1. NATIVES AND RUINS
IT may easily be imagined that researches as to the origin of the ruins cannot be furthered by inquiries instituted among the present native peoples as to any history or tradition concerning these structures. The chief value, however, of such inquiries is that they enable us to realise in what conditions both the ruins and the district have existed during the last few centuries. But such inquiries only take us back to a period of two hundred years short of that time when Portuguese writers referred to these buildings.
The migratory character of the South African natives is well known. Not only whole nations move, but the tribes among themselves move also, thus making it exceedingly difficult to trace their migrations except for a few generations back. The Portuguese historians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries referred to the Makalanga nation as occupying this country with their centre at “the Great Zimbabwe,” where resided the Monomotapa, or supreme chief, and where was “the mightie wall of five and twenty spans thick.” Three hundred years after this was written we find a dense population of Makalanga (“the People of the Sun”) still occupying Southern Mashonaland and forming the great bulk of its inhabitants.[27] In this respect, though their various tribes have frequently changed localities, the Makalanga as a general rule have not followed the migratory custom of South African peoples. Makalanga are to be found in both Matabeleland and Mashonaland, but mainly in the latter province, where the Chicaranga language, which Dos Santos in 1602 described as “the best and most polished of all Kafir languages which I have seen in this Ethiopia,” is still the language of the nation. Makalanga are also to be found in Barotseland, whither the Barotse[28] and their dependents the Makalanga migrated, in 1836–8, just previously to, and at the time of, the Matabele invasion of what is now known as Matabeleland.
A MAKALANGA, ZIMBABWE
THE CAMP WATCHMAN (KUMURI)
But for nearly four hundred years the historical relations and the very existence of the Makalanga and their history were forgotten. From being a powerful and semi-civilised people (see The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia, chapter x.) they have become a people of no account—mere “Makalaka,” as the people of the present Bechuanaland scornfully called them in reference to their present slavish position. To their successive conquerors they have always been but “dogs of slaves.”
So far as the purely local natives are concerned, the following notes, based upon a series of conferences of the oldest native authorities held at Zimbabwe during 1902 and 1903, at which Mr. Alfred Drew, Native Commissioner, the Rev. A. A. Louw, Dutch Reformed Mission near Zimbabwe, and Dr. Helm, Medical Missionary, and other admitted authorities on native language and customs, have taken part, will explain the local occupations for almost if not more than one hundred and fifty years. The local Makalanga, Barotse, and Amangwa are agreed upon the correctness of the statements here recorded, and the information so obtained has also been verified by the above-named gentlemen in other quarters.
(a) In this portion of Southern Mashonaland the Makalanga have formed, since long before 1570, the greatest portion of the population, especially in the Zimbabwe district. This is both history and also well-rooted tradition among the natives, going back for very many generations.
(b) The Makalanga have been subject to several successive conquerors, of whom the Barotse in Mashonaland and the Matabele in Matabeleland were the last. They have only very indistinct traditions as to their previous conquerors.
(c) The Barotse occupied both provinces, establishing central strongholds in all districts. They collected tribute from the Makalanga, and this was taken every year from all the centres to the Mambo or Mamba, the dynastic chief, for the time being, of the Barotse. And these Mambos resided at Thabas Imamba. Both Makalanga and Barotse were, and still are, most excellent builders with stones. [Mr. Drew minutely cross-examined the natives with regard to the situation or identity of Thabas Imamba]. This is the fixed belief of every Barotse who is questioned on the subject, and the old men say it is also within their own knowledge. Before this fresh evidence was obtained, the authors of The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia had published a similar statement on the strength of evidences secured in Matabeleland. Mr. Neal also stated that no ruin in Rhodesia showed more evidences of extensive and prolonged occupation than did the ruins on Thabas Imamba.
(d) Jerri’s people (Barotse) never lived at or near Zimbabwe, as white men had believed they had, but they left what they called “The Great Buildings of Stone” (Khami) west of where Bulawayo now stands in 1836–7, and moved to Jerri Mountains, seventy miles south of Zimbabwe. They left Khami immediately before the Matabele arrived. On passing through Zimbabwe they encamped for one night only on a hill one mile west of the ruins. There are many old men who remember these circumstances, while the general local belief is that Jerri’s people lived at Khami Ruins, which are well known to the natives here. [It has always been contended that this tribe of Barotse resided at Khami for very many generations, but there are very many evidences in support of this established belief, which are now in hand, and are now forthcoming.]
