Munzhedzi Mpofu in the sources
Munzhedzi Mpofu is the king the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims found to have remained with the Venda kingship after the split at Dzata. The Mphephu Ramabulana house says he was Thohoyandou’s first-born son and rightful heir. Lufuno Mulaudzi’s 2020 thesis adds a detailed account of how he took the throne.
What the sources say
The Mphephu Ramabulana house’s account. In that house’s account he was installed at Dzata after the conflict with Tshisevhe, defeated Tshivhase’s attempt to return to Dzata, moved the great place to Songozwi because the whole kingdom could be seen from its summit, defeated Tshivhase a second time at a river that ran red and became known as Khwivhila, and gave refuge to people displaced by the Mfecane, including the Batlokwa under Machaka and Ramokgopa. He was succeeded by his son Ramabulana (Commission pp. 612 to 615).
Mulaudzi’s account. Citing Van Warmelo’s informants, the thesis says that when Thohoyandou died the elders of Nzhelele, who favoured Tshivhase, did not want Munzhedzi to succeed. An old woman sent a warning to him, which reached a relative also called Davhana (not Ramabulana’s son) at a meeting of headmen, who advised Munzhedzi to feign illness and sent the elders to Nzhelele to find out why they had been summoned. Munzhedzi, suspecting that the Vhandalamo of Khavhambe had known of the plot and kept silent, is said to have punished them severely. He then went to Nzhelele and dethroned Tshivhase, who retreated to Dopeni and finally Lwaname, a place so hard to reach that people had to crawl in. Tshivhase staged another war from there and was decisively beaten at Dzanani, where the river ran red and was named Kwivhula (ch. 4, pp. 71 to 73).
The same chapter says Munzhedzi had three sons, Ravele Ramabulana, Ramavhoya and Madzhie, and sent Ramavhoya away to Muraleni because the royal family thought him a fool. The thesis treats Munzhedzi’s victory over Tshivhase as what let him become king of the Vhavenda. Luonde says he died in 1791, while Wikipedia’s Venda Kingdom article lists “Mpofu” as ruler to about 1830, which does not fit; the Commission gives no dates for his death.
Cautions
The sources give irreconcilable dates for his death and, as the Commission noted, it is not clear whether his enthronement followed custom or was a usurpation. Mulaudzi is a historian writing in 2020 from earlier collections of oral testimony, mainly Van Warmelo’s (1940), Nemudzivhadi’s interviews of the early 1970s and Müller-Malan’s popular history of 1953, and he says himself that traditions are socially constructed and reshaped over time. His text as extracted has stray spaces and some unreadable characters, so we have checked names against more than one passage; page numbers are approximate. The Ramabulana house’s history is told differently by Van Warmelo’s informants, Nemudzivhadi, Müller-Malan and the Commission’s record, and the names and dates do not always agree; where they differ we say so and take no side.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no Munzhedzi Mpofu praises or totem because none has been confirmed. If you belong to the Ramabulana house and recite its praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims: Determination on the Vhavenda kingship claim (the Mphephu Ramabulana house’s account, pp. 611 to 618)
- 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 4, pp. 71 to 73; drawing on Van Warmelo (1940), Nemudzivhadi (1977) and Müller-Malan (1953)
- Wikipedia: Venda Kingdom
- Luonde: Brief History (community site; no author or bibliography given)
See also Ramabulana, Makhado and Masingo.
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