the different groups had prepared an assortment of weapons for use, suggesting that the fighting had long been anticipated, to a greater extent than the police realized. One of the men called to testify at the court of inquiry—whose testimony Phimister and van Onselen did not use—said: “This trouble has been brewing since the beginning of 1925 when these Fort Victoria natives (Mashona) commenced to hit the Matabele natives if they met them in the street, and not only the Matabele natives would they assault but any tribe they come across.”85 This Shona aggression could have begun much earlier. Another witness emphasized that trouble had “been brewing for some long time.”86 Though unaware of such planned violence, the police had taken their normal precaution of seizing weapons from people to prevent the usual Christmas hooliganism. They did this on December 23, 1929, purportedly seizing in the municipal location and adjoining premises some 930 offensive weapons, comprising knobkerries, iron bars, sticks, and assegais. They also destroyed more than six hundred gallons of “kaffir” beer, which they believed was often connected with holiday violence.87 The existence of such dangerous weapons in a city almost thirty-five years after its establishment goes a long way toward explaining how the early urban dwellers perceived the city and their neighbors. The urban environment was perceived as a dangerous one in which one’s personal safety could not be guaranteed—hence the tendency to cache weapons. It is also possible that the weapons were on hand simply because people anticipated violence would break out over Christmas that particular year, as court records among others will show. As the Chronicle noted, many weapons were readily available to the fighters on December 29 despite the earlier raid. This suggests that the police had not managed to seize all weapons, presumably because people had either cached much more in the location or even made new ones after December 23. On December 24 and 25, isolated fights were reported. On December 27, some Ndebele complained to Superintendent Carbutt of “molestation and threatened assault on the part of the Mashonas,” and serious fights broke out between Shona and Ndebele with the result that Ndebele, assisted by

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Barozvi and Tonga, attacked and drove Shona out of the Railway Compound and destroyed their effects by fire.88 On the twenty-eighth, Carbutt called a meeting attended by about a thousand Bulawayo Africans. Asked about their problems, some Ndebele argued that the Shona were the aggressors, responsible for fomenting disturbances in the city. The ICU officials, taking a proNdebele stance, complained that Shona were loafers and gamblers, that they took Ndebele women as wives, that Shona displaced Ndebele in the labor market, that Shona had better clothes and enjoyed greater amenities of civilization and were favored in recruitment into the police, that Shona sought revenge on behalf of their ancestors against the Ndebele by committing petty assaults on Ndebele at bioscopes (public cinema shows) and by causing them annoyance generally, and that the office of the superintendent of natives was corrupt and had received money from Shona to allow them to commit crimes with impunity; the officials also warned that Ndebele would drive all Shona from Bulawayo.89 The ICU complaints were themselves contradictory. They labeled the same group (Shona) both as loafers and as civilized, as poor and as rich. This is perhaps where Phimister and van Onselen were misled by this source and thus inserted a class dimension into their interpretation of the 1929 fights. It is clear from this source that idle and well-off Shona alike were a nuisance to the Ndebele in Bulawayo, and for this reason, the class dimension to the analysis of this violence, which tends to delineate “old” from “new” and “rich” from “poor,” is not convincing.

Social Structures and the Violence In an urban environment where there were no officially provided sports or recreation facilities, Bulawayo Africans developed their own forms of entertainment, such as night dances, tea parties, and sports like football (soccer) and boxing.90 Boxing became very popular in Bulawayo in the late 1920s, and this popularity continued up to the early 1950s. An investigation into the 1929 clashes showed that Superintendent Carbutt and a number of Africans (who were interviewed by Superintendent Brundell of the Criminal Investigation Department [CID]) believed that boxing had encouraged the violence. Carbutt thought the root of the problem was that “quite recently the young bloods have taken up boxing as a pastime, . . . [and] they boxed without any idea of fair play or of the rules of the game [as] no stroke was prohibited and no grip banned. Although the matches started in a friendly way, they ended in bad blood being established.”91 One witness to the 1929 fights, Kaula (aka George), thought that the trouble had started with young boys who enjoyed fighting and boxing,92 but did not clarify how this was directly related to the location fights. Isaac Chikawa explained more clearly:

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At the boxing bouts in which the Fort Victoria Mashona take a great part, it is also known that if a Matabele gets a good hiding, he says, “That’s alright, I will meet you at Christmas.” The Fort Victoria Mashonas and other Manyicas are very powerful at “Boxing” and generally give the Matebele a good hiding when all present made fun of the loser by laughing at him. This boxing has been going on for about three years or so and very large crowds gather together at the bouts. It is always seen that the Mashona are one side and the Matebele the other.93

Chikawa’s evidence yields two major points about boxing. First, boxing provided losers with a moral justification for retribution at some later time outside the ring. Second, it was demeaning for the Ndebele (or anyone for that matter) to be beaten in his own town, and worse still by one of the Shona, who were vulgarly labeled the amahole—a name for those who, in the nineteenth century, were regarded by the Ndebele upper class as inferior. Because not all Shona were amahole in the precolonial era, this new usage of the term as an ethnic label to describe all Shona was a recent creation by Ndebele town dwellers. Losers of boxing matches joined with their friends and mobilized even acquaintances to fight the Shona, who always boasted of winning against other groups. That is perhaps the reason why, in late December 1929, the most offended Ndebele enlisted the services of other gangs that were already annoyed by Shona behavior. As the assistant police commissioner of Bulawayo observed: A fight between natives invariably results in the losers seeking revenge by enlisting the services of others, though they are not always of the same tribe. They then attack the victors with the intention of proving to them their superiority. This appears to be what took place at Bulawayo when the Matabele, outclassed in boxing and one of their tribe being killed, decided to seek revenge and became the aggressors.94

Further, there was a sociological element to boxing whereby fans attached themselves to ethnic groups. Boxing became a means of celebrating ethnic culture in an environment where people were so culturally “mixed up” and physically intermingled that they risked losing cherished traditions and identities. Because boxing was organized along ethnic lines, boxing fanatics were usually ethnic patriots. Much evidence reported then and remembered later suggests that because the Shona had the best boxers in town, they bragged to other ethnic groups and this annoyed the losers. Notions of Ndebele superiority were often expressed by their appeal to the old and sensitive ideology of the caste system with a view to denigrating people of non-Ndebele descent as permanently inferior amahole;95 however, some Shona tried to redefine their social standing upward by parading, on top of

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their superb boxing skills, their good jobs, money, and ability to speak better English.96 Referring to the economic and social gap between Ndebele and Shona in the 1940s, Nzandolo Banda said: “The Shona had money and so they attracted more Ndebele women. They grouped and made cooperatives where they contributed money to buy houses, cars and other things. The Ndebele did not do so. We had a saying that goes as follows: ‘When the Ndebele were holding on to bicycle pumps, the Shona would be holding to their car keys.’ Very few Ndebele people owned houses in town.”97 Shona also boasted of their alleged monopoly of the mangoromera magic that was thought to make them strong and fearless fighters capable of overcoming the Ndebele.98 This claim gave them an emotional boost that helped them ward off any inferiority complex and overcome the traditionally inscribed but false imagery of Ndebele as valiant warriors that the urban Ndebele men cherished. Mangoromera made the Shona needlessly provocative and insolent, especially toward Ndebele.99 The importance of boxing did not lie in the sport itself, but in what motivated it and in its after-effects. Native authorities did not realize this in the late 1920s, but came to appreciate it a decade later when the government began paying more attention to sport and recreation mainly because of their increasing popularity and out of a fear that boxing was a potential danger to urban peace.100 Boxing was by then organized along ethnic lines, and each group had its own distinct uniform.101 Notwithstanding the increased level of organization, most fans still came armed with knives and sticks, potentially to attack other ethnic groups after the matches. For this reason Benzies, the new superintendent of natives, thought that boxing would lead to “rekindling of the old feelings of animosity between the tribes.”102 Boxing offered to its varied fans a sense of collective ethnic solidarity, each community competing to display its prowess against the other.103 A victory would be a victory for an ethnic group, not just the individual fighter. Above all, boxing offered an opportunity for demonstrations of ethnic patriotism in an urban arena where identities were complicated by other interactions. Apart from considering boxing as a social practice, we need to examine another social arena, the beer drinking venues. There were parts of Bulawayo that colonial officials deemed to be ungovernable because of their established beer-drinking culture. Hyde Park was one. It posed problems of classification—whether it was a rural area/communal land reserved for chiefs and native commissioners or an urban neighborhood. Attempts to put a chief over Hyde Park did not work.104 Hyde Park used to be a private farm occupied under the “Private Locations Agreement,” but today it comprises the high-density residential areas of Magwegwe, Pumula, parts of Nkulumane, Lobengula, Pelandaba, among others.105 Between the wars, it had a strong Ndebele presence, but it also had pockets of non-Ndebele people who settled there but mainly worked in Bulawayo town. Hyde Park was ideal

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for those Ndebele who preferred a dual life as both communal farmers and urban workers.106 Here they also brewed the highly alcoholic illegal “kaffir beer” that led Fynn, the assistant magistrate, to describe Hyde Park as “a notorious kaffir beer resort.”107 Bulawayo location residents usually spent their weekends there, drinking heavily. Hyde Park also became a haven for tax evaders.108 There was a closer connection between Hyde Park and the 1929 ethnic violence than scholars have appreciated. Scholars have generally restricted their analysis of the faction fights to two main areas, Raylton and Makokoba. In Hyde Park, there was a thorough search for “Mashona” by Ndebele shouting, “We want to hit them.”109 Elijah, a defense witness at the trial of James Banya Dakamela, denied all knowledge of how the violence started, but stated that before it broke out, he found Banya Dakamela, a member of the MHS, and others “sitting down drinking beer. They were quite peaceful and were unarmed.” He testified, however, that they had walking sticks, not knobkerries, and that they had later left toward sunset and went somewhere he did not know.110 This was the very night that some Shona houses were destroyed in Hyde Park. On December 26, in the location, Mdutshwa (aka Sixpence), himself a Nyai (Rozvi) from Bubi who spoke isiNdebele, overheard a number of Ndebele people assembled near the location beer hall planning to chase away all Manyika (Shona) who wanted to enter the location that day.111 There is no mention in the testimony of what class, generation, or gender those Ndebele people belonged to, but they were identified solely by ethnicity. Beer drinking venues gave Africans an informal arena to debate common urban problems. As observed by Paul la Hausse in his study of Durban, alcohol in the form of utshwala (African beer) symbolized “the continuity between town and countryside.”112 In Bulawayo, similarly, beer made possible the development of relaxed discussion forums characteristic of rural life, where men informally sat down over gourds or tins of beer to explore issues with a view to finding solutions. It is possible to connect this popular beer drinking culture with the 1929 fights. George, for instance, without elaborating, said, “The present troubles seem to have been caused by young men of both tribes, who attend dances, the football grounds and beer drinks.”113 George’s evidence gives the impression that the violence was of a generational nature in which young people, both Ndebele and Shona, got caught up.114 However, this line of argument, notwithstanding an additional slight reference to it in Babanyana’s account, is too slender and difficult to substantiate.115 Moreover, the generational interpretation offered by Ranger does not explain the role of elders or old inhabitants of modern Bulawayo in this violence, either as direct participants or as accomplices, or even as targeted victims of this violence. The MHS and the Kalanga cases below make the issue clearer. The Kalanga case will show how the elderly, with more urban

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experience, recruited and trained recent migrants (who were members of their ethnic group) and, through organized drills, cultivated a culture of gang violence, in which both old and young men joined forces. The same applied to the MHS, which, by imagining Ndebele military traditions, carried out organized military drills in the Inketa Hills. Before considering this further, we must return briefly to the discussion on beer and violence. Beer-drinking places provided a relaxed social venue, where it was convenient to spread rumors, purvey falsehoods, and mobilize anger outside the knowledge of colonial authorities and at times beyond the knowledge of a particular other ethnic group. Public and private discussions at beer drinking venues inevitably invited a broader engagement of people into finding common solutions to their problems, irrespective of generation and class. Rumors that Shona were planning to attack Ndebele as retribution for the sins of their forefathers (the alleged cattle raids, human killings, and trafficking of Shona women and children) spread quickly at beer drinking places, making people restless and fearful and leaving them spoiling for a fight.116 Such pervasive rumors of Shona retribution were allegedly made by MHS activists like James Dakamela three years before 1929;117 and rumors of imminent Shona attacks “at Xmas,” where it was commonly believed “there will be no trouble and they will not be arrested if they should kill anyone,” were circulated among beer drinkers.118 Rumors of an ethnic fight and the imagination of historical tensions between Shona and Ndebele explain the popular interest in weapons caching and provide a clue as to the connection between Christmas and the fights. Africans knew that colonial administrative offices normally closed for Christmas, hence there would be little police presence should there be violence; after all, the colonial police force was inadequate to quell possible violence in any case. Moreover, since companies also normally closed for Christmas, mobilizing friends for the violence was somewhat easier. Once the fights began, one’s length of stay in town or the nature of one’s employment ceased to matter. What mattered was one’s ethnic identity. Isaac Chikawa, a Shona and an employee who had lived in Bulawayo for fifteen years, was struck on the head and back with a knobkerrie by one Ngoni “alien” just after his public speech before the NC Bulawayo, who was inquiring about the rumors of impending violence. Chikawa was bruised despite being a part of “the old generation” in town and despite his very balanced debate at the said meeting where he openly challenged the NC to answer for the widespread rumor that he (the NC) had accepted money from some Shona to allow them to commit violence with impunity.119 Tandazo, a Rhodesian Railways motor driver, himself a Sotho man (whose mother was Ndebele), escaped Ndebele violence because of his ethnicity, being non-Manyika. However, days later, the Manyika attacked him, his wife, and mother-in-law (an elderly Ndebele woman). Consequently, he hastily

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left town and went into hiding about fourteen miles from the location. He gave this fascinating account of his earlier visitors: I heard a crowd of Matabele natives passing through my house in the Location on Thursday night last, 26th December, saying they were looking for the Manyika natives. I had not then seen any of the Manyika natives looking [for] or fighting with the Matabeles. About 11pm on Friday night last, the 27th December, a crowd of Matabele, Blantyre and Mlozi natives came to my hut, asked my name and tribe, and then asked me if I had any Manyika natives in my hut, because they wanted to kill them. Some of them searched the dining room and then went away, telling me to lock the door.120

We also need to examine the role of upcoming societies such as the MHS in the 1929 fights and their aftermath—likewise the position of the Kalanga in this violence—to see whether it gives us a clue to Ndebele-Kalanga relations in town and whether it also dispels a possible generational, class-based interpretation of the violence. The activities of the MHS, a society formed to cater for the needs of the Ndebele people, are little known before 1929, perhaps because it was not yet well organized. Government officials only began to suspect its influence around 1929 when they began to investigate its alleged role in the faction fights. Nonetheless, the people who later organized it and publicized it had already begun secret Ndebele meetings in the Bulawayo location as early as 1924, two years after its formation.121 The MHS was formed to unite Ndebele people; to guide them in the way of “purity, peaceful advancement, good, and right living in their homes”; and to represent the people of Matabeleland before the government.122 The fact that the MHS was formed to “unite” Ndebele shows that Ndebele were not all that united beforehand. Earlier associations like Ilihlo Lomuzi and the Loyal Mandebele Patriotic Society were not strong enough to represent Ndebele culture, although they tried in their own way. The MHS began with a strong royalist outlook, being closely associated from its inception with the educated members of the royal family, Rhodes and Albert Lobengula. Their return from South Africa in 1926, three years before the faction fights, had aroused excitement among some Ndebele people.123 They became quite involved in the MHS, a civic organization, leading the NC Gwanda to strongly suspect that it disguised their political ambition.124 As educated young royals, the two princes became popular in a town where the search for Ndebele tradition and ethnic revival were of growing importance. With their invaluable experience of urban South Africa, they were well placed to make an impact in urban Bulawayo. In the rural areas, however, where the debates were different, their role in the MHS and as private individuals led to further divisions among the Ndebele rather than to their unification (as I demonstrate in a previous

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chapter). Their looting of people’s cattle in the name of reclaiming “king’s cattle” and their alleged immorality aroused questions about their integrity. Apart from Rhodes and Albert’s influence, the MHS also benefited from other people whose experiences in Johannesburg gave them the ability to mobilize and train secret militia. “Amalaita” gangs (vigilante groups) were formed with the help of some returned Ndebele migrants from South Africa.125 With the growth of such gangs, organized drills, parades, and other activities became common in the Inketa Hills (now part of Nkulumane Township) and elsewhere, especially at night.126 The Inketa area had a precolonial history as a former Ndebele army parade ground on which a number of Ndebele soldiers were executed by Lobengula for alleged disobedience.127 The training of these amalaita gangs on that site suggests this was a selfconscious attempt to imagine nineteenth-century ideas of Ndebele as a martial state. It was a process of re-creating Ndebele imagery and history. This tactic reaped some success as it generated a strong fighting enthusiasm in some members of the MHS and among Ndebele in general, which perhaps helped them overcome the cowardice that had developed with time through their interactions with aggressive and insolent Shona, whose boxers boasted of mangoromera. James Dakamela, an MHS activist who teamed up with others including angry “aliens,” zealously destroyed houses of Shona people, assaulting some and committing other riotous acts in Hyde Park on December 29, 1929.128 These might have been part of well-trained amalaita gangs. But Ndebele patriots had further plans for beyond 1929. They wanted to mobilize support from even their rural counterparts to join the larger project of flushing out all African foreigners from Bulawayo—a goal that was not successfully accomplished. One active member of the MHS, Mantshontsho from Plumtree, told Chief Mafindo of how he was going to take part in the fight against all the nonindigenous elements in Bulawayo and threatened the chief with unspecified action if he did not organize his men for this end.129 With this warrior tradition becoming popularized, at times by violent means, a public Ndebele image was in formation. The attempt to flush out Shona in 1929 and the abortive one later illustrate something about the moral economy of the Ndebele in Bulawayo. They felt it was their moral right to get back their historical town from insolent Shona “aliens” who had beaten them in the boxing ring; who were competing with them in the job market; and as if that was not enough, who had insulted Ndebele masculinity by winning the favor of Ndebele urban women. Most of the stated Ndebele grievances centered on these three key points. The Kalanga also played a part in this 1929 violence. Although there is little direct evidence, it seems they had their own vigilante group that targeted Shona and spared Ndebele, perhaps because they treated Ndebele as regional partners. Although the Kalanga had an independent movement with its own leadership, this does not exclude the possibility that some Kalanga may have identified with the Ndebele for their own benefit.

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The Kalanga vigilante group was very active between July and September 1930, some months after the 1929 fights. Evidence for Kalanga ethnic activism came to light when police arrested and charged one of their leaders, Mketani, for public violence. The state argued that he did “wrongfully and maliciously incite, instigate or procure divers persons to assemble . . . and by violent and forcible means disturb and endanger public peace and security,” and it also accused him of “organising meetings of Kalanga natives and commanding them to arm themselves with spiked armbands, sticks and other weapons.”130 The armed Kalanga gang usually marched through the Bulawayo location at night, seeking to attack Shona and Portuguese East African people (Mozambicans).131 Evidence collected by the state from members of this gang suggests that they were well organized and led by veteran Kalanga town dwellers who thought they had a duty to foster a sense of Kalanga ethnic community. The community was well organized and ready to absorb new Kalanga immigrants to Bulawayo who no doubt found it a helpful association in a town where they were strangers, isolated from their normal rural communal life, relatives, support structures and traditional authority. A strong urban orientation was provided to the newcomers at Kalanga-only gatherings on the verandas of popular eateries.132 At those restaurant meetings, new recruits were given such weapons as bicycle chains and were advised to buy sharp-edged wristlets for use in interethnic fights.133 These cost about one British shilling at Indian shops in town.134 Kalanga meetings were fairly frequent and were often followed by martial drills and marches in the location. A Kalanga activist gave the following important evidence in court: I have previously attended gatherings of Kalanga natives five times in all. We always met at this eating house not any particular days. I attended the first of such meetings about two months ago. A native named Joseph and accused were the leaders at these meetings. We marched about to the playing of a mouth organ, both in the Location and in daytime. In the Location at night, we marched on one side of the road. It was a game. One man played a mouth organ; the remainder clapped their hands and marched in steps . . . we have wristlets, some of us . . . I wore the wristlet (Exhibit A) whilst marching. The wristlets were worn for use in fighting.135

The night marches, themselves a mixture of modern urban aspirations (as evidenced in the bandlike formations or dances and imitation of organ music) and tradition (being Kalanga, and defending Kalanganess) sometimes attracted large groups of about twenty Kalanga. Marchers divided themselves into small bands or groups—one on each side of the road. This approach allowed them to surround their enemies for a good beating. Precisely how they identified a Shona or a Portuguese African is not clear, but

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it would appear that identity cards, the creations of the colonial administration, were important ethnic identity markers.136 Language would also have been another important identifier. A common method of identifying the enemy was to ask directly for his ethnic identity. They asked, “What tribe are you? If he replied, “a Matabele,” we would let him go. If a Mashona, we were to strike him. That was the arrangement explained to me by the accused [Mketani] and by Joseph.”137 The hitting of all non-Kalanga save the Ndebele might suggest that Bulawayo was being viewed as a joint KalangaNdebele town, or Matabeleland town in general, that was to be cleansed of foreigners. It was a case of convenient Ndebele-Kalanga goodwill. What is striking about this Kalanga case is the clear evidence that the 1929 violence was not strictly about class, with the new lumpen youths disturbing the peace of the old prosperous urbanites as Phimister and van Onselen assumed. It was also not about style, in which the older Kalanga felt annoyed with the behavior of the younger generation. Instead, it was about both the old town dwellers and the newcomers participating as members of certain ethnic groups, in much the same way old Ndebele town dwellers like James Dakamela and new, young Ndebele townsmen participated in the violence on one side against Shona elders and their youths. What lessons can we draw from the Bulawayo faction fights? First, it has been demonstrated that the fights were not about the relationship between old and new Bulawayo inhabitants or the failures of colonial control, or even about generational conceptions of modernity, development, and style. To the contrary, the grievances had a longer history that lay at the heart of the founding and development of the town itself, an important part of which was the struggle to dominate the city by emerging, bigger ethnic groups. In this light, I have exposed one complication about urban ethnicity, an identity that I believe goes beyond the stretch of urban cosmopolitanism. It was possible to be cosmopolitan yet at the same time an ethnic patriot. We have proved a case for the increasing significance of ethnic attachments in a town in which Southern Rhodesians were becoming divided into Shona, Ndebele, Kalanga, and perhaps other smaller groups, even though those groupings were not necessarily rigid. Second, we have tried to contextualize the violence in terms of its sociological basis. By assessing social platforms that gave legitimacy to violence, we have gone beyond the search for causation and analyzed elements of society that help us better understand the perpetrators’ view of the reasonableness of violence. From such an analysis, one discovers how well organized the fights were—too organized to be simply condemned as the work of “lumpen” elements, bent on disturbing the peace. The existence of weapons caches, the organized drills, plus the increasing significance of planning at beer drinks and the development of societies to cater to Shona, Ndebele, and Kalanga point to a high level of planning that culminated in this fight.

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Third, the fact that some “aliens” fought on the side of the Ndebele in 1929 seems to have confused earlier scholarship, which had also not discovered the role of the Kalanga, a people often mistaken as Ndebele, in the violence. Aliens were instruments of convenience who, together with Shona, became victims of better-organized Ndebele aggression in the city after 1930. Originating from different countries, with different languages and cultures, they were not primarily an organized ethnic group. For that reason, they could have temporarily supported any group of people with whom they shared at least similar discontents. For instance, aliens were annoyed by Shona arrogance at boxing matches and their beating of people at bioscopes (cinemas), just as Ndebele people were. However, the Ndebele obviously had more and other grievances, over and above those of their “alien” companions. In this light, we are right to see aliens as loosely organized aggrieved partners in the violence, who, in a fight for their own cause, found companionship and associates, at least temporarily, among the Ndebele, who had a more persuasive ethnic agenda. Fourth, we discovered some indirect and perhaps circumstantial evidence that helps us understand Kalanga and Ndebele relations in Bulawayo. Snippets of evidence that we have suggest that while Kalanga saw Ndebele as reasonable regional partners in town and therefore avoided being hostile to them, they still thought of organizing themselves separately.

Redefining Bulawayo: Ndebele Influence, 1930s to Late 1940s The nasty experiences of 1929 were a wakeup call for the government of Southern Rhodesia, especially in terms of having to organize and monitor urban entertainment. The Native Affairs Department (NAD) formed and sponsored Native Welfare Societies, and soon set aside a piece of ground for sports on the Bulawayo Commonage. The aim was to promote free mixing of members of different ethnic groups through sports with the belief that “tribal differences” would be “swept away” and the town and country would be “saved from unnecessary trouble and expense due to tribal trouble as in the past year.”138 The NAD also created a newspaper, the Native Mirror to give Africans a voice. Notwithstanding these efforts from above to stabilize the urban scene, suspicion and tensions between ethnic groups in Bulawayo did not cease. The renamed Bantu Mirror, created supposedly to “detribalize” Africans, was hijacked by Bulawayo Africans to showcase ethnic pride by the competing ethnic groups. Boxing, which remained popular in Bulawayo up to the mid-1950s, continued to be organized on the basis of ethnicity.139 The Superintendent of Natives, Mr. Robert Benzies, and other colonial officials continued to fear that boxing would rekindle “old feelings of animosity between tribes.”140

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The number of women from Matabeleland, mostly Ndebele, also continued to increase in Bulawayo. Many of them married foreigners rather than Ndebele men. This was not just because women feared domestic violence at the hands of their original husbands, but also because they disliked the polygamous system that was prevalent in the countryside, but not so much in towns.141 Some of the females, however, came to town to work as nurses and domestic servants, for whom there was an increasing demand in the early 1940s. Of these some, because of the lack of accommodations and a need for security, tended to live with temporary (mapoto) husbands before they finally married them.142 Most of the women I interviewed about their experiences in Bulawayo told me they married foreigners because foreigners treated them well. They would elope from their husbands in rural areas or from those who had long gone to Johannesburg, come to town with their children, and marry a Nyasalander who, once he had found a wife, would do whatever was possible to treat her well for fear she would desert him. Because of competition for the initially very few women, foreign men did not mind accepting the wife on her own terms at times and often allowed her to take her children back to their rural homes for annual rituals and other family functions, so long as they came back to town afterward.143 This influx of women into towns created more social tensions and turned some of the foreigners who had helped the Ndebele in 1929 into Ndebele enemies. On October 29, 1936, a frustrated foreigner, Sitima Mankoya Nanama, who had married an Ndebele woman, Nyaka, murdered her and their three children by burning them in a locked room. He argued that he was so distressed by her unfaithfulness that he wanted to commit suicide after burning up his family. Two of his suicide notes, later found at the door of the burned house, reflect the growing atmosphere of tension between “aliens” and Ndebele. In one, Sitima Nanama claimed the Ndebele were troubling him and planning to kill him: Nyaka, you fool! Your mother is a fool, Men are always troubling. I am in plenty of trouble. I have spent a lot of money. I have no mother here, and my father is not here. This is the reason I am killing her. Because all the men at the railways are going out with her. Everyone is her husband. I am not going to lose for nothing. She is arranging for people to kill me. Even now they have killed me. I am not going by myself alone. We shall all go. There is only one road for us. I will not lose for nothing. I have no mother here and I have no father here. I am losing to the Matebeles all the time. I have got nothing for it. This is why. If she is a Queen, I am an American. Mankoya. Goodbye you people in this world. Sitima Mankoya Nanama.144

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Even in rural areas, some aliens were unwanted around local villages as they were suspected of coming to take Ndebele women to town. A xenophobic Ndebele “native” constable attacked one Bandawe with a knobkerrie in Filabusi when he discovered from his registration certificate that Bandawe was an alien. Asked by the court why he had beaten Bandawe, the constable replied, “I admit I assaulted him. I told him to leave my kraal but he did not go quickly. I do not want alien natives in my kraal.”145 Because colonial Bulawayo started with a foreign outlook, with few locals before the mid-1920s, the people who shaped its urban culture early on were not Ndebele. In the absence of a dominant language, Lapalapa (or Silolo) was becoming the lingua franca of the different townspeople. Itself a language of convenience, Lapalapa was an unwritten, unofficial, and easily understood language put together from the different Bulawayo languages (local and immigrants’ languages) that smoothed relations between different people at work and elsewhere.146 Its use, however, endangered isiNdebele and Ndebele culture. It is no wonder that apart from other efforts to reclaim “their” town in the form of attempts to commemorate past Ndebele heroes through street naming, proposals to set aside a separate burial ground for members of the royal Ndebele clan and prominent Ndebele leaders, and attempts to monopolize the African press and muzzle other non-Ndebele societies, the fight for the recognition of isiNdebele as the official language was key to Ndebele people’s struggle for Bulawayo. The main group behind the project of Ndebelecizing the town was the Matabele Home Society. The MHS nursed a mishmash of ideologies that initially enabled it to represent both commoners and Ndebele royals. Its leadership usually consisted of both those of zansi Ndebele origins (such as Cephas Hlabangana and Siphambaniso Manyoba) and those who would once have been considered as hole (such as Amos Mazibisa from Tsholotsho, Brown T. Luza Ndlovu, and later, Stephen Nkomo). Although the society’s constitution claimed that it existed to work for the betterment of Africans, the MHS was not by any stretch of the imagination a “national” movement. Rather, it was a movement for Ndebele ethnic patriotism. Non-Ndebele people, even in rural areas such as Fort Rixon (Filabusi), found the MHS too narrow and exclusive, especially when compared to the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, which represented all African workers regardless of ethnicity. They judged it to be too sectional and also suspected that it would help revive the old caste system.147 According to its constitution, which makes clear that the MHS was a sectarian, ethnic organization, the core aims of the MHS were to: “a” secure “mutual understanding and unity of action among the Matabele people”; “b” foster Ndebele comradeship;

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“c” “exhort, guide and lead the Matabele people in the ways of purity, peaceful advancement, good and right living in their homes, in urban and rural areas . . .”; and “d” “assist the Matabele people in representing them to the Government in all matters concerning them and their welfare in urban and rural areas.”148

In the mid-1940s the leadership changed the organization’s name to Matabeleland Home Society, a cosmetic change aimed at increasing its regional, as distinct from ethnic (Matabele/Ndebele), membership without changing MHS’s core business.149 Before the 1930s, the society had a limited impact and tended to concentrate on debating the status and role of women in town, urban wages and general welfare, and the need to purify isiNdebele. When they appeared before the Native Affairs Commission of 1930, MHS officials appeared to have additional grievances as they complained of the unfair demolition of their huts by the municipality, which wanted to improve the layout of the location and of the lack of a government school in the Location, and lack of privacy in their houses.150 Ndebele activists of the MHS perceived life in the Makokoba Location as indecent as it seemed to militate against established Ndebele traditional family values. For this reason, some MHS members claimed that it was better that they be isolated from the Location’s evils and be “given a place other than the Location in which to live with our families . . . a village settlement apart from the Location; a distance from the town [of] up to six or seven miles would not affect our wishes.” The government, they said, had ignored their previous request on this issue, even though the superintendent knew that Location life was unsuitable for children and a decent marriage.151 They were clearly pessimistic about the possibility of reimagining Bulawayo’s character or of ever subduing the town to their tastes, which is why they felt they could retain cultural and institutional purity only by withdrawing from the town and especially the “Native” Location to live in seclusion. However, the society tried other means to influence developments in the town and complained a lot, especially on issues affecting women. This is not to say they wanted women to enjoy complete freedom, but that they felt they needed more authority to control Ndebele urban women, whom they accused of despising their Ndebele identity by doing “despicable” things such as marrying ethnic others and engaging in prostitution. The increased influx of women into Bulawayo in the late 1920s and 1930s and their preference to marry foreigners rather than Ndebele or Kalanga men sparked moral debates about whether women should be allowed in town in the first place. Women were blamed for moral decay and for the decline of Ndebele ethnic integrity in town. In 1931, with the help of individual Africans and societies (including the MHS), the government took steps to discourage African women and girls from frequenting towns

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allegedly for immoral purposes.152 This effort failed for two reasons. First, some women already owned houses in town;153 and second, colonialism and missionary education had also reduced family control over consenting girls (twenty-one years of age and older), hence the uncontrolled flow from the countryside.154 Attempts to control the migration of women into towns were ultimately unsuccessful. Having failed to stop the movement of women to town and their marriage to non-Ndebele men, the MHS sought another platform to voice still other concerns about women. With the increase in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the 1930s, especially syphilis and gonorrhea, the government took extraordinary measures to get men and women medically examined and treated. The process of examination became the focus of attention for the MHS men who still advocated for decency. Some members of the MHS, who included Mudutshwa and James Banya Dakamela (one of the men tried in 1929 for the “knobkerrie warfare”), complained in isiNdebele of the indecent exposure required during the examination. They protested: “Even our women have to undress before a man. The thing of undressing a woman she does not know is ridiculous. It surprised me a great deal to find all these people should be undressed. It is the man who discovers the disease. I would ask if it is infectious.”155 Interestingly, the MHS activists tended to absolve the Ndebele of any responsibility for these diseases and instead blamed foreigners for bringing STDs to Bulawayo. “The Municipality has not carefully studied this thing,” said Dakamela. “The thing that injures your servants are [sic] the people from outside.”156 MHS members would not give up on their desire to control women and determine family values in Bulawayo. A decade later (around 1945), the MHS was still insisting that the Ndebele alone must be empowered by the government to cultivate family values in Bulawayo and to deal with the prostitution problem. They did not want the Shona to have any say in such matters in Bulawayo because they believed that the Shona should put forward their complaints only in Mashonaland.157 This radical new approach illustrates that the MHS were on course in their efforts to reclaim Bulawayo—but this activism further antagonized those of other ethnic groups. Since women’s issues among others affected both Kalanga and Ndebele people, men from both groups found in the MHS a convenient society through which to air their grievances. However, the MHS seems to have been viewed differently by its members. Although some Kalanga joined with it in the belief that it was a wider upcoming Matabeleland regional movement, some Ndebele understood it to be an exclusively Matabele (Ndebele) ethnic revival movement that extended its membership to “ethnic Others” just to swell the rolls. The society benefited from this two-facedness in that it managed to recruit a few Kalanga members from Tsholotsho and Plum-

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tree who worked in Bulawayo.158 Nonetheless, the bulk of the MHS agenda had nothing to do with the Kalanga, as we will see later. The MHS also faced “competition” from broader associations such as the Federation of Trade Unions, Benjamin Burombo’s African Voice in the 1940s, and Masotsha Ndlovu’s Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union in the 1930s.159 The MHS also had to exist side by side with other emerging but exclusive “national” associations, such as the Bulawayo chapter of the Nyasaland African Labor Council, whose objective was to bring all Nyasaland laborers into one body regardless of tribal origin.160 By 1941, Nyasalanders had become competitors in the job market in Bulawayo, and they tended to get more top posts than the originals of Matabeleland.161 For this reason, the MHS’s antialien agenda was initially appealing in the eyes of its members. This was not enough, however, to sustain an ethnic-based society, and the MHS had to be more imaginative and engage other issues. By the 1940s, African challenges were increasing as colonial policies were constantly reworked and implemented. In the towns, there were growing pressures on accommodations and jobs. In the rural areas, people were in trouble because of the evictions resulting from the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, with more uncertainty following the enactment of the Land Husbandry Act in 1951. In the face of the complexity of issues affecting Africans, the MHS had to do something to justify its existence, lest it grew irrelevant. To win support, the MHS worked to cement Matabeleland Africans’ rural-urban linkage by addressing the concerns of town and country. In the late 1940s the society helped ordinary Ndebele fight evictions in the Matopos and even tried its hand in the Shangani Reserve, where people were ethnically heterogeneous and initially reluctant to support the MHS.162 Capitalizing on the declining powers of chiefs, the society emerged as the chiefs’ voice, bemoaning the government’s negative attitude toward chiefs and also recommending that reception facilities be built for chiefs on official visits to town. At its 1945 conference, the MHS resolved to spend large sums of money from its “Kings of Matabeleland Memorial Fund” to construct a model reception facility for the chiefs of Matabeleland. This was to be built at Mhlahlandhlela, nearer Bulawayo, in memory of King Mzilikazi’s former capital.163 In response, the government later recommended that a chiefs’ hall be built at Ntabazinduna, about 20 kilometers from Bulawayo.164 Apart from speaking for the chiefs and the commoners, as in the case of the Matopos, the MHS also took up the cause of the Ndebele royalty. It vigorously pursued the issue of the Matabeleland paramount chief that had preoccupied the royals for several decades.165 This initiative opened up debates about whether the choice of induna enkulu (paramount chief) necessarily needed to be from the royal family and how far the Ndebele commoners should be consulted. The debate itself potentially represented the

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different ways in which being Ndebele and notions of traditional leadership were being reconstituted in town. MHS members led by Brown Luza and others wanted the paramount chief to come from the original royal Ndebele family. Others such as Ngazimbi, an intellectual of Rozvi descent, were openly antiroyalist. He thought such a top “traditional” leader should be a modernized man. Not only did he think there were very few capable Nguni (zansi) leaders in his day; he also argued impudently, “By the way nowadays, the country is controlled by education, not by spear as yesterday; so we want a chief who is well educated and versed in law, not in tribalism and segregation.”166 Several critics of the induna enkulu idea came from the Shona and Kalanga inhabitants of Bulawayo, joined by those Ndebele who feared the restoration of the old Ndebele monarchy. The leaders of the MHS, some of whom were non-Nguni, had no option but to defend the legitimacy of their induna enkulu project by reconstructing history and redefining the concept “Ndebele” because they wanted to be seen as advocates of authentic, official Ndebele identity. Brown Luza, who later became a prominent leader of the MHS in the 1950s, usually defined the Ndebele as a unitary nation. He argued that since the Ndebele found the Rozvi Mambo dead, the Ndebele were legitimate successors in the area and had neither segregated nor oppressed anyone. He further asserted (wrongly, as we have seen), that the name Ndebele referred indiscriminately to Ngunis, Kalanga, Lilima, Rozvi, Nyai, and others in Matabeleland.167 This politically loaded definition is, interestingly, still used today by some Matabeleland parties, such as ZAPU 2000, and Ndebele cultural activist organizations, such as Imbovane Ya Mahlabezulu, Mthwakazi; Ibetshu Lika Zulu, and the founder of Amakhosi Theatre, artist Cont Mhlanga, to justify the need for a federated Zimbabwe. For the MHS, however, this broadening of Ndebele identity was about enlarging its membership to include willing regional non-Ndebele peoples such as Kalanga, Sotho, and Venda. In reality, this was about widening the sphere of Ndebele cultural domination in the region; the society itself never represented the aspirations of other minority groups whose members joined it. In this context, we can see why the question of who was a proper Ndebele occupied so much space in the Bantu Mirror in the 1950s. Being Ndebele meant different things in Bulawayo, and precisely who qualified to be a “pure” Ndebele was deeply contested as people defined Ndebeleness in a way that made them fit into the group. One man, writing under the nom de plume Mandebele Sibindi, argued that since men of Khumalo origin left Zululand as Khumalos, not as Ndebele, they were historically not in fact Ndebele. It was therefore unnecessary to restrict the choice of induna enkulu to those of the Khumalo clan. He suggested that pure Ndebele were abenhla, and not abezansi, contrary to what the royals had always maintained since the days of Mzilikazi.168 Likewise, a man called Mtombeni also argued that the Nguni (mostly Khumalos) were not

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by definition Ndebele, but that the Ndebele consisted of the abenhla and the people whom they incorporated from amongst the Shona and Kalanga (the hole). Accordingly, he cautioned against the danger of searching for a paramount chief from among people that were not by definition Ndebele—that is, the Khumalos/zansi.169 To revive Ndebele ethnicity in town, the MHS also attempted to erect memorials and undertake functions to commemorate fallen Ndebele heroes such as the kings, members of the royal family, and other prominent figures. The project, which demonstrated the innovativeness of these urban intellectuals, involved a plan to construct a distinct burial acre for heroes and to popularize the Ndebele precolonial past. In 1941, the MHS constructed a memorial plaque to Mzilikazi in the Matopos Hills where he was buried seventy-three years earlier, in 1868. On it was written: “in memory of mzilikazi king of the mandebele nation who settled in this country in 1838.” They requested the governor, Sir Herbert Stanley, to unveil it before members of the Ndebele royalty, colonial administrators, chiefs, and many Ndebele people. At the unveiling, the history of the Ndebele kingdom was retold, with emphasis only on the positives.170 Once unveiled, the burial place, popularly known as Entumbane, became a famous center for Ndebele pilgrimage, where Ndebele cultural activists drew inspiration and hope for the restoration of Ndebele culture. Entumbane was, in the words of the MHS president (Cephas Hlabangana), “a fountain of inspiration.” He asserted, “On this hill, we must stand to re-capture the vision of Mzilikazi, and as he attained his end, we too shall reach our goal.”171 In 1945, the MHS organized a pilgrimage to Entumbane. The deputation, composed of young and old, was led by Prince Nyanda, Mzilikazi’s only surviving son. Leading the way, he sang war songs and his father’s praises. Upon arriving at Entumbane, Nyanda and Mhlatuzana, whose father buried Mzilikazi, entered the stone enclosure and sat side by side near the grave; meanwhile, people sat silently in awe paying their respect to the late king.172 Breaking the silence, Siphambaniso Manyoba, the organizing secretary of the MHS, himself a Khumalo, said, “This place is a sacred place where our great King Mzilikazi lies. According to custom we should not be here, but we are here to do work which is very important.”173 He spoke for a length of time and in the end told the people that the agenda of the pilgrimage was to witness the return of Mzilikazi’s sword to its place. They put it in the grave of his grandson Nguboyenja, which was nearby. The sword had been taken by an “irresponsible person” who had entered the grave, but it was later recovered by the Native Department. Thereafter, the official Ndebele historian and poet Ginyilitshe Hlabangana repeated the praises of Mzilikazi as the listeners sat respectfully silent.174 At Entumbane, Manyoba suggested that the government set apart a burial place at the foot of the Matopo Hills for the descendants and remaining

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members of the royal house and chiefs that had ruled their country well.175 In a letter to the government earlier that year, he had asked that ground be set aside for “the descendants of King Lobengula and the other Africans who by their services to the country and their fellowmen had earned the respect of their people.”176 Perhaps this emphasis on other distinguished Africans was a self-serving attempt by prominent MHS leaders to hijack popular Ndebele memory before their death. If this had worked to their favor, the Ndebele were going to remember two kinds of heroes: royals and the emergent urban elites who were behind the Ndebele cultural activism in Bulawayo. These attempts by the urban elites to associate themselves with Ndebele political pride and ethnicity reflected their view of ethnicity in a modern environment. To be Ndebele in Bulawayo meant the capacity to retain traditional values in a fast-changing urban situation. But this attempt, supposedly done in the interest of Ndebele ethnicity, was opposed by people in rural areas, chiefs and commoners alike, professedly on the same traditional grounds. The feeling of the rural folks was that the heroes’ acre project would demean Ndebele kingship. At one meeting where people’s views were solicited, Chief Mpini of Plumtree emphasized, to much applause by the people at the meeting, that “a man does not bury a dog near his father’s grave.”177 The same opposition came from Filabusi, where some suggested that only certain members of the Khumalo family could be buried in such a proposed Ndebele heroes’ acre.178 All the rural areas voiced concerns against this proposal, except the Wankie people.179 Also called the Nambya, a group historically linked to the Kalanga, the Wankie refrained from giving any opinion, expressing indifference toward the debate and claiming that they had never venerated Mzilikazi in any way because, as their two chiefs said, “the Amandebele were enemies of the people.”180 The overall response from the districts shows that it was considered un-Ndebele for ordinary men to share Mzilikazi’s burial place. Ndebele rural opinion therefore differed from that of the urban intellectuals. Whichever side was correct, it does not matter, but it demonstrates two salient issues. First, there were at least some limits as to how far educated urban elites would go in creating and imposing ideologies on common people, regardless of the importance of such ideologies to both commoners and elites in fostering debates around the making of identities. In this case, their bid failed.181 Second, there was a developing tension between rural and urban Ndebele over their interpretations of traditions and culture, which differences are important in the negotiation of identities. However, the failure of the MHS to meet their objective described above is not as important as the fact that the society managed at least to rouse debates that reached not only their Bulawayo town but also the rest of Matabeleland. Throughout the 1940s, the MHS remained committed to the cause of the royal family. It sent its representatives to all burials of prominent members

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of Ndebele royalty and ensured that such events were publicized in the newspaper. For this reason, such burials became popular Matabeleland events. For example, the burial at Entumbane of Nguboyenja, who was supposed to have become the paramount chief, attracted more than six hundred people.182 The MHS used such functions to promote Ndebele traditional practices such as the singing by the official Ndebele poet (the Imbongi YeNkosi) of popular praises of the Ndebele king, which, in the precolonial era, mediated king-commoner relations and legitimized the rulers.183 The MHS also used such functions to revive interest in Ndebele history. It solicited the input of its official Ndebele historian and poet, Ginyilitshe Hlabangana. At the burial of Nyanda Khumalo in 1946, MHS members were quick to lay a wreath on his grave. They also offered to construct a memorial at the gravesite.184 In a nutshell, most of the MHS’s efforts were not directly beneficial to non-Ndebele people such as the Kalanga, save those who had, by reason of association and the belief that MHS was a broad “regional” movement for all Matabeleland people, been absorbed into the movement. Before the 1950s, however, we have little evidence of Kalanga feelings toward the MHS because Kalanga voices were strangely silent from the press during this time. I was also unable to trace any clear Kalanga movements and societies just after 1929, although in 1946 a Kalanga Cultural Society (KCS) was formed. As expected, it received no press coverage, but oral sources provided me invaluable information.

