Matamela Mulelu in the sources
Matamela Mulelu was one of Makhado’s elder brothers and the commander Makhado sent to support Mukhesi against Mugivhi in the Tsianda war. He turned out to be the nephew of both Tsianda brothers and brokered the division of Tsianda, then briefly held Mugivhi’s throne after 1887 and left with Mphephu in 1898.
What the sources say
A divided loyalty. Nemudzivhadi says Makhado did not know that Mulelu’s mother, Runganani, was the eldest child of Dingana and the sister of Mugivhi. Sent to help Mukhesi, Mulelu found him fighting his own maternal uncle, and ordered his army to kill only Mugivhi’s followers and, if possible, to capture Mugivhi himself unharmed (p. 174). One appendix informant, a grandson of Mulelu, says he found that Mugivhi was his cousin and recommended dividing Tsianda between the brothers; Nemudzivhadi’s main text calls Mugivhi his mother’s brother, so the two versions differ on the relationship (pp. 174, 308).
The settlement. When Mugivhi’s side obtained help from Lwamondo and the fighting became stalemated, Mulelu returned to Dzanani and warned Makhado that the continuing losses would leave them unable to defend the kingdom; Makhado, who “still unaware of his nduna’s diplomatic moves”, ordered the fighting to end and the territory divided into two (p. 175). See Tsianda succession war, 1882 to 1885.
Regent at Hamutsha. After Mugivhi died in 1887, Makhado sent Mulelu to take the reins, which he probably held until the installation of Mugivhi’s son some four years later. He was pressed to leave, because as the son of Mugivhi’s sister he was only a nephew, and refused for a time, on the ground that Mugivhi’s sons Tshipetane and Khavhagali did not recognise each other; Tshipetane promised to make no claim on the throne if he left, and Mulelu did. He returned to Dzanani and later joined Mphephu in flight to Vhukalanga in 1898 (pp. 176 to 177; see Mphephu I).
Cautions
All of this is from Nemudzivhadi and his informants, and a grandson of Mulelu is among them. The stated relationships of Mulelu to the two princes are inconsistent between the main text and the appendix, as noted. The account of the Tsianda succession rests chiefly on two elderly informants from Hamutsha (B. Mugivhi, about 73 in 1985, and Makhadzi Ramphiri, about 90 in 1986), on a 1906 Location Commission paper on the tribe of “Netseanda and Mogibi”, and on N. J. van Warmelo’s 1940 report on the Sinthumule chieftainship, as Nemudzivhadi cites them; they favour the Hamutsha view of events, and we have not seen the commission paper or the report. Nemudzivhadi is a Venda historian whose subject is Makhado’s reign; he built on oral interviews done between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s and on colonial archive papers, and he often says where his informants and the written sources disagree, as do we.
Sources and further reading
See also Tsianda, Hamutsha, Makhado, Vhalaudzi and Lwamondo.
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