Motsa in the Swazi record
Bonner says the Matsebula soon provided the king’s chief ritual wife and the Sotho Motsa provided his second insila, a blood brother who became the king’s closest companion for life (p. 45). Wikipedia’s Succession to the Swazi throne article (via our listing) says the king’s second wife comes from the Motsa clan, in line with this; and its Swazi people article names the Motsa among the founding clans.
What the books say
Bonner names Mhlaba Motsa, with Mtshengu Mdluli and Sandlane Zwane, as one of the royal functionaries Mswati placed in control of previously autonomous chiefdoms (p. 100), and his index lists the “Motsa people” at pp. 34 and 89. We found no other detail on the Motsa in the two books.
Sources and cautions
This page summarises two scholarly histories of the Swazi kingdom: Philip Bonner’s Kings, Commoners and Concessionaires (read from SAHO’s scanned PDF by OCR; page numbers below are PDF pages), and D. Hugh Gillis’s The Kingdom of Swaziland: Studies in Political History (read from SAHO’s scanned PDF by OCR; page numbers below are PDF pages). We found no Motsa-authored history in the books.
We read these two books only through machine OCR of a scanned copy, so names and dates may contain OCR errors, and we have not checked them against the printed pages or against the other histories they cite (Matsebula, Bryant, Kuper, Stuart’s archive). Both books rely heavily on oral evidence collected in the 1970s from clan informants, and they present contested episodes from a particular scholarly point of view.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Motsa praises or totem because none has been confirmed. If you belong to the Motsa and recite your izithakazelo, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Philip Bonner: Kings, Commoners and Concessionaires (SAHO scan)
- D. Hugh Gillis: The Kingdom of Swaziland: Studies in Political History (SAHO scan)
- Wikipedia: Swazi people (clan lists)
Do you belong to the Motsa? 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.