By Knowledge Teya and
Patience Rusare-Murava
Recently in Plumtree

MATABELELAND South is a unique province.
In fact, one scholar describes it as ‘the cradle of Zimbabwean culture and religion’.
There you find Njelele in Matobo, the acropolis of Zimbabwean spirituality.
It’s a pity Cecil John Rhodes and his ‘partner’ Leander Starr Jameson desecrated the place when they decided to be buried there.
There, in Matabeleland South, you also find many unknown stone-walled monuments similar to the internationally known Great Zimbabwe in Masvingo.
Although there are over 350 stone-walled monuments stretching from Mozambique to South Africa and Botswana, there are, however, more concentrated in Zimbabwe.
It therefore becomes imperative for the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe and the Ministry of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry to reflect on how they can protect and utilise the monuments as world heritage sites and tourist attractions.
No doubt this will go a long way in resuscitating the economy too.
The Patriot was recently in Matabelaland South and visited Mataletale Monument in Somnene and Luswingo in Bulilima District, Plumtree.
Although smaller in stature, the striking similarities between the two monuments and the Great Zimbabwe and Khami is revealing.
However, the two small ancient cities’ stone structures, with the same chevron pattern like Khami and the Great Zimbabwe, are in a sorry state.
Bulawayo-based anthropologist Saul Gwakuba-Ndlovu gave The Patriot a brief history of Luswingo and Mataletale.
He said the current Kalanga generation refer to that cultural heritage simply as ‘Luswingo’, the equivalent of ‘Masvingo’ in Shona
The people of Mataletale and Luswingo are one, said Gwakuba-Ndlovu.
“Those who constructed Mataletale and Luswingo must have been related to the builders of Danan’ombe (Dlodlo), Great Zimbabwe and other historic structures scattered in Zimbabwe,” he said.
“Generically called Luswingo, the structure’s proper name is Tandabagwana, an old TjiKalanga word whose meaning has been lost in historical mists with the passage of time.
“Son of the Luswingo King Nichasike Chilisamhulu named Lukwangaliba Dlembewu was in charge of the east where Mataletale is.
“There are indications that Mataletale was not a recognised residence of Lukwangaliba as he lived at Mwala in Bulilima North, in Headman Manguba’s area, descendant of the Mambo lineage.”
Another Bulawayo-based historian, Pathisa Nyathi, weighed in saying: “Mataletale is named because of the rocks that have lines of a lighter hue, as if whitewashed.
“The process of drawing a line is called ‘kutala’ in TjiKalanga.”
Somnene villagers, however, believe Mataletale is a Khoisan corrupted word for ‘dale’, meaning court.
Their argument may hold water considering the splendid rock paintings at Mataletale.
Gwakuba-Ndlovu said it was only in recent years that the people of the Bulilima District appreciated the advantages of promoting their monuments as tourist attractions, hence the Luswingo Kalanga Cultural Festival that is held annually.
“Luswingo, just like Mataletale, is not widely known because of one negative public relations factor and that is ‘ignorance’,” he said.
“Another public relations factor that worsened that situation was the negative attitude we had towards ourselves as a racial community in a world socially, culturally, politically and economically dominated by white people.
“We despised ourselves, our ancestors, our culture (past and present), our history and our achievements as we became a massive racial community of imitators.
“In architecture, our achievements, which had become a civilisation in its own right, was abandoned as we were overwhelmed by fear of both the known and the unknown, that is to say, the rulers’ guns and the neighbours’ imaginary power of witchcraft.
Mataletale, in particular, is a forgotten monument.
The bastardised rusty and dilapidated directional sign-post to Mataletale says it all — it is inscribed ‘Matalitali’.
This writer spoke to various officials and they were in the dark – they had no idea of a place called Mataletale.
“Mataletale seems to have been ‘forgotten’ by the powers that be, particularly as a world heritage site that can contribute significantly to the tourism sector,” said Plumtree-based Philasande Malinga, who also toured the ancient city.
The Patriot met 69-year-old Vailia Ndebele of Plot 40, Somnene.
He said Mataletale was a sacred place that needed to be preserved and guarded jealously as it tells their story as a people.
“Every August, we come to this place for the rain-asking ceremonies, thanksgiving ceremonies and elders go and report all problems bedevilling communities such as droughts, lightning bolts or diseases,” said Ndebele.
“They also visit the shrine to apologise for society’s misdemeanours and other related issues.”
