Tracing roots of Chirandu clan: Part 13
When Neuteve refused to do the ritual incest, his younger brother called Nyanhehwe braved it and did the ritual incest. Thus Nyanhehwe was installed as the regional Mutapa, replacing his late father Mutota.
THEY then showed the differentiation between the hippo, which they had nicknamed elephant and the actual elephant by adding the term mukotami, which means craning or bending the neck downwards on the ground, which is what the hippo does when it feeds, whereas the actual elephant doesn’t bend downwards, but majestically rises upwards using its trunk to bring food to its mouth.
However, describing the hippo as the nzou gave Mutota the feeling that these conquered Tavara people wanted to be as powerful as him.
So he is said to have told them that he was now the Nzou, but not the Nzou Mukotami, hippo, but the Nzou Samanyanga, elephant.
He is even said to have ordered that the Tavara people would no longer be nzou by totem, even this pretended nzou mukotami hippo totem of theirs, but they would adapt the totem of pig, or humba as their new totem so that they would not be mistaken for being paramount if they carried on with the totem of nzou, even if their nzou referred to the hippo, lest their Nzou Mukotami, hippo, would be mistaken for his Nzou Samanyanga, elephant, and therefore confuse the people as to who was really now in charge, and it was Mutota in charge, not the Tavara.
So to make the distinction absolutely clear and in no doubt, the Tavara’s new totem, mutupo had to become the wild pig, humba, so that they would have nothing to do with nzou, whether as it depicted the elephant or the hippo, so as to give clarity to authority, Mutota’s authority that is.
However, there is a rather sarcastic school of thought which avers that Mutota was still very angry with the defeat he suffered at the hands of Mukwati during the civil war at Great Zimbabwe in 1450.
Therefore, this harassment of the Tavara, which even included telling them that their totem had been changed by his, Mutota’s decree as the regional paramount from Nzou Mukotami — hippo — to a mere dirty wild pig, humba, was really sour grapes on the part of Mutota.
He was venting his frustration and taking it out on poor innocent Tavaras when his real gripe was with Mukwati who had defeated him.
Also, just to emphasise that this Korekore moniker was a mere description, when Mutota took over the Zambezi Valley, his army was commanded by General Chingowo, who was a Shoko Mbire Mukanya Chirongo.
But General Chingowo and the other Shoko Mbire Mukanya Chirongos, who came with him, also got referred to as Makorekore, in the same way Mutota and his Moyo Chirandus were also referred to as Makorekore.
Again this was because both these new arrivals into the Dande area, comprising the Moyo Chirandus and the Shoko Mbire Mukanyas didn’t settle permanently at one place and tended to be quite transient when they initially arrived in the Dande Valley. This led them to earn the description of gore negore meaning people who change residence almost on a yearly basis, describing their unsettled way of settling and this gore negore became, gore kore then kore kore and finally makorekore through linguistic phonetics with time.
It, therefore, means the people called Makorekore are a mixture of Moyo Chirandus as represented by Mutota, a Moyo Chirandu who became a Zhou Samanyanga and Shoko Mbire Mukanya Chirongos as represented by General Chingowo and these maintained their Shoko Mbire Mukanya Chirongo Matarira totem.
However, when we look at most people who call themselves Makorekore today, they say they are Zhou Samanyangas, which means they decided to be closer to the regional paramount’s side, i.e. the centre of power and this was Mutota, originally Moyo Chirandu, but who changed totem to Zhou Samanyanga as described above. Mutota died around 1480.
His eldest son was called Neuteve. Neuteve was supposed to take over from Mutota.
We have observed that the Moyo Chirandus had taken into their tradition the ritualisation of their founding father, Dlembewu’s incestuous birth and this ritual was that any Moyo Chirandu who was about to be installed a paramount ruler would have to commit incest with a sister or a close cousin sister, a practice called kupinga nyika, centred around the belief that this ritual of incest would ensure that the new Moyo Chirandu paramount rulership would be smooth and full of generational wealth and generational happiness.
But Neuteve refused to do the ritual incest because it was not an easy thing to do because it’s even impossible to begin to just start imagining sleeping with one’s own sister! Oh! Yak! Perish that thought! Abomination!
This is why this ritual was only strictly done by those Moyo Chirandus who were about to be installed as chiefs or paramount rulers.
Anybody else caught doing that would straight away be put to death without any further ado, emphasizing that this incest was not habitual but strictly ritual.
When Neuteve refused to do the ritual incest, his younger brother called Nyanhehwe braved it and did the ritual incest. Thus Nyanhehwe was installed as the regional Mutapa, replacing his late father Mutota.
But Neuteve couldn’t countenance being ruled by his junior brother, so he queried his installation and they quarrelled and a civil war broke out.
Nyanhehwe won the war and drove Neuteve and his followers out of the area.
Neuteve moved south of the area on a long journey to find an area to settle with his people.
On the protracted journey south, Neuteve’s legs got badly swollen (kuzvimba) from the walking.
Eventually Neuteve collapsed and died.
Neuteve’s son called Negondo took over leadership of the people and the whole band of Neuteve’s people now under the leadership of Negondo eventually settled in the Makonde area.
This area was under the overall rulership of regional paramount Changa Wembire — Changamire.
Remember Changa Wembire had helped Mukwati in the civil war that broke out at Great Zimbabwe in 1450, which caused this dispersal of people, including Mutota and his people, who included Negondo’s forefathers at the helm of whom was Mutota.
Negondo then asked Changamire if he could be allowed to settle in this Makonde area. But the manner in which he asked Changamire was that he gave his daughter called Ngonya to Changamire to take as wife.
With such an offer which he couldn’t refuse, Changamire offered Negondo this piece of land in Makonde.
Around 1490, Negondo was installed the chief of this area. At Negondo’s installation, the elders caucused and consulted each other and in remembrance of their founding father, Neuteve’s legs which got swollen, kuzvimba, on their sojourn south, the elders decided that Negondo would be royally referred to as Chief Zvimba, reminiscent of the swollen legs (kuzvimba makumbo) that happened to Neuteve as they fled southwards.
With that, the first Chief Zvimba in the form of Negondo was installed in 1490.
But it is also known that the Zvimba people refer to Tsivo and or Mbwetete in their praise poem.
Tsivo and Mbwetete refer to the female private parts, the birth canal to be more accurate.
In fact one of the stanzas in the Zvimba people’s praise poem says, “. . . tsivo, mbwetete, usavi hwavarume’, literally meaning the relish of men referring to the female birth canal from which men extract indescribable carnal pleasure!
So how does the female birth canal find itself as the centre pivot of a whole clan’s praise poem?