Chronicles Of Tshabalala Clan In Mhlongamvula & Its Exodus

Dedication & Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to my great-great grandfather, the late Crown Prince Makhubane Tshabalala, son of King Sampekwane Tshabalala, who lived in the 19th century at Mhlongamvula, Simakadze, Mpumalanga, South Africa (formerly old Swaziland). He was one of the great-great grandsons of King Ludvonga I. ‘His father, King Sampekwane Tshabalala, ruled the Tshabalala Clan in this area during the early 19th century’. King Sampekwane Tshabalala had three sons from the three of his houses, being Ndembu commonly known as Jozi, Mpanga and his youngest son, Makhubane. Oral history depicts that after the passing on of King Sampekwane Tshabalala, his youngest son, being the Crown Prince Makhubane ascended to the royal throne and ruled Mhlongamvula. In Swazi culture, no king can appoint his successor. It is worth mentioning that only the royal family decides which of the king’s wives shall be ‘Great Wife’ and ‘Indlovukati’ (She-Elephant/Queen Mother). Thus, the son of this ‘Great Wife’ will automatically become the next king or ruler. Nevertheless, there are conditions to be fulfilled, being the ‘Great Wife’ must have one son, be of good character and come from a good family and she must not be a ritual wife (i.e. the eldest son is never the heir). The crown can only be crowned as the king after the late king’s wives have gone through a mourning period of at least two years. Simply, in Swazi culture, a king’s first two wives are chosen for him by the royal elders. These two wives have special functions in rituals and their sons can never claim kingship. Afterwards the king is free to take as many wives as he likes.

Sadly, after the death of the Crown Prince Makhubane, Prince Mathe who was the son of Mangethe (who was the brother of King Sampenkwane from the other senior house) commonly known as Ndawonde got installed as the King. The son of King Mathe, namely Lisokanchanti who was commonly known as Madlangempisi became one of the heroes and great warriors hence he earned the said name. Simply, the Crown Prince Makhubane Tshabalala was an uncle of King Madlangempisi Tshabalala.

A hero’s enduring spirit transcends many worlds beyond our own and only those with a steadfast dedication like his find a bond with the core values of honour, courage and commitment that he exemplified. I salute him for his bravery and resilience as one of the charismatic warriors who survived the Mfecane wars. The battles he fought along the Mkhondvo and Mabola rivers and in the caves of the Simakadze, Mandlangampisi and Igcuku peaks to defend our heritage and fight for our survival shall never be forgotten. His courageous leadership displayed a good sense of humour and a calming demeanour that reassured many under the most trying of conditions.

It is worth mentioning that Crown Prince Makhubane Tshabalala had two sons, namely Ngobende and Maphanga from one of his wives. It is believed that Ngobende who my family lineage originated from left Mhlongamvula and he was among the Tshabalala people who left with King Simahla Tshabalala and his sudden émigré departure early in the 1860s from this ancestral land to the wilderness will be in our memories for a lifetime. I understand his course of action and the pain of migrating elsewhere and I commend his natural wit, humility, leadership, courage, love and dedication, among other stirling character traits, because I’m one of his great-great grandchildren alive today in the family lineage that originated with him.

To my other adored ‘ancestors’ and beloved offspring of the late Prince Makhubane, his great grandson, Magedla; my grandfather, Msongelwa kaMagedla; and my father, Muzimkhulu kaMsongelwa – I wish they were around but of course their spirits live on. I have made it and their dreams are finally fulfilled. I am becoming the light of the Tshabalala Clan, and indeed my country.

I am indebted to, and would like to express my profound appreciation of, the following people for their contributions and support, which made it possible for this book to be available today.

To my lovely family and indeed a great team, particularly my wife, Thandie, and our three sons, Muzimkhulu, Makhubane Jnr and Mbongiseni, yes, it is possible for those who wait. Thank you for allowing me to work even on weekends and after hours to produce this book. You are a source of encouragement indeed.

Jonathan Musvaba, the talented and meticulous designer of the cover of my book, I thank you for your sacrifice and energy in assisting me with this unique cover.

The dedicated officials of the National Archives and Records Services in South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Britain and Germany and the many helpful members of the general public whom I interviewed orally during my extensive reseach prior to writing this historic book. I would like to take this opportunity to express gratitude to the various missionary institutions particularly from their archival resources and libraries including the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in South Africa, the Methodist church, etc. Reach Publishers and their editors for making my historic book a reality, a book of legacy, memoirs and quest. I thank them earnestly, and with sincerity. Words cannot express how grateful I am to all of them. God bless you all.

Glory be to Almighty God, who is the giver of life and sustainer of living beings. I thank Him for making me part of His plans, even for our Tshabalala Clan and the world. My earnest prayer is that all humankind will find inspiration from reading this book. This book is a quest to link our past to the present for our heritage. I cherish each time God Almighty revealed to me the greater detail of my Tshabalala Clan’s history. He wholeheartedly assisted me in accomplishing the research and inspired me to write this historic book.

