Rozvi Empire

At some stage, variously estimated as being within the period from the 9th to the 14th centuries, a greater political cohesion developed on the foundations of the gold trade with the coast. For the first time African society knew wealth, in the accepted sense of the word.

Where there is wealth men will always try to control it. At Zimbabwe and no doubt at other centres there developed a ruling class, the main features of which we can describe. In the middle of the 15th century an upheaval took place which saw this ruling class split into two main dynasties, those of the Mwene Mutapa and the Rozvi under their leader Changamire.

The founder of the Mwene Mutapa dynasty, Mutota, voluntarily left the Masvingo capital for the Zambezi Valley, in search of salt, and because of their superior civilisation they found it easy to subjugate the still primitive and disorganised communities in the Zambezi Valley.

There some sort of empire was set up but it was a faint shadow of the state held at the Masvingo Zimbabwe which now entered its heyday under undisputed Rozvi leadership. The Portuguese encountered the Mwene Mutapa kings at the height of their power when they were a force to be reckoned with almost as far as the coast, but almost from the outset these lesser tribes struggled to regain their independence.

The Portuguese arrived at a critical time. They didn't succeed in making contact with the Rozvi kingdom in the south until very much later and even then on the most tentative basis. It was in the southern kingdom that most of the real gold wealth lay, although by now this was beginning to fail.

Additionally, local consumption of gold was on the increase. The Portuguese were disappointed in the volume of the gold trade and their own explanation, namely of warfare in the interior, was probably not far short of the truth. It is hardly likely that the rural chiefs and headmen of the Mwene Mutapa would have passed on Portuguese traders and explorers to their rivals and enemies in the vast kingdom they knew as Butua, the Rozvi sphere of influence.

Yet trade there undoubtedly was for this period in Zimbabwe's history was the richest in trade goods of all kinds. The main Rozvi trade contacts were probably with Arabs who certainly continued in great numbers in both courts up to the time of the death of the Jesuit priest, Father da Silveira, who was executed on the orders of the Mwene Mutapa Negomo in 1561.

From that time onwards the Mwene Mutapa empire went into a decline and with it, incidentally, the Portuguese, who seemed to have left, of all the invading races, almost no permanent mark upon the people as such, although of course their influence closer to the coast has been pronounced throughout the period.

Although the subsequent fortunes of the Mwene Mutapa are well known, the detailed history of the Rozvi hegemony is correspondingly obscure. A Rozvi ruling class, manifested through a large clan with mutupo Moyo, meaning "heart", was not incompatible with the local autonomy of numerous other clans.

Rozvi overlordship carried with it some Rozvi influence in the succession of these local rulers to the chieftaincies, and probably the payment of tribute, though in what form precisely we do not know. Rozvi control was to a large extent exercised through the religious system which is so closely associated with their ruling class. Some description of this is necessary as religion is one of the most persistent features in African culture.

Zimbabwe was a religious centre. Even Carl Mauch who visited Zimbabwe as late as 1872, long after the Rozvi had departed from that centre and their power had been broken by successive Nguni invasions, was able to meet people who could give him elaborate descriptions of rituals which had taken place there during their lifetimes.

Whether the Rozvi introduced the cult of Mwari or not we do not know. Today, as it was in the past, the high priests of the Mwari cult at its principal shrine in the Matopos where it was transferred from Zimbabwe possibly even before that capital was raided by Zwangendaba, are not Rozvi, but people of a different Shona tribe, the Mbire with the Mutupo Shoko.

It is by no means unlikely that the Rozvi took over and adapted a pre-existing religious cult in much the same way that the Ndebele tolerated the cult of Mwari in the Matopos, whom they honoured under the name Mlimo.

The Mwari cult, as it is organised now, and as it appears to have been organised in the past, is oracular in nature. The god speaks through a mouth, and the other high officials are known as the ear and the eye. This latter post was always held by a Murozvi and it is believed that in this way the Rozvi maintained a secret intelligence service which covered the whole of their kingdom under the cloak of the priesthood, as it was the duty of the eye to gather information which would then be reported to the cult headquarters.

An equally important element in Shona religion is the system of ancestral spirits of great historic personages who fulfil a tutelary function and are brought into contact with the living through means of spirit mediums (swikiros) also known as mhondoros.