Ndebele Influence, Kalanga Resentment, 1950 to Early 1960s By the early 1950s, the MHS was broadening its horizons by claiming to represent “all Africans of Bulawayo and of Matabeleland,” rather than just the narrow interests of the Nguni. This change was in response to a sharp drop in membership, suggesting that its earlier elitist approaches had not endeared the MHS to commoners in Bulawayo.185 Unfortunately for the MHS, this new agenda also came at a price as attempts to attract members from the ranks of other ethnic groups resulted in a loss of confidence on the part of the Ndebele royalists, who felt the society was muddling some issues affecting them. Royalists formed their own Sons of Mzilikazi Home Society, which clashed with the MHS on interpretations of Ndebele culture. Further investigation is required to discover how relevant the MHS remained in the 1950s, but first we need to understand broader social and political developments in Bulawayo during the decade. After the 1929 faction fights, the government planned to involve Africans in urban administration. Just as it established African councils in the countryside, the government also inaugurated advisory boards in towns under the Urban Areas Act, with a view to increasing governmental control of

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towns.186 Unfortunately, while urban Ndebele preoccupied themselves with matters of defining their traditions, most positions on the Bulawayo advisory boards were being filled by Shona and other non-Ndebele. This left the Ndebele and Kalanga people to the same fate. Advisory boards served as a link between ordinary Africans and the allwhite councillors. Board members usually came to the people to consult and hear their complaints and then take them to the councillors.187 Although the boards dated back to the 1930s, it was not until the early 1950s that they gained influence in Bulawayo. Although the city leaders took the boards’ recommendations seriously as an expression of Africans’ opinions, they were not legally bound to act on those recommendations. In practice, advisory boards were, in the 1950s, acting as the only official channel for the expression of Africans’ grievances.188 They also had some limited powers that they exercised—and those limited powers were prone to abuse if and when such boards became dominated by members of a particular ethnic group, as the Bulawayo case will show. The Ndebele and Kalanga discovered the pervasive influence of the advisory board members too late. It was not merely the dominance of Shona on the boards that presented a problem for the locals, but the benefit that Shona commoners accrued from such representation. Informants remember that the combined Bulawayo advisory board favored rising Shona elites with business licenses and backed their council loan applications, even those of undeserving Shona people. Makhoba Khulube, who worked in Bulawayo at that time, told me that the same ethnic nepotism affected applications for housing.189 In Old Magwegwe, for instance, most of the houses today are owned by either Shona or foreigners, possibly because of this past corruption, and partly because most Ndebele had not thought of permanently dwelling in the town, which they associated with indecency. The Ndebele complained that the town’s daily affairs were decided by “foreigners” who had the power to recommend to councillors names of streets and names of public places mostly in their own languages and in memory of their own heroes and cultures. Some streets got Shona names, especially the names of living advisory board members, much to the annoyance of Matabeleland people.190 Whenever a Shona opened a shop, he gave it a Shona name. For example, David Masunda from Manyikaland opened a “Masunda Butchery” in Mzilikazi. He was an advisory board member and an ardent Shona cultural nationalist.191 In fact, there were burgeoning Shona businesses in most African areas.192 In 1953, the Rent Payers Association (in which an Ndebele voice was beginning to be heard) tried to sabotage Masunda by calling for people to boycott his butchery.193 In places and streets that were named after Ndebele heroes such as Mzilikazi and Lobengula, some MHS leaders felt that the omission of their honorific titles in fact reflected a deliberate attempt to demean them. Mazibisa, for instance, urged

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that such names as “Lobengula Village” and “Mzilikazi School” should be changed to “King Lobengula Village” and “King Mzilikazi’s School,” respectively, to give their heroes proper honor.194 His was an attempt to reinforce Ndebele memory, which Shona board members and white councillors were trying to belittle. The control of advisory boards by the Shona suggested a deliberate attempt to continually fend off possible Ndebele influence in town. Shona supremacy became further cemented with the formation in 1952 of the Sons of Mashonaland Cultural Society, a rival movement to the MHS that, according to its chair, Joseph Msika, existed “to interpret the soul of the Mashonas,”195 suggesting a revival of Shona culture. Perhaps in reaction, some Ndebele formed their own Matabele Zisizeni Society in Salisbury in 1957.196 The Shona leaders included men who became African “nationalists” like Simon Mzenda; Joseph Msika; Clement Muchachi, vice secretary; other advisory board members such as Patrick Rubatika, J. Vera, T. Z. Chigumira, James Chimsoro, and D. A. Masunda; and other Shona dignitaries.197 The one hundred leaders who gathered at the 1954 conference stressed the need to “appreciate all that is noble in all that is Shona” and spoke of the “necessity of developing latent powers amongst the Mashona and the African people generally.”198 Their dominance of city politics must have been seen as one manifestation of their “latent powers.” Of the advisory board members whose two-year terms expired in December 1953, more than half were Shona (D. K. Mzenda, J. B. Patsika, S. V. Mzenda, D. A. Masunda, and W. Ngwenya) and just fewer than half were Kalanga (Amos Mazibisa, an imagined Ndebele and leader of the MHS; Juba; Ndhlovu; and Bango) and one was Fingo (Charleton Ngcebetsha).199 In response, Ngcebetsha’s proNdebele newspaper, the African Home News, engaged in voter education with the result that in the 1953–54 advisory board elections, three new Matabeleland members joined the board. These were J. Z. Moyo (Kalanga) and Lazarus Nkala (also a member of the Kalanga Society), who both became nationalist leaders under ZAPU, and T. K. Mtiba.200 By 1957, the number of leaders from Matabeleland had increased, and Shona were slowly being replaced on the boards.201 Commenting on this development, Makhoba Khulube, a Kalanga patriot who later became an advisory board member in the late 1950s, said, “It had become a matter of voting for our own sons who understood our culture and traditions. There were so many capable people of Shona origin that we could not vote for because they did not represent Kalanga and Ndebele interests.”202 One had to either make his ethnic position clear or risk losing elections.203 The division between Ndebele and Kalanga meant, however, that notwithstanding the fact that there were now more people from Matabeleland on the joint advisory board, it remained Shona-dominated as the Shona usually outvoted the divided non-Shona members on crucial decisions. The board could still

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recommend the naming of streets and places against the wishes of Ndebele leaders on the board and of Ndebele townspeople. In many cases the Shona, especially those of Fort Victoria (now Masvingo), made a number of provocative recommendations such as that a certain African township be named “Rufaro”; that a street be named after their chief Chibi; that a city hostel be named after D. A. Masunda; and that a school in the Western Commonage be named Mtasa, a Manyikaland chief.204 The Ndebele saw in this naming politics an insult to their language and a calculated attempt by Shona to undermine the “real” identity of the city205 (we have already explored aspects of the politics of naming in the chapter on language and ethnicity). It is important to examine the response of the Ndebele to Shona dominance thereafter. The Ndebele began to participate actively in naming townships by often submitting names to the authorities for consideration. Beginning in the late 1950s, the MHS tried to infiltrate the Naming Committee.206 In 1963, Ndebele urban elders and the Residents Association were fully consulted before the naming of Magwegwe African Township (formerly Curti’s Farm, part of Hyde Park). Since Magwegwe was a precolonial Ndebele prime minister, both the Mzilikazi Family Society (a new Ndebele royal family pressure group) and the common people concurred.207 Increasing Ndebele activism against the “alienation” of Bulawayo had the backing of the African press, especially Ngcebetsha’s African Home News. Newspapers represented the MHS, for instance, as the only legitimate organization, and all other non-Ndebele associations were labeled as “tribal organisations” that would better operate in their heartlands, outside Bulawayo.208 The press never criticized the extremist Brown Luza, a member of the Western Commonage No. 3 Advisory Board and an MHS executive member, who suggested in 1958 that Mashona and aliens not be allowed on the advisory boards and that they be forbidden from discussing matters that affected “Matebele” people.209 An African student in Bulawayo backed Luza’s motion with the argument that the influx of numerous ethnic groups in Bulawayo endangered the Ndebele “way of life, habits, instincts and customs.”210 But some Shona intellectuals objected to this.211 The resulting struggle for control in Bulawayo remained a hot issue, and it is essential for this comparative study of ethnicities to examine how the Kalanga positioned themselves in the context of this Ndebele activism. In 1946, Kalanga intellectuals formed a Plumtree Home Society (PHS), named after their district headquarters.212 Its mission was to coordinate Kalanga people, both townspeople and those scattered in rural areas. Like the MHS, the PHS aimed to promote Kalanga welfare. Mr. Makhoba Khulube, who was elected secretary of the PHS in 1954, told me that the society cared for the welfare of Kalanga schoolchildren both in Bulawayo and at home. It tried to raise funds to help further their education, since education would help uplift their ludzi (ethnic group).213

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At the same time, the Kalanga made efforts to promote their ethnic identity by demanding more say in the naming of the town. In 1957, the Bulawayo Advisory Board recommended for the first time that the name “Malaba,” that of a precolonial Kalanga chief, be adopted for a new Railway African Township near Mpopoma.214 This possibly reflected the efforts of J. Z. Moyo, a strict Kalanga activist who served on the Advisory Board. This recommendation, however, never worked out as the name was withdrawn by the same board barely a month later in preference for either Matshobana (Mzilikazi’s father) or Magwegwe.215 That these two Ndebele heroes were brought in to overshadow Kalanga memory suggests that there was also competition between Ndebele and Kalanga in naming Bulawayo. Kalanga ambition was defeated, partly because there were few Kalanga voters on the board at that stage but also perhaps because the Kalanga constituency was divided between those who had long imagined an Ndebele identity for themselves and those who were resolutely Kalanga. Kalanga people also made efforts to publicize their identity by disseminating TjiKalanga in the African press and in public speech. They implored other Kalanga people to “wake up” and be proud. On one occasion in 1957, they insisted on speaking TjiKalanga at a public political meeting of the newly formed nationalist movement, the African National Congress. This was roundly condemned in the African Home News by Ndebele people who criticized the Kalanga for this “unreasonable” act of speaking a language “unknown in Bulawayo.”216 Traditionally, Kalanga language had not been afforded space in the press, and Kalanga leaders were often denied the opportunity to reply to criticisms leveled against them.217 In response, resolute Kalanga intellectuals put considerable pressure on news editors, especially of the more open-minded Bantu Mirror, to represent TjiKalanga in the paper. They were partly successful as they managed to secure a weekly column in the paper that they wrote largely in TjiKalanga. The Bantu Mirror often carried articles with such titles as “Bakalanga Nasi Bozwiziba Kuti Baludzi Lukulu” (The Kalanga Now Know That They Are a Great Tribe) celebrating ethnic pride, or “Bakalanga Mukani Kwayedza” (Kalanga Wake Up It’s Dawn!) and “Bakani Ludzi Bakalanga” ([Re]Build Your Tribe, Kalanga People) that asked the populace to stand and be counted in building their ethnicity and promoting their language, their history, and Kalanganess in general.218 The rise of Kalanga consciousness opened interesting debates about Kalanga and Ndebele identities. Kalanga activists denigrated the hole (lowerclass Ndebele assimilados) as people who had lost their identity, who required reorientation. Thus, Gulubane reminded one Moyo, who had opposed TjiKalanga in the Mirror, that he was not Ndebele by ethnicity, but that he was either a Talahundra Kalanga or a Rozvi who should help promote TjiKalanga, his language, in the press and in Kalanga-land, the country occupied by Mzilikazi.219 In this way, Kalanga resurgence directly threatened Ndebele supremacy and the Ndebele’s sense of history and spatial control.

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The endeavors of Kalanga in the 1950s and early 1960s severely depleted MHS membership. It is no wonder that the emergence of the Kalanga Cultural Society was not well received by the MHS. The pro-Ndebele African Home News dismissed it as “a new tribal group . . . which clearly aims to destroy African unity in Bulawayo in the same way as unity among the leaders of Salisbury has been destroyed through selfish and small minded leaders.”220 What annoyed Ndebele were Kalanga attempts to reconstruct their history by laying emphasis on a populist, counter-Ndebele narrative that stressed the “Maswina” (Shona) origins of Kalanga people. Some Ndebele reacted to this by giving an Ndebelecized version of Kalanga history with a view to countering this “rebel” history. In a letter to the editor concerning one such Kalanga Cultural Society meeting that he attended, “Umndebele Uqobo” wrote at length, claiming that Ndebele identity was a regional identity shared by Kalanga and Ndebele as one people: At their meeting held last Sunday morning at the Stanley Hall strange things were said against the Matabele-speaking people. Some of the speakers went so far as to say that the Kalanga were an offshoot of the “Maswina” and that therefore the Kalanga and the “Maswina” were one people. I was annoyed at some of the things said there because being a Mndebele and knowing the truth about the history of the Kalanga from my grandfather, I saw that the real object was to annoy me, in particular, because it seems as if most of what was said there was directed to me. I was also surprised to see present at this meeting Mr. Male, Mr. Lazarus Nkala and Mr. W. Ngwenya. When are these young men going to learn that the Matabele and the Kalanga are one group, though they are divided into smaller unimportant sections, namely Nguni, Sutu, Kalanga, Lilima, Nanzwa, BaNyai and so on the same way as the “Maswina” are divided into smaller sections such as the Karanga, Mazezuru, Mahungwe, Manyika, Korekore, and so on. Is Mr. Moyo now going to represent the Kalanga workers or all of us as he is doing? I suggest that Mr. Moyo should resign at once.221

The above view, which today is part of political and social thought among some Bulawayo cultural activists, was reinforced by the African Home News editorial team. They suggested that J. Z. Moyo, then secretary of the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress and also a Kalanga activist, should stop representing the people in national politics in order to concentrate on Kalanga “tribal matters.” The press also suggested that the headquarters of the Kalanga Cultural Society be relocated to Plumtree from Bulawayo and that Kalanga should stop teaching their culture in a “foreign land,” confirming the Ndebele vision of an Ndebelecized Bulawayo.222 Having failed to destroy the Kalanga Cultural Society, the MHS tried to imagine itself as a Matabeleland national movement—a wider association that encompassed the Kalanga society. One long-serving member of the

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MHS, Brown Luza, whose father had been incorporated into Lobengula’s Insukhamini regiment (and who was thus an old Ndebele assimilado), said: People simply worry themselves quite unnecessarily about the Kalanga Cultural Society which does not at all take the place of the Matabeleland Home Society as the Matabeleland Home Society embraces the Matabele and the Makalanga together. As a distinct tribal group, Makalanga are right, I think to come together to discuss important matters affecting them as a group distinct from matters which affect them together with the Matabele on a broader basis. In fact both the Matabele and the Kalanga are one people, and those who say, “No,” do not know what they are talking about.223

These less confrontational methods were insufficient to convince Kalanga activists. Those in rural areas, such as D. Ndebele, wrote to the newspapers to celebrate what the urban Kalanga had achieved. They saw Kalanga activism as a breakthrough against the inferiority complex that Ndebele society, through the category hole, had created during the precolonial period and that had been perpetuated by current zansi chiefs, colonial administrators, and Ndebele cultural activists.224 Ndebele-Kalanga interactions remained thus loosely defined until the early years of the rise of nationalism.

Reflections on Colonial Bulawayo The above picture of societies wrestling to control Bulawayo is by no means representative of all that was going on in the town up to the early 1960s. One could also consider the politics of football, especially considering the struggles to wrest control of the Bulawayo African Football Association from the Shona activist Msarurwa, who had been in charge of it for a long time. There were also internecine struggles among the Ndebele themselves, which culminated in the division between the MHS and the royals who formed the Mzilikazi Family Society after complaining about what were, in their view, misrepresentations and mishandling of the affairs of the royalty by the MHS.225 These are also aspects of “cosmopolitan” Bulawayo that future researchers need to investigate, along with the rise of trade unions and the politics of residents associations and women’s associations.226 The relationship between Ndebele and Kalanga in Bulawayo was more complicated than one could imagine. At one level, it was profitable for Kalanga to identify with the Ndebele in matters that benefited them, but at another level, it was prudent for them to emphasize their differences with mainstream Ndebele people. A public regional Ndebele identity was beneficial when it came to engaging colonial officials on issues that affected the broad spectrum of the people in Matabeleland and also when dealing with

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regional “aliens.” However, this identity was hegemonic because it usually promoted Ndebele politics, memory, and symbols, all of which played a part in defining Ndebele ethnicity and subduing alternative identities. For this reason, it was necessary for the Kalanga to lobby for their own visibility in town by asserting their ethnic Otherness. Efforts to promote Kalanga ethnicity in Bulawayo took the form of deliberate attempts to promote TjiKalanga, even at public meetings; efforts to create separate forums and activities for themselves, such as tea parties and marching bands; the creation of their own vigilante group, which violated ethnic others; and also their tendency to promote Kalanga history, with its emphasis on their historical and cultural separateness from the Ndebele, in the same manner that their elders in Bulilima-Mangwe did in the early years of colonialism.227 The construction of Kalanga ethnicity in Bulawayo was therefore a deliberate response to the risk of being absorbed into a growing public Ndebele urban identity. In this sense, we understand the two-dimensionality of ethnicity: that it is both inward- and outward-looking—receiving its impetus not only from processes and debates internal to an ethnic group, but also from outside pressure. In this chapter we also discovered that ethnic groups often look for a cause with which to justify their attitude toward the Other and to legitimize their exclusive claims. This position is reflected by the issue of aliens as the cause of sexually transmitted diseases in Bulawayo, the issue of “our women” and “our jobs” being taken over by “aliens,” and others. Ethnic movements are about the politics of territoriality and, within that context, about claims for political and moral rights viewed as “natural givens.” The politics of street- and place-naming and the politics of representation in the advisory boards and in the social arena clearly reflect this position. African urban ethnicity is the product of a mish-mash of imagined traditions and notions of modernity. Efforts to negotiate Ndebele ethnicity on the basis of the image of the nineteenth-century Ndebele state and its cultural ideals mattered to the MHS members as much as their imaginations of modernity, as seen in Ndebele efforts to advocate for the construction of Ndebele memorials and heroes’ acres—which are themselves modern expressions of popular memory. The Shona, for instance, found it prudent to build their ethnicity on the basis of both traditions (for example, remembrance of their dead chiefs and kings) and modernity (such as in their control of boxing and other sports, and also their control of advisory boards). It is this mixture of modernity and assumed traditions that complicates studies of urban ethnicity. In short, what we have here are complicated negotiated social processes that the colonial officials had very little direct control over, although they may have created an environment in which this social ferment could occur. In the next chapter, we examine the changes that came with the rise and development of nationalism, and how this rise of nationalism influenced Kalanga and Ndebele relations.

7 Complementary or Competing? Ethnicity and Nationalism in Matabeleland, 1950–79 Politics and Shifting Identities There are two main problems with this period of colonial Zimbabwean history. The first has to do with sources. Although there is a general twentyfive-year embargo on archival material, it has taken much longer, for various reasons, for most of the sources in the Zimbabwean National Archives for the post-1960s years to be made fully accessible. On top of that, geting permission from the depositing government departments is also a challenge; and to complicate matters further, most ZAPU archives, which would have been useful, were destroyed in the early 1980s. Therefore, historians of Matabeleland must rely on oral evidence and a few sources located at various places and in several countries. The second problem is purely historiographical. There are just so many issues to research: from the strategies of the different political movements, which have been exaggerated in the telling by their respective leaders; to the military history of the liberation war, including guerrilla-peasant interactions; to the role of women in the struggle, the contradictions within the rank and file of the nationalist movements, and many more. The goal of this chapter is not to restate or refine debates within the above issues, but to examine the intersection of these two main evolving identities—ethnicity and nationalism—with particular attention to the ways in which they complemented each other in the early phases of African nationalist development.1 However, after the 1963 split that led to the formation of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) from the defiant but banned Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), attempts to use ethnicity in garnering and mobilizing party supporters meant that ethnic identity drove a political wedge between ethnic Others, inspiring hatreds. Ethnicity slowly morphed into political tribalism.2 This process went hand in

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hand with the solidification of regional identities (Mashonaland/Shona and Matabeleland/Ndebele) that had been slowly evolving over the years. This development would considerably influence African political thought after the 1963 split. Together with the postcolonial trauma of state-sponsored terrorism (gukurahundi, which will be discussed in chapter 8), this regionalization of politics justified the desire for autonomy by some postcolonial Matabeleland activists—what Joshua Forrest termed subnationalism.3 Subnationalism in Zimbabwe led to the formation of two “supertribes,” Ndebele and Shona. This meant that the Kalanga participated in Matabeleland politics not as members of an Ndebele ethnicity but as members of a regional political identity and as members of ZAPU, whose power base after 1963 was mainly Matabeleland, and most of whose leaders were Kalanga. Since nationalism in Matabeleland had already popularized Ndebele public identity, Ndebele history, Ndebele heroes, isiNdebele language, and Kalanga religion, the Kalanga and Ndebele were easily unified as a political community. Because a broad regional Ndebele identity was demographically superior to the narrower Kalanga ethnicity, the former served Kalanga leaders better as a rallying point, so long as these Kalanga got leadership positions in ZAPU. There was, therefore, no need to create an exclusively Kalanga quasinationalist organization. This does not mean that the Kalanga leaders had no hidden tribal agenda; in fact, the later confusion within ZAPU (covered in this chapter) yields interesting evidence in that regard. We will examine the relationship between ethnicity, regionalism, and nationalism in Matabeleland in a three-part approach. The first part focuses on the “origins” of nationalism in the 1950s. In so doing, I do not necessarily exclude the possibility of an earlier origin of nationalism, although I have not yet found convincing evidence for it. The second part reviews the 1963 split with special attention to the aftermath. The last part discusses the situation of the 1970s, when the “nationalist” movement underwent deep confusion, with several party splits.

“Making” Nationalism, 1950s–63 In the immediate post–World War II period (1946–50), the situation facing African intellectuals and interested young African politicians looked daunting. The general political climate for the creation of territorial nationalism was not ideal. The colonial government was becoming more interventionist in its policies, and this tended to further entrench repression. Trade unions and earlier leaders were severely disunited, and further disillusioned after the failures of the strikes in the 1940s. With a few exceptions, the new nationalist leaders of the 1950s had little ideological connection to the dominant political and organizational leaders of earlier decades, contrary

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to what Ranger and others thought when they argued that that there was no fundamental break between the political activity of the 1940s and that of the 1950s. For these academics, when nationalism swept Matabeleland it was not greeted with surprise because people had long associated with groups that cut across ethnic lines.4 However, mere familiarity with nonethnic associations did not in itself guarantee easy penetration of nationalism as an ideology. Although political associations existed in Matabeleland, they were not so deeply rooted in parts of this region. Where they existed, they faced wellestablished and more competitive, yet narrower social and political associations like the Matabele Home Society, which asserted Ndebele ethnic rights, celebrated Ndebele history, promoted the Ndebele language, and pressed for Ndebele dominance in Bulawayo. In Filabusi, where a supposedly broadbased political movement, the African Voice, was long established and had the support of Head Chief Maduna, it still faced stiff competition from the MHS, whose local branches dated from as early as the 1930s. In Essexvale, the MHS was politically active and helped people resist colonial evictions in 1946, under the banner of championing the rights of the Ndebele people.5 In the Matopos Hills, where the African Voice also operated, the MHS stepped to the fore in opposing evictions and evidently enjoyed more popularity than did the African Voice.6 In Nkai, the MHS posed as the “voice of the people,” and its activists convinced several chiefs to join its ranks. The evidence suggests that in some rural areas the MHS was becoming increasingly political and well entrenched where it had penetrated, but its political activities were narrowly construed as efforts to champion Ndebele people’s rights.7 Before the early 1950s, the MHS could hardly be mistaken for a regional movement. There is little evidence, for example, of its influence in Bulilima-Mangwe before 1952. Among the Tonga, Nambya, and Venda, the MHS may not have had any influence whatsoever. When it later penetrated Bulilima-Mangwe in 1952, it drew its main support from Ndebele chiefs, especially Chief Wasi.8 With the spread of the MHS, wider territorial political groups like Benjamin Burombo’s British African National Voice Association, popularly called the African Voice that had appeared in the district were losing their influence.9 In the absence of nationalist leadership to imagine ways to create synergies involving ethnicity and emergent nationalism, the social and political landscape of the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s remained difficult as ethnic groups jostled for greater visibility. In some places, communities did not consider the sporadic political activism of the 1940s and early 1950s sufficiently influential to champion local claims to land and other collective rights. Their political philosophy centered instead on the need to empower and advocate for “organic,” traditional chiefs, whom communities wished to use to challenge the colonial regime. In most areas of rural Bulilima-Mangwe such as Madyambudzi, Brunapeg, Dombodema, and Masendu, people were making strong representations to the government in

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an effort to ensure that their unofficial Kalanga chiefs received official recognition (as discussed earlier). At a time when the ideology of nationalism was becoming cemented, unofficial chiefs gained importance in such communities, perhaps because of the way these chiefs had helped champion local community rights against colonial despotism. In 1960, the Nswazvi community of Maitengwe held a traditional ceremony to install a chief who had never at any point been recognized by the government.10 During the late 1940s and early 1950s, local identities generally appeared stronger than regional and territorial identities. The Fingos of Bembesi in Bubi, for instance, still hoped as late as 1952 that they would get a chief who would “stand up for Fingo rights to land as promised them by Mr. [Cecil John] Rhodes.” Regardless of their generally privileged position as educated, modern farmers and their proximity to Bulawayo, the Fingo repudiated the nonethnic African Voice of Benjamin Burombo in favor of their pro-government chief, Kona, who believed in negotiating with the government for Fingo land rights instead of resorting to nationalist confrontation.11 Even by 1963, when nationalism had gathered momentum, the Fingo still prioritized their “strong tribal and family ties.”12 In other words, rural communities differed in the ways they dealt with their usually common grievances against the government. These differences dictated the nature and manifestations of nationalism in different communities. In some communities nationalism expressed itself violently; in others, opposition was cryptic and was organized underground; and in still others, rising local nationalist leaders negotiated with established official authorities. In towns, especially Bulawayo, the situation was not any better as ethnic groups tried to elevate their status so as to appear to be representing rising nationalist aspirations. At a meeting in 1952 the MHS proposed to hold a convention as an avenue through which Africans could engage the government.13 However, there is no evidence that this meeting ever convened, and the only traceable political contribution of the MHS was their opposition to the creation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1952.14 In 1954, Ngcebetsha’s pro-MHS tabloid, the African Home News, began to portray the MHS as a nationalist movement, ahead of other societies that it contemptuously labeled “tribalist.”15 Nonetheless, evidence suggests that, even after 1952, the MHS’s ethnic agenda remained in place: it continued to represent narrow Ndebele ethnic interests, strove for Ndebele social and political rights in town, and fought the Shona Cultural Society and the Kalanga Cultural Society.16 The challenge for the MHS and similar urban-based ethnic groups of the early 1950s was how to balance the pressing concerns of their ethnic constituencies with the increasing need to demonstrate relevance to the emerging, but as yet leaderless, popular nationalist movement. Essentially, the mere proliferation of ethnic societies in Bulawayo since the late 1940s further fragmented the people and demonstrated people’s disillusionment with the older generation of leaders. Joshua Nkomo argued that the emergence of

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many ethnic associations during that time demonstrated the fact that “African leaders had sunk into apathy” after the inauguration of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (established in 1953).17 It was not easy to see how the people could be united. As reported by the Bantu Mirror in 1957, “Unity in [the] city looks gloomy,” with the African Voice of Burombo confused, ineffective, and moribund.18 The old Southern Rhodesia African National Congress [SRANC], formerly led by Samkange, was growing so inept, irrelevant, and decrepit that Nkomo, who had accepted its chairmanship in 1952, thought it honorable to disassociate with it in May 1957.19 Although ethnic groups were not necessarily against the rise of nationalism, a potentially competing identity, they wanted assurances that nationalism would not threaten their own ethnic agendas and wished to see ethnicity and nationalism coexist. It was, however, not clear at first how these forces would complement each other, and there were indeed tensions between major ethnic groups in Bulawayo during the very years when the first nationalist party emerged. This made ethnic groups a bit more self-protective and aggressive in Bulawayo, yet none of them were essentially opposed to the rise of nationalism. The birth of Shona and Kalanga cultural societies in Bulawayo was not well received by the leadership of the MHS, who viewed their emergence and activities as a direct threat to Ndebele culture in Bulawayo. In February 1958, a year after the reestablishment of the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress (SRANC), Brown Luza of the MHS introduced a controversial motion that the Shona were not to discuss or decide on matters affecting the Ndebele. His motion came amid fears that the emergent nationalists among the Ndebele would, for fear of destroying the desired but tender unity with the Shona, “cowardly advocate a laissez-faire policy until as a result of that policy; the Matabele find themselves in the end under firm grip of and completely overwhelmed by foreign tribes including the Mashonas on the Bulawayo Advisory Board who may cause the Municipality to make bye-laws which may be dangerous to the best interests of the Matabele people.”20 The African Home News, which supported the MHS, gave many examples of spheres in which the Shona had asserted dominance in an “Ndebele city,” especially their use of Shona language in Bulawayo and their naming of streets and places in the African locations after their own precolonial leaders and living heroes. After reporting Luza’s words, the editor added: “If the local Mashona were reasoning and reasonable people they should never have introduced their own country’s names in Bulawayo. They wanted trouble and the time has arrived to call a halt to that state of affairs.”21 In the early and mid-1950s, many Africans who later led the nationalist movement were initially leaders of ethnic groups. This explains why when the SRANC was reconstituted in 1957 no ethnic group opposed its political mission. For their part, none of the African nationalist leaders fought to

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diminish the importance of ethnic groups or tried to abolish them, although they often took advantage of the divisions between the ethnic groups to further their nationalist ends. Simon Muzenda and Joseph Msika, who became Nkomo’s close confidants in ZAPU, were founders of the Sons of Mashonaland Cultural Society, a pan-Shona ethnic movement in Bulawayo.22 Similarly, J. Z. Moyo, who later led ZAPU’s external wing, and Lazarus Nkala, who became a member of ZAPU’s national executive, were the founding leaders of the Kalanga Cultural Society in 1956.23 Nkomo’s own position with regard to such societies is unclear. Initially, he was a member of both the MHS and the Kalanga Cultural Society. Ranger celebrates Nkomo as “a great synthesizer” who believed in the “desirability of everyone possessing . . . a hierarchy of identities, each deep and valid and each enriching the other.”24 Using Nkomo’s example, Ranger argued it was possible to possess multiple, hierarchical identities such that one could be Kalanga at home, Ndebele in Bulawayo, and a nationalist within Southern Rhodesia.25 Although the social and political situation in Bulawayo was more complicated than Ranger implies, his argument makes sense. But what explains the emergence of nationalism? Nationalism emerged within a specific historical epoch and it was an experiment that failed for the greater part of the early 1950s for two main reasons. First, there were no close mentoring relationships between the older generation of Southern Rhodesian African visionaries of the 1940s and the new young players of the late 1950s—so much so that the latter learned very little from their elderly counterparts. Although they tried to create broader political organizations and federated trade unions, the older-generation leaders like Samkange, Burombo, Charles Mzingeli, Masotsha Ndlovu, and others were too divided among themselves to be able to confront the settler regime together because of competing ideologies, personal differences, and jealousies. They believed in negotiating for concessions within the ambit of the politics of racial partnership that the ruling United Federal Party espoused since the emergence of the Federation. Second, although the strikes of the 1940s signaled a growing restlessness among ordinary Africans, the old leaders had been so harassed by the settler regime that they were not prepared to rise to the challenges of leading the new nationalist movement. There was need for fresh leadership and a new approach. The ANC, the first clearly nationalist party, was founded on September 12, 1957, as a result of the merger of the City Youth League, a Salisbury-based youth movement (of youths aged sixteen to forty) led by James Chikerema and George Nyandoro who had organized a successful bus boycott in 1956, and the old Bulawayo-based Southern Rhodesia African National Congress.26 Bringing Bulawayo- and Harare-based movements together was a breakthrough because most of the earlier movements had not effectively bridged this gap. Interestingly, the leaders and founders of the protest movements and trade unions of the 1940s did not offer themselves to lead the

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new party. Charles Mzingeli and Masotsha Ndlovu, of the defunct Industrial and Commercial Workers Union; Benjamin Burombo of the former British African National Voice Association, which believed in racial partnership; and fine intellectuals like Samkange of the old ANC, Herbert Chitepo, and Enoch Dumbutshena declined to lead the new organization.27 To understand the rise of nationalism, we have to understand changes that were taking place not only with respect to ethnic groups but also within the broader social and political context. Although the late 1940s showed the confusion and disunity that still gripped African workers and political leaders, an important lesson was learned: the dire need for unity. As early as 1952, some people, especially from the trade union movement, were already strongly advocating for unity that cut across ethnic divides, although the trade unions themselves were not insulated from the dangers of power struggles along such lines. In March 1952, trade unionist Ngazimbi urged those who attended the general Federation of Rhodesia Workers’ Trade Union meeting at Stanley Square to put aside differences and fight for the common good of African workers in all spheres of employment. He declared his wish “to see tribalism die among African workers and [be] displaced by Unionism.”28 However, the first serious stimulus to unity was the imminent launch of the Federation of Southern Rhodesia with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which would be established in September 1953. In the early 1950s, opposition to the imminent Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was creating a broad African political consensus, although there was not yet any viable political party. African leaders in Bulawayo tried to unite major social and political organizations into a convention, but despite significant popular opposition to the federal project, they were unsuccessful. Nkomo and others urged fellow Africans to boycott beer halls to protest against the proposed Federation, believing that it would thwart the rise of nationalism.29 They also suspected that the Federation would harden colonial control by entrenching white dominance, which would counter the wave of decolonization that was taking place across Africa. They also feared that this proposal was being imposed against the wishes of Africans and that it would erode what little authority ethnically based leaders exercised over their people.30 African opponents of the Federation were justified in their fears. Roy Welensky, the premier of the Federation, admitted that its major political objective was to halt emergent African nationalism. The Federation would exist “to inject stability into Central Africa and to contain this disruptive movement”—that is, those “forces of African racialism [that] were on the move.”31 By entrenching European power and turning a blind eye to African political aspirations, the architects of the Federation were underscoring racial divisions in the country. Such designs, in combination with new racially biased legislation, actually helped increase the gap between black and white, a gap that played to the advantage of nationalism.

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In town, a notable feature of the 1950s was the increasing importance of the precolonial era in popular memory. In appealing to precolonial traditions, modern African nationalists drew upon them for much needed legitimacy. With the increase in ethnic-based cultural societies in the 1950s, mostly responding to cultural decay in Bulawayo, Africans sought to discover their roots. Ethnic associations such as the MHS, the Sons of Mashonaland Cultural Society (MCS), the KCS, and many “alien” societies appointed respectable elders from their rural areas as official “tribal” historians.32 Most of these “historians,” having lived and witnessed the last years of their precolonial states— some of them fought against colonization in the 1890s—became eminent heroes for the urbanized dwellers who sought to “retraditionalize” themselves. The MHS, for instance, employed Ginyilitshe Hlabangana, an elderly Ndebele imbongi (poet) who had served under the Ndebele ruler King Lobengula. As a respected elder, he played a part in MHS’s attempt to regionalize Ndebele identity from the mid-1940s. He also helped revive the notion of Kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula as Ndebele heroes. He became the official MHS adviser and an honored attendee at major Ndebele events.33 Showing their respect for precolonial culture, nationalists made frequent visits to the graves of Mzilikazi in the Matopos and that of the heroine Lozikeyi (Lobengula’s senior wife) in Nkosikazi, Matabeleland, in the late 1950s. Nationalists believed that by frequenting the graves of these local heroes and heroines, they would receive new energy, courage, and inspiration to fight colonialism. By the late 1950s, these graves had been transformed from artifacts for Ndebele ethnicity into popular national monuments. Rising African literary writers were also beginning to write novels that depicted precolonial African social and political systems in a positive light. In towns, aspiring nationalist leaders were also strategically taking over the leadership of African advisory boards and pushing the nationalist agenda from within. Originally, in the early 1950s, the advisory boards were dominated by the usually nonpolitical African middle class, which wanted to use such boards to entrench their businesses and social position. With the rise of the Shona Cultural Society, competition for positions took an ethnic slant. However, by 1958, most advisory boards had become dominated by members and leaders of the ANC, which deliberately fielded candidates to contest for board positions. Enthusiastic African nationalists used the advisory boards as podiums from which they could question colonial power, lobby for direct African representation in urban administration, frustrate the politically apathetic sections of the African middle class, and also make crucial decisions about the use of public space and buildings in a way that directly benefited the nationalist movement. I have examined the role of nationalists in the advisory boards elsewhere.34 We also need to understand the ideological basis of rural nationalism. In some places, nationalism benefited from the work of the MHS, chiefs, and

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local imaginations of a public history. This was evident in the Matopos Hills and the Shangani Reserve.35 In the Shangani, Pupu became a place of significance, uniting both Ndebele and non-Ndebele, since it was the site of both Ndebele resistance to the inception of colonial power and of non-Ndebele religious authority.36 At Nkosikazi too, in Bubi, the grave of Queen Lozikeyi, Lobengula’s wife, was honored as a local and regional symbol of Ndebele unity and spiritual inspiration, providing an important link between past and present. Some chiefs had continued to honor her and consult her for advice after Lobengula’s death.37 Powerful chiefs like Mabikwa Khumalo could not even assert their influence over Lozikeyi.38 Many saw in the queen a symbol of anticolonial resistance. During her lifetime, she had insisted on the independence of her courts when trying cases. She would not welcome an NC at her kraal when discussing serious “national” issues concerning the Ndebele.39 In the 1960s, she became an Ndebele hero whose grave could not be viewed by just anybody. Explaining their reasons for disallowing access to Lozikeyi’s grave when I went to Nkosikazi for fieldwork in July 2003, one of her grandsons, a Tshuma elder and former colonial police officer, told me that some white men once came to see the grave in the early 1960s. In disgust and disappointment, his father “wept bitterly and asked the white men whether it were culturally practical to allow a foreigner to view ‘our relative’s grave’ and whether the whites would themselves allow him to go to Britain and ask for the grave of their English Queen.”40 Anticolonialism also got its impetus from the people’s reimagining of what would become pillars of national history. Fallen heroes such as Mbuya Nehanda, Chaminuka, Lobengula, and others were remembered, deified, and recast as nationalist icons that fought against colonialism in their own day. Even Mzilikazi became a symbol of unity, and his grave at Entumbane a place where people could go to find out “what further suffering lies in store for the Africans.”41 Nationalist Joshua Nkomo saw Entumbane as a national monument.42 To make this sound acceptable, Ndebele history had to be reinterpreted from a nationalist perspective. Lobengula’s and Mzilikazi’s raids for slaves and cattle, the caste system, and other inequalities of power were forgotten. These heroes came to be represented in the African press as men who stood against tribalism by incorporating all people into their kingdoms, such that “what is called Amandebele today is a combination of Kalanga, Sotho, Swazi, Shona and Zulus.” Kalanga, therefore, were viewed as “Mandebeles by ‘nationalisation’ [so] that they cannot claim a separate language from that spoken by Amandebele.”43 This nationalization of local heroes, later aided by new Africanist writers, was blended with the glorification of traditional religion, which centered on the worship of Mwali.44 Joshua Nkomo, who was educated by Catholic missionaries and who led the ANC, keenly embraced his traditional religion, and his faith in Mwali

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probably was more important than his visit to Entumbane. In the precolonial period, Mzilikazi and Lobengula had accepted this Kalanga religion, because of the Kalanga’s spiritual control over rain and land. Religion became the main meeting point for both the Ndebele and the Kalanga. To imagine a wider Ndebele identity, it was imperative to embrace Mwali worship because it carried with it a sense of return to authenticity and lost culture, important elements in the creation of an identity. Because the Shona also worshipped Mwali of the mountains, Nkomo found it easy to use this religious allegiance to advance both political unity and his legitimacy as a nationalist leader.45 He cultivated a myth of himself as the divinely ordained, thus uncontested, messiah to lead the nationalist movement and deliver Zimbabweans out of colonial bondage: As the spirit of Zimbabwean nationalism came to the fore again in the early 1950s, I examined for myself the power of the traditional faith of my people, and visited the shrine where Mwali resides in the Matopos Hills. Well before dawn, at about 3 a.m., William Sivako and Grey Mabhalani Bango, the nephew of the chief of my father’s village, accompanied me to the place called Dula. We were led by a frail old man along an ancient track: some twenty others were with us, each bringing his own problem. The place was an overhanging slab of granite. The old man, our guide and leader, told us to squat down a few metres from the rock-face: he squatted in front of us, between us and the rock. He commanded us into a soft rhythm of clapping. Suddenly, a voice like that of an ancient man began to call us by our names: “You, son of Nyongolo, and you, son of Sivako, and you, son of Luposwa Bango—what do you want me to do for you? How do you expect me to accomplish it when I told King Lobengula what not to do, he did it. I told King Lobengula not to fight against his cousins who were coming into the land, his cousins without knees [white visitors]. . . .” I replied, as leader of the group: “Babamkhulu, grandfather, we have come to ask you to give back this land to your children, the people of this land, including the cousins against whom Lobengula fought.” “Yes my children,” said the voice, “I will give you back your land. It will be after thirty years, and it will be after a big war in which many will die.”46

Tales of Nkomo’s visit to Dula spread throughout Matabeleland, and a sacred legitimacy was conferred upon his leadership, so effectively that it prevented ZAPU from replacing him when he was obviously blundering.47 Nkomo was president of all the parties from SRANC to the National Democratic Party (NDP), which emerged in 1960 after SRANC was banned, and to ZAPU, which was formed when NDP was banned. He was only demystified by Mugabe and others who broke away from his party in 1963, who spoke strongly about the need for a “de-Nkomonisation” of the struggle.48 In rural areas, nationalism was also a product of growing locally felt grievances and the clamor for ethnic rights on which nationalists capitalized.

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Rural commoners expected that nationalism would complement rather than undermine ethnicity. They imagined some form of nationalist unity that would help solve their local problems of chieftaincy, evictions, and the effects of the Land Husbandry Act and other pieces of colonial legislation that militated against them. Local grievances were, for the most part, a microcosm of the wider problem—the illegitimacy of colonialism; therefore, nationalism’s challenge was to demonstrate its capacity to save people from such local problems and convince them that nationalist success could redress their grievances. Thus, people who had problems with imposed chiefs, as in Madyambudzi, Sangulube (Brunapeg), Dombodema, and many Kalanga communities, found in nationalist leaders people who were keen to help them regain their own chieftaincies.49 In such localities, imagining a broad Ndebele identity was not a necessary condition for nationalist support. In Madyambudzi, for instance, the attitude of noncooperation with the government dated back to the time their chief Madzete Ncube was deposed in 1947. In the 1950s, they resisted conservation measures; refused to destock; defied the colonially imposed Ndebele chief, Mpini; and refused to cooperate with the Nata Council. In such contexts rural nationalism was an outgrowth of long-standing local grievances and was built upon a culture of resistance that was locally imbedded in certain communities. By 1961, the NDP had made significant inroads into most of Matabeleland. In Bubi, it had firmly entrenched itself in the Ntabazinduna Reserve; and in October of that year, it formed another branch in the Nkosikazi area, where it capitalized on people’s complaints about land shortages and government threats of imminent livestock destocking.50 In the Matopos, where a culture of resistance had thrived since the 1930s, the NDP found its most ardent support. The NC erroneously thought that the party’s popularity there was due only to the area’s proximity to Bulawayo;51 however, recent scholarship has demonstrated that nationalism was not simply a transplant from town to rural areas.52 In Bulilima-Mangwe, nationalism grew as a consequence of the long-established habit of resistance to colonial laws, from the Native Affairs Act (1930) to the Land Husbandry Act (1951). It also grew because of the efforts of members of the African Teachers’ Association (ATA) in the rural areas who were already under Nkomo’s influence due to his earlier involvement in trade unionism. In addition, most headmen were ready to support the nationalists, perhaps on the assumption that a new black government would elevate them to chiefs.53 Nationalism became so entrenched that even after the banning of the NDP in 1961, “illegal” meetings continued in Bulilima-Mangwe and opposition to cattle dipping (which is usually done to treat cattle from cattle ticks and prevent common cattle diseases) was common as a show of disobedience to the government.54 The NC made the following report about the rise of opposition in Bulilima-Mangwe:

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As has been mentioned in other reports, the Kalanga is not very politically conscious and will only show some interest in measures allowing him to have more cattle and land. Any party promising this will have his support. Otherwise he is not interested in the Vote and representation. But this district does produce some of the leaders of the extreme African nationalist parties, the secretary-general of NDP is from this district, and the present President of ZAPU has relatives here. Some of the lesser but vociferous group of Bulawayo politicians have their homes here. The politics of the National Democratic Party also affected some farmers of the Samnene District, people who own their own farms, have no land or stock problem. To sum up, 1961 was an uncomfortable year. We saw the spread of political ideas based on extreme slogans into our rural areas. We saw Demonstrators, Land Development Officers, administrative staff being provoked when carrying out their duties.55

It was from Bulilima-Mangwe where most senior leaders of the NDP, including George Silundika (financial secretary), Jason Z. Moyo (secretarygeneral), and Nkomo himself (president), were born.56 These men had powerful posts in the seven-man Executive Committee. All except Enos Nkala (vice secretary-general) from Filabusi were Kalanga, and not from the highly Ndebelecized sections of Matabeleland. Nkala was Ndebele, but in 1963 he rebelled and formed ZANU in his house in Highfield, Salisbury. Twenty years later, he would hold a position in the government that massacred Ndebele in Midlands and Matabeleland. One Zezuru Shona, Robert Mugabe, had the low but important post of publicity secretary. The post of treasurer-general went to Ndabaningi Sithole, an Ndau—part Shona, part Ndebele by birth. The little-known Moton Malianga (who was ManyikaShona) became NDP’s vice president. Political firebrands like Chikerema and Nyandoro were then in detention.57 Thus the NDP, which seemed to be the most active and truly nationalist party, had few Shona in its Executive Committee, although they were well represented in the National Committee by Chitepo, Msika, Mawema, and Takawira.58 However, Nkomo was very popular in both Matabeleland and Mashonaland.59 An important innovation of the nationalist movement was the coining of a political language of nationalism. Regardless of their ethnic origins, all black Africans were described as “sons or daughters of the soil”: bana bevu, bana beshango (in TjiKalanga), vana vevhu (Shona), or abantwana benhlabathi (isiNdebele).60 Black people had been victims of changing stereotypical labels—from “kaffirs,” to “natives,” and others. The notion of “children of the soil” was part and parcel of an exercise in self-definition; the phrase carried with it a sense of entitlement both to the soil and to physical space in biologically and spiritually conceived senses. This by itself justified why black people had to identify with the nationalist movement, and why African nationalism appeared to carry some racist connotations.