Since the beginning of this undertaking, I have gained a deeper understanding that the conception of human life is blessed and planned by God Almighty. I owe my very existence to God Almighty, who inspired my conception down through the successive lives of our Tshabalala forefathers, originating from King Ludvonga I, to their unsolemn and yet desperate exit from Mhlongamvula.

After a long and fascinating journey, my reward is this historic book, which is a testament of my endurance and the accomplishment of a goal I set for myself, being a quest for many of my Tshabalala blood relatives across the globe. But, in the end, the joy and gratitude I feel toward God Almighty, who introduced my ancestors to me spiritually and allowed me to write about them, is truly a great honour and triumph.

This book is a tribute to you, Mkhulu Makhubane, to honour your selfless sacrifice in the defence of others and to make known your heroism in Mhlongamvula.

Prologue from the Author

As the author of these chronicles, I beg to submit to a critical public my maturing literary venture on clan history and novel writing. Without undue commercial, I had produced a great work of art as the author of the best-selling and award-winning and nominated novel called Smoke Of Forgiveness, which was set against the flow of history of South Africa from the apartheid era to the present time. Moreover, the histories of our Tshabalala Clan in general that have come to my notice have been rather tiresome and uninteresting because of their extreme length and the presence of oral history and to some extent written history.

I flatter myself that my work is different from these histories because of my free use of certain information and I hope that this use may prove an incentive to further research, on the part of my readers, to send them back to the original sources to refresh their memories and to make them appreciate, by comparison, their own happy lot. I have endeavoured to be authentic and to refrain from criticism or unpleasant comment, or a too close adherence to presenting rigid detail in some cases. I have also tried to weld a chain of events, from the earliest mention of King Ludvonga I to the present time.

As author and historian, I am pleased to assist in bringing the heritage and history of this great Tshabalala Clan to all members of this truly diverse people and to the world. I have researched the history of our clan for a long time and I am duty bound to share the memoirs with this truly international family. My key purpose in writing this book has been to uncover our clan history and set about bringing the heritage and history to prominence.

Furthermore, the purpose of The Chronicles of the Tshabalala Clan in Mhlongamvula and its Exodus is to make available the history of the clan and the events that it lived through. Of course, it is impossible to cover every family and event, and my knowledge of the Tshabalala Clan is mainly confined to the Tshabalala communities in old Swaziland and South Africa. Whilst I have some knowledge of those who went to other neighbouring countries, such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and many current provinces of South Africa, as I have less access to records there, my knowledge of the homelands and our history is much wider.

This clan’s patriarch of the entire family had a large brood of offspring, which are the descendants of King Ludvonga I. The Tshabalala Clan might be ancient, but modern values and certain ailments have caught up with them. Many Tshabalala people are illiterate and unemployed, some seem to be commitment phobic in general and many of the Tshabalala daughters’ marriages are broken. Nonetheless, the Tshabalala Clan believes in its importance and image and takes great pains to maintain these.

Lastly, The Chronicles of the Tshabalala Clan in Mhlongamvula and its Exodus is interesting from another point of view. It is full of accounts of wonderful wealth and deeds, of superhuman efforts to make rain and of healing herbs, apart from its historical reconstruction.

Hoping for a favourable reception from this same critical public, I am truly yours,

Nelson Makhubane Tshabalala

Monologue from the Author

Prejudice and Limited Historical Understanding

At this juncture, one might wonder why the proponents of the Western world, with particular reference to the first missionaries who settled in the old Swaziland, in their general perspective fell short of recognising the Tshabalala Clan roots within the Swazi tribe sphere. To the largest extent, this lack of recognition could be considered as a matter of mere prejudice and perhaps limited historical understanding of the Tshabalala Clan, coupled with pressure from the Dlamini Clan in contention with the Tshabalala Clan over the royal throne of the Swazi tribe.

The prejudicial background of the Western historians’ perspective, which resulted in the limited capturing of the Tshabalala Clan history in contrast to the Dlamini Clan history, is rooted in the perception of African kingdoms by the Western imperialists, colonialists and even neo-colonialists who came to the African continent during the 19th and 20th centuries. Most of the imperialists and colonialists came to Africa with the conviction that the continent was far behind in terms of human progress and had therefore no urban civilisation in its past. Simple arguments such as the absence of well-articulated social structures that consisted of nobility, peasantry and proletariat were used to rationalise their position.