There is some dispute as to whether the cult of Mwari and the system of tutelary spirits are complementary or whether they are two entirely separate conceptions of the supernatural which, at some point, overlapped or which had been syncretised.

Certain it is that the cult of spirit mediums is more firmly entrenched as a separate and distinct entity in northern Mashonaland, the area of the old Mwene Mutapa empire.

But to return to the Rozvi, to this day they are everywhere said to have known God and they formed a multitude of the children of God who traveled about the country as religious companies, claiming certain rights and privileges from all who met them.

Mwari is also a god of fertility and rainfall, and undoubtedly a great part of the power of the cult and, therefore, of its Rozvi masters lay in the power of Mwari to bless or curse the land and crops. There was a strong mystical connection between the fertility of the land and the Rozvi king who had many of the attributes of the so-called sacred king.

In particular, there are traditions too numerous to disregard that the king was killed when his sexual power began to wane, lest his impotence render the land infertile.

On the eve of the Nguni invasions, therefore, we are to imagine a relatively peaceful and stable society in the central and southern parts of the country, dominated, but not oppressively so, by the Rozvi ruling class who had by this time established a number of subsidiary provincial capitals.

The Rozvi court was one of considerable sophistication with a love of ostentation which is clearly evidenced by the later buildings they erected. The common people lived a life that cannot have been greatly different from that they followed at the time the Europeans first arrived here and described it, that is to say, in villages based on the extended family, pursuing a simple agricultural and pastoral existence.

There were very limited economic specialisations in these communities, some iron-making and possibly cloth-making in some parts from wild cotton, with the manufacture of domestic pottery a widespread women's chore. Hunting of game was widely practised, and it is evident that, here too, there was some degree of specialisation.

Most of the gold mines were worked out before the Nguni invasions, but it is probable that some mines continued production in all areas right up to the end. A glimpse of this society through the eyes of one of its destroyers is revealing, and I would like to quote a memory of an old survivor, an old soldier of one of Zwangendaba's people who came up and smashed the power of the Mambo.

Of all the countries we passed through, there was one that struck us as most desirable. This was a country in which a people called the Abalozwi lived. They built their villages on granite hills which they fortified with stone walls.

Their Chief, Mambo, put up a stubborn fight and then fled into the very hilly granite country, making it difficult for us to subdue him. Zwangendaba and his men then laid siege to this place which was the hill we call today Ntaba zi ka mambo but which was known in those days as Nyanganga hill.

They gave us beads and skins and hoes and offered us cattle and sheep to go away and leave them in peace but we were not to be propitiated. Next day they came out again from the rocks and directed us to stand below a certain strange overhanging rock; it looked like a big balcony giving standing room to about 200 men.

Thereon were gathered the Mambo and his counsellors jabbering and chattering like a lot of monkeys; this rock stands about 100 feet above where we were standing with a sheer drop and it is here that the Mambo threw himself down in our midst to fall dead and mangled at our feet.

Now, it is curious the element of scorn that there is in this interpretation; that the very sophisticated nature of the Rozvi court was something quite unintelligible to their destroyers. They just appeared to them as a parcel of monkeys chattering and jabbering and yet there is no doubt that it was a moment of intention, intense emotion and probably ritual, up on that rock.

The exact pattern of Zwangendaba's raiding is not known, but he destroyed every Rozvi centre of power. This took place about 1834. Within five years of the departure ot the Swazi the Ndebele had arrived and completed the destruction of the Rozvi rule.

The Ndebele were something more than a tribe; they were a nation founded on military and caste principles. They had come up the hard way, having to fight themselves clear not only of Shaka but also of the Boers in the Transvaal. When they arrived in the country they were, quite simply, predators.

Yet very few people now doubt that the tales of their depredations have been somewhat exaggerated, not least by Chartered Company minions who were concerned to prove that Lobengula's dominion extended over the whole country.

This was quite certainly untrue. There were very considerable areas where the Ndebele had never raided, notably throughout northern Mashonaland and in the eastern parts. After a relatively short space of time in which they had made themselves a name to be feared by the arbitrary nature of their acts of cruelty, the Ndebele settled down to a system of milking those Shona communities which recognised their paramountcy.