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Some ethnic groups benefited from the rise of nationalism because it made them more proud of themselves and more visible in national politics. The Kalanga, for instance, did not mind their ethnic group coexisting with nationalism because the movement seemed to promote a Kalanga public image. This ethnic attachment was not necessarily political tribalism, but a yearning for recognition. Kalanga intellectuals and ordinary people in Bulawayo, long desiring a more public Kalanga space, found comfort in the fact that the top leaders of the NDP (such as Nkomo, Moyo, Silundika, and Lazarus Nkala) were Kalanga. Commenting on the election of three Kalanga men to lead the NDP, Kalanga publicly expressed their excitement in the Bantu Mirror, in which appeared the following text (originally in TjiKalanga): “This election makes us Kalanga very happy as these men were elected to lead this party which has a membership of more than 100,000 people, most of whom are Kalanga. The leader of the party, Joshua Nkomo, is currently in London. His deputy, George Silundika, is a Kalanga from Nope. Another Kalanga man elected is Mr. Jason Moyo from Maphaneni. Joshua Nkomo also comes from Maphaneni.”61 The rise of nationalism did not therefore mean the death of ethnicity. In one sense, it meant that Kalanga, perennial “historical inferiors,” were at last emerging as leaders of the nation. Ndebele cultural nationalists had already cornered themselves into believing Kalanga were Ndebele. This made it difficult for them to complain in public against Kalanga predominance in the NDP. The major threat to nationalism between 1960 and 1963 was not the small victories of the Kalanga or any perceived leadership issues, but the politics of naming the imagined nation, which illustrated a major problem that the nationalists had failed to predict—regionalism. During the late 1950s, the MHS had worked hard to re-create itself as a regional Matabeleland movement and had, to a certain measure, begun to coax the Kalanga and other non-Ndebele peoples of Matabeleland into its fold.62 The Shona in Bulawayo were doing a similar thing during the same period. They formed a Sons of Mashonaland Cultural Society (MCS), most of whose leaders later held leadership positions in the nationalist movement.63 The existence of the MCS meant that smaller, strictly ethnic movements like the Manyikaland Cultural Society would be slowly absorbed into this larger regional Shona group. Although ethnic groups were accepted as promoting a healthy patriotism that helped preserve cultures and African languages, nationalists were never clear on how to deal with regionalism.64 As rumors filtered to the Matabeleland regional counterparts, most of whom were members of the MHS within the nationalist movement, that the Shona people wanted to name the future country Zimbabwe, a Shona name that harked back to the early Shona civilization of Great Zimbabwe, the rumors met with a knee-jerk reaction and advocacy that the country be named Matopo on the ground that

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Matopo was a more important national arena than Great Zimbabwe. It was in the Matopos Hills that an indaba was called with Cecil Rhodes, which saved the country from further BSACo bloodshed in the 1896–97 war; further, the Matopos boasted national religious shrines and represented a very important shared history for the Kalanga and the Ndebele. Attempts to demean it would surely be resisted.65 Although this advocacy for Matopo was ultimately unsuccessful and Zimbabwe was adopted as the name for the future nation, a point had been driven home—that there were regional identities to take note of. Had nationalist leaders been more sensitive to these concerns, perhaps the country’s fragile nationalist movement would have survived. In the NDP itself, unity was scarcely solid. It suffered a slight break when some politically ambitious low-level Shona leaders resented Ndebele leadership and formed a party called the Zimbabwe National Party (ZNP). To outmaneuver the ZNP rebels, Nkomo quickly brought Shona leaders into the upper echelons of the NDP.66 This consequently weakened the ZNP. Little is said of this party thereafter, and perhaps future research would tell if its leadership had any connections with the people who later broke from ZAPU to form ZANU. The NDP existed for a short while, but signs of weakness were evident, and a major but unforeseen split occurred in 1963. The government opposed the NDP for its sabotage campaigns and for “poisoning” the minds of rural people, it being a misconception on the part of government officials that nationalism was planted in the rural areas by townsmen).67 The party was banned on December 9, 1961.68 A new party, ZAPU, emerged six days later, only to be banned on September 20, 1962.69 The major thrust of ZAPU was advocacy for “one man, one vote” and political change by nonviolent, constitutional means such as electoral boycotts.70 The NDP and ZAPU were both major but peaceful “saboteurs” of government.71 But the banning of political parties from ANC to ZAPU made nationalist leaders despondent and restless, eventually leading to the split.

The 1963 Split and Its Aftermath, 1963–69 “Repression created a new solidarity within the country: at home our people had never been more united. But tragically it was at this moment that divisions began to appear within our movement’s organisation abroad. The problem of disunity has persisted right up until today.”72 Nkomo’s view (above) confirms the point that although nationalism offered an appealing identity and an idea whose time had come, national unity was still fragile. In this section, I will explain the split that led to the formation of ZANU, whose emergence created a crisis for nationalism in the country. As part of this broader picture, I will also examine the effect of this split on

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Kalanga-Ndebele relations. Because this split was a complicated phenomenon, it requires a full treatment if we are to understand the emergence of a regional Ndebele identity. When ZAPU was banned, it continued to operate defiantly underground in many places including Lupane, Nkai, and the Matopos.73 This covert activism existed almost everywhere in Matabeleland and Mashonaland where ZAPU had a strong following. In 1963, societies such as the MHS and MCS were still operating but were no longer receiving much press coverage, as they had before 1960 or generally before the emergence of the ANC; however, evidence shows that these sociocultural societies were increasingly supporting nationalism.74 Pressed about its future and its relevance in 1963, the MHS vowed that it would not disband.75 After the split which led to ZANU, key leaders of the Mashonaland Cultural Society, such as Joseph Msika and Clement Muchachi, remained in ZAPU, a party whose president was Kalanga. They chose not to support the Shona dominated ZANU. If the split was about tribalism, then these societies would have been at the forefront, or at least would have played an active part. I argue that the increasing politicization of ethnicity only took shape after the split as the warring factions sought to mobilize support constituencies. Ethnicity was not by itself the cause of the split. The commoners had almost nothing to do with the split, which was actually the brainchild of the aspiring African political elites—and that explains why ZANU had very little popular support a few years after its split, even in Shona-speaking areas. The commonly held explanation for the 1963 split is invariably the official ZANU version. ZANU, which split from ZAPU, was founded by a clique of intellectuals who understood the power of the press and publicity. Not only did their writings overwhelm the African press just after the split, but they were also quick to write books that justified ZANU’s emergence as a revolutionary alternative to the frail ZAPU. ZANU’s version portrays the ZAPU leader Nkomo as an indecisive coward. It runs as follows: When ZAPU was banned and there were threats that the leadership would be arrested, Joshua Nkomo was afraid to return home to give leadership and direction. He instead lied to the nationalist leadership that Julius Nyerere had invited them to come to Tanzania to form a government-in-exile. On arrival, the leadership found that other African governments had never sanctioned this move. Consequently, the rest of the ZAPU Executive became disappointed and lost confidence in Nkomo, and according to the pro-ZANU journalist Nathan Shamuyarira, “this became an obvious factor in the split three months later.”76 ZANU also cultivated another myth that Nkomo and the “rebels” differed in their approach to the struggle, hence the split. It is often argued that whereas Nkomo believed in globe-trotting to mobilize the international community against the settler regime, Sithole and Mugabe saw the need to confront settlers from within the country.77

Figure 7.1. Cartoon on the 1963 ZAPU-ZANU split from the front page of the Central African Examiner magazine, August 1963. Obtained from the Royal Commonwealth Society, London (periodical reference no. RCS, per. 653), August 7, 1963.

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In his book The Story of My Life, Nkomo gave his version of the split, which became the ZAPU view: that he had personal problems with Nyerere; that he moved to Dar es Salaam because of increasing repression and, while in Tanzania, heard rumors of imminent plans by the Shona elements in his leadership to take over ZAPU, with circulars urging ZAPU to “bring the “majority tribes” to the leadership of the party and get rid of “Zimndebere”— an incitement of tribal feelings against Nkomo; that the Rhodesian government quickly exploited this conspiracy through its secret services that spied on the party’s young leaders for information (a view also held by Chikerema, who argued that ZANU was formed by the Special Branch in order to “kill” nationalism);78 and that rebel leaders refused to attend the People’s Conference held at Cold Comfort Farm, at which they were to debate the alleged problems but instead hastened to gather at Enos Nkala’s house to form ZANU.79 At the conference, Nkomo was elected president-for-life and national leader of the movement and the People’s Caretaker Council (PCC) was formed. The conference also confirmed the suspension and expulsion of the so-called rebels (Sithole, Mugabe, Washington Malianga, and Leopold Takawira) from the party.80 At the same conference, Nkomo condemned them as tribalists and unprincipled sellouts.81 Neither the official ZANU view nor Nkomo’s version of the split is convincing enough as both represent mere partisan perspectives. We will start with the ZANU view. First, to assume that the split was caused by Nkomo’s “globe-trotting” might be naive. It is clear that mobilizing the international community was just as important as sabotaging the regime at home—and this alone would not have contributed to the split. Second, if the majority of the Executive were really tired of Nkomo’s poor leadership, the solution was not to form a new party, which would divide the movement, but to oust Nkomo within ZAPU itself. There is no clear evidence to suggest that this was ever attempted, and in fact it is incorrect to suggest that the majority of the leaders were fed up with Nkomo. In the absence of any convincing reason why ZANU was formed, is is safe to assume that the formation of ZANU was owing to motives other than those advanced by its leaders. The ZAPU view is problematic in its fundamentalist tendency to blame tribalism for the split. First, there is no evidence to support that assumption. Appeals to “tribes” came only after the split as parties sought to establish support bases in the two main regions, Mashonaland and Matabeleland. Second, Nkomo’s claim that he only heard of the imminent split as a rumor when it was already too late seems to confirm his ineffective command over his Executive and his naïveté in dealing with them; otherwise, he would have resolved the problem before it got out of hand. If he had been a mature leader, Nkomo should have tried to heal the divisions and extend reconciliation to his opponents for the sake of the movement; instead, he made rushed decisions to expel the leaders from ZAPU at the

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Cold Comfort conference and quickly condemned the rebels—which only served to harden ill feelings between the two camps. To understand the split, one needs to appreciate the broader political context. There were two related developments within the nationalist movement that created opposing scenarios as to its leadership. The first was the general political transformation happening in Africa. The year 1960 was hailed generally as “the African year.” After Ghana gained its independence, a few more countries followed suit, and expectations rose that this wave might suddenly engulf southern Africa, with the exception of South Africa. However, 1960 came and soon was gone; the peaceful means advocated by the African National Congress did not work; nor did the sabotage campaigns (by NDP and ZAPU) of 1960–62, which only led to some leaders being put in detention or otherwise restricted. Between 1957 and 1962, three political parties all led by Joshua Nkomo were banned in succession. In this harsh political environment, most of the younger and inexperienced leaders like Mugabe and a few others easily became disillusioned—and also condemned Nkomo, notwithstanding the fact that there was no quick fix to the problems they faced. The second scenario happened because the nationalist leadership allowed itself to live under a false sense of optimism that majority rule was just around the corner. The uncertainties surrounding the country’s political future after the imminent demise of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland tended to create some false hopes. For example, it was widely believed that the collapse of the Federation would inevitably usher in African majority rule, in line with Britain’s general policy of decolonization. With the Federation officially expected to end in 1963, it was natural that the ambitious African elites in the ZAPU Executive would think about the power and position they would have in an independent Zimbabwe. Thus it was difficult for them to resist jockeying covertly for power and forming strategic alliances and factions as necessary. Those who thought they were likely to be left in the cold by Joshua Nkomo had to rally together lest they be overtaken by events. Given this backdrop, moves to oust Nkomo were probably already in place early on; what was required was a trigger, and this came in 1963. Because Nkomo commanded the support of older leaders who had formed the new ANC in 1957 (for instance, Nyandoro and Chikerema) and many longtime colleagues who had worked with him in Bulawayo such as Joseph Msika (who was Shona and led the MCS), Jason Moyo and George Silundika (both Kalanga), and others, it was not easy to oust Nkomo within ZAPU. However, the fact that Nkomo remained with his older leadership, from different ethnic groups, gave him a false sense of holding the moral high ground from which to condemn the rebels as tribalists. This party split started with the top leadership of ZAPU, and it happened without the consultation and wishes of the commoners. According to Dumbutshena, it was “a split in the leadership of the party. The masses were

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not part of it. [It was] . . . a senseless act of acute selfishness,”82 a matter of elite intrigue. Although commoners were generally loyal to their ethnic identities before the split, and although the Shona and Ndebele were usually suspicious of each other’s intentions, considering their history of competition in Bulawayo, political tribalism was not consolidated before the split in 1963.83 After the break, the moral ethnicity that kept African peoples self-conscious, and at times divided but not as enemies, was translated into regional political “tribalism,” a broader identity that was mobilized by elites to garner support. ZANU leaders mobilized Shona ethnicity into a Shona supertribe whose geography covered not only Mashonaland but all “Shona”speaking areas such as Masvingo, Manicaland, and parts of Midlands. In Matabeleland, Ndebele became a general regional political identity encompassing Ndebele, Kalanga, Sotho, Tonga, Venda, Nambya, and other peoples, with isiNdebele as the lingua franca. However, in the 1970s, prominent ZAPU leaders, who were mainly Kalanga, fought for more Kalanga influence in the party. The struggle weakened ZAPU but kept this regional Ndebele identity in existence. After the 1963 split, counteraccusations of tribalism began to feature in the African press. Nkomo’s supporters viewed the “rebels” as a bunch of tribalists, but some were baffled why Nkomo’s weaknesses had been spotted only by Shona leaders, and not by Ndebele.84 Some Shona supporters of ZANU, with the support of a pro-ZANU, Salisbury-based African paper, the African Daily News, castigated Nkomo for attacking “genuine nationalists” and also suggested that Nkomo was always abandoning Shona men in his party to suffer in jail every time the parties were banned.85 They also worked hard to whip up Shona commoners’ emotions against Nkomo by likening him to Lobengula, the late Ndebele king whom they accused of having abused Shona people and also of “selling the country” to the British. The writer, Chabvuta of Selukwe, criticized Nkomo thus: “His tactics are based on tribalism. If Ndebeles stand for that, well ‘tit for tat.’ Whatever Lobengula did, Mr. Nkomo has done. African National Congress was banned and Mr. Nkomo fled. What happened to Mr. R. Chikerema and G. Nyandoro and others when NDP and ZAPU were on the verge of being banned? Where was Mr. Nkomo?”86 Our judgment of the cause of the split must remain tentative, but clearly it was not simply caused by tribalism. If it had been, then the fact that Enos Nkala, an Ndebele, jointly formed ZANU with Shona men is inexplicable. Ndabaningi Sithole’s position in this tribal politics would also be difficult to understand. Although he was Ndau, Sithole grew up in Bulawayo, married an Ndebele woman (as other Shona did), and was fluent enough in isiNdebele to write a novel. Therefore, we can only conclude that tribalism was used to mobilize supporters and renegotiate political allegiances after the split, and not as a justification for the split. Rather, the causes lay in power

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politics, in Nkomo’s general miscalculations and his unintelligent handling of issues within the party, and the overzealous reaction of the politically immature intellectuals in ZAPU against Nkomo’s leadership. The split also reflected personal problems, such as between Nkomo and Enos Nkala. Former ZAPU insiders and activists I interviewed told me that Nkala, the only Ndebele “rebel” who joined ZANU, was angered by Nkomo’s treatment of his sister, with whom he was flirting but without commitment to marry her.87 After the split, the two factions fought for popular support. ZAPU/PCC’s main advantage was that it still had the famous old guard—Chikerema, Nyandoro, Nkomo, Msika, Silundika, Moyo, Willie Musarurwa—and the youth leader, Dumiso Dabengwa. This gave ZAPU at least a measure of legitimacy in the early years, but with time, there was need for some form of propaganda to mobilize support and also counter both ZANU and Rhodesian state propaganda.88 The split shook ZAPU’s information arm, formerly under Mugabe. Mugabe took with him to ZANU his publicity experience, and this worked in his favor. ZANU also boasted the support of young Shona intellectuals in the diaspora who did most of its external publicity work. Initially, ZANU had the support of the African Daily News under the editorship of Nathan Shamuyarira, with the result that there was “almost a complete boycott of the paper by the People’s Caretaker Council (Zapu) supporters.”89 The paper was banned in 1964, but before that time, its editorial policy had already shifted to supporting Nkomo because of effective popular ZAPU boycotts of the paper and following Nkomo’s secret meeting with the editors.90 When the paper’s support of ZAPU/PCC became too blatant for the government to tolerate, the minister of law and order moved to ban it, saying: Almost daily, Nkomo’s name has appeared in headlines on the front page, his photograph is an equally common feature, and his party, the People’s Caretaker Council, is given all the publicity it can possibly want. It is obvious that this newspaper has been running a recruitment campaign for the People’s Caretaker Council and Joshua Nkomo, and pages have appeared regularly indicating how people have changed from the Zimbabwe African National Union to the People’s Caretaker Council and the benefits attached to such transfer of political loyalty. In short the Daily News has been actively engaged in trying to channel the whole of the African nationalist movement into the ways and thoughts of Joshua Nkomo and the People’s Caretaker Council, to the detriment of people of all races living in Southern Rhodesia.91

Oftentimes, the Daily News incited people to attack African MPs in Ian Smith’s government who opposed the nationalist cause and to undermine chiefs who were fingered as fighting against the people’s cause (some of whom, like Chief Zvimba, were assaulted by ZAPU members); the paper also generally supported campaigns of sabotage and any action against Ian

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Smith’s moves toward Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI).92 Because of the shift in Daily News loyalty from ZANU to ZAPU, ZANU shifted its own publicity to its newly created newsletters, in which it branded itself (ZANU) as the radical alternative;93 ZANU’s leader, Sithole, was depicted by the same newsletters as “the militant, the terrier whose name the settlers tremble to hear.”94 ZANU published its own magazine, The Battle Cry, and later the Zimbabwe News. Apart from using the Daily News, which helped them only until the time it was banned, ZAPU tried to counter growing ZANU publicity by developing its own magazine, the Zimbabwe Review, and later the Zimbabwe People’s Voice, which continued publishing until the late 1970s and remains an important historical source for ZAPU activities. Because of the need to counter ZANU propaganda, and to show that ZAPU was still viable, the ZAPU official organ is replete with incidences of ZAPU/PCC’s rural underground operations against the Rhodesian Front (RF) regime. Before the Wankie confrontation with Smith’s soldiers in 1967, ZAPU concentrated mainly on sabotage—blowing up bridges and dip tanks, beating up agricultural demonstrators, and so on—while at the same time demonstrating open defiance to the ban imposed on it.95 However, much more effort was spent fighting ZANU by means of both character assassination and physical attacks.96 In Salisbury, which remained a ZAPU stronghold for some time, incidences were common of fights, burning of ZANU supporters’ homes, stoning and threatening the “rebels,” threatening and beating up women who wore “makeup” and miniskirts and those who could not sing ZAPU songs or say ZAPU slogans. This violence systematically closed down democratic space in the nationalist movement.97 It echoed earlier forms of NDP violence in the 1960s against older politicians and trade unionists, such as Reuben Jamela, who had different approaches toward the anticolonial struggle. These individuals were physically attacked and verbally abused as “sellouts” and “imperialist stooges.”98 Before the proscription of ZAPU and ZANU in 1964 and the arrest of their leaders, ZAPU remained strong in Salisbury, perhaps because of the popularity that Nyandoro and Chikerema had won during their City Youth League (CYL) days in the 1950s. Ongoing interparty violence and increasing sabotage, which brought life to a standstill, especially in Highfield, justified, in the eyes of the regime, a ban on all political parties and the arrest of all prominent leaders, most of whom spent ten years in prison from 1964 to 1974.99 Apart from violating opponents by means of physical political violence, the political psychology of labeling played an important role in creating further divisions between Shona and Ndebele. The Shona labeled Kalanga as part of Mandevere (the Ndebele), as they did other non-Shona inhabitants of Matabeleland. This favored the burgeoning regional Ndebele political identity. At the Cold Comfort conference, Nkomo bluntly labeled the rebels as tribalists, in an obvious attempt to portray opponents in a negative light and

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to redefine nationalism as a monopoly of ZAPU/PCC. This created unforeseen problems for him. In Bulawayo, where the Shona and Ndebele were less united, as Nkomo later realized, his utterances translated old ethnic loyalties into competitive relations of political power—in other words, political tribalism. As hostile accusations of tribalism filtered through the press for the remainder of 1963, ZANU quickly capitalized in order to gain political mileage. Just before the split, the rebels had organized an anti-Nkomo group made up of elements in Bulawayo under Zebediah Moyo. In an attempt to win support for ZANU, this small clique trivialized Bulawayo-based Ndebele nationalists by labeling them “self styled leaders [who were] behind the Mzilikazi Family Council which advocated for the Ndebele supremacy in everything here”; they cited Stephen Nkomo, Joshua Nkomo’s brother, a leader of the Mzilikazi Family Society, which was a small remnant of the Ndebele royal family. The group also accused Joshua Nkomo of denouncing tribalism at public meetings but promoting it secretly and enjoying support in Bulawayo because he was Ndebele.100 Though Nkomo was Ndebele, he was also Kalanga, and in public perceptions he was a real nationalist. Most of my Shona and Ndebele interviewees exonerated Nkomo of tribalism, defending him as a genuine nationalist. But if Nkomo was a nationalist par excellence, then one of his greatest failures was to continue to shore up a nationalist image in a party whose support base, and most of whose fighters, came largely from one region, Matabeleland. From about the mid-1960s, most of the people were beginning to view the ZAPU-ZANU split as an Ndebele-versus-Shona issue, not just as a political struggle between Nkomo and his opponents.101 Because of this shift in popular thinking, the notions of the “traditional rivalry between Shona and Ndebele” and of the Ndebele as a foreign, minority tribe were amplified.102 This Shona-Ndebele hostility was not so clearly evident in the early years of the split because ZAPU still had support in Salisbury and some rural areas of Mashonaland.103 Beyond this, ZAPU failed to grow any further outside Matabeleland after the split, and Nkomo was worried about the gradual loss of Shona support. Instead of finding innovative ways of attracting Shona to his party, Nkomo thought that blaming ZANU in the press and at meetings for its campaign of deliberately recruiting Shona as party members and awakening anti-Ndebele tribal feelings would be enough to save him. Nkomo decried ZANU’s formation of exclusively Shona clubs for party recruitment.104 With the gradual loss of Shona support, ZAPU’s stronghold shifted from Highfield to Bulawayo and Matabeleland generally, and with ZAPU guerrillas infiltrating the country through parts of Matabeleland in the late 1960s, having also been mainly recruited from there and from parts of Midlands, ZAPU gradually came to represent some form of Ndebele regional political identity. However, its leadership structure, especially the ZAPU Executive Committee, still had a sizable Shona leadership—including

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Chikerema, Nyandoro, and Msika—most of which had formed ANC with Nkomo in 1957. But this structure did not help change the public perception of the party outside Matabeleland and parts of Midlands.105 Because both ZANU and ZAPU were regionalistic, their nationalist posturing notwithstanding, neither could be said to represent genuine nationalist interests. The split was thus a great setback for African nationalism in colonial Zimbabwe, and it would have tragic repercussions for the postcolonial era. One effect of the regionalization of ZAPU was the ritualization of Nkomo’s leadership by both the Ndebele and the Kalanga as well as by other supporters. When I interviewed people in Bulilima-Mangwe about why they supported ZAPU and not ZANU, they argued that Nkomo was the only one who had been chosen by the gods of the Matopos to represent the nationalist movement.106 Support for Nkomo in Matabeleland was also dictated by the forward-looking nature of Ndebele regionalism. There was the belief that if Nkomo became the president of the country after independence, he would transfer the nation’s capital from Salisbury to Bulawayo and consequently Matabeleland people would reap certain political and economic benefits. After the reelection of Nkomo and his subsequent endorsement as ZAPU’s president-for-life at Cold Comfort Farm in 1963, one regionalist who contributed to the Daily News under the nom de plume Zimbabwian wrote: People here in Bulawayo are very happy because Mr. Nkomo had been elected life leader [of the nationalist movement]. They say the first thing he will do once he takes over the Government from Mr. Field is to transfer the capital from Salisbury to Bulawayo. Bulawayo is Mr. Nkomo’s home town. When Mzilikazi took over the Kingdom from Mambo he built his capital in Bulawayo. His successor Lobengula did the same thing, so it will be no good for Nkomo to stay in Salisbury.107

From 1963, ZAPU spread quickly in the Kalanga-dominated BulilimaMangwe District. Being Nkomo’s home area, it was also home to prominent ZAPU leaders like George Silundika, Jason Moyo, and journalist Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, who became the editor of ZAPU’s propaganda outlet, the Zimbabwe Review. The cream of ZAPU leadership thus came from BulilimaMangwe, including Nkomo—who was thought by some to be “Gololo” (a man of Sotho origin who grew up among the Kalanga).108 ZAPU was widely accepted as the natural successor of the banned NDP. The most effective agents of this political movement were not just the top politicians but commoners, Kalanga chiefs, and headmen. For this reason, the district commissioner for Bulilima-Mangwe described them (chiefs and headmen) in his December 1963 report as “disappointing” because of their support of ZAPU, and he even withdrew one headman’s subsidy for “encouraging

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subversion.”109 Describing the chiefs and headmen’s attitude toward African nationalism, he said: Even when one takes into account the fact that chiefs and headmen are subjected to pressure by African nationalists, one can not excuse the apathetic and negative attitude of the majority of the Chiefs and Headmen. In the recent disturbances in the Sansukwe area, Chief Banko took no steps to organise any opposition to the intimidation that was rife in his area. When difficulties have arisen, such as opposition to the fortnightly cattle inspections undertaken by the Veterinary Department, Headmen have given little assistance.110

Anticolonial resistance was perhaps more popular in Bulilima-Mangwe than in Bubi, where chiefs like Mabikwa remained ambivalent.111 The Bulilima-Mangwe people refused to cooperate with the South Nata African Council. Apart from their resistance to the government-sanctioned development projects, the people there also openly showcased their support for ZAPU to the district commissioner, who described the situation in 1963 as follows: There is still an increase in the tempo of Political activity in this District and the disturbances, which have been referred to earlier in this report, were inspired by the People’s Caretaker Council. The leader of this Council pays numerous visits to his wife who resides at one of the Missions in the District. Fur hats112 are still a very popular form of headgear and one finds a general surliness among the indigenous population which was not in evidence two or three years ago.113

The story of the later 1960s can be summarized as follows: detention of leaders, establishing of underground movements, increasing sabotage, recruitment of youths to undergo military training, and onset of armed confrontation from 1967.114 Attempts by the Frontline States to reunite the two parties failed. Nkomo maintained—partly from a position of strength and partly in denial—that ZANU and Sithole did not exist and that there was no division in the nationalist movement because there was only one movement.115 Tracing all these developments is not important for this current work. We will focus instead on developments from late 1969 onward.

From ZAPU’s Internal Confusion to Independence, 1969–79 From 1964 to 1974, Nkomo was in prison. The authoritarianism of Ian Smith reached such alarming proportions that John Day described the time as “a period of paralysis in which the impetus gained in the previous years, seemed to have been lost.”116 However, Alexander, McGregor, and

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Ranger’s recent work Violence and Memory proved that, at least in the Shangani Reserve, there was continuity rather than a lull in ZAPU’s activities. Nonetheless, evidence about these activities and how they shaped social and political identities during this time is scarce because most of the written sources are mainly about military activities. For ZAPU, continuity in the face of adversity necessitated a new strategy of military confrontation, which began in 1967. This new approach meant the need to strengthen both grassroots support and its foreign/external wing. It was within the external wing that the first cracks in ZAPU’s leadership manifested, amid the struggle for dominance along tribal lines. By 1967, allegations had surfaced of tribal factionalism in ZAPU, between Shona and Ndebele elements, which were expected to result in the formation of a “Chaminuka ZAPU” by Shona members and an “Mzilikazi ZAPU” by Ndebele. ZAPU’s publicity secretary, George Silundika, quickly dismissed those rumors as “rubbish.”117 But these rumors could not simply be explained away as part of ZANU propaganda or wishful thinking; a division in ZAPU was indeed imminent, and it weakened the party three years later. In a letter to Richard Gibson in 1971, ZANU chairman Chitepo claimed that the tribal split in ZAPU came as no surprise because it “was already known.”118 The confusion that later led to the formation of the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe (FROLIZI), started by James Chikerema, George Nyandoro, Nathan Shamuyarira, and others, grew out of power struggles between the leaders and also from the creeping disillusionment in the wake of ZAPU’s failed initial attempts at armed struggle in the late 1960s and early 1970. By the late 1960s, the external wing of ZAPU had opened an office in newly independent Zambia (former Northern Rhodesia), in Lusaka, to coordinate the armed struggle. Before the split, ZAPU’s external affairs were run by Chikerema, the “acting ZAPU president” until 1970. Other top ZAPU officials in exile were Jason Moyo, national treasurer; Nyandoro, secretary-general; George Silundika, publicity secretary; Edward Ndhlovu, deputy secretary-general; and Samuel Parirenyatwa, council member. These men were responsible for prosecuting the struggle using ZAPU’s military wing, the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA).119 It was these men who later divided ZAPU in 1970, once again by playing on enmity between Shona on the one hand and Kalanga and Ndebele on the other. On February 25, 1970, Moyo wrote a document, Observations on Our Struggle, criticizing the loose and unprofessional standards of the ZAPU War Council since mid-1969. He accused members of the military command and soldiers of corruption, criticized the army for lacking discipline, and spoke of “sordid and scandalous” accusations of cruelty and “cases of tribal incitement” in ZIPRA that were not being corrected.120 He claimed that there were strained relations between members of the War Council and the military administration to the extent that meetings between the two sides were

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no longer being held; consequently, there was lack of coordination in the deployment of cadres in Zimbabwe and increasing army desertions.121 Worried about the lack of respect that ZIPRA cadres showed him as a high-ranking ZAPU official, Moyo wondered if the War Council was still relevant and capable of performing its duty: I have experienced several cases of indiscipline wherein cadres have refused to take orders from me. I have also witnessed a case of a cadre I referred to the Chief of Staff—Comrade Manyika. This cadre said to me, “What animal is this called chief of staff!” he refused to go to Manyika as I told him to and also refused to take orders from me before many cadres. Our military organ is dismally lacking in specification of duties for instance, I do not know the scope of my functions as a member of the War Council. I do not know what I may or may not do. Sometimes it is frustrating in the extreme to be in such a situation.122

Moyo was further annoyed by the secret filming of the cadres by Argus media journalists, on Chikerema’s authority. He thought that it rashly exposed the army to the Rhodesian intelligence services, and that Chikerema’s having done so without consulting him (Moyo) suggested that Chikerema had no confidence in him.123 Chikerema did not take Moyo’s accusations lightly. As leader of the War Council, he countered them two days later by writing a long, emotionally charged response, Reply to Observations on Our Struggle. Chikerema argued that Nkomo, who was the ultimate leader of every department, had never set up a War Council. Chikerema, as Nkomo’s deputy, claimed he was “the man specifically delegated by the President to exercise his authority and mandate.”124 He criticized Moyo’s memorandum as “the most unfortunate piece of work ever brought in Zapu” and charged Moyo with intending to “protect clans and tribal corruption in the Party and Army.”125 He criticized the executive members for a lack of professionalism, in that they leaked deliberations to tribal groups; he also mourned the turning of Lusaka District and the regional office into an arena for “dark tribal secret meetings” and “sectionalism.” Chikerema argued that the party had become divided into “tribal factions and clannish empires” that privileged some cadres over others. He also complained that military recruitment was biased in favor of predominantly Ndebele areas.126 He concluded: I have therefore, dissolved the whole military command as presently constituted. I have substituted it with a new military administration and a new command structure which is directly responsible to me and to nobody else. I have taken direct control of certain party departmental functions, previously exercised by heads of departments here and abroad. I am taking direct control of all foreign matters and the administration of all our foreign offices from Comrade G. B. Nyandoro the National Secretary. I am taking direct control of all matters concerning education of our ZAPU cadres and people from Comrade

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T. G. Silundika; I have taken control of all external accounts of the party funds from the National Treasurer Comrade J. Z. Moyo. I have taken control of the administration of transport and all vehicles of ZAPU from the Department of the Treasury. In the Zambia region, the Lusaka District Council has been the centre of tribal intrigues, conspiracy and the promotion of personality cult for a long time. I have, therefore, decided to dissolve the whole Lusaka District Council because of its members’ involvement in the general disruption of the Party and their complicity in some sordid acts committed by officials in the Head Office and in the branches.127

Chikerema’s response predictably angered the three Kalanga men— Moyo, Ndhlovu, and Silundika. In a backlash, the trio accused him of attempting a coup against the ZAPU leadership and of writing his Reply jointly with George Nyandoro, whom they accused of hoping to share power with Chikerema in leading ZAPU. They also lodged the counteraccusation that the two were working secretly with their Shona tribe.128 Concluding that Chikerema’s move was a power play to “set up a structure of his own tribe,” they declared it “null and void.”129 With these counterattacks the stage was set for another ZAPU split. There were serious fights between different cadres loyal to the two tribal factions—Chikerema’s Shona and Moyo’s Kalanga. There was even an attempt to assassinate Nyandoro in Lusaka.130 Other versions of these developments give the impression that Chikerema and Nyandoro abducted Moyo, Silundika, and Ndhlovu, whom they only released on the intervention of the Zambian government.131 Amid the struggle to control ZAPU, Nyandoro became more extreme and made clear his political tribalism in this declaration: I am finding it necessary to organise on proper lines the complete military structure of ZAPU, which will henceforth come under my direct control and I will be appointing new Secretaries and new departments. All the senior officers will be of the Mashona tribes, that is to say Vazezuru, Vamanyika, and Vakaranga people only. The ZAPU organisation has been completely riddled by traitors from Matabeleland since we were compelled to leave Zimbabwe as refugees, and no progress at all has been made on the liberation of Zimbabwe, so we must constantly remember that our duty is now to Mashona. . . . Amandebele . . . are still showing themselves to be our pure enemies. I am appointing myself as Commander-in-Chief of ZAPU Military Council and we will forthwith be known as ZMC, a driving movement of militancy to liberate Zimbabwe from the illegal Smith regime without the help of the Amandebele.132

Once word of the struggle within ZAPU reached ZANU, its Zimbabwe News quickly publicized the disorder, its sympathies clearly with the Shona leaders in ZAPU. In fact, it blew up the whole issue of tribalism to the point of inciting all amahole not to support the Ndebele party:

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Our struggle is once more at the mercy of committed tribalists. There are people who will not believe anyone with a Shona name has any right to exercise the functions of leadership. And to prove their “point” these tribalists last week organised a tribal massacre at their “state” House in Lusaka, a most shameful incident in which six innocent young Zimbabweans were seriously wounded and four others reported missing. This “victory” over the “Amaswina” was later the subject for tribal celebration in the city bars and township taverns. What a shame! Now it seems the one country which has suffered most by rendering its principal support for the struggle in Southern Africa must suffer at the hands of those who ought to have stayed behind Dombodema or Nkai as tribal advisors to their Indunas rather than come to Lusaka to make a mess of the struggle in which so many of Zimbabwe’s bravest young men have laid down their lives. . . . Which sane “hole” will continue giving support to a leadership that openly abuses and shamelessly goes about in bars preaching tribal obscenities against another ethnic group?133

The split confused all levels of ZAPU leadership as well as ZAPU followers. As Ngwabi Bhebe argues, it “provoked a rebellion in the Zapu army so that some guerrillas led by Walter Mthimkhulu arrested some top commanders and members of the External Executive and threatened to kill them unless they resolved their differences and put the struggle on a proper footing again.”134 In response, the Zambian government banned all communication and arms supplies to the camps. This brought everything to a standstill until Chikerema’s formation of FROLIZI in October 1971. Thereafter, “ZAPU started from scratch.”135 This, together with the geographical limitations (ZAPU continued to operate from Zambia and ZANU from Mozambique, after 1974), made it difficult for ZIPRA to continue recruiting its soldiers from Mashonaland, hence the Matabeleland majority in its army.136 The effect of this on political support for ZAPU is obvious. The ZAPU split, however, does not only explain Kalanga-Shona relations, but it had repercussions for Kalanga-Ndebele relations too. The formation of FROLIZI, which was a direct result of this second ZAPU split, was, in the words of Lawrence Vambe, “an expression of Shona rebellion against the Ndebele-dominated leadership of Zapu.”137 FROLIZI has received less sympathy from partisan scholars and also from ZAPU, but it appears to have had a vision to unify the liberation movements as outlined by Shamuyarira, who joined it in 1971 as secretary for research and finance.138 FROLIZI, however, had little success in reuniting ZAPU and ZANU.139 Further analysis of FROLIZI is beyond the scope of this work, but there is sufficient cause for deeper research on this issue. With the purging of Chikerema, the men who remained at the helm of ZAPU were mainly Kalanga and a few Ndebele, except for Joseph Msika, who was Shona but grew up in Bulawayo and who, until 1974, was in detention with Nkomo at Gonakudzingwa. These Kalanga men had a further agenda, which was to consolidate their power over ZAPU

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by sidelining Ndebele people. It is not surprising, then, that there was a secret organization within the ranks of ZAPU called Dengezi, whose mission was to capture power from the Shona and the Ndebele both in exile and at home, and which was led by Jason Moyo, George Silundika, and Edward Ndhlovu.140 In the 1950s, Moyo had been actively involved in the Kalanga Cultural Society, which complained of Ndebele dominance in Bulawayo. According to Chikerema, Dengezi—literally meaning “potsherd” (chikari in Shona)—existed to prepare Kalanga leaders for ministerial positions in the envisioned postcolony, as well as advancing the social and economic positions of Kalanga people during the liberation war.141 Thus, Silundika, who was then ZAPU secretary for education, recruited mainly Kalanga youths to further their education out of the country, while relegating Ndebele young men to the battlefield. Some of my informants, ranging from cultural activists, ordinary supporters of ZAPU, and former ZIPRA combatants, both Ndebele and Kalanga, corroborated Chikerema’s view of Kalanga dominance and ethnic nepotism.142 This became evident with increasing numbers of Kalanga on the Bulawayo City Council and as journalists. While top ZAPU politicians were caught up in secret tribal struggles between Ndebele and Kalanga, high school students who supported ZAPU faced a different situation in the 1970s. Prominent boarding schools became military recruitment centers as students at these schools became easy targets for political indoctrination and were also abducted and trafficked out of the country where they joined ZAPU military training.143 At Umzingwane, where there were more Shona than Ndebele and Kalanga students combined, the school was polarized between ZANU and ZAPU. A strong solidarity emerged between Ndebele and Kalanga students.144 This polarization was also evident in colleges, where political tribalism was replicated in student union groups where political debates took place.145 Ensuing tribal tensions invariably drove a wedge between Shona and Ndebele students and limited the potential for “floor-crossing” to identify with the other tribe’s political party. It also helped close down the gap between Ndebele and Kalanga students, however, as these two groups found their solidarity in their support for ZAPU. To the Kalanga and Ndebele students, ZAPU was nationalist (because it included some Shona representation in its ranks in addition to Kalanga and Ndebele); ZANU was tribal because its leadership was predominantly Shona. This thinking, although naïve, helped to create a strong regional political identity for Matabeleland by narrowing the divisions between Matabeleland ethnic Others.146 There is, of course, much that could be said about the 1970s, having to do with political decisions made by leaders and so on, but these topics would do little to inform this current work. Developments such as the political arrangements leading to the 1972 Pearce Commission, the merger of parties in 1974, the background to the attempts at a merger between ZANU

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and ZAPU after 1975, the entrance of numerous players into the political arena and their exploitation by Ian Smith to confuse nationalism, the Lancaster House talks—all are important in their own right but will not be explored here. However, I will briefly comment on 1979 to set the context for the chapter to follow. In 1974, all leaders were released from detention. Having lost touch with political reality, they acted confusedly, forming and then breaking alliances, such as with the African National Congress in 1976 because of personality differences and divergent approaches to their talks with the Smith administration. Within ZAPU, as was also the case in ZANU, there was the challenge posed by a younger generation of politicians who had risen and aspired to positions of authority. The elderly politicians, having spent ten years in prison, had to work hard to regain control of the party from the younger leaders. For ZAPU, Nkomo had already lost Chikerema and Nyandoro, and in his autobiography he made very little mention of Chikerema’s FROLIZI, which collapsed in 1974. In 1977, Nkomo lost his closest confidant Jason Moyo, who was killed by a parcel bomb.147 Moyo had been heavily involved in planning ZIPRA attacks on Rhodesia.148 His death severely weakened Kalanga political domination of ZAPU and also ZIPRA’s military influence. By 1976, independence seemed afar off. Both ZANU and ZAPU were shaken by confusion, loss of support, and the loss of key leaders. Consequently, Mugabe, who led ZANU from late 1976, and Nkomo had to unite to colead the Patriotic Front (PF).149 To Nkomo, the PF was “one liberation movement with two parties”; to ZANU, the front was no more than a “paper tiger,” a “marriage of convenience” marred by suspicion that would soon be breached by Mugabe when he contested the elections in 1980 on the ZANU-PF ticket.150 The developments before the election and thereafter will be discussed in the next chapter.

W(h)ither Nationalism? Tribalism and Regionalism Studies of ethnicity and nationalism in Zimbabwe tend to suffer because of the general assumption that with the rise of nationalism in the 1950s, a nationalist identity replaced or made ethnicity irrelevant, at least until the 1963 split. Another erroneous assumption is that ethnicity was always a competitor to nationalism, even during the years before 1963, and that therefore, at some stage, a split in the nationalist movement was inevitable. In this chapter, we have discovered the complexity of the relationship that existed between ethnicity and nationalism. It is important to conceive this relationship not as rigid and static but as changing with time as ethnic groups moved from opposition to cooperation with respect to nationalism (1950s–63), and then as the form of what were construed as ethnic groups changed into political tribes

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after 1963, and then as these tribes were buttressed by another developing political identity, regionalism. This development ushered in a different relationship between tribes and nationalism. Despite the cry for unity during the better part of the 1950s, especially before the formation of the ANC in 1957, ethnic groups were becoming more and more important precisely because of the failures of collective strike actions in the late 1940s. The existence and increasing importance of ethnic groups did not, however, mean that people were unsupportive of efforts to unite beyond ethnic solidarities. The strength of ethnic groups only illustrated the dearth of collective leadership and the level of African political apathy after the failures of the 1948 strikes and of efforts against the inception of the Federation in the early 1950s. With the emergency of the ANC in 1957 up to the 1963 ZAPU-ZANU split, ethnic groups made sterling efforts to complement rather than counter the growth of African nationalism. Ethnic groups provided heroic historical figures who were remade into nationalists, including past kings and chiefs; they allowed their social and cultural centers, such as Great Zimbabwe and Matopos, to be remade into symbols of national pride; they provided platforms where rising nationalists could launch their political agenda, and they allowed their languages to be used as the official languages of nationalism, as was the case with isiNdebele and Shona. Without these contributions, it would have been very difficult to create nationalism as a new identity during this period. However, in complementing nationalist efforts, ethnic groups did not become irrelevant or cease to exist. They continued to live side by side with the nationalist movement and provided the social and cultural basis of African life. Complications emerged after the split in 1963 that created new relations between Shona on the one hand and Ndebele and Kalanga on the other. After the split, ethnic identities were soon mobilized as political constituencies with the result that ethnicity became more and more politicized and remolded to the extent that regional supertribes emerged in the form of Shona and Ndebele.151 Shona and Ndebele as they exist today are not, therefore, ethnic groups, strictly speaking, but are new political tribes that emerged in a specific history of power struggles within the nationalist movement. In other words, one could safely call them regional political identities. The people within each of the two regional collectives still retain, in different ways, their different social cultures consistent with their ethnic groups.152 Thus, the Shona group came to embrace the Manyika, Ndau, Zezuru, Karanga, and Kore-kore, among others, while the Ndebele came to represent not only those who were originally Ndebele by ethnicity, but also the Kalanga, Sotho, Venda, and other peoples in Matabeleland. ZAPU and ZANU as they existed after the split were regional political parties competing for prominence, not nationalist movements per se, although their leaders eagerly anticipated the coming of independence for Zimbabwe.

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Whether the 1963 split marked the official death of African nationalism in Zimbabwe is beyond this discussion, but it would seem to be the case that although the people were divided because of elite struggles for power, they still aspired for some form of African self-rule and self-actualization that had long been denied them by colonial authority. The notion of the nation and the main goals of the struggle were never in question, notwithstanding the divisions within the movement that promoted narrower (ethnic, regional, personal) interests. To strengthen the nationalist cause, the nationalist leadership should have appreciated the concerns of ethnic and regional associations and viewed these narrower associations as having potential to enrich national identity. Failure to do this resulted in an unhealthy relationship between nationalism, regionalism, and ethnicity and this spilled into postcolonial Zimbabwe.

8 Postcolonial Terror Politics, Violence, and Identity, 1980–90 Because “speaking truth to power” in postcolonial Zimbabwe has generally been risky, the violence that happened in Matabeleland and Midlands between 1980 and 1987 has only begun to be sufficiently explored. Apart from pioneering anthropological work by Werbner, the richest historical study of this topic is Violence and Memory by Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger.1 Evidence of sordid, grotesque violence unleashed upon the inhabitants of Matabeleland and Midlands by government agents under the pretext of dealing with dissidents came to light with the publication of Breaking the Silence.2 Notwithstanding the high reputation of the authors of the report and the quality of the research they conducted among survivors of torture (atrocities that were condemned by Matabeleland activists as genocide),3 the report and this chapter alone do not adequately express that level of violence. The violence meted out by government agents, chiefly against innocent Matabeleland and Midlands civilians, considerably affected Shona-Ndebele relations, and continues to do so.4 It also shaped Ndebele people’s view of citizenship and their political character and further redefined NdebeleKalanga relations.5 The government’s culture of impunity and its desire to arbitrarily obliterate popular memory has indirectly contributed to the emergence of civic societies championing the cause of survivors of torture.6 As a result of the rise of these civic societies, and also of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), whose president Morgan Tsvangirai did at one point tour the gukurahundi mass graves, individual and collective memories and tales of this state-sponsored violence have become firmly reinscribed in Zimbabwean society. These graphic stories are often relayed to successive generations and also invoked during election campaigns against the ZANUPF regime. It seems this postcolonial violence is remembered much more than the violence of the Rhodesian Front regime. This chapter will analyze and interpret the harrowing events from the perspective of the common people who were themselves victims.7 I hope to examine the impact of this tyranny in solidifying a composite, regional

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popular Ndebele identity. The solidification of this regional identity was a result of two developments. The first is the nature of African politics after the 1963 ZAPU-ZANU split, which divided the country into two supertribes, Ndebele and Shona; one result of this split was that the gap between the Ndebele and Kalanga people gradually narrowed as both groups aligned in support for ZAPU. Second, the Matabeleland peoples—be they Kalanga, Ndebele, Tonga, Venda, or Sotho—suffered the same fate as victims of postcolonial violence, and this tended to bring them closer as victimized people. As the government’s notorious Fifth Brigade consisted mainly of Shona, it became like a Shona occupying force, sent to slaughter Ndebele people. In the view of the gukurahundi militia (Fifth Brigade), all inhabitants of Matabeleland and Midlands who supported Joshua Nkomo were defined as Ndebele. Before we attempt to interpret this violence, we must first understand what happened.

