Nkambule in the Swazi record
In Bonner and Gillis the Nkambule appear mainly through Tibati Nkambule, a wife of the late king Mbandzeni who became queen-mother and then queen-regent. Gillis says that soon after the death of Sisile Khumalo, Tibati Nkambule was named queen-mother and took an authoritative place on the council, and that when Mbandzeni died she became queen-regent and continued to influence affairs (PDF p. 83); Bonner says her installation as queen-mother restored constitutional balance after the struggle between Mbandzeni and Sisile that climaxed in February 1881 (p. 174).
What the books say
Gillis describes her as strong, traditionalist and highly respected by her peers but no longer in her prime when the young king Bhunu was chosen, and sets her beside the king’s mother, Labotsibeni Mdluli (p. 99); he says that regiments serving her at Nkaneni were at odds with the late king’s bodyguard (p. 86), that she appears to have kept confidence in Offy Shepstone, and that a later change of position dismayed the white committee, to whom she complained that the whites and the Swazi were working on different lines (pp. 83, 100). His index lists her death on p. 98, and her part in the hut tax and the organic proclamation; we did not read a date. See Mdluli.
Gillis lists a Colo Nkambule among ten signatories in a note on a 1914 matter (p. 209). Bonner’s notes cite interviews with Nkambule informants at Buseleni and Phunga in 1970, and one Nkambule informant is the source for an account of a man executed by Mswati for alleged treachery (pp. 259 to 260). We have not worked out how these Nkambules relate to the queen’s family.
Sources and cautions
This page summarises two scholarly histories of the Swazi kingdom: Philip Bonner’s Kings, Commoners and Concessionaires and D. Hugh Gillis’s The Kingdom of Swaziland: Studies in Political History (both read from SAHO’s scanned PDFs by OCR; page numbers are PDF pages). The books give no Nkambule praise text or genealogy.
We read these two books only through machine OCR of scanned copies, so names and dates may contain OCR errors, and we have not checked them against the printed pages or the other histories they cite (Matsebula, Bryant, Kuper, Stuart’s archive). Both books rely heavily on oral evidence collected in the 1970s and present contested episodes from a scholarly point of view.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Nkambule praises or totem because none has been confirmed. If you belong to the Nkambule and recite your izithakazelo, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Philip Bonner: Kings, Commoners and Concessionaires (SAHO scan)
- D. Hugh Gillis: The Kingdom of Swaziland: Studies in Political History (SAHO scan)
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