THE Lemba community of South Africa came from the Remba community of Zimbabwe.
The Remba came from the Sena of Mozambique.
The Sena came from the Sabaeans of south Arabia and the Sabaeans from the Ethiopian Israelites. For this reason, these groups still possess the title muShavi (Shabi) which is pronounced as Sabaean in English.
They also practise a very Shemitic culture with strict dietary laws, male circumcision and initiation ceremonies and so on.
The east coast of Africa had ancient trade routes from the south-east African coast to southern Arabia, Madagascar (formerly Matagadzikwa), India and also Indo-China.
These sailing routes were aided by the Monsoon winds which are seasonal and head north-east from April to October and return south-west from October to April.
In this way, the ancestors of the Remba travelled east to Asia and also south-west to Africa from Saba.
The Remba are not the only group to enter Africa from Arabia.
There are many groups like them who came from Persia (Iran) and Oman in south-east Arabia and settled in places like Tanganyika.
The Sabaeans are mentioned as people of the book (Torah), descendants of David and Solomon and bondmen (servants) of Allah in the Quranic book called Saba.
Wallace F. Muhammad of Mecca taught Elijah Muhammad that black-Americans were captives of the Shabbaz tribe.
By this he meant they were kinsmen of the Sabaean Israelites who also had Islamic influences.
Therefore, a great portion of the black-Americans call themselves Shabbaz and are akin to the Remba who still identify themselves as Sabaeans (vaShavi).
The Remba also inherited Shemitic names from Hebrew and Arabic such as Zhou (Yhw — Jehu), Sadiki (Saddiq), Hamisi (Hamish — James), Sarefu (Sharif), Seremani or Sulumani (Solomon), Haji, Bhakari, Dhavadhava (David) and so on.
They are known by all other southern African groups as the originators of male circumcision, thus again linking them to Israelites who struck a blood covenant with God to circumcise their male descendants for all coming generations.
One strong characteristic which betrays the Remba as Israelites is their last name, Zhou. It bears great similarity to the Tetragrammaton or the Hebrew name of God spelt YHWH.
YHWH is now pronounced as Jehu or Jew in English and was used as a surname by biblical Israelites.
Although the Remba bear the last name Zhou, which would mean elephant in chiShona, they carry the mouse as their totem.
Because the name of the Remba sounds like the chiKaranga word for elephant, the Remba now also use the mighty beast as their totem.
In Zimbabwe, one is not allowed to eat his own totem and thus the mouse was made the Remba totem because it was the animal they were forbidden to eat; along with pork, blood and animals that are not properly slaughtered.
The Remba last name is now pronounced as Zhou in chiKaranga, Ndou in chiVenda, Ndlovu and Hlovu in isiNdebele, Njovhu in chiChewa and Nzou in chiZezuru.
However, the original annunciation of the name is the chiKaranga, Zhou, and the diversity of the annunciation is owed to the assimilation of Remba people into groups that speak other dialects.
There were other people called Zhou or Nzou Mtombeni, who were always local and not associated with these Zhou (Yhw) people from Arabia.
It is also important at this juncture to note that the earliest inscription mentioning the Hebrew Israelites by the name of Yhw was found in Saba on a stone tablet engraved with the Hebrew derived Minao-Sabaic alphabet around 750 BCE.
The writing is also found on Sabaean incense burners and is irrefutable evidence that the Sabaeans were Israelites.
Some argue the Remba are simply Arabs and Muslims, but not Israelites.
This would have been true if the Remba forbade alcohol which they don’t, but instead make compulsory use of it during traditional ceremonies.
The biblical Israelites were commanded to make drink offerings of wine while Muslims are forbidden to drink at all, making it less likely that the Remba were Muslims, but rather Israelites with strong Islamic influences because of their past residential proximity to partakers of Islam in Arabia.
The Remba have kept this history for time immemorial and were once doubted by their neighbours and foreigners alike who found it far-fetched for blacks in the darkest parts of Africa to claim to be descendants of biblical Israelites.
That is until their paternal (Y) DNA was checked and it was found that about 70 percent of a Remba’s DNA indicates that he originated in Eurasia (20+ percent), mostly lived in Arabia (50+ percent) and came to Africa quite recently (30 percent).
Some of them were also found to have the Cohen Modal Haplotype, indicating that they had the blood of Aaron, the brother of Moses.
In pre-colonial Zimbabwe, the Remba were called vaNyai meaning messengers of God.
They were also called Valungu meaning lords, because by way of their priesthood, they represented God on earth.
VaSoni was another Remba title meaning smelters and builders.
The coming of European missionaries would challenge the authority of the local priests of the land because the missionaries claimed to be God’s messengers.
The two groups first clashed in the days of Goncalo da Silveira when the Portuguese tried to convert the Mutapa ruler of Zimbabwe.
The vaMwenye, as the Remba were called, were behind Goncalo’s rejection and subsequent assassination. The Mutapa king’s conversion would have cost the country its independence and caused droughts.
The whites were infamous and disliked from the very beginning. For this reason they were initially given derogatory, but also definitive names such as vasinamabvi (trouser wearers), vapambepfumi (plunderers of wealth), vegandajena (white-skinned), nguruve (pigs) and so on.
With their plight to pass off as God’s people, they sought after the affectionate name and title of valungu, which meant ‘lords’ and was used among the Remba and in distant places like Malawi meaning God.
Today, the whites are inappropriately referred to as varungu and this is because the converts to their missionary churches were taught to refer to them as such.
Initially, the Remba people of Mberengwa were discouraged by the missionaries from partaking in their traditional initiation ceremonies that were held in sacred places.
The Remba refused to abandon their culture and traditional ceremonies and were disallowed to enroll into Lutheran schools like Chegato until 1959.
Because the Remba were traditional priests, they, along with other traditional figures in Zimbabwe were called witches and their once revered works were called witchcraft by the whites and their converts.
The Tonga, Shangani, Chewa, Venda and Xhosa emulated the ways of the Remba and adopted Remba traits like male circumcision since long back.
The whites tried to demonise the Remba and other local authorities among their converts so as to upset the traditional social order of Zimbabwe.
The Remba were almost made outcasts and were labelled witches. Thus they began doing their cultural business in great secrecy. To this day, the Remba are a very secretive community and this was caused by their experiences since the coming of whites.
Although the Sabaeans are a spread-out community in southern Africa, they have representatives that meet almost annually in Mberengwa. However, their contact and influence are limited by the whiteman’s political borders.
Because the Sabaeans are fragmented, mixed race Muslims from Arabia and now also white partakers of Judaism from the US and Zionist Israel are competing for converts among the divided Remba and Lemba communities.
Considering the Muslims and Jews have been at war since the 1940s, this is likely to add fragmentation and cause divisions among the Remba, or at least the clashing of Muslims and Jews in Remba strongholds. In Zimbabwe and South Africa, if one is to find a synagogue or mosque in a remote area, then that area is probably inhabited by a known Remba or Lemba community.
This is true in Thohoyandou, Hwedza, Gutu, Mberengwa and so on.