The Ramabulana succession, 1864 to 1895

The Ramabulana succession, 1864 to 1895: an overview

Twice in thirty years the Venda royal house of Ramabulana had to decide who would rule after a king’s death: in 1864, when Ramabulana died and his eldest son Davhana was set against his youngest, Makhado, and in 1895, when Makhado died and his youngest son Maemu was set against his eldest, Mphephu. In both cases the younger man was named by the family elders and the older one was pushed aside, and in both a rival court or a war followed. This article follows the two successions side by side, mostly through the Venda historian M. H. Nemudzivhadi, and sets his account against the others where they differ.

The story

How a Venda succession works. Nemudzivhadi stresses that among the Vhavenda there was no automatic succession and no public naming of an heir by the king. The successor was identified by the makhadzi, the late king’s sister, and the khotsimunene, his younger brother, on behalf of the royal house, who weighed the status of the candidate’s mother as well as his own character; the ruling king’s wish “meant nothing” in the final choice, and the new ruler was installed with a makhadzi and an ndumi (pp. 31 to 33, 193 to 194, notes 130 and 134). In his view this “leaving the door open for succession” explains why succession struggles recur in every Venda royal house (p. 33), a point he makes against Van Warmelo’s suggestion that the house of Ramabulana was cursed by the violent death of Ramavhoya (p. 31). See Ramabulana.

1864: the eldest son. When Ramabulana died, Davhana, the eldest son, who had been nursing his father outside the palace, expected to succeed, and Nemudzivhadi says all his informants agreed that Davhana “held the strongest claim” (pp. 32 to 33). Van Warmelo had suggested doubt over it, since some said Davhana’s mother was a Tshiozwi wife. Davhana’s younger brothers asked the makhadzi Nyakhuhu to have him installed; she told them to bring all the sons together, and they brought all but Makhado, saying he had forfeited his place by entering a circumcision lodge. Pressed, she gave way, and Davhana “forced himself into the position of Thovhele” without her backing (p. 33). The Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims was told by the Mphephu house a shorter version: that Makhado was the rightful heir but away hunting, and the elders installed Davhana.

Why the family turned against him. Nemudzivhadi lists reasons Davhana could not hold the throne: he was suspected, without being able to clear himself, of complicity in his father’s death; he was said to have had commoners killed without his father’s authority; and he was accused of cruelty, which Nemudzivhadi thinks was partly invented by his opponents to frighten people (pp. 34 to 35). Ramabulana himself is reported to have told him “You will not succeed me” (p. 35). Nemudzivhadi adds that Davhana killed the makhadzi Nyakhuhu because she would not support him, but calls the stories that he skinned her or carried his father’s skull allegations (pp. 34 to 35). This conflicts with Lufuno Mulaudzi’s 2020 thesis, in which Nyakhuhu opposes Davhana in 1864, helps Makhado, and is still active in 1895 (see Nyakhuhu); we cannot reconcile the two accounts.

The younger man’s case. Makhado’s claim rested on his father’s wish, on the backing of the makhadzi and of the khotsimunene Madzhie, and on the popularity of his mother Limani, whom Nemudzivhadi describes as generous and who, it was known, had been meant to replace Mutumbe, Ramavhoya’s wife (pp. 35 to 37; see Madzhie). Davhana’s answer was that Makhado’s was a minor house and he “the son of a young wife” (p. 36). Makhado stayed hidden at Ndouvhada, out of Davhana’s reach, and his supporters objected to his eating the mourning food with the other princes; his councillors had him prepare the army ritually, and, in heavy rain, his army drove Davhana from Vuvha, leaving the royal sacred objects, the zwitungulo, behind. Makhado gave them to the makhadzi and was installed (pp. 37 to 39). Davhana, Rasikhuthuma and another brother, Khangale, struggled without her or Madzhie’s backing (p. 39). Nemudzivhadi says that even the Boers at Schoemansdal were satisfied with Makhado, who had grown up working on their farms, and that Schoeman recognised him as Thovhele (p. 39).

The Boers’ other answer. Mulaudzi’s account, as on our Davhana page, has the Transvaal’s native commissioner João Albasini recognising Davhana as heir in May 1864, and Nemudzivhadi’s account of the Luonde years, citing Albasini’s reports of April to June 1864, has him sheltering Davhana as the heir. So the two Venda sons were each recognised by a different white authority, and Nemudzivhadi says Makhado took Davhana’s settling at Luonde to mean “the Whites had made Davhana Thovhele” (pp. 41 to 42; see João Albasini).

Davhana’s flight. Davhana is said to have fled first to Tshivhase, who as Makhado’s ally drove him out, then to Tshakhuma, to Nngwekhulu and to Dzivhe in Mphaphuli’s country; Ranwedzi Mphaphuli took him to Mbilwi, where Makhado threatened to destroy Mphaphuli if he were sheltered, so Mphaphuli asked Albasini to take him in, and Davhana settled beside Albasini’s fortified farm at Luonde (pp. 40 to 41). From there, in Mulaudzi’s account, he set himself up by 1867 as a Thovhele with his musanda at Mpheni, giving the Venda two rulers, and in July 1868 President Pretorius met him and the Buys community at Welgevonden and agreed an alliance against Makhado (see Davhana and The Soutpansberg war, 1863 to 1869). Makhado left Tshirululuni, close to Schoemansdal, for a new capital at Luatame (p. 42), and in the 1880s Davhana, sheltering Bele of Dzimauli, was still “Makhado’s arch enemy” (see The Venda succession wars of the 1880s).