What Happened in Matabeleland and Midlands? When thousands of Matabeleland and Midlands Zimbabweans experienced various forms of violations between 1980 and 1987 (including being hacked to death), those from outside the areas that were targeted were made to believe that the government had just cause as it was dealing with dangerous “dissidents.” The reality of the situation and the extent of the state-sponsored terror were not so well known, at least until the publication of Breaking the Silence in 1997. Shamuyarira, who was minister of information during the period was an established media practitioner who had done propaganda work for ZANU during the 1970s. At the height of gukurahundi violence in 1984, his ministry published a dossier full of highlights and graphic and horrific pictures of people who sustained various grievous bodily injuries that were all condemned as the work of dissidents.8 This media barrage, including print, TV, and radio propaganda, further served to confuse the people and defend the government. This violence happened just after independence, and most Zimbabweans were still caught up in the postindependence euphoria and thus were hesitant to condemn the new government. Given the negative image of Matabeleland that some Shona grew up believing, it was easy for them to accept government propaganda. The public press was choked into silence; government-controlled media outlets churned out tribalist rhetoric and toed the official line.9 When Catholic Archbishop Karlen wrote to Prime Minister Robert Mugabe on February 12, 1983, complaining of the murders, complaining that “a policy of genocide is being contemplated,” the government quickly denied the charge and criticized the Catholic Bishops’ Conference report as one-sided.10 Mugabe high-handedly labeled the Catholic Bishops “a band of Jeremiahs with a band of foreign

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journalists” who were silent on the “heinous actions of Zapu and its dissidents” and branded them a people with “no sense of nationality.”11 There was, therefore, no opportunity to publicly indict the government, and especially the prime minister, Mugabe, the man to whom the gukurahundi army (Fifth Brigade) was directly answerable.12 Amid this enforced silence, twenty thousand people were killed in Matabeleland and Midlands, by a conservative estimate.13 Many were reported missing and have never been found. These likely include those who were reportedly abducted, maimed, and later thrown alive into disused mines. Houses were razed with bazookas; Ndebele women were systematically raped at gunpoint in order that they would give birth to Shona children, rather than Ndebele.14 Pregnant women had their wombs dissected by bayonets. In a case that some of my informants witnessed, a pregnant woman was dissected and the unborn child was taken out and killed because “it was a dissident”; the mother was also murdered by the Fifth Brigade.15 In another incident, a young girl was asked where her father was. When she said he was in South Africa, they said he was a dissident planning a coup against the government. So the Fifth Brigade held the innocent child by her legs and hit her against a wall until she died. Like all victims of gukurahundi violence, she was not publicly mourned nor was she afforded a decent burial. “Dissidents,” the Fifth Brigade maintained, “were not to be mourned.”16 Most of the dead were hastily buried in shallow graves, or “lucky” ones were thrown into disused mines. Some corpses buried in shallow graves became meat for preying wild animals, especially in the years 1982–84. Death became a common sight, and there was no space for people to exercise their traditional African burial rituals. In Brunapeg, for instance, dead bodies were brought before the people to see, tied to government vehicles and dragged on the ground like deadwood. These violated bodies were laid on high ground in broad daylight, and the people were invited to view the “dead dissidents.”17 In this collective punishment some died violently while others who survived were inflicted with the haunting sight of violent death and with the loss of their relatives, friends, and members of their ethnic group. How can we begin to understand such horrors? In 1963, the people who formed ZANU broke away from ZAPU. Thereafter, these competing liberation movements and additional splinter groups failed to reconcile, and their short-lived unity in 1979 neither transformed them nor eased the enmity between them. It was predictable that these earlier political animosities and suspicions between the warring parties would spill into the postcolonial era: If, however, the Patriotic Front should ever find itself in a position of power, the results can be clearly foreseen. A duumvirate, in an organization formed through political expediency, cannot in the African context, survive. One

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leader must emerge, and the other must disappear. . . . The outcome, therefore, of a Patriotic Front takeover of Rhodesia must be a power struggle between Nkomo and Mugabe, leading in all probability to civil war on tribal lines, between the predominantly Matabele ZAPU forces and the predominantly Mashona ZANU forces. Mugabe is in the position where he must not only watch Nkomo, however. Given the proclivities of Josiah Tongogara, and no doubt other terrorist leaders, in the light of the murder of Chitepo, it may be that Mugabe needs also to guard his rear. It can be concluded, therefore that the Patriotic Front is not a stable merger between two nationalist parties, but is rather a marriage of convenience between two violently opposite leaders, which could not survive the acquisition of national power.18

With the cease-fire, people were uncertain whether the two parties were going to contest their first-ever elections as one party, the Patriotic Front (PF), or separately. Nkomo wanted them to participate as one, believing that unity was “essential, not just for elections, but for stability after the elections,” yet Mugabe’s ZANU would not accept this, preferring a possible unity after the elections on his own terms should he win with a big majority.19 It is most likely that Nkomo wanted unity for the fear that he would otherwise lose to Mugabe’s Shona-dominated ZANU-PF. With very few exceptions, the 1980 elections clearly proved this tribal factor. ZANU took no seat in Ndebele-dominated areas, while ZAPU lost heavily in Shona-dominated areas.20 During the election campaign political parties had to stick to the Lancaster House cease-fire agreements, two of which deserve mention. First, the parties were supposed to immediately call their soldiers into so-called assembly points (APs) created throughout the country; and second, their armies were not allowed to campaign for their parties, but had to stay in the APs. We have evidence that Nkomo brought most of his soldiers into the APs and commanded those who were out to come in, although this does not necessarily mean that all his soldiers complied.21 In some instances, ZIPRA soldiers who resisted coming into assembly points were shot and killed, but others remained at large and perhaps some of these became lawless bandits.22 But ZANU was more apprehensive about taking its soldiers into APs because this would wreck its election campaign strategy. In Belingwe, ZANUPF kept its guerrillas out of APs citing legitimate fears of possible attacks by the Rhodesian Security Forces.23 Where they finally brought in their soldiers, it is alleged that they nevertheless kept some battalions outside APs and surrendered mostly war collaborators, the mujibhas.24 There were scores of ex-ZANLA guerrillas roaming at times in platoons outside APs, threatening “to continue the war, should their party lose elections.”25 Some also left and reentered APs willy-nilly, as did ZIPRA soldiers, to campaign for their parties and hold illegal political meetings, intimidating the electorate and conducting partisan voter education.26 On one occasion, armed ZANU-PF soldiers outside an assembly point opened fire on an innocent wedding

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party in Mutare.27 We are not aware of what happened to these ZANU-PF soldiers; they did not return to the AP, and one wonders whether they also may have become bandits or perhaps dissidents. Crucial developments occurred after Mugabe won the 1980 elections. Nkomo apparently accepted the result and asked his supporters to work with the government.28 The two armies (ZIPRA and ZANLA) were to be integrated into a single Zimbabwean National Army. As the process was slow, soldiers became bored and some began to leave the APs.29 In the process some left with their arms.30 During that same time, there were incidents of armed bandits terrorizing people in Bulawayo.31 It seems that the government stagemanaged this banditry and used it as a pretext in its case against ZAPU. Soon ZANU MPs condemned the increasing postelection lawlessness on ZAPU, alleging that there was disorder in Matabeleland because bandits wanted Nkomo in power and that dissident saboteurs were being trained in South Africa to undermine the new government.32 This was the first time the term “dissident” was used to describe acts of lawlessness in Zimbabwe. It became the official term to describe thuggish activities in Matabeleland, all of which were blamed on ZAPU. Dissidents, according to Mugabe and according to former security minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, were ZAPU soldiers operating with the support of local ZAPU leadership and were to be “crushed.”33 The Mugabe government was biased, however, and refused to acknowledge similar lawless disturbances carried out by armed men in the former ZANLA operational areas.34 The definition of dissident was therefore political, being a product of the politics of naming. Nkomo hated the term because of its political connotations, preferring the lawless men be treated rather as criminals. Continued irresponsible and inflammatory statements by ministers only made the already tense political atmosphere worse. Addressing a rally in Barbourfields, minister of national supplies Enos Nkala labeled dissidents as ZAPU, accused the Bulawayo Chronicle of promoting “provincialism,” claimed that ZAPU people were calling for a second war of liberation, and stated that ZAPU would be extinct in five years.35 These inflammatory speeches affected all levels of ZAPU’s power base—the commoners who had lost their livestock and families to support the war; the ZAPU leaders who boasted of having initiated nationalism in Zimbabwe; and the ex-ZIPRA soldiers who had fought and were still locked up in the APs, where they suffered other abuses. Nonetheless, Nkomo asked his supporters to remain calm and see themselves as belonging to “one tribe called MaZimbabwe.”36 If his efforts at unity and nation building had been successful at this stage, Nkomo would have easily become a hero in the eyes of the people, ahead of Mugabe. ZANU, however, would not allow this to happen as Mugabe and his supporters believed that they alone had the mandate to define the nation and what they termed the national interests. ZANU had a very parochial sense of national unity, which was essentially defined politically as “one nation, one

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party” as opposed to multiparty democracy. Commenting on the Patriotic Front in 1978, ZANU issued this statement: “If ZANU embraces all the people of Zimbabwe, then which other people of Zimbabwe must it unite with? ZANU is and shall remain a Peoples’ Party.”37 The place of Matabeleland in the nation, and of Ndebele people in general, was also not so clear from the start. ZANU, it seems, deliberately refused to consider the possibility of creating a nonpartisan polity. Intentionally provocative statements were repeated at public meetings and in the press until they had their effect on those to whom they were directed. On July 6, 1980, Enos Nkala was back in Bulawayo, the heart of ZAPU’s support base, with the usual diatribe. Addressing a ZANU-PF rally at White City Stadium, he said that his duty was now “to crush Nkomo and forget about him”; likening Nkomo to a “self-appointed Ndebele king,” he labeled ZAPU MPs “a group of tribalists” that he would “crush instead of submitting to them.”38 Celebrating ZANU’s monopoly of the state and defining the position of ZAPU in the state, he yelled: I want to declare here for everyone to know that Joshua Nkomo and his group are in the Government by the grace of ZANU. They contributed in their own small way, and we have given them a share proportional to their contributions. If they now want more than their small share, then we have to tell them that they will not have any share at all. Nkomo will be relegated to history the same way as these people [Ojukwu of Biafra, Tshombe of Congo, Harry Nkumbula of Zambia, and Oginga Odinga of Kenya] who tried to appoint themselves as tribal leaders. If anyone of those 15 MPs [of ZAPU] and their dissidents tried to subvert the Government, we will deploy Government Security forces and the operation will be a one day wonder. If they want to work against the Government, there is no doubt that we will crush them.39

When I interviewed Enos Nkala, who says he is now a born-again Christian, he admitted that his statements fueled the violence that later happened, but argued that these mere political statements aimed at Nkomo and ZAPU were misconstrued by the people who heard him: I said Zanu had crushed Zapu and its leader Nkomo. This statement was in reference to Zapu as a party and to Nkomo as its leader. It was really just a political statement. I do not know how the ordinary people took it, but it was really just an ordinary political statement. The soldiers could also have heard the statements and I think some of them might also have attended the meeting, or that the people who went to the camps told them.40

This rally, attended by Bulawayo ZANU supporters, is still part of Matabeleland popular memory.41 To many Ndebele people, Nkala’s utterances led to the increasing disaffection of ZIPRA members and ultimately to the

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violence of the Fifth Brigade, which to them was the full realization of the government’s plan to “crush” them. Despite attempts by ZAPU leaders to calm the people and angry ex-ZIPRA soldiers in the APs at Entumbane, ZANU-PF would not restrain itself.42 A pro-Nkala demonstration of women in Gweru was quickly organized; Nkomo was again labeled the leader of dissidents, and the demonstrators called for a one-party state, which seems to have been one of the ultimate aims of the gukurahundi violence.43 But ZAPU supporters and ex-ZIPRA combatants had become too restless to heed the call for peace. Their anger led to the first Entumbane clash between ZANU and ZAPU supporters, which occurred in November after ZANU-PF officials and supporters in the White City Stadium suffered violence at the hands of angry, stone-throwing ZAPU supporters.44 Reacting to the incident, Nkala, the head of the rally, worried that ZAPU had declared war and urged ZANU supporters to form “vigilante committees” to challenge ZAPU from its home. He said that ZANU was to deliver a “few blows” if possible and would use “Zanla forces in Bulawayo if police cooperation was not forthcoming.”45 It was as if the 1963 ZAPU-ZANU passions were aflame all over again. The next day, Shona people were in trouble as ZIPRA forces and commoners committed violence against them and gutted houses belonging to ZANUPF officials, killing and evicting Shona people.46 Non-Ndebele people like Kalanga, Tonga, and Venda joined the Ndebele and were recognized as Ndebele people.47 The connection between ethnicity, regional belonging, and politics was becoming increasingly significant. After what would come to be called the “First Entumbane,” Mugabe quickly sacked Nkomo from the post of home affairs minister, making him minister without portfolio instead. This move created much apprehension among ex-ZIPRA fighters.48 In this uncertain situation, they cached arms, as their relations with ZANLA counterparts continued to deteriorate. Although the government was warned of the increasing hostility between the two armies that lived side by side in the APs, it did not take any corrective action.49 This suspicion and hostility led to the “Second Entumbane” fight, which broke out between the two camps.50 This began when ex-ZANLA soldiers attacked ex-ZIPRA soldiers.51 After the Entumbane fights, both exZANLA and ex-ZIPRA men cached arms. The latter had more fears than the former because their party was a minority in government.52 This feeling of insecurity, mainly on the the part of ZIPRA soldiers, combined with the frustrations in the military integration process, led to the departure of many exZIPRA soldiers from the APs.53 Some deserted the army citing frustrations, ill-treatment, deaths of ex-ZIPRA soldiers, and partisan promotions.54 This does not mean that they all automatically became dissidents, and as Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger have noted, most ex-soldiers went into the bush involuntarily simply because they faced an impossible situation. To associate with dissidents was the last thing they wanted since that risked incurring the

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wrath of both the government and suspicious dissidents.55 But the extent to which actual dissidence was a problem confronting government is debatable. It is possible that some “dissidents” were bogus provocateurs, paid government thugs masquerading as dissidents for the government’s good.56 At the height of the massacres in 1982, the people in Kezi captured one so-called dissident, searched him and found in his possession a government pay slip bearing his name.57 In some places, the dreaded Fifth Brigade would not pursue “dissidents” once people gave them directions to their location, but instead went the opposite way, which raised suspicions that they had instructions not to attack one another.58 It is possible (but unproven) that the events leading to the massacres in Matabeleland were premeditated by the ZANU-PF government. At the height of political emotions after the “Second Entumbane,” rumors (later proved true) circulated that the government had hired North Koreans to train a special army unit, but the government denied it.59 The prime minister only officially announced the formation of the 5 (Fifth) Brigade on August 20, 1981. The brigade was, in the words of Mugabe, “a special unit” to “deal with dissidents and any other trouble in the country.”60 He repeated that dissidents, criminals, and other lawless elements would be “wiped out ruthlessly.” The government was to train five thousand soldiers to “crush” all dissidents.61 If the training of this militia had been planned by the prime minister as early as August 1980, well before any real “dissident problem” had manifested, then one wonders what purpose this militia was to serve.62 According to Nkomo, there was no need for such a “partisan crack force.”63 He questioned the necessity of sending military battalions, police support units, and hordes of intelligence operatives to Matabeleland if there were only about three hundred “dissidents.” He insisted that there were no dissidents in Matabeleland, only bandits.64 The ruling party’s vision was not so veiled. Once we understand it, then we will realize why Mugabe’s government acted the way it did. Mugabe wanted to destroy all opposition and in the future establish a one-party state. He envisioned “one state with one society, one nation, one party, one leader.”65 In an interview with Moto, he did not state how his vision would be achieved. But earlier in 1982, he publicly asked ZAPU to accept a party merger, which would mean the absorption of ZAPU, since Mugabe maintained “ZANU (PF) is the people and most people are ZANU.”66 To Nkomo, this proved that Mugabe saw the nation through tribal eyes.67 It turned out that Nkomo was not aware of any unity talks and argued that since Mugabe wanted ZANU to rule supreme, there was no need for a merger. He said, “We would like to see us unite. But we can’t unite kneeling to Zanu.”68 Mugabe was, however, very serious about his preconditions for unity. He reiterated his position at another rally in Chitungwiza, where he asked ZAPU to join ZANU “because that is what united people should do. They should be one party, with one

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government and one Prime Minister.”69 Had Nkomo accepted this forced unity (which he later accepted under duress because of the death of more than twenty thousand of his supporters), there would perhaps not have been massacres in Matabeleland. This, however, would have meant an early death of ZAPU, which would have eroded Nkomo’s integrity in the eyes of his numerous followers in Matabeleland and Midlands. Nkomo was therefore between a rock and a hard place. The Entumbane fights had come and gone, the government had not found enough excuse to deploy its militia, and ZAPU had refused to be absorbed. Only one option remained to a determined Mugabe who wanted to ensure that he had his way—to eliminate ZAPU by systematically violating its supporters. The government needed only some shreds of evidence to justify the argument that ZAPU and its soldiers were a security threat. Just a week after ZAPU refused “unity” (on Mugabe’s terms) the government “discovered” huge arms accumulations, “sufficient to equip about 5,000 men” in properties owned by ZAPU. These were buried, according to a police spokesperson, “in preserved order” and were supposedly cached after the Entumbane fights.70 Several other small caches were “discovered.”71 How the police knew where to find the caches remains a mystery. Nkomo asserted that he did not know of any caches, and ZAPU’s view was that the weapons were deposited by paid informers, since ZAPU would not have hidden weapons in its own house.72 The government found its own explanation: according to Mugabe, Nkomo hid weapons so as to “overthrow and take over the government. They bought farms throughout the country so that they could have places to hide arms.”73 It became the official view that ZAPU was planning a “zero hour” situation against the government to win what it had lost through the elections.74 Since ZAPU was allegedly promoting dissidents, its ministers were immediately sacked from the government.75 Prominent ex-ZIPRA commanders Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku were arrested and tried for treason, for which they were later acquitted but remained detained.76 Masuku died a few days after his release from prison and is an unofficial hero in Matabeleland. Meanwhile, there was a sudden increase in “dissidents” from the time the discovery of arms caches were announced. These persons were alleged to have committed heinous acts including threatening government resettlement programs, slaying a teacher in Plumtree, and abducting tourists in Tsholotsho, among others.77 With these developments, there was “reason” to send the Fifth Brigade to Matabeleland to annihilate dissident ZAPU elements.78

Gukurahundi and Kalanga-Ndebele Relations The violence of the 1980s is the culmination of a twenty-year-old history of ill relations between ZAPU and ZANU. In chapter 7, we discovered how,

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because of the 1963 split, ZANU and ZAPU increasingly operated in different areas, which defined their recruitment zones. While ZANU became popular in Mashonaland, dominated by Shona, ZAPU established itself in Ndebele-dominated parts of Matabeleland and Midlands—thus reflecting important regional patterns. In the context of this regional power politics, the Kalanga assumed a public Ndebele identity as a symbol of regional unity. Ordinarily, being ZAPU became synonymous with being Ndebele. Most Shona people were convinced that ZAPU represented Ndebele tribalism, just as the Matabeleland people thought of ZANU as a Shona tribal party. Nationalist politics in Zimbabwe were therefore firmly rooted in supertribal leanings, and postindependence Zimbabwe inherited this legacy of tribal disharmony. Victors had many scores to settle with their enemies. It was their time to prove the might of ZANU by cowing opponents into total submission and to define parameters of national belonging. ZANU’s leaders and supporters thought of creating a Shona state politically and socially. In 1980, the minister of education vowed to introduce the teaching of Shona language in Matabeleland, supposedly “to counter Ndebele tribalism.”79 Not surprisingly, the ministry did not promote the teaching of isiNdebele in Mashonaland. Before 1980, ZAPU ascribed its legitimacy to history—having in its fold the senior nationalist Nkomo, the titular “Father of Zimbabwe,” and other leading nationalist figures. ZANU lacked this legitimacy during its early years, and for this reason, the party’s electoral victory in 1980 presented it with a golden opportunity to grab the nation and remake history. In this light, we can understand the Matabeleland massacres as two-pronged: political and ethnic. Before independence, Mugabe and most of his ZANU leaders were unknown to Matabeleland people. Although ZANU had campaigned there in the 1970s, its support base remained very weak. Some informants told me that they only heard of Mugabe during the 1980 election campaign.80 “We never heard of Mugabe during the war,” said one informant. “We only knew Nkomo as our leader. Mugabe hijacked the revolution.”81 Matabeleland was virtually a ZAPU stronghold. In the 1980 elections, ZAPU lost only one seat to ZANU in Matabeleland and got four of the twelve seats in Midlands. However, ZAPU secured only one seat in Mashonaland, Victoria, and Manicaland Provinces combined, which incidentally are predominantly Shona areas.82 In 1981, ZAPU won all Bulawayo City Council seats. Matabeleland was therefore a mass of people with a solidified political identity. The government erred in assuming that this society presented possibilities for Ndebele political secession that needed to be stemmed by a preemptive attack to weaken ZAPU. For this reason, the Fifth Brigade army targeted first and foremost local ZAPU leaders and activists, claiming that they were dissidents or were operating in collusion with dissidents.83 The government also targeted

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ex-ZIPRA fighters, including those who had retired and were now farmers or were working in other businesses.84 Some of these ex-fighters were abducted from public transport and searched, as happened to some in Plumtree on their way home, or were taken from their homes by night and were never seen again.85 In Madyambudzi, my informants showed me some homesteads that were either gutted by the Fifth Brigade army or deserted by the occupants who lost breadwinners or parents who were known ZAPU activists. At the height of the terror, ZAPU’s offices were closed down as the government considered them to be havens and coordination centers for dissidents.86 The government declared all ZAPU members to be dissidents and named ZAPU itself a scourge that must be exterminated.87 It had a plan to destroy ZAPU, which Nkala had admitted to unwittingly when he said that ZAPU would be dead in five years. As the violence intensified, ZAPU activists went underground. Once the army had finished its job of capturing “dissidents,” government ministers, led by Nkala, moved around Matabeleland campaigning for ZANU, parading scruffy-looking youths and presenting them as captured dissidents, and urging people to “rally behind government for peace.”88 In Kafusi and Ntepe in Gwanda, Matabeleland South Province, Nkala made clear the government’s aim to wipe out all ZAPU supporters and to portray ZANU as the savior of the nation: “I don’t want to come here again and find people talking about Zapu. If you continue supporting dissidents and the Zapu that supports them, there are two places for you—the grave or the prison.”89 In this kind of political campaign, ZANU underestimated the strength of local political culture and the nature of Ndebele regional politics. People in Matabeleland clearly understood ZANU’s hegemonic messaging and were not about to be fooled by the “protection from dissidents” rhetoric the government was purveying. As an old woman called MaNcube put it to me, “Mugabe killed Ndebeles because we were not supporters of Zanu. We were Zapu. He wanted to destroy Zapu’s support.”90 Although the people in Matabeleland understood the government’s campaign message as a deliberate attempt to terrorize Ndebele people into submission to a Shona-dominated government and to influence the people to change their attitude toward the government, intelligent commoners bought ZANU party cards and “defected” to ZANU en masse.91 ZANU reportedly collected “bags and bags of Zapu cards,” as people did what they had to, to survive the terror.92 People were forced to publicly denounce ZAPU and the dissidents, and to state that they no longer liked Nkomo’s leadership; the latter happened in Dagamela, Ntabazinduna, Inyati, Nkosikazi, and Gwelutshena.93 Throughout Matabeleland people were forced to attend rallies where they were drilled to hate ZAPU and love ZANU. Political indoctrination took the form of notorious ZANU pungwes (all-night meetings) where slogans like the one below were chanted:

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Pamberi neZanu! Pamberi naMugabe! (Forward with ZANU! Forward with Mugabe!) Pasi nemachuwachuwa [ZIPRA!] (Down with ZIPRA!) Pasi naDumbuguru/Nkomo! (Down with Bigbelly/Nkomo!) Pasi nemadissidents! (Down with dissidents!)94

This Pamberi neZanu rhetoric gave the violence its political meaning. These slogans were followed by attitude-forming songs, such as: “Nkomo usandishungurudze, Hama dzedu dzakapera kufa, Ruzhinji rweZimbabwe rwukakuvara kazvo, Usandishungurudze” (Nkomo stop annoying me. Our relatives have all died. Many Zimbabweans were seriously injured and maimed. So stop annoying me!).95 The songs, mostly sung in Shona, portrayed ZAPU as the cause of the problems and cast ZANU as a legitimate redeemer. My informants sang to me some of the songs and told me how painful it was for them to denounce and curse Nkomo, whom they supported and believed to be the father of Zimbabwean nationalism. The widespread state-sponsored terrorism considerably shaped the regional identity in Matabeleland. There is evidence that the government tried hard in areas that were not ethnically Ndebele to further divide people, teaching them that ZAPU was an Ndebele tribal party to be abandoned by non-Ndebele people. In Binga, Jambezi, and Hwange, areas inhabited by Tonga and Nambya people, the government tried to de-Ndebelecize the people by spreading propaganda that the inhabitants of these areas had “particularly requested that the government should draw a clear distinction between them and the rest of Matabeleland” and that they “did not want to be bothered in this talk of seceding Matabeleland, emphasising that they did not belong to Zapu nor were they Nkomo’s people. They would like to have their own distinct province to be called Tonga-Nambya Province.”96 Despite this propaganda, commoners still thought differently. They typically considered themselves part of ZAPU together with other Matabeleland inhabitants. During this long period of violence, Kalanga cultural activism continued; indeed, Kalanga made many representations to the government and wrote to magazines and newspapers. In Bulawayo and Bulilima-Mangwe, activists attempted to advocate for the revival of Kalanga language and culture especially by having Kalanga language officially recognized and taught in schools.97 There were also efforts to ensure that Kalanga culture was promoted and recognized just like Ndebele culture.98 These efforts were undertaken mainly by the Kalanga Culture Promotion Society under Millie Nsala Malaba and others. However, this cultural activism seemed to get overshadowed by the growing political importance of a regional Ndebele identity that was being cemented as a result of the collective violence of the 1980s. Collective political identity was a more pressing concern at the time than Kalanga ethnicity, because the former was about struggling for the right to

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live, to survive. As Ndebele cultural activist and pastor Rev. Paul Damasane puts it, “It was only during this era when the Kalanga element did not matter. They were not separated from the Nguni. They were lumped in as Ndebele. So they were correctly categorized.”99 The violence was part of long-term election strategy that centered on decimating ZAPU support before the 1985 elections. At the height of the so-called defections, where many people bought ZANU cards, government officials thought that the Matabeleland people had now “seen the light” and were renouncing PF-ZAPU. On hearing the news of defections and high sales of the party cards, Mugabe was reported to be in a “jubilant mood.”100 Falsely advised by Calistus Ndlovu, a defector who thought ZAPU was “a dead donkey,” government authorities believed they had successfully crushed ZAPU, incidentally within their five-year time line.101 They hoped to win the 1985 elections and establish a de facto one-party state.102 Government officials had misjudged, however, and the elections soon proved them wrong. In January 1985, ZAPU won eighty-five council wards to ZANU’s twelve in District Council elections in Matabeleland.103 Incidentally, Ndlovu had just been campaigning in Matabeleland two days before the elections. Stunned but unconvinced, ZANU expected to perform wonders in the June parliamentary elections. But in these, it also lost dismally to ZAPU, which won all fifteen Matabeleland seats while ZANU remained restricted to the Shona provinces.104 Defections had not worked to ZANU’s favor, as Nkomo confirmed in a Moto interview: “We have not lost anyone through defections. The situation has been that ZAPU members who had been coerced to return ZAPU cards and take ZANU (PF) cards did so. When it came to elections, ZANU (PF) lagged behind.”105 Ceremonial president Canaan Banana labeled these elections “an unfortunate demonstration of tribal allegiance,” but he admitted that ZANU had not sold itself properly to the grassroots.106 ZANU’s loss in Matabeleland was a clear demonstration of popular disapproval of state-sponsored violence. Because of the violence, being ZAPU came to mean much more to the people in Matabeleland than simply being a member of a political party; it symbolized resilience in the face of victimization. Moreover, ZAPU also symbolized regional social and political cohesion, the depth of which ZANU had underestimated. Interestingly enough, a study of the pattern of dissidence in Matabeleland shows that “dissident” activities correlated with major political events. Just before the 1985 elections, there was little report of dissidents. They seemed to have revived operations just after the elections that ZANU lost, only to stop abruptly with the signing of the Unity Accord of December 1987.107 This seems to reinforce the suspicion that the dissidence phenomena was the government’s stick to beat Nkomo with until he came to the negotiating table, where he would accept unity with ZANU, on ZANU’s terms. It is difficult to believe that all those dissidents who surfaced after 1985 had escaped

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the government during five years of tight security and curfews across all of Matabeleland. A few weeks after the prime minister asked ZAPU to join ZANU in order to end dissidence, there were reports that dissidents had burned a village and bayoneted a woman in Gwanda.108 Research suggests that such heinous activities were actually perpetrated by government agents as happened in Mbembeswana, Lupane, and elsewhere in Matabeleland.109 In response to the reports of increased dissident activities, the government pledged to root out ZAPU’s dissidents as soon as it had marshaled its forces.110 A few days later, attention turned to ZAPU officials, with the result that Kembo Mohadi and Edward Ndlovu were arrested for reasons that were never made clear.111 Evidence to support this political interpretation of gukurahundi violence is abundant, but there is also the ethnic interpretation. We must understand how this state sponsored violence inadvertedly helped strengthen a regional Ndebele identity. Matabeleland was ethnically heterogeneous, as it had Kalanga, Ndebele, Tonga, Nambya, Venda, Sotho, and other groups, all of whom were politically unified in ZAPU. From their long association with Ndebele culture, and since the lingua franca of nationalism and education in Matabeleland was isiNdebele, these ethnic groups spoke isiNdebele as their second language. IsiNdebele as a language and ZAPU as a party were factors in developing a general regional Ndebele identity. This identity was misconstrued especially by the predominantly Shona followers of ZANU as a solid ethnic identity. To a naive outsider, to deal with ZAPU was to deal directly with “Ndebele.” It is in this context that we can understand why “being Ndebele” was often under attack during the gukurahundi era, but not being of Kalanga, Tonga, or other ethnicity. During the buildup to the violence, Nkala, himself Ndebele and a founding member of ZANU, was convinced that ZAPU represented Ndebele political tribalism. Addressing a rally at Barbourfields Stadium, Nkala lampooned “dissidents armed with lethal weapons . . . roaming the townships and the countryside,” adding that “some of these were Ndebeles who were calling for a second war of liberation because their leader was not in power.” He warned: “Those preaching ‘Ndebeleism’ should stop before we liquidate them. I myself will lead the forces against them because I am Ndebele, and if the Prime Minister were to do it, he would be misunderstood because he was a Shona.”112 At one point, Nkala is said to have regretted that he was born Ndebele. Speaking on national television, he is alleged to have said that if he had power, he would have stitched up his umkleklo (Ndebele traditional ear slit), a denigration of Ndebele culture that annoyed the Ndebele so much that they find it difficult to forgive him even today.113 ZANU leaders believed that the Ndebele, as a tribe, were trying to secede, and hence it was imperative, as Nkala said, to “crush Zapu” and its leader Joshua

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Nkomo, the “self-appointed Ndebele king.”114 Five years later, Nkala still consistently held to his view. Responding to a motion introduced in parliament by ZAPU MPs condemning the massacre of innocent civilians in Matabeleland, he condemned ZAPU MPs as “tribalists and honourable fools [who] wanted to pose as better Ndebeles when you are not.”115 What is more important, the massacre and torture suffered by ordinary civilians increased their resolve to identify with one another and to see themselves as part of one Ndebele political community that was being unfairly targeted by the government. They interpreted the massacres as both genocidal and politicidal.116 The government claimed that commoners were giving dissidents fodder, thereby frustrating its efforts.117 However, it seems clear that people in Matabeleland often could not differentiate between dissidents and army soldiers who at times wore the same uniform.118 Government ministers held the view that dissidents were Ndebele who wanted to kill all Shona, thus connecting dissidence in general with Ndebele ethnicity.119 Most Mashonaland people were fed propaganda in such a way that their negative picture of the Ndebele solidified. Propaganda churned out by state-run media is common in crisis-torn areas, especially where crimes of genocide are perpetrated.120 During a “pick a box” radio program, a radio announcer asked a Shona woman who dissidents were. She replied, “Dissident muNdevere!” which is translated, “A dissident is an Ndebele person.”121 Where people were labeled “dissidents,” whole communities suffered. Dawn-to-dusk curfews, harassment, disruption of daily economic chores, village burnings, all forms of torture, and public executions were widespread and affected almost the entire population of Matabeleland. Every adult who grew up in Matabeleland in the 1980s has a story to tell about this period. Even so, in Africa, if you kill one person, you have killed a clan, or in the extreme, a whole tribe! Suffering was thus felt by everyone, from the unborn child to the oldest villager. Matabeleland therefore became a community of victims, of shared sufferings, and thus the people’s sense of community was not just imagined, but was reinforced by these all too real, horrific experiences. Pervasive torture created in the wounded survivors feelings of exclusion from the Shona-dominated nation-state, and this alienation bred a regional attitude of resistance to the government. In other words, continued extreme state terror was producing diminishing returns for the government and fostering entrenched opposition. Most youths in Matabeleland refused to partake in the government’s Youth Brigade Movement, whose aim was to equip youths with industrial and survival skills. Only five thousand out of more than three hundred thousand youths in Matabeleland North Province volunteered to join the movement, a clear demonstration of popular apathy toward national programs.122 Evidence also shows that some of the people who had been severely tortured and maimed openly and indignantly disobeyed orders from armed soldiers and were shot to death as a result,

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while others publicly accused ministers of unleashing government militia on Matabeleland to kill all Ndebeles.123 Therefore, some victims did not necessarily find it constructive to deny their Ndebeleness by proffering political obeisance, which was neither heroic nor rewarding. Instead, some commoners felt it was better to identify themselves communally, as sufferers, rather than become public sellouts that acquiesced in the face of government repression. It is common that in crisis-torn regions, identities are imagined as people who previously did not know one another meet and share common experiences. Ndebele, as we know it today, is one such imagined community, albeit solidified by real, compelling circumstances.124 The cruelty of security agents hardened Ndebele identity. It exacerbated ethnic prejudice while bolstering a strong relationship between political affiliation and ethnicity.125 In Bubi, for instance, the Fifth Brigade initially pretended that its sole targets were the zansi, who were considered to be “pure Ndebele,” with a view to “deplete them and dilute the Ndebele tribe,” leaving behind Mpofus and Moyos on the grounds that they were Shona trafficked into the Ndebele kingdom through raids—evincing a senseless, primordial definition of ethnicity.126 Zansi were targeted, said one (non-zansi) Ndebele informant, because they “raided our [Shona] grandfathers’ cattle and women”—an explanation that emphasizes the easy identification between non-zansi hole and Shona that the government promoted.127 My informant’s belief that zansi were main targets was perhaps informed by the murder of a respected zansi, Chief Mabikwa of the Lupane, in 1983.128 However, another informant told me that although security agents pretended to be dealing solely with zansi Ndebele, they nonetheless trailed amahole in the night to kill them as well, so as to confuse the community and further divide the people.129 Many people suffered simply because they could not speak Shona either at political rallies or in their encounters with the Fifth Brigade militia.130 Consequent to this organized violence, communities privately responded by rallying around symbols of Ndebele identity rather than events and situations that divided them. During this time, the downtrodden looked to dead Ndebele heroes, like the late Queen Lozikeyi, to whom people ascribed greatness in their search for inspiration, continuity, and community protection. There is a popular myth in Bubi in which it is claimed that at some point Lozikeyi’s spirit rescued people from a government-planned massacre in Nkosikazi. The story goes as follows: They [the Fifth Brigade army] once gathered Ndebele people to kill them in Nkosikazi, near Lozikeyi’s grave. But the problem for them was that a rabbit appeared from nowhere and disappeared into Lozikeyi’s grave. The army became powerless and all the people were spared. It is not a place to play around, it is sacred. To us this was mysterious protection by the departed spirits. Even during the Nkomo-Mugabe Accord in 1987, they visited the Lozikeyi

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shrine and prayed to Lozikeyi to grant them power to overcome conflict between them.131

The living and their living dead (i.e., those who are physically dead but alive in the memory of living victims) together constituted an imagined spiritual community. People were killed en masse and thrown into disused mines. They suffered together and were buried together. In the aftermath, survivors remained psychologically haunted by memories of horrific murders, rapes, violent mutilations, burnings, forcible swimming in dip tanks, forced sexual encounters, and so on. The victims of torture have been denied an apology and perpetrators have walked free with impunity, having committed what even Mugabe later called “acts of madness.”132 Even the Unity Accord of 1987, which swallowed ZAPU into ZANU, has not resulted in Mugabe’s government gaining the confidence of Matabeleland people, who thought that Nkomo betrayed them by signing the Unity Accord.133 The resounding electoral victories of the Movement for Democratic Change in successive elections in Matabeleland, barring all rigging and violence, clearly prove ZANU-PF’s inability to market itself to the people of Matabeleland. As corpses were thrown into disused mines and mass graves, these places where they were summarily dumped became negative monuments. They remind people of the violence meted out against them; their loss of relatives and loved ones, and their political disenfranchisement. Every person whose relative disappeared suspects that his or her family member might be one of the many people in those graves; hence they remain places associated with restless memories, and perhaps what Werbner implied when he wrote of “tears of the dead.”134 Informants showed me such graves in Mphoengs and torture centers in Brunapeg and Madyambudzi. I also saw the infamous Bhalagwe camp where more than five thousand people were detained and tortured.135 A former Gwanda District administrator told me how a community deputation requested her to protect such graves from desecration during a road construction project.136 Graves and torture centers are memorials on which identities hinge, shaping people’s view of nationalism, ethnicity, and politics.137

On Gukurahundi and Matabeleland Identity Gukurahundi, a Shona term which literally means “early spring rains that erode the chaff,” or the “wiping away of rubbish,” was a widespread expression of state terror in Matabeleland.138 The term is used generally to denote both the militia, the Fifth Brigade (the Gukurahundi) and also to describe that era of violence generally (gukurahundi violence). This violence affected parts of Matabeleland to varying degrees, depending on the level of ZAPU

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support in certain areas. There was, for instance, more violence in Lupane and Matopo than in parts of Beitbridge and Kariba. However, regardless of scale, this violence was generally widespread, and for this reason it rendered more locally based identities such as ethnicity appear as if they were less important, at least as people collectively fought for survival. This is not to say that these ethnic identities died away. An alliance needed to be solidified, but as we have already seen, this rise of a regional pan-Ndebele identity was already under way from the 1960s, notwithstanding its own challenges especially from a demanding Kalanga elite that dominated ZAPU. The violence of the Fifth Brigade left lasting impressions, perhaps more permanent than the liberation war, as it was accompanied by wicked, unimaginable activities that shell-shocked the whole of western Zimbabwe. The violence suffered by the peoples of Matabeleland forged an inseparable alliance between Ndebele identity and politics. “Being Ndebele” became both a political and a linguistic expression. This creates potential problems for ethnic studies as we struggle to define whether Ndebele today is an ethnic group, a regional entity, or a nation. The tendency to define the Ndebele as merely an ethnic group arises out of the grave mistakes of media practitioners, most of whom lack a sense of the broader history. In some sense, Ndebele could be an ethnic identity, albeit narrowly conceived. For Matabeleland federalists and secessionists, Ndebele is a “national” identity. For those who are reviving their (smaller) ethnic groups, such as the Kalanga, they still see themselves as part of a regional Ndebele political identity within which they have their own internal ethnic communities and cultures. Thus, one often finds young people who grew up in Bulawayo yet come from Bulilima-Mangwe who claim that they are Kalanga regardless of the fact that they know nothing of Kalanga language and culture. In essence, Kalanga as an ethnicity will have to battle it out with a persuasive Ndebele regional supertribe that cuts into the Kalanga constituency. Unless the government promotes the languages of these now marginalized ethnic groups, and so long it maintains the false thinking that Matabeleland is a monolithic structure, members of smaller ethnic groups and other identities in this region will continue to feel like second class citizens in their own country.

Conclusion This book has examined how identities were shaped by social and political processes in both rural and urban Matabeleland, particularly among the Kalanga and the Ndebele since the precolonial era. Precolonial inequalities of power in the Ndebele state triggered important debates and social changes not only among people within the Ndebele state but also among those Kalanga who had, for fear of hegemonic Ndebele sociopolitical influence, relocated to its margins. These processes—that is, Ndebele inequalities as felt internally within the Ndebele state and the withdrawal of Kalanga to the margins, which move gave them the chance to reorganize their communities—led to the emergence of Ndebele and Kalanga ethnicity, whose development differed as a result of events within their individual societies. Ndebele and Kalanga ethnicities continued to be fashioned much more during the colonial era, as a result of responses to colonial policy, direct colonial influence, and debates that were predominantly internal to the African societies. Africans in general struggled to redefine themselves in town, define their urban cultures, and claim land for their own use. Ndebele and Kalanga in particular tried to deal with remnants of the Ndebele aristocracy, which still imagined a very strong royalist outlook as the basis for Ndebele identity, and with questions of language, identity, and belonging in both rural and urban contexts as they also attempted to re-create communities and social order in new reserves, African purchase areas, and other spheres. Ethnic identities and the other identities that were created during both the colonial and postcolonial eras were not essentially dictated by the state. Although the colonial and postcolonial states played some role in that they created structures that had an effect on matters of ethnicity and identity, some debates were internal to African communities and should not be misconstrued as mere responses and reactions to the structures and strictures imposed from without; rather, they hinged on reinterpretations of African traditions and decisions by Africans themselves as to what was important to their communities. Those negotiations and internal community debates were, in some cases, very marginal to the interests of the colonial state. In other words, ethnic identities were and are dictated less by the state than by a much wider collection of players beyond the state—players who were often commoners acting to create and develop their ethnic identities. The extensive history covered in this book makes evident the changing nature of identities, specifically the tendency of both the Ndebele and Kalanga to understand their plethora of identities in some kind of implied

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hierarchy, all of which remained relevant, equally valid, and negotiable through variable contexts and circumstances. The earlier periods of Ndebele and Kalanga history have been characterized by the dominance of ethnicity as the preferred identity, although it coexisted with other identities such as chieftaincy, and clans, and family structures. Ethnicity was important because of the nature of Ndebele and Kalanga social politics, which at that point enabled both Ndebele and Kalanga commoners to redefine and assert their economic and social status after the demise of the Ndebele kingdom, especially insofar as many of them had taken former Ndebele state cattle as their private property, broken free from the old Ndebele villages and began to make life decisions such as who to marry and when to marry; and left for work in mines and towns where they created new identities for themselves, and where some of them were transformed from commoners into new middle-class elites through employment gains and educational attainment. However, increasing Ndebele urban activism, especially since the late 1920s created possibilities for the slow evolution of new perceptions of being Ndebele as this identity gradually morphed from being merely ethnic into an ethnic and regional identity. Nevertheless, in this work, I have argued that although Ndebele activism as manifest in its different forms was important—including that of the Matabele Home Society and general cultural activism—these alone were inadequate to unite the different peoples and cultures of Matabeleland, and could not unite even those who were traditionally called Ndebele. This was because of the deep divisions between the peoples in this political region that originated from many unresolved social and political issues, as explored in this work. The regionalization of the Ndebele became significant only in the late 1950s because of the following developments: First, the politics of opposition to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and also the politics of urban control forced formerly exclusive ethnic associations like the Matabeleland Home Society to become semipolitical organizations that began mobilizing constituencies on a regional basis. The second development was the split in the nationalist movement, which, though not caused by ethnicity, led to mobilization of supporters of the two parties on a regional basis, with the result that ZAPU became like a Matabeleland and Ndebele party, and being Ndebele was seen as belonging to one regional supertribe, notwithstanding the fact that other ethnic groups lived in the same region. Unresolved differences between the two main regional political parties, ZAPU and ZANU, spilled into postcolonial Zimbabwe and led to more bloodshed, which further hardened this regional Ndebele identity and ensured that collective Zimbabwean nationalism remained merely a dream. Zimbabwe’s tragedy lies in the failure of its political leadership to address the needs of ethnic groups and the concerns of Matabeleland and other marginalized regions. This leads us to consider a final point—contemporary Ndebele activism in Matabeleland.

