Mmbara in the sources
Mmbara is a name on our own planning list of Venda clans. We searched the sources we have and did not find a clan history under it.
What the sources say
What we searched. Under Mmbara and the variants Mbara, Mmbhara. We searched, in full text, Stayt’s The Bavenda (1931), Wessmann’s The Bawenda of the Spelonken (1908), Hofmeyr’s Twintig jaren in Zoutpansberg (1890), Nemudzivhadi’s 1998 thesis on Makhado, Kirkaldy’s 2002 thesis on the Berlin missionaries and Mulaudzi’s 2020 thesis on the Venda kingship, and ran general web searches. Absence from these says nothing about whether the family is old or important, only that these sources are silent.
The nearest we found. Wikipedia’s Venda people article lists a South African politician surnamed Mmbara among notable Venda people, which shows only that the surname is borne by Venda-speakers; it gives no clan.
Cautions
This page is still a listing rather than a clan history. We would rather say so than fill it with material we cannot source. We do not know where our planning list took the name from.
Izithakazelo and totem
If you belong to the Mmbara and can tell us where the family came from, its praises and its totem, we will record it, credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Hugh A. Stayt, The Bavenda (Oxford University Press for the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, 1931); open access at the University of Pretoria repository (the chapters on history, social groupings and puberty)
- Wikipedia: Venda people (its clan list has no inline citations)
- Mphaya Henry Nemudzivhadi, “The attempts by Makhado to revive the Venda kingdom, 1864-1895”, PhD thesis, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (1998); open access at the North-West University repository (a scanned copy; read by OCR)
- Alan Kirkaldy, “Capturing the soul”, PhD thesis, University of Cape Town (2002) (read by OCR)
- Lufuno J. P. Mulaudzi, “Historicising the politics of vhuhosivhuhulu”, DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria (2020)
Do you belong to the Mmbara? Tell us your izithakazelo and what elders say about the family’s history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.