Zimbabwe's Cultural Heritage

A brief history of the Nambiya

125 THE NAMBIYA A brief history of the Nambiya Abridged from A History of North-Western Zimbabwe since 400 AD, by Godfrey Tabona Ncube The Nambiya were originally a breakaway group from the Rozvi State. Oral tradition indicates that they fled because their leader, Sawanga (later Hwange), had decided to set himself up as an independent ruler early in the eighteenth century. They fled north, and then west, until they entered Leya country (present day Hwange District). The first place they settled in was called Bhale, lying between the Gwayi, Nyantuwe and Lukosi rivers. It was at Bhale that Sawanga built a hill fortress at a place called Shangano, which became the capital of his new state. Tradition also maintains that it was at Bhale that Sawanga’s people first became known as Nambiya. It seems that Shangano served as the Nambiya capital for more than half a century and spanned the reigns of three successive chiefs after Sawanga’s death in 1780. The Nambiya incorporated the Leya and other smaller groups. The Kalanga dialect of the Nambiya was then imposed on the incorporated groups. The Nambiya are believed to have moved from Shangano to the Bumbusi area in the Upper Deka valley during the reign of the fifth Hwange, whose name was Shana (1834-60). In large measure the move appears to have been dictated by the greater suitability of the wetter soils at Bumbusi for bulrush millet, sorghum and maize, which were Nambiya staples. The new capital was sited on a rocky promontory beneath two large baobab trees that still stand today. The stone-walled enclosure was about 55 metres long and two metres high and the royal dwellings were located within this complex. The masonry on the walls was a variant of the architecture of Great Zimbabwe. The Nambiya zimbabwe, like the many other madzimbabwe scattered throughout the country, is believed to have been built primarily to symbolise the wealth, prestige and authority of the ruling class. On the largest kopje, where the Nambiya chief is believed to have lived, the walls were built between the natural rocks into the steep sides of the kopje and also at the kopje, around the area where the chief’s house stood. These remarkable stone structures on kopjes are spread over a wide area around the Bumbusi site and appear to indicate where senior Nambiya lived. 126 The skill in stone-building demonstrated by the Nambiya may indicate that they are descendents of the earlier Torwa, who are associated with stone building, rather than the later Rozwi, who merely inherited buildings at the end of the seventeenth century. Eye-witness accounts of contemporary European observers reveal that between 1850 and 1898 the bulk of the region’s population was concentrated along the Zambezi River and the lower courses of its tributaries, while the hinterland had very little or no population. Settling in the river valleys, where there were reliable water supplies all year round and fertile alluvial soils, guaranteed the people long-term cultivation and security from famine. The second half of the nineteenth century brought considerable changes for the Nambiya. Broadly, these changes were brought about by two different factors, one resulting from the Mfecane and the other by the arrival of European traders and settlers. These two events radically changed the political, economic and social structure of Nambiya society. The first traders to reach the area are thought to have been the Portuguese and their African agents, the Chikunda, who originated in Mozambique. The Portuguese purchased a large number of young men and women who were exported as slaves. This trade seriously depleted the Nambiya population and, following the abolition of the slave trade, the Nambiya began purchasing slaves back from the Portuguese in return for ivory as a means of replenishing their population. When the Mfecane first reached north-western Zimbabwe in the 1840s, the Nambiya State was ruled by Hwange Lusumbami. There was a feud between Kings Mzilikazi of the Ndebele and Sebetwane of the Kololo, who were vying for the allegiance of the Tonga and for stealing Tonga cattle on the north bank of the Zambezi. King Mzilikazi apparently suspected that Lusumbami was intriguing with the Kololo and therefore Lusumbami was executed on King Mzilikazi’s order in 1853 for double-dealing. This doubledealing may have generated the myth of two hearts found in Nambiya oral traditions. The Nambiya State was characterised by ethnic diversity. Among the various ethnic groups under Hwange were many Kalanga...