Carl Mauch, who had very good personal reasons to avoid the Ndebele, describes one such visit while he was living near the Duma people in the Zimbabwe ruins. There is no doubt that this visitation was dreaded by the locals, who took precautions against being despoiled, but there is something of an anticlimax in Mauch's account when the warriors sit down to discuss the vagaries of Matabeleland weather, evidently much the same then as it is today, and petty politics, before asking for a guide to take them on to the next kraal.

Still, the violent nature of the Ndebele occupation should not be minimised. The Ndebele left the political system of the Shona largely intact, apart from ensuring that the Rozvi never again regained their ascendancy by, inter alia, killing off the most important of the Rozvi spirit mediums, the svikiro of Chaminuka.

The Rozvi cult of Mwari, however, had already moved to the Matopos where it accommodated itself to its new masters. Another feature of the Ndebele system was the incorporation of subject elements into the nation. Cattle were not all that the Ndebele raided; they would take women and children too, the latter to build new regiments of warriors which formed an integral part of their nation.

In a very understandable manner these people, the ones that were incorporated, enthusiastically adopted the culture of their new masters, taking their language, Ndebele-ising their names and generally becoming more Ndebele than the Ndebele.

ECONOMY, CULTURE AND DECLINE
The Rozvi chiefs revived the tradition of building in stone and constructed impressive cities throughout the southwest. Polychrome pottery was also emblematic of its culture. The economic power of the Rozvi Empire was based on cattle wealth and farming with significant gold mining continued.

Trade was established with Arab traders where metals such as gold and copper and ivory were exchanged for luxury goods. Records from the Portuguese account have shown that the Rozvi were expert military strategists and that they had used the cow-horn formation years before the great Zulu leader Shaka had. Without the use of guns and cannons, but spears and bows and arrows, the aggressive Rozvi took over the plateau.

The Rozvi, unlike the Mutapa, did not much rely on the intervention of spirit mediums to decide the monarch, but rather wealth and acclaim or, in many cases, succession. This system caused problems, as some people disagreed with the successors and after nearly two hundred years of total rule over the region, the empire was starting to decline.

In the 1790s the whole southern African region began to experience a prolonged series of droughts. They weakened the Rozvi Empire, which allowed local chiefs and spirit mediums to begin seizing power. The gold fairs functioned only intermittently. Internal feuding also weakened the empire.

In the early 19th century, the period of regional warfare and forced migrations known as the mfecane began. Following victories by the Zulu king Shaka, the Ndwandwe, a Nguni-speaking people, were forcibly dispersed, and armed bands led by Ndebele chiefs migrated northward, invading the Rozvi Empire.

The empire was devastated by the Ndwandwe armies of Nxaba and Zwangendaba. In the early 1830s the last Rozvi ruler was killed in his capital of Khame. Zimbabwe came under control of Ndebele chief Lobengula in 1834.

Today, the Rozvi descendants are those of the family Moyondizvo. Among the Moyondizvo family there are families like Mutendi, Chiminya and Gumunyu now stationed in Gokwe.

ORAL TRADITIONS
The canvas of history can be painted in bold strokes without concern for accuracy of details. I will recall two legends and may draw on others less widely known to construct the possible sweep of history from the early birth of the Karanga or Proto Shona polities until the final disintegration of the Monomatapa influence of recent times.

The first of these legends was told to me by a very senior jinda (prince) of the VaRozvi clan. He had certain justification in asserting that he was amongst the few who could lay claim to the title Mambo or king.

Our forefathers lived in a place called Samangai, which is a very old town beyond the seas. There came a time when the people became many and their king, Mambo Sororezhou, declared that they must depart from Samangai. He said "Oh! this nation (rudzi) is big. It is better that we cross the water".

So they built their boats and they made big torches; they put stones and sand in the bottom of the boats on which they placed their fire, their torches, and then they entered into the boats.

They made fire for sacrifices (moto unopira) so that they could be carried safely across the water by their god, Mwari. At that time Sororezhou had many people with him, included amongst these was Chigwangu who was a priest or wizard.

There were many other machinda (royal princes), as well as makota (councillors, or ministers of state). Now they left and crossed the sea sailing across the ocean to the south until they came to land at the mouth of a great river. Here they landed and left their boats. Together they all traveled until they came to Giri mountain.

