Vhadau in the sources
The Vhadau are one of the clans that Wikipedia’s Venda people article groups under the Vhangona, the earliest known inhabitants of Venda. The article lists two branches, Vhadau Vhatshiheni and Vhadau Vhadamani, and says nothing more about them.
What the sources say
An anonymous community blog on Venda clan names adds that the Vhadau lived from Mount Sunguzwi (also spelled Songozwi) in the west to Mount Tshitumbe in the east, and gives their prominent chiefs as Raphulu, Tshidziwelele, Mudau and Dewasi. The blog cites no source for this. A second community site, Luonde, also lists the Vhadau among the Vhangona.
In the Commission’s determination, the Vhangona case was presented by Azidwohi Tshidziwelele Nephawe, whose account names Tshidziwelele as the first Vhangona king with his royal settlement at the Soutpansberg. The Commission found no evidence that a Vhangona kingship was ever established, and the claim failed. The name Tshidziwelele also appears in the blog’s list of Vhadau chiefs, but neither source says the two are the same person, so we do not claim that.
The University of Pretoria holds a 63-page manuscript, History of the Vhadau of Tshakhuma, written in Venda by E. Mudau and dated 22 August 1939, with a 21-page transcript. It is the most direct primary lead we found for this clan, but we have not read it, so nothing above comes from it.
Tshakhuma and the Vhadau in Nemudzivhadi
M. H. Nemudzivhadi’s 1998 thesis cites S. M. Dzivhani and E. Mudau’s book Mahosi a Venda na Vhadau vha Tshakhuma repeatedly for the reign of Makhado. In one passage he rejects a story from Mudau’s recorded information that a war was fought between the Vhasenzi and the Vhadau in which a Ramabulana won with help from the Buys group, on the ground that the Vhadau of Tshakhuma, as Makhado’s subjects, could not have been expected to resist him (p. 45). The ruling house of Tshakhuma is the Madzivhandila; see Tshakhuma. We have now obtained a machine-read copy of Mudau’s 1939 typescript from the University of Pretoria, but the text is badly garbled in Venda and we have not been able to quote or rely on it.
Cautions
The Wikipedia clan list is uncited and the two community sites cite nothing, so the lists of chiefs and places are unverified. We found no confirmed totem or praise text.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Vhadau praises or totem because none has been confirmed. If you belong to the Vhadau and recite your praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia: Venda people (tagged as needing more citations; its clan list has no inline citations)
- Know My Roots: Venda Clan Names (community blog; no author or citations given, so treat as unverified)
- Luonde: Brief History (a community site; no author or bibliography given, so treat as unverified)
- Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims: Determination on the Vhavenda kingship claim (the Vhangona account, pp. 608 to 609)
- E. Mudau, History of the Vhadau of Tshakhuma (1939, in Venda; Van Warmelo Collection, University of Pretoria). Listed here as a lead only: we have not read it.
- Mphaya Henry Nemudzivhadi, “The attempts by Makhado to revive the Venda kingdom, 1864-1895”, PhD thesis, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (1998); open access at the North-West University repository (a scanned copy; we read it by OCR, so page numbers below are the thesis’s printed numbers)
See also Vhangona and Masingo.
Do you belong to the Vhadau? 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.