Who the Bhele are
Wikipedia describes the amaBhele as a Nguni people found mainly in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, and also in the Free State, Mpumalanga, the Western Cape and Gauteng, with descendants it says live in Lesotho, Eswatini, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It says the group began about 20 km south of Ladysmith, at a place called Lenge, beside a mountain where their common ancestor Bhele lived roughly 250 years ago. The article has an empty reference list and no inline citations, so we treat all of this as tradition, not as checked history. Its infobox gives languages as Xhosa, Swazi, Zulu, Hlubi, Sotho and English and a population of 980,950; we have no source for that figure and are not relying on it.
The Mfecane
The same article says the Bhele were scattered in several directions during the Mfecane wars and that many migrated to safer areas. South African History Online, in its page on Nqamakwe, says the Mfengu were largely of Hlubi, Bhele and Zizi origin (see Mfengu); that page also covers the argument among historians about that story.
The Bhele and the Hlubi
The Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims, in its determination on the amaHlubi kingship claim, records in the Hlubi royal house’s own account that the name amaHlubi came from a daughter of a Bhele traditional leader named Hlubi, whom the Hlubi king Ncobo kaMthimkhulu I married before dying without a male heir; the descendants chose the neutral name LamaHlubi, “the nation of the daughter of Hlubi”. See our Hadebe page for the full account. Wikipedia’s list of Hlubi kings, whose kings table has no inline citations, places a king named Bhele in 1390 to 1410, and says nothing more about him; we cannot tell whether that Bhele is the ancestor in the Bhele tradition, and we do not know what the list is based on, so we would not rely on its dates. For the Hlubi themselves see Langalibalele.
A Bhele chiefdom in the Eastern Cape
Wikipedia’s article on Thandathu Jongilizwe Mabandla (1926 to 2021) says he became chief of the Bhele tribe in 1959, a position he held until his death, and that he was the first chief executive councillor of the Ciskei Territorial Authority and then, from 1 August 1972 until 21 May 1973, the first Chief Minister of Ciskei. See our Mabandla page.
What we have not read
Wikipedia’s Bhele article lists three external links we have not read: a South African History Online article, an Ulwazi page on the Ntuli clan, and an Archival Platform blog post. We have not found a Bhele king list, clan praises, or an account from a Bhele family, and we cannot confirm any link between the Lenge tradition and the Eastern Cape chiefdom. The article’s list of “related groups” (Nguni, Hlubi, Zulu, Basotho, Xhosa, Swazi, Matabele) is marked as needing confirmation. We have not read Wright and Manson’s The Hlubi Chiefdom (1983), which Wikipedia lists as further reading on the Hlubi.
Izithakazelo and totem
We have not found a published Bhele praise text or confirmed totem, so we are printing neither. If you belong to the Bhele and recite your izithakazelo, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia: Bhele (no references)
- Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims: Determination on the amaHlubi kingship claim (pp. 503 to 533 of the PDF)
- Wikipedia: Hlubi Kings
- Wikipedia: Thandathu Jongilizwe Mabandla
- South African History Online: Nqamakwe
Do you belong to the Bhele? 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.