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13 The treasures of Old Bulawayo As we approach the summit of the low hill, we encounter a robust palisade made from mopane wood. The incomplete palisade sets the Royal Enclosure apart from the Peripheral Settlement, where the rest of the town dwellers lived. Several beehive huts have also been reconstructed. Marieke Faber Clarke, Wilson Lethizulu Fuyana, Hudson Halimana Ndlovu and myself are visiting Old Bulawayo, or simply koBulawayo in the SiNdebele language. Marieke, who has been engaged in the research of Lozikeyi Dlodlo, is keen to see the latest developments on the Old Bulawayo project. She was last here in 1996. Since her last visit a lot of groundwork has been covered. Archaeologists are busy at work. We have come to share ideas about their recent finds. A hut floor close to the presumed entrance has been exposed. Whose hut was it and what was it used for? Important finds of clay figurines have been unearthed by the excavators working at the site, which warrant careful ethnographic interpretation. Old Bulawayo was established in 1870 as King Lobengula Khumalo’s new capital. Mzilikazi Khumalo, the founding king of the Ndebele nation, died in 1868 and his remains were interred at Entumbane in the Matopo Hills. Mcumbatha Khumalo, son of Kholo, acted as regent until the contested accession to the throne by Lobengula. The Ndebele State was thrown into a bitter and bloody civil war in which some elements, led by Mbiko Masuku, umfokaMadlenya, the Chief of Zwangendaba, resisted Lobengula’s assumption of the reins of power. Lobengula Khumalo named his new capital town Gibixhengu, in memory of an earlier town built by Gundwane Ndiweni and his people when they settled in the Esigodini area in about 1839-40. In 1870, Lobengula, already a mature married man, came with his sister Mncengence to establish the new seat of power for the Ndebele. Following the civil war of 1871-72, Lobengula, who emerged victorious, renamed his capital koBulawayo. Obulawayo is a singular form referring to the King himself. Where such a person, obulawayo, resides, is referred to as kobulawayo. Ko- is a locative formative. KoBulawayo, therefore, means the place where he (the King) who is being rejected (as evidenced by the civil war) resides. This is the origin of the name koBulawayo, which had nothing to do with Tshaka’s Bulawayo in Zululand. The similarity lay in the circumstances 14 under which both men became kings - both faced initial rejection and opposition (ukubulawa) but went on to rule. Lobengula was born in about 1833 in the Marico Valley in the north-western Transvaal. And that was about 13 years after Mzilikazi Khumalo had left Zululand. KoBulawayo does not mean a place of slaughter, as suggested in some colonial history books. The Jesuit missionaries who arrived in 1879 called it Gubulawayo. This was very close indeed if we take cognisance of the fact that, in those days, the ‘K’ sound was represented by the letter ‘G’. Pronunciation was dictated by the context. Outside the old church building at Hope Fountain are the following words – UGUTULA KUBE KINI LONKE. Using the current Ndebele orthography UGUTULA would be written as UKUTHULA. I would like to offer some tentative interpretation regarding the figurines that were unearthed by the archaeologists working at Old Bulawayo. Edward Matenga, a fundi on figurines, defines these cultural relics as ‘Three dimensional miniature models of humans, animals and other objects’ (Matenga, 1997). It would appear that among the Shona, figurines went beyond their intrinsic and aesthetic value. They assumed some significance in the Shona fertility ideology. Initial ethnographic findings do not reveal a similar situation among the Ndebele. The clay figurines found at Old Bulawayo depict cattle and human beings. Among the Ndebele, moulding of figurines using clay was undertaken by children. It was part of amandlwana (child play). The games played by Ndebele children miniaturised adult activities. Boys’ amandlwana embraced moulding, with clay, of figurines such as those unearthed at Old Bulawayo. As a children’s play activity, making figurines was carried out away from adults. It was undertaken either near or beyond the fence of the homestead. The boys, as future herdboys, moulded mostly cattle. There was differentiation among the cattle they made: oxen (with long horns, impondo ezichayileyo) and bulls (characterised by humps, shorter and sharper horns, impondo ezithiyileyo, and genitals, isisende). Sometimes the cows were provided with calves – represented by smaller clay figurines without horns. Beasts so moulded were usually given names. Commonly, the names depicted colour or...

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