The Zulus and Matabele: Warrior Nations

by Glen Lyndon Dodds

  lt has been stated on good authority that an individual in whom M. [Mzilikazi] placed almost unbounded confidence earnestly and repeatedly warned him by every means to avoid coming into collision with the Boers and rather retire into the interior rather than commence a warfare with the white man.

  Brown thus comments:

  In view of the known relationship between Moffat and Mzilikazi, it can hardly be doubted that the unidentified individual who advised withdrawal was Moffat himself, while Mzilikazi’s remark to the missionary in 1854 ‘I have not forgot the fulfilment of the warnings you gave me at Mosega’ probably refers to the same incidents.

  Flight beyond the Limpopo

  Groups of Matabele who managed to escape from the commando fled north with whatever livestock they still possessed and joined up with individuals and other bands of Matabele who had likewise survived. On the other hand, many Sotho-Tswana who had been incorporated into Mzilikazi’s kingdom now took the opportunity to break free, while some Nguni subjects of Mzilikazi likewise abandoned him. The rest, however, proceeded further north and most or all of them reunited, after crossing the Limpopo, in what is now southeast Botswana. The number of migrants was probably in the region of 15,000: according to Rasmussen, the Matabele probably never numbered over 20,000 people during the 1830s.

  Mzilikazi and his followers had entered the territory of the Ngwato, a Tswana-speaking people who had previously suffered from Matabele raids. The Ngwato scattered and the Matabele briefly occupied their territory, rounding up whatever cattle could be found and in due course harvesting the abandoned crops. They also celebrated the inxwala, or first fruits ceremony.

  Evidently, in early 1838 shortly after observing the festival, and while no doubt still in Ngwato territory, the Matabele divided into two divisions of roughly equal size, likely with the aim of migrating further in an orderly manner and easing the problem of finding adequate food and water—evidently, Mzilikazi did not intend the split to be permanent. He led one division northwest into inhospitable terrain. On the other hand, the other group—which included several of his wives and sons, including the heir apparent Nkulumane (who had perhaps been born in Zululand) and the hereditary Khumalo regent Mncumbathe—headed north-eastwards. It was led by an induna called Gundwane Ndiweni, apparently the individual previously referred to by the praise-name of ‘Kaliphi.’ The division in question, then turned north and by mid-1838 had halted just to the northeast of the Matopos Hills in modern Zimbabwe, where it began establishing settlements.

  By the middle of 1839, Mzilikazi had likewise arrived in the Matopos area, having covered much more ground. After reaching the Makarikari Salt Pan in Botswana, he had headed northeast, apparently with the aim of pressing further into the interior by crossing the Zambezi. But in so doing, he entered tsetse-fly country and therefore turned southeast after his herds began to be decimated. According to Moffat (who subsequently heard reports of the journey), the ‘cattle died so rapidly that their carcasses were lying within sight of each other along the course they had taken, and where they halted for the night hundreds were left dead.’

  When Mzilikazi linked up with the rest of the Matabele in the Matopos area, he found that they had installed Nkulumane as their king after hearing reports that Mzilikazi had been killed by a hostile tribe or had perished in harsh terrain. The rumours, combined with the fact that the vitally important annual inxwala ceremony (in which the king’s role was of crucial importance) was due in early 1839, had induced them to install young Nkulumane as Mzilikazi’s successor and proceed with the festivities.

  Mzilikazi arrived on the scene shortly after the ceremony had been held. Bloodshed ensued, for he was determined to reassert control. Clashes between the two groups appear to have occurred and Mzilikazi had Gundwane and other senior figures involved in the installation of Nkulumane executed. And what of Nkulumane? According to some accounts, he likewise perished. He is said to have been tied to a tree and strangled, as it was illegal to shed royal blood. Less convincing accounts state that he either escaped or was sent into exile—rumours that this happened were to persist for years and would ultimately lead to further strife.

