By Dr Takavafira Zhou.
To imagine that Robert Mugabe would request the bottom of Zimbabwean birds and not heads of Nehanda and Kaguvi given his pre-occupation with Zezuru hegemonic power baffles logic and common sense. But surely, Mugabe was never concerned with Chingaira Makoni, and the longest guerrilla fighter, Mapondera because they were not Zezuru.
The history of Nehanda and Kaguvi is very insignificant as compared to Makoni Chingaira and Mapondera, never mind the totalising Zezuru hegemonic legitimation that Kaguvi and Nehanda played. Both Nehanda and Kaguvi were local leaders, Kaguvi in Chiweshe and Nehanda in Mazowe. Neither were they influencial in the first Chimurenga. Kaguvi was a hunter and fugitive womaniser whose hunting errands and womanising errands led him to also acquire anti- locusts medicine.
When people flocked to him for hunting medicine, love portions and anti-local medicine he was erroneously judged by whites to be the centre of resistance in Chiweshe. Nehanda even denied ever sending people to kill Pollard during her trial and was just a local traditional leader innocently accused and killed a white person. The role of religion in the 1896-97 was a fertile imagination of M. Hall and colonialist who wanted a justification for the outbreak of the rising against their assumed civilising mission.
The explanation was therefore found in assumed fear of spirit mediums by the Shona and the Ndebele. The dominance of the information department by Shamuyarira, Mutizwa etc elevated Zezuru spirit mediums during the second Chimurenga, while Mugabe also found it convenient for legitimation purporses. Historians such Beach, Cobbing, Prof Gathseni, Ndhlovu, Mazarira, etc are all agreed on the absence of priesthood or religion in the first chimurenga.
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