WHEN the Boers found out the fearsome Tshaka had been killed, they tried to make advances on Zululand.
The British, in 1811, held a circuit to protect the Hottentots from outright abuse through involuntary servitude.
A Boer named Bezuidenhout fought against this ‘Black Circuit’ and expressed the collective disdain of the Boers towards blacks.
Bezuidenhout was hung by the British for his vicious resistance.
A missionary, Dr John Philip, succeeded Kemp at the London Missionary Society (LMS) and led what was known as the 50th Ordinance in 1828.
It placed mixed-race people and Hottentots on the same level of equality with whites.
In 1833, slavery was banned in Britain and all these developments were hated by the Boers.
In 1834, the Boers decided to leave the British-led Cape for the inland.
This expansion of the Boers into Natal and Transvaal was called the Great Trek and had devastating effects that would even bleed into neighbouring Zimbabwe.
King Mzilikazi and his people, the Matabele, had earlier on settled in the Transvaal area after fleeing from Suthu land.
They eventually clashed with the trekking Boers under Hendrick Potgieter in 1837.
They forced King Mzilikazi and his army to flee and settle across the Limpopo River.
This small group of Nguni people would subdue a great number of Shona pacifists in the south of Zimbabwe and impose on them the Ndebele identity.
Meanwhile, Dingaan, who was Tshaka’s successor, was paranoid about Tshaka’s warning concerning whites’ invasion of their land.
He also feared the whiteman’s guns.
This resulted in him killing a trek leader, Piet Retief, who had come to negotiate with him for land access.
Dingaan called the whites witches and wizards and sent his army to kill many of them, resulting in a bloody war beginning in December of 1838.
Unfortunately, Dingaan ordered the killing of Retief only after signing a document that would cunningly give Boers rights over his land.
The European settlers sent for re-enforcements and eventually overpowered Dingaan.
Dingaan retreated and tried to invade Swaziland to compensate for his loss, but was dethroned by way of a Boer-backed coup carried out by his brother Mpande.
From this point on, there was no one to defend against the white settlers, just as Tshaka had prophesied before his passing on.
Zimbabwe, at this time, had no central ruler, but each village had its own king.
The Changamire Dynasty that had ruled after the decline of the Mutapa kings had fallen after succession disputes that arose after the death of the Changamire.
Mzilikazi and his army took advantage of this situation and attacked the Shona people consecutively; raiding them for attractive women, livestock, young men and other possessions of value.
They were known as madzviti to the Shona people, meaning ‘plunderers’, and were unpopular and feared because they were taken to killing.
The Ndebele did not conquer the whole of Zimbabwe but only stationed themselves in the southwest of the country.
They only headed north to acquire booty.
However, their presence was known throughout the land.
These ‘plunderers’ also raided traders who were heading to-and-from the coastal market of Mozambique.
It was in this period that the Arabs, among other groups, referred to Zimbabwe as Mwene waMthwakazi because it was Mzilikazi who was raiding the inhabitants of the land and forcing them to pay tribute to him. In Matabeleland, the original Zulu people were few and possessed non-Shona names with no totems such as Dhliwayo and Khumalo.
The rest of the people who made up the Ndebele society were actually Zimbabweans incorporated into Mzilikazi’s Kingdom and belonged to the lower, but more populous social classes.
These include people who had Shona last names with totems such as Dube and Ndlovu.
Mzilikazi simply did what Tshaka had done in incorporating different Nguni groups like Mthethwa into the Zulu to create one community with one identity, name, language and culture.
Mzilikazi was succeeded by his son Lobengula. Lobengula was known to the Shona people as Chingururu, meaning ‘the terror’ because he lived off raiding them of their wealth.
In this period in Harare, the legendary Chaminuka would emerge and protect the Shona people from Lobengula.
Chaminuka means ‘that which suddenly appeared’.
It is said a wandering spirit with a voice first appeared on a rock, then a tree, in a dog and finally settled upon a stranger in the area of the Moyo-Nyamweda-Zuruvi people.
The Moyo people burnt the rock until it cracked, chopped down the tree, killed the dog and tried to kill the stranger who the spirit had settled on.
He escaped to Chivero and was taken in by the Mashayamombe family.
This was a holy spirit which disliked lawlessness.
When the people of Mashayamombe unjustly killed the stranger after also taking away his wife by force, the spirit wanted to leave them and held a bira ceremony to announce his intended departure.
During the ceremony, he chose a traveller called Pasipamire to be the new medium of his spirit.
Pasipamire was originally of the Nzou totem, but his ancestor, Bembwe, son of Garawe, had changed his name to Rwizi Shava-Mazarura after fleeing from Dande over inheritance disputes with his siblings.
From this point on until his death, Pasipamire would be called Chaminuka and would use mystical ways to defend the Shona people of this area from attacks by Lobengula.
He was skillful in dancing and fighting and had a band of mbira players.
He could perform miracles such as stopping blades from piercing his body, causing mist to obscure the vision of attackers, foreseeing attacks and so on.
He became the only central leadership in Zimbabwe during this period and many Shona kings paid tribute to him.
Lobengula heard of Chaminuka’s fame and wonders.
He hated that the Shona respected and loved him and was determined to kill him.
This he tried many times, but to no avail because Chaminuka’s powers proved insurmountable. This was until a stranger called Dzukwa, whom Chaminuka had embraced, betrayed him by supplying information to Lobengula which enabled his army to finally enter Chaminuka’s camp.
Chaminuka successfully fended them off, but saw that Lobengula was getting restless in trying to kill him.
He decided to visit Lobengula to avoid casualties in Mashonaland.
Knowing he would not return, Chaminuka held his funeral ritual while he was still alive and left for Matabeleland with nothing but his mbira band.
He told Lobengula that he was cursed for the countless lives he had taken and that the rains would be withdrawn from Matabeleland for killing Pasipamire, his medium.
He also prophesied that Lobengula’s tyrannical rule would be ended by way of white people who would flatten the mountains and drive houses that emit smoke (cars).
When Lobengula heard these words of doom, he screamed: ‘Bulala’ meaning kill, but they only managed to kill Chaminuka’s six band members.
To their astonishment, the blades of the Ndebele warriors could not pierce Chaminuka.
This was until Chaminuka requested for a blameless infant to pierce him, at which point his body gave in.
Chaminuka is remembered as the greatest spirit medium in pre-colonial Zimbabwe.