By Stephen Kasere.
(News of the south) – In my previous article entitled “Don’t teach Rubbish about Mwenemutapa”, I bemoaned not only the death of knowledge in Zimbabwe about the Mwenemutapa leadership, but also the lack of proper acknowledgement of the role Mwenemutapa leadership played in defending the land of Zimbabweans that included Shona people as well as MaSena, Manyanja, Machikunda of parts of today’s Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.
I also explained how the ethnic name Makorekore emerged as a description of Mwenemutapa’s soldiers and how the soldiers instilled fear not only to Europeans (Portuguese) who viewed Zimbabwe as the home of King Solomon’s Mines, but also fellow Africans especially Bushmen who retreated from Zimbabwe in the 14th century describing MaKorekore as Makwerekwere. But far more significant was the story of how the first Man to bring Christianity to Zimbabwe, Father Gonzalo da Silveira was sentenced to death in 1561 by the 17 year old Korekore Mwene on two counts of “spying” and “sorcery”.
Taking it from where the last article ended, I think it is only fair for Zimbabweans that we now get into details of how the Portuguese reacted to the killing of Silveira and how Zimbabweans thwarted the subsequent efforts by the Portuguese government to terrorize and kill Zimbabweans. After they had carefully studied the succession system of the Svikiro (spirit medium) through which the Mwenemutapa was appointed, the Portuguese used the Catholic Church for their insidious game of regime changes to replace genuine Korekore Mwenemutapas with carefully groomed puppets that signed favorable treaties to Portugal.
Our research shows that the call to avenge Silveira’s death in Portugal came 10 years later in 1568 soon after the installation of the new 15 year-old Portuguese King Sebastino. The call was instigated by Fransisco Barreto who was Silveira’s former acquaintance and Viceroy who himself saw it as an opportunity for himself and Portuguese government to demand gold as compensation from Zimbabweans. About 1000 volunteers were soon organized under the leadership of Barreto. They departed Lisbon with so much pomp and gunshot celebrations in April 1569 and landed in Mozambique exactly a year later in May 1570.
After waiting for months of preparations in Mozambique, Barreto and his men left Mozambique for Zimbabwe on November 4, 1571 and arrived for camping and protocols in Sena on 17 December. Through Chief Sena (who was part of Zimbabwe), Barreto sent a message to Mwenemutapa asking him to send a delegation to negotiate terms that would allow them access to gold mines in compensation for Silveira’s death. But as they waited, Portuguese men began to die one after another from Malaria. Terrified by deaths, Baretto lost patience of waiting for the Mwene’s response and ordered his men to attack a nearby Sena village resulting in them killing many locals and the capture of hundred or more whom they took to their camp for interrogation.
According to an account by one sourced English writer, an orgy of death continued at the camp as captives failed to explain the kind of witchcraft they used to cause deaths of only white men and their horses. At the camp, villagers were killed at the rate of two per day and with an exhibition of macabre creativity, imagination and horrifying cruelty. Some villagers were impaled on sharp sticks and some torn apart by bent trees. Others were used for target practice, chopped up with axes or fired from cannon. One Shona captive who had pleaded for his life to be spared on grounds that he was a baptized Christian was hanged out of mercy.
After killing most of their captors and probably raping some of the mourning widows, Barreto’s expedition which included 650 harquebusiers and musketeers and more than 2000 baggage-carrying slaves finally headed west of the Zambezi destined for Mwenemutapa’s city. But without the Gods on their side, Barreto and his gold-digging mercenaries overshot the turn off path from the Zambezi to Mt Darwin, only to land near Kariba. There they were confronted by a battalion of about 16000 Tonga men armed with spears and knobkerries. The Tonga put up one of the fiercest battles ever fought in Zimbabwean soils to try and prevent Barreto from proceeding to Mwenemutapa.
