On the Moyo-Lozwi or Rozvi: Are they Kalanga or Shona?

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can only be maintained for such a time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of that lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Chief.

The Questions of Identity - are the Moyo Kalanga or Shona?

One of the biggest questions of identity dogging Zimbabwe today, especially in Matebeleland, the Midlands and the Maswingo Provinces is that of the people that bear the Moyo surname. It is very common to hear the phrase, “vele bonke oMoyo ngama Shona.” Yet on the other hand in Mashonaland and Maswingo, one also hears those Moyo people, the Lozwi, or as they are known there, the Rozvi, arguing that they are a people of Kalanga stock.

Of course no confusion on the identity of the Moyo-Lozwi exists among us Bakalanga because we have always known that the Moyo surname is the biggest Kalanga surname in terms of numbers. In fact, right across Matebeleland the Moyo surname is the biggest, totally unrivalled by any other. Because of the confusion that seems to be surrounding the question of the identity of the Moyo people, I thought it worthwhile to answer the question - are the Moyo people Shona or Kalanga?

This question is asked in light of the fact that some Shona scholars and elites claim that the Moyo-Lozwi people are Shona, and some sections of the Mthwakazi movement claim that the Moyo-Lozwi are Shona. Of course the latter claim is the one that has larger implications for us here in Matebeleland, for it may well mean that if the Moyo are Shona, then Matebeleland may as well be renamed Mashonaland [Perish the thought!].

The Rise of the Moyo-Lozwi in the 1690s and Venda Relations?

There is a great deal of speculation and confusion regarding not only the identity but the origins of the Moyo people who for the last 150 years before the Nguni invasions were the rulers of the whole land that is now called Zimbabwe, directly or indirectly. One writer has called them the Prussians of the tribes of Rhodesia.

This confusion has been compounded by the fact that during the invasion of the Ngoni of Zwangendaba and the Matabele of Mzilikazi in the mid-1800s, the Lozwi were scattered all over Zimbabwe and other Southern African countries, so much that many a Lozwi today is identified as Ndebele, Zezuru, Manyika, Lozi, etc.

But, who were and are the Lozwi?

Concerning the rise of the Lozwi, we are informed by J.K. Renne that:

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In the 1680s, the Togwa dynasty [the Kalanga polity which was based at Khami], which had been one of the successor states to Great Zimbabwe, was conquered by the Lozwi of Tjangamire Dombo (Moyo–Nitombo [=Dombolakona-Tjing’wango]) who is attested in Portuguese accounts and who is apparently to be identified with the orally remembered figure of Mambo Dlembewu. This is consistent with the archeological record, which sees the abandonment of Khami after the seventeenth century, to be succeeded by the less magnificent constructions of Manyangwa and Danangombe. Prior to the seventeenth century conquest, ‘Togwa’ power evidently spread south of the Limpopo into what is now Venda country. There it was similarly overlain by a conquering group related to the Moyo-Lozwi.

The Venda record that the earlier layer of Tavhatshinde chiefs had come from the north, where they spoke with ‘Mwali’. Their leader was Netshiendeulu (=Tjibundule). They were conquered by VeleLambelo (=Dlembewu) whose followers formed the ruling Khwinde layer, which had clear links with the Moyo-Lozwi of Tjangamire Dombo. The power of the ‘Togwa’ rulers, or at least their influence, also spread east to their (presumed) ancestral home at [Great] Zimbabwe, until their heartland was conquered by Dombo (Renne 1979, 25).

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Now, before going any further, let me explain the name Tjangamire. On the first reading one may assume that this is a Shona word. But the reality is that this name (or the title that it was) is a combination of two words, a Kalanga and an Arabic word. It is a combination of the names Tjanga and emir/amir, which is Arabic for ‘justice’.

We will remember that the Arabs were traders in this land, and they carried the emir title from their homeland to Bukalanga as an address to Tjanga, who was the Governor of Bukalanga. Tjangamire therefore means ‘Tjanga the Justice/Governor’. The emir title is still in use today in most Arab countries, which is why some of them are called ‘emirates’, like the United Arab Emirates.