  The Shona

  The Matopos lie in the southwest of Zimbabwe in a part of the country known as Matabeleland. The local Bantu inhabitants of the Matopos area were members of the Shona group of peoples. The Shona had begun settling in Zimbabwe in about AD 900, where they displaced and partly absorbed the descendants of previous communities, and formed the bulk of the population. Those living in the territory in which Mzilikazi and his people had arrived spoke the Kalanga dialect of Shona and were essentially descended from people who had occupied the area for close on a thousand years. Since the late seventeenth century, however, they had been ruled by an intrusive Shona dynasty, the Changamire, which had built up a powerful state with many client chiefdoms and which exported gold and ivory to Portuguese centres on the Zambezi and the coast, in exchange for items such as cloth and beads: a state capable of raising potent armies when occasion demanded, forces equipped with spears, clubs, axes and bows and arrows.

  The Rozvi state, as it is known, was not the first powerful Shona polity to have emerged. For centuries the Kalanga had, for example, been neighboured to the east by a Shona state which controlled trade between the gold-producing areas of current Matabeleland and the Indian Ocean. It enjoyed its heyday from about AD 1300 to approximately 1450, and the ruins of its capital, Great Zimbabwe, are the most notable native historic monument in southern Africa.

  By the opening decades of the nineteenth century, Rozvi power was in decline, partly due to internal strife. The situation worsened in the 1820s and 1830s when the Rozvi were attacked by several migrating Nguni groups who were driven off, but at a cost. Moreover, discord among the Changamire dynasty increased. Even so, the Rozvi state was still in existence when the Matabele arrived on the scene. Its heartland lay to the east of the Bembesi River, while to the west was territory under a Kalanga sub-ruler named Ndumba.

  The Matopos area lay in Ndumba’s province and the Matabele encountered little resistance upon their arrival. Indeed, they soon made themselves masters of his territory, settling among the Kalanga. Some of the local inhabitants fled, but shortly returned to become tributaries of Mzilikazi and sooner or later the Kalanga began to adopt Matabele speech and customs. Furthermore, Mzilikazi gained the vassalage of several senior Rozvi families. The tributaries cared for cattle which Mzilikazi gave into their charge (though he evidently retained ownership) in return for a levy of young people who were incorporated into Matabele society.

  Campaigns

  Mzilikazi, in due course, ended Rozvi power. But his first campaign of expansion was launched in 1841 in another direction, northwest, against more vulnerable Shona living along, and close to, the Zambezi, a major river that served as a trade route with the Indian Ocean. Mzilikazi succeeded in establishing his authority. Clashes also occurred in this direction with the Kololo people, who lived on the far side of the Zambezi, though they proved more formidable.

  In the late 1840s and early 1850s, significant conflict occurred between Mzilikazi and the Rozvi and some vassals of the Matabele warlord broke away, at least partly motivated by resentment at having to hand over their young people, and joined forces with independent Rozvi. The overall leader of the Rozvi was named Tohwechipi—a member of their main dynasty—whose paramountcy was accepted by some hitherto hostile senior Rozvi families. Hence raiders, some of whom were led by Tohwechipi, penetrated well into Matabele territory where they stole cattle and, so the Matabele claimed, committed atrocities against women. Mzilikazi hit back and several battles were fought to the east of his domain. Tohwechipi, for instance, was forced on to the defensive but at some point prior to 1852, he defeated the Matabele after engaging the services of ‘strong people’—traders from the Zambezi who possessed guns. On the whole, though, the fighting went in Mzilikazi’s favour and by 1857 Tohwechipi had been
defeated.

  The Matabele also waged campaigns to the southwest against the Ngwato, who were to prove themselves Mzilikazi’s most formidable enemies. Both tribes endeavoured to extend or retain authority over Kalanga and Tswana whom they deemed to be within their respective spheres of influence. At one point, the Ngwato ruler, Sekgoma, was reduced to paying Mzilikazi a tribute of skins. Relations between the Matabele and the Ngwato reached their lowest level in the early 1850s, but by the middle of the decade they were more harmonious, with the territory north of the Shashi River accepted as definitely belonging to Mzilikazi.

