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4 Shortly after the re-establishment of Qawukeni, the Mpondo capital east of the Mzimvubu River, and the treaty of 1844, tension began to develop between Ndamase, Faku’s eldest and right-hand son, and supporters of the young Mqikela, his great son and heir. By 1845 Ndamase was in his mid-forties and had led Mpondo armies in many campaigns over the previous two decades. Over the years he had built up his own private herds and a substantial number of personal followers. At the same time, Mqikela had just turned fourteen and might – according to some oral traditions – have been somewhat sickly. However, as the legitimate heir with a high-ranking mother, Mqikela certainly must have had his supporters within the paramount’s council. As Faku himself had come to power by usurping a younger yet higher ranked half-brother, the king must have sympathized with Ndamase yet realized the danger of a potential civil war between the rival brothers. Faku knew of the disastrous results of the Zulu civil war between Dingane and Mpande, who were also half-brothers. In turn, Faku sent Ndamase and his personal subjects across the Mzimvubu River to govern the district chiefs of the southwestern half of the kingdom, which was known as Nyandeni. According to Victor Poto Ndamase, a twentieth-century paramount chief of Western Pondoland and historian, soon after Ndamase crossed the Mzimvubu River he killed a leopard and followed custom by sending the skin, a royal symbol, to Faku, as a sign of his continued loyalty. The king then returned the skin with a message saying, “Let the tail be given to Ndamase, that he may apprehend with it. Let the tails of all leopards which are slain in Nyandeni (Western Pondoland) be given to Ndamase, and not sent across to Qaukeni (Eastern Pondoland).”1 Since a king’s messenger carried a leopard tail as a badge of office, this privilege meant that Ndamase had been given the status of a semi-autonomous ruler within the Mpondo state. The Expansion of the Cape ColonyandNatal (1845-52) Notes to chapter 4 are on pp. 180–82. 65 66 / Faku: Rulership and Colonialism in the Mpondo Kingdom Mpondo oral traditions, from both east and west Pondoland, provide a somewhat different version of these events. One of Ndamase’s top fighting men, Dlanjwa, went into a lion’s den and singlehandedly killed the beast. Upon receiving the carcass, Ndamase sent the skin to Faku’s council , but kept the mane for himself. This was seen as a direct challenge to the supremacy of Mqikela’s great house. Consequently, Bekameva, a son of Faku who was nearly as old as Ndamase and belonged to the ritual supporting house of the great house, took his men and drove Ndamase and his followers west of the Mzimvubu River. In a variation of this account, after Ndamase had insulted the great house, Faku, who wanted to save his eldest son, warned him to move across the Mzimvubu River at a place where the water was calm. However, the river was overflowing and could not be crossed. Then, on Faku’s advice, Ndamase directed his people to cut down trees and make bundles of logs on which to float across the water. With Ndamase’s top men leading, all his followers paddled across the Mzimvubu in this manner. Subsequently, Ndamase established himself as ruler of the Mpondo groups that were already west of the river, such as the Gingqi and Konjwayo. At the same time, he led campaigns that drove the Mpondomise, who had refused to accept Mpondo dominance, west across the Mtata River and north towards the present-day town of Tsolo. Ndamase then posted his full brothers, Mbangata, Bangani and Dikiso, along his western and northwestern frontiers to guard against attacks from the neighbouring Bomvana, Mpondomise and Thembu.2 Although these versions of the division of Pondoland into east and west are somewhat different, they agree that Faku’s eldest son, Ndamase, essentially became ruler of his own territory. From that point on, Ndamase could and often did declare war against neighbouring groups without involving his father. Upon the paramount’s death it would be easy for Ndamase to become completely independent from Eastern Pondoland, which would then be under Mqikela, Faku’s heir. By the mid1860s , about one third of the entire Mpondo population lived under Ndamase’s authority west of the Mzimvubu River.3 Sometime after the 1844 treaty, Faku and Moshoeshoe, the...

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