(e) The head kraal of the Zimbabwe Barotse was at the foot of the south-east side of the Rusivanga Kopje, and not on the summit, where the walls and the remains of very substantial huts are old Makalanga. The Barotse also had a large kraal on the north-east side of the Bentberg overlooking the Elliptical Temple. [The present Barotse headmen claim the pottery in the débris at these places as having been made by their people some four or five generations back, if not earlier.]
(f) The Zimbabwe Makalanga did not reside in the ruins, as this in later generations was opposed to their traditions, but they used the ruins up to ten years ago as cattle kraals and places for carrying on their copper and iron-smelting operations, for offering sacrifices, and for burial-places. Once they occupied them as residences, but possibly the fear of the ruins at night caused them to desert them as residences, probably owing to the increased number of graves which they contained. The Barotse did not appear to have been inspired by this fear, for they have occupied ruins all over the country.
All the remains of native huts and many of the native articles found in the ruins must be at least six generations old, if not much older. When the present Mogabe Handisibishe took up his residence on the north side of Zimbabwe Hill, in the ruins of the Acropolis, there had been no Makalanga occupations for many generations previously. All the remains of Makalanga huts found on the Acropolis, and round the faces of the hill, and outside the area occupied by Mogabe’s kraal, belong to Makalanga, who had ceased to occupy them for very many years previously. When Mogabe arrived these remains were considered by his people to be exceedingly old.
(g) The present Zimbabwe Makalanga originally came from Masungye, in the direction of the Lower Sabi. Mogabe is the dynastic title of each succeeding chief of this tribe. The Mogabe-Molinye moved to Jena and finally to the Beroma country, in the neighbourhood of Zimbabwe. The succeeding Mogabe, a son of Molinye, moved up from Beroma to Mangwa (Morgenster), four miles south of Zimbabwe, from which place he drove out the Amangwa people, who occupied the Zimbabwe district and the country for a considerable distance round about. The next Mogabe, Chipfuno, a son of the previous Mogabe, settled at Wuwuli, five miles south of Zimbabwe, and later his younger brother, Handisibishe, the present Mogabe, succeeded Chipfuno in the dynastic rule. Handisibishe is seventy years of age, but Chipfuno was much older.
The connection between the present Zimbabwe Makalanga and the Zimbabwe ruins only dates back authoritatively for some sixty or seventy years, but their opinion as to the age of the native remains at the ruins, as found by them when they arrived, added to a similar account based on the longer residence of the Barotse and Amangwa, and on their history and traditions, enables investigations to be carried back at least eight generations.
(h) The oldest known natives who have resided at Zimbabwe are the Amangwa, who were driven out by Mogabe Handisibishe. These were originally a tribe of pure Makalanga, but by marriage with their erstwhile over-lords, the local Barotse, many of their people have acquired some of the distinctive features of the Barotse, while a large proportion are still in every respect true Makalanga. These people now reside in Nini district, eight miles south-west of Zimbabwe, their nearest kraal being Bingura’s, which is two miles distant. They can speak with regard to the state of the ruins as they were conditioned some generations ago. They state they never occupied the Acropolis ruins except when Amaswazi raiding parties were in the district, and then only as a temporary refuge, and that many large walls have completely fallen down. The Amangwa were once a numerous and powerful people. Their kraals were built in the valleys, close to the ruins and on the nearest kopjes.
MAKALANGA “BOYS” FENCING, ZIMBABWE
MOTUMI MONGWAINE
Mogabe Handisibishe took advantage of a famine in the Zimbabwe district when he attacked them, and perpetrated great cruelties on their women in order to make them divulge where the relics from the ruins were hidden, but the Amangwa did not yield on this point. It is curious that so many relics of prehistoric value have been found in the Nini district where the Amangwa now reside. The wooden bowl, carved with the zodiacal signs, the soapstone cylinder, etc., were discovered in Nini, and the best native authorities affirm that the Amangwa still have relics in their possession.
(i) The correct name for Zimbabwe is Zim-b[=a]b-[=gw]i, meaning “buildings or houses of stones.” The natives never apply the name Zim-bab-gwi to the Elliptical Temple, but always speak of it as Rusingu, “the wall.” Zim-bab-gwi is only applied to the ruins on the hill.
(j) The natives have no recollection or tradition with regard to the Monomotapas, the dynastic chiefs of the mediæval Makalanga who resided at Zimbabwe.
