Sukati in the Swazi record
The Sukati are named among the 17 founding clans (bemdzabuko, the “true Swazi”) in Wikipedia’s article on the Swazi people, which our earlier listing used. The only account of them we could find is a passage in Wikipedia’s article on Hlubi Dlamini, an 18th-century Swazi prince, which says that when Hlubi and his followers moved west to Magudu and Godlwako after a battle with the Ndwandwe at the Mkhuze River, they found there the Nkambule and Sukati communities, who submitted peacefully to Hlubi’s arrival.
What the sources say
That article dates the events only to “the 1700s”, names no Sukati chief, and cites Cynthia Hamilton’s 1990 In Pursuit of Swaziland’s Precolonial Past (p. 55) for this passage. It also says Hlubi later settled near the Pongola in the caves of Godlwako and then at eTibondzeni, without clarifying how those places fit with the Godlwako where the Sukati and Nkambule were met; it is not clear whether the Sukati lived in the same area as the caves.
The account is told from the Hlubi Dlamini side, in which the Sukati appear as a community found already settled, not as companions of the Dlamini kings, which sits oddly with their listing among the founding clans that accompanied the Dlamini. We have not found a source that explains the difference, and we have no Sukati account of their own history. Wikipedia’s separate article on the Bemdzabuko, whose notable-clans list does not name the Sukati, carries a notice that it needs more citations.
Cautions
Neither of Bonner’s and Gillis’s histories of the Swazi kingdom, which we read by OCR, mentions the Sukati under that spelling, and we found no other readable source. The surname Sukati is common, and we claim no link between surname-holders and the Godlwako community.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Sukati praises or totem because none has been confirmed. If you belong to the Sukati and recite your izithakazelo, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia: Hlubi Dlamini (cites Hamilton 1990, Westcott and Hamilton 1992, Sikhondze 1986)
- Wikipedia: Bemdzabuko (needs more citations)
- Wikipedia: Swazi people (list of the 17 founding clans)
See also Dlamini and Nkambule.
Do you belong to the Sukati? 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.