By Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu

NITJASIKE, originally called Tjilisamhulu (Chirisamhuru), briefed his daughter, Bagedze, in detail, about the objective of her marriage to the king of the BaKalanga, Tjibundule.
She was to get and bring to him, Nitjasike, Tjibundule’s fontanelle hair.
Bagedze was duly escorted to Tjibundule’s palace where she was received with pomp and pageantry befitting a princess.
Her status in King Tjibundule’s family was culturally enhanced by her royal descent.
Kalanga oral tradition does not say anything about whether or not she became a mother to King Tjibundule’s children.
But after one-or-two unsuccessful attempts to touch Tjibundule’s head, which was always clean-shaven except for the fontanelle where a tuft of hair grew, the king most strongly warned her never ever touch his head least the BaKalanga state would disintegrate.
She retorted that the king did not love her, for if he did, he would not prohibit her from touching any part of his body.
Wasn’t she his wife?
He assured her of his love and that she could touch or caress him, however, wherever and whenever she liked, but never ever should she touch his head.
A couple of years passed and Tjibundule entered more or less into dotage.
He would doze off as he sat under the shade of a tree in the afternoon whereupon on one such an occasion, Bagedze clipped off the tip of the king’s hair and most securely hid it among her personal effects.
A few days later she feigned illness and asked to be allowed to go to her maiden home for special treatment.
The king suggested in vain that she should be treated by his own medicine men.
She was given an escort to her parental home, at Lutombotema, (Lutombo gwaBaNyayi), and was left there ostensibly for medical treatment.
She surrendered King Tjibundule’s fontanelle hair to her highly thankful father who passed it on to his chief medicine man, Ngomane Gumbo, who did to it what he knew best to render Tjibundule’s war charms impotent.
After about a month, she was accompanied back to her marital home after she had been confidentially told by her father that he would attack Tjibundule and seize his kingdom sooner than later.
He told her that on that day, his army would blow a koodoo’s horn when it reached Tjibundule’s palace, and that on hearing the sound of the horn, she should run out of the palace waving a white cloth which he gave her.
She would then be led into safety behind his warriors.
Oral legend has it that Nitjasike had much earlier tried to invade Tjibundule’s palace, but his army had lost its bearings in a thick fog that covered the country for several days and caused untold suffering to his warriors, resulting in the death of a large number of them.
Survivors were disoriented and walked directionless in the cold misty weather only to find themselves back at their starting point, Lutombo gwaBaNyayi, utterly famished and drained of energy.
They attributed that experience to Tjibundule’s defensive war charms.
Some three or four months after Bagedze’s return to her husband, Nitjasike sent an army to attack Tjibundule’s palace on the Nkami (Khame) River.
They crossed the Matopo Hills undetected until they were at the upper reaches of that waterway when they were seen by some herdsmen of King Tjibundule’s cattle.
Two or three of them ran non-stop to the palace to report that the BaNyayi had invaded the BaKalanga Kingdom and had, in fact, already driven away some of the king’s cattle.
Tjibundule turned to his fontanelle hair which by then should normally have been bristling and standing erect like the quills of an enraged porcupine that is being pursued by a pack of ravenous jackals.
That is what his fontanelle hair should have done as a warning to the old king that his kingdom was being invaded.
But the hair was lying flat and virtually lifeless on Tjibundule’s clean shaven head.
At about that time, the BaNyayi blew a koodoo’s horn; some say several horns and the tuneless sound sent a numbing, fearful sensation down the spine of every Nkalanga who heard it, causing women to wail and little children to scream and dogs to bark as pandemonium ruled supreme throughout what we now call the Khami Ruins.
Meanwhile, Bagedze bolted down the rocky fortress, waving a white cloth as she jumped from higher boulder to lower boulder to reach her father’s warriors in the plain down below.
The vanguard of her father’s invading army met and escorted her to the rear of the advancing warriors.
By that time, Tjibundule’s home defenders had taken up bows, arrows, battle axes, wooden and iron spears and confronted the Rozvi attackers.
Arrows flew, battle axes were raised and some came down cracking enemy’s heads, spears were thrust and many men fell, blood gushing out through pierced chests and gasping mouths as real men struggled to breathe in the dusty and noisy, bloody encounter.
Some men, whose lungs were bigger than their livers, took hard to their heels into the nearby hills along the Nkami River and so did Tjibundule, the last king of the BaKalanga.
He was closely followed by a number of his wives, daughters and a poorly-led group of his rear-guards.
Some had already started driving a few cattle along the Nkami River to get them out of the reach of the invading Rozwi warriors.
His group followed the Nkami River northwards.
After an initially spirited defence, the BaKalanga who had not only been taken by surprise, but were hopelessly outnumbered, were routed by the BaNyayi, the Rozwi of the mambos.
No sooner had the Rozwi warriors realised that they were the victors than they searched every nook and cranny, violently prodding all and sundry as they asked: “She wenyu alipi?” (Where is your king?)
They were shown the direction Tjibundule had taken.
The spoor followed the Nkami River northwards, and that was the way the Rozwi warriors headed.
A larger number, however, remained behind and another contingent went westwards to cross the Nata (Manzamnyama) River with one of Tjibundule’s palaces, kuMwala (eNwala) as its destination.
At Mwala, another group broke off and proceeded further, but that time south-westwards towards another mountain fortress, Luswingo, located across the Netru (Tekwane) River, a few kilometres west of where Tokwana primary and secondary schools were built several centuries later.
That same group, like the Mwala contingent, found all the places deserted, for runners had spread the sad news that the ‘BaNyayi batola hango’ (The Nyayis have taken the country).
A similar scenario was found by the Rozwi warriors at another palace of Tjibundule in the Madababe area, south of where Plumtree was later built.
The Rozwi warriors who followed Tjibundule’s spoor along the Nkami River had located where the former BaKalanga King had ended, a place with thorny bushes, a number of tall imikhaya trees (mikoho) and several anthills with yawning holes.
That place is at the confluence of the Hoze (Mguza) River and the Gwayi, the Nkami River having already merged with the Gwayi at Dokonhobe.
There, at that utterly desolate spot, Tjibundule’s group spoor ended.
The Rozwi warriors were perplexed as they looked in vain for not only footprints but hoof marks.
While they were still wandering and wondering about the mysterious disappearance of the spoors, asking one another whether Tjibundule, his group and livestock could have grown wings and taken to the air, they heard a cock crowing, a bull bellowing, cows mooing and women ululating underground, right under their feet, as it were.
The defeated Kalanga King had literally gone underground, the land of the dead, never to be seen again, so oral legend says.
The warriors left that place in complete fright and as fast as their legs could carry them.
A report was made to Mambo Tjilisamhulu in due course and his remark was that wherever he was, Tjibundule could no longer retake the land from the Rozwi.
He, Tjilisamhulu, was now the king of the entire BaKalanga territory stretching from Mapungubgwe across the Limpopo, to Mntoutsi River, to the Makgarikgari Salt Pans, to the Shongwe Inotitima (Victoria Falls) right up to the Gwilo River and as far as the Great Zimbabwe.
Oral tradition has it that the sounds underground at the spot where Tjibundule’s spoor ended could be heard in the early hours of every morning right up to the time when King Lobengula of the Ndebeles was in power, that is as recently as 1870.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email: sgwakuba@gmail.com