Ignorant villagers, he said, have been stealing granite stones from Mataletale, destroying what is left of the monument.
“In 1976 and 2009, we had incidences of villagers from around who stole stones from the site with the intention of building their homes,” said Ndebele.
“The ancestral spirits were angry because one house carved in while the other person, who also stole the stones, axed his father to death for trying to defend him before the chief’s courts (edale).”
In Luswingo, on the other hand, it’s said back then, one whiteman known as ‘Roger’ tried to build his house there using stones from Luswingo Monument in vain.
He eventually left.
Pundits therefore contend that because monuments like Mataletale and Luswingo are not widely known, they are in danger of being completely ruined.
In fact, they argue that would be the

‘death of history’
It must be noted that there are other monuments in Zimbabwe that include Bumbusi, Danamombe, Naletale, Khami, Ziwa, Chomunongwa, Matendera and Mapela, among others.
These are stern reminders that Africans built these kingdoms, in contrast to archaeological discourse which is awash with calculated lies and half-truths that attempt to disown Africans of their rich inheritance.
For example, for decades, Zimbabweans were denied the truth about the Great Zimbabwe.
Colonialists used their cultural hegemony to reinforce their own version of history.
An ancient city constructed almost 1 000 years ago and long since ‘ruined’, the Great Zimbabwe is proof that black African culture, far from being inferior to colonial culture, is in fact comparable.
Anxious to shore up their imperial stranglehold, a whole new, fake, history was written around the Great Zimbabwe and presented as truth.
The first European account of the Great Zimbabwe was by German geologist and gold prospector Karl Mauch; the Solomonic theory was a fabricated historical precedent.
The sophisticated stonework of the Great Enclosure – quite unlike the humble thatched huts of the local Shona – convinced Mauch that Great Zimbabwe could not have been built by Africans.
In fact, Mauch decided that the monuments were the remains of a colony built in the 900’s BC by white workers from the Mediterranean for the biblical Queen of Sheba.
Mauch went further to say: “A civilised white nation must once have lived there.”
Other European writers, also believing that Africans did not have the capacity to build the Great Zimbabwe, suggesting it was built by Phoenicians, Portuguese, Arabs, Chinese or Persians, didn’t want to acknowledge that blacks built it.
Never mind that archaeologists and carbon dating had confirmed the obvious: “That the monument was constructed by the ancestors of the Africans living nearby.”
Later, the Great Zimbabwe was to be referred to as ‘primitive’.
What hypocrisy!
Rhodes and other white settlers re-affirmed the assertions made by European writers and explorers who refused to believe that the Great Zimbabwe was built by Africans.
Unrelenting in their falsification agenda, one Rhodes employed a miner called James Theodore Bent to dig up bits of the Great Zimbabwe in 1891.
Rhodes believed if Bent could uncover traces of previous white civilisation that had built the Great Zimbabwe; this would provide scientific justification for the colonisation of African tribal lands by white settlers.
Rhodes established the Ancient Ruins Company and financed men such as British author and traveller Bent (1852 – 1897), who was dispatched to (Rhodesia) Zimbabwe by the British Association of Science and sponsored by Rhodes.
After his investigation, Bent concluded in his book, Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (1892), that items found within the Great Zimbabwe complex ‘proved’ that the civilisation was not built by the Bantu (Africans) people.
Bent’s successor, Richard Hall, a British journalist and strong supporter of Rhodes, was far daring.
He shoveled his way through the Great Enclosure in 1903, paying little attention to proper archeological excavation techniques.
Hall concluded that the Great Zimbabwe had been built by Ancient Arabians.
In his work, The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia (1902), Hall asserted that the civilisation was built by ‘more civilised races’ than the Africans.
He argued the last phase of Great Zimbabwe was the transitional and ‘decadent period’; a time when ‘foreign builders interbred with local Africans.’
He contemptuously stated that his goal was to: “Remove the filth and decadence of kaffir occupation.”
He had the audacity, nonetheless, to name one of the Zimbabwe birds — Hall’s Bird.
Hall’s white fellow settlers were delighted with his theories, which lingered long after he was gone.
However, they ‘forgot’ that the majestic Great Zimbabwe was not the only monument as there are many others dotted around the country.
In fact, it’s being said new evidence suggests that Mapela Hill, in Matabeleland South again, was established way before Mapungubwe and the Great Zimbabwe.
Research, however, is still underway.