Sithole in the sources
Sithole (written Sitole in the older books) is the name of a clan of the Mzinyati (Buffalo) river country in what is now northern KwaZulu-Natal, historically bound up with the Thembu of that region. Bryant and Soga both record it, and both say its origins are uncertain.
What the sources say
Soga: a royal salutation. In his chapter on the Aba-Tembu, Soga writes that “the royal salutations of this tribe are Sitole and Mvelase”, supposes the two may have been brothers or that Sitole may have been the father of Mvelase, and adds in a footnote that “later research shows Sitole to be only a nephew on the female side, therefore he is not a true Tembu” (pp. 466–7). He is unsure to which branch of the Nguni the Thembu belong.
Bryant: neighbours of the Thembu. Bryant writes that “Sitole origins are a puzzling problem”. They “seem ever to have clung so consistently to the Tembus” that he suspects the two are near relations or very old neighbours, though the Thembu themselves deny kinship; both, he thinks, were probably of Ntungwa Nguni origin and moved to the Mzinyati from somewhere nearer the White Mfolozi. In that earlier country, he says, the Sitole were across the river from the Thembu, inland of the Ntlazatshe, and “may” have been subject to the emaNgwaneni, of which some say they were a branch while others deny it.
Chiefs. Bryant gives the early line of chiefs as Ntshiba, who begat Mbadu, who begat Mbulungeni, and says that in his day the ruling family was that of Jobe, son of Mapita, with a list of earlier names he calls “hardly reliable”. He also says that Mbadu, the clan’s own chief on the far bank of the river, became “entirely eclipsed” by the prestige of Jobe.
Jobe and Shaka. Bryant tells, as a tradition, how Jobe came to power under Shaka: Bryant is unsure whether the Sitole warriors had gone to fight their overlord’s battles, but Jobe stayed at home and spent a day on a hilltop in talk with strangers, and only when a messenger came with news of a defeat was it understood that one of the strangers was the Zulu king. Bryant adds that Jobe “remained in Shaka’s graces” for the rest of his days and became the head of a large territory between the Tukela–Mzinyati confluence and the Drakensberg, to which Thembu refugees returned under his protection.
After Jobe. Bryant says Jobe’s heir was Mondise, and Mondise’s son was Matshana, who held the chieftainship of the Thembu-Sitole about Msinga. In 1858 the colonial acting Secretary for Native Affairs, J. W. Shepstone, moved to arrest Matshana over deaths during witch-finding purges, including that of his own uncle Vela; Matshana escaped to Zululand, where, Bryant says, Cetshwayo received him. His heir was Manzekofi. These charges are the colonial government’s and Bryant’s; we have not seen an account from Matshana’s own people.
Cautions
Bryant’s story of the hilltop meeting is an oral tradition told with obvious relish and is not independently confirmed; his chiefly names are, by his own admission, “hardly reliable”; and Soga’s footnote about Sitole being a nephew in the female line is unexplained. The Sithole surname today is very widespread, and nothing here shows that every Sithole family descends from this clan. Bryant was a Catholic missionary who wrote in 1929 from informants and writes in a jocular colonial style; Soga was a Xhosa-born mission doctor writing in 1930. We give