At the battle, about 4000 Tonga comrades perished mainly due to Portuguese cannon fire, while 200 died on the Portuguese side. Having tested the resilience by the Tonga and the dangers of perishing if proceeded to confront Makorekore at the Mwene, the Portuguese decided to give up their pursuit and went back to the Sena Camp. Upon arrival, they found a delegation they had requested Mwenemutapa to send already waiting for them.
From then on, the Portuguese began their intelligence strategy of recruiting puppets through the Catholic Church to impose as successors to the Mwenemutapa leadership. Having studied how the African system of mudzimu resonated to succeed a deceased Mwene, in 1607, the Portuguese behind closed doors and machinations of Church, were able to get the Zezuru-trained Christian Gatsi Rusere as the new Mwenemutapa.
Immediately, Rusere signed one of the most celebrated treaties in Europe.
Under the treaty, key gold, copper and iron mines in Zimbabwe were to be handed over to Portuguese. In return the Portuguese were to provide security for the Mwene who obviously faced serious legitimacy challenges from the masses. And in addition to security and royal lifestyle, Rusere’s two sons and three daughters were to be given Portuguese education and to be raised in Catholic faith. It was about this time, according to sources, that a personal guard of 30 Europeans and half castes under the Portuguese captain were attached at the Mutapa centre in Mt Darwin.
But things never flowed as smoothly for the Portuguese even then. After Rusere had signed the treaty, concerned Korekore members of his courtiers sent intelligence information to chiefs instructing them never to show Portuguese genuine mining sites upon their arrival. Both Chief Manyika and Chief Sena even went to the extent of clearly telling the Portuguese that the treaty they had signed with Rusere rendered it ulta vires for them to enter or mine in their respective territories.
Things even got worse for Portuguese after Rusere’s death because the genuine Mwene Kapararidze who succeeded Rusere was so aggressive towards the Portuguese. But determined to fulfill their gold mission, the Portuguese organized the dethronement of Kapararidze whom they replaced with another puppet named Mavhura. Installed in 1629, Mavhura signed a treaty that made him the vassal of the Portuguese King, acknowledging the Portuguese ownership of the gold and silver mines. In exchange, Mavhura received from King Philip IV of Portugal the gift of a European-style crown and throne that had never been seen anywhere in Africa before.
Annoyed, affiliated chiefs of the then great Zimbabwe region started to distance themselves from what they called makunakuna (abomination). It was quite clear that perhaps due to ignorance, or perhaps the need for signature, the Portuguese had transformed the spiritual rank of Mwenemutapa into a King. A revolt broke out in the areas along the Zambezi from modern Cahora Bassa to the sea which killed hundreds of Portuguese and thousands of locals as people cried foul and demanded restoration of the real Mwenemutapa and nullification of concessions made by Mavhura in the treaty.
In no time, the wish of Zimbabweans prevailed and a genuine Mwene (Kapararidze) was restored. At his death, Kapararidze was succeeded by his brother Mukombwe who again stood firm against the wishes of the Portuguese right to the time of his death in 1669. After Mukombwe, Portuguese hoped his son Mhande, their blue eyed boy would take over to help their agenda. But instead, Mukombwe was succeeded by his brother Nyakambiro who, upon the traditional installation wasted no time in inviting reigning Chief (Changamire) to unite to get rid of the Portuguese from Zimbabwe.
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But instead of leaving Zimbabwe, many of the Portuguese moved southward towards the Zezuru and even far down Karangas whom they felt were more accommodating . But by that time many Zimbabweans had become aware of the secret agenda of the Portuguese and the atrocities they had committed around the country. A bloody riot broke out close to Harare at Dambarare (near Mabvuku) where it was claimed (by Portuguese) that all Portuguese church occupants were killed and their church burnt to ashes.
