Nyakhuhu in the sources
Nyakhuhu was the makhadzi, the king’s paternal sister, of the Ramabulana house. In Lufuno Mulaudzi’s 2020 doctoral thesis she and her brother Madzhie are the two powerful figures at the royal homestead who made Makhado king in 1864 and, in 1895, pressed for Mphephu rather than Maemu.
What the sources say
1864. After Ramabulana’s death the sons met to install Davhana, the eldest. Nyakhuhu was asked whom she thought should be crowned; she said a woman could not decide that, noted that some of her brother’s sons were absent, and, when told Makhado “was no longer one of them”, protested that Davhana had committed atrocities and was suspected of killing his father. She proposed Rasikhuthuma, who was told he was disqualified because he had slept with a wife of his father. She washed her hands of the matter without endorsing Davhana (ch. 4, pp. 82 to 84). When Makhado returned from hunting, afraid to approach the homestead, she let him and his companions Funyufunyu and Stuurman perform the mourning rites at her own place with the mat on which the king had died, and then she helped them plan to unseat Davhana (pp. 84 to 86; see Funyufunyu and Madzhie).
1895. When Makhado’s youngest son Maemu was proclaimed by his mother Nwaphunga, Nyakhuhu and Funyufunyu opposed it and convened a meeting to recall Mphephu from Kimberley. The war that followed was also a contest between two powerful women of the house: Nyakhuhu told the women of her camp to withhold porridge from any man who returned without taking Tshirululuni, a grave threat in Venda custom (ch. 5, pp. 100 to 104). Mphephu met his allies at her home.
Mulaudzi’s own view is that the makhadzi and the khotsimunene (the king’s younger brother) are very powerful in deciding who becomes king, that the majority’s view did not matter, and that their choices were often made on favouritism rather than custom, “still the case even today” (ch. 4, p. 85). See also our Makhado and Ramabulana pages.
Overview article
Her part in the successions is set in context in The Ramabulana succession, 1864 to 1895.
Cautions
We found Nyakhuhu only in this one historian’s account of events reported by others, and not in the Commission’s record or in any source of her own house. Mulaudzi is a historian writing in 2020 from earlier collections of oral testimony, mainly Van Warmelo’s (1940), Nemudzivhadi’s interviews of the early 1970s and Müller-Malan’s popular history of 1953, and he says himself that traditions are socially constructed and reshaped over time. His text as extracted has stray spaces and some unreadable characters, so we have checked names against more than one passage; page numbers are approximate. The Ramabulana house’s history is told differently by Van Warmelo’s informants, Nemudzivhadi, Müller-Malan and the Commission’s record, and the names and dates do not always agree; where they differ we say so and take no side.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Nyakhuhu praises or totem because none has been confirmed. If you belong to the Ramabulana house and recite its praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Lufuno J. P. Mulaudzi, “Historicising the politics of vhuhosivhuhulu: the Venda polity and state formation in South Africa, c.1800s-2020”, DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria (2020), chapter 4, pp. 82 to 86; drawing on Van Warmelo (1940), Nemudzivhadi (1977) and Müller-Malan (1953)
- Lufuno J. P. Mulaudzi, “Historicising the politics of vhuhosivhuhulu: the Venda polity and state formation in South Africa, c.1800s-2020”, DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria (2020), chapter 5, pp. 100 to 104; drawing on Van Warmelo (1940), Nemudzivhadi (1977) and Müller-Malan (1953)
See also Ramabulana, Makhado and Masingo.
Do you belong to the Ramabulana house? Tell us your praises and what elders say about the history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.