Ndebele perceptions of a king and the State

LET us today bring to the conclusion the story of the fate of King Lobengula as told by the whites. The sources tell of how the Major Allan Wilson Patrol comprising 12 men crossed the Shangani River in the hope of capturing the king and return with him to Bulawayo. Meanwhile, the main section under Major Patrick Forbes remained on the southern bank of the river.

The king travelled in a wagon and managed to cross the Shangani River. About five miles on, he and his party encamped for the night. The Wilson patrol saw the king's wagon and decided to send two men back to Major Forbes for reinforcements when they pounced on the king early in the morning. Major Forbes was not keen to expose his men to the Ndebele soldiers. As a compromise, he did send 20 men under the command of Captain Borrow as reinforcements.

Early in the morning the men from the Wilson Patrol charged towards the wagon calling out to the king only to be met with deafening silence. The king was nowhere to be found. They could only presume he had left behind the wagon and struck north. The beleaguered white men were not to live to tell the tale as all of them were wiped out, fighting gallantly but unable to match Ndebele rifle fire complemented by spears and the sheer numerical superiority.

Once the king had escaped the white version what transpired thereafter was more of conjecture and wishful thinking than fact. It was not until 1946 when one white native commissioner named John Huxtable alias Chitemamhuru was led by one woman known as Shoko Thwalimbiza Ndlovu and Ndonsa Magagula was led to the supposed grave of the king at Pashu. Shoko was apparently an emissary to the Njelele Shrine and lived at Inyathi. Thwalimbiza Ndlovu, being a captive of Tonga origin was familiar with the countryside. Equally, Ndonsa was familiar with the terrain as he once lived in the Lupane area and used to conduct hunting expeditions deep into Tongaland.

According to white sources the contents of the grave bore testimony to the cave as holding the remains of the king and his accompaniments, in terms of human beings and material artifacts. Resorting to wild guesswork, it was claimed the king had died after taking some poison. Accordingly, the cave at Pashu was officially recognised as the king's resting place and subsequently declared a national monument.

There are sources too that say the king travelled north till he got close to the Zambezi River, actually some 40 kilometres away. There he came into the belt of the tsetse fly. The king succumbed to a disease caused by the fly. That is said to have happened towards the end of January in 1894. We are not told anything further regarding the fate of the king. However, there was one Posselt who claimed the king crossed the Zambezi River and lived among the Ngoni people under Mphezeni Jele in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

We are aware too of white scholarly researchers who have worked among the Ngoni in Zambia who have unearthed records referring to the presence of the former Ndebele monarch among that Nguni community. Let us end this section by referring to one Collins Ndlovu who was reported on an on-line publication as saying he had information that the last Ndebele monarch was sacrilegiously assassinated by the colonial forces. Ndlovu was reported as having found the supposed grave of Prince Nkulumane from whom one Ndlundluluza Mzilikazi Khumalo is descended.

We now turn to Ndebele accounts of what happened to their king. These accounts seek to eulogise the military virtues of the Ndebele and that their king was not captured by his pursuers. According to their political philosophy the king epitomised the state. The king was the state and the state was the king. It was for this reason that a physically challenged prince was not allowed to ascend the throne. His physical infirmities, so the Ndebele believed, would transfer to the state. Similarly, when the king, who symbolised the state, was captured by the enemy that translated to the defeat and collapse of the state.

King Lobengula, it is claimed, did not want the enemy to get hold of his bone. This has to be appreciated in line with the worldview of the Ndebele people.

History tells us that when King Mzilikazi fought and defeated one king near the Zambezi River on his trek to the north he had the remains of that particular king completely burnt to ashes. The defeated king's remains were placed in a horn together with medicines. The act ensured King Mzilikazi had unquestionably defeated the chief and his people. Further, by making use of the concoction King Mzilikazi ritually strengthened himself.

The Ndebele feared a similar fate befalling their monarch with disastrous consequences for the future of the state and its people. The theory of royal flight and escape of the king was thus in line with what the Ndebele desired. Such a theory, even when unfounded, would be supported and propagated.

We start with the song that every primary school child knows:
Kudala kwakungenje
Umhlab' uyaphenduka
Kwakubus' uMambo loMzilikazi
Sawel' uTshangane
Saguqa ngamadolo
Inkos' uLobhengula yasinyamalala
Kwasekusin' izulu
Yasinyamalala.
The import of the song is one of lament following the advent of a new political order that comes into place after the "disappearance" of the king after crossing the Shangani River. The past political orders under the Mambos and later under King Mzilikazi are extolled and deemed better than the current political order.

The key word here with regard to the fate of the king is "yasinyamalala", which means "disappeared". The word is used to refer to the unknown whereabouts of a person. "Disappeared" does not mean one died, it merely refers to some unknown fate. At the same time, for the Ndebele at least, it will be a way of cutting a long story short and dismissing any further questions relating to the subject. When the elders say the king "disappeared" they are closing the subject to further enquiry. That is not to say they do not know what happened to the king. True, it could not have been every Ndebele citizen who would have known the fate of the king.

The third two-line stanza refers to the rain that fell. White accounts do refer to the withdrawing Major Forbes party which came under heavy torrential rain at several points during their crestfallen retreat when they had to resort to killing some of their horses for meat. Slaughter oxen had apparently bolted when there was intense thunder and lightning.

In fact, we do know that Major Forbes' Party failed to cross to the northern bank of the Shangani River because the river was flooded. The rains pounded the area on the night of the 3rd of December 1893. Even the two whites who left the Major Wilson Party to rejoin the Major Forbes Party crossed the raging Shangani River with difficulty.

The Ndebele people, like other African people, believed that rain could be caused to fall. Oral accounts ascribe that feat to one Dakamela Ncube a renowned traditional healer and son of Celimbuya as having performed some ritual to cause the rain to fall and flood the Shangani River and split the two sections of pursuers and thus protect the king.

Those in the company of Dakamela would have knelt down in reverence to the ancestors whose intervention they sought. It is possible that if the flooded Shangani River had not stopped the south-of-the-Shangani River white reinforcements from crossing the river the king could have been captured. The king was saved by the flooded river, thanks to the Ndebele people's knowledge of symbolically manipulating the weather to go their way!