Here they stopped and there was consultation amongst the leaders. Chigwangu said; "We cannot stay together now that we have discovered this great land, I propose to move northwards following the coast." Sororezhou said: "I will go to the hinterland".

Sororezhou traveled on and reached the hill of Rukungubwe where they settled and built edifices of stone. After some time Mwari spoke to them and told them to move again as this was not the place. So Sororezhou moved on with his followers leaving others behind who became his children, the Bavenda, and came at last to Zimbabwe.

And there they settled for a long time and from time to time they would receive visits from the others (i.e. Bavenda) and they would slaughter cattle to sacrifice to Mwari and to celebrate the coming from their original place.

Eventually their Voice (Hwi Ravo) spoke to them and said "Leave here! this is not where I want you to stay!" So they left and went to the area of Mabwemachena (the Matopos).

They stayed at the Matopos and built other stone buildings. And here too they tamed cattle and sacrificed them to the Njerere (sparrow hawk).

The second is the legend of Mutota and his migration from the south.

Mutota, the first Monomatapa recorded in oral tradition, was the son or grandson of one Chibatamatosi who is said to have been part of the original Rozvi/Karanga migration. He is said to have resided in the legendary land of Guruuswa (Big Grass).

Guruuswa is the name of the country claimed by people in Northern and Central Mashonaland to be the original home of their ancestors.

It is related that Mutota grew tired of the continuous lack of salt in Guruuswa. He sent his munyai (emissary) Nyakutonje, on an expedition to the north to find the salt pans of the Zambezi valley.

Nyakutonje is reported to have brought back news that he had found the salt pans and that the tribe need no longer continue extracting salt from the ashes of goat's dung.

The Mutota migration to the valley commenced in order to settle the tribe near these salt pans. However, Mutota never reached the promised land. He died in the neighbourhood of the Musengezi River and was buried at Tuuyu Tusere (the place of the Eight Small Baobab Trees).

It was common practice in those days, and until fairly recently in some places, for successors to the great chieftainships to fortify their installation by the practice of ritual incest with a sister. This was known as the kupinga pasi ceremony.

This was necessary with Mutota's death, but at first none of his brothers or sons could bring themselves to perform such an unnatural act.

Finally Nobedza agreed to do this and he was given his sister Nehanda in ritual marriage. After performing the task Nehanda was so disgusted with herself she disappeared with her followers into a rock which is to this day known as Gumbi raNehanda.

Nehanda has subsequently become the great ambuya of the Northern Shona people. The subsequent history of the Mutota people, the Munhumutapas of history, is the subjugation of various neighboring tribes, the settling of migrant groups and the allocation of districts to minor chieftainships.

With few exceptions all chieftainships in the Mount Darwin and Sipolilo districts and some in Bindura and Shamva and as far south as Mazowe were finally allocated their areas by the Munhumutapa, Mukombwe, perhaps the last of the great Munhumutapas.

He was known as Goveranyika, which means "to divide or create the boundaries of the country". If one considers the primitive form of administration, of communication and relates this to the size of the area which fell under the sway of the Munhumutapas, one must marvel how they managed to hold together the people in such a large area.

Another version of the Mutota migration comes from Sipolilo. It says that Mutota came from Mbire which they identify with the area around Hwedza and Marondera. Nyakutonje had discovered salt and he took some of this to Guruuswa where he encountered Mutota and his friend Chinguwo.

Motota offered Nyakutonje sadza to eat and in return the latter offered salt to mix with the food. Mutota so liked the taste that he exclaimed "This servant shall not be allowed to go away: the spirits of our forefathers have blessed us!".

He enquired of Nyakutonje from whence he had come and where he had acquired the salt. Nyakutonje agreed to lead them to the area. At first the party settled at Mount Hwedza. Later they moved on to Harare, then through the Mazowe Valley. Some families grew tired along the route and remained in the Mazowe Valley area.

Later a stop was made at the Mvurwi Mountains (The Great Dyke), where a meeting was held. At this meeting a decision was made as to the direction in which the various groups should go.

