Ramavhoya in the sources
Ramavhoya was a son of Munzhedzi Mpofu and the rival of his brother Ravele Ramabulana for the Venda throne in the 1830s. Lufuno Mulaudzi’s 2020 University of Pretoria doctoral thesis tells the story in detail from Van Warmelo’s informants: Ramavhoya ruled for a time after driving his brother into exile, was killed with the help of the Voortrekker Louis Tregardt and the Batlokwa, and his death shaped the position of the Ramabulana house for decades.
What the sources say
Background. Mulaudzi says Munzhedzi Mpofu had three sons, Ravele Ramabulana, Ramavhoya and Madzhie (Madzhie was alleged to be from another house), because Venda custom held that the royal house could have no more than three living sons. Ramavhoya, the second-born, was widely regarded as a fool by the royal family and was sent to the village of Muraleni, where his father paid young men with cattle to protect him, which Van Warmelo’s informants noted was unheard of, since in Venda cattle are paid for women, not men (ch. 4, p. 73).
The fight with Ravele. After Munzhedzi died, Ravele Ramabulana, as the eldest, was installed first. His mother, Nyamulanalwo, resented him because their father had loved him and he was the heir, and she encouraged her youngest son to challenge him. Ravele attacked Ramavhoya at Muraleni but was defeated, and went into exile at Moletsi, near Rita Mountain. Ramavhoya then ruled the whole of Venda “with an iron fist” (ch. 4, pp. 73 to 74).
The Batlokwa and Tregardt. Years later Ramavhoya killed Mma-Mugudubi, the Batlokwa kgosi, by treachery: he promised to bless a cattle raid, then came with men whose spears were broken in half and had one of them, Mathegu, stab the kgosi while they talked. The Batlokwa, who had no known quarrel with the Venda, called Ravele back from Moletsi, burned two of Ramavhoya’s villages to prove their seriousness, and with Ravele sent for Louis Tregardt, whom the Venda called Luvhisi. The historian Mphaya Nemudzivhadi believed the exile and the killing coincided with the Voortrekkers’ arrival. Tregardt’s diary, which Mulaudzi cites, has entries on these events in late 1836. Tregardt and the Batlokwa trapped Ramavhoya at a meeting; the Batlokwa made Ravele choke his brother with his belt, so that royal blood was not shed. Ramavhoya was buried with the rites due a king (ch. 4, pp. 74 to 79).
What followed. Ravele was reinstalled and rewarded Tregardt with an offer of land, which Mulaudzi ties to the founding of the Voortrekker settlement later called Schoemansdal. Nemudzivhadi warned that the intervention made the Venda succession depend on white support for generations. Mulaudzi adds that Ravele’s later wife Limani was the person promised to Ramavhoya, so that by the custom of cattle Makhado counted as Ramavhoya’s son. Other sources tell the story more briefly. Wikipedia’s Venda Kingdom article lists Ramavhoya as ruler from about 1830 to 1836 and a dispute between him and Ramabulana, both sons of Mpofu, and Luonde says Ramavhoya seized the throne after Munzhedzi’s death and was killed by Rasithu (Ramabulana), with Boer involvement. See our Ramabulana, Munzhedzi Mpofu, Makhado and Batlokwa pages.
Cautions
This story comes through Van Warmelo’s informants and Nemudzivhadi’s interviews, and the sources differ on dates and on the order of events. 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 Ramavhoya 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
- 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. 73 to 79; drawing on Van Warmelo (1940), Nemudzivhadi (1977) and Müller-Malan (1953)
- Wikipedia: Venda Kingdom
- Luonde: Brief History (community site; no author or bibliography given)
- Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims: Determination on the Vhavenda kingship claim (the Mphephu Ramabulana house’s account, pp. 611 to 618)
See also Ramabulana, Makhado and Masingo.
Do you belong to the Ramabulana house? 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.