Sinthumule in the sources
Sinthumule was the second son of Makhado and an elder brother of Maemu. His chiefdom is one of the seven independent Venda vhuhosi that Lufuno Mulaudzi’s 2020 thesis lists after the death of Mphephu in the 1920s: Mphephu, Tshivhase, Mphaphuli, Rambuda, Sinthumule, Nesengani and Kutama.
What the sources say
Before 1895. The thesis says Makhado sent Sinthumule and his elder brother Mphephu to Dzimauli, in Rambuda country, to fight for Tshikosi Rambuda against his brother Siphuma (ch. 4, p. 92). In the early 1890s, after Makhado made a pact with the British agents of Cecil Rhodes, he sent Sinthumule to Rhodesia by ox wagon to trade mealies and bring back a cannon (p. 96). He was still in Bulawayo when Makhado died.
1895. Some elders sent to Bulawayo to call him back, thinking him better suited than Maemu or Mphephu. He arrived first, to rejoicing, but Mulaudzi says he had no ambition to rule and backed his elder brother Mphephu, whom he thought the rightful heir. He, Mphephu, Funyufunyu and Nyakhuhu planned the war on Maemu. Mphephu rewarded him with the plain of Tshifhefhe, not the fertile Malimuwa he asked for; Mulaudzi says villagers there preferred bringing their cases to him and urged him to claim the kingship (ch. 5, pp. 102 to 107).
Against Mphephu. Mphephu summoned him, and when he refused sent an army to Tshifhefhe; Sinthumule fled to Luonde and then across the Luvuvhu to the Muhohodi River, losing cattle and followers. A second plan was betrayed by an informer; Mphephu’s army surrounded a hill with orders not to kill him. Sinthumule was allowed to stay at the farm Commando Boom, and the republic later offered him the land Mphephu had given (ch. 5, pp. 107 to 110). In the war of 1898 Sinthumule’s followers fought on the Boers’ side, and Wikipedia’s Venda Kingdom article says the republic appointed him king in 1898. When Mphephu returned from exile with British help, one account says he saved Sinthumule and Maemu from death for betraying him; informants of the historian Nemudzivhadi say they were not at risk (ch. 5, pp. 119 to 121). Mphephu then gave Sinthumule and Kutama their own locations to rule (p. 122).
Thovhele J. T. Sinthumule appeared as a witness before the Mushasha Commission (ch. 8); we have not yet read that testimony. See our Makhado and Mphephu I pages.
Sinthumule’s mother, Dombo of Tshakhuma
M. H. Nemudzivhadi’s 1998 thesis says Makhado’s wife Dombo, daughter of Raluthaga Madzivhandila of Tshakhuma, bore him his second son at Luatame in 1870, and that he named the boy Sinthumule, a name meaning that Makhado should not be provoked and implying that, if Davhana provoked him further, Makhado would drive him out of the country (p. 118). Dombo had been given to Makhado with the tribute Raluthaga paid when Makhado visited Tshakhuma; she was the sister of Khangale (pp. 44 to 45). See Madzivhandila and Raluthaga Madzivhandila.
Overview articles
See The Ramabulana succession, 1864 to 1895 for the wider context.
See Venda kingship disputes, 1890s to 2020s for the wider history.
Cautions
Mulaudzi presents Sinthumule as loyal and brave but changing his mind about the kingship; this is a historian’s reading of oral testimony, not Sinthumule’s own account, and the Sinthumule house’s version is not recorded here. 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 Sinthumule 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 5, pp. 92 to 122; 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 4, pp. 92 to 96; drawing on Van Warmelo (1940), Nemudzivhadi (1977) and Müller-Malan (1953)
- Wikipedia: Venda Kingdom
- 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; we read it by OCR, so page numbers below are the thesis’s printed numbers)
See also Ramabulana, Makhado and Masingo.
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