Nehanda statue unveiled
THE statue of Mbuya Nehanda was unveiled at the intersection of Samora Machel Avenue and Julius Nyerere Way in May this year.
National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe executive director Godfrey Mahach said the monument was a tribute to Mbuya Nehanda and the many other leaders of the First Chimurenga such as Chingaira Makoni, Mapondera, Chinengundu Mashayamombe, Chiwashira and others.
Mkwati and Sekuru Kaguvi were the other spiritual leaders of the uprising and their participation in co-ordinating resistance in various communities is also celebrated in this monument.
The need to have a monument of the First Chimurenga was based on the fact that it is the First Chimurenga that inspired the second.
The Upper Mazowe Valley, otherwise more commonly referred to as Gomba, from where Mbuya Nehanda operated during the uprisings was declared a national monument in 2007.
This was an important step in the direction of officially recognising the importance of Mbuya Nehanda in Zimbabwe’s national history, although other initiatives had already been taken by government such as the renaming of streets and some public institutions.
In continental and diasporic African popular memory, there is a powerful narrative that says the warrior woman Nehanda of Zimbabwe defied the British Empire when it came to her corner of the world.
The warrior woman commonly known by the honorific Ambuya or Mbuya Nehanda, or simply Nehanda, was born Charwe, into the Hwata family of the Eland clan in the Mazowe Valley, c. 1862.
Oral traditions tell of Charwe as a lifelong resident of Mazowe, initiated for an mhondoro
(royal spirit) at a young age.
When she came of age, like most young women of her ages, she married, had children, and lived the life of a revered mhondoro (medium of a royal spirit) of the legendary rain goddess Nyamhita Nyakasikana of Handa (the first Nehanda).
This rain goddess is the one who was supposed to rescue the oppressed Africans from colonial rule through its medium Charwe when the British arrived.
Instead, the British rendered Nehanda a piddling goddess, and Charwe a commoner who could not escape the British empire’s noose at the gallows where Charwe met her death.
It is the first statue of a Zimbabwean female liberation war hero and was unveiled on Africa Day, May 25 2021.
The monument is under National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe.
The three-metre high statue crafting was guided by a photograph of Mbuya Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana that was supplied by the National Archives of Zimbabwe.
It was crafted by David Mutasa a bronze casting artist at Nyati Gallery then the construction of the whole site was carried out by Zimbabwe CRSG Construction.
Construction began on in June 2020 and during construction, portions of Harare CBD roads including Samora Machel between Leopold Takawira Street and First Street and Julius Nyerere Way between Sam Nunjoma Street and Kwame Nkurumah Avenue were temporarily closed.
Construction was scheduled to be completed by August 2020, but it took longer than expected.
In December 2020, Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa ordered the statue to be re-crafted after public criticism of the statue’s structure which did not depict how the only known photo of Mbuya Nehanda looks like after statue’s images went viral on social media during the President’s visit to Nyati Gallery.