Xhosa royal family wants apology for brutal murder

THE AmaXhosa Royal House is seeking support from both the government and the private sector for its mission to meet the British royal house to talk about the brutal and treacherous killing of King Hintsa in 1835.

This was one of the many 19th-century atrocities wreaked by the colonial forces.

Hintsa’s direct descendant, reigning AmaXhosa King Mpendulo Zwelonke Sigcawu, said the mission to the UK was in the hope that the British royals would apologise.

“We still have no closure on the matter, hence we want to engage them,” he said.

He was speaking during a cleaning ceremony of Hintsa’s grave, 30km southeast of Willowvale on the banks of the Nqabarha River.

This Friday marks the 182nd anniversary of the brutal decapitation of King Hintsa, who was shot by British colonialists on the banks of the river.

Hintsa was renowned for his ability to unite his people and marshal them in the fight against internecine wars and, later, the colonial invasion by the British.

King Hintsa, who commanded the Xhosa battalions, was 45 when captured by British soldiers and decapitated. His head was taken to Britain as a grotesque war trophy.

In March 1996, a self-styled traditional leader and igqirha (sangoma), Nicholas Tilana Gcaleka of Centane, stunned the world when he claimed that his ancestors had sent him to Scotland to dig up and bring home Hintsa’s skull.

The skull was analysed and tests proved it was that of a middle-aged European woman.