Tshisevhe in the sources
Tshisevhe was a son of Vele-la-Mbeu, by the third house, and the father of Ravhura. The Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims records him as one of Vele-la-Mbeu’s two sons in the common-cause part of the history, with the dzekiso daughter Tshavhungwe.
What the sources say
The Ravhura house says that because the senior house produced no heir, Tshisevhe’s house was next in line, that Thohoyandou served as regent while Tshisevhe was a minor, and that after Thohoyandou disappeared Tshisevhe was enthroned as king of the Vhavenda. He was later assassinated, and his son Ravhura fled to Makonde on the advice of Nwali, the ancestral god. The Mphaphuli house agrees that the royal council nominated Tshisevhe because Tshavhungwe could not rule, and says his son Ragavheli was killed on the way to a healer (pp. 618 to 628). The Mphephu Ramabulana house instead says the elders installed Tshisevhe after Thohoyandou vanished, that he was not installed by the royal family as custom requires and so usurped the throne, and that he was assassinated in the conflict with Thohoyandou’s son Munzhedzi Mpofu.
The Commission found that Ravhura had abandoned his right to succeed Tshisevhe by fleeing to Makonde, and that it was Munzhedzi Mpofu who remained with the kingship at Dzata. See our Ravhura page for the house, and Thohoyandou.
In Van Warmelo’s informants’ and Nemudzivhadi’s accounts
Lufuno Mulaudzi’s 2020 thesis (ch. 3, pp. 68 to 70) sets out two further views of Tshisevhe. S. M. Dzivhani said Bele-la-Mambo was succeeded by his son Masindi, who soon died, then by Tshisevhe, who was succeeded by his uncle Thohoyandou, which Mulaudzi says is far from the truth. Nemudzivhadi counted Tshisevhe the fourth khosikhulu of the line Dimbanyika, Dyambeu, Thohoyandou, Tshisevhe, ruling a centralised Venda state from Dzata between 1688 and 1800, whose influence reached from Vhuxwa north of the Vhembe to the Lumbelule River. When the population grew, Tshisevhe ceded powers to his brothers Mpofu, Raluswielo Tshivhase and Mphaphuli, who ruled from Songozwi, Dopeni and Tshitomboni, while Tshisevhe stayed at Dzata; Nemudzivhadi saw this as peaceful decentralisation. Nemudzivhadi puts Tshisevhe’s death in 1800, after which Mpofu called for Dzata to be evacuated and chose Songozwi. Mulaudzi says the idea that Mphaphuli was a brother of Tshisevhe is “highly distorted”.
Cautions
Even how he came to the throne is contested, and the dates are uncertain. 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 Tshisevhe 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)
- Luonde: Brief History (community site; no author or bibliography given, so treat as unverified)
- 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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