This is how many Portuguese eventually fled their dream King Solomon’s Mines or land of Ophir in Zimbabwe and ended up settling in Mozambique. And this is how a mere village woman Nehanda, possessed by the true spirit of the Mwene which had fought Europeans since the 15th century, was able to galvanise Shona people in 1890 to rebel against British invasion. But having already gathered sufficient intelligence from the Portuguese about the powers of the Mhondoro spirit that possessed Nehanda, the British chose the most ruthless method of eliminating her. She was publicly hanged to instill fear in all Zimbabweans so that they submitted themselves to the European gun, religion and exploitation which the new colonial dispensation stood for. From then on, the Zimbabwean story is well documented and articulately taught in schools and universities.
THE MADNESS THEORY OF MWENEMUTAPA MIGRATION
Having given an account of different stages of serving Mwenemutapas in the history of Zimbabwe, let me now deal with the misinformation being taught in schools claiming that the Mwenemutapa dynasty started from a Karanga migrant who was called Mutota. It is very clear that advocates of this “Mad Man theory” are academic surrogates of the white man’s wisdom which was apparently no wisdom at all.
While this fable has no logical, historical, archeological or biological justification (except fabrications created in the mid 20th century to fill what seemed an information vacuum), many Africans who believe the baseless claim of migration, do not know that the idea of migration started as a hypothesis by white academics, who, around 1950s desperately wanted to establish who among the Shona people had constructed the Zimbabwe Ruins in Masvingo which no ethnic group or clan had claimed knowledge about. In fact at first Europeans suspected that the Great Zimbabwe was constructed by foreigners until excavations proved that the ruins were a product of local Zimbabweans.
Thus having only heard about Mwenemutapa as the only known Zimbabwean leader who lived in the Zambezi Valley, hypothetical assumptions were made that probably Mwenemutapa had migrated from Masvingo where his clan had constructed Zimbabwe Ruins. So the concerned white researchers that fed authors such R G Douglas or Basil Davidson with the Mutota speculation, had gone around asking beer drinking villagers around Masvingo about possible migrations that happened 600 to 1000 years back about people whose names rhymed with Mutapa. And without written records and also unaware of who Mwenemutapa was or where he lived, names of possible migrations deriving from a former Karanga chief Mutota were offered. Then dates were carefully affixed to correspond with periods prior to early Portuguese arrivals in Zimbabwe. These early white writers, not blacks, are the source of the confusion.
Of course whites can be forgiven. When they first came to Zimbabwe, they did not know the difference between a person and the spirit for which Mwenemutapa represented. So where Zimbabweans submitted themselves to Mwenemutapa because they understood and respected the grand spirit that possessed the person, Europeans thought people bowed to him as a royal person typical to their Kings back home whose claim to the throne was biological and traceable to family dynasties. So the seed of viewing Mwenemutapa as a man, not as Mudzimu was planted in the minds of Europeans long before the 20th century British researchers tried to link Mwenemutapa with the Zimbabwe Ruins because Europeans had no counterpart of mudzimu that resonate in man back in Europe.
And being of European background, the 20th century white researchers also did not know the wide cultural differences that existed between Korekore and Karanga to imagine that one person from another tribe far away from the Zambezi can pass through the Tonga on the west, Zezuru at the central north and Manyika on the East to go and settle in the tsetse and mosquito biting zones of the Zambezi where millions of Makorekore would start bowing down at him as King. To the white researchers, all Zimbabweans were homogeneous as long as they were black. Their naivety about Africans is just the same as the naivety some Africans had in the 1920s that all Europeans were English as long as they were light coloured and came from Europe.
By the way Korekore people constitute one of the largest and most diverse tribal groups in Zimbabwe. They range from as far as Chirau and Makonde in Zvimba, to Hurungwe and Kariba on the west and then Guruve, Muzarabani, Bindura, Musana, Mt Darwin, Rushinga, Mudzi and parts of Mrewa and Mutoko along the great Zambezi Basin. The theory of Mwenemutapa’s migration is injurious to the Korekore people because it presupposes that only a wise Karanga from as far down the Save/Limpopo Basin was capable of leading Makorekore and Zimbabweans in the manner Mwenemutapa did, and not anyone from among MaKorekore, Ma Zezuru or VaManyika who lived side by side along the Zambezi Basin.
