Mashau in the sources
Mashau is a Venda community, item (s) on the 1991 proclamation’s roll. The Know My Roots blog says the Vhafamadi settled at Ha-Mashau, and the Commission records “Vhafamadi of Mashao” among the present Vhangona leaders in the Vhangona claimant’s presentation.
What the sources say
Lufuno Mulaudzi interviewed the thovhele of Mashau at his homestead in Ha-Mashau on 21 May 2015, together with Gota Musekwa of Mamvuka (see Musekwa). The Mashau thovhele said the kingship conflicts come from disagreement inside the royal house, answered the question about the Vhangona and the ownership of Venda land with the view that “the land owner is Khosikhulu Toni Mphephu who is the only khosikhulu in Venda”, and speculated, unlike other interviewees, that Dimbanyika Mphephu may have been away working when he was not ready to take the throne, hence the seven-year regency. In the interview with the Masakona leaders, the Mashau thovhele interjected that under Venda tradition those who cross the river after a war are defeated and cannot be followed, so that the only people with a legitimate claim to the kingship were Davhana, Rasikhuthuma and Nthabalala, who were older than Makhado but defeated (ch. 10, pp. 255 to 262).
Mulaudzi notes the thovhele’s answer on the Vhangona was more specific than most, but also that his recollection of the history of the kingship was sketchy and some of what he said seemed unreliable. See Vhafamadi, Davhana and Makhado.
Cautions
Mashau (the community) and Mashao (as the Commission and some sources write it) are probably the same place; the sources do not say. 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. 255 to 262
- 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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