The True and Correct History of Precolonial Zimbabwe

"History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books - books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe" - David Brown in The Da Vinci Code.

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate the understanding of their history" - George Orwell.

The above two statements serve as a warning call on the importance of not only correctly recording history, but of each people group ensuring that it records it own history. In my recently published book, The Rebirth of Bukalanga, called an "intellectually refreshing bombshell" and "a major contribution to the written history of Zimbabwe" by retired journalist Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu in a review article in the Chronicle, I warned that we Bukalanga or Vhukalanga (that is, Bakalanga, Banambya and Vhavenda) have been complicit in the agenda that seeks to obliterate not only our languages and culture, but erase our identity by not doing enough to record our history.

Indeed, it would be a tragedy when future generations undertake their own research as they seek to answer questions about their own identity only to find that there are hundreds of sources about our history but we did not do much to use them to compile our history. It is that failure to record that history which has led to gross distortions of our history and its appropriation to certain people groups which were not in this land now called Zimbabwe when that history was being made.

On 17 October 2012, one K. Mawira published an article that appeared here on Bulawayo24 (it may have appeared elsewhere) titled "The TRUE History of Zimbabwe". As of this day, there had been more than 3700 views of that article, meaning perhaps at least 3000 people, some of who might not have the time nor the inclination to go through volumes of history books, may have assumed that Mawira's "true history of Zimbabwe" is indeed true. But that will only apply to two groups of people: those who do not have the time nor the inclination to research their own history; and those who, as a result of the heavily biased history narrative taught in Zimbabwean schools, are not willing to face new evidence.

There is not much we can do in this article for those who may not be willing to accept new evidence, but we certainly can help those who are willing to know their history but have not the time nor the inclination to go through vast volumes of books to verify if the claims being made by Mawira are true or not. I trust that such, who I believe are in the majority, will find this article very helpful.

Mawira's article is indeed very long, and makes many claims as far as Zimbabwean history is concerned, and very outstanding in his articles is the appropriation of vast swathes of Zimbabwean history to the Shona, in exactly the same way as is taught in the schools. But are his claims true, or at least do they jive with much of the evidence that we find in some of the earliest sources that we have in our libraries (missionary, explorer and hunter records; archeological records and the recorded oral histories of local and neighboring peoples)? We shall answer the above question by only looking at Mawira's claims concerning only the precolonial history, especially before the arrival of the Nguni.

1. On the origin of the name Zimbabwe

Like so many historians of Shona stock, Mawira claims that the name Zimbabwe originates with the Shona phrase dzimba dza mabgwe. It is of course very telling to note that no source has ever been given that this is the source of the name. We Bukalanga (whose ancestors built the Zimbabwe Ruins from which the name is taken), know the name to be from the phrase nzi mabgwe, meaning "royal court enclosed with stone".

This later explanation is found in Portuguese documents which state that the King, addressed by the dynastic titles Monomotapa and Mambo, had his houses built within the stone enclosures. The Ruins themselves were never houses, but mere royal court enclosures (which may also have had a religious significance).

A visit to the Nkami (Khami) Ruins should easily confirm this: mud huts were built within the stone enclosures, making up the nzi, or royal court. Remains of these huts are still visible to this day. This means the Shona claim that the name Zimbabwe originates in the phrase dzimba dza mabgwe cannot be upheld, it is neither supported by the archeological evidence nor contemporary Portuguese documents which confirm the view that these enclosures were royal courts - or nzi mabgwe.

2. What did the records referred to by Mawira and other Shona historians say?

Mawira writes in his article that "particularly important in our understanding of the pre-colonial past have been the works of archeologists, linguists, historians, oral traditions and records of the 16th century Portuguese traders that interacted with central and southern Africa." He then goes on to make the claim that these documents have recorded the version of history that says the Shona were the builders of Maphungubgwe, Great Zimbabwe, Nkami and all other Zimbabwe-type ruins; and that the Monomotapa, Togwa and Lozwi Kingdoms were Shona polities, etc.