Davhana’s death, 1894. Nemudzivhadi says Makhado had placed a Tsonga ruler, Bungeni, south-east of Luvhola to hold Davhana in check, and that when Davhana died in 1894 it was a relief to Makhado, which “had far reaching implications” since he felt he could now relax his defences; Davhana’s successor, Nesengani, did not contest the kingship (p. 274). Nesengani’s grandson, Kingi Nesengani, is one of Nemudzivhadi’s informants (p. 277; see Nesengani).

1886: Makhado turns from his eldest son. The succession of 1895 was prepared in 1886. Nemudzivhadi says Mphephu, Makhado’s eldest son by Midana, had shown what his father took as weakness and cowardice, and was publicly flogged; he moved with his mother and age-group to Gogobole, and in 1886 left for Pretoria and then the Kimberley diamond fields (pp. 192 to 193). Makhado told his councillors Mphephu would not succeed him. Nemudzivhadi notes that a Venda king had no right to name a successor in public, but the Berlin missionary R. Wessmann and others reported that the heir was to be his fourth son Maemu, a young son of his important wife Nwaphunga; Van Warmelo says Maemu was about 17 when he later succeeded, while Nemudzivhadi, reasoning that Makhado could not have foreseen his death, puts him at about ten in 1886 (pp. 193 to 194, notes 131 to 133). Mulaudzi gives a different reason for Mphephu’s banishment, a defeat by the Tshivhase army (see Mphephu I).

September 1895: the death of Makhado. Nemudzivhadi says Makhado had grown dependent on liquor sold by Boer traders and careless of his security after Davhana’s death, and that the Republic, though it planned an attack, was held back by the Uitlander crisis and campaigns against Modjadji and Mmalebogo (pp. 274 to 275). While Mphephu and Sinthumule were in Kimberley and Tuli, he writes, a group at Malimuwa, Makhado’s second residence, including Rasivhetshele, Nwaphunga and Mutheiwana of Vuvha, “secretly deliberated” on removing him to make way for Maemu (pp. 275 to 276). Informants, among them Nesengani, say they sent for poison from Fort Hendrina through the trader Tom Kelly, and that Makhado drank it in brandy at a beer party arranged by Nwaphunga (p. 277). The missionary Wessmann, however, put the death down to an overdose of medicine, and Nemudzivhadi says the Boers were surprised but relieved (pp. 278 to 279). He gives the date “presumably” as 3 September 1895, though the Landdrost of Pietersburg reported it on 4 October and, in his memoirs, said Makhado had already been dead ten days when the news reached him, which would make 23 September; he says the exact day cannot be known, since a Venda king was buried on the day he died and the news travelled slowly (pp. 277 to 278). See Makhado.

Maemu and Mphephu. In Mulaudzi’s account, Maemu was proclaimed by his mother Nwaphunga and the old war leader Stemmer and at once submitted to the Boer authorities; Nyakhuhu, Funyufunyu and the senior headman Mavhasa Musekwa sent for Mphephu, and Sinthumule, who arrived first, backed his elder brother. Mphephu’s attack surprised Maemu’s side, many changed allegiance, and Maemu fled across the Muhohodi to the Boers’ Fort Hendrina, where Mphephu, respecting his father’s rule that those who crossed were immune, did not pursue him (see Maemu). The Mphephu house’s account to the Commission has no Maemu at all: Mphephu succeeded in 1895 and kept the Voortrekkers out until the battle of 1898. Nemudzivhadi mentions Maemu’s designation but does not narrate his short reign; he does say that after the death of Makhado the Ramabulana continued to help Tshikosi at Dzimauli because Mphephu “considered it his duty” (p. 227). See Sinthumule.

Pattern. In 1864 and again in 1895 the elders passed over an older son in favour of a younger one, a rival with outside backing lived on for years (Davhana at Luonde and Mpheni, Maemu at Fort Hendrina), and white authorities were drawn in (Albasini sheltering Davhana in 1864; Maemu turning at once to the Boers in 1895 on Mulaudzi’s account). In 1864 the winner was the son whose mother and relatives had built up the larger following; in 1895 the winner was the elder son who had been passed over by his father, and the Commission’s record treats him as the rightful heir from the start.

Cautions

This article is mainly one historian’s reading. Nemudzivhadi’s 1998 thesis is written from the Ramabulana side and is admiring of Makhado; Mulaudzi’s 2020 thesis, drawing on the same oral collections, gives some details differently, and we cite him only through our linked pages, which means second-hand. The accounts conflict on important points: whether Davhana killed Nyakhuhu (Nemudzivhadi says yes; Mulaudzi has her alive in 1895); whether Mphephu was banished for a flogging and cowardice (Nemudzivhadi) or after a defeat by the Tshivhase army (Mulaudzi); the date of Makhado’s death (3 September, perhaps 23 September, 1895; one passage of Mulaudzi says 1897); and whether Maemu reigned at all (Mulaudzi and Luonde say he did; the Commission’s record is silent). The poisoning of Makhado is the informants’ account, which Nemudzivhadi reports and does not independently prove; Wessmann’s contemporary explanation was different. Several of the people named belong to families with living traditional councils, and nothing here is a statement about any present-day claim. Page numbers are Nemudzivhadi’s printed ones, and names in the OCR scan may contain misreadings.

Sources and further reading

Mphaya Henry Nemudzivhadi, “The attempts by Makhado to revive the Venda kingdom, 1864-1895”, PhD thesis, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (1998), chapters 2, 3, 6, 9 and 10; open access at the North-West University repository (a scanned copy; read by OCR, printed page numbers cited)
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), chapters 4 and 5, as reported on our Davhana, Nyakhuhu, Maemu and Mphephu I pages
Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims: Determination on the Vhavenda kingship claim (the Mphephu Ramabulana house’s account, pp. 611 to 618), as summarised on our Ramabulana page

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