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Contemporary Ndebele activism expresses itself politically, socially, and economically. Economically speaking, there are concerns about the predominance of non-Ndebele people in the major sectors and also in the civil service, especially given that this inequality has further social and political implications for the region. Socially, there have been moves to bring pressure to bear on the government to apologize for violating the peoples of Matabeleland, to openly debate the gukurahundi atrocities, and to compensate the victims of violence. These efforts, among others, are being made by the Mthwakazi Action Group on Genocide in Matabeleland and Midlands (MAGGEMM); the Post Independence Survivors Trust (PIST), led by Felix Mafa; the Amani Trust, and other organizations.1 There is also some effort by visual artists to create a memorial of gukurahundi—an effort that has been heavily resisted by the government, which arrested and put on trial the artist Owen Maseko.2 Over and above this, performing artists such as Cont Mhlanga have also worked tirelessly to revive interest in Ndebele culture, symbols, and ideas and also to critique political power.3 Politically speaking, there are some who advocate for the establishment of a federal state, in which the regions would get more autonomy to decide their political and developmental goals. To this group belong ZAPU 2000 of Paul Siwela and others. Some activists, however, are more extreme, advocating for nothing short of complete secession from the Zimbabwean state. To this group belongs a pressure group called Mthwakazi (MAGGEMM), which favors partitioning the country into two states, beginning from somewhere near Kwekwe in Midlands and going southward. This new state to the south would be named Mthwakazi, which is falsely assumed to have been the name of the precolonial Ndebele state.4 These activists are not without their backers, such as rising scholars like Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, who has attempted to define the precolonial Ndebele state as a nation, and to sanitize Ndebele elites’ extreme precolonial political misdemeanors by viewing this “Ndebele nation” as having upheld “notions of democracy and human rights.”5 It is intriguing that contemporary Ndebele activism partly mirrors both developments of the 1960s, as already discussed, as well as earlier moves by ultraroyalists and the MHS to revive Ndebele kingship. Its real agenda is, however, completely different from that of the Ndebele of the colonial era, although some of the concerns look familiar and similar. Contemporary Ndebele activism is emotionalized by appealing both to first-hand memories of gukurahundi violence in the older generation as well as to the contemporary youth’s feeling of betrayal—at the hands of the old ZAPU leadership of Nkomo that signed the 1987 Unity Accord with Mugabe’s ZANU; and at the failures of ZANU-PF to move the economy forward and work for the benefit of all, especially after the Unity Accord. Contemporary Ndebele social and political activism is also legitimized by the annual September commemoration of what is called King Mzilikazi Day, which is celebrated in South Africa

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and Zimbabwe, and among some diasporic southern Africans in the United States and perhaps elsewhere where pockets of Ndebele activists are found.6 However, recent battles between uMthwakazi kaMzilikazi Cultural Association and the Institute of Ubuntu, both of which held separate commemorations of King Mzilikazi Day without even consulting descendants of the Ndebele royal family, suggest that these commemorations can potentially fuel further divisions among the Ndebele.7 It seems as if the Ndebele legacy may generate interesting “law-fare” as people struggle to redefine their cultures as corporate entities, such as is already happening elsewhere.8 This confusion in contemporary Ndebele society strikes me, however, as similar to something that happened in the 1950s when members of the Khumalo family felt betrayed by the Matabele Home Society, which they accused of misrepresenting their traditions by bringing in weird cultural practices in their efforts to celebrate the legacies of the last Ndebele kings. The Khumalo family and those who identified with their aspirations later formed the Mzilikazi Family Society. Like all previous forms of Ndebele activism, which were hampered by different divisions and concerns of the diverse Matabeleland populace, current Ndebele activism and advocacy for federalism and also secession have not brought any significant fraction of Ndebele and other Matabeleland peoples together and might never manage to because of three main factors that I will mention below. First, the Zimbabwean populace generally has a strong belief in a unitarian political system. Small parties that have emerged in Matabeleland that advocate for secession have proved unable to gain popular support as most people vote for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) factions, both in Bulawayo and in the rural areas. The MDC factions appeal to a nationalist, unitarian agenda as opposed to a secessionist one. Second, unlike its ZANU-PF counterpart, the MDC promises at least to compensate victims of gukurahundi violence and to openly discuss the issue. Its leadership also promises economic development in the Matabeleland political districts. The MDC factions also have a sizable representation of Matabeleland leaders within their ranks, and this effectively supresses lesser political aspirants from the region. Moreover, the politics of secession has less appeal in the region because, although this regional identity on which secessionist claims hinge does exist, this identity is not all that strong in some parts of Matabeleland, especially after the death of Joshua Nkomo, who was a very important figure, and whose legacy ZANU-PF also tries to use in its botched attempts to gain political mileage in Matabeleland. Members of some Matabeleland ethnic groups who are wary of the increasing Ndebele political and social dominance in the region wage a silent struggle for power and influence. It is not easy to bring the Tonga of Binga, the Kalanga of Bulilima-Mangwe, the Venda of Beitbridge, and the Nambya of Hwange into this politics of

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secession because these ethnic groups have other serious concerns about the political dominance of the Ndebele and the continued placement of some of their people under Ndebele chiefs, itself a colonial legacy that the Mugabe government has done little to address. The state has also, like the previous colonial regime, failed to recognize their languages as languages of instruction and official use in favor of isiNdebele. Therefore, struggles for greater local community rights and access to state power and social recognition are very important, and much more urgent than the politics of secession. The third and final point is that Matabeleland has a large non-Ndebele population, including some people that simply did not originate from the region. These people occupy key political and economic positions in the region, mainly in the civil service and in the security, economic, and educational sectors. Apart from the obvious historical fact that many of these people are the offspring of earlier labor migrants who came to Matabeleland, there has also been a postcolonial infiltration of Matabeleland by mainly Shona people. This latter movement had a lot to do with Bulawayo’s growing importance as the country’s industrial hub, hence it continued to attract people from elsewhere, and with another development that we could call the culture of ZANU-PF’s politics of control, which diluted Ndebele influence in the 1980s and thereafter. Today, Bulawayo cannot be said to be a predominantly Ndebele city as it is cosmopolitan and has a very deep history of diversity that both enriches and complicates its social and political landscape. Developments in contemporary Matabeleland are part and parcel of attempts to not only reinterpret and relive the past, but also to redefine the future of Matabeleland. However, ethnicity—being an identity that comprises internal debate, such as between commoners and elite, and external competition—together with political identities such as regionalism and nationalism, which may coexist with it, rise and fall in importance in response to both internal and external stimuli in a manner that historians and others can never predict. This happens because the contexts and the arena in which all these identities are negotiated keep changing with time and circumstances.

Notes Introduction 1. John Lonsdale, “Moral Ethnicity, Ethnic Nationalism, and Political Tribalism: The Case of the Kikuyu.” In Staat und Gesellschaft in Afrika: Erosions und Reformprozesse, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the VAD (African Studies Association of Germany), held in Duisburg, Germany, 28 April 1995, ed. Peter Meyns (Hamburg: Lit, 1996), 93–106.; John Lonsdale, “Moral Ethnicity and Political Tribalism” (unpublished seminar paper, University of Cambridge, 1998), 1–17; John Lonsdale, “Moral and Political Argument in Kenya,” in Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa, ed. Bruce J. Berman, D. Eyoh, and W. Kymlicka (Oxford: James Currey, 2004), 73–95. 2. The exception is a recent book by Elizabeth McGonagle, Crafting Identity in Zimbabwe and Mozambique (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2007).

Chapter 1 1. The exceptions are recent works by Ncube and McGregor on the Tonga and Nambya. See G. T. Ncube, A History of Northwestern Zimbabwe, 1850–1960 (Kadoma, Zimbabwe: Mond Books, 2004); JoAnn Mcgregor, Crossing the Zambezi: The Politics of Landscape on a Central African Frontier (Oxford: James Currey, 2009). 2. D. Munjeri, “A Brief History of the Political, Social, Economic, and Religious History of the Kalanga” (seminar paper 30, Department of History, University College of Rhodesia, 1974). 3. N. Bhebe, Christianity and Traditional Religion in Western Zimbabwe, 1859–1923 (London: Longman, 1979). 4. Julian R. D. Cobbing, “Ndebele under the Khumalos, 1820–1896” (PhD thesis, University of Lancaster, UK, 1976); R. K. Rasmussen, Migrant Kingdom: Mzilikazi’s Ndebele in South Africa (Cape Town: David Phillip, 1978). 5. Terence O. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks: Nature, Culture, and History in the Matopos Hills of Zimbabwe (London: James Currey, 1999); J. Alexander, J. McGregor, and T. Ranger, Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the “Dark Forests” of Matabeleland (Oxford: James Currey, 2000); J. Alexander, “Modernity and Ethnicity in a Frontier Society: Understanding Difference in Northwestern Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies 23, no. 2 (June 1997): 187–201. 6. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Dynamics of Democracy and Human Rights among the Ndebele of Zimbabwe, 1818–1934” (PhD thesis, University of Zimbabwe, 2003. 7. Zansi/Nguni were those who came with Mzilikazi from Nguniland and their offspring. These constituted, in most cases, high-ranking officials in the Ndebele state.

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8. The term “Ndebele” was a label that they got among the Sotho-Tswana people. It described their fighting method, kimatebele, denoting their use of the short stabbing spear for close-quarters fighting. 9. A rigid division of African history into these three historical phases can be misleading and underestimates certain continuities within the various African societies. 10. Lonsdale, “Moral and Political Argument,” 73–95. 11. Donald R. Wright, “‘What Do You Mean There Were No Tribes in Africa?’: Thoughts on Boundaries—and Related Matters in Pre-colonial Africa,” History in Africa 26 (1999): 409–26; Igor Kopytoff, “The Internal African Frontier: The Making of African Political Culture,” in The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies, ed. Igor Kopytoff (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 7; Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 31. 12. Wright, “What Do You Mean,” 409–26; Terence O. Ranger, The Invention of Tribalism in Zimbabwe (Gweru: Mambo Press, 1985); Terence O. Ranger, “Missionaries, Migrants, and the Manyika: The Invention of Ethnicity in Zimbabwe,” in The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, ed. Leroy Vail (London: James Currey, 1989), 118–50; H. Chimhundu, “Early Missionaries and the Ethnographic Factor during the ‘Invention of Tribalism,’” Journal of African History 33 (1992): 87–109. 13. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). 14. Carola Lentz and Paul Nugent, “Colonial Constructions and African Initiatives: The History of Ethnicity in Northwestern Ghana,” Ethnos 65, no. 1 (2000): 107–35. See also Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (Oxford: James Currey, 1999), 57. 15. Poppy Fry, “Siyamfenguza: The Creation of Fingoness in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, 1800–1835,” Journal of Southern African Studies 36, no. 1 (2010): 25–40. 16. Terence O. Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition Revisited: The Case of Colonial Africa,”in Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa, ed. Terence Ranger and Olufemi Vaughan (London: Macmillan, 1993), 62–111. 17. For the challenge to investigate “history from below,” see Jim Sharpe, “History from Below,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. Peter Burke, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 25–42. 18. I am not suggesting that all pro-Benedict Anderson scholars think that commoners had no role to play in constructing identities, but while they have not actually dismissed this possibility, most of them have rarely investigated the contribution of commoners in making identities. 19. I use the term ethnicity multidimensionally to mean the way in which a group of people comes to understand itself as a collectivity different from others (ethnicity as process) and also as a set of relationships that is structurally ordered through social and political norms that are adhered to in varying degrees (structure). See Jean Davidson, Gender, Lineage, and Ethnicity in Southern Africa (Oxford: Westview Press, 1997), 5. 20. Clifford Geertz, “Primordial Ties,” in Ethnicity, ed. John Hutchinson and Anthony  D. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 40–45; Jack Eller and Reed Coughlan, “The Poverty of Primordialism,” in Ethnicity, ed. Hutchinson and Smith, 45–51; Steven Crosby, “The Inexpungeable Tie of Primordialism,” in Ethnicity, ed. Hutchinson and Smith, 51–56; Stephen May, Language and Minority

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Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Politics of Language (London: Pearson Education, 2001), 29. 21. May, Language and Minority Rights, 30. 22. On Marxism see Lonsdale, “Moral Ethnicity and Political Tribalism,” 1–17; and P. T. Simatei, “Ethnicity and Otherness in Kenya Cultures,” in Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Democracy in Africa, ed. B.  A. Ogot (Maseno, Kenya: Institute of Research and Postgraduate Studies, Maseno University, 1995), 51–55. On state protection of individualism see S. Y. Hameso, Ethnicity in Africa (London: T. C. Publications, 1997), 11–12; May, Language and Minority Rights, 25. 23. Thomas Spear, “Neotraditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Tropical Africa,” Journal of African History 44 (2003): 3–27. 24. May, Language and Minority Rights, 35; Abner Cohen, “Introduction: The Lessons of Ethnicity,” in Urban Ethnicity, ed. A. Cohen (London: Tavistock Publications, 1974), ix–xxiv. 25. Spear, “Neotraditionalism,” 3–27. 26. John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 318–41; Ranger, Invention of Tribalism, 4–18; Vail, Creation of Tribalism, 1–19. 27. Ranger, “Missionaries, Migrants, and the Manyika,” 118–50. 28. L. Vail, “Introduction: Ethnicity in Southern African History,” in Creation of Tribalism, 1–19. 29. Ranger, “Invention of Tradition Revisited,” 79. 30. Carola Lentz and Paul Nugent, “Ethnicity in Ghana: A Comparative Perspective,” in Ethnicity in Ghana: The Limits of Invention, ed. C. Lentz and P. Nugent (London: Macmillan, 2000), 1–28; Carolyn Hamilton and John Wright, “The Making of the AmaLala,” South African Historical Journal 22 (1990): 3–23; Steven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 18–26; Bill Bravman, Making Ethnic Ways: Communities and Their Transformation in Taita, Kenya, 1800–1950 (Oxford: James Currey, 1998), 4–6, 14; Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 157, 158; S. Hoyweghen and Koen Vlassenroot, “Ethnic Ideology and Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Culture Clash Revisited,” in Politics of Identity and Economics of Conflict in the Great Lakes Region, ed. R. Droom, and J. Gorus (Brussels: VUB University Press, 2000), 93–117; John Lonsdale, “Contests of Time: Kikuyu Historiography, Old and New,” in A Place in the World: New Local Historiographies from Africa and South Asia, ed. A. Harneit-Sievers (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 201–54. 31. MacGonagle, Crafting Identity. See my review of this text: Enocent Msindo, review of Crafting Identity in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, by Elizabeth MacGonagle, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 27, no. 4 (2009): 547–50. 32. Terence O. Ranger, “Concluding Comments,” in Ethnicity and Nationalism in Africa: Constructivist Reflections and Contemporary Politics, ed. Paris Yeros (London: Macmillan, 1999), 133–44. 33. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 26, 30–34. 34. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6–7. For Anderson a nation “is an imagined community, imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” It is imagined in the sense that “members of even of the smallest nation will never know most of their

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fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.” 35. Ranger, “Invention of Tradition Revisited,” 81. 36. Ibid., 96. 37. Ibid., 97– 98. 38. Ibid., 86, 97–99. 39. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 16, 20–22, 26, 46, 83–84, 113–14, 139–40, 145–50. 40. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks; Ranger, “Invention of Tradition Revisited,” 98. 41. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, chaps. 2–4. 42. Fry, “Siyamfenguza,” 25–40. 43. A. D. Smith, The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 59. 44. Ibid., 62–63. 45. Ibid., 64. 46. S. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Democracy and Human Rights,” 39. 47. D. George Boyce, “No Lack of Ghosts: Memory, Commemoration, and the State in Ireland,” in History and Memory in Modern Ireland, ed. I. McBride (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 254–71. 48. See Alistair Thomson, “Unreliable Memories? The Use and Abuse of Oral History,” in Historical Controversies and Historians, ed. William Lamont (London: UCL Press, 1998), 23–34. 49. Some prior research in the ZANU archives produced a critical output, especially Nhongo-Simbanegavi’s book, which yielded evidence of gross violations of women that may have embarrassed the party. See Josephine Nhongo-Simbanegavi, For Better or Worse? Women and Zanla in Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle (Harare: Weaver Press, 2000). 50. During the mid-1960s, Ian Smith’s Rhodesia Front government was working hard to promote “tribal” authorities and “tribal” histories as a propaganda tool to maintain power. See Enocent Msindo, “‘Winning Hearts and Minds’: Crisis and Propaganda in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1962–1970,” Journal of Southern African Studies 35, no. 3 (2009): 663–81. 51. For a critique of court records, see Carol Dickerman, “Use of Court Records as a Source for African History: Some examples from Bujumbura,” History in Africa 11 (1984): 69–81; Terence O. Ranger, “Tales of the ‘Wild West’: Gold Diggers and Rustlers in South-Western Zimbabwe: An Essay in the Use of Criminal Court Records for Social History,” South African Historical Journal 28 (1993): 40–62. 52. On chieftainships see Norman Etherington, The Great Treks: The Transformation of Southern Africa, 1815–1854 (London: Pearson Education, 2001), xxiv, 14–18. 53. There was strong advocacy for the Kalanga language to be officially recognized in the postcolonial context. The Kalanga Muka Kwaedza Society is one such example of a vibrant postcolonial ethnic rights movement. 54. Other scholars think democratic African nationalism in Zimbabwe emerged much earlier and that the 1960s represented a turn into a violent form of nationalism. See Timothy Scarnecchia, The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1940–1964 (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2008).

Notes to pp. 24–29

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55. During their campaigns, the Southern Rhodesian African National Council (SRANC) and the National Democratic Party (NDP) addressed black Africans as children of the land or soil. 56. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 5–7. 57. In this case, state (a politically centralized unit) and nationalism (an imagined, deeply internalized high culture) coexisted. For the definitions see E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 4–7, 48–49; Anderson, Imagined Communities, 5–7. 58. Enocent Msindo, “Ethnicity and Nationalism in Urban Colonial Zimbabwe: Bulawayo, 1950 to 1963,” Journal of African History 48 (2007): 267–90. 59. Masipula Sithole, Zimbabwe: Struggles within the Struggle, 2nd ed. (Harare: Rujeko Publishers, 1999). 60. Terence O. Ranger, Peasant Consciousness and the Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe: A Comparative Study (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). 61. Ibid., 137. 62. Norma J. Kriger, Zimbabwe’s Guerrilla War: Peasant Voices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 127. 63. Ibid., 152–69, 179–206. 64. N. Bhebe, ZAPU and ZANU Guerrilla Warfare and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (Gweru: Mambo Press, 1999). 65. David Lan, Guns and Rain: Guerrilla and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). 66. Ibid., xvii. 67. Ibid., 140–49. See also Kriger, Zimbabwe’s Guerrilla War, 130–34. 68. Nhongo-Simbanegavi, For Better or Worse?, 119–24. ZANLA was ZANU’s military wing. 69. T. Ranger and M. Ncube, “Religion in the Guerrilla War: The Case of Southern Matabeleland,” in Society in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, ed. Bhebe and Ranger, 35–57. 70. Joshua Nkomo, Nkomo: The Story of My Life (London: Methuen, 1984), 13–15. 71. I refer to the two edited collections by Ngwabi Bhebe and Terence Ranger, namely: Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, vol. 1 (London: James Currey, 1995); and Society in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, vol. 2 (London: James Currey, 1995). 72. Dumiso Dabengwa, “Zipra in the Zimbabwe War of National Liberation,” in Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, ed. Bhebe and Ranger, 24–35. 73. Jeremy Brickhill, “Daring to Storm the Heavens: The Military Strategy of ZAPU, 1976–1979,” in Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, ed. Bhebe and Ranger, 48–72. 74. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks; Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory. 75. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 3. 76. Ibid., 205. 77. Ibid., 188–89, 209, 211, 221. 78. Ibid., 209. 79. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 110–11, 170. 80. Ibid., 170–72. 81. Ibid., 121.

240

Notes to pp. 29–35

82. Ibid., 132. 83. Ibid., 81. 84. This is why Richard Werbner views the violence as quasinationalism. R.  P. Werbner, Tears of the Dead: A Social Biography of an African Family (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), 159–60.

Chapter 2 1. Spear, “Neotraditionalism,” 3–27. 2. MacGonagle, Crafting Identity. 3. Ranger, “Invention of Tradition Revisited,” 62–111; Ranger, “Concluding Comments,” 133–44. 4. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks; see also Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory. 5. A similar approach was taken by Isak Niehaus in “Ethnicity and the Boundaries of Belonging: Reconfiguring Shangaan Identity in the South African Lowveld,” African Affairs 101 (2002): 557–83. 6. T.  N. Huffman, The Leopard’s Kopje Tradition, museum memoir 6 (Salisbury: National Monuments and Museums of Rhodesia, 1974). 7. Kopytoff, “Internal African Frontier,” 1–83; Hermann Giliomee, “The Eastern Frontier,” in The Shaping of South African Society, 1662–1840, ed. R. Elphick and H. Giliomee (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1979), 421–41. 8. Kopytoff, “Internal African Frontier,” 1–83. 9. Ibid. 10. Interview with Chief Kaisa Ndiweni, Kaisa Village, Ntabazinduna, July 17, 2003. 11. Kopytoff, “Internal African Frontier,” 1–83. 12. Akinwumi Ogundiran, “Frontier Migrations and Cultural Transformations in the Yoruba Hinterland, ca. 1575–1700,” in Movements, Borders, and Identities in Africa, ed. Toyin Falola and Aribidesi Usman (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2009), 37–52. 13. A detailed discussion of debates around the mfecane and post-mfecane states is beyond the scope of this work. 14. The term “stateless society,” which originates from the Western definition of state, is used here for argument’s sake; otherwise it is problematic. 15. Giliomee, “Eastern Frontier,” 421–41. 16. Ibid. 17. D. N. Beach, The Shona and Zimbabwe, 900–1850 (Gweru: Mambo Press, 1980), 199. 18. There is a collection of oral interviews done in the 1960s that was transcribed and translated by Kumile Masola and P.  J. Wentzel. Kumile Masola and P.  J. Wentzel, Nau DzabaKalanga: A History of the Kalanga, vol. 1 (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1983). 19. Ibid., 29. What is confusing about Masola’s account are the mention of migration from the other side of the Zambezi, a claim to have descended from Butwa-Torwa, and other references to a sixteenth-century migration from the Mutapa into the southwestern part of Zimbabwe as if there was a double move-

Notes to pp. 35–38

241

ment. The sixteenth-century migration most likely referred to Rozvi migration from the Mutapa state. 20. Catrien van Waarden, “The Kalanga State Butua,” in Kalanga Retrospect and Prospect (Gaborone: Botswana Society, 1991), 1–18. 21. Other traditions claim that Chikurawadyembeu was the founding Rozvi figure. See Beach, Shona and Zimbabwe, 230. 22. R. P. Werbner, “Land and Chiefship in the Tati Concession,” in Botswana Notes and Records, vol. 2 (Gaborone: Botswana Society, 1970), 6–13. 23. NB 3/1/6, History of Native Tribes, compiled by NC Matobo, 1906, evidence of Magwala. Kumile Masola’s traditions claim that the legitimate Kalanga chief had “disappeared in the dark” before the Rozvi occupation; see Masola and Wentzel, Nau DzabaKalanga, 75–85. 24. D.  C. Dorward, “Ethnography and Administration: A Study of Anglo-Tiv ‘Working Misunderstanding,’” Journal of African History 15, no. 3 (1974): 457–77. 25. Beach, Shona and Zimbabwe, 204. 26. NB 3/1/6, Chief Native Commissioner [hereafter abbreviated as CNC] Matabeleland, Correspondence, General, “History of the Tribes of the Gwelo District,” February–December 1906. 27. Mutumba Mainga, Bulozi under the Luyana Kings: Political Evolution and State Formation in Pre-colonial Zambia (London: Longman, 1973), 23–24. 28. I use the term “Mfecane” advisedly, considering the critical debates surrounding it. 29. J.  A. Barnes, Politics in a Changing Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), 1. 30. Ibid., 32. 31. Ibid., 36–40. 32. Ibid., 40–60. 33. F. C. Selous, A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa, 2nd ed. (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1970), 28–29. The original version of the book was published in 1881. Selous arrived in Matabeleland in 1872. 34. On hunting see ibid., 29–30. On animal slaughter see Nancy Rouillard, Matabele Thompson: His Autobiography and Story of Rhodesia (Johannesburg: Dassie Books, 1957), 146. Lionel Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1898), 177. 35. Barnes, Politics, 64. 36. Ibid., 62. 37. D. N. Beach, The Shona and Their Neighbours (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 134. Note: the names of people associated this surname have been spelled differently in historical records and are still spelled differently today: sometimes as “Khumalo,” other times as “Kumalo.” Both versions are used in this book. 38. Jack Goody, Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 46–56. 39. Hamilton and Wright, “Making of the AmaLala,” 3–23. 40. Kopytoff, “Internal African Frontier,” 1–84. 41. Etherington, Great Treks, 344–46. 42. Rasmussen, Migrant Kingdom, 85–96.

242

Notes to pp. 39–40

43. NB 3/1/2, CNC Matabeleland, Correspondence, General, 1904–7, “Matabele or Amandebele, origin of the name.” Other suggestions are that “Litebele” means “wanderers.” Interview with Joshua Teke Malinga, Malinga and Associates Offices, Bulawayo, March 25, 2003; interview with Chief Kaisa Ndiweni, Ntabazinduna, July 17, 2003 (the chief gave the same definition but was quick to say it was not a proper name because “we are Zulus”); interview with Enos Nkala, Woodlands, Bulawayo, April 9, 2003 (Nkala said Litebele meant followers of the road and looters); interview with Mr. M. Nkomo, New Magwegwe, Bulawayo, April 16, 2003 (kimatebele means looters and raiders). 44. Etherington, Great Treks, xv–xvi, 8. Etherington thinks that the Ndebele were named by anthropologists and historians from Europe, but he gives no evidence to support the claim. 45. NB 3/1/2, W. E. Thomas to Mr. Taylor, December 30, 1903. 46. Rasmussen, Migrant Kingdom, 137. It is estimated that about two-thirds of the people who left with Mzilikazi from his temporary residence in Botswana were of Sotho or Tswana origin and that the Khumalos were about one-third of the whole population. 47. Masola and Wentzel, Nau DzabaKalanga, 261. 48. Rasmussen, Migrant Kingdom, 155. Beach thinks to the contrary, that the Ndebele did not invade the Rozvi territory directly, but took advantage of divisions within the Rozvi state and also strengthened trade ties with them, but he does admit that the Ndebele became rivals of the Rozvi. See D. N. Beach, “Ndebele Raiders and Shona Power,” Journal of African History 15, no. 4 (1974): 635–51. There is no evidence to prove these assertions. 49. A.  M. Sebina, “Makalaka,” African Studies 6, no. 1 (1947): 82–96. Compare from the Swazi invasion of the Sotho in Niehaus, “Ethnicity and the Boundaries of Belonging,” 557–83. 50. Interview with Mr. W. Tjivako, Tjivako Homestead, Madyambudzi, Plumtree (Bulilima), June 21, 2003. See also Hist. Mss. HE 3/1/1, Mrs. Helmore, Letters: Mrs. Helmore to her Daughter Olive, Shoshong, Bamangwato, August 23, 1859; and Hist. Mss. 6/2/1 “Matabele” Wilson—Journals, 1888–January 1893. See also a graphic account of raids and hilltop occupations by the Kalanga by Rudland in the Sunderland Echo in S142/2/10, BSAC Newspaper cuttings: Sunderland Daily Echo, April 19, 1892. 51. This could possibly be a subsequent Kalanga myth, but there is no doubt that zansi Ndebele generally believed that the Kalanga had more spiritual prowess than the zansi. 52. Masola and Wentzel, Nau Dzabakalanga, 267. See also SOAS, London, CWM 1, R. Moffat to the Directors of the London Missionary Society, February 7, 1855. 53. The notion of the Ndebele as “warlike” people was not simply a creation of imperial forerunners and colonial officials; it was also partly a product of the politics of naming between rival African polities as part of the struggle for recognition on the frontier. 54. Interview with Baka Paulos Ndlovu, Ndlovu Homestead, Dombodema, June 24, 2003. 55. Giliomee, “Eastern Frontier,” 421–41.

Notes to pp. 41–47

243

56. Interview with Mr. D. Madavu, Madavu Homestead, Brunapeg, Plumtree (Mangwe District), June 12, 2003. See also the reference to the Talahundra in John Mackenzie, Dawn in Dark Places: A Study of Wanderings and Work in Bechuanaland (London: Cassell and Company, 1884), 170. 57. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Democracy and Human Rights,” 80, 83. 58. Hist. Mss. WI 1/1/1, W.  G. Wilkerson, “The Matabele Nation Volume 1” (1910), 9–16; Mackenzie, Dawn in Dark Places, 170. 59. Hist. Mss. WI 8/1/2, Reminiscences of R. F. Windram: Statement of Ntabeni Kumalo made to R.  F. Windram on the Farm of J.  P. Richardson, Essexvale Road, November 19, 1937. 60. John Mackenzie, Ten Years North of the Orange River: A Story of Everyday Life and Work among the South African Tribes from 1859–1869 (London: Frank Cass, 1871), 156. 61. Hist. Mss. MO 1/1/6/1023–30, John Smith Moffat: To My Dear Father, January 14, 1862. 62. Missionary Magazine and Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, November 1, 1858. 63. SOAS, CWM 1, Africa: Matabeleland Correspondence, 1835–96, Robert Moffat to the Directors of the London Missionary Society, September 17, 1835. 64. Ibid. See also Hist. Mss. WI 1/1/1, Wilkerson, “Matabele Nation Volume 1,” 10–11. 65. Cobbing, “Ndebele under the Khumalos,” 293. 66. Ibid., 94. 67. Masola and Wentzel, Nau DzabaKalanga, 275–79. 68. Mackenzie, Dawn in Dark Places, 167–82. Also reported in Hist. Mss. WI 1/1/1, Wilkerson, “Matabele Nation Volume 1,” 9–16. 69. Mackenzie, Dawn in Dark Places, 168. 70. Mackenzie, Ten Years, 268. 71. Interview with Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, Daily News Offices, Bulawayo, March 8, 2003. Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu argues that the Kalanga ate mice, something that most of them deny today. See also Karl Mauch, “The Makalaka,” in Rhodesiana (Salisbury: Rhodesiana Society, 1965), 63–75. Mauch describes the Kalanga as he saw them in the 1860s and 1870s. 72. Neil Parsons, “Settlement in East-Central Botswana,” in Proceedings of the Symposium on Settlement in Botswana: The Historical Development of a Human Landscape, National Museum of Gaborone, August 4–8, 1980, ed. R. R. Hitchcock and Mary R. Smith (Gaborone: Botswana Society, 1982), 115–28. 73. Mackenzie, Dawn in Dark Places, 169, 170. 74. NB 3/1/8, W. E. Thomas to the CNC Bulawayo, September 11, 1906. 75. J. O’Neil, “Habits and Customs of the Natives of Mangwe District, South Matabeleland,” Zambesi Mission Record 4, no. 47 (1910): 35–39. 76. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, 172–73. 77. Mackenzie, Ten Years, 366. 78. Hist. Mss. ST 12/4/1–2, C.  H.  S. Stabb (1835–88), Matabele Country. The demotion of former Kalanga chiefs into headmen was an Ndebele political project to directly govern Kalanga communities and also to enable easy acculturation. 79. NB 6/1/12, Annual Report of the NC Wankie District, 1912. 80. Sebina, “Makalaka,” 82–96.

244

Notes to pp. 47–49

81. NB 6/5/2/2, Bulilima-Mangwe, Report on the Natives Living to the West, 1898. 82. Maybe Decle referred to Mswazvi as a village head to demean him because Decle did not like him, and Matundume, who was friendlier, was referred to as “the biggest local chief.” 83. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, 177–81. This evidence demonstrates that these rising Kalanga chiefs did not recognize Lobengula’s claims of authority over their land. It also illustrates that missionaries and travelers’ reports to the effect that the area was Lobengula’s were false. 84. Interview with Headman Sangulube, Sangulube Homestead, Brunapeg, Plumtree, June 11, 2003; interview with Mr. D. Madavu, Madavu Homestead, Brunapeg, June 12, 2003; interview with Mr. Alois Talon Godzi; Madavu Homestead, Brunapeg, June 14, 2003; interview with Headman Madyambudzi, Ndebele Homestead, Madyambudzi, June 20, 2003; and interview with Councillor Murder Khupe, Ndebele Homestead, Madyambudzi, June 20, 2003. Khupe suggested that Madyambudzi chieftainship was once under Mengwe and that the Madyambudzi chieftaincy only became independent after the drawing of the Southern Rhodesia-Botswana border. This perhaps explains the Madyambudzi chieftaincy’s nonexistence in early colonial chiefs’ records—for instance, file NB 1/1/19, CNC: In—Letters, General, December 1902–June 13, 1903, Reports on Subsidised Chiefs: Bulilima-Mangwe District. 85. MISC/ED3/1/1, Statement by S.  H. Edwards, September 20, 1898. Edwards might have constructed this area as a no-man’s-land to justify his mining claims at Tati. 86. SOAS, London, CWM 1, Africa, Matabeleland Correspondence, 1835–96: Moffat to Rev. Tidman, February 7, 1857, and also Moffat to LMS, June 19, 1858; see also a Jesuit missionary’s description of the Kalanga villages in Zambesi Mission Record 2, no. 15 (1902): 22–25. 87. Henderson M. Tapela, “Movement and Settlement in the Tati Region: A Historical Survey,” in Proceedings of the Symposium on Settlement in Botswana, 174–88. 88. Mackenzie, Dawn in Dark Places, 169, 170; Hist. Mss. ST 12/4/1–2, C. H. S. Stabb (1835–88), Matabele Country. 89. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, 147, 180; Thomas Morgan Thomas, Eleven Years in Central South Africa, 2nd ed. (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1970; originally published in 1873), 172. 90. Interview with Mr. A. Talon Godzi, Madabu Homestead, Brunapeg, June 14, 2003; interview with Mr. S. Gwakuba Ndlovu, Daily News Offices, Bulawayo, March 22, 2003. See also Thomas, Eleven Years, 110–11. 91. W.  A. Elliott, The South African Mission of the London Missionary Society [LMS] (London: London Missionary Society, 1913), 85. 92. Enocent Msindo, “Remaking Ndebele and the Kalanga: Language and Ethnicity in Matabeleland, 1860–1960s” (MPhil. thesis, University of Cambridge, 2002), chap. 2. See also Julian R. D. Cobbing, “The Ndebele State,” in Before and after Shaka: Papers in Nguni History, ed. J.  B. Pieres (Grahamstown, South Africa: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1983), 160–77. 93. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 100–102. 94. H. Kuper, A. J. B. Hughes, and J. van Velsen, Ethnographic Survey of Africa: The Shona and the Ndebele of Southern Rhodesia (London: International African Institute, 1955), 71–74.

Notes to pp. 50–55

245

95. Before Lobengula relocated to Bulawayo, Inyati in Bubi was the capital of the Ndebele state. 96. Elliott, South African Mission of the LMS, 84. 97. Zambesi Mission Record 1 (April 1901): 422–25. 98. Thomas, Eleven Years, 153–54. 99. Cobbing, “Ndebele State,” 160–77. 100. Ibid. 101. NB 3/1/16, W. E. Thomas (NC Bulilima-Mangwe) to the CNC Bulawayo, April 23, 1909 (CNC Matabeleland: Correspondence, General, January–December 1909). 102. Elliott, South African Mission of the LMS, 85. 103. Interview with Mrs. Buyile Masuku, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, October 29, 2002. Mrs. Masuku was born in 1902. See also S 1542/E1, CNC: Correspondence and other papers, Education, 1932–35: Questionnaire on the Social System of the Matabele from Native Commissioner, Fort Usher. 104. NB 3/1/16, NC Bulilima to the CNC Bulawayo, January 14, 1910. 105. See, for instance, Ndlovu’s attempt to argue for democracy and good governance in the Ndebele state in Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Who Ruled by the Spear? Rethinking the Form of Governance in the Ndebele State,” African Studies Quarterly 10, nos. 2–3 (2008), http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v10/v10i2-3a4.pdf. 106. Bhebe, Christianity and Traditional Religion, 8. 107. In the Natal area, where Mzilikazi came from, raiding for slaves was triggered by the growing Portuguese slave trade market on Delagoa Bay and also by the dearth of laborers in farms in the Cape and elsewhere. Julian R. D. Cobbing, “The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo,” Journal of African History 29, no. 3 (1988): 487–519. 108. Rouillard, Matabele Thompson, 59. 109. Bhebe, Christianity and Traditional Religion, 111. 110. Thomas, Eleven Years, 411–12. 111. Rouillard, Matabele Thompson, 60. 112. Ibid., 149. 113. Neville Jones, My Friend Kumalo (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1944), 24. 114. Thomas, Eleven Years, 249. 115. Hist. Mss. ST 12/4/1–2, C. H. S. Stabb, Matabele Country. Stabb says that the king was under strong public pressure—perhaps suggesting stronger influence from zansi who wanted to be differentiated from other classes. 116. This was an interesting case of an imagined elitist narrow ethnicity that, once imagined, was justified by appeals to false primordial characteristics of “the Zulu,” when in fact, Mzilikazi’s family was not initially Zulu. 117. Elliott, South African Mission of the LMS, 85. 118. Interview with Tshuma Mahwayi J. Mpumpulwane, Siganda-Nkosikazi Area, Bubi, July 19, 2003. 119. Interview with Tshuma Mahwayi, Siganda, Bubi, July 19, 2003; interview with the Khumalo Spokesman (Mr. Peter Zvidekalanga Khumalo) and advisor Mr. Musongelwayizizwe Khumalo, TM Holdings Regional Offices, Bulawayo, March 21, 2003; interview with Mr. Mlahlwa Mpofu, Siganda-Nkosikazi, Bubi, July 20, 2003. 120. Interview with retired Rev. Amos Mzilethi, 126 Ntabazinduna Township, July 17, 2003.

246

Notes to pp. 55–59

121. Interview with Mr. Gcwalisa Dube, Madavu Homestead, Brunapeg, June 12, 2003. 122. Mackenzie, Dawn in Dark Places, 197. 123. Rev. W. A. Elliot, Gold from the Quartz (London: London Missionary Society, 1910), 146–47. 124. Hist. Mss. ST 12/4/1–2, C. H. S. Stabb, Matabele Country. 125. S 1542/E1, NC Fort Usher to the Superintendent of Natives: Questionnaire on the Social System of the Matabele, in file CNC; Correspondence and other papers, Education, 1933–35. 126. Interview with Baka Paulos Ndlovu, Ndlovu Homestead, Dombodema, Plumtree, June 24, 2003. 127. NB 1/1/1, Acting NC Mzingwane to the CNC, July 20, 1897. NB 1/1/8, CNC to NC Bulawayo, September 17, 1899. Most typical is NB 1/1/11, NC Belingwe to the CNC Bulawayo, October 9, 1900, in which the NC did not know how to judge it. The NC wondered whether to order lobola to be paid to the king’s heir Nyamanda or to the zansi man who claimed ownership of the woman, which man argued that since King Lobengula had given this hole woman to him, she was still legally his hole. 128. Interview with Baka Paulos Ndlovu, Ndlovu Homestead, Dombodema-Plumtree, June 24, 2003. Her mother was a late-nineteenth-century Ndebele captive, and in the nineteenth century young captives grew up in this cloud of secrecy, perhaps to manage potential nostalgia and trauma. This was corroborated by an interview with Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu (Howu), Daily News Offices, Bulawayo, March 22, 2003. 129. S 1542/E1, NC Fort Usher to the Superintendent of Natives: Questionnaire on the Social System of the Matabele, in file CNC; Correspondence and other papers, Education, 1933–35. Also in the same file is letter: NC Fort Rixon to the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, August 3, 1934. 130. Mackenzie, Ten Years, 330–31. 131. Hist. Mss. WI 8/1/1, R.  F. Windram: Reminiscences; Statement of Umzila Mandoropa, son of Umfandiso, made to Windram at his kraal on the Khami Rd, November 22, 1937. 132. A negligible number of the hole became leaders. See Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Democracy and Human Rights,” 83, 95. 133. Bhebe, Christianity and Traditional Religion, 13–23. 134. J. Mackenzie, Dawn in Dark Places, 196; see also Rouillard, Matabele Thompson, 65; Diaries of the Jesuit Missionaries at Bulawayo, 1879–1881 (Salisbury: Rhodesian Society, 1959), 46. 135. SOAS, London, CWM 1, Africa: Matabeleland Correspondence, 1835–96: T.  M. Thomas to the Directors of the London Missionary Society, April 30, 1860; Thomas, Eleven Years, 311. 136. Thomas, Eleven Years, 313. 137. Etherington, Great Treks, 165–66. 138. Diaries of the Jesuit Missionaries, 44. O’Neil, “Habits and Customs of the Natives of Mangwe District,” 35–39. 139. Diaries of the Jesuit Missionaries, 30. 140. Ibid., 42–43, 54, 60. 141. Interview with Mrs. Buyile Maseko, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, October 29, 2002. 142. Elliott, South African Mission of the LMS, 85.

Notes to pp. 59–66

247

143. Jones, My Friend Kumalo, 24. 144. Charles Bullock, The Mashona and the Matebele (Cape Town: Juta and Co., 1950), 11. 145. It may also be that because missionaries were mainly confined to the state capital in the early years, they may not have heard of any other language than isiZulu/isiNdebele during those years. 146. See, for instance, SOAS, London, CWM 31, South Africa: Incoming Correspondence—Bechuanaland Letters, 1858–59: R. Moffat to Tidman, June 18, 1858. Mzilikazi may have had other motives for forbidding missionaries from visiting the Kalanga. One chief reason may be that he wanted to monopolize trade relations by not sharing his European trade contacts with the Kalanga chiefs because they would get guns and other things. 147. Zambesi Mission Record 2, no. 23 (1904): 353. 148. See Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Ndebele State during the 19th Century” (paper presented at a workshop on the Historical Dimensions of Development in the Midlands, Gweru, Zimbabwe, May 10–11, 2001); in this paper, Ndlovu erroneously assumes that the king permitted linguistic interchange. 149. Mackenzie, Ten Years, 338. 150. Zambesi Mission Record 2, no. 15 (1902): 22–23. 151. SOAS, CWM 1, Africa: Matabeleland Correspondence, 1835–96: T.  M. Thomas to the Directors of the LMS, October 10, 1860. 152. BE 8/8/3, Hist. Mss. W. R. Benzies, “Sindebele in Relation to the Zulu Language,” 1936. 153. SOAS, CWM 1, Africa: Matabeleland Correspondence, 1835–96: T.  M. Thomas to the Directors of the LMS, October 10, 1860; emphasis in original. 154. Thomas interacted with the broader Ndebele society more than did his coworker Sykes. Thomas went with the Ndebele commoners to hunt so often that his coworkers criticized him for his secular habits, yet he argued that he was hunting to feed the hungry Ndebele. Thomas, Eleven Years, 315. 155. Iris Clinton, “These Vessels . . .”: The Story of Inyati, 1859–1959 (Bulawayo: Stuart Manning, 1959), 40. 156. For more detail on language and politics, see Enocent Msindo, “Language and Ethnicity in Matabeleland: Ndebele-Kalanga Relations in Southern Zimbabwe, 1930–1960,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 38, no. 1 (2005): 79–103. 157. O’Neil, “Habits and Customs of the Natives of Mangwe District,” 35–39. 158. NB 6/1/3-4, Report of the NC Matopo District for the year ending March 31, 1902. This Matobo language was most probably Nyubi, a Kalanga dialect. 159. HE 3/1/1, Mrs. Helmore, Letters: Mrs. Helmore to her Daughter Olive, Shoshong, Bamangwato, August 23, 1859.

Chapter 3 1. J. F. Holleman, Chief, Council, and Commissioner: Some Problems of Government in Southern Rhodesia (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 118. 2. A. K. H. Weinrich, Chiefs and Councils in Rhodesia: Transition from Patriarchal to Bureaucratic Power (London: Heinemann, 1971).

248

Notes to pp. 66–70

3. David Maxwell, Christians and Chiefs in Zimbabwe: A Social History of the Hwesa People, c. 1870s–1990s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 40–42. 4. Ibid., 45. 5. Ibid., chap. 4. 6. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 103–29. 7. Ibid., 105, 108. 8. Ibid., 112–29. Balancing modernity and tradition was common practice for chiefs. Holleman noted that Chief Mangwende did the same (Holleman, Chief, Council, and Commissioner). 9. Interview with Gcwalisa Dube, Madabu Homestead, Brunapeg, June 15, 2003. Identity cards are colonial creations, but what fascinates me is not their colonial constructedness, but the extent to which commoners used them to make and defend their own identities. 10. NB 1/1/14, CNC Matabeleland: In—Letters, General, 1901: NC Insiza to the CNC Bulawayo, October 29, 1901; NB 6/3/1, CNC Quarterly Reports, July–December 1897: Quarterly Report for Belingwe for June 30, 1897. 11. Interview with Saul G. Ndlovu, March 22, 2003. See also ZAD 3/2/1, Native Reserve Commission, Evidence—Written, General: Evidence of Mazizi, 1894. 12. ZAD 3/2/1, Evidence of Mazizi, 1894. 13. Ibid. and evidence of Ingubongubo, October 25, 1894; evidence of NC J. W. Colenbrander, 1894. See also A 1/1/2, Administrator’s Office: Chief Native Commissioner to the Acting Administrator, January 11, 1896. 14. Interview with Baka, Paulos Ndlovu, Dombodema, June 24, 2003. 15. Qugwana was one of the leading Ndebele warriors who were operating in Bulilima-Mangwe during the 1896–97 war and had been tasked with tracking down missionary Reed, whom the Ndebele wanted to kill. See ref. NAZ, Bulawayo, BOH/7, interview of Mark Ncube with Bonyongo Muloyi Ndlovu, Plumtree, December 9, 1981. 16. NB 3/1/16, NC Bulilima to the CNC, January 14, 1910. 17. NB 3/1/16, W. E. Thomas, NC Bulilima to the CNC Bulawayo, February 23, 1909. 18. NB 3/1/16, Superintendent of Natives, Gwelo, to the CNC Bulawayo, April 6, 1909; NB 3/1/16, NC Bulilima to the CNC, April 23, 1909; NB 3/1/16, NC Insiza to Superintendent of Natives, Gwelo, May 20, 1909; NB 6/1/10, Annual Report of the NC Umzingwani District for the year ending December 31, 1910. 19. Martin Chanock, Law, Custom, and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 13. 20. NB 1/1/7, NC Bulawayo to the CNC Bulawayo, January 17, 1899; NB 1/1/8, CNC to the NC Bulawayo, September 17, 1899. 21. NB 1/1/7, NC Bulawayo to CNC Bulawayo, January 17, 1899; NB 1/1/11, NC Belingwe to CNC, October 9, 1900; NB 1/1/11, Acting NC Bubi to the CNC, November 23, 1900; NBE 1/1/1, NC Matobo to the CNC, June 5, 1897. 22. See also Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 23. Interview with Mrs. B. Moyo (Baka Kombi), Madyambudzi, June 21, 2003. 24. SOAS, CWM 59, LMS, South Africa: Incoming Correspondences, 1901: C. H. Reed to LMS, April 14, 1902; C. H. Reed to LMS, July 4, 1903; One Hundred

Notes to pp. 70–74

249

and Eleventh Report of the London Missionary Society, 1906: Report by C. H. Reed on Bulilima-Mangwe. 25. Interview with MaVundla (Mrs. Ndlovu), Madyambudzi, June 19, 2003. Amabetshu was traditional Ndebele dress made from animal hides. 26. NB 6/1/1, Annual Report of the Chief Native Commissioner, Matabeleland, 1898. 27. LMS CWM2ii, Africa: Matabeleland Correspondence, 1860–99, Reed to Thompson, August 25, 1898. 28. Interview with Mr. Alois Talon Godzi, Brunapeg, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 14, 2003. 29. NB 1/1/19, W. E. Thomas (NC Bulilima-Mangwe) to the CNC, May 23, 1903: Report on Subsidised Chiefs: Bulilima-Mangwe District. 30. NB 1/1/19, Report on Subsidised Chiefs: Bulilima-Mangwe District; interview with Mr. B. Fuyana, New Luveve, Bulawayo, April 3, 2003. 31. NB 1/1/19, Report on Subsidised Chiefs: Bulilima-Mangwe. 32. NB 1/1/2, CNC’s Office, Bulawayo, Matabeleland, November 4, 1897, “Native Department’s Indunas.” 33. NB 1/1/19, Report on Subsidised Chiefs: Bulilima-Mangwe. 34. Interviews with Councillor M. Khupe, Madyambudzi, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 20, 2003; and interview with Mr. W. Tjivako, Madyambudzi, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 21, 2003. Both interviewees state that Mengwe was the Madyambudzi chief before the Botswana-Southern Rhodesian border was drawn, after which Mengwe became a chief in Bechuanaland and the remnants of his people came under a new Madyambudzi chief (Nsundilamwa) in Southern Rhodesia. Mengwe is sometimes incorrectly spelled Menu or Manyu. 35. A 3/18/18/2, Administrator’s Office: Chiefs and Headmen: Appointments: CNC to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, April 2, 1916—re: Appointment of Chief Hikwa. 36. NB 6/1/1, Statistical Returns of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending March 31, 1898; NB 1/1/17, CNC Matabeleland: In—Letters, General: Spelling of Native Names, May–October 1902. 37. NB 1/1/17, CNC Matabeleland: In—Letters, General, Spelling of Native Names: Not Subsidised Indunas, Bulilima-Mangwe, May–October 1902; and A 3/18/28, NC Tegwani (W.  E. Thomas) to the CNC Bulawayo, Circular, 11/06. In this history of the Matebele tribes, Thomas gives the names of prominent precolonial Kalanga chiefs as Mengwe, Hwadalala, Sangulube, Rauwe’s father (Selusagana), Mswazi, Silagwane, and Mniligau (Hikwa). 38. NB 6/1/1, Statistical Returns of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending March 31, 1898. 39. NB 6/1/1, CNC Matabeleland, Annual Report: Statistical returns, BulilimaMangwe, 1897–98. 40. David Carnegie, Among the Matebele (London: Religious Tract Society, 1894), 115. 41. NB 6/1/2, Annual Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe District for the year ending March 31, 1899. A similar sentiment was expressed in NB 6/5/1/2, Report of the Acting CNC on his tour of the Bulilima District, November 11, 1898.

