Mabusela in the sources
The Mabusela ward is the highest-ranking ward at Mapela, and the Mabusela are the clan that most often gave wives to the Langa chiefs. Jackson says they are of Ndebele origin and migrated with the Langa from the south-east.
What the sources say
Mabusela became a headman in about 1854, when the highest-ranking headman, Maruputlane Lamola, was executed and his family expelled. The Mabusela were important functionaries: the head of the clan was the army doctor, ngaka ya marumo, the doctor of the spears, who treated the warriors twice a year and before expeditions, and doctored the chiefdom’s boundaries. The title is still inherited, though most of its work has fallen away (about pp. 128 to 129).
The Mabusela were also the chief’s in-laws: Seritarita’s principal wife was a Mabusela, as was Mankopane’s principal wife Mmantutule, the mother of Masebe. A later Mabusela marriage mattered too: Matopa Langa, a son of Mankopane, married a Mabusela woman whose daughters became principal wives of Hans and of Marcus. In 1968 Mabusela’s ward had 418 households, the largest after the chief’s ward, but only 31 of them were of the Mabusela clan itself; the rest were given to him as subjects or joined later. They were divided among 14 sub-headmanships, of which Seretlo, Maloka, Sekhu, Letwaba and others had their own lineages (about pp. 129 and 139).
Cautions
Do not confuse the Mabusela with the Mabuela, a different ward of Phalane origin. Jackson’s spelling of the two names is close and the OCR may have blurred them. 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 Mabusela 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 Mabusela? 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.