Lamola in the sources
The Lamola were the highest-ranking headmen of the Langa until about 1854, when their head, Maruputlane Lamola, was killed and the clan banished. Jackson says he was Mankopane’s highest-ranking headman.
What the sources say
Two things are told about Maruputlane. He instigated the attack on the copper miners of Musina, some years before 1854, after the Musina people showed too little hospitality to Mankopane’s envoys who went to barter for copper. And after the Potgieter massacre, spokesmen say, he told the white settlers about it. For this betrayal he was enticed to the top of Fothane Hill and killed, and his people were banished (about pp. 12 and 17). Jackson notes that the Langa text printed in his book tells how the clan was expelled.
The Lamola fled to Matlala, where the missionary Wangemann met them on 28 May 1867. Their descendants live on the farm Rozenkrans 424-LR in the Seshego area, north of Fothane. After the execution, the headman Mabusela was promoted to take their place (see Mabusela). The 1858 battle at Magagamatala is called the War of Maruputlane for this reason (see Mankopane).
Cautions
The betrayal story is a Langa tradition, and we have not seen the Lamola side of it. Jackson was a government ethnologist, and his fieldwork at Mapela took about 100 days between 1962 and 1967; he says the opinions are his own. His present tense describes 1968. We read the book through machine OCR of a typed transcription, so names and numbers may contain errors, and page numbers are approximate.
Izithakazelo and totem
The book records the totem and praise poem of this ward where given above, but we are not printing them in full. If you belong to the Lamola and recite your own izithakazelo or direto, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
See also Langa, Kekana and Ndzundza.
Do you belong to the Lamola? 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.