But it is very interesting to note how divorced Shona history claims are from many of the primary sources that we have. We cannot quote them all here for obvious want of space, but we will look at just a few so as to give us a clear picture of what we are talking about. Let us start off with the letter of the Portuguese officer Diogo de Alcacova which was one of the earliest documents ever written about Southern Africa. Dated Cochin, 20th November 1506, and written to the King of Portugal, the letter, in part, reads:

"The kingdom, Sir, in which there is the gold that comes to Sofala [a Portuguese trading station] is called Ucalanga [Bukalanga], and the kingdom is very large, in which there are many large towns, besides many other villages, and Sofala itself is in this kingdom if not the whole land along the sea … And, Sir, a man might go from Sofala to a city which is called Zumubany [Zimbabgwe] which is large, in which the king always resides, in ten or twelve days, if you travel as in Portugal;

… and in the whole kingdom of Ucalanga gold in extracted; and in this way: they dig out the earth and make a kind of tunnel, through which they go under the ground a long stone’s throw, and keep on taking out from the veins with the ground mixed with the gold, and, when collected, they put it in a pot, and cook it much in fire; and after cooking they take it out, and put it to cool, and when cold, the earth remains, and the gold all fine gold …

And this king who now reins, Sir, in Ucalanga, is the son of Mokomba, late king of the said kingdom, and he has the name Kewsarimgo Menomotapa, which is like saying king so and so, because the title of the king is Menomotapam, and the kingdom Ucalanga. Your highness is already aware that for twelve or thirteen years there has been war in the kingdom from which the gold came to Sofala (in Duffy 1964, 149)."

We can see from Diogo Alcacova's letter that he expressly states that the Monomotapa Empire, as it has come to be known, was a Bukalanga kingdom, not a Shona kingdom as Mawira and many Shona historians claim. Alcacova also suggest that [Great] Zimbabwe was the residence of the Monomotapa. He also clearly states that the people with which the Portuguese traded in gold were Bukalanga peoples, again not Shona. This is confirmed by Dr Sidney Welch, himself a student of Portuguese history, language and literature when he wrote:

"Among the surviving documents the first hint of European pioneers in the interior of Mashonaland comes from Diogo de Alcacova in 1506. Writing to the King from Cochin on the 20th of November he relates what he had done whilst working with Pedro da Naia, and how his information was gathered on the spot, when he was the factor of Sofala.

"After telling the King that malaria had compelled him to leave Sofala, and that he had deposited with the King’s agent in Cochin a present of gold from the Sheikh of Sofala, he gives an account of the gold fields of the land, which he calls Vealanga [the letter V being interchangeable with U in some European languages].

"… The country of Vealanga as he pictures it, [is] “a very large kingdom with many large towns besides a great number of other villages”, [and] indicates that all the territory between the Limpopo River and the Zambesi, where the greater chiefs and indunas gathered large kraals about them, whilst the smaller kraals were scattered far and wide. Within this rough circle we discern what we now know as Matebeleland, Mashonaland, and that part of the present Portuguese territory which is south of the Zambesi" (Welch 1946, 180-181).

Now, it is interesting to note that much of what is written above is confirmed by a number of renowned archeologists who have worked on the subject of the Zimbabwe Ruins: Professor Keith R. Robinson (1958, 108-121; 1959, 13); Professor Thomas Huffman (1973, 1-2); Professor G. P. Lestrade (in Leo Fouche (1937: 119-24); Roger Summers (1971, 176-81); Dr David Randall-McIver (1906, 60-71) and Dr Gertrude Caton-Thompson (1931, 119, 177-182). This brings us to the next question: who were the builders of the Zimbabwe Ruins?

3. Who built Maphungubgwe, Great Zimbabgwe, Khami, and all Zimbabwe-type Ruins?

Still marching in the Shona narrative of history, Mawira claims that "today, Great Zimbabwe is preserved as a valuable cultural center and tourist attraction. It epitomizes what has certainly been the finest and highest achievement of Shona civilization." But again, it is interesting to note what contemporary Portuguese documents from 1506 and the archeologists named above had to say about the Zimbabgwe Ruins. As already stated above, they all concluded that Bukalanga peoples were responsible for the Zimbabgwe Civilization. Let us look at just one statement of one of the archeologists, Dr David Randall-McIver, which is in agreement with all the other archeologists listed above. He wrote in his work, Mediaeval Rhodesia in 1906:

"The records [of the Portuguese] … indicate that considerable changes were taking place in the distribution of territory among various Negro chiefs in the hinterland of the Portuguese settlements throughout the sixteenth century. And it is quite possible that the paramount lord, who was called by the dynastic name Monomotapa, exercised direct or indirect control over a country further to the south and west when Diogo de Alcacova (1506) and Duarte Barbosa (1514) wrote their accounts than when Dos Santos (1609) published his great work on “Eastern Ethiopia.”

