By Charles T.M.J. Dube

WITH the double tragedy and double burial of heroes, I made up my mind I was going to attend this one.
For a change, I chose the company of Knowledge Teya, Fidelis Manyange and Dingumuzi Phuti, with the last three having had very personal relationships with Cde George Rutanhire.
We were laying to rest, vaMaMoyo, Moyo Chirandu, Mai Muzenda, daughter to Phillip and Anna Matsikidze, who died on August 22 aged 88 and Musoni, Seremani Warerwa, aka George Rutanhire or Peter Musanhu whose death was on August 19 2017 aged 68.
Wait a moment; I notice some of you thinking that VaMzee was married to his sister per African culture.
By all means no!
Moyo Chirandu should not be confused with Chirandu Dhlembeu, himself one of the Rozvi kings.
Moyo Chirandu are of the Gono totem and spread across the Southern parts of Zimbabwe from Manicaland across Masvingo to the Midlands and Matabeleland where they also assume Duma, Sithole (in Chipinge and Midlands and Nkomo in Matabeleland South) clan names.
They also use Mangena in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, the Midlands and Matabeleland.
There is no doubt they tried to adopt and relate with the Rozvi on reaching Zimbabwe.
Both my paternal and maternal great grandmothers are Rozvi, while I am also linked to the Mangenas on my mother’s side and so let our historians give me the poetic license to use family oral history on this one more than what they know.
Just the week before Mai Muzenda’s death, I had been burying a family hero-cum-babamukuru at Chief Negove in Mberengwa and from there I was reminding my nephew and his brother in-law (Tatenda Mabodza) of the interesting links between Gutu and Mberengwa in the Midlands as we drove past Chief Nyamhondo’s area.
The Muzenda family was connected to the Nyamhondo chieftainship before they relocated to Gutu.
The late army General Vitalis Zvinavashe’s family was also connected to the Negove Chieftainship and rumours emanating from close family sources made mention of how, once upon a time, the late General and hero had encountered a white baboon behaving funny during a return from one of his visits to Negove on a mission perchance to explore possibilities of Zvinavashe-Rushwaya family claiming ascendancy to the chieftainship, which understandably put paid to the endevours.
These are the only two Rozvi chieftainships in Mberengwa although the Rozvi, Baba Muzenda’s clan are found at every corner of Zimbabwe, speaking whatever dialects are dominant in the specific regions.
We also have some Gumbo chieftainship linked to Ndanga in Zaka, Gutu and Musana in Mashonaland Central called Matyebadza or Mpesi.
The history of the Hove-Musaigwa chieftainships which dominate Mberengwa, having crossed over from Manicaland and eventually Masvingo Provinces, is well-known.
Cde Musanhu was born Peter Clever Musanhu in 1949, in Wedza (Hwedza), to Tanyanyiwa Musanhu and Regedza Maeresera.
With my late friend and his uncle Vivian Maeresera, aka Cde Manzombe, they both used to be regular visitors to my ZDC office at CABS Centre.
They were both of the Remba ethnic group which is known for its circumcision rituals and inter-marriage among their 12 tribes.
Cde Rutanhire’s maternal ancestry was of Tovakare Dzimbabwe House, one of their 12 tribes which claim to have been the artisans in the construction of the Great Zimbabwe.
Cde Rutanhire was of the Seremani House, which supplies most of the nyamukangas (trainers during circumcision school) or you could call it commissariat work in a political setting.
They have a special relationship with the Mberengwa District with most of their historical secrets archived there, which explains why the district is generally accepted as the centre of their culture in the region, including those from the Limpopo Province in South Africa where they are a major demographic element.
There are subtle religious proselytising competing interests by Jews and Arabs in especially Gutu, Buhera and Mberengwa where the Lemba and Mwenye are found in high concentrations although Christianity seems hard to displace.
They have found a few converts to the Hebrew and Islamic religions though.
Remember here that the famous Ngoma Lungundu or Jewish Ark of the Covenant, as contended by the historian Prof Tudor Parfitt, was found at Chief Mposi’s area in Mberengwa.
This historical link probably explains how a certain vaChitonga, a neighbour who died in the early 1980s aged over 100, himself a Seremani too, tracked and settled in our village on foot the whole way from Wedza in the 1920s (Wish I had talked one-on-one on this with Cde Rutanhire).
You could be wondering where I am coming from and heading to in a heroes’ burial story, but be patient as my objective is to critique ethnic and tribal constructs with a view to pointing to homogeneity.
To the progressive, death and any other frailties for that matter are supposed to be moments of revival, unity and leaps to higher levels.
To the retrogressive, death brings with it schisms, rancour, division and hatred.
As the Biblical Paul would put it, ‘God’s power is strengthened in weakness, therefore I am strong when I am weak’, so should these deaths do us — make us even stronger as a nation.
Let the discerning reader already discern and grasp the national and regional dimensions exposed in this article which was the driving force to its writing.
Language and domicile do not completely define who we are, but who else we could be and/or should be, for there are but accidents specifically designed by the Almighty for our effectiveness and contributions for the betterment of all.
We are all connected and designed as one nation and never as ‘tribes’ which are but alien to our African relational identities as I have always argued.
Phuti and I settled at the ZBC stand for vintage viewing of the proceedings.
Phuti is the Youth Chairman for Matabeleland South and knows the Rutanhire family to an extent he is considered a part of the family.
Then Phuti and some Ncube who works for the ZBC started talking in Kalanga and behold! after a few minutes of hearing the sounds, I was at home with the language and one with them.
I then made remarks about some language the Remba/Rozvi used to speak in my area which was very close to Kalanga but was dying out.
Phuti could connect and was often excited when the late musician Paul Matavire got into his Pfumbi lingo which was very much like Kalanga in many respects.
It is interesting to bring it to the reader’s attention that the very ZBC Kalanga here is kith and kin to his Wedza Svosve Mukanya variant.
They are Shoko/Soko in the Midlands and Masvingo and are part and parcel of the Mwari religion priesthood, some kind of Levites as it were.
They are different from the two Soko/Shoko Murehwa chieftainships in Mberengwa I once wrote about.
President Mugabe spoke at length about Mai Muzenda’s contributions as Dr Mzee was detained and later direct in the struggle.
And Baba Muzenda’s death was indeed a second deprivation or forced separation just like the struggle-induced one before it.
The family representatives did justice to the struggle contributions of both heroes as was said by the President.
It was, however, interesting to learn that one of my favourite lyrics of the struggle had been composed by Cde Rutanhire.
“Tinofa tichienda
KuZimbabwe
Kudzamara tinosvika
Kuna Zambezi
Kudzamara tinosvika
KuZimbabwe.”
Cde Rutanhire’s and Mbuya Muzenda’s contributions to the struggle and after independence have been well documented elsewhere and even in this paper and so my idea has been to provoke the reader in other directions and possibly confuse him at a higher level as it were.
I wish to thank Vitalis Muzenda and Arthur Maeresera for their contributions in the compilation of this story.
So be it with Mbuya Muzenda and Cde Rutanhire.
Lalani kuhle amaqhawe ethu!
Zororai Murugare Magamba edu!
May our heroes rest in eternal peace!
Aluta continua!