On Kalanga-Venda Oral Traditions and Relations

Now, going back to the identity of the Moyo-Lozwi and their Venda relations as related above by Renne, let us take a look at some of the oldest oral records that we have. In addition to the fact that we saw last week that most Venda clans of today are of Bukalanga stock, we read the following in Venda history:

It is related in Venda history that during the 18th century, a group of people belonging to the Kalanga-Lozwi tribe in present-day Zimbabwe migrated south, crossing the Limpopo River. As they wandered up the valley of the Nzhelele River, they had the good fortune to stumble upon a beautiful new homeland at the foot of the mysterious Zoutpansberg Mountain Range in the Northern (now Limpopo) Province. They promptly named the mountain range, Venda (i.e., pleasant place), and settled there (preceding information from http://www.africanexplore.com).

Perhaps to better understand the Kalanga-Venda relationships briefly here, let us turn to Kalanga oral traditions collected in the 1920s by Kumile Masola in his Nau dza Bakalanga. In these traditions we are told that the people that have entered history as the Lozwi actually migrated from Venda and overthrew the Togwa Kingdom under King Tjibundule. This is supposed to have happened in the following way:

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Tjibundule had been chief of the Kalanga when, unawares, the Nyayi [we learned that they are one of the Venda groups from Bukalanga] from Venda crossed the Limpopo and camped at the Ntugwi (Tuli) River, at a place that later became known as Lutombo gwabaNyayi (Hill of the BaNyayi). The origin of the name BaNyayi was that the Lozwi had ambassadors (or spies) who spied on the country of Tjibundule.

They had a chief by the name of Netjasike (with the childhood name Tjilisamhulu), who too became very powerful in the land and was also referred to as Nhu Unotapa, a title that for centuries had signified the lord of the land, the Monomotapa of the Portuguese. Netjasike had in his council of advisers Nhale and Ninhembgwe, who was the father of the famous general and medicine-man, Tumbale Bhepe-la-Mambo, of the Bhebhe clan.

Tjibundule and Nitjasike are said to have established good relations as neighbors, and constantly visited each other. But in due course, Nitjasike started developing an interest in Tjubundule’s country for its peace, glory and splendor, and set out plans on how to overthrow Tjibundule and take over the kingship.

Nitjasike, after a number of failed attempts to overthrow Tjibundule, finally succeeded in doing so by using the instrument of his daughter, Bagedze Moyo, who he gave for a wife to Tjibundule. After overthrowing Tjibundule, he took over as Mambo (King) of Tjibundule’s territory, and united the Kalanga of Tjibundule with his own Kalanga (BaNyayi = BaLozwi as we shall see later) into one people.

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Such is the Kalanga oral tradition in this regard. But we further ask, were the BaNyayi of Kalanga oral tradition the same people as the BaLozwi of Portuguese records? That seems to be certainly the case. Let us turn to an analysis of Portuguese documents related to this question and references to the ‘Land of Urobze’ done by W.G.L. Randles. He wrote:

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Ignacio Caetano Xavier wrote in 1758 that Tjangamire’s lands were populated by the Barobzes, who are in all probability to be identified with the BaLozwi, the dominant ethnic group on the plateau until the Zulu revolution precipitated the Nguni hordes northward. Antonio da Conceicao (1696) confirms the manner of Tjangamire’s going but does not state exactly where he had gone with the royal livestock [which had been entrusted to his care by the Monomotapa]. He simply remarks that Tjangamire went into ‘an area of Mocaranga adjoining Abutua.’ [Mocaranga was a Portuguese rendering of Makalanga].

An anonymous manuscript written towards the end of the eighteenth century, in which moreover Urobze and Butua appear as one and the same, speaks of Urobze as a very extensive territory belonging to Tjangamire:

… Urobze lies a long way from Manica, it would take a month to reach it, it is said to be nearer to the Cape of Correntes. The Africans call it Goromucuro; it lies to the west of Manica. The Kingdom abounds in rolling veld plains. There are huge herds … There are many birds called ‘emas’ [ostriches]. There are also very few trees, if at all, and firewood is replaced by cow-dung dried in the sun … The men and women are mis-shapen, they run very swiftly, are robust and fearless …, their language rough and each word is produced with such a vehement click of the tongue that one would say they are tearing the sounds violently from the very depths of their beings.