Accordingly, any remains of such civilisations whenever encountered were simply attributed to some non-African groups, which were deemed to be superior to Africans. This falsification of African history was embraced in the colonial doctrine with the purpose of stripping Africans of their confidence so as to make them vulnerable to colonial patronisation and control. The precursors of the missionaries, most of whom were Westerners themselves, either shared the above colonial perception of Africa or were influenced by it. Accordingly, their efforts were more or less geared towards only providing evidence in support of their perception. It is not surprising therefore that they received greatest intellectual respect from colonial administrations in many parts of Africa, including Swaziland. Some of their works were even adopted by colonial governments as standard history textbooks for schools. Moreover, other non-Africans like Arabs seized the opportunity provided by the colonial attitude. This was especially true in East Africa, mainly Kenya, where the Swazi tribe was unceremoniously forced to leave this fertile country as a result of the brutal slavery by the Arabs and Portuguese during the 8th century.

Briefly, many missionaries managed to elevate the Western world over Africa through fabrication of deceptive stories and exaggerating their contribution to the African civilisation by using the virtuous Holy Bible. In-depth research into the pre-colonial history of the Swazi tribe’s land, particularly that of the Amakhosi and their people where the mission stations were situated, is needed for current and future generations to know and learn about this history. The encounter of the Swazis and the missionaries had good and bad results. The encounter was good in that the missionaries brought the news of the liberating Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and bad because the process entailed land dispossession, which dated back to the mid-1850s, particularly in Mhlongamvula, from where the Tshabalala Clan originated.

There was prejudice in the past (and even today) that denied African people, including the Swazi tribe, to tie their history to their own historical urban spatial forms in many respects. Personally, I am tempted to question the rationality of associating the Egyptian pyramids with Arabs while there is reasonable evidence that the construction of the pyramids took place long before the Arabic migration into Northern Africa. It was also only after highly publicised evidence from some recent archaeological works, such as those of Reisner and Friedrich Hinkel as well as Dr Nana Banchie Darkwah, author of the book The Africans Who Wrote the Bible, that Sudan’s Nubian historical towns along the Nile River, including Gebel Barkal and Meroe, were recognised as having African origins. The archaeological findings in Sudan, and particularly the contents of tombs, paintings and engravings in building structures, suggested firmly that the rulers – Pharaohs of the ancient Sudanese towns like Taharka – were Africans.

Defining African Identity Today

With greater interaction with non-Africans, Arabs and later Europeans, this sense of or necessity for a centralised globalised African identity must be revisited to allow the African scholars’ dialogues to take root with the ethnogenesis, especially in Africa and in the Diaspora. Blackness, however, is a term imposed at the moment of conquest by the European oppressors and never by Africans themselves. Moreover, the callous classification of African people as the Black race disconnects them from their land of origin and, hence, claiming their birth-right and geographical area is becoming a worsening challenge nowadays.

The people of Africa is more than a name and is linked to indigenous rights and issues of sovereignty. African-ness and skin colour are not verifications of each other. The Blackness categorisation fails at every level in both the historical and political contexts. Africans are the natural people of Africa. The diverse hair textures and the diverse skin hues are all specific adaptations to living in the diverse African landscapes. For this reason alone skin blackness is certainly not a marker of African identity; far too many native Africans, depending on geography, have light skin. The Motherland of these adaptations and cultures is primarily Africa; hence, the relevance of the name. African refers exclusively to the historical people of Africa and their descendants in the Diaspora. In plain language, no one is an African unless they can also be considered a Black person. But not every Black person is an African.

Unfortunately, the most distinctive feature of this African identity, beyond relative phenotypical similarities, is the history of global race-based oppression by the European colonialists, particularly the apartheid regime in South Africa and many other parts of Africa. Archaeologically, in every instance, European’s self-interest was the overriding factor that defined the boundaries of African-ness by creating the falsified race theories that Africans are black.

Black, or Blackness, tells you how you look without telling you who you are, whereas Africa, or Africana, relates you to land, history, and culture. – J. H. Clarke

We are not Africans because we are born in Africa, we are Africans because Africa is born in us. – Chester Higgins, Jr.

The time has come for all Africans to take ownership of their true identity and choice, more so now than ever before. As Africans we should not allow circumstances to change our original identities and the terminologies used to refer to us so that we are referred to as Blacks and are forced to take on an identity from derogatory terms and belittling alternatives.

The Endangered Swazi Language of the Tshabalala Clan Alone

An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use as its speakers die out or shift to speaking another language. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers, and becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all, it becomes an extinct language. Although languages have always become extinct throughout human history, they are currently disappearing at an accelerated rate due to the processes of globalisation and neo-colonialism, resulting in the economically and culturally powerful languages dominating other languages.

Firstly, because the Southern African states are sovereign countries with their respective Constitutions and Bills of Rights, they have multi-lingual societies that have certain unique linguistic problems that are left over from the unfortunate legacies of former policies of colonisation. On one level, in many parts of these countries, tensions existed between the use of indigenous languages