Sono in the sources
Wikipedia’s Tsonga people article lists the Sono under the VaHlengwe, with the Chauke, Hlungwani and Mavasa. In Junod’s account the Sono are the people from whom the Hlengwe king Tshauke took a wife, in the fire tradition told on our Chauke page.
What the sources say
Junod says Tshauke married the daughter of a chief “belonging to the Sono tribe”, that the Sono were the ones who knew how to cook, and that the Hlengwe, after stealing a cinder from the Sono, defeated them in the war that followed (about pp. 23 to 24). He calls the story legendary and does not say where the Sono lived or what became of them.
He names no later Sono chief.
Cautions
In the story the Sono are the other side of a Hlengwe tradition, so what Junod records is the Hlengwe telling of them; we have not found the Sono’s own account. Junod wrote in 1912 in his own spelling and from a missionary’s viewpoint, so the match between his clan names and today’s surnames is by sound and is our inference. We found no confirmed totem or praise text. Page numbers for Junod are approximate, read from machine-scanned text.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Sono totem because none has been confirmed. If you belong to the Sono and recite your praises (miLao), we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Henri A. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. 1, The Social Life (Neuchatel, 1912), read in the Internet Archive scan; a missionary ethnography of the Thonga (Tsonga), using his own spellings
- Wikipedia: Tsonga people (its post-1890 community list has no inline citation)
Do you belong to the Sono? 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.