It seems probable that the name Urobze may first have been applied to a territory lying in the middle of the plateau, between Monomotapa and Butua, and then to the territory which extended right over the south-west sector, to the south of the river Umfuli, which was the southern border of Monomotapa.

Nevertheless, it is not clear what Goromucuro corresponds to. The image “abounds in rolling veld plains” evokes the Butua of the sixteenth century texts; the abundance of livestock, the existence of ostriches, the sparseness of trees and a population speaking in a language of clicks [the San], clearly indicates the region stretching between the Shangani and the Shashi in the south-west of the plateau bordering on the Kalahari, that is, Butua where the large settlements of Khami, Nalatale and Dhlodhlo were to be found (Randles 1979, 16-17).

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It can be seen from the above statements that the land of Urobze of the Portuguese documents, doubtless the land of BuLozwi, is the region south and south west of Zimbabwe. This is the same land identified by Kalanga oral tradition as the homeland of the Lozwi.

Are the Banyayi and BaLozwi the Same People Group?

But still, the question has not been answered of whether the Nyayi of Kalanga oral tradition and the Lozwi of Portuguese documents were indeed the same people as pointed out in Kalanga oral tradition. We go back to Randles. He wrote:

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This, of course, raises the question of whether the Lozwi were of Kalanga origin, and the answer is not clear. The Kalanga are, as we have seen, mentioned in Portuguese sources from 1506 and then seem to be occupying the whole of the plateau. The Lozwi, under the name of Barobzes, make an appearance only around the middle of the eighteenth century and occupied only the south-west sector.

According to Pacheco, the conquerors from the north of the plateau were known as Banyai. But Livingstone at the time of his travels near Tjikoba (north-east Zimbabwe) wrote: “Here they call themselves the Bambiri, though the general name of the whole nation is Banyai.”

Now, Carl Mauch, one of the first explorers to penetrate north of the Limpopo coming from the Transvaal, came across the Banyai at the other end of the plateau, around 20o 30 S and 30o 50 E, a little to the south of the Zimbabwe ruins. From the middle of the eighteenth century we find the usage of the word “munhai” (munyai), that is the singular; Antonio Pinto de Miranda (c. 1766) did not hesitate to make a Portuguese plural of this Bantu singular and so wrote the “munhaes” are “the officers charged with the duty of proclaiming decrees and orders of the emperors [of Monomotapa]”.

According to Ignacio Caetano Xavier (1758), they were “a sort of janissary” army of the Monomotapa. For Lacerda e Almeida (1797) the “munhaes” are quite simply the vassals of the Monomotapa. Finally, Posselt (1935) likens the Banyai to the Lozwi.

In a subject where many questions are easier to ask than to answer, let us formulate an hypothesis which seems attractive: the Banyai could have been a dominant group within the Kalanga people who left the south to conquer the north of the plateau, while the Lozwi could have constituted the nucleus of the dissidents who rallied to Tjangamire, took root in the south-west and then, in 1693, launched into the conquest of the north-east under Tjangamire II [Randles uses here Tjangamire II (that is Dombolakona-Tjing’wango Dlembewu) to differentiate him from the 1490 Tjangamire (Tjangamire I].

Thus, perhaps, when the Kalanga in the fifteenth century began their expansion toward the north and the Indian Ocean, they also advanced into the south-west at the same time as part of a single concerted movement. This indeed seems to be the interpretation expressed in the accounts of Alcacova and Barros, at least for the period up to the time of the revolt of Tjangamire I, when two factions developed separately, one in the south-west, the other in the north-east and on the coast (Randles 1979, 19-21).

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Going by the hypothesis of Randles, there can be no doubt that the BaNyayi of Kalanga oral tradition and the BaLozwi of Portuguese records are one and the same people. But we still further ask: were the BaNyayi or BaLozwi a Kalanga people as I have already stated above?

