Mulaudzi in the sources
Mulaudzi is the singular form, MuLaudzi, of Vhalaudzi, a Venda sib with sacred mountains at Lwamondo, Tshingani, Vhulorwa, Masia and Tsianda. The sources we read are about the sib, not about families that now carry the surname, and say no more than the following.
What the sources say
The sib. Hugh Stayt, in his 1931 study of the Vhavenda, lists the VhaLaudzi among the Venda sibs. He says they have “no actual totem animal or object” but are forbidden to work in their gardens on the day after they first see the new moon; that those of Lwamondo are of Sotho stock from Phalaborwa; and that another section, with its mountains at Masia and Tsianda, has adopted the goat as its totem and the taboos of the Makhwinde, and is “probably of BaThonga stock”.
A praise recorded by Stayt. For the Masia section he records a tshikodo (praise) that addresses “my lord Khwinde MuLaudzi” and glosses the name as coming from u laula, to point out or smell out; he adds the instruction that if a Khwinde MuLaudzi dies, the chief must be told. We paraphrase and do not print the Tshivenda text.
The baboon. Stayt writes that Chief Lwamondo, whose village is near the top of Lwamondo Kop, belongs to the VhaLaudzi, who venerate the new moon, and that those living on the kop are closely bound to the baboon and are commonly called Vha-ila-Pfene. He quotes H. A. Junod’s 1921 account of the belief that each MuLaudzi who dies becomes a baboon and goes to the sacred hill, where an old, silent baboon is the principal ancestor, and gives the origin the Lwamondo informants told him: that a baboon’s bark once warned the village of a Swazi impi climbing the kop. He treats this as an example of how a sib’s totem can change with an accident of history.
Tsianda. Nemudzivhadi’s 1998 thesis calls the people of Tsianda “the Vhalaudzi” in telling the Tsianda succession wars of the 1880s (see Tsianda succession war, 1882 to 1885, Tsianda and Lwamondo). Wikipedia’s Venda people article lists Vhalaudzi among the clans and says that the Masingo and Vhalaudzi are “late arrivals in Venda”, with no further detail. See also our Vhalaudzi page.
The surname today. Wikipedia’s list of notable Venda people includes three sportspeople surnamed Mulaudzi, which shows only that the surname is widely carried.
Cautions
Stayt wrote in the 1920s from informants and the older literature, and his sib lists are partial; his reading of the baboon story is an outsider’s. The sources say nothing about families surnamed Mulaudzi who live elsewhere or who belong to other lineages. The Sotho and Thonga origins he gives for the two sections are his informants’ statements and not tested. We make no statement about the author of the Venda kingship thesis we cite elsewhere, who shares the name. Some of Stayt’s sacred-site details are deliberately not repeated here.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Mulaudzi praises beyond the gist of the one Stayt recorded. If you belong to the Vhalaudzi and recite your praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and 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)
- 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)
- Wikipedia: Venda people (its clan list has no inline citations)
Do you belong to the Mulaudzi? 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.