Thohoyandou in the sources
Thohoyandou is the best-known name in the Venda succession: a ruler of Dzata after Vele-la-Mbeu who “disappeared”, leaving a dispute among Vele-la-Mbeu’s descendants. The houses disagree on who he was. Wikipedia’s Venda people article calls “Thoho-ya-Ndou” the legendary chief (“Head of the Elephant”) who founded the first Venda settlement in the Soutpansberg, and the Venda Kingdom article calls him a son of Dambanyika who expanded the state.
What the sources say
Four versions. The Mphephu Ramabulana house says he was Vele-la-Mbeu’s second son, succeeded him as king, sent his son Munzhedzi Mpofu to Songozwi and his brother Raluswielo (Tshivhase) to Dopeni, and disappeared. The Ravhura house says he was Dimbanyika’s son and so Vele-la-Mbeu’s brother, who served as regent for the minor Tshisevhe. The Mphaphuli house agrees that he was regent for Tshisevhe and never reigned as king. The Tshivhase house says he was the son of Masindi, a younger brother of Vele-la-Mbeu, regent for Tshivhase, and that he settled at the second Dzata in 1760. The Commission said it was not necessary to decide between brother and son (pp. 611 to 623).
The disappearance. The Commission’s text gives the year as 1870, which cannot fit a Tshivhase kingdom founded about 1780 or Luonde’s dating, which puts the disappearance at about 1770, so one of them is probably a mistranscription. Luonde says Tshisevhe then acted as king and was defeated and killed by Munzhedzi Mpofu.
In Van Warmelo’s informants’ accounts
Lufuno Mulaudzi’s 2020 thesis (ch. 3, pp. 63 to 68) records several earlier Venda versions of who Thohoyandou was. O. S. Radzilani, writing in 1937, made Vele-la-Mbeu his father; M. M. Motenda said he was the son of Mulozwi and was already born when the people came from Vhukalanga, though some held that Vele-la-Mbeu was his father; the general view at the Ramabulana homestead is that Dimbanyika was his father. E. Mudau says Dimbanyika’s sons were Ravhura, Mandiwana, Munzhedzi, Tshivhase and Thohoyandou, the youngest, installed by the Vhandalamo and the makhadzi, to the anger of his elder brothers and the chief priest Gole-la-Denga, who plotted with Magoro and the Vhangona to attack him at Dzata. Motenda tells that Thohoyandou made war on the Raphulu, whom he defeated with a small drum, and that he later disappeared in the evening with his people and was never seen again; Radzilani says he left Dzata with the sacred objects, went down the Nzhelele River, and his brothers, finding Dzata empty, turned back for fear of a storm. J. M. Mugivhi made Tshivhase and Ramabulana his sons. Nemudzivhadi and Van Warmelo place Ramabulana as the son of Munzhedzi (Mpofu), and Mulaudzi dismisses Mugivhi’s claim.
Cautions
The Commission’s 1870 does not fit its own other dates. We treat the year as uncertain and cannot say which is right. Venda oral history is told differently by each royal house and the dates in the sources do not always agree; where they differ we say so and take no side.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Thohoyandou praises or totem because none has been confirmed. If you belong to this house and recite its praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims: Determination on the Vhavenda kingship claim (the Masingo background, pp. 610 to 623, and findings, pp. 654 to 664)
- Wikipedia: Venda Kingdom (lists of rulers and succession disputes; it cites Loubser 2024, Huffman, Beach 1980, Hanisch 2008 and others)
- Luonde: Brief History (community site; no author or bibliography given, so treat as unverified)
- Wikipedia: Venda people (tagged as needing more citations)
- 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 3, “Early history and the contestation of the Venda vhuhosivhuhulu until the early 1800s”, citing the contributions of E. Mudau, S. M. Dzivhani, O. S. Radzilani, M. M. Motenda and J. M. Mugivhi to N. J. van Warmelo, The Copper Miners of Musina and the Early History of the Zoutpansberg (1940), and the work of M. H. Nemudzivhadi
See also Masingo, Ramabulana and Tshivhase.
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