This question becomes very important to ask in light of the claims by some that the BaNyayi are the ancestors of the modern Shona. That the BaNyayi are the same race as Bukalanga is attested to by a number of writers.

Let us first hear from E. P. Mathers, a British Newspaper journalist. Mathers travelled with the Pioneer Column from South Africa in its entrance into Zimbabwe, and had his newspaper reports compiled into a book titled Zambesia: England's El Dorado in Africa - being a description of Matebeleland and Mashonaland, and less known adjacent territories, and an account of the gold fields of British South Africa. He wrote in 1891:

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To the country between the Tuli and Lunde [Lundi] Rivers the name of Banyailand may be very properly given, as it is inhabited by a number of petty so called Banyai chiefs, who, by some account are tributary to Lo Bengula, but who by others refuse to recognize the Matabele monarch as their King … At the time of the entrance of the British Pioneer column, the Makalaka would be described as “chickenhearted” people living in constant dread of Matabele raids. The Makalaka, or Banyai people, a mild and inoffensive race lived in daily and hourly terror of the Matabele (Mathers 1891, 350, 355, 360).

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Mathers, like other writers of the 19th and early 20th century, uses the names Makalaka and BaNyayi interchangeably, Makalaka being the Sotho-Tswana rendering for Makalanga. One other such writer is Mr. Theodore Bent who worked with the Kalanga during his excavations in 1891, having fifty of them in his employ. He too clearly stated that the names Makalanga, Makalaka, and Banyayi were interchangeable and referring to the same people group.

We will be doing well to remember that Bent tells us that the information he presents to us in his book he got it on the spot in contact with the Kalanga themselves, and that it is themselves who gave him their national name. He wrote in 1892:

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All the people and tribes around Zimbabwe [Great Zimbabgwe], down to the Sabi River and North to Fort Charter - and this is the most populous part of the whole country - call themselves by one name, though they are divided into many tribes, and that name is Makalanga.

In answer to questions as to their nationality they invariably call themselves Makalangas, in contradistinction to the Shangans, who inhabit the east side of the Sabi River. ‘You will find many Makalangas there,’ ‘A Makalanga is buried there,’ and so on. The race is exceedingly numerous, and certain British and Dutch pioneers have given them various names, such as Banyai and Makalaka (Bent 1892, 32).

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The explorer and hunter James Chapman, in 1863, was told the same thing about the Banyayi as he made an inquiry into the identity of the people he had encountered on the Zambezi Valley, who he discovered to be BaNambya and Bakalanga. As to their origins, he wrote:

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All the tribes here are descendants of the Banyai, a nation further to the east. The Makalakas were a distinct and independent people beyond the memory of man … The great-grandfather of the present Wankie, also called Whange, fled from his father Gole, chief of the Banyai, and set up for himself … The Banabea [Banambya] claim descent from a great Banyai chief called Mambo, one of whose titles was Dalamo (Tabler 1968, 73, 146).

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Mr. FWT Posselt who worked in Bukalanga [Plumtree] and Mashonaland [Marondera] writing in 1935, also informs us that the Banyayi are a Kalanga race. About them he wrote, quoting the Reverend Henry Junod, a missionary who worked with Kalanga and Tsonga people in the 1880s:

“According to some of the native historians the Baloyi [=BaLozwi] came from the BaNyai country along the Nwanati, who also belonged to the Nyai or Kalanga race…” (Posselt 1935, 143).

The German explorer Herr Karl Mauch had already pointed out back in 1871 that the BaNyayi are a Kalanga race. He wrote concerning Great Zimbabwe, “The name of the hill with the ruins is Zimbabye or, possibly Zimbaoe. The former name is the name given to it by the local Makalakas or Banyais (Bernhard and Bernhard 1969, 148). Elsewhere he uses the names BaNyayi, Makalaka and Balosse interchangeably, Balosse being the German rendering for BaLozwi (ibid., 203, 204 and 215).

It is indeed, with the above evidence, beyond any reasonable doubt that the BaNyayi are the same people as the Lozwi, and these are Kalanga peoples. [It is interesting to note that Banyayi in Zambia, Botswana and South Africa today still identify as Bakalanga and/or Vhavenda, and some still use the surname Moyo.]