"I am inclined, therefore, to identify the “Zumubany” of Alcacova and the “City of Benamatapa,” described by Barbosa with the ruins now existing near Victoria [Great Zimbabgwe]. The notes of direction and distance tally closely with what is required, the distance from Sofala being stated as twenty odd day’s march by a road which “goes from Sofala inland towards the Cape of Good Hope”

"… The pottery from [the] lowest level [of strata in the ground floors of huts found within the Eliptical Temple area] is that which Mr. Hall calls Makalanga, and which is, in fact, exactly like modern Negro pottery … It is impossible, therefore, to resist the conclusion that the people who inhabited the “Eliptical Temple” when it was being built belonged to tribes whose arts and manufactures were indistinguishable from those of the modern Makalanga … Zimbabwe may very probably be identified as the old Monomotapan capital" (MacIver 1906, 60-71).

Space obviously prohibits me from marshalling in more evidence as it was presented by the archeologists I have mentioned. But it may be worth stating that the University of Pretoria Archeological Committee, sitting under the chairmanship of Professor Leo Fouche, also concluded that Bukalanga peoples were the builders of the Zimbabgwe Civilization from Maphungubgwe to Dangaleng'ombe (Dlodlo). This then leads us to ask the question, where were the Shona during this time, or at least the ancestors of the people called Shona today? Indeed, the question was rightly asked by S. M. Molema in 1920:

"The latest archaeological researches show that the [Zimbabgwe] ruins are neither so mysterious nor so ancient as they have been supposed; that they are not eastern or anything else but African in origin. More precisely, they show a rude civilization in which geometry was unknown, they are remains of mediaeval structures, and they were built by a Bantu people - the natives of South[ern] Africa. The Mashona, however, only arrived in the eighteenth century. Who occupied the country before them? Makalaka; and who before?" (Molema 1920, 69).

4. When did the Shona arrive in Zimbabwe, and where were they during the early days of Portuguese exploration?

We can see above that Molema writes that the Shona only arrived in the land now called Zimbabwe in the 18th century. This is obviously too late for them to have had Great Zimbabwe as the "finest and highest achievement of Shona civilization" as Mawira and many Shona writers claim. They were just not there in Zimbabwe during the glory days of the Zimbabgwe Civilization. But am I relying only on Molema's statement? Certainly not. There is a lot of evidence showing that the ancestors of the Shona only arrived in Zimbabwe at the turn of the 18th century, or the early 1700s.

Let us start off with the works of the acclaimed historian Dr George MacCall Theal who was Historiographer of the Government of the Cape Colony and translated most Portuguese documents into English. He wrote concerning the time of the arrival of the Shona in Zimbabwe:

"In 1505, when the Portuguese formed their first settlement on the south eastern coast, the Makalanga tribe occupied the territory now termed Rhodesia and the seaboard between the Zambesi and the Sabi rivers.

"Before the commencement of the eighteenth century that tribe was broken up by wars … and about that time a considerable immigration began to set in from the north … These immigrants, who were the ancestors of the people now called by Europeans Mashona, came down from some locality west of Lake Tanganyika in little parties, not in one great horde. The first to arrive was a clan under a chief named Sakavunza, who settled at a place near the town of Salisbury.

"The details of this immigration were not placed on record by any of the Portuguese in the country, who merely noticed that there was a constant swirl of barbarians, plundering and destroying, and replacing one another; and when recent investigators, like Mr. R. N. Hall, of Zimbabwe, and Mr. W. S. Taberer, the government commissioner, endeavored to gather the particulars from the descendants of the immigrants, it was found impossible to obtain more accurate information from them concerning the events of distant times than the general fact that their ancestors came down from the north about two centuries ago." (Theal 1907, 63. Italics mine).

Dr Theal's testimony is by no means the only one that records the arrival of the Shona in Zimbabwe in the early 1700s. His record is supported by the Shona's own oral traditions as recorded by the Native Administrator, FWT Posselt (1935) who served in Plumtree and Marondera from 1908 to 1935. He recorded the Sakavunza tradition and the 1700s arrival. The other record is to be had from Professor Stanlake Samkange, a contemporary of Dr Joshua Nkomo. He wrote in his book, Oral Tradition of the Zvimba People:

"In the land of Makonde, in the Chinhoyi district, near the Chitombo-rwizi Purchase Area, towards the Karoyi River, are people known as The People of Zvimba who live in their land called Chipata. These people are real MaZezuru. Their cognomen or Mutupo is Ngonya pa Nyora. Their honorificus - Chidawo is Gushungo; or Owner of the fruit forest, Pachiworera, Tsiwo, Terror of the Waters! … Now where did these people come from? Listen! Hear! These people of Zvimba came from Guruwuskwa. No one can tell you the exact location of this place called Guruwuskwa. All our elders only point to the North saying: “This way, that is where Guruwuskwa is, this way”" (Samkange 1986, 1).