Mutota followed Nyakutonje northwards while Chinguwo proceeded westwards to the country known as Guruve. Mutota's intention was to make miracles and take over control of the Dande.

He said to Nyakutonje

When we are near the Dande and before we reach the crest of the hill I require you to tell me so that I will be able to prepare my magic

Nyakutonje did not obey these instructions and when they reached the Chitako Hills they climbed to the top and Mutota was shown the flat country of the Dande. As a result his miracles failed because he had seen the country with his eyes.

Mutota was disappointed. He held back and built his home at Gomwe Hill. Later Mutota's people brought eight baobab trees from the Dande and planted them at the village.

According to this legend the successor to Mutota was Nobedza. Mutota also had a daughter by the name of Nyamhita. Nobedza was followed by Nyahuma who was followed by Chikunu who was followed by Chimvere who was followed by Mavura who was followed by Mukombwe (Goveranyika), who was followed by Chirwuriyanga who was followed by Chiwawa who was followed by Nyamushanga who was followed by Virimba.

Upon Virimba's death his sons Muzarabani and Chitsungo founded their own chieftainships. At that time the empire was in decay.

Further tradition in the Muzarabani area relates that Nyamhita was made princess of the district of Handa. As princess of Handa she acquired the title of Nehanda. As such she is venerated as the great female ancestral spirit of all the Korekore speaking people and the Tavara clans, and in fact southwards taking in a large number of the Zezuru people.

She is one of the great mhondoro and rain petitioning spirits. Nehanda was childless and after the ritual incest she was so disgusted with herself that she retired to her country and disappeared into a small hill. Rain ceremonies are performed there to this day.

It is interesting to note that there are other areas which also claim to have mediums who represent Nehanda. This is because a further legend states that after the ceremony she did not completely disappear, but rather cut all ties with her relations in the Dande and returned to the south.

She did not stay with the VaRozvi but settled with the VaGumbo, the Gutu people who at that stage lived near Domboshawa. This later became Chief Hwata's country and there to this day, near Christon Bank, she is petitioned each year at the shrines of Shavarunzvi.

It is noteworthy that the medium of Nehanda of the Hwata area played an important part in the Shona War of Resistance of 1896.

She was executed at Salisbury prison on the 27th April, 1898. Kaguvi and eleven other men were also executed. The men all died quietly, having been baptised by Father Richards of Chishawasha mission, with the exception of Nehanda's medium who was the only woman condemned.

She refused to listen to the priest and danced and laughed, shouting hysterically before the execution. She called for her people and wanted to return to her country near the Mazowe and die there. She resisted to the last and had to be carried up to the scaffold.

She has subsequently become a greatly revered figure amongst the Shona people and is regarded by them as a martyr and national figure of resistance.

In some cases, the reputation of the spirit depends almost entirely on the medium. In central Shona country, knowledge of ancient and "forgotten" makombwe (lion spirits) depends on what their possessed mediums do and say, and the activities of the historical persons become confused with the activities of famous mediums.

Thus the most famous spirit in central Shona country is Chaminuka, renowned as a rain-maker who is beseeched in rain rituals in widely dispersed localities. When asked about the history of Chaminuka, people readily tell the story of how he was captured by the Ndebele and killed at the orders of Lobengula. Few people seem aware that the man killed by the Ndebele was in fact an influential medium of Chaminuka.

Legend about the subsequent Munuhumutapas as mentioned earlier is not comprehensive. Traditions such as they exist refer to individual clan relationships with the reigning monarch who is generally referred to by the generic title of Mutota.

Other legends refer to the conquest of new areas and peoples such as the subjugation of the VaTawara along the Mukumbura in the area of Choma where by the use of magic the cult centre of Dzivaguru was finally absorbed, the stories of other clans migrating into the area from the southeast such as Dotito in Mount Darwin and Chimanda in the present day Rushinga district.

Throughout the area legend substantiates the hypothesis that there was constant jostling for position and frequent skirmishes between the various chieftainships which comprised the overall empire.

Dynastic disputes were common and it is undoubtedly the result of these internecine feuds, coupled with the lack of speedy communication and the written word, which led to the final decay of the once flourishing empire.

Legend has it that the last of the Munuhumutapas lived north of Mukumbura in a state of abject poverty and controlled little more than his own village.