Manenzhe in the sources
Manenzhe is a Venda community listed as item (k) on the 1991 proclamation’s roll. The Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims records Manenzhe among the past Vhangona leaders in the Vhangona claimant’s presentation, and the Know My Roots blog names Manenzhe as a prominent chief of the Vhatavhatsindi.
What the sources say
In Lufuno Mulaudzi’s 2020 thesis, leaders of the Manenzhe community, interviewed in February 2015, said their arrival in Venda preceded the Masingo’s; that when they came they found the Vhangona but were never subject to the Vhangona or to any other thovhele; and that the Manenzhe are closely related to the Vhatavhatsindi and might be related to the Netshiavha. Mulaudzi writes that this cannot be corroborated by any written source. Asked why they never contested the kingship, the leaders said they were peaceful people and independent. They also object, in Mulaudzi’s account, to any suggestion that the Ramabulana are superior to them. The community praises itself as ndou, “we elephants of Manenzhe” (ch. 10, pp. 247 to 251).
A Tshivhase leader told Mulaudzi that the Tshivhase used to rule over a number of communities, among them the Manenzhe; Mulaudzi disputes that and cites the Manenzhe leaders as saying they were independent (ch. 10, about pp. 273 to 275). See Nethengwe, Mutele, Ndou and Tshikundamalema.
Cautions
The Manenzhe account of their own origin rests on one interview and no document, and Mulaudzi says so. Mulaudzi is a historian writing in 2020 from commission reports, newspapers and interviews he carried out himself, and he states his own opinions in the text; the extracted text of the thesis has stray spaces and some unreadable characters, so page numbers are approximate. The interviews were carried out in 2015 and 2016 with the consent of the leaders concerned; they give those leaders’ opinions and what they told the author about their communities, and we have not checked them against other sources. We name office-holders only where the thesis names them as public witnesses or holders of an office. Venda kingship history is told differently by each house and by each historian, and where the sources differ we say so and take no side.
Sources and further reading
- 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 10, pp. 247 to 251 and 274 to 275
- Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims: Determination on the Vhavenda kingship claim
- Know My Roots: Venda Clan Names (community blog; no author or citations given, so unverified)
See also Masingo, Ramabulana and Tshivhase.
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