Samkange then states that when the then District Commissioner inquired as to the history and origins of the Zezuru people in 1955, he was told by one Mr. Chakabva, who was the elder brother of Headman Dununu, that "Neyiteve, the son of Chihobvu, the Progenitor, left the area where Chihobvu lived in Guruwuskwa and came west in search of new land. At that time, the Rozvi’s ruled this country. A Mu Rozvi named Tumbare [Tumbale], gave land to Neyiteve when Neyiteve said: "My feet are swollen." He became the first Zvimba" (Samkange 1986, 5).

Professor Samkange proceeds and records the District Commissioner writing in 1965 of the Zvimba people that:

"These people formed part of the general migration from the north. They say they came from a place named Guru Uskwa (probably in Tanganyika). They were led by one Nemaunga and his son or younger brother Neyiteve. The country they occupied was originally occupied by Chief Svinura’s people (Chiwundura?) but they were driven out by the VaRozvi" (Samkange 1986, 5).

There are two points of interest here. If the ‘Chief Svinura’ is indeed Chiwundura as Samkange thinks, then the proposition raises very interesting questions about the date of the settlement of the Shona in the Zimbabgwean tableland. Chiwundura is the Shona rendering for the Bukalanga King Tjibundule (called Netshiendeulu by the Venda). Tjibundule is known to have been conquered by Mambo Dombolakona-Tjing’wango Dlembewu Moyo in the late 1600s (Rennie, in Schoffeleers 1978, 260).

We of course know that half of Zimbabgwe was at that time under the leadership of King Tjibundule, with the other half having been under the leadership of the Monomotapa. Whilst Tjibundule was a dynastic title dating back to the 1500s or so, here the tradition collected by Professor Samkange clearly states that when the Zezuru arrived it was around the time at which the reigning Tjibundule was overthrown by the Lozwi, and the country under Lozwi rule, with Tumbale allocating them land. That would have been in the late 1600s, for that is the time the Lozwi Mambos took over power from the Tjibundules, and the mention of Tumbale confirms this date, for he was the leading medicine-man and army general at this time.

After conducting extensive investigations and research into Shona oral traditions, the late Professor David Beach formerly at the University of Zimbabwe, wrote that none of the Shona dynasties were able to provide any of their history in Zimbabwe dating back to anything beyond 1700. He also wrote that none of the dynasties had any history that could be projected back to the Zimbabgwe Ruins period, stating: "Apart from the case of the zimbabwe on Gombe mountain in Buhera, there is no connection between the dynasties of the shava belt and any zimbabwe-type buildings, and their history cannot be projected back to the Great Zimbabwe period" (Beach 1994, 29).

We certainly could marshal in more evidence, but again, space would not allow us to do so. But what we can see clearly in the preceding is that the people now called Shona certainly have no history that can be projected back to anything beyond 1700, the date at which they arrived in the Zimbabgwean Tableland. As such, they cannot lay claim to have established the Zimbabgwe Civilization, to have built Great Zimbabgwe, to have been the Monomotapa, Togwa and Lozwi Kingdom peoples. This totally invalidates Mawira's "TRUE history of Zimbabwe" as the UNTRUE history of Zimbabwe.

It is indeed interesting to note what Mawira has to say about the founding of the Monomotapa Empire. Citing Shona oral traditions, he states that one Mutota founded the Monomotapa Empire which stretched from Mozambique to the Kalahari Desert. Partly, this is one of the reasons why the Shona lay claim to the region erroneously called Matebeleland today as "stolen Shona land". But it is very interesting to know that the Shona never at any point in history settled in the so-called Matebeleland.

When they arrived in this land now called Zimbabwe in the 1700s the Shona were allocated the land that they now inhabit by the ruling Kalanga-Lozwi Mambos, that is, Mashonaland and Manicaland. That land had been very humid for settlement by a people heavily dependent on cattle as the Bukalanga peoples were (Summers 1971, 177-80). It was in the 1800s that they moved further south, intermixing with Bakalanga, resulting in what we know as the Karanga today, something which even Aenias Chigwedere in his blatant Shonalization of history could not avoid admitting (see Chigwedere, The Karanga Empire, pp. 6-7).

Mawira's and other Shona writers' claim that they had an empire stretching from Mozambique to the Kalahari Desert is false, and even the Mutota character they mention as the founder of the Monomotapa Kingdom was never mentioned by any of the early Portuguese writers. The name Mutota only appears in a later Portuguese writer, Joao Juliao da Silva related to him by an old woman “130 years old” in the late 19th century (Randles, 1979, 6).