250

Notes to pp. 75–81

42. NB 6/1/1, Annual Report of the CNC for the Province of Matabeleland for the year ending March 31, 1898. 43. NB 1/1/2, Report of the CNC Matabeleland summarizing chief events during twelve months ending September 30, 1897. 44. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 103–8. 45. NB 1/1/5, NC Bulilima [Thomas] to the CNC Bulawayo, August 17, 1898; NB 6/4/2, Report on the Bulilima District for the month of August 1898. 46. SOAS, London, LMS, CWM 69, South Africa: Incoming Correspondence, C.  H. Reed to Thompson, November 26, 1908; CWM 69, Report by Mr. William Charleton to the Members of the Matabele Committee concerning his work in the Selepeng District, undated [likely 1908]; CWM 69, Matabele District Committee: Minutes of the Special Committee held in the vestry of the Wesleyan Church, Bulawayo, July 13, 1908; CWM 66, C. D. Helm to the Directors of the LMS, July 21, 1905. 47. Isaac Schapera made a similar point about Botswana chiefs and public opinion in I. Schapera, Tribal Innovators: Tswana Chiefs and Social Change, 1795–1940 (London: Athlone Press, 1970), 198–206. 48. NB 1/1/8, NC Bulilima-Mangwe to the CNC, August 23, 1899. 49. NB 1/1/8, NC Bulilima-Mangwe to the CNC, September 11, 1899. 50. NBB 1/1/1, Native Commissioner, Inyati to the Superintendent of Natives, June 15, 1921. 51. S 1561/10/7, Minutes of a Meeting of Chiefs and Headmen of the BulilimaMangwe District in the NC’s Office, Plumtree, September 8, 1925. 52. NB 1/1/12, CNC Matabeleland: In—Letters, General, 1901: P. Nielsen (agent of the Labour Board) to the CNC Bulawayo, January 4, 1901; Nielsen to the CNC Bulawayo, January 16, 1901. 53. NB 1/1/14, NC Bulilima-Mangwe to the CNC Bulawayo, September 14, 1901. 54. NB 6/4/2, Monthly Report for Bulilima District for August 1898. 55. Serving the colony may have included serving in the war as part of the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR). Timothy Stapleton suggests that during the World War I period Bulilima-Mangwe made substantial contributions to the war effort both financially and in terms of African soldiers. He claims that there was a strong Kalanga presence in the RAR. However, he does not back this assertion with any statistical or other substantial evidence save to argue that this was the case because Kalanga were used to coming under foreign rule and had a history of labor migration. Timothy Stapleton, No Insignificant Part: The Rhodesian Native Regiment and the East Africa Campaign of the First World War (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006), 28–30, 39–40, 41. 56. NB 6/5/2/2, Bulilima-Mangwe: Report on the Natives Living to the West, 1898, interview at Mswazi’s kraal. 57. NB 6/5/2/2, interview at Madandume’s kraal. 58. NB 6/5/2/2, interview at Mengwe’s kraal. 59. Ibid. 60. NB 6/5/2/2, Bulilima-Mangwe: Report on the Natives Living to the West, 1898: NC’s Recommendations to the Administrator. 61. NAZ, Bulawayo, BOH/7, interview of Mark Ncube with Bonyongo Muloyi Ndlovu, Plumtree, December 9, 1981. 62. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 103–29.

Notes to pp. 82–87

251

63. NB 1/1/19, W.  E. Thomas, Report on Subsidised Chiefs, Bulilima-Mangwe District, May 23, 1903. 64. Ibid. 65. NB 6/4/2, Monthly Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for November 1898. 66. S 1561/10/7, Minutes of a Meeting of Chiefs and Headmen of the BulilimaMangwe District in the NC’s Office, Plumtree, September 8, 1925. 67. NB 1/1/14, CNC Bulawayo to the NC Insiza, September 29, 1901; NB 1/1/14, NC Insiza [Leo Robinson] to the CNC Bulawayo, October 29, 1901. 68. NB 1/1/4, NC Bubi [Val Gielgud] to the CNC, April 21, 1898. Uwini and Tshwapa were “Ndebelecized” Rozvis. 69. Ibid. 70. NB 1/1/7, Evidence of Magola (Sub-induna), Nkonkoni, Mbiana, Umtshede, Makantu, and Tshwapa, collected by CNC at Inyati, January 11, 1899. See also NB 1/1/7, NC Bubi [Carbutt] to CNC, January 17, 1899. 71. NB 1/1/7, CNC to the Secretary, Bulawayo, January 24, 1899. 72. Rhodesian Herald, July 14, 1914. 73. NB 1/1/1, CNC Matabeleland: In—Letters, General, 1900: Reverend Prestage, Empandeni, to His Honour, the Administrator, August 17, 1900. 74. A 3/18/28, A Short History of the Native tribes of the provinces of Matabeleland, by CNC Herbert Taylor, Bulawayo, January 11, 1904. 75. A 3/3/20/3–4, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, May 23, 1918; A 3/3/20/3–4, CNC to all Superintendents of Natives, April 27, 1918. 76. N 3/24/25, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, June 7, 1918. 77. S 2076, Annual Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe, December 1920. 78. S 1542/C6/12, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, December 24, 1938. 79. S 1542/C6/12, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, October 26, 1937. 80. S 1542/C6/12, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, October 27, 1937. 81. S 1542/C6/12, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, December 24, 1938. 82. S 1542/C6/12, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, August 29, 1939. 83. S 2076, Annual Report of the NC Bubi, December 31, 1920. 84. S 138/260, Native Affairs Act, 1927, Suggested Amendments. 85. S 138/1, Annual Report of the CNC, 1930; S 1542/I2/1, NC Matobo to the CNC, December 3, 1940; S 138/260, Solicitor General to the Attorney General, September 9, 1926; S 138/1, NC Inyati to the CNC Salisbury, January 22, 1932; S 1542/S12/1, Assistant NC Shabani to the NC Belingwe, November 10, 1934; S 482/28/31/1, Chief Superintendent, CID, to the Commissioner, BSAC, November 10, 1926. 86. S 235/512, Annual Report of the NC Insiza, December 1934. 87. S 235/518, Annual Report of the NC Bubi, December 1946. 88. S 235/510, Annual Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe, December 1933. 89. Ibid. 90. S 235/512, Annual Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe, December 1934.

252

Notes to pp. 87–93

91. S 1563/3, Annual Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe, December 1936. 92. S 1542/C6/12, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, December 24, 1938. S 1542/C6/12, NC Plumtree to the Superintendant of Natives, October 26, 1937. In the same file see also CNC to the Superintendant of Natives, December 17, 1938; NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, October 5, 1937. 93. S 2929/6/2, Delineation Report, Bulilima-Mangwe, 1965. 94. Niehaus, “Ethnicity and the Boundaries of Belonging,” 557–83. 95. NCs originally thought that Tshitshi was Kalanga when in fact he was an Ndebelecized hole who was captured from the Shona in Mberengwa during the precolonial era. NB 6/2/1, Half Yearly Statistical Report on the Mangwe District, Matabeleland, September 30, 1897; interview with Mr. D. Madavu, Brunapeg, June 12, 2003. 96. Interview with Mr. D. Madavu, Brunapeg, June 12, 2003. 97. S 2929/6/2, Delineation Report, Bulilima-Mangwe, 1965. 98. Interview with D. Madabu, Madabu Homestead, Brunapeg, June 12, 2003. 99. Interview with Mr. Talon Godzi, Madavu Homestead, Brunapeg, June 14, 2003. 100. Interview with Headman Madyambudzi’s representative, Ndebele Homestead, Madyambudzi, June 20, 2003; interview with Ms. Z. Moyo, Madyambudzi, June 19, 2003. 101. Interview with Ms Z. Moyo, Madyambudzi, June 19, 2003. 102. Interview with Mr. Bunu Musebele, Madyambudzi, June 22, 2003; interview with Mr. Murder Khupe, Ndebele Homestead, June 20, 2003. 103. Interview with Headman Madyambudzi’s representative, Ndebele Homestead, Madyambudzi, June 20, 2003. 104. Interview with Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, Daily News Offices, Bulawayo, March 22, 2003. 105. S 2929/6/2, Delineation Report, Bulilima-Mangwe, 1965. 106. Ibid. 107. S 1563, Annual Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending December 31, 1947. 108. Interview with Headman Madyambudzi’s spokesperson, Mr. E. Ndebele Homestead, Madyambudzi, June 20, 2003. “He” is the TjiKalanga word for “chief”; “Sobuku” is the TjiKalanga word for “headman.” 109. S 2929/6/2, Delineation Report, Bulilima-Mangwe, 1965. 110. This statement is ascribed to the minister of local government, Dr Ignatius Chombo, in reference to chiefs that were alleged to be supporting the then opposition MDC; see This Is Zimbabwe, “Zimbabwe Election Watch,” no. 3, August 8, 2007, http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/627.

Chapter 4 1. Dingilizwe Ntuli, “Ndebeles Seek to Revive Kingdom,” September 2001, http:// www.sundaytimes.co.za/2001/09/30/news/africa/africa01.asp (accessed June 24, 2004). See also “Restoration of the Ndebele Kingdom Gathers Momentum,” The

Notes to pp. 93–98

253

Zimstar, September 24, 2009, http://thezimstar.com/news/436-restoration-of-thendebele-kingdom-gathers-momentum. 2. J. Cobbing, “Absent Priesthood: Another Look at the Rhodesian Risings of 1896–1897,” Journal of African History 18, no. 1 (1977): 61–84. 3. NB 1/1/2, NC Bubi to the Secretary, Deputy Administrator, February 17, 1898. 4. NB 1/1/19, Report of the NC (R. Lanning) on Subsidised Chiefs, Bubi District, May 20, 1903; SOAS, CWM 93, South Africa: Incoming Correspondence, Mission Survey—Shangani Area, 1931 (London). 5. NB 1/1/16, Njube Lobengula to the Civil Commissioner, Bulawayo [undated but perhaps written in 1902]. 6. NB 2/1/1, Herbert Taylor (CNC) to the Chief Secretary, Salisbury, November 5, 1901. 7. NB 2/1/1, CNC to the Chief Secretary, Salisbury, November 8, 1901. 8. NB 2/1/1, CNC to the Secretary, Bulawayo, March 14, 1901. 9. It is also true that Ndebele chiefs in precolonial Matabeleland were not usually united but had factions and also varied in their loyalty to the Ndebele kings. 10. NB 2/1/1, CNC to the Secretary, March 14, 1901. 11. NB 1/1/6, NC Fort Usher to the CNC Bulawayo, November 27, 1898. 12. Ibid. 13. NB 1/1/6, NC Malema to the CNC, November 29, 1898; NB 1/1/6, NC Malema to the CNC, December 5, 1898. 14. NB 1/1/8, NC Mzingwane [Leo Robinson] to the CNC Matabeleland, July 10, 1899. 15. NBE 7/1/1, Quarterly Report of the NC Malema to the CNC, April 7, 1898. 16. NB 1/1/8, NC Tegwani [Thomas] to the CNC, July 10, 1899. 17. This move came too late because the queen had died in January 1901. Personal communication with Dr. John Lonsdale, Trinity College, Cambridge, UK, May 13, 2004. 18. NB 1/1/19, NC Bulilima-Mangwe to the CNC Bulawayo, April 16, 1903. 19. NB 1/1/19, J. A. Stevens to the Magistrate, Port Alfred, June 23, 1903. 20. NB 3/1/8, Proceedings at Presentation of Chiefs of Matabeleland to His Excellency the High Commissioner, held at Government House, Bulawayo, October 8, 1906. 21. NB 3/1/8, Proceedings at Presentation of Chiefs of Matabeleland to His Excellency the High Commissioner, held at Government House, Bulawayo, October 8, 1906. 22. NB 3/1/10, NC Fort Usher (H. M. Jackson) to the CNC Bulawayo, September 18, 1907; NB 3/1/10, NC Fort Usher to the CNC, September 19, 1907. 23. NB 3/1/10, CNC Bulawayo to the Chief Secretary, Salisbury, October 17, 1907. 24. NB 3/1/10, CNC Bulawayo to the NC Matobo District, August 1, 1906. 25. Ibid. 26. NB 3/1/10, CNC Bulawayo to the Chief Secretary, November 22, 1907. 27. NB 3/1/10, NC Bulilima-Mangwe to the CNC Bulawayo, January 16, 1908; NB 3/1/10, NC Inyati [P. Lanning] to the CNC Bulawayo, January 7, 1908; NB 3/1/10, NC Insiza [A. Campbell] to the CNC Bulawayo, January 10, 1908.

254

Notes to pp. 98–102

28. NB 3/1/10, CNC Bulawayo to the NC Bulilima-Mangwe District, January 18, 1908. 29. NB 3/1/16, Alban Njube Lobengula to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, November 25, 1909. 30. NB 3/1/23, CNC to the Solicitor Angus S. Fletcher, November 10, 1910. 31. CT 1/22/1, Cape Town office, In Letters and Correspondence: Tati Cattle Disputes: Telegram—Jameson to Harris Charter, June 26, 1894. 32. Interview with Mr. D. Ndiweni, Pelandaba, Bulawayo, July 9, 2003; interview with Mr. Hlangabeza Khumalo, Pelandaba, Bulawayo, July 9, 2003; interview with Mhlahlwa Mpofu, Mpofu Homestead, Nkosikazi, Bubi, July 20, 2003; interview with Mr. Welshman Mabhena, FourWinds, Bulawayo, July 24, 2003. 33. A 3/3/20/5–7, Southern Rhodesian Native Reserves Commission, Interim Report, November 29, 1914, p. 13. 34. NB 3/1/19, CNC to the NC Bulilima-Mangwe, January 27, 1910. 35. NB 3/1/18, CNC to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, November 16, 1909. 36. See Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, chap. 4. 37. NB 3/1/19, NC Bulilima to the CNC, February 17, 1910. 38. Interview with Mr. Hlangabeza Khumalo, Pelandaba, Bulawayo, July 9, 2003; Khumalo claims that commoners had no cattle even before the coming of the Ndebele (an extreme view); interview with Chief Kaisa Ndiweni (who said he could not talk about Ndebele cattle to me because I was a commoner!), Kaisa Homestead, Ntabazinduna, July 17, 2003. Interview with Mr. J. Mpumpulwane Tshuma Mahwayi, Tshuma’s Home, Nkosikazi, Bubi, July 19, 2003. Tshuma told me that his father only purchased cattle (two oxen) after the death of Lobengula, and had none before. 39. N 3/19/3, NC Bubi to the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, February 11, 1920. 40. See Enocent Msindo, “Ethnicity, Not Class? The 1929 Bulawayo Faction Fights Reconsidered,” Journal of Southern African Studies 32, no. 3 (2006): 429–47; Msindo, “Ethnicity and Nationalism,” 267–90. 41. NB 3/1/16, CNC to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, December 17, 1909. 42. NB 3/1/18, Proceedings at “Indaba” between His Excellency the High Commissioner and the Native Chiefs and others, held at Government House, Bulawayo, Friday, November 12, 1909. 43. Cape Argus, June 16, 1910; NB 3/1/20, CNC to the Superintendent of Natives, Gwelo, June 27, 1910. 44. N 3/19/4, Nyamanda to Ntola Kumalo, September 10, 1919. 45. NB 3/19/4, Nyamanda Lobengula to the Sky Stabbers (the Matabele Nation), undated [but in the 1919 file]. 46. S 1561/1, Report of an interview between Nyamanda and His Honour the Administrator, October 11, 1915. 47. N 3/19/4, NC Mzingwane to the CNC, September 27, 1919; N3/19/4, Acting CNC to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, October 6, 1921. 48. N 3/19/4, Jones to Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, October 15, 1921; N 3/19/4, High Commissioner’s letter to the Sons and Relatives of the late Chief

Notes to pp. 102–106

255

Lobengula, Headman of the Matebele, Mashona, and other tribes in Southern Rhodesia, October 23, 1921. 49. S 1561/10/4, Acting CNC [H. M. G. Jackson] to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, September 16, 1921. 50. A 3/18/18/5-6, Superintendent of Natives to the CNC Salisbury, April 21, 1920. 51. A 3/18/18/5-6, Chiefs and Headmen: Lobengula, the Petition of Nyamanda. 52. Ibid. See also Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, chap. 1. 53. ZAD 1/1/2, Land Commission, 1925, Bulawayo, Friday, March 27, 1925, Evidence of Menyezwa. 54. Ibid., Evidence of Martha Ngano. 55. Ibid., Evidence of Makumbesi. 56. Ibid., Evidence of Thomas Mazinyani. 57. N 9/5/3, interview with Nyamanda and other Matabele Chiefs held at Scott Building, Bulawayo, on Monday, April 19, 1920. The men that came with Nyamanda were actually relatives of his (hence royals), and not commoners. See also N 3/19/4, Lobengula’s Successor. 58. A 3/18/18/5–6, H.  J. Taylor (CNC) to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, April 29, 1920; A 3/18/18/5–6, NC Inyati to the Superintendent of Natives, March 16, 1920. 59. A 3/18/18/5–6, Undated and unsigned handwritten letter to Nyamanda. The letter is likely to have been written by H.  M. Jackson, the Superintendent of Natives, around 1920, judging by the handwriting and tone of his other letters concerning the same matters. Cobbing believes that Nyamanda was eligible for kingship, insisting that he was born around 1873. See Cobbing, “Absent Priesthood,” 61–84. Ray Sue Roberts doubts Cobbing’s view and thinks Nyamanda was not that prominent in Matabeleland. See R.  S. Roberts, “The End of the Ndebele Royal Family” (history seminar paper 73, University of Zimbabwe, April 1988), 7. 60. N 3/19/4, CNC to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, January 3, 1920. 61. Terence O. Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (London: Heinemann, 1970), 64–87. 62. Roberts, “End of the Ndebele Royal Family,” 7. See also R. S. Roberts, “Traditional Paramountcy and Modern Politics in Matabeleland: The End of the Lobengula Royal Family—and of Ndebele Particularism?” Heritage of Zimbabwe 24 (2005): 4–38. 63. A 3/18/18/5–6, Administrator’s Office: NC Plumtree to the CNC Bulawayo, May 11, 1920. 64. S 1561/10/3, NC Plumtree to the Superintendent of Natives, April 23, 1919. 65. S 2076, Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending December 31, 1920. 66. S 138/92, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, to the CNC, September 29, 1929; S 138/92, CNC to the Secretary to the Premier, October 2, 1929. This was probably born as a result of their bitterness over the fact that the government failed to inform some members of the scattered royal family about the death and burial of Nyamanda.

256

Notes to pp. 106–111

67. S 138/92, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, to the CNC, September 29, 1929; S 138/92, Letter signed by Haubasa, Sinyalo, Gulu, and Ntando [Kumalo], September 16, 1929. 68. S 138/92, CNC to the Minister of Native Affairs, November 18, 1929. 69. Ibid. 70. Interview with Mr. Enos Nkala, Woodlands, Bulawayo, April 9, 2003; interview with Mr. Hlangabeza Kumalo, Pelandaba, Bulawayo, July 9, 2003; interview with Mr. J. Dlodlo, Siganda Business Centre, Nkosikazi, July 21, 2003. The latter interviewee is a son of a brother of Lozikeyi (Lobengula’s chief wife). See also an earlier record in the National Archives in Bulawayo that confirms my sources: Bulawayo, NAZ, BOH/306, interview by Mark Ncube with Madlibi Hlabangana (former member of the Matabele Home Society), Mpopoma, Bulawayo, November 2, 1985. 71. S 138/92, NC Gwanda to the Superintendent of Natives, July 2, 1930. 72. S 138/92, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, to the CNC, July 4, 1930. 73. S 139/92, Superintendent of Natives to the CNC, June 25, 1930. 74. S 235/504, Annual Report of the Acting NC Insiza for the year ending December 31, 1926. 75. Cory, RU, MS 14/830/2, Records of Grahamstown Higher Mission (St. Matthews): Rhodes Lobengula to Mfundisi, St. Matthews College, March 14, 1919; Rhodes Lobengula to My Dear Mfundisi, St. Matthews College, April 13, 1919; L. M. Morran to Mr. Stead, St. Matthews College, May 20, 1919; CNC Salisbury to Rev. W. Y. Stead, January 4, 1919. 76. Interview with J. M. Tshuma Mahwayi, Siganda, Nkosikazi-Bubi, July 19, 2003. The names of the victims of rape by the Lobengulas were supplied in this interview. 77. S 138/92, Extract from a Speech by His Excellency the Governor at a Meeting of Chiefs and Headmen in the Shangani Reserve on August 6, 1927. 78. Interview with J. M. Tshuma Mahwayi, Siganda, Nkosikazi, Bubi, July 19, 2003. S 138/270–71, Superintendent of Natives to the CNC, April 9, 1932; see also the special article, “Rhodesian Famous Trials: The Case of the King’s Cattle,” which mentions Makwelambila as a brother of Mzilikazi, the first Ndebele king, in the magazine Rafters on Safari 14 (1945): 8–9. S 138/270–71, NC Gwanda to the CNC, December 23, 1931; the NC interrogated Koviyo, who revealed the involvement of one of the queens (sister of Mtuwane, father of Chief Matole of Gwanda). 79. The name is also spelled Matshulugwana or Mahlegwana. 80. S 138/270–71, Albert and Rhodes Lobengula, Trial for Extortion, Evidence collected from various witnesses—Evidence of Macholokwane, Fort Rixon, Filabusi, December 16, 1931. 81. Ibid. 82. S 138/270–71, Evidence of Mtetema, Filabusi, December 1, 1931. 83. S 138/270–71, Evidence of Chief Maduna, Filabusi, December 18, 1931. 84. Ibid. 85. S 138/270–71, Evidence of Namamangala, Filabusi, December 18, 1931. 86. Rafters on Safari 14 (1945): 8–9. 87. Ibid. 88. S 138/270–71, Evidence of Koviyo, Gwanda, December 22, 1931. 89. S 138/270–71, Evidence of Zemela, Filabusi, December 18, 1931.

Notes to pp. 111–116

257

90. S 138/92, CNC to the Hon. Minister of Native Affairs, 1930. This became the position of the judiciary. 91. S 138/270–71, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, to the CNC, April 9, 1932. 92. S 138/270–71, NC Fort Usher to the CNC, April 7, 1932. 93. Roberts, “End of the Ndebele Royal Family,” 2, 5. 94. S 138/270–71, Albert and Rhodes Lobengula, Trial for Extortion, Evidence Collected from various witnesses—Preparatory Examination, 1931. 95. NB 3/1/23, Proposed Distribution of Cattle in Matabeleland, 1895. 96. S 138/270–71, W. E. Thomas to My Dear Howard (Minister of Native Affairs), April 13, 1932. 97. Cobbing, “Ndebele under the Kumalos,” 383, 458, 460.

Chapter 5 1. Wim van Binsbergen, “Minority Language and the State in Two African Situations: The Nkoya of Zambia and the Kalange [sic] of Botswana,” in African Languages, Development, and the State, ed. R. Fardon and G. Furniss (London: Routledge, 1994), 142–88, http://www.shikanda.net/ethnicity/minority.htm. 2. Msindo, “Remaking Ndebele and the Kalanga.” 3. Derek R. Peterson, Creative Writing: Translation, Bookkeeping, and the Work of Imagination in Colonial Kenya (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2004), 118. 4. Diana Jeater, Law, Language, and Science: The Invention of the “Native Mind” in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1930 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2007), 71–72, 164–81. 5. Jeater, Law, Language, and Science, 134–39. 6. See Johannes Fabian, Language and Colonial Power: The Appropriation of Swahili in the former Belgian Congo, 1880–1938 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986), 70–91. 7. See Diana Jeater, “The Way You Tell Them: Language, Ideology and Development Policy in Southern Rhodesia,” African Studies 54, no. 2 (1995): 1–15; and “Speaking Like a Native: Vernacular Languages and the State in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1935,” Journal of African History 42 (2001): 449–68. See also William Worger, “Parsing God: Conversations about the Meaning of Words and Metaphors in Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa,” Journal of African History 42 (2001): 417–47. 8. See Ranger, “Missionaries, Migrants, and the Manyika,” 118–50; Patrick Harries, “Missionaries, Marxists and Magic: Power and the Politics of Literacy in South East Africa,” Journal of Southern African Studies 27, no. 3 (2001): 405–27; Susan  E. Cook, “Language and Identity: A Social History of Setswana in South Africa” (unpublished seminar paper, Brown University, 2001), 1–40. 9. Finex Ndhlovu, The Politics of Language and Nation Building in Zimbabwe (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009); Sinfree Makoni, Busi Makoni, and Nicholus Nyika, “Language Planning from Below: The Case of the Tonga in Zimbabwe,” Current Issues in Language Planning 9, no. 4 (2008): 413–39. 10. Paul V. Kroskrity, “Regimenting Languages: Language Ideological Perspectives,” in Regimes of Language: Ideology, Polities, and Identities, ed. P. V. Kroskrity (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2000), 1–34.

258

Notes to pp. 116–120

11. Ishtla Singh, “Language and Ethnicity,” in Language, Society, and Power: An Introduction, ed. Linda Thomas, Shan Wereing, Ishtla Singh, Jean Stilwell Peccei, Joanna Thornborrow and Jason Jones (London: Routledge, 2004), 93–111. 12. May, Language and Minority Rights, 4. Makoni, Makoni, and Nyika, “Language Planning from Below,” 413–39. 13. C.  M. Doke, Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects (Hertford: Government of Southern Rhodesia, 1930), 3. 14. When I analyzed most of the early translations of the “Mashonaland group” of languages from the Bibles held in the British and Foreign Bible Society Archives, at the Cambridge University Library, I discovered wide differences, not only in orthography but also in terms of the words themselves. 15. British and Foreign Bible Society Archives (hereafter BFBS), CUL, Report on the Rhodesian Missionary Conference and Zimbabwe, July 5, 1915. Peterson also observed this phenomenon between Catholics and Protestants and among the educated elite in Kenya. Peterson, Creative Writing, chap. 5. 16. Jeater, Law, Language, and Science, 171. 17. Up to 1923, Southern Rhodesia was ruled by the BSACo, which was more an exercise in looting and extraction than a civilizing enterprise. From 1923, it was replaced by a white settler government that was more formal and had a greater interest in education. 18. Ranger, “Missionaries, Migrants, and the Manyika,” 118–50. The same view is taken by Chimhundu, in “Early Missionaries and the Ethnolinguistic Factor,” 87–109. 19. Msindo, “Remaking Ndebele and the Kalanga,” 15–19. My concern with this “creation of tribalism” thesis has already been discussed in chapter 1, and I must say that I strongly think that many scholars, including Chimhundu, who apply this version of constructivism dramatize colonial and missionary agency and the role of the rising African elites in this project. 20. Doke, Report, 1. 21. Ibid., 76. 22. Ibid., 76–77. 23. BFBS, CUL, Rev. A. A. Louw to Rev. E. W. Smith, August 5, 1935, Shona Language File, 1909–45. 24. BFBS, CUL, Solomon M. Mutswairo to the Secretary of the BFBS, April 20, 1948, Shona Language File, 1946–55. 25. Doke, Report, 99. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., 99–100. 28. van Binsbergen, “Minority Language and the State,” 142–88. 29. “The Future of Kalanga Culture, Round Table Discussion,” in Kalanga Retrospect and Prospect, Proceedings of the Conference on Kalanga Language and Culture, ed. Catrien van Waarden (Gaborone: Botswana Society, 1991), 76–83. 30. SOAS, CWM 90, South Africa: Incoming Correspondence, 1928, Whiteside to Barradale, June 15, 1928. 31. See Msindo, “Remaking Ndebele and the Kalanga,” 85–87. See also SOAS, CWM 88, Whiteside to Barradale, June 30, 1926; SOAS, CWM 90, South Africa, Incoming Correspondence, Whiteside et al. to Barradale, July 19, 1928; SOAS, CWM 90, Whiteside to Barradale, June 15, 1928.

Notes to pp. 120–124

259

32. SOAS, CWM 92, Whiteside to Rev. Chirgwin, April 11, 1930. See the discussion in Msindo, “Language and Ethnicity in Matabeleland.” 33. Changu E. Mannathoko, “Kalanga Language and Ethnicity: A Historical Perspective,” in Kalanga Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Catrien, 38–45. For the development of Setswana into the national language, see T. Janson and J. Tsonope, Birth of a National Language: The History of SeTswana (Gaborone, Botswana: Heinemann, 1991). 34. SOAS, CWM 92, Whiteside to Rev. Chirgwin, April 11, 1930; SOAS, CWM 98, South Africa: Incoming Correspondence, 1935, John Whiteside to T. C. Brown, August 6, 1935. 35. An aristocratic version of being Ndebele was imagined in the Matopos from the inception of colonialism, and isiNdebele was the lingua franca. See Ranger, Voices from the Rocks. 36. SOAS, CWM 98, South Africa: Incoming Correspondence, 1935, John Whiteside to T.  C. Brown, August 6, 1935. Neville Jones spent all his life at the Ndebele-dominated Hope Fountain mission station in Mzingwane, and had not had the opportunity to find about the language situation further in Kalanga area. 37. S 1561/10/7, Minutes of a Meeting of Chiefs and Headmen of the BulilimaMangwe District in the NC’s Office, Plumtree, Tuesday, September 8, 1925. 38. Msindo, “Remaking Ndebele and the Kalanga,” 65. 39. BFBS, CUL, Shona Language File, 1909–45, Rev. A.  A. Louw (Dutch Reformed Church, Morgenster) to the Editorial Superintendent (Rev. E. W. Smith), November 20, 1933. 40. Interview with Mrs. Buyile Maseko, Old Magwegwe, Bulawayo, October 29, 2002. Mrs. Maseko’s ID card suggests she was born in 1902. She could be slightly older, judging by the stories she told of her life during the early years of colonialism, which I corroborated with archival data. Also, interview with Miss Nunu-Ndlovu, Gwabalanda, Bulawayo, March 16, 2003. 41. Ibid. 42. Interview with Mr. Jonathan Kumile Masola, Dombodema, June 24, 2003. 43. Interview with Mr. Makhoba Khulube, Dombodema, June 25, 2003. 44. Interview with Mrs. Ludo Chikela, March 11, 2003. 45. Rene Appel and Peter Muysken, Language Contact and Bilingualism (London: Edward Arnold, 1987), 11–20. 46. On Dombodema see interview with Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, Daily News Offices, Bulawayo, March 22, 2003. 47. Interview with Mrs. L. Ndlovu, Old Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 12, 2003. The informant was born in the Bango community, Plumtree. “Tjipotoko” is a derogatory name for isiNdebele; Ndebele people were labeled “Mapotoko,” and the latter in turn labeled Kalanga as “Akunga Makalanga,” to demean them. 48. Interview with Mrs. B. Moyo [Baka Kombi], Madyambudzi, June 21, 2003. Mrs. Moyo says she was at Zimnyama during Reverend Whiteside’s era, at the time Elliot Khupe was a headmaster at Zimnyama. We are able to date Whiteside’s last operations in Bulilima-Mangwe to 1935, so Mrs. Moyo is likely to have done her learning at Zimnyama before 1936. To date Whiteside, see SOAS, CWM 98, South Africa: Incoming Correspondence, 1956, Whiteside to T.  C. Brown, December 3, 1935, which says that Whiteside resigned due to poor health.

260

Notes to pp. 124–129

49. Interview with Rev. Amos Mzilethi, 123 Ntabazinduna Township, July 17, 2003. 50. L. Mavhinga, “Sikalanga Is Leading Language, Must Be Encouraged,” Bantu Mirror, March 30, 1957. 51. Interview with Mr. S. W. B. Moyo, Gwabalanda, Bulawayo, March 18, 2003. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Interview with Rev. Amos Mzilethi, 126 Ntabazinduna, July 17, 2003. 55. Interview with Makhoba Khulube, Dombodema, June 25, 2003. 56. “Sindebele or Zulu in Native Schools, Committee to Be Appointed to Report to Conference: Discussions in Bulawayo,” Bantu Mirror, March 14, 1936. 57. Ibid. The LMS remained adamant in defending isiNdebele as the people’s language, and in the 1960s it worked to produce the whole Bible in isiNdebele. See also SOAS, CWM 100, South Africa: Incoming Correspondence, 1937–39, W.  W. Anderson to Brown, February 21, 1937. 58. BE 8/8/3, Hist. Mss., Benzies, “Sindebele in Relation to Zulu Language.” 59. Bantu Mirror, August 1, 1936. 60. Msindo, “Remaking Ndebele and the Kalanga,” chap. 2. 61. Ibid. 62. Obie L. Mlilo, “The Vernacular of Matabeleland,” Bantu Mirror, July 26, 1947; Titus  J. Hlazo, “Sindebele or Zulu: The Language Question,” Bantu Mirror, May 9, 1936; Robert M. Sinyoka, “Inkulumo Nge Sindebele Nesizulu,” Bantu Mirror, April 18, 1936. 63. D. D. Moyo, Shangani Reserve, “Sindebele of Zulu: The Language Question,” Bantu Mirror, May 16, 1936. 64. Rev. T. D. Samkange, “Sindebele or Zulu as a Standard Language,” Bantu Mirror, April 18, 1936. 65. Ibid. 66. C. S. Zimvu, “Ngendaba Yesindebele Nesizulu Ezikolweni Zase Mandebeleni,” Bantu Mirror, June 6, 1936; John M. Zikhali, “Isindebele Nesizulu,” Bantu Mirror, May 23, 1936; Telephone interview with Mr. Themba Nhlapo (in South Africa), February 27, 2002; and Telephone interview with Mr. J. Mzilethi (Ntabazinduna, Bubi), February 20, 2002. For the view that isiNdebele was an impure, corrupted language, see E. M. Mlotshwa, “Common Mistakes in Sindebele,” Bantu Mirror, October 29, 1949. 67. Samuel D. Nkobi, “Sindebele or Zulu? The Language Question,” Bantu Mirror, May 23, 1936. 68. A. M. Sibanda, “Sizafunda Isizulu na?” Bantu Mirror, April 4, 1936. 69. J. Bati Soneni, “Sindebele or Zulu in Matabeleland Schools,” Bantu Mirror, April 19, 1936. 70. Ibid. 71. Robert Sinyoka, “Inkulumo Nge Sindebele Nesizulu,” Bantu Mirror, March 18, 1936. 72. E. M. Halimana, “Sindebele or Zulu: The Language Question,” Bantu Mirror, March 9, 1936. 73. Ibid. 74. See editorial insertion under C. C. Ngcebetsha, “Zulu or Sindebele as a Standard Language,” Bantu Mirror, May 2, 1936.

Notes to pp. 129–133

261

75. Cosmopolitan [pseud.], Letter to the Editor, “Sindebele or Zulu: The Language Question,” Bantu Mirror, May 23, 1936. 76. J.  S. Hlabangana, “Sindebele or Zulu,” Bantu Mirror, June 6, 1936; Cosmopolitan, “Sindebele or Zulu”; D. D. Moyo, “Sindebele or Zulu,” Bantu Mirror, May 16, 1936. 77. Dan H. Dube, “Sindebele or Zulu,” Bantu Mirror, May 23, 1936. 78. Interview with Mrs. M. Sibanda (nee Zikhali), Old Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 9, 2003. 79. Interview with Mr. B. Fuyana, New Luveve, April 3, 2003; C. C. Ngcebetsha, “Preferable Language for Schools in Matabeleland,” Bantu Mirror, March 28, 1936. 80. Ntungununu Sibanda, “Ulimi Lwesindebele,” Bantu Mirror, September 25, 1948. 81. F. Mtombeni, “Amandebele Lamanguni,” Bantu Mirror, July 27, 1946. 82. N. Sibanda, “Ulimi Lwesindebele,” Bantu Mirror, September 25, 1948; William T. Madeya, “African Languages,” Bantu Mirror, January 10, 1948; S. L. Mnqibo, “Ulimi Lwenxenge,” August 4, 1945; Gibson  T. Dube, “Improve Sindebele,” Bantu Mirror, July 29, 1950. 83. Msindo, “Ethnicity, Not Class?” 429–47. 84. E. Kapotsha, “Sindebele in the Supplement,” Bantu Mirror, July 7, 1951. 85. Lemus Mapisa, “Wants Sikalanga,” Bantu Mirror, February 25, 1950. 86. N. Dakamela, “Sindebele Must Be Given Preference,” Bantu Mirror, March 22, 1958. 87. African Home News, May 10, 1958; April 26, 1958. 88. African Home News, February 13, 1960. 89. J. Peace, “Language Differences in Churches,” Bantu Mirror, May 30, 1959. 90. African Home News, February 13, 1960; February 30, 1960. 91. African Home News, February 6, 1960. 92. Bantu Mirror, February 11, 1956. See also two articles in African Home News, December 31, 1960, and April 27, 1963. 93. African Home News, February 27, 1960. 94. Ndebele [pseud.], Letter to the Editor, “Ndebeles Are Letting Their Language Die,” Bantu Mirror, May 23, 1959. 95. A corrective editorial comment following Ndebele’s letter in the Bantu Mirror suggests that the Ndebele were numerically fewer than the Shona in Bulawayo in 1959. 96. Compare generally Eric Worby, “Maps, Names, and Ethnic Games: The Epistemology and Iconography of Colonial Power in Northwestern Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies 20, no. 3 (1994): 371–92. 97. The Onlooker [pseud.], “Letter to the Editor: Rufaro Is a Right Name,” Bantu Mirror, January 14, 1956. 98. Bantu Mirror, October 29; December 31, 1955; African Home News, October 22, 1955, 12. 99. On Mutasa see African Home News, October 22, 1955. On Chivi see Bantu Mirror, February 15, 1958. On Masunda see Bantu Mirror, February 15, 1958. 100. African Home News, October 22, 1955. 101. Bantu Mirror, February 1, 1958. 102. Ibid.

262

Notes to pp. 133–136

103. African Home News, May 11, 1957. 104. African Home News, December 22, 1956. 105. Van Binsbergen, “Minority Language and the State,” 142–88. R.  P. Werbner, “Cosmopolitan Ethnicity, Entrepreneurship, and the Nation: Minority Elites in Botswana,” Journal of Southern African Studies 28, no. 4 (2002): 731–51. 106. Mannathoko, “Kalanga Language and Ethnicity.” 107. Telephone interview with Mr. Millius Palayiwa, resident in Oxford, March 27, 2002. 108. Rev. J. Gideon Sibanda, “Kalangas Want Their Language in the Mirror,” Bantu Mirror, February 7, 1959. For an earlier 1957 letter by Malikongwa, see editorial comment in Bantu Mirror, February 7, 1959. 109. Sanzwi, “Hwililani Mose Bakalanga, Kuzhe Kwayedza Mukani,” Bantu Mirror, July 2, 1960. 110. Bantu Mirror, July 2, 1960; July 19, 1960. 111. Bantu Mirror, July 19, 1960. 112. Bantu Mirror, April 9, 1960. 113. Bantu Mirror, April 2, 1960; July 30, 1960. 114. Albert G. T. Malikogwa, “Bakalanga Tebgwe,” Bantu Mirror, July 2, 1960; Jele H. Mathambo Nkomo, “Mr. Masola Is Replied on Kalanga Language,” Bantu Mirror, May 14, 1960. 115. Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, “Yet Another Reply to Mr. Masola,” Bantu Mirror, May 14, 1960. 116. Obed I. N. Chilume, “Kati Bakalanga Mukani Kwayedza,” Bantu Mirror, September 16, 1961. 117. Bantu Mirror, June 15, 1960; Richard T. Khupe, “Bakani Ludzi Bakalanga,” Bantu Mirror, March 26, 1960; Bantu Mirror, December 24, 1960.

Chapter 6 1. Bulawayo City Council, Archives, Bulawayo (hereafter BCC), Board (Council) Minutes of the Bulawayo Municipality, March 17, 1896–June 28, 1897 (uncataloged); BCC, Minutes of the Bulawayo Board Meeting, March 17, 1896; BCC, Minutes of the Bulawayo Board Meeting, Magistrate Offices, Tuesday, October 6, 1896. 2. W. H. Wills and J. Hall, Bulawayo Up to Date: Being a General Sketch of Rhodesia (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Company, 1899), 97. 3. Tsuneo Yoshikuni, “Linking Urban History with Pre-colonial and Rural History: From the Zimbabwean Experience,” Azania 36–37 (2001–2): 157–70. See also T. Yoshikuni, “Notes on the Influence of Town-Country Relations on African Urban History, before 1957: Experiences of Salisbury and Bulawayo,” in Sites of Struggle: Essays in Zimbabwe’s Urban History, ed. B. Raftopoulos and T. Yoshikuni (Harare: Weaver Press, 1999), 113–28; and Terence O. Ranger, Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City, 1893–1960 (Oxford: James Currey, 2010), 26–28. Yoshikuni and Ranger both thought that modern Bulawayo began with a strong Ndebele presence, which is incorrect. 4. Ranger, Bulawayo Burning, 26. 5. ZAN 1/1/1, Native Affairs Commission, 1930, Evidence: Written.

Notes to pp. 136–139

263

6. S 235/477, Notes of Evidence: Enquiry into Bulawayo Location, 1930. 7. NB 1/1/4, CNC Matabeleland: In—Letters, General, 1898. 8. NBE 7/1/1, NC Malema to the NC Bulawayo, August 25, 1897. 9. S 235/477, Notes of Evidence: Enquiry into Bulawayo Location, 1930, 85–87. Some rich women featured prominently in the inquiry. They expressed their reservations about the accommodations situation, especially the possibility that the government might destroy their huts. 10. ZAD 3/2/1, Report of the Native Affairs Committee of Enquiry, 1910–11. 11. NB 6/1/10, Report of the NC Bulawayo for the year ending December 31, 1910. This report indicates, however, that by 1910 preexisting Ndebele inhabitants were already being pushed farther from Bulawayo as the white population increased in the town. This does not help Ranger’s argument that there was a sizable Ndebele population in Bulawayo that played an important part in defining Bulawayo’s popular culture or style, what Ranger called “style Burawayo.” 12. Some of the “aliens” may have constituted what was classed as “a floating population,” people who moved from job to job for various reasons. There were also some people from Matabeleland who came to town as seasonal laborers and socalled prostitutes. See NB 6/1/12, Annual Report of the NC Bulawayo for the year ending December 31, 1912. 13. Ranger, Bulawayo Burning, 87, 96. 14. Msindo, “Ethnicity, Not Class?” 644. 15. S 235/440, Reports and Exhibits of a Commission of Enquiry into the Running of the Bulawayo Location, 1930 (a copy of the Bulawayo Sanitary Board Location Regulations No. 12 of 1895). 16. NB 6/1/1, Annual Report of the CNC Matabeleland for the year ending March 31, 1898. 17. NB 1/1/6, Acting NC Inyati to the CNC Bulawayo, October 21, 1898. 18. Wills and Hall, Bulawayo Up to Date, 137. 19. On subsistence gardening see NB 1/1/11, Report of an Official Visit by the CNC Matabeleland to Empandeni, Mphoeng’s Location on the Inkwesi River and Tegwani, 1900; and NB 6/1/10, Report of the NC Bubi District for the year ending December 31, 1910. On labor in South Africa see NB 6/1/10, Report of the NC Bubi District for the year ending December 31, 1910. Ian Phimister and Charles van Onselen thought that the “Rand movement” was a popular response to the economic breakdown of the 1920s (caused by a slump in cattle prices after World War I and the overcrowding of the Reserves), when it was in fact an option the people of Matabeleland utilized from the beginning of colonialism. See Ian Phimister and Charles van Onselen, “The Political Economy of Tribal Animosity: A Case Study of the Bulawayo Location ‘Faction Fight,’” Journal of Southern African Studies 6, no. 1 (1979): 1–43. My own grandfather was already working in “Joni” (Johannesburg) by 1913; personal communication with Mr. Enias Matangira, Venge, Zvishavane, 1992. 20. NB 1/1/12, P. Nielsen [NC Bulilima-Mangwe] to the CNC Bulawayo, January 4, 1901; NB 1/1/12, P. Nielsen to the CNC Bulawayo, January 16, 1901. 21. Msindo, “Social and Political Responses to Colonialism,” 115–55. 22. NB 1/1/12, NC Bulilima-Mangwe [P. Nielsen] to the CNC Bulawayo, January 16, 1901.