(k) Barotse, Amangwa, and Makalanga have built walls in and near the ruins. They state that their ancestors used to construct excellent walls. [Mr. Drew, n.c., is of opinion that the Barotse now build better walls than do the present Makalanga. The Makalanga were always famous as good builders with stone.]
(l) The natives show little or no interest as to the original builders of the ruins. Some will say they were built by white men for prisons, others will affirm the ancestors of their tribe built them. Some tribes make definite claims to have built them, but Mr. Drew considers these claims to be only poetic expressions conveying the idea that such tribes had lived for so very many generations in the ruins that they knew of no occupiers before them, and so imagine that their ancestors must have built them. Of course, their claims to have built minor walls within the ruins are, in many instances, obviously well founded.
(m) The natives assert, when pressed as to who removed the relics from the ruins, that large birds came out of the sky, took them, and carried them into the heavens.
(n) “Fuko-ya-Nebandge”—the Mashonaland relic—possesses an unique history and a weird romance, and is also of great intrinsic value for such in Rhodesia as revel in researches into the history of past occupiers of this country. The image is made of pottery, and is hollow, the head (which has not been discovered) forming the stopper. It was discovered by Mr. Harry Posselt in a cave near Zimbabwe. It stands 11 in. high, and is about 16 in. long, and is marked with geometric exactness with zebra stripes all over its body. The pot is black, but the stripes are of a dull red colour. The name of it is “Fuko-ya-Nebandge” (“the king’s favourite adviser”), and for at least some generations of Makalanga it has exercised a potent magic spell over the minds of the natives. It has now been secured for the museum at Bulawayo.
The following is Mr. Posselt’s account of its discovery:—
In 1891 he was encamped at Fern Spruit, south of Victoria, near which point are some hills. His Mashona boy informed him that among these hills could be heard by anyone going near them the sound of cattle bellowing, girls talking and singing, and that up on the hills was a pot full of beads, but the local natives were too much afraid of venturing up there in search of the pot, as it would mean certain death. He did not ascend the hills, but his drivers and leaders went up, but heard and saw nothing unusual. Until 1899 he had quite forgotten the incident, but in August of 1900 he happened to be near these particular hills collecting labour for the Chamber of Mines, and conversed with a chief living there. He asked the chief the native name of the hills, and the chief told him about the pot containing the beads. He further told him that long ago a native went out hunting on the hills, and found the pot with the beads in. The chief’s story was to the effect that the native seeing the pot wanted to take the beads out, and putting his hand into the pot, the pot got hold of his hands and he could not shake it off, and he was obliged to carry the pot poised on his head with his hand still fixed inside it. When he arrived at the kraal his people prevented him entering it, as he might bring evil upon the tribe. He was consequently compelled to encamp on a stream near the kraal until his hand dropped off. He was fed secretly by some of his people. After his death, instead of being buried in the usual way, they pushed him with long sticks into a cave.
The pot was left there for some considerable time afterwards, and it was eventually discovered in another cave in the same hills, and was regarded, and still is to this day, by the natives as a mystery, and held in awe by them, and their belief was that if anyone approached the cave he would die. If the pot changed its colours to dark red it meant certain death.
After he had secured the pot the natives came from near and far to see it. One old native then told him of another pot, made like a mare zebra, and that the “female pot” contained beads that glittered, and that the pot in his (Mr. Posselt’s) possession was the “male pot.” The native was ignorant of what gold was. The two pots, so he stated, used to travel by themselves from their cave to Fulachama, a distance of eight miles, to obtain water from the stream where they drank, coming and going so often as to make a path. This Kafir asked where the “female pot” was, well knowing Mr. Posselt had not found it.
After his discovery he went to a chief who lives close by to where the pot was found. This chief used to live in Zimbabwe. He said that the chief who now lives in Zimbabwe was an enemy of his, and had supplanted him, and that he had all the relics. To compel him to disclose the place where the relics were hidden he resorted to torture, cutting off women’s breasts and putting nose reims through men’s noses. Before the ex-Zimbabwe chief was expelled from Zimbabwe he was in the habit of offering up sacrifices of black oxen, and on each occasion used to collect and display relics taken from the ruins. These consisted of “yellow metal with sharp points” brought down from the top ruin, also a yellow stick about 3 ft. 6 in. long with a knob on it, also a bowl or dish, by information most probably of silver. The stick is now stated to be in the possession of the chief.