It has indeed been stated by Professor Beach that the name Mutota, and all the names so commonly taught in school textbooks as the names of the leaders of the Monomotapa Kingdom are mythical and not historical and should be pushed back to the world of myth where they belong. He wrote:

"It has taken a long time to arrive at this tentative genealogy, but in view of the fame of the Mutapas it is, in my view, worth it. It is true that we end up with rather less ‘history’ than we used to posses. We must take Nyatsimba Mutota, Nehanda Nebedza, Matope Nyanhewe, Neshangwe Munembire, Chivere Nyasoro, Negomo Chisamharu, Siti Kazurukamusapa, Boroma Dangwarangwa, Samatambira Nyamhandu, Dewhe Mupunzagutu, Nyatsutsu, Nyamhandu II and a number of other Mutapa rulers who have set securely in Mutapa history for the last thirty years or more, and push them out of ‘history’ into the world of myth where they belong.

"This means that we are left with the Mutapas of the documents, and it is very rarely that we can use any oral traditions of this century to add new dimensions to what the documents reveal. Nor is it always easy to use even the 1763 and 1862 collections of oral traditions. At least, though, in having less ‘history’ we will at least have something that is a little closer to the truth than the so-called traditions that misinformed us for so long" (Beach 1994, 211-243).

Ok, So what?

With the brief history that we presented above, we can safely conclude that Mawira's claims about Zimbabwean history are untrue, not as true as the wants us to believe. Not only so, the claims by Shona scholars are totally untrue, and much of what is taught in school is false and mythical.

A few points can be made here to answer the question "so what?"

1. The Shona (excepting the Karanga element that was originally Kalanga, mainly identified by the surnames Moyo, Shumba, Shoko, Gumbo, and the Lozwi who fled from Bukalanga during the Nguni invasions) are not the builders of the Zimbabgwe Civilization. They did not build Maphungubgwe, Great Zimbabgwe, Khami and any other nzi mabgwe. Instead, Bukalanga peoples - Bakalanga, Banambya and Vhavenda - were the builders of these edifices.

2. The Monomotapa, Togwa and Lozwi Kingdoms were not Shona kingdoms as Mawira claims and as taught in school and held by Shona political elites. These were Bukalanga kingdoms, and that is what the evidence provided by Portuguese documents, archeology and oral traditions state. The Shona have no history dating back to anything in that era.

3. The Shona have never at any point in history settled the so-called Matebeleland at any point in history. Therefore the argument and teaching that this land was once Shona land "stolen by the Ndebele" is false and baseless. The land has always been Khoisan, Bukalanga and Tonga land for at least 1500 years.

4. The claim that Bakalanga are a Shona-Ndebele hybrid whose language was a "corrupted version of Shona" is one of the lousiest claims ever made. Bakalanga have been in Zimbabwe for about 2000 years, over 1500 years before the Shona and over 1800 years before the Ndebele.

5. Bukalanga Kingdoms - the Monomotapa, Togwa and Lozwi Kingdoms - were confederate states that allowed for much linguistic and cultural diversity, hence the existence of the three languages of Bukalanga - TjiKalanga, TjiNambya and Tshivenda. Therefore, there is nothing sinister about Zimbabweans clamoring for Federalism and/or Devolution of Power. It is not something new or foreign to us as Professor Jonathan Moyo would have us believe.

6. The Shona are no more indigenous to Zimbabwe than anyone, and they don’t have better ownership of the country at all. If anything, the Ndebele are more indigenous to Southern Africa than the Shona, bearing in mind that the Nguni crossed the Zambezi in the 1400s and the Shona in the 1700s. Even the Europeans arrived in the region before the Shona or concurrently with them - the Portuguese in 1505 and the Dutch in 1721. The idea that the Ndebele have to go back to Zululand and the Europeans back to Europe is therefore stupid, for it may also mean that the Shona themselves have to trek back to the Great Lakes region, which of course is nonsense.

Such is the way I see it this week my fellow Zimbabweans. For those asking how then Bukalanga history ended up being taught as Shona history, please see Chapters 7 and 8 of my book, The Rebirth of Bukalanga titled 'How Did We End Up With the Shonalized Version of History' and 'How Did We End Up With the Shonalized Version of History Continued: Further Influences' respectively. I show in those two chapters how our history was heavily distorted by Donald P. Abraham, Solomon Mutswairo and Aenias Chigwedere for it to be what it is today.

--------------------

Ndzimu-unami Emmanuel Moyo is a Justice Activist and Author of two books, The Rebirth of Bukalanga and Zimbabwe: The Case for Federalism. He can be contacted by email on ndzimuunami@gmail.com or on Facebook by searching his name, as well as on his 'The Federalist Papers Zimbabwe' blog at http://www.ndzimuunami.blogspot.com.