264

Notes to pp. 139–142

23. NB 6/5/1/2, Meeting held at Tegwani, Bulilima-Mangwe, by the CNC on Wednesday, July 19, 1899; NB 6/5/1/2/, Report of the CNC of his meeting held at Inungu, January 31, 1899. 24. Wills and Hall, Bulawayo Up to Date, 137; interview with Mr. Hadrick Nzandolo Banda, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 7, 2003 (Nzandolo came from Malawi in 1947); interview with Mr. R. A. Chitore, Magwegwe Housing Office, October 28, 2002 (Chitore came to Bulawayo in 1943 from Mashonaland). 25. ZAD 3/2/1, Report of the Native Affairs Committee of Enquiry, 1910–11. 26. On the “Zambezi boys” see NB 2/1/1, CNC [Hebert Taylor] to the Secretary, Bulawayo, July 13, 1901; NB 1/1/5, Acting NC Inyati to the CNC Bulawayo, October 21, 1898. 27. NB 6/1/10, Report of the NC Bulawayo District for the year ending December 31, 1910. 28. NB 3/1/8, Philip Jenkins (General Manager, Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau) to the Secretary, Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau, August 6, 1906. 29. NB 6/4/16, Monthly Report of the Inspector of Native Compounds, No. 3 Division, Province of Matabeleland—Morven Compound, Lower Gwelo, for July 1901. 30. NB 6/4/16, Monthly Report of the Inspector of Native Compounds, No. 1 Division, Selukwe, for December 1901. 31. NB 1/1/18, Acting NC Bulawayo [P. A. Stuart] to the CNC Bulawayo, August 28, 1902. 32. NB 1/1/18, CNC Bulawayo to the Chief Secretary, South African Native Races Committee, August 15, 1901. 33. NB 3/1/34, CNC to the Secretary, Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau, May 20, 1913. 34. Phimister and van Onselen, “Political Economy of Tribal Animosity,” 1–43. 35. BE 8/8/7, Hist. Mss., W.  R. Benzies, “Use of ‘Kitchen Kaffir’ as a Lingua Franca,” August 1954; interview with Mr. R. A. Chitore, Magwegwe Housing Offices, Bulawayo, October 28, 2002. See also some belated attempts to suppress Lapalapa and other languages in Bulawayo in favor of isiNdebele: S. L. Mnqibo, “Ulimi Lwenxenge,” August 4, 1945; Gibson T. Dube, “Improve Sindebele,” Bantu Mirror, July 29, 1950. 36. T.  G. Trevor, “Native Education from an Employer’s Point of View,” Native Affairs Departmental Annual (NADA) 5 (December 1927): 97–99. 37. NB 3/1/34, CNC to the Secretary, Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau, May 20, 1913. 38. Interview with Mrs. Banda, Old Magwegwe, Bulawayo, October 28, 2002; interview with Mr. S. Mombe, Old Magwegwe, March 13, 2003. 39. NB 6/1/10, Report of the NC Bulawayo District for the year ending December 31, 1910. 40. D 3/6/163/26 and 61 (1930), Bulawayo District Court Criminal Cases: Rex v. Hlabati et al. See evidence of accused Hlabati and evidence of Tsekai, alias Eddie. 41. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Isaac, alias Chikawa, alias Johnela, before Justice of the Peace for the Colony of Southern Rhodesia, December 30, 1929. 42. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Mdutshwa, alias Sixpence, December 30, 1929. Masotsha Ndlovu of the ICU stated that the Shona had always challenged the

Notes to pp. 142–145

265

Ndebele to fight and that they had been too haughty, blocking the entrance to the bioscope hall in order to beat Ndebele. See S 482/805/39, Evidence of Masoja, alias Sergeant, December 30, 1929. 43. NB 6/1/10, Report of the NC Bulawayo District for the year ending December 31, 1910. 44. M. Wilson and A. Mafeje, Langa: A Study of Social Groups in an African Township (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1963), 1, 34, 47–73. However, Langa, a poor township on the fringes of Cape Town, was “Xhosa-dominated,” hence it had an uncontested ethnic character unlike Bulawayo, where foreigners to the town dominated the social sphere and dictated the urban tone. 45. NB 6/5/1/2, Meeting held at Gwelo by the CNC, Wednesday, September 6, 1899; NBD 2/1/1, Report of the NC Gwanda-Tuli for the year ending December 31, 1912. 46. NB 6/1/10, Report of the NC Bulawayo for the year ending December 31, 1910. 47. NB 2/21/1, Assistant Commissioner, BSA. Police [A.  J. Tomlinson], to the Secretary, Department of the Administrator, Bulawayo, December 6, 1915. 48. S. Thornton, “The Struggle for Profit and Participation by an Emerging African Petty-Bourgeoisie in Bulawayo, 1893–1933,” in The Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries, collected seminar papers, vol. 9, no. 24 (University of London, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1978), 70. 49. LMPS was formed during the time of World War 1, and in some way, it postured as supporting the “war effort”; but beyond this, it had a deep-seated moralist agenda. See, for comparative purposes, Timothy Stapleton, “Views of the First World War in Southern Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, 1914–1918,” War and Society 20, no. 1 (2002): 23–45; Stapleton, No Insignificant Part, 27–28. 50. N 3/21/1, Superintendent of Natives to the CNC, January 15, 1916. 51. N 3/21/1, Amandebele Patriotic Society, Bulawayo, to H. M. Jackson (Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo), March 4, 1914, c/o Messrs Webb and Low, Bulawayo. Emphasis added. 52. N 3/21/1, Amandebele Patriotic Society, Bulawayo, December 15, 1915. 53. African Home News, April 7, 1962. The paper lists the first leaders of the MHS. 54. S 2584/4251, Matabeleland Home Society Chairman [A. S. B. Manyoba] to the Provincial NC Bulawayo, November 11, 1946. 55. S 138/37, Chief Superintendent, CID BSACo, Bulawayo, to the Staff Officer, BSACo Police, Salisbury, September 22, 1928. 56. A 3/3/20/5–7, Southern Rhodesia Native Reserves Commission, Interim Report, November 29, 1914, 6–7. For the images of the Shangani, see Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 46. 57. These statistics perhaps referred to Bulawayo Location as opposed to the rest of Bulawayo, including the Railway Location; and such places as Hyde Park where there remained some unofficial habitations of different Africans. 58. Yoshikuni, “Linking Urban History,” 157–70. See also Yoshikuni, “Influence of Town-Country Relations,” 113–28. 59. Phimister and van Onselen, “Political Economy of Tribal Animosity,” 1–43; emphasis in the original. 60. Phimister and van Onselen, “Political Economy of Tribal Animosity,” 3.

266

Notes to pp. 146–153

61. The scholars assumed that the majority of the farm workers in Mashonaland were Shona, when they were most probably foreigners. 62. Phimister and van Onselen, “Political Economy of Tribal Animosity,” 3. 63. Ibid., 36. 64. Ibid., 37. 65. Ibid., 39. 66. NAZ, D 3/6/163, District Court, Bulawayo Criminal Cases: Rex v. Sekadube et al., 1930. 67. Bulawayo Chronicle (hereafter cited as Chronicle), January 4, 1930; emphasis in the original. 68. S 482/805/39, Bulawayo Native Disturbances, 1930–32. 69. Interview with Mr. Hadrick Nzandolo Banda, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 7, 2003. 70. Moses Chikowero, “Subalternatiing Currents: Electrification and Power Politics in Bulawayo, Colonial Zimbabwe, 1894–1939,” Journal of Southern African Studies 33, no. 2 (2007): 287–306. 71. Msindo, “Ethnicity and Nationalism,” 267–90. 72. Ranger, Bulawayo Burning, 88. 73. Ibid., 94–97. 74. It is typically Rangerean to assume that that change is driven by elites or organizations directed by them, such as the MHS. 75. Chronicle, January 4, 1930. 76. That these were Shona people can be deduced from the evidence in S 482/805/39, J. C. Brundell to the Commissioner, BSA Police, Salisbury, January 4, 1930. Those who later attacked the Railway Compound were Ndebele. 77. Chronicle, January 4, 1930. 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid. 80. Phimister and van Onselen, “Political Economy of Tribal Animosity.” 81. Chronicle, January 4, 1930. 82. S 482/805/39, Bulawayo Native Disturbances, 1930–32: Brundell to the Commissioner, BSA Police, Salisbury, January 4, 1930. 83. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Masoja, alias Sergeant, December 30, 1929. 84. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Mdutshwa, December 30, 1929. 85. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Mdutshwa, alias Sixpence, December 30, 1929. 86. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Isaac, alias Chikawa, alias Johnela, December 30, 1929. 87. S 482/805/39, J.  C. Brundell to the Commissioner, BSA Police, Salisbury, January 4, 1930. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. S 235/440, Reports and Exhibits of a Commission of Enquiry into the running of the Bulawayo Location, 1930: Observations by the Commission—handwritten notes. See also S 235/394, Bulawayo Municipal Location, 1930: Report of a Commission of Enquiry, p. 24. 91. Chronicle, January 4, 1930. 92. S 492/805/39, Evidence of Kaula, alias George, December 30, 1929.

Notes to pp. 154–156

267

93. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Isaac, alias Chikawa, alias Johnela, December 30, 1929. 94. S 482/805/39, Assistant Commissioner of Police to the Secretary, Law Department, January 10, 1930. 95. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Isaac, alias Chikawa, alias Johnela, December 30, 1929; S482/805/39, Evidence of Joni, December 30, 1929; interview with Mr. R. A. Chitore, Magwegwe Housing Office, Bulawayo, October 28, 2002; Chronicle, January 4, 1930. 96. Interview with Mrs. Buyile Maseko, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, October 29, 2002. This woman, born in 1902, told me that Shona had better jobs working as clerks, as they were better educated than the Ndebele. Indeed, historically, mission education developed in Mashonaland earlier and spread faster than in Matabeleland. 97. Interview with Mr. Hadrick N. Banda, Magwegwe, March 7, 2003. 98. S 998/3, Acting Assistant NC Gutu to the Acting NC Gutu, June 28, 1933. 99. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Masoja, alias Sergeant, December 30, 1929. 100. On the popularity of sports see S 1542/S12, Superintendent of Police, Salisbury, to the Chief Superintendent, BSA Police, Salisbury, July 13, 1938. S 1542/S12, Secretary for Native Affairs to the Staff Officer, BSA Police, November 17, 1938. 101. S 1542/S12, Constable B.  S. Bowling to the Superintendent, BSA Police, Salisbury, June 26, 1938; Superintendent of Police, Salisbury, to the Chief Superintendent, BSA Police, Salisbury, July 13, 1938. 102. S 1542/S12, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, to the CNC, May 18, 1938. 103. S 1542/S12, NC Salisbury to the Secretary of Native Affairs, Salisbury, June 29, 1939. He wrote a paper entitled “A Study of Recreation for Urban Natives, with Special Reference to Boxing amongst Natives in Salisbury.” 104. S 1542/C6, Superintendent of Natives to CNC, October 21, 1937. 105. Hyde Park estates was later renamed Curti’s Farm, then renamed again Magwegwe. 106. ZAH 1/1/2, Land Commission, 1925, Evidence, Oral—Martha Ngano, 603–4. 107. D 3/6/161/Case number 4463, Magistrate, Bulawayo, Rex v. Chisati, November 23, 1929. 108. S 1542/C6, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, to the CNC Salisbury, November 4, 1937. 109. D 3/6/163, Bulawayo District Court, Rex v. Banya James Dakamela et al., January 15, 1930. 110. D 3/6/163, Bulawayo District Court, Rex v. Banya James Dakamela et al., Evidence of Elijah. See also in the same file: Evidence of Jack Chiriya in his defense. 111. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Mdutshwa, alias Sixpence, December 30, 1929. 112. P. la Hausse, “The Struggle for the City: Alcohol, the Ematsheni, and Popular Culture in Durban, 1902–1936,” in The People’s City: African Life in Twentieth-Century Durban, ed. Paul Maylam and Ian Edwards (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of Natal Press, 1996), 33–66; esp. 41. 113. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Kaula, alias George, December 30, 1929. 114. Terence O. Ranger, “The Meaning of Urban Violence in Africa: Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1960,” Journal of Cultural and Social History 3 (2006): 193– 228.

268

Notes to pp. 156–162

115. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Babanyana, December 30, 1929. 116. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Joni, December 30, 1929. 117. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Joni, December 30, 1929. 118. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Chikawa, alias Johnela, December 30, 1929. 119. Ibid. 120. S 482/805/39, Evidence of Joyce, alias Tandazo, December 31, 1929; emphasis in the original. 121. S 138/22, Superintendent, CID, Bulawayo, to the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, February 12, 1924. S2584/4251, Matabeleland Home Society Chairman (A. S. B. Manyoba) to the Provincial NC, November 11, 1946. The letterhead of the society proclaims: “FOUNDED 1922.” 122. S 2484/4251, Matabeleland Home Society: Constitution of the Matabele Home Society, dated to 1923 [but filed among all MHS papers, mostly for the 1940s]. 123. S 235/504, Report of the Acting NC Bulawayo for the year ending December 31, 1926. 124. S 235/509, Report of the NC Gwanda for the year ending December 31, 1931. 125. S 482/709/39/1, Private Secretary to the Premier to the Secretary, Law Department, October 6, 1930; Private Secretary to the Premier to the CNC, October 30, 1930. 126. Ibid. 127. Interview with Joshua Teke Malinga, Malinga and Associates Offices, Bulawayo, March 25, 2003. 128. D 3/6/163, Bulawayo District Criminal Cases, Rex v. Banya James Dakamela et al., January 15, 1930. 129. S 235/509, Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending December 31, 1931. 130. S 569/5113, Criminal Cases, Magistrate, Bulawayo, Rex v. Mthla alias Mketani, September 29, 1930. 131. Ibid. 132. S 569/5113, Rex v. Mthla alias Mketani, Evidence of Kalanga juvenile Silapi, who said he had just come from home two weeks before. A day after his arrival, he was introduced to other Kalanga townsmen. 133. S 569/5113, Rex v. Mthla alias Mketani, Evidence of Ndladhlambani and evidence of Madiwa [same file]. 134. S 569/5113, Rex v. Mthla alias Mketani, Evidence of Bona. 135. S 569/5113, Rex v. Mthla alias Mketani, Evidence of Ndladhlambani. 136. In other words, ethnicity may in part be a product of colonial categories, while still being primarily defined and imagined by African agents. 137. S 569/5113, Rex v. Mthla alias Mketani, Evidence of Madiwa. See also evidence of Bona, which suggests that as the group of the marching Kalanga grew bigger, it was at one point dispersed by the police in the Location. 138. Native Mirror, April 1931. 139. Bantu Mirror, May 16, 1953. The Shona remained winners in boxing, taking the Bureau Boxing Trophy in 1953. At this point, it seems that contests became predominantly between Zezuru and Manyika. The Ndebele were getting more into football and supported the team that was founded by the grandsons of Lobengula, Rhodes and Albert, in the late 1920s. See also African Home News, January 30, 1954.

Notes to pp. 162–166

269

140. S 1542/S12, Superintendent of Natives [W. R. Benzies] to the CNC, May 18, 1938. 141. S 1542/S12/1, Assistant NC Fort Rixon to the NC Filabusi, November 6, 1934. Women were increasingly becoming good exploiters of colonial laws and often accused their men of being violent, complaining “Uyangiduba”—meaning “he is troublesome/a nuisance.” 142. S 1563, Report of the NC Bulawayo and Mzingwane for the year ending December 31, 1940. 143. Interview with Mrs. MaNdlovu, 222/2 Old Mgwegwe, Bulawayo, April 12, 2003; interview with Mrs. Buyile Maseko, Old Magwegwe, Bulawayo, October 29, 2002; interview with Mrs. Dube, Old Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 11, 2003. See also S 1191/3, Committee to Investigate the Social and Health Conditions of Africans Employed in Urban Areas, January 1944 (Chairman E. G. Howman). 144. S 1347/4338, Bulawayo High Court, Criminal Cases (1937), Rex v. Sitima. 145. S 1347/432/4341, Criminal Sessions, Bulawayo, Rex v. Mageza, Fort Rixon, 1937. Emphasis added. 146. BE 8/8/7, Hist. Mss., Benzies, “‘Kitchen Kaffir’ as a Lingua Franca”; interview with Mr. R.  A. Chitore, Magwegwe Housing Offices, Bulawayo, October 28, 2002. 147. S 235/510, Report of the ANC Fort Rixon for the year ending December 31, 1932. 148. S 2484/4251, Matabeleland Home Society: Constitution of the Matabele Home Society, dated to 1923. 149. See, for instance, change of the letterhead from Matabele Home Society to Matabeleland Home Society in file S 2584/4251, Matabeleland Home Society, 1945, and in the same source the consistent use, after 1945, of “Matabeleland Home Society” and not “Matabele Home Society.” 150. S 235/477, Notes of Evidence: Enquiry into Bulawayo Native Location, 1930: Evidence of Magavu Indebele, of the Matabele Home Society, 23. 151. S 235/477, Notes of Evidence: Enquiry into Bulawayo Native Location, 1930: Evidence of five Natives of the Matabele Home Society—Madhlinga, Magavu, Gula Kumalo, Mangena, and Jojo Mkatjane, 82–84. 152. S 138/1, Report of the CNC for the year 1931. 153. S 235/477, Notes of Evidence: Enquiry into Bulawayo Native Location, 1930: Evidence taken at a Meeting between the Commission and a number of Native Women who reside in the Location, at the Office of the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, 85–87. 154. S 1542/S12/1, Social and Moral Development: ANC Shabani to the NC Belingwe, November 10, 1934; NC Filabusi to the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, November 15, 1934; ANC Fort Rixon to the NC Filabusi, November 6, 1934; NC Nyamandhlovu to the Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, November 16, 1934; Assistant NC Gwaai to the NC Nyamandhlovu, November 6, 1934. 155. S 1542/V4, Detective Sergeant B. Price to the Chief Superintendent CID, BSA Police, October 11, 1936. This was a report on what he termed the “Bulawayo Bantu Community Meeting” at the Bulawayo Location on October 10, 1936. He reported that it was attended by approximately 650 people (which may be an underestimate).

270

Notes to pp. 166–170

156. Ibid. 157. S 2584/4251, Minutes of the Matabeleland Home Society Conference held in Bulawayo, December 15–16, 1945. 158. Interview with Mr. Makhoba Khulube, Dombodema, Plumtree, June 25, 2003. 159. Terence O. Ranger, Are We Not Also Men: The Samkange Family and African Politics in Zimbabwe, 1920–64 (London: James Currey, 1995), 141–42. 160. Bantu Mirror, November 4, 1939. 161. K. Finius Togarepi, “Too Many Nyasas in Southern Rhodesia,” Bantu Mirror, February 1, 1941. 162. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 131, 154–58; Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 84–89; see also S 1051, NC Bulawayo, Annual Report for the year ending December 31, 1948; S 1618, Report of the NC Nkai, Shangani Reserve, for the quarter ending June 30, 1949. 163. S 2584/4251, Matabeleland Home Society Conference, Bulawayo, December 15–16, 1945. This was part of the controversial Rhodes-Matopo Estate that the Ndebele claimed. See also S 2584/425, MHS, CNC to the Prime Minister of Native Affairs, November 28, 1951, in which the government claimed the MHS had no mandate to speak on behalf of the chiefs. 164. S 2584/4251, Secretary for Native Affairs to the Minister of Native Affairs, January 9, 1953. 165. S 1563, Annual Report of the NC Bulawayo for the year ending December 31, 1945; S 2584/4251, Secretary of Native Affairs to the Secretary to the Prime Minister of Native Affairs, 1947; T. Hlambelo, “Induna Yakwa Bulawayo,” Bantu Mirror, September 1, 1945. 166. J. D. Ngazimbi, “Paramount Chief for Matabeleland,” Bantu Mirror, September 5, 1945. 167. Brown Luza, “Umambo Lo Mzilikazi,” Bantu Mirror, October 27, 1945. 168. Abenhla denoted those people of Sotho, Tswana, or Pedi origin who joined Mzilikazi on his way to Rozvi or Kalanga-land (later Matabeleland). Mandebele Sibindi, “Ukucotozana,” Bantu Mirror, January 12, 1946. 169. F. Mtombeni, “Amandebele laManguni,” Bantu Mirror, July 27, 1946. 170. Bantu Mirror, June 21, 1941. 171. S 2584/4251, Matabele Home Society: Chairman’s Report, December 15, 1945. 172. Ibid. 173. Ibid. 174. Ibid. Ginyilitshe was a respected man, a former Ndebele combatant of the Insukamini regiment who fought in the 1896–97 war. 175. Ibid. 176. S 2584/4251, Secretary, MHS to the Secretary, National Monuments Commission, Bulawayo, April 8, 1945. 177. S 2584/4251, NC Plumtree to the Provincial Native Commissioner [hereafter abbrevuated as PNC], Bulawayo, September 19, 1945. 178. S 2584/4251, NC Fort Rixon to the PNC Bulawayo, October 29, 1945. 179. S 2584/4251, NC Matopos to the PNC, December 17, 1945; NC Nyamandlovu to the PNC Bulawayo, December 24, 1945; Assistant NC Gwaai Reserve to the PNC Bulawayo, January 16, 1946.

Notes to pp. 170–174

271

180. S 2584/4251, NC Wankie to the PNC, February 15, 1946. See also NC Gwanda to the PNC, March 25, 1926; NC Inyati to the PNC, April 27, 1946; Assistant NC Lupani to the PNC, June 17, 1946. 181. S 2584/4251, CNC to the PNC, August 1, 1946. 182. Bantu Mirror, July 1, 1944. 183. Leroy Vail and Landeg White, Power and the Praise Poem: Southern African Voices in History (London: James Currey, 1991), 84–111. 184. Bantu Mirror, May 25, 1946. The MHS also hired a bus from Mr. Dakamela to attend in large numbers the funeral of Chief Ndaniso Kumalo of Wenlock. See Bantu Mirror, July 17, 1948. 185. African Home News, September 25, 1954. 186. S 235/363, Urban Areas Act, 1934–35. 187. Interview with Mr. D. Ndiweni, Pelandaba, Bulawayo, July 9, 2003. 188. There were, of course, more vibrant alternatives like the emerging Tenants and Residents Associations, but these were unofficial and often on a collision course with the government. See Msindo, “Ethnicity and Nationalism,” 267–90. 189. Interview with Mr. Makhoba Khulube, Dombodema, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 25, 2003. 190. Interview with Mr. Hlangabeza Kumalo, Pelandaba, Bulawayo, July 9, 2003. Hlangabeza was the last chairman of the MHS. He told me that there were many such streets in Mpopoma Township named after prominent Shona persons, and as I moved around, I had a chance to see some of them. See also Bantu Mirror, September 26, 1959. 191. Interview with Mr. Makhoba Khulube, Dombodema, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 25, 2003. 192. Brown Luza, “Matabeles Should Get More Businesses than Mashonas,” African Home News, March 18, 1959. 193. African Home News, December 19, 1953. 194. Bantu Mirror, January 13, 1951. 195. Bantu Mirror, May 24, 1952. 196. Bantu Mirror, March 9, 1957. Zisizeni means “help/rescue yourselves,” suggesting that the Ndebele felt that they were under threat. 197. African Home News, June 5, 1954. 198. Ibid. 199. African Home News, December 19, 1953. 200. African Home News, December 25, 1953. 201. African Home News, December 14, 1957, which shows the results of the advisory board elections. 202. Interview with Mr. Makhoba Khulube, Msiteli Township, Bulawayo, June 30, 2003; emphasis in original. 203. African Home News, February 20, 1960. 204. Bantu Mirror, February 15, 1958; March 23, 1957; African Home News, February 12, 1955. 205. Bantu Mirror, December 31, 1955; February 25, 1956; African Home News, October 22, 1955. 206. BCC Archives, PP Box 150, Delineation and Naming of Areas—Roger [National Museums and Monuments of Rhodesia] to Dear Hugh, January 11, 1955;

272

Notes to pp. 174–179

interview with Mr. Hlangabeza Kumalo, Pelandaba, Bulawayo, July 9, 2003. Mr. Hlangabeza Kumalo was a chairman of the MHS in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 207. BCC Archives, PP Box 2735, Extracts from Minutes of Housing and Amenities Committee, January 11, 1963. This society was also known as Mzilikazi Family Association. 208. African Home News, March 10, 1956; January 5, 1957. 209. Bantu Mirror, February 1, 1958; African Home News, February 1, 1958. 210. Bantu Mirror, February 15, 1958. 211. Ibid. 212. The PHS was also called the “Kalanga Cultural Society.” 213. Interview with Mr. Makhoba Khulube, Msiteli Township, Bulawayo, June 30, 2003. 214. African Home News, January 12, 1957. 215. African Home News, February 2, 1957. 216. African Home News, May 11, 1957. 217. African Home News, January 5, 1957. In this edition, the editor refused to publish a letter by Lazarus Nkala in response to an earlier letter by “Umndebele Uqobo,” who had attacked the Kalanga. 218. See copies of articles in Bantu Mirror, June 16, 1956; March 26, 1960; April 9, 1960; May 7, 1960; June 15, 1960; June 16, 1960; July 2, 1960; and September 16, 1961. 219. M. G. Gulubane, “Kalanga Controversy Rages On: Moyos Are Not Ndebeles,” Bantu Mirror, May 23, 1959. 220. African Home News, December 22, 1956. 221. Umndebele Uqobo [pseud.], “Letter to the Editor: Mr. J. Z. Moyo and the Kalanga Cultural Society,” African Home News, December 22, 1956. “Umndebele Uqobo” means “100% Ndebele/pure Ndebele.” 222. African Home News, December 20, 1956. 223. African Home News, January 12, 1957. 224. African Home News, January 5, 1957. 225. NAZ, BOH/36, interview by Mark Ncube with Madlibi Hlabangana, Mpopoma, Bulawayo, November 2, 1985. Hlabangana was a former member of the Matabeleland Home Society. He indicated that the Ndebele royal family had disagreements with the MHS over some issues, including that MHS leader Mazibisa had kissed a wife of Rhodes Lobengula upon greeting her when she came to Bulawayo from South Africa, and that they had proceeded to drive her to the sacred shrine where Mzilikazi was buried, all of which were against Ndebele custom. 226. Some of these issues have been tackled by Ranger to varying degrees, but only up to 1960. See Ranger, Bulawayo Burning. 227. Msindo, “Social and Political Responses to Colonialism,” 115–55.

Chapter 7 1. My earlier analysis of this topic in an urban setting was published in the Journal of African History. See Msindo, “Ethnicity and Nationalism,” 267–90.

Notes to pp. 179–185

273

2. I borrow the term “political tribalism” from John Lonsdale, a historian of Kenya. See Lonsdale, “Moral Ethnicity and Political Tribalism,” 1–18. 3. Joshua B. Forrest, Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliances, and Politics (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 1–8, 14–18. 4. See the introduction to Ranger’s Voices from the Rocks. Similar views were reinforced by Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger in Violence and Memory. 5. S 1563, Report of the Assistant NC Essexvale for the year ending December 31, 1946. 6. S 1051, Report of the NC Bulawayo for the year ending December 31, 1948. 7. S 1618, Report of the NC Nkai, Shangani Reserve, for the quarter ending June 30, 1949. 8. S 2403/2681, Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending December 31, 1952. 9. Ibid. 10. S 2929/6/2, Delineation Report, Bulilima-Mangwe District: The Nswazwi Community, 1965. 11. S 2403/2681, Report of the NC Bubi for the year ending December 31, 1952. 12. S 2827/2/1/3, Internal Affairs: Development Land Returns—Annual Reports, Bubi District, December 1963. 13. Bantu Mirror, July 26, 1952. 14. Bantu Mirror, October 4, 1952. 15. African Home News, June 3, 1954. 16. Bantu Mirror, November 19, 1955. 17. Nkomo, Story of My Life, 68–70. 18. Bantu Mirror, April 27, 1957. 19. Bantu Mirror, March 29, 1952; May 11, 1957. 20. African Home News, February 1, 1958. 21. Ibid. For a defense of Luza’s motion, see African Home News, February 8, 1958, in which the editor (Charles Ngcebetsha) complain of the unfairness of the Shona who wanted to see Ndebele history and heritage driven into oblivion and the Shona history celebrated in Bulawayo. 22. Bantu Mirror, May 24, 1954; African Home News, June 5, 1954. 23. African Home News, December 22, 1956. 24. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 211. 25. Ibid. 26. For the activities of the Youth League see Michael O. West, The Rise of an African Middle Class: Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898–1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 204–7. C. Nyangoni and G. Nyandoro, eds., Zimbabwe Independence Movements: Selected Documents (London: Rex Collings, 1979), 448. 27. For Samkange’s history see Ranger, Are We Not Also Men. West, African Middle Class, 209–10. 28. Bantu Mirror, March 29, 1952. The paper had the headline “Tribalism Should Die Away.” 29. Bantu Mirror, January 3, 1953; Bantu Mirror, March 14, 1953. 30. BCC, Bulawayo Reference Library (uncataloged), K. Kirkwood, The Proposed Federation of the Central African Territories (South African Institute of Race Relations,

274

Notes to pp. 185–190

1952), 5, 14–15; Roy Welensky, “The Federation and the Commonwealth,” address at Albert Hall, London, November 8, 1961, 7–8. 31. BCC, Bulawayo Reference Library (uncataloged), Roy Welensky, “The Federation and the Commonwealth,” 3. 32. “Alien” is a term used in the colonial setting to describe African foreigners. 33. Bantu Mirror, July 12, 1958; Bantu Mirror, August 9, 1958. 34. See Msindo, “Ethnicity and Nationalism,” 267–90. 35. See Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 131; and Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 107–10. 36. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 107–10. 37. Interview with Mr. J. Dlodlo, Siganda Business Centre, Bubi, July 21, 2003. Lozikeyi died in 1919. 38. Interview with Mr. Welshman Mabhena, Four Winds, Bulawayo, July 24, 2003. 39. Interview with Mr. J. Dlodlo, Siganda Business Centre, Bubi, July 21, 2003. 40. Interview with the Tshuma elders, Nkosikazi, Bubi, July 21, 2003. These elders are charged with maintaining the grave and hold the keys to the graveyard, although guarding the grave is also a local public responsibility. They cannot allow anyone in or even nearby without permission from the remaining son of the Dlodlo family. 41. Amos Mazibisa, “Ban on NDP Stops the Rains,” Bantu Mirror, January 20, 1962. See a similar idea in Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 212–13. 42. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 211. 43. James Khumalo, “Lobengula Stood against Tribal Purity in Matabeleland,” Bantu Mirror, December 2, 1961. These 1960s reinterpretations of history deceive some researchers and culture nationalists today into thinking Matabeleland has always been defined as a compact unified nation. 44. Terence Ranger, for instance, played an important part in “nationalizing” local figures. See Terence O. Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896–7: A Study of African Resistance (London: Heinemann, 1967). 45. Nkomo, Story of My Life, 15. 46. Ibid., 13–15. 47. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 217–18. 48. The Battle Cry: Official Organ of the Zimbabwe African National Union of Southern Rhodesia 1, no. 1 (November 27, 1963): 10. 49. S 2827/2/2/8, Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending December 31, 1961. 50. S 2827/2/2/8, Report of the NC Bubi for the year ending December 31, 1961. 51. S 2827/2/2/8, Report of the NC Matopo for the year ending December 31, 1961. 52. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks; 130–41; Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 93–95. 53. S 2827/2/2/8, Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending December 31, 1961. 54. Ibid. 55. S 2827/2/2/8, Report of the NC Bulilima-Mangwe for the year ending December 31, 1961. The NC was mistaken to think that the Kalanga lacked political consciousness.

Notes to pp. 190–195

275

56. Bantu Mirror, November 5, 1960. 57. Interview with James R.  D. Chikerema, Chikerema residence, Borrowdale Harare, May 3, 2003. 58. Bantu Mirror, November 5, 1960. 59. Bantu Mirror, January 7, 1961. 60. Bantu Mirror, November 5, 1960. 61. Ibid. 62. Msindo, “Ethnicity and Nationalism,” 267–90. 63. Ibid. 64. Bantu Mirror, June 18, 1956. 65. Msindo, “Ethnicity and Nationalism,” 267–90. 66. West, African Middle Class, 225–26. 67. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 93–95. 68. Nyangoni and Nyandoro, Zimbabwe Independence Movements, 448. 69. On the founding of ZAPU see ibid., 54. Maurice Nyagumbo, With the People: An Autobiography from the Zimbabwe Struggle (London: Allison and Busby, 1980), 237; Nyangoni and Nyandoro, Zimbabwe Independence Movements, 448. 70. “Zimbabwe African People’s Union: Memorandum to the United Nations Organisation by Joshua Nkomo, President, February 1962,” in Nyangoni and Nyandoro, Zimbabwe Independence Movements, 52–55. 71. CUL, Official Publications Sections, RCS. L52, Case 65, Box: Zimbabwe Special Reports: Southern Rhodesia Government: Report on the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union, September 1962; Nkomo, Story of My Life, 98–99. 72. Nkomo, Story of My Life, 109. 73. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 114; Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 233. 74. African Home News, July 28, 1962; May 4, 1963; May 18, 1963. 75. African Home News, June 22, 1963; June 15, 1963. 76. Nathan Shamuyarira, Crisis in Rhodesia (New York: Transatlantic Arts, 1966), 173–77, 182. 77. Ibid., 177–78; interview with Mr. Enos Nkala, Woodlands, Bulawayo, April 9, 2003; Martin Meredith, The Past Is Another Country: Rhodesia, 1890–1979 (London: Andre Deutsch, 1979), 39. Other pro-ZANU works include the following: Shakespeare Makoni, “Time for a Change—to Zanu,” Central African Examiner, September 1963; Nyagumbo, With the People, 163–88; Hist. Mss. MA 4/1/1/1, Kenneth Manyonda, Reminiscences, “My Trade Union/Political Activities in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia” (undated, but likely 1970); David Mgabe, “Rhodesia’s African Majority,” in The Rhodesian Problem: A Documentary Record, 1923–1973, ed. Elaine Windrich (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), 51–59. The original version of the article appeared in Africa Report 12, no. 2 (February 1967). 78. Interview with James Chikerema, Borrowdale, Harare, May 3, 2003. This view was subsequently confirmed by Nyathi in Bulilima-Mangwe. Interview with S.  M. Nyathi, Brunapeg, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 16, 2003. 79. Nkomo, Story of My life, 109–19; “Joshua Nkomo: Statement to the National People’s Conference, Salisbury, 10 August 1963,” in Nyandoro and Nyangoni, Zimbabwe Independence Movements, 57–64. The naive view that ZANU was formed due to Shona tribalism is maintained by almost all Matabeleland activists today and some

276

Notes to pp. 195–199

former ZAPU activists—e.g., telephone interview with Dr. Churchill Guduza in South Africa, April 2, 2003; interview with J. T. Malinga, Bulawayo, March 25, 2003; interview with Councillor M. Khupe, Madyambudzi, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 20, 2003; interview with Pathisa Nyathi, Luveve, Bulawayo, March 23, 2003; interview with Mr. Goden Moyo, Bulawayo Agenda offices, Bulawayo, March 21, 2003. 80. Zimbabwe Review 2, no. 1 (August/September 1963). I do not understand why PCC did not confirm Nkala’s suspension at the Cold Comfort conference. He was the only Ndebele man in that new ZANU leadership. 81. Zimbabwe Review 2, no. 1 (August/September 1963); African Home News, August 17, 1963. 82. Enoch Dumbutshena, Zimbabwe Tragedy (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1975), 95. See also I. Nyamadzawo, “Nyamadzawo Hits Out at Sithole,” Daily News, July 20, 1963. Nyamadzawo thought the split was a product of power-hungry people who monopolized the press. 83. See also Observer [pseud.], “It’s Time for a New Political Party,” Daily News, July 8, 1963, where it is argued that Nkomo feared being displaced by a Shona leader; Anti-Plotter [pseud.], “Why Ndebeles Are Worried,” Daily News, June 12, 1963, where the writer expressed the worry that Ndebele see the plot to oust Nkomo as intended to make it easy for the Shona to oppress and victimize the Ndebele; Son of Chaminuka [pseud.], “They Started the Ndebele Tongue,” Daily News, June 4, 1963, which argued for the foreignness of isiNdebele as a language; Anti-Divider [pseud.], “Challenge to both Tribes,” Daily News, June 13, 1963, which exposed and foresaw the possibility of a citizenship crisis for the Ndebele people in the light of the claims by the Shona about indigeneity in the country. 84. R. Phili, “Tribalism Has Entered Politics,” Daily News, July 20, 1963. Phili lived in Mufakose in Salisbury. 85. Nathan Shamuyarira, editor of the Daily News, became a member of ZANU. 86. Z. M. Chabvuta, “Nkomo Erred by Attacking,” Daily News, July 20, 1963. 87. Interview with Mr. Alick Ndlovu, Bulawayo, April 17, 2003; interview with Mr. Joshua Teke Malinga, Malinga and Associate offices, H. Chitepo Avenue, Bulawayo, March 25, 2003; interview with Mr. Welshman Mabhena, Four Winds, Bulawayo, July 24, 2003. 88. For a short discussion of nationalist propaganda, see Msindo, “Winning Hearts and Minds,” 663–81. 89. Cory, RU, Southern Rhodesia, Legislative Assembly debates, vol. 57, 1964: Motion on The Daily News, August 26, 1964, cols. 1281–86. See also interview with Mr. Welshman Mabhena, Four Winds, Bulawayo, July 24, 2003. 90. On the banning of this newspaper see Eugene Wason, Banned: The Story of the “African Daily News,” Southern Rhodesia, 1964 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1976). 91. Cory, RU, Southern Rhodesia, Legislative Assembly debates, vol. 57, 1964: Motion on The Daily News, August 26, 1964, cols. 1281–86. 92. Ibid., cols. 1283–94. 93. Zimbabwe News, April 15, 1967. 94. “A Speech by Mr. Mombeshora on Zimbabwe Day March 17, 1967,” in Zimbabwe Today, official organ of ZANU, 1967, published in ZANU’s Cairo office. 95. Zimbabwe Review, January 1964. 96. Scarnecchia, Urban Roots of Democracy, 138–46.

Notes to pp. 199–204

277

97. Interview with Mr. J. H. Toggah, Highfield, Harare, April 20, 2003; Scarnecchia, Urban Roots of Democracy, 147–52; Enocent Msindo, “Towards a New Understanding of Nationalism in Zimbabwe: Ideologies, Alternative Platforms, and the Place of Violence” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, New Orleans, November 19–22, 2009). 98. Scarnecchia, Urban Roots of Democracy, 115–33. 99. Cory, RU, SR, Legislative Assembly debates, vol. 57, Minister of Law and Order’s Motion on Highfield Emergency and Banned Political Parties, August 26, 1964, cols. 1257–64. 100. Daily News, July 24, 1963. 101. Sulla Mudehwe, “The Struggle Is between People,” Daily News, August 16, 1963; T. T. Magoya, “Tribalism Has Set In,” Daily News, August 26, 1963. 102. Interview with Mr. Makhoba Khulube, Msitheli, Bulawayo, June 30, 2003. 103. Zimbabwe Review 2, no. 2 (October–November 1963). 104. Zimbabwe Review (Dar-es-Salaam version) 7, no. 7 (December 1963). 105. For the argument that ZAPU leadership cut across ethnicities, had a majority of Shona leaders, and was therefore “nationalist,” see Nkomo, Story of My Life, 114. Informant John Nkatazo, however, believed that these Shona leaders in ZAPU represented nobody because they slowly lost support in Shona areas after the split. Interview with Mr. John Nkatazo, Lobengula West, Bulawayo, March 13, 2003. 106. Interview with Mr. Gcwalisa Dube, Brunapeg, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 12, 2003. Nkomo himself helped cultivate the myth that he was chosen by the gods to lead the people, as he insinuates in his Story of My Life, 13–15. 107. Daily News, October 5, 1963. 108. Interview with Mr. Gcwalisa Dube, Brunapeg, Bulilima-Mangwe, June 12, 2003. 109. S 2827/2/1/3, Annual Report of the District Commissioner, Bulilima-Mangwe, December 31, 1963. 110. Ibid. 111. See Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 91–93. 112. Fur hats were ZAPU’s official headgear. They were usually made of leopard skin and had cultural significance. 113. S 2827/2/1/3, Annual Report of the District Commissioner, Bulilima-Mangwe, for the year ending December 31, 1963. 114. ZAPU newsletters are replete with incidents of sabotage and other forms of violence directed against whites. See copies of the Zimbabwe Review. 115. Zimbabwe Review 8 (1964); Zimbabwe Review 1, no. 6 (May 22, 1965). 116. John Day, “The Insignificance of Tribe in the African Politics of Zimbabwe Rhodesia,” in From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe: Behind and beyond Lancaster House, ed. W. H. Morris-Jones (London: Frank Cass, 1980), 85–109. 117. Zimbabwe News, April 1, 1967. 118. MS356, Chitepo on Zanu-Zapu Unity, 1971: Herbert Chitepo to Richard Gibson, London (undated). 119. Sithole, Struggles within the Struggle, 44. 120. GEN-P/ZIM, J. Z. Moyo, “Zimbabwe African Peoples’ Union: Observations on Our Struggle, 25 February 1970.” 121. Ibid.

278

Notes to pp. 204–207

122. Ibid. 123. Ibid. 124. GEN-P/ZIM, J. R. D. Chikerema, “Zimbabwe African Peoples Union: Replies to Observations on Our Struggle—Re. to a Document Published by Comrade J. Z. Moyo, 25 February 1970 brought to my attention, 27 February 1970.” 125. Ibid. 126. Ibid. 127. Ibid. 128. Zimbabwe African Peoples Union: On the coup crisis precipitated by J. Chikerema: Statement Issues by J. Z. Moyo, Edward Ndhlovu, and T. G. Silundika, March 21, 1970, in Nyangoni and Nyandoro, Zimbabwe Independence Movements, 163–70. 129. Ibid. 130. Sithole, Struggles within the Struggle, 49. 131. NAZ, Harare, Oral/239, Leo Solomon Baron, 5, 8, 9, and August 16, 1983. 132. Report by the Zimbabwe Students Union in Europe, 28 Mount Nod Rd, London, September 1971, 1; quoted in Sithole, Struggles within the Struggle, 49–50. 133. “Down with Tribalism,” Zimbabwe News, April 1970. 134. Bhebe, ZAPU and ZANU Guerrilla Warfare, 25–26. 135. Ibid., 26. 136. Nkomo, Story of My Life, 159–62. 137. NAZ, Oral/233, Lawrence Vambe, 1983. 138. In his Story of My Life, 151–52, Nkomo claims that FROLIZI was a small fighting force with no party members; Sithole, Struggles within the Struggle, 116–28; Day, “Insignificance of Tribe in Zimbabwe Rhodesia,” 85–109 (which describes FROLIZI as “merely a third, weaker nationalist party in exile” [91]); Oral/239, Leo Solomon Baron, 5, 8, 9, and August 16, 1983. Baron, for instance, falsely claimed that FROLIZI had only about twenty members and that there was no real split in ZAPU. For the official FROLIZI explanation of why it was formed, see, Nathan Shamuyarira, “Explanation of Why Frolizi Was Formed,” in Nyangoni and Nyandoro, Zimbabwe Independence Movements, 171–79. 139. NAZ, MS 356, Chitepo on Zanu-Zapu Unity, 1971: Herbert Chitepo to Richard Gibson, London, undated. ZANU declined Chikerema’s call for nationalist unity under FROLIZI, requesting that he first “put [their] house in order,” referring to the confusion at ZAPU. 140. Dumbutshena, Zimbabwe Tragedy, 124; Sithole, Struggles within the Struggle, 54–56. 141. Interview with James Chikerema, Borrowdale, Harare, May 3, 2003; Zimbabwe Line, January 1974. 142. Interview with Rev. Paul Damasane, Large City Hall, Bulawayo, March 13, 2003; interview with Cde A. Ndhlovu, Bulawayo, March 17, 2003; telephone interview with Mr. M. Palayiwa, Oxford, March 27, 2002; interview with Mr. Hlangabeza Khumalo, Pelandaba, Bulawayo, July 9, 2003. 143. Bhebe, ZAPU and ZANU Guerrilla Warfare, 171–80; CUL, Official Publications, OP.13780.968.04 (1), Information Section, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rhodesia, Fact Paper 2/77, Rivalry and Factionalism among Rhodesian African Nationalists, March 24, 1977. 144. Interview with Mr. S. W. B. Moyo, Gwabalanda, Bulawayo, March 18, 2003.

Notes to pp. 207–211

279

145. Interview with Mr. L. Tapela, Ntshamathe School, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, June 5, 2003. 146. Interview with Mr. L. Tapela, Ntshamathe School, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, June 5, 2003. 147. Sithole, Struggles within the Struggle, 50. 148. See Fact Paper 2/77, Rivalry and Factionalism among Rhodesian African Nationalists, 1977 (see note 142), which quotes the Free Zimbabwe Students Union in the UK suggesting that Moyo’s death was planned not by the Rhodesian government but by Mugabe and Tongogara, and that it was Tongogara’s writing that appeared on the parcel that Moyo received; see also CUL, OP.13780.968.04 (7), Fact Paper 9/77: Tribal and Party Affiliations of African Nationalists in Rhodesia, January 25, 1978, which suggests that his death was a result of internal ZAPU factionalism. As these publications were part of Rhodesian propaganda, they must be read with caution. 149. Moto, April 19, 1980; Zimbabwe People’s Voice, June 20–July 7, 1979. 150. Bhebe, ZAPU and ZANU Guerrilla Warfare, 253; OP.13780.968.04 (1), Fact Paper, 2/77, Rivalry and Factionalism among Rhodesian African Nationalists, March 24, 1977; Nkomo, Story of My Life, 200. 151. I am not suggesting that Shona and Ndebele as regional identities were entirely the creation of the era of nationalism. Earlier on, colonial administrators had paved way for regionalism by their official division of the country into Mashonaland and Matabeleland and by their promotion of isiNdebele and Chishona as dominant languages. The MHS has also worked since the late 1940s to construe Matabeleland as a region. However, the definition of Shona and Ndebele as political tribes was in many ways the making of the post-1963 era. 152. In other words, one can be Shona regionally and Karanga by ethnicity or Ndebele regionally and Kalanga or Venda by ethnicity.

