Biyela in the sources
The Biyela are, in Bryant’s account, a Zulu clan descended from Xoko, eldest son of the Zulu king Ndaba, whose people were “called Biyela” because of a joke about a fence he put around his part of the family. Bryant also records a rival tradition that Biyela was himself the name of a son of the mysterious “Nkosinkulu”.
What the sources say
Name and origin. Bryant writes that Xoko, with his half-brothers Mqlitshwa and Ntshwankeni, and their descendants, became known as the aba-s-emaGazini, with the address-name Ntshangase; that Zulu young men openly courted the emaGazini girls near the royal precincts; and that Xoko, resenting this, “set up a fence of general prohibition around his portion of the family”. His clansmen laughed and said, “Oh! so you are putting (for us) a hedge around your family?” (u-ya-wu-biyela), and thereafter called them the aba-kwa-Biyela, from uku-biyela, to put a hedge or barrier around (pp. 39 to 40, in the section on Ndaba).
Other tradition. “There are always those who know better,” Bryant adds: they say Biyela was neither a kraal nor a myth but a son, born together with a younger brother, Ndaleka, of Nkosinkulu himself. He gives the line of the clan’s representative in 1929 as Mkombisi, son of Dumezweni (died 24 December 1921), son of Mkosana, who was killed at Isandlwana as induna of the iKandempemvu regiment, son of Mvundlane, of Menziwa, of Xoko, and notes that all agree Xoko was Ndaba’s eldest son (p. 40).
Royal ties. After Xoko’s death, Bryant says, King Dingane took into his household a daughter of Mangxanga of these people, and later another, a daughter of Menziwa (Xoko’s son), whom he gave to his relative and friend Mapita, son of Sojiyisa, of Jama (p. 40). See Zulu.
Cautions
Bryant’s “fence” explanation is a folk etymology and he presents the other tradition as the claim of those who “know better”; we cannot tell which, if either, the Biyela themselves would give. He does not date Xoko, though he places Ndaba around 1697 to 1763 in his table. We have not found a Biyela praise poem or totem in the sources we read. Bryant was a Catholic missionary who collected clan traditions from informants in the early twentieth century; his book is written in a jocular colonial style, uses period terms for Africans that we do not repeat, dates the early generations by a rule of eighteen years to a reign, and often says he is guessing. We give his statements as his, not as settled history.
Izithakazelo and totem
We found no confirmed Biyela totem or praise poem. Bryant records only the address-name Ntshangase for the emaGazini branch. If you belong to the Biyela and recite your praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
See also Zulu.
Do you belong to the Biyela? Tell us your izithakazelo and what elders say about the family’s history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.