And if we were to remotely suppose that Mwenemutapa was the ” person” named Mutota who migrated from the Karanga in the 1400s, then we should also suppose that the two spoken languages of Karanga and Korekore must reflect certain common elements that suggest evolution from a common ancestry. But we know that spoken Korekore is more related to Zezuru than it is to Karanga. Linguistic experts who studied Zimbabwean languages claim that the major dialects of Korekore are Tande, Nyongwe, Tavara, Gova, Pfungwe, and Budya while Karanga is composed of Duma, Jena, Mhari, Govera, Ngova and Nyubi. There seems to be absolutely no connection.
It should also makes sense that if Mwenemutapa migrated from a group of people who constructed the Great Zimbabwe ruins, then the same Mwene should have been able to continue to build in Mt Darwin structures that resembled Zimbabwe Ruins in just the same way the Rozvi continued to build relatively younger ruins at Regina, Dhlo Dhlo (Danangombe) and Nalatale. But white archeologists who during colonial times visited the former den of the Mwenemutapa in Mt Darwin around 1970s found nothing comparable to the dexterous stone work found at Zimbabwe Ruins, Dhlo Dhlo or Natalale. Although they found a few stone-walled enclosures at the bottom of a hill at Mwenemutapa’s den, the most extensive works were on mountain heights which, for defensive purposes, were tiring and difficult to climb.
In fact many who believed in the speculation of migration did not know that many of the Portuguese who came to Zimbabwe on government mission including Fernandez, Silveira, Baretto and others reported back intelligence of what they did and who they dealt with. Only that the details were protected as government Classified Information in Portugal. Based on the reports that were accessed by British writers, the first recorded Mwene in 1495 was Mukombero. But knowing how Portuguese slightly confused Shona vowels especially high pitched Korekore pronunciation, My opinion is that Mukombero referred to our well-known Mukumbura. According to the literature, Mukombero was killed in a local schism or conflict in 1490 alongside 21 of his 22 sons by Changamire (which again could be a title for Chief mistaken for a name by Portuguese). Four or so years later, Mukombero’s surviving son, obviously after the normal African spiritual procedures were followed, regained the Mwene title.
So the protagonists of the migration theory have an uphill challenge of explaining which of the many people who served as Mwenemutapa was the one who migrated from Karanga. Was it the well-known Korekore Mukumbura of 1490? Was it the 17 year juvenile who sentenced Silveira to death in 1561? Or could he be one of the two Portuguese-baptized puppets Gatsi Rusere, or the seemingly coloured-faced Mavhura who signed the 1629 treaty? Or was it Kapararidze who was removed in a Portuguese initiated coup or Mhande, Mukombwe or Nyakambiro?
It must be emphasized that many of these serving Mwenemutapas were never members of a same biological dynasty but people who occasionally emerged from different families and clans along the Zambezi Basin who succeeded each other as Mwenemutapa on the basis of spiritual possession rather than biological lineage.
C’mon Zimbabweans. The true history and commitment of our fore parents speak volumes that we can pride ourselves of. The Karanga built the Zimbabwe Ruins which represents the pride of early African civilization. We all proudly call ourselves Zimbabweans because of their work. But our children need to know the true history of the Mwenemutapa and how the Korekore, Tonga, Zezuru, Manyika, MaSena and others in the Zambezi Valley fought so hard to defend Zimbabwe. Let us salute them accordingly.
Stephen Kasere is a renowned researcher, writer and conservationist. The former CAMPFIRE Director toured many countries campaigning for downlisting of the elephant at CITES before settling as lecturer & Consultant. He taught International Law for Masters in International Relations at the University of Zimbabwe before going to Chinhoyi University of Technology where he taught various courses in Tourism and Wildlife Management which led to the introduction of the degree in Wildlife Management which he designed. As a writer, Kasere in 1994 became Zimbabwe’s first winner of the National Environmental Writer of the Year Award.
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