However, some argue that the Lozwi became Kalanga by acculturation. For example, Dr G.C. Mazarire suggests the following concerning the Kalanga-Lozwi relationship:

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A Rozvi invasion of the 1690s successfully took over the area and set up the Changamire state which mainly functioned as a confederacy of tributary agnates. The Rozvi dynasty intermarried with the ‘Kalanga’ and adopted their dialect thus preserving the cultural continuity of the Kalanga. This way a sense of cultural fluidity came into place characterized by exchange and inculturation between the two groups (Mazarire 2003, Online).

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Professor G. P. Lestrade has also argued that “the BaLozwi are not a Kalanga people” (in Robinson 1963, 2). But the evidence to the contrary seems to be overwhelming. The archaeologist Professor Keith R. Robinson, after a wide ranging study of Lozwi archaeology, could not reach a precise conclusion on the Lozwi-Kalanga relationship, and only wrote:

“On the other hand, they are undoubtedly associated with the Kalanga, no doubt at first as rulers, but as time went on inter-marriage may have brought about a more intimate relationship” (Robinson 1963, 3).

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Even with these expressed doubts, there seems to be available adequate evidence upon which we can safely conclude that the BaNyayi are one and the same people with the BaLozwi, and that these are people of Bukalanga stock. Interestingly, even the Rozvi or Lozwi in Mashonaland today are claiming Bukalanga origins.

And TjiKalanga was the Lingua Franca of the Lozwi Kingdom

One other simple way of telling that indeed the Lozwi were and are a Kalanga people group is that TjiKalanga was the lingua franca or state language of the Lozwi Kingdom. It is unthinkable that in a period of about 150 years the Lozwi, if they were not a Kalanga group, and hence having a language of their own, would have totally lost their language as to use TjiKalanga as their official language, which would be incredible considering that they were the rulers, for it is very uncommon for those who are rulers to completely lose their language and identity to those upon whom they are ruling. Surely, if they were Zezuru or anything Shona, we have every right to expect them to have been using ChiZezuru as their state language, but alas, that was not the case!

Another way of establishing that the Lozwi are a Kalanga people group is observation of their population distribution today, mostly identified by the Moyo surname. The Moyo-Lozwi are mainly concentrated in the so-called Matebeleland (as well as the Midlands and Maswingo) Provinces and are actually the majority there, whereas there are very few of them in Mashonaland. How can they be ancestors of the Shona and be so few in that region?

Even if we were to make allowance for change of surnames to clan progenitor’s name as is the practice in Mashonaland, that still does not account for the small Lozwi population in that part of the country. Even the Lozwi concentrated in Bikita and surrounding districts we know that they moved from what we may call western Bukalanga, the so-called Matebeleland, during the Nguni invasions in the mid-1800s.

Conclusion, OK, so What?

We can conclude that yes, the Moyo-Lozwi, who are the largest population group in the so-called Matebeleland, are of Bukalanga stock, not Shona stock. This also means that the Lozwi Kingdom, which was the leading polity in what is now Zimbabwe for 150 years before the coming of the Nguni, was a Bukalanga [Bakalanga, Banambya, Balobedu and Vhavenda] Kingdom, not a Shona kingdom as is taught in school.

Secondly, it means that the claim that Matebeleland was once Shona land stolen by the Ndebele is ABSOLUTELY FALSE and without any historical basis. The 1979 Zanu Grand Plan is therefore based on a BIG LIE.

I therefore say forward the the struggle for freedom, self-government and self-determination. Forward with the push for Devolution of Power and/or Federalism. Gone are the days when a distorted history was used to marginalize and oppress non-Shona people branding them as foreigners from Zululand who stole Shona land, cattle and women! THIS COUNTRY BELONGS TO ALL WHO LIVE IN IT, BLACK, WHITE, SHONA, NDEBELE, SOTHO, VENDA, NAMBYA, KALANGA, TONGA, ETC.

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Ndzimu-unami Emmanuel is author of two books, The Rebirth of Bukalanga and Zimbabwe: The Case for Federalism. He can be contacted by email on ndzimuunami@gmail.com