Chapter 8 1. See Werbner, Tears of the Dead; Richard P Werbner, “Smoke from the Barrel of a Gun: Postwars of the Dead, Memory and Reinscription in Zimbabwe,” in Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power, ed. Richard Werbner (London: ZED Books, 1998), 71–102. See also work by B. Lindgren, “The Politics of Ndebele Ethnicity: Origins, Nationality, and Gender in Southern Zimbabwe” (PhD thesis, Department of Cultural Anthropology: University of Uppsala, 2002). 2. See Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and Legal Resources Foundation [hereafter cited as CCJP and LRF], Breaking the Silence: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and Midlands, 1980–1988 (Harare: CCJP and LRF, February 1997). 3. This is the perspective taken by Imbovane Ya Mahlabezulu, an Ndebele pressure group; ZAPU 2000, a political party in Bulawayo that advocates federalism; and other Ndebele activists in general. See Mpho Ncube, “The Matabeleland Question: Is Federalism the Answer?” May 4, 2003, http://www.inkundla.net/indonsakusa/Federalism1.php; MAGGEMM 2000: Mthwakazi Action Group on Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in Matabeleland and Midlands, 2000, http://www.maggemm.co.uk/;

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Notes to pp. 211–214

interview with Jethro Mpofu, Bulawayo, March 12, 2003; interview with George Mkhwananzi, president of the Imbovane Ya Mahlabezulu, Bulawayo, March 16, 2003. 4. Gift Phiri, “Fists Fly in Church . . . Mass Ends Prematurely as Parishioners Clash,” Weekend Tribune, March 8–9, 2003, and Weekend Tribune, March 15–16, 2003. Shona and Ndebele clashed in a church service over language use for the service. See also P. Gumede, “Marazanye Is Wrong on Ndebeles,” Zimbabwe Independent, November 6, 2002, which was a response to ethnically insensitive writings by a Shona man named Marazanye against Ndebele people. 5. Bayethe Mzilikazi, “Gukurahundi Victims Find It Impossible to Vote for Mugabe,” Daily News, March 20, 2002. 6. See, for instance, the statement by government propagandist Jonathan Moyo: “I Lost Relatives to Gukurahundi—Moyo,” Zimbabwe Independent, August 9, 2001. See also Werbner, “Smoke from the Barrel of a Gun,” 71–102. The Amani Trust, which sought to assist victims of torture, was closed down by the government. For the work of Amani Trust, see Shari Eppel, “Conversations with History,” Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley, http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Eppel/eppelcon0.html. A similar organization, Post Independence Survivors Trust (PIST), has emerged recently. See Standard, February 15 and March 28, 2004. 7. This furthers the work by Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger in Violence and Memory, in which they examine the issue from the perspectives of two constituencies—the ex-ZIPRA soldiers and the common people. 8. Ministry of Information, Zimbabwe, A Chronicle of Dissidency in Zimbabwe (Harare: Ministry of Information, Posts and Telecommunications, August 1984). 9. See an article for the Global Campaign for Free Expression titled “Who Wants to Forget? Truth and Access to Information about Past Human Rights Violations,” http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/publications/freedom-of-informationtruth-commissions.pdf. 10. Interview with Catholic Archbishop Emeritus Henry Karlen, Bulawayo, March 19, 2003. See also Chronicle, March 30, 1983; June 30, 1983. 11. Chronicle, April 6, 1983. 12. CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 46. 13. Twenty thousand was Nkomo’s estimate, cited in ibid. 14. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 223. 15. Interview with Ms. M.B., Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 7, 2003; interview with informant nicknamed Ms. Silele, Bulawayo, October 28, 2002. 16. Interview with Ms. M.B., Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 7, 2003. 17. Interview with Mrs. and Mr. M., Brunapeg, Plumtree, June 15, 2003; interview with informant nicknamed Dlodlo Nick, Brunapeg, Plumtree, June 16, 2003. 18. CUL, OP.13780.968.04 (1), Rivalry and Factionalism among Rhodesian African Nationalists, Ministry of Information, Fact Paper 2/77, March 24, 1977. 19. Chronicle, January 3, 1980. Nkomo began his campaigns under the banner of PF only to belatedly change to PF-ZAPU. See Chronicle, January 5, 1980. 20. Chronicle, March 5, 1980. 21. Chronicle, January 3, 1980; January 5, 1980 (by January 5, Nkomo had gathered twelve thousand of his soldiers, meeting the cease-fire deadline); January 8, 1980. 22. Chronicle, January 12, 1980.

Notes to pp. 214–217

281

23. Chronicle, January 5, 1980. 24. Chronicle, January 8, 1980; February 2, 1980; interview with the Honorable Lovemore Moyo (MP, Matopo), Bulawayo, February 19, 2003. Moyo was part of the ZIPRA army in Zambia at the time of the cease-fire in 1979. 25. Chronicle, January 15, 1980. 26. Chronicle, January 17, 1980; January 24, 1980; January 30, 1980; February 2, 1980; February 5, 1980; February 9, 1980. In the Chronicle, February 6, 1980, there were allegations that Mugabe’s guerrillas told villagers in the Eastern Highlands that those who voted for anyone other than Mugabe would have their hands “chopped off.” 27. Chronicle, February 6, 1980. 28. Chronicle, April 12, 1980. 29. Chronicle, March 31, 1980. 30. Chronicle, May 10, 1980. 31. Chronicle, May 16, 1980. 32. Chronicle, May 21, 1980; May 30, 1980; NAZ, 266/86/MA/GR, “Nkala Comments on Police Force,” Zimbabwe Press Statement, April 2, 1986. See also a pro-ZANU version in D. Martin and P. Johnson, Destructive Engagement: Southern Africa at War (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1986), 43–72. 33. Chronicle, June 26, 1980; June 27, 1980. 34. Chronicle, June 27, 1980. See also Norma J. Kriger, Guerrilla Veterans in Postwar Zimbabwe: Symbolic and Violent Politics, 1980–1987 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 29–30. 35. Chronicle, June 30, 1980. 36. Ibid. 37. CUL, OP.13780.968.04 (10), Fact Paper 3/78: Unity within the Patriotic Front, September 5, 1978. 38. Chronicle, July 7, 1980. 39. Ibid. 40. Interview with Mr. Enos Nkala, Woodlands, Bulawayo, April 9, 2003; Nkala told me the same thing he said to the Dumbutshena Commission that was appointed to inquire into the Entumbane disturbances, part of which were reported in the Chronicle, June 5, 1981. 41. Most of my informants alluded to these Nkala rally utterances, which they blamed for the violence that followed. 42. Chronicle, July 7, 1980; July 9, 1980; October 20, 1980. 43. Chronicle, July 12, 1980. 44. Chronicle, November 10, 1980. 45. Ibid. 46. Chronicle, November 11, 1980; Leo Hatugari, “Hell Breaks Loose in Bulawayo,” Moto, November 15, 1980. On the killings and evictions see interview with Ms. Nkiwane, Bulawayo, October 28, 2002; interview with informant nicknamed Ms. V. Ndlovu, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, October 28, 2002; Chronicle, May 13, 1981. 47. Interview with Ms. Nkiwane, Bulawayo, October 28, 2002. She is a survivor of the violence and recounted how a bullet hit her roof, leaving a hole that has never been repaired since then. 48. Chronicle, January 21, 1981.

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Notes to pp. 217–219

49. Chronicle, May 8, 1981; May 13, 1981; May 28, 1981. These Chronicle reports were part of the coverage of the Dumbutshena Commission appointed to look into the cause of the disturbances and possible remedy. Today, the findings of the commission are still classified, known only to Mr. Mugabe. 50. Chronicle, February 12, 1981; interview with informant nicknamed Ms. G. C. Thabani, March 20, 2003. 51. Chronicle, May 14, 1981, which reported evidence as given by Captain Frank Garieke before the commission. The government blamed ex-ZIPRA combatants for the fiasco. See Z.G.3/INF.45, Zimbabwe Information Press Statement, 108/81/SFS, February 17, 1981. 52. The issue of arms caches is sufficiently explored by Alexander, McGregor and Ranger, in Violence and Memory, 181–203. Cf. Chronicle, February 20, 1981; March 17, 1981; May 13, 1981; and Nkomo, Story of My Life, 221. 53. Z.G.3/INF.45, Zimbabwe Information Press Statement, 185/81/SFS, March 10, 1981; see also Chronicle, March 11, 1981 (both articles relate to ZIPRA elements leaving Gwaai Mine Camp). 54. Chronicle, May 28, 1981, which reports on the evidence by Gwaai Mine ZIPRA captain Sando Soneni before the Dumbutshena Commission; Kriger, Guerrilla Veterans, 133–37. 55. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 181–203. 56. Some governments institutionalize disorder and use it as a political instrument. P. Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works. 57. Interview with Mr. B.F., Luveve, Bulawayo, April 3, 2003. 58. Interview with Mr. S.  W.  B. Moyo, Gwabalanda, Bulawayo, March 18, 2003. See also CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 134, 139. 59. Chronicle, April 11, 1981. 60. Chronicle, August 21, 1981. 61. Chronicle, August 22, 1981. In the Chronicle, October 26, 1981, Mugabe warned he had a hammer to knock off dissidents’ heads and that he was out to “crush them.” 62. CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 45. 63. Chronicle, August 31, 1981. 64. Chronicle, July 30, 1984. 65. Moto 1, no. 4 (August 1982). 66. Chronicle, January 18, 1982. 67. Chronicle, January 30, 1982. 68. Chronicle, January 19, 1982. 69. Chronicle, January 25, 1982. 70. Chronicle, January 8, 1982. 71. Chronicle, February 10, 1982; February 23, 1982; February 26, 1982; March 25, 1982. 72. See a letter written by Nkomo to Mugabe on June 7, 1983, from London serialized in the Daily News, January 30–31, 2003; Chronicle, February 9, 1982; February 12, 1982. 73. Chronicle, February 8, 1982. 74. Moto 1, no. 7 (November 1982); Moto 1, no. 6 (October 1982); Stephen Chan, Robert Mugabe: A life of Power and Violence (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003), 22. 75. Chronicle, February 18, 1982.

Notes to pp. 219–223

283

76. Chronicle, February 8, 1983; April 28, 1983. 77. Chronicle, June 16, 1982; May 12, 1982; July 26, 1982. 78. Chronicle, July 6, 1982; July 30, 1982. 79. Moto, November 15, 1980. 80. Interview with informant nicknamed K.M., Plumtree, June 25, 2003; interview with informant nicknamed M.M., Nkosikazi, July 20, 2003. 81. Interview with informant nicknamed M.B., Madyambudzi, Plumtree, June 21, 2003. 82. Chronicle, March 5, 1980. 83. Chronicle, January 29, 1983; May 4, 1983; CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 127, 129, 130–31; interview with Mr. Goden Moyo, Bulawayo, March 21, 2003; interview with ex-CCJP staff J.N., Lobengula Township, Bulawayo, March 13, 2003. 84. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 190, 192–94. 85. Interview with M.B., Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 7, 2003. 86. Chronicle, March 10, 1983. 87. Chronicle, February 3, 1983. 88. Chronicle, February 7, 1983. 89. Chronicle, February 14, 1983. 90. Interview with Ms. MaNcube, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 18, 2003. 91. Interview with Archbishop Pius Ncube, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Bulawayo, March 6, 2003; interview with J. Ncube, Bulawayo, March 16, 2003. 92. Chronicle, March 10, 1983; April 12, 1983; April 25, 1983; May 4, 1983. 93. Chronicle, February 28, 1983; March 15, 1983; April 5, 1983. 94. Interview with Mrs. M.D., Brunapeg, Plumtree, June 15, 2003. 95. Ibid.; interview with Ms. Z. Moyo, Madyambudzi, June 19, 2003; interview with Mrs. M.B., Madyambudzi, June 21, 2003; interview with Mrs. M.S., Siganda, Nkosikazi, Bubi, July 19, 2003; CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 132. In the 1980s, people usually sang these songs at nhimbes (community cooperatives). 96. Chronicle, March 15, 1983. 97. Moto, no. 65 (May 1988). See topics in the magazine entitled “Minorities in Zimbabwe” and “Kalanga No Minority.” 98. See documents in the Bulawayo National Archives cataloged as AOH/11, Bakalanga Muka Kwedza Kalanga Culture Promotion Society. 99. Interview with Rev. Paul Damasane, Large City Hall, Bulawayo, March 13, 2003. 100. Chronicle, April 7, 1983. 101. Chronicle, June 22, 1984. Msipa defected from ZAPU, of which he was secretary-general, to join ZANU. See Moto, February 1985, where Ndlovu echoes the view that ZANU hoped to destroy ZAPU through defections, but might not win enough seats to fulfill its vision of a one-party state. Chronicle, January 22, 1985; February 27, 1985. 102. Chronicle, December 10, 1984. 103. Chronicle, January 25, 1985. 104. Chronicle, July 6, 1985; July 8, 1985. 105. Moto, February 1985. 106. Moto, August 1985.

284

Notes to pp. 223–226

107. Chronicle, October 17, 1985; November 16, 1985; January 23, 1986; January 29, 1986; June 3, 1986; June 19, 1987; September 14, 1987; September 23, 1987. 108. Chronicle, July 8, 1985; August 8, 1985; August 27, 1985. 109. CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 135; Martin Meredith, Mugabe: Power and Plunder in Zimbabwe (Oxford: Public Affairs Ltd, 2002), 67. See also Oscar Nkala, “Villagers Relate Tales of Horror,” Daily News, February 20, 2003. 110. Chronicle, September 19, 1985. 111. Chronicle, September 23, 1985. 112. Chronicle, June 30, 1980. 113. Interview with Mr. B.F., Luveve, Bulawayo, April 3, 2003. The footage of this interview has been censored by the government, and is thus no longer available to be seen. 114. Chronicle, July 7, 1980. In the Chronicle, July 29, 1985, Calistus Ndlovu, who defected earlier to ZANU and immediately became the ZANU leader in Matabeleland North, claimed he had an anonymous letter suggesting that that Ndebele wanted to secede from the nation and create their own republic called “Mthwakazi.” This cannot be verified, but today there is an active group by that name that advocates secession, although this group may have been formed as a result of gukurahundi violence than the cause of it. 115. Chronicle, January 31, 1985. 116. For the interpretation of these terms, see Jason A. Cruse, “Genocide and Politicide: Establishing Causal Links” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Philadelphia, November 1999), 1–32. 117. Chronicle, September 15, 1982. Mnangagwa (minister of state security), depicting dissidents as cockroaches to be dealt with by the government’s DDT (the Fifth Brigade), said that “dissidents would only survive where there was fodder for them” and that he would get rid of “dissidents and their helpers.” Chronicle, March 5, 1983. 118. Chronicle, January 17, 1983. 119. Chronicle, February 7, 1983; May 2, 1983. 120. State-run propaganda was pervasive in the case of Rwanda; see Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 190–91. See also Jamie Frederic Metzl, “Rwandan Genocide and the International Law of Radio Jamming,” American Journal of International Law 91, no. 4 (1997): 628. 121. Interview with informant nicknamed Mrs. Nokhuthula Moyo, Magwegwe, Bulawayo, March 10, 2003. 122. Cambridge, Centre for African Studies (CAS), Zimbabwe Press Statement, 759/86/MA/ME/GR, November 17, 1986. Government officials interpreted this disaffection toward the program as a product of Ndebele tribalism. Interestingly, even the current National Youth Service, inaugurated by the government since 2000, is not popular in Matabeleland. In particular, the Ntabazinduna Training Camp is normally full of youths from Mashonaland. 123. Meredith, Mugabe, 70. Meredith tells of Chief Bango’s protest against dissidents that resulted in his being labeled a “dissident.” Chief Bango was killed at Brunapeg. At St. Joseph’s Mission, Matopo, Minister Enos Nkala was barraged with questions from ordinary civilians about the role of ZANLA in killing Ndebele people and about how one could report dissidents to the police. He retorted angrily, “There

Notes to pp. 226–231

285

is a strong support for dissidents here.” Chronicle, May 2, 1983. In Kafusi, Nkala met challenging questions from a man who had been badly beaten by the army earlier; see CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 127. 124. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6–7. 125. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 224. 126. Interview with informant nicknamed Mr. M.M., Siganda, Bubi, July 20, 2003. 127. Ibid.; CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 101, 131; Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 222. 128. Alexander, McGregor, and Ranger, Violence and Memory, 212–13. 129. Interview with informant nicknamed Mr. C.N., Bubi, July 20, 2003. 130. Interview with M.B., Madyambudzi, June 21, 2003; interview with informant nicknamed Mr. N., Madyambudzi, June 19, 2003; CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 131. 131. Interview with Mr. J. Dlodlo, Siganda, Bubi, July 21, 2003. 132. Loughty Dube, “New Report Decries Government’s Inaction on Gukurahundi,” Standard, March 28, 2004; Bayethe Mzilikazi, “Gukurahundi Victims.” 133. Moto, March 1988. 134. Werbner, Tears of the Dead. 135. CCJP and LRF, Breaking the Silence, 121. 136. Interview with Ms. Angelus Dube, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, United Kingdom, June 13, 2004. 137. There are many works on memory and identity. See Ronald J. Berger, Constructing a Collective Memory of the Holocaust: A Life History of Two Brothers’ Survival (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1995), 1–14; J. R. Gillis, “Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship,” in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, ed. J.  R. Gillis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 3–24; Yoshikuni Igarashi, Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945–1970 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 5–11; Ian McBride, “Memory and National Identity in Modern Ireland,” in History and Memory in Modern Ireland, ed. I. McBride (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 1–42. 138. Werbner, Tears of the Dead, 162.

Conclusion 1. For MAGGEMM see http://www.maggemm.co.uk/; for PIST see http://www. kubatana.net/html/sectors/pos001.asp?sector=HR&details=Tel&orgcode=pos001. 2. Sokwanele, “ACTION ALERT: Stand Up for Owen Maseko; Support an Artist’s Right to Free Expression,” March 26, 2010, http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/5593; Nqobile Bhebhe, “‘Offensive’ Gukurahundi Art: State Withdraws Charges,” Zimbabwe Independent, February 3, 2011, http://www.theindependent.co.zw/ letters/29801-offensive-gukurahundi-art-state-withdraws-charges.html. 3. Caleb Dube, “Amakhosi Theatre: Ako-Bulawayo,” The Drama Review (TDR), 36, no. 2 (1992): 44–47; Lebo Nkatazo, “Amakhosi Director Mhlanga Arrested,” December 11, 2009, http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/review11.14130.html. 4. The following is an active website with current affairs on Matabeleland: http:// www.mthwakazian.com/.

286

Notes to pp. 231–232

5. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, The Ndebele Nation: Reflections on Hegemony, Memory, and Historiography (Amsterdam: Rosenburg Publishers, 2009). 6. “King Mzilikazi Celebrations This Saturday,” Zimbabwean, September 7, 2010, http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/entertainment/art-and-literature/34006/kingmzilikazi-celebrations-this-saturday.html. 7. Nqaba Matshazi, “Organisations in Fresh Battle for King Mzilikazi’s Legacy,” Standard, September 18, 2011. 8. John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Ethnicity, Inc. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

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Schapera, I. Tribal Innovators: Tswana Chiefs and Social Change, 1795–1940. London: Athlone Press, 1970. Sebina, A. M. “Makalaka.” African Studies 6, no. 1 (1947): 82–96. Selous, F. C. A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa, 2nd ed. Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1970. Shamuyarira, Nathan. Crisis in Rhodesia. New York: Transatlantic Arts, 1966. Sharpe, Jim. “History from Below.” In New Perspectives on Historical Writing, edited by Peter Burke, 25–42. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001. Simatei, P. T. “Ethnicity and Otherness in Kenya Cultures.” In Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Democracy in Africa, edited by B. A. Ogot, 51–55. Maseno, Kenya: Institute of Research and Postgraduate Studies, Maseno University, 1995. Singh, Ishtla. “Language and Ethnicity.” In Language, Society, and Power: An Introduction, edited by Linda Thomas, Shan Wareing, Ishtla Singh, Jean Stilwell Peccei, Joanna Thornborrow and Jason Jones, 93–111. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2004. Sithole, Masipula. Zimbabwe: Struggles within the Struggle, 1957–1980. Harare: Rujeko Publishers, 1999. Smith, A. D. The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. Spear, Thomas. “Neotraditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Tropical Africa.” Journal of African History 44 (2003): 3–27. Stapleton, Timothy. No Insignificant Part: The Rhodesian Native Regiment and the East Africa Campaign of the First World War. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006. ———. “Views of the First World War in Southern Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, 1914–1918.” War and Society 20, no. 1 (2002): 23–45. Tapela, Henderson M. “Movement and Settlement in the Tati Region: A Historical Survey.” In Proceedings of the Symposium on Settlement in Botswana: The Historical Development of a Human Landscape, National Museum of Gaborone, August 4–8, 1980, edited by R. R. Hitchcock and Mary R. Smith, 174–88. Gaborone: Botswana Society, 1982. Thomas, Thomas Morgan. Eleven Years in Central South Africa, 2nd ed. Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1970. Thomson, Alistair. “Unreliable Memories? The Use and Abuse of Oral History.” In Historical Controversies and Historians, edited by William Lamont, 23–34. London: UCL Press, 1998. Thornton, S. “The Struggle for Profit and Participation by an Emerging African Petty-Bourgeoisie in Bulawayo, 1893–1933.” In The Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Collected seminar papers. Vol. 9, no. 24. University of London, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1978. Vail, Leroy, and Landeg White. Power and the Praise Poem: Southern African Voices in History. London: James Currey, 1991. van Binsbergen, Wim. “Minority Language and the State in Two African Situations: The Nkoya of Zambia and the Kalange [sic] of Botswana.” In African Languages, Development, and the State, edited by R. Fardon and G. Furniss, 142–88. London: Routledge, 1994.

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Index activism, Kalanga, 2, 9, 120, 134–35, 177, 188–89, 235n53 activism, Ndebele, 62, 106, 129, 137, 174, 191–92, 230–32 advisory boards (African Advisory Boards), Bulawayo of, 132, 145, 171– 74, 178, 186 African councils, 28, 66, 90, 171 African Home News, 134, 173–76, 182–83 African National Congress (ANC, SRANC), 9, 27, 133, 175–76, 183–88, 192–93, 196–97, 201, 208–9 African nationalism, in colonial Zimbabwe, 4–5, 14–18, 20, 24–29, 49, 51, 106, 131, 155, 177–86, 188–93, 195, 200–202, 208–10, 215, 222, 224, 227, 230, 233, 238n54, 279n151; nationalist movements, 179, 209. See also ANC; NDP; ZAPU; ZANU African Voice (British African Voice), 28, 167, 181–83 Amakhosi Theatre, 168, 285n3 arms caches of ZAPU, 1980s, 161, 219, 282n52 assembly points of Zimbabwean army, 1980s, 214, 215, 217

bioscope (public cinema), 153, 162, 265n42 Botswana, Kalanga in, 71, 74, 76, 78, 119, 120, 134–35, 139 boxing, 154, 162, 178, 268n139; mangoromera, 155, 159 Brunapeg, 67, 84, 88–89, 181, 189, 213, 227 BSACo (government/administration), 11, 23, 45, 63, 72–74, 76, 78–80, 92, 94–95, 97, 99, 140, 192, 258n17 Bubi, 20, 50, 54, 65, 82–83, 85, 94, 100, 104, 107–8, 119, 152, 156, 182, 187, 189, 202, 226, 245n95 Bulawayo, generally, 9, 14, 16, 19–20, 23–24, 28, 35, 72, 75–76, 86, 95, 97, 100, 103, 107–8, 114, 117, 119, 124– 26, 130–33, 136–78, 181–86, 189–91, 196–97, 200–201, 206–7, 215–17, 220, 222, 228, 232–33. Bulilima-Mangwe, 11, 18, 20–21, 45, 60, 65, 67–92, 93, 96, 99, 102, 105, 112– 13, 121, 132, 134, 136, 139, 178, 181, 189–90, 201–2, 222, 228, 250n55, 259n48, 275n78 Burombo, Benjamin, 182–85

Balilima people, 119, 168, 176 Bango, chief, 112, 284n123 Bango, Grey, 173, 188 Bango community, 72, 112, 122–23, 259n47 Bantu Mirror, 128, 131–34, 149, 162, 168, 175, 183, 191 beer drinking, Bulawayo, including “kaffir’” beer, 76, 144–45, 151–52, 155–57, 161, 185 Bembesi (Mbembesi), 50, 87, 182 Bhalagwe camp (Matopos), 227

Cape Boys, migrants from Cape, 139, 140, 148 caste system, Ndebele society, 14, 21–22, 37, 39, 41–42, 49–54, 64, 69, 100, 154, 164, 187. See also hole; zansi; enhla cattle looting and rustling, 42, 69, 96, 99, 108, 113, 159 cattle-branding, 99 chiefs, Kalanga, 7, 35, 38, 44, 46–47, 57, 68, 72–77, 80–81, 89–92, 105, 120, 139, 183, 201, 243n78, 244n83, 247n146, 249n37

298

Index

chieftaincy, Kalanga, 21, 47, 72, 89 Chikerema, James, 184, 190, 195–99, 201, 203–8 Christianity, 4, 66, 88 City Youth League, 184, 199 Cold Comfort Farm, 195–96, 199, 201, 276n80 colonial police, 110, 132, 136, 143, 146, 150–54, 157, 160, 187 colonialism, general, 3, 6–8, 10–12, 14–15, 21–22, 41, 54, 66–67, 72, 75, 106, 124, 127, 166, 178, 186–87, 189, 259n35, 259n40, 263n19 communities, Kalanga, 7, 9, 11, 16, 21, 23, 30, 32–33, 37, 42–45, 47, 48, 64–65, 68–72, 76–78, 84, 88, 91–92, 105, 122, 189, 243n78 Dabengwa, Dumiso, 27, 198, 219, 239n72 Dakamela, James Banya, 156–57, 159, 161, 166 demotic constructivism, 2, 9, 54, 59, 62, 71, 91, 129, 130, 212, 223 dissidents, 211–13, 215–25, 282n61, 284n117, 284n123 Doke, C. M., 117–21, 126 Dombodema, 44, 72, 81, 121, 123, 125, 181, 189, 206 Empandeni, 60, 72, 83, 121–22, 126, 132. See also Impande enhla, Ndebele, caste system, 37, 50, 53, 57, 59, 61, 144 Entumbane, 169, 171, 187–88, 217–19, 281n40 ethnic labeling, 39–40, 54, 116, 133, 141–42, 150, 199, 200, 236n8 ethnic other(s), 5, 6, 53, 70–71, 84–85, 92, 112–13, 143, 178, 207 ethnic patriotism, 18, 47, 54, 72, 120, 129, 135, 142–43, 154–55, 161, 164, 191 ethnic pride, 51, 58, 124–25, 127, 133, 135, 162, 175, 191 ethnosymbolism, 15–16 evictees, colonial era, 15, 29, 83, 88, 130

evictions, colonial era, 4, 14, 16–17, 28, 67, 85, 102, 137, 144, 151, 167, 181, 189, 281n46 faction fights, of Bulawayo, 1929, 145–53 Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 182–85, 196, 209, 230 Fifth Brigade, 212–13, 217–21, 226–28, 284n117. See also Gukurahundi Fingo people, 7, 15, 50, 103, 139, 140, 148–49, 173, 182. See also migrants; Mbembesi frontier theory, 20, 31–34 Gaba (Egabeni), 45, 57, 69, 80 Gambo, chief, 45, 69, 72–73, 80, 97, 99, 102, 114 gangs (including amalaita gangs), Bulawayo of, 146, 151, 154, 157, 159–60 gukurahundi, 18, 180, 211–13, 217, 219, 224, 227, 231–32, 284n114 Gwakuba Ndlovu, Saul, 201, 243n71, 246n128 hole (amahole, holes), Ndebele caste system, 21, 31, 49–50, 51, 53–56, 58–59, 61, 64, 68–70, 82, 99, 100, 112, 124, 154, 164, 169, 175, 177, 205–6, 226, 246n127, 246n132, 252n95, 281n47 Hope Fountain, 120, 124–26, 259n36 Howard Training Institute, 119 Hyde Park, 155–56, 159, 174, 265n57, 267n105 Ilihlo Lomuzi, 143–44, 150, 158 Impande Ndebele regiment, 45, 57, 60. See also Empandeni incorporation (political and social), 14, 33, 35, 48–49, 56, 67. See also Ndebele assimilation indaba, 74–75, 86, 192 Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU), 114, 151, 153, 164, 167, 264n42 isiNdebele, 5, 16, 23, 28, 36, 40, 46, 48–49, 51, 54, 58–64, 70–71, 100, 115–32, 134, 142, 156, 164–66,

Index 299 180–81, 190, 197, 209, 220, 223, 233, 247n145, 259n35, 259n47, 260n57, 260n66, 264n35, 276n83, 279n151 Jones, LMS Rev. Neville, 120, 259n36 Kalanga Cultural Society (Plumtree Home Society), 133, 171, 174, 176– 77, 182, 184, 207, 272n212 Kalanga culture, 71, 119, 123, 222 Kalanga Culture Promotion Society, 222 Kalanga dress, 48–49, 54 Kalanga headmen, 22, 46, 68, 80–81, 84, 89, 201–2, 243n78 Kalanga New Testament, 120 Karanga people, 63, 118–19, 144, 147, 176 Karlen, Archbishop Henry, 212 Khama (Tswana chief), 43–45, 72, 77–80, 102 Khulube, Makhoba, 122, 124–25, 172–74 Khumalo, Rev. Mtompe, 59, 125–26, 245n115 Khumalo, Mtshane, 94–96 Khumalo, Nyamanda, 94, 100, 102–5, 114, 246n127, 255n57, 255n59, 255n66 Khumalo, Nyanda, 169, 171 Khumalo, Tshakalisa, 94, 114 King’s cattle, (inkomo zobukhosi), 93–94, 98–100, 104, 107–8, 110–14, 159 knobkerries, 132, 150–52, 156 Kumile, Masola, 35, 240n18, 241n23 Land Apportionment Act, 77, 85, 167 Land Husbandry Act, 89, 167, 189 language debates, 22–23, 115–17, 119– 20, 127, 130, 135 Lapalapa, (including “Kitchen kaffir”), 130, 141, 164, 264n35, 269n146 lingua franca, 44, 48, 60, 64, 70, 130–31, 164, 197, 224, 259n35 literature, Kalanga, 120–22, 134 loafers, in Bulawayo, 138, 146, 147, 153 Lobengula, Albert and Rhodes, 105–14, 158, 268n139 Lobengula, Ndebele king, 23, 41–43, 45–48, 51–52, 55, 57–58, 60, 66, 72,

80, 82, 87, 93–95, 97–98, 101–2, 107, 110–11, 113, 120, 133, 136, 159, 170, 172–73, 186–88, 197 Lobengula, Njube, 94–99, 101–2, 104, 110, 113 Lobola, politics of, 31, 55, 69–70, 96, 98, 246n127 London Missionary Society (LMS), 45, 58–59, 61–62, 76, 88, 120–26, 128, 260n57 Loyal Mandebele Patriotic Society, 150, 158, 265n49 loyalty, political, 43, 47–48, 70, 73, 77–78, 90, 95, 105, 198, 253n9 Lozi, including Bulozi, 36, 42 Lozikeyi, Ndebele Queen, 99, 186–87, 226–27, 256n70, 274n37 Luza, Brown, 132, 164, 168, 174, 177, 183 Mabikwa, chief, 187, 202, 226 Maduna, chief, 99, 107–10, 112, 114, 181 Madyambudzi chieftaincy, 20, 81, 89–91, 189, 244n84, 249n34 Madyambudzi community, 18, 87, 89–90, 123, 181, 189, 221, 227 Madzete. See also Madyambudzi chieftaincy, 89–90, 189 Magama, chief, 72, 77, 81–82, 139 Makokoba Township, (Native Location), 132, 136, 138, 142, 145–46, 148, 150–53, 156, 158, 160, 165 Malaba, Kalanga chief, 72, 81, 83, 99, 175 Malalume, also Madandume or Matundume, 45, 47, 72, 74, 76–77, 79, 81, 244n82 Mangubo, headman, 90–91, 95 Manyika people, 15, 66, 117–18, 128, 144, 147, 151–52, 156–58, 176, 209 Manyoba, Siphambaniso, 136, 164, 169 Mapotoko, 40, 124, 259n47. See also ethnic labeling Mashonaland Cultural Society, Sons of, 174, 184, 186, 191, 193 Masotsha Ndlovu, 184–85, 264n42

300

Index

Masuku, Lookout, 219 Masunda, D. A., 133, 172–74 Matabeleland Home Society, 67, 107, 114, 130–33, 143–44, 149, 156–59, 164–74, 176–78, 181–84, 186, 191, 193, 230–32, 269n149, 272n225 Matopos, 14–15, 27–29, 63, 66–69, 75, 81, 95, 99, 106, 120, 122, 167, 181, 186–89, 192–93, 201, 209. 259n35 Mazivisa, Amos, 132, 164, 172–73, 272n225, 274n41 MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), 211, 232 Mengwe (Menu), Kalanga chief, 45, 47, 72, 74, 76, 79, 81, 244n84, 249n34, 249n37 migrant workers, 10–11, 148. See also Cape Boys migrants, general, 142, 146, 148–49, 157, 159, 233 military drills, Bulawayo, 157, 159–61 missionaries general, 10–12, 19, 23, 38, 40, 49–51, 53, 57–64, 70, 76, 107, 115–21, 126, 135, 187, 244n83, 247n145, 247n146 Mlugulu, 94–95 Moffat, Robert, 41–42, 59, 242n52, 247n146 moral ethnicity, 2, 6, 13, 16, 117, 129, 197 Moto ( Roman Catholic magazine), 218, 223, 283n101 Moyo, Jason Ziyapapa, 173, 175–76, 184, 190–91, 196, 198, 201, 203–5, 207–8, 279n148 Mphoeng, chief, 78, 89 Mphoengs (community), 19, 88, 227 Mpini Ndiweni, chief, 20, 45, 72–73, 76, 80–85, 88–91, 97, 99, 170, 189 Msika, Joseph, 173, 184, 190, 193, 196, 198, 201, 206 Mugabe, Robert, 25, 89, 188, 190, 193, 195–96, 198, 208, 212–23, 226–27, 233, 279n148, 281n26, 282n61 Mwali worship, 13, 28, 57, 187–88 Mzenda, Simon, 173, 184 Mzilethi, Rev. Amos, 55, 124, 125

Mzilikazi, Ndebele king, 39, 42–43, 55, 57, 59–60, 99, 143, 168–70, 172, 174–75, 186–88, 201, 235n7, 242n46, 247n146 Mzilikazi Family Society, 174, 177, 200, 232, 272n207 Mzingeli, Charles, 184–85 Nambya people, 11, 42, 47, 104, 119, 144, 170, 176, 181, 197, 222, 224, 232 National Democratic Party, NDP, 9, 188– 92, 196–97, 199, 201, 239n55 Native Affairs Department, 78, 85, 127, 162 native reserves, 74, 83, 85, 102–3 Native Reserves Commission, 83, 99 Ndau people, identity, 13, 30, 116, 118, 128, 190, 197, 209 Ndebele assimilation (assimilado), 13–14, 17, 21, 40, 49, 51, 53–54, 56–57, 64, 70, 72, 83, 127, 175, 177 Ndebele culture (generally), 2, 48, 54, 70, 99, 143, 155, 164, 169, 171, 183, 222, 224, 231 Ndebele divorcees, 69 Ndebele dress, 54, 109, 124 Ndebele head chief(s), also Induna, 66, 72–73, 75–76, 80, 90, 99, 101, 167, 181 Ndebele language. See isiNdebele Ndebele raids, 14, 21, 36–37, 41–49, 52–54, 71, 111, 187, 226, 242n43 Ndebele slaves and servants, 50–53, 55, 58, 60–61, 67–70, 74, 78, 187 Ndebele traditions, disputable nature of, 22, 130 ndebelecized, 39, 50, 57, 65, 70, 81, 176, 190, 252n95. See also Ndebele assimilation; incorporation Ndiweni, Chief Kaisa, 18, 254 Ndlovu Calistus, 223, 284n114 Ngano, Martha, 143, 149 Ngcebetsha, Charleton C., 129, 149, 173, 260n74, 273n21 Nguni (Abenguni), 36–39, 53–56, 100, 112, 130, 135, 168, 171, 175, 223. See also caste system; zansi

Index 301 Njube township (Western Commonage No. 3), 133, 174 Nkala, Enos, 190, 197–98, 215–17, 221, 224–25, 242n43, 256n70, 281n40, 281n41, 284n123 Nkala, Lazarus, 173, 176, 184, 191, 272n217 Nkomo, Joshua, 14–15, 27–28, 182–85, 187–93, 195–202, 204, 206, 208, 212, 214–20, 222–23, 225–27, 321–32, 276n83, 277n106, 280n138, 280n21 Nkomo, Stephen, 164, 200 Nkosikazi community, 186–87, 189, 221, 226, 245n118 Nkulumane Township, (aka Inketa Hills), 155, 157, 159 Nqama chieftaincies, 28, 66 Nswazvi, chief (Mswazi), 45, 72, 74, 76–78, 81, 182 Ntabazinduna, 18, 126, 167, 189, 221, 242n43, 284n122 Nyandoro, George, 184, 190, 195–99, 201, 203–5, 208 Nyubi clan, 35, 67, 247n31 Osaba (Osabeni). See Zimnyama area Parirenyatwa, Samuel, 203 political tribalism, 5, 13, 16, 47–48, 117, 129, 179, 191, 197, 200, 205, 207, 224 political vacuum, in Ndebele state, 69, 95 popular resistance, in Matabeleland, 26, 42, 51, 68, 77, 82, 89, 99, 120, 187, 189, 202, 225 precolonial ethnicity, 6, 10, 14, 20, 30, 64, 120 precolonial inequalities, in Ndebele state, 34, 187, 229. See also King’s cattle primordialism, 3, 10 prostitution, in Bulawayo, 137, 142–44, 165–66, 263n12 Ranger, Terence, 13–15, 25–30, 66–67, 104–5, 136–37, 148–50, 156, 181, 184, 211, 217, 263n11

Reed, C. H., LMS missionary, 71, 248n15 regionalism (regional identity), Ndebele and Matabeleland, 25, 29, 67, 135, 176, 180, 191, 201, 208–10, 212, 222, 228, 232–33, 279n151 Residents (Tenant) Associations (of Bulawayo), 172, 177, 271n188 Roman Catholics, Matabeleland in, 58, 60–61, 83, 88, 121, 126, 258n15 Rozvi, polity and people, 1, 5, 13, 34–36, 39–40, 42, 47, 50, 54, 67, 79, 123, 156, 168, 175, 242n48 Samkange, Rev. T. D., 126, 128–29, 183–85 Sangulube, chieftaincy (or headmanship), 47, 71–72, 81, 84, 88, 244n84, 249n87 Sangulube community. See also Brunapeg, 41, 84, 88, 189 Semokwe reserve, 83–84, 120 Setswana, Tswana language, 48, 57, 62–63, 119–20 sexually transmitted diseases, in Bulawayo, 166, 178 Shangani reserve, 13, 15, 29, 108, 136, 167, 187, 203 Shona insolence (insolent), 141, 149, 155, 159, 162 Shona tribalism, 25, 133, 154, 162, 173– 74, 197, 221–22, 275n79 Silundika, George, 190–91, 196, 198, 201, 203, 205, 207 Sinete, chief, 45, 72, 74, 76, 81 Sithole, Ndabaningi, 190, 193, 195, 197, 199, 202, 276n82, 277n119, 278n130 Sitimela, P., 84, 88 Smith, Ian Douglas, 202, 205, 208 social constructivist(s)/constructivism, 6, 8, 10–11, 13–15, 30, 62, 237n34, 258n19 Solusi mission school, 121–22 Somabulane, Ndebele chief, 82, 94–95 Stanley Square, 176, 185 stateless societies, 31, 34–35, 48, 240n14

302

Index

Talahundra Kalanga. See also Sangulube community/chieftaincy, 41, 43, 45, 47, 71–72, 81, 84–85, 87–89, 175, 189 Tategulu, Kalanga chief, 72, 77, 139 Tati, 41, 47, 48, 71, 99, 119 tax evasion, 45, 68, 77–78 Tjikalanga (incl. Kalanga language), 2, 7, 16, 23, 29, 31, 42, 44, 48–49, 57, 62–64, 68, 70, 115–16, 118–23, 123, 125, 130–31, 133–35, 175, 178, 190– 91, 222, 228, 238n53, 252n108 Tonga people, 4, 11, 13, 104, 112, 116, 118, 140, 147, 153, 181, 222, 224, 232 Torwa state, 34–35, 240n19 Traditional religion, African, 57, 63, 66, 180, 187–88. See also Mwali worship traditional rituals, Kalanga, 68, 88 Tshitshi, chief, 83, 88–89, 252n95 Tsholotsho, 45, 122, 130, 164, 166, 219 Tswana people, 7, 31, 39, 41–42, 63–64, 92, 128, 134 ultraroyalism, 93–114 uMthwakazi kaMzilikazi, 232 urban cosmopolitanism, 6, 144, 161 Venda people, 4, 11, 54, 80, 104, 118, 144, 168, 181, 197, 209, 212, 217, 224, 232 vigilante, groups Bulawayo, 9, 159–60, 178, 217

“we groups,” ethnicity, expressions of, 6, 12–13 White City Stadium, 216, 217 xenophobic, people and behavior, 25, 143, 164 Youth Brigade Movement, 225, 284n122 Zanke (Hwange) chief, 42 zansi, Ndebele caste system, 21–22, 31, 37–39, 49–64, 70, 82–83, 94, 100, 104–5, 108, 112–13, 127–30, 144, 164, 168–69, 177, 226, 235n7, 242n57, 246n127. See also Nguni ZANU, 11, 18, 25–26, 29, 179, 190, 192– 203, 205–9, 212–24, 227, 230–33 ZANU propaganda, including Zimbabwe news, 199, 203, 205 ZANU-PF government, 9, 29, 92, 218, 231 ZAPU, including PCC, 9, 18, 25–29, 168, 173, 179–80, 184, 188, 192–210, 211–31 Zezuru, 54, 117–19, 128, 144, 190, 209, 268n139 Zimbabwe Peoples’ Voice, ZAPU propaganda, 199, 279n149 Zimbabwe Review, ZAPU propaganda, 199, 201 Zimnyama area, 45, 57, 72, 80–81, 89, 121, 123, 259n48

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The United States and Decolonization in West Africa, 1950–1960 Ebere Nwaubani Health, State, and Society in Kenya George Oduor Ndege Black Business and Economic Power Edited by Alusine Jalloh and Toyin Falola Voices of the Poor in Africa Elizabeth Isichei Colonial Rule and Crisis in Equatorial Africa: Southern Gabon ca. 1850–1940 Christopher J. Gray The Politics of Frenchness in Colonial Algeria, 1930–1954 Jonathan K. Gosnell Sources and Methods in African History: Spoken, Written, Unearthed Edited by Toyin Falola and Christian Jennings Sudan’s Blood Memory: The Legacy of War, Ethnicity, and Slavery in Early South Sudan Stephanie Beswick

Writing Ghana, Imagining Africa: Nation and African Modernity Kwaku Larbi Korang Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807–1956 Gareth Austin Not So Plain as Black and White: AfroGerman Culture and History, 1890–2000 Edited by Patricia Mazón and Reinhild Steingröver Writing African History Edited by John Edward Philips African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective Edited by Steven J. Salm and Toyin Falola Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics Edited by Toyin Falola and Ann Genova Constructions of Belonging: Igbo Communities and the Nigerian State in the Twentieth Century Axel Harneit-Sievers Sufi City: Urban Design and Archetypes in Touba Eric Ross A Political History of The Gambia, 1816–1994 Arnold Hughes and David Perfect The Abolition of the Slave Trade in Southeastern Nigeria, 1885–1950 A. E. Afigbo HIV/AIDS, Illness, and African Well-Being Edited by Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius Edited by Bernth Lindfors

Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa: The Tragedy of Endowment Abiodun Alao Crafting Identity in Zimbabwe and Mozambique Elizabeth MacGonagle Locality, Mobility, and “Nation”: Periurban Colonialism in Togo’s Eweland, 1900–1960 Benjamin N. Lawrance Sufism and Jihad in Modern Senegal: The Murid Order John Glover Indirect Rule in South Africa: Tradition, Modernity, and the Costuming of Political Power J. C. Myers The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1940–1964 Timothy Scarnecchia Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in Ethiopia, 1960–1974 Messay Kebede The United States and West Africa: Interactions and Relations Edited by Alusine Jalloh and Toyin Falola Ben Enwonwu:The Making of an African Modernist Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie Representing Bushmen: South Africa and the Origin of Language Shane Moran Afro-Brazilians: Cultural Production in a Racial Democracy Niyi Afolabi

Movements, Borders, and Identities in Africa Edited by Toyin Falola and Aribidesi Usman Africans and the Politics of Popular Culture Edited by Toyin Falola and Augustine Agwuele Political Culture and Nationalism in Malawi: Building Kwacha Joey Power Women’s Authority and Society in Early East-Central Africa Christine Saidi Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World Solimar Otero White Chief, Black Lords: Shepstone and the Colonial State in Natal, South Africa, 1845–1878 Thomas V. McClendon Narrating War and Peace in Africa Edited by Toyin Falola and Hetty ter Haar Ira Aldridge: The Early Years, 1807-1833 Bernth Lindfors

Ira Aldridge: The Vagabond Years, 1833–1852 Bernth Lindfors African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923–80 Timothy Stapleton Globalization and Sustainable Development in Africa Edited by Bessie House-Soremekun and Toyin Falola The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade Rebecca Shumway Western Frontiers of African Art Moyo Okediji Women and Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Cuba Sarah L. Franklin Ethnicity in Zimbabwe: Transformations in Kalanga and Ndebele Societies, 1860–1990 Enocent Msindo