Nelwamondo in the sources
Nelwamondo is the name of the ruling house of Lwamondo. The best-documented members are Maboho Nelwamondo (died 1883) and his son Phophi, whose accession in 1883 Makhado settled. “Ne-” in Venda marks the owner of a place, so Nelwamondo means the owner of Lwamondo.
What the sources say
The name. Nemudzivhadi explains, in a footnote on Venda land names, that the prefix “Ne” denotes the owner of a place (he gives Fefe and Sane as examples), so by that rule Nelwamondo would mean the owner of Lwamondo (p. 83); he does not discuss this particular name. His text uses “Nelwamondo” as a title that passes to the ruling khosi: for Maboho in 1860s and 1870s, and for Phophi after 1883 (“Nelwamondo (Phophi)”, p. 182).
Members in the sources. Maboho Nelwamondo (ruled from about the 1830s, according to Wikipedia, and died in 1883, according to both); his sons Phophi and Raidimi, who contested the succession (see the 1883 dispute); Maboho’s daughter Vele, who married Mugivhi of Hamutsha (Nemudzivhadi p. 174); and Gelebe, a younger brother of Phophi and father of Kone Nengovhela, the woman of about a hundred years whom Nemudzivhadi interviewed in 1980 and 1982 as Phophi’s niece. Another informant is described as a daughter of Makwarela Mphaphuli and a granddaughter of Maboho Nelwamondo, which implies a marriage tie with the Mphaphuli house (p. 306). Van Warmelo, as Nemudzivhadi reports, made Phophi’s mother Mmbodi a daughter of Raluthaga Madzivhandila and Raidimi’s mother Vhumbani a daughter of Maphaha of Phahwe (p. 178).
Place in the Venda system. See Lwamondo for the house’s relations with Makhado, the Boers and its neighbours. Stayt’s 1931 book says the Lwamondo are of Sotho origin (from Phalaborwa) and belong to the Vhalaudzi sib; Nemudzivhadi treats them as a long-established territory that had separated from the Singo rulers. See Vhalaudzi.
Later rulers. Wikipedia’s uncited list gives Phophi as ruling from 1883 to 1942, then a successor who died in 1970, and the present paramount from 1971.
Cautions
This page leans on Nemudzivhadi (1998) and Stayt (1931). The relationship of Maboho to the earlier names in Wikipedia’s list (Tshilande, Mapungwi, Radali, Mathule) is not given in any source we have read. Two Venda-language typescripts about Lwamondo are held in the Van Warmelo collection at the University of Pretoria (W. Matodzi, 1938, on Maboho; L. Manthagu, 1942, on betrothal, burial and succession customs of the Lwamondo chiefs). We machine-read the first, which is four pages: the text is badly garbled and we could not quote it, though in what we could make out it concerns the fight between the supporters of Raidimi and Phophi. We did not read the second, which deals with private customs. 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.
Izithakazelo and totem
Stayt (1931) gives the Vhalaudzi of Lwamondo a day-after-new-moon taboo on garden work and a close tie to the baboon of the kop (see Lwamondo); we found no praise poem. If you belong to the Nelwamondo and recite your praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Mphaya Henry Nemudzivhadi, “The attempts by Makhado to revive the Venda kingdom, 1864-1895”, PhD thesis, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (1998); open access at the North-West University repository (a scanned copy; we read it by OCR, and page numbers cited are the thesis’s printed numbers)
- Hugh A. Stayt, The Bavenda (Oxford University Press for the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, 1931); open access at the University of Pretoria repository
- Wikipedia: Lwamondo (short article tagged as needing more references; its list of chiefs is uncited)
- W. Matodzi, “U dzama ha murena Maboho Ne-Lwamondo” (Venda typescript, July 1938, 4 pages), Van Warmelo collection, University of Pretoria; listed only, see the caution below
See also Lwamondo, Nelwamondo, Makhado, Vhalaudzi and Madzivhandila.
Do you belong to the Nelwamondo or live at Lwamondo? Tell us what elders say about the history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.