Who the Bhaca are
Wikipedia describes the Bhaca (amaBhaca) as an Nguni people concentrated in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, with a 2024 estimate of about 570,000. South African History Online, in a Grade 10 history article on the Mfecane, calls the Bhaca a people “made up of many other group”, and says that after many refugees fled into Pondoland “only the Pondo and the Bhaca” remained as established polities; it gives no date. The Wikipedia article carries notices that it needs more citations and expert attention, and that it may contain machine-written text (flagged August 2025). We use it only where it names its sources, and mark where it contradicts our other sources.
The name and the Zelemu
The article says the Bhaca were called the Zelemu (abakwaZelemu) from the 1700s until 1830, and descend from a chief Zelemu who ruled in the Pongola area and belonged to the abaMbo; that Zelemu and a chief Wushe shared an ancestor, Lufulelwenja, but separated in the early 1700s; and that their grandsons Khalimeshe and Mjoli reunited the groups around 1730, after which they moved south under Madzikane. It also records a popular belief that the name amaBhaca comes from ukubhaca, “to flee”, which it presents as unproven. These are traditions and we have not found them in an independent source.
Leaders
The article lists the kings as Lufulwenja, Zelemu, Vebi, Wabana, Khalimeshe, Madzikane, Sonyangwe and Ncapayi, and says the ruling line split after Ncapayi’s death, with a “great house” branch under Mdutyana moving back to Mzimkhulu and Ncapayi’s son Diko succeeding him. See Madzikane and Ncapayi. The Madzikane article contradicts this list on one point: it says Sonyangwe was killed before becoming king.
Language
The article says most Bhaca speak isiBhaca, a Tekela language of the Nguni branch, around Mount Frere, Ixopo, Umzimkhulu and Bulwer, that it is endangered because it is not taught in schools, and that speakers are shifting to isiXhosa, isiZulu and English.
The 1840 raid
South African History Online’s article on the aftermath of Blood River says that in 1840 the Natalians (the Voortrekker settlers of the Republic of Natalia) raided the Bhaca chief Ncaphayi, seizing 3,000 cattle and abducting seventeen children, who were distributed among the farmers as apprentices. It says missionaries complained that Bhacaland lay in the British sphere of influence, and that Cape Governor Napier sent 250 men to Port Natal in response. It gives no source for the details.
What we have not read
We could not open the Rhodes University thesis “A political history of the Bhacas from earliest times to 1910” (403), which is the obvious academic source, nor Soga (1878), Bryant (1929), Hammond-Tooke or A. M. Makaula’s 1988 work on succession, all of which the Wikipedia articles cite. We have not found a Bhaca praise text or confirmed totem, and the Commission’s determinations we read do not mention the Bhaca. We have not verified who leads the Bhaca today; Wikipedia presents a “King Madzikane II Thandisizwe Diko” as head of a Bhaca council, which we cannot confirm.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Bhaca praises or totem because none has been confirmed. If you are Bhaca and recite your izithakazelo, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia: Bhaca people (tagged: needs citations, expert attention, possible machine-written text)
- South African History Online: Political changes from 1750 to 1835
- South African History Online: The aftermath of the Battle of Blood River 1838
See also Madzikane, Ncapayi and Bhele.
Are you Bhaca? 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.