  By this date, Mzilikazi had concluded a peace treaty with the Transvaal Boers. In 1847 his old enemy Potgieter had conducted an unsuccessful raid into Matabeleland. Afterwards, he sent representatives to Mzilikazi’s court to open peace negotiations, and as a result, in late 1852, the Matabele king sent an embassy south to sign a treaty. The ambassadors found Potgieter dying, but nonetheless signed the agreement on 8 January 1853, as did the Transvaal Boers’ new leader, Potgieter’s son.

  The Matabele state

  The area within an approximately 40-mile radius of present-day Bulawayo formed the heart of Mzilikazi’s kingdom. It lay generally at an altitude of 4,000-5,000 feet above sea level, and was located on the southwest end of a plateau that covers most of modern Zimbabwe.

  The Matabele kingdom is often said to have been surrounded by a deliberately depopulated buffer zone. But Julian Cobbing has highlighted that this was not so in his important work, The Ndebele under the Khumalos. The belt of scorched earth did not exist. Rather, Mzilikazi’s kingdom was surrounded by a zone (averaging about 50 miles in width) of tributary peoples in which Matabele cattle were grazed during winter months and some of whose inhabitants began to adopt Matabele speech and customs.

  Cobbing has revealed another fallacy, namely that the Matabele kingdom proper contained huge regimental towns (an erroneous view based on a misunderstanding of Matabele terminology) and that the state was almost entirely organised along military lines, and economically almost totally dependent on raiding Shona and other peoples. Regimental settlements did indeed exist, but were smaller than has generally been thought, while private homesteads were far more common than has often been maintained and comprised the majority of the settlements. Moreover, the basis of the Matabele economy was farming, with grain production being most important. Nevertheless, frequent raids did occur. Some were punitive. Others were intended to extend Mzilikazi’s authority further afield and to capture both livestock and humans.

  Furthermore, it is often stated that Matabele chiefs (izinduna) were no more than royal ‘officials’, but this was not so. Strong aristocratic families existed and exerted great power in their respective chiefdoms, and although it was not uncommon for the king to do away with troublesome izinduna, chiefly succession itself was seldom if ever disrupted by the monarch.

  Cobbing also rejects the view that the Matabele kingdom was divided into four formal administrative subdivisions, Amakanda, Amhlope, Amnyama (or Amabutho) and Igapha, with each division or province having its own complement of regiments under a senior induna. Rather, he comments that the ‘slender historical evidence’ available points in another direction, i.e., ‘that the “divisions” were . . . early amabutho which later “spawned” fresh amabutho, and in the process themselves disappeared.’ On this point, Ntabeni Khumalo (who served in a regiment during the reign of Mzilikazi’s successor) declared: ‘All the later regiments came from the original regiments, the Amhlope, Amakanda, the Amnyama and Igapha . . . . Although they had their own regiments, the later people used to regard themselves as the descendants of one or other of the older regiments.’

  Hence, Cobbing further comments: ‘Amhlope, Amakanda, Amnyama and Igapha were collective group concepts comprising [people in settlements] descended from four original or proto-amabutho created in the period before the migration of the Ndebele to the Matopos region.’

  Instead of the non-existent provinces, it was the chiefdoms that formed the subdivisions of the nation. These came about as regiments matured. Initially, an ibutho would be formed when the king called upon a number of young men from across the realm (or on occasion certain chiefdoms) and formed them into a new regiment. Then, as noted above, after several years had passed, the warriors would be granted permission to marry and would disperse to do so. Thereafter, some of them would return to the regimental base to settle with their wives, and their offspring would either remain in the settlement in question or would found private villages in its vicinity: a chiefdom would thus develop, with the former head of the regiment or his son as chief, and the men would still be liable, if needed, to military service. A proportion of their male offspring would in due course be drafted to form new regiments while others would remain behind and, if necessary, fight alongside their fathers.

  Society in Matabeleland is generally held to have consisted of a rigid three-tier caste system: the Zansi (meaning ‘those from downstream’); the Enhla (‘the people who came from upstream’); and the Holi (apparently a term of contempt). These castes consisted respectively of people of Nguni, Sotho and Shona descent. The Zansi were socially and politically the most important Matabele group, and the Holi, the most numerous caste, the least significant.

