Tracing roots of the Chirandu clan: Part 14
So the Zvimba people are originally Moyo Chirandu (consequently originally Shoko Mbire Mukanya Chirongo Matarira), who became and still remain makorekore (note; makorekore is a description not a tribe and we have clarified that) and therefore Zhou Samanya
REMEMBER that Negondo gave his daughter Ngonya to Changamire and this persuaded Changamire to give Negondo and his people this piece of land and even install Negondo as the first Chief Zvimba?
In remembrance of their aunt Ngonya, Negondo’s people or Chief Zvimba’s people recognised that they got this land because of this woman, their aunt Ngonya.
They therefore recognised and respected the fact that the female reproductive organ, the Mbwetete or the Tsivo, in the form of their aunt Ngonya’s Mbwetete or Tsivo which was literally given to Changamire, is therefore the one that got them this land and they needed to thank their aunt for unreservedly sacrificing herself this way for their survival.
Thus they decided to add the words Mbwetete and/or Tsivo, which mean the same thing, i.e. the female birth canal, to their praise poem in honour of their Vatete or Aunt’s Mbwetete/Tsivo, which was given to Changamire in exchange for this land.
This is how the Zvimba people got the terms Mbwetete and Tsivo in their praise poem. This is serious recognition of the importance of women.
This has been like that with black Africans from antiquity which is the reason why sometimes Africans don’t understand what the whole fuss about women’s rights which is chorused today is all about because as far as the black African’s way of life has been from antiquity right up to now, women have always been immensely respected.
This example of the honour accorded Ngonya happening way back in 1490 is one of the many such examples of black African women being honoured by their own and its clear testimony to the fact that black Africans have always deeply respected women as men’s equal partners in the process of living.
But the Zvimba people are also called Gushungo. How did this come about?
When Negondo settled in this new Zvimba area as already explaained, his people started disagreeing amongst themselves with some saying they wanted to go back to Dande or Zambezi Valley to fight for their right to rule the region. The wiser ones advised that there was no point in going back to fight.
After all, they now had their own piece of land even if they were now under Changamire. To emphasise this point, a wise elder is actually reported to have said, “ane gushe ane nguvo”, meaning he who is covered by a small piece of animal skin (gushe) has a bit of clothing (nguvo) as opposed to total nakedness, i.e. half a loaf is better than nothing.
To them this area was half a loaf because they knew that they were regional paramounts too who had now been defeated by a brother to the extent where they were now reduced to mere chiefs.
But this half a loaf in the form of this smaller chieftainship instead of regional rulership was better than the vagaries of another war.
Eventually this elder’s wise counsel was abbreviated to “gushe inguwo” till for colloquial and phonetic expediency it just became “gushungo” until today when this Gushungo has become en vogue with the Zvimba people and has become a major part of their praise poetry.
So the Zvimba people are originally Moyo Chirandu (consequently originally Shoko Mbire Mukanya Chirongo Matarira), who became and still remain makorekore (note; makorekore is a description not a tribe and we have clarified that) and therefore Zhou Samanyanga through Mutota and finally Zvimba Gushungo Tsivo/ Mbwetete Ngonya Usavi Hwavarume as they are known today.
Their morphing into Gushungo must have really been because they were angry with what happened when they lost the regional Mutapaship to Nyanhehwe so they didn’t want anything to remind them of that experience including their totem so they changed their original totem because it reflected their unpleasant experience and they wanted to totally erase the memories of their nasty experiences in Dande at the hands of Nyanhehwe.
This included changing totems, a real warts and all 360 degree paradigm change.
No surprises there. The Gushungos’ real founding patriarch, Mutota, did the same when he got into Dande by changing his totem, mutupo, from Moyo Chirandu to Zhou Samanyanga.
Now when the colonising British were building Bulawayo around 1893, they had to find labour from the Shona people because the population of the Ndebeles who were in the Bulawayo area was too small.
But these Shonas were very afraid of the Ndebeles because when the Mzilikazi Khumalos who eventually mish-mashed and morphed into this collective descriptive term of Ndebele arrived in this country, they terrorised the Shonas and conquered them.
So it was very difficult for these Shonas working in Bulawayo as Bulawayo was being built to now work side by side with these Ndebeles whom they feared so much.
But they had no choice because the British didn’t know about this icy relationship between the Ndebeles and the Shonas which was based on the fear of the Ndebeles by the Shonas; or if the British knew that, they just couldn’t care less because to them this was not important or something they could spare second thougths given their predatory and racist nature.
To the British, all these natives were just one huge pool of cheap labour and they didn’t even bother to take into consideration that these people were tribally different.
They probably didn’t even bother to know that they were Ndebeles and Shonas in this group of workers and, frankly, they just didn’t care.
Wouldn’t they have bothered to know and to really take serious care if these workers were a mixture of the Irish tribe and the English tribe? Does anybody need to be reminded of the tribal animosity between the Irish and the English?
So would they really have not cared? Well then, need we say more?
To the British this collective of black people represented nothing but invisible natives, niggers, kaffirs who were a good source of cheap labour, period!
They didn’t even bother to understand that what they called a pool of cheap labour was a group of human beings made up of Ndebeles who had terrorised Shonas and Shonas who were really afraid of the Ndebeles.
In other words, these were human beings with their own idiosyncrasies which needed to be understood and respected as such.
But the racist British never saw human beings when they looked at black Africans. The only reminder to the British of the existence of these black people was their cheap labour and its products thereof. Otherwise outside of this cheap labour which was the real value the British could extract out of black people, these black people didn’t even exist in the psyches of the racist British.
This is typical of these racist British and other racist Western colonialists. They never bother to want to know anything about the natives. They just see a walking labour machine when they look at a native. He is just a nigger who must work for the white man.
To the white man the nigger has no feelings, no history, no family, no emotions, nothing. He is just a thing, a labour instrument for use by the white man. Hell, the racist Rhodesians used to treat their dogs far much better than their black workers, human beings!
◆ Claude Maredza is a member of the Moyo Chirandu (Duma) dynasty, specifically of Norumedzo Village ( KuHarurwa), Bikita, Masvingo, Zimbabwe, and is in fact a Crown Prince of the Norumedzo Moyo Chirandu (Duma) Kingdom Royalty. He is a qualified accountant (University of Zimbabwe and Deloitte & Touche) and has doctoral level formal education and everything else below that besides other professional qualifications. He is also a well-known published author and film writer/ producer/director/actor. Maredza’s contact details are: email: maredzac@ yahoo.com; phone: 00 263 (0) 77 2 382 099.