  Cobbing believes that the idea that there was a rigid caste system ‘is at best only a half truth’, and states that Sotho blood flowed in the veins of a significant percentage of Matabele aristocrats north of the Limpopo, and that people of Shona descent were capable of rising to positions of importance in the state. On the other hand, Hughes comments that the ‘Zansi were very definitely the rulers of the nation . . . . Apart from the king’s family, most of the Chiefs (izinduna) were of this caste’, and adds that Enhla in the mid-twentieth century frequently spoke ‘strongly about the contemptuous way in which they were treated by the Zansi in the old days.’ Moreover, Thomas Morgan Thomas, a missionary who settled in Matabeleland in 1859, tells us that if a Holi murdered ‘a real’ Matabele, he would be punished with death, whereas in the opposite circumstance, the perpetrator would most likely have to pay a fine of cattle to Mzilikazi. Furthermore, the offspring of mixed marriages were referred to as half-castes. In short, it seems reasonable to conclude that Cobbing understates the degree of stratification that existed.

  Renewed contact with Moffat

  In mid-1853, three white hunters from the Transvaal entered Mzilikazi’s territory. The Afrikaners were received courteously and were granted permission to hunt elephants. In addition, Mzilikazi made it clear that he was anxious to see Robert Moffat once again, partly no doubt to receive medical treatment (he was afflicted by gout) and perhaps to secure the services of a trusted intermediary with the outside world. Hence when the hunters returned south, they were accompanied by messengers charged with contacting the missionary. They failed to do so, owing to an erroneous report that took them to Durban instead of Kuruman, where Moffat was still resident.

  However, in May 1854, unbeknown to Mzilikazi, Moffat set out to visit him accompanied by two white traders. He was partly motivated by a desire to hear something of his son-in-law, the famous missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who had wandered off into the interior the previous year.

  On 9 July, some days after crossing the Shashi River, Moffat and his companions were met by one of Mzilikazi’s izinduna who was stationed in subject Shona territory and who sent word of their arrival to Mzilikazi.

  On the 13th, Moffat’s party continued their journey. Of the terrain, he wrote that it was

  exceedingly picturesque, mountains and hills of all shapes without number. Wherever the eye is directed, nothing but hills rise in endless succession, most of them covered with enormous blocks of granite and trees . . . . Thousands of blocks . . . are perched on the pinnacles of others, which the slightest shake would send thundering down to the base.

  On 22 July, after descending to lower and less hilly country, Moffat
and his companions were greeted by the overjoyed Mzilikazi at a homestead called Matlokotloko. Moffat was taken aback by the king’s appearance. ‘There he sat—how changed!—the vigorous active and nimble monarch of the Matabele, now aged, sitting on a skin, with feet lame, unable to walk or even stand.’ Mzilikazi drank beer in large quantities and may well have been suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. Moffat treated the king, whom he advised to abstain from beer, and within days he was on his feet again.

  Of his relationship with the king, Moffat wrote that:

  He is dotingly fond of me, and would trust his life in my hands before he would do so to any of his own subjects. He listens to my judgement without the shadow of . . . suspicion . . . yet, if I introduce the subject of religion . . . he turns away the conversation on to something else.

  During his visit, Moffat heard about Matabele military exploits. He was told that an impi had recently conducted a punitive expedition against Shona raiders. The mission had not been an unqualified success for the Shona had enjoyed the benefit of elevated rocky fastnesses, from where they shot arrows and hurled stones at Mzilikazi’s warriors. On other occasions, the Matabele had encountered the same problem. Hence Moffat declared that if it had not been for their mountain strongholds, the Shona ‘would have been long since subdued.’ Moreover, Moffat heard of a disastrous expedition that had occurred several years earlier against Sebitwane and the Kololo people. Many of the Matabele involved had been left to starve on an island in the middle of the Zambezi by local natives, who had ferried them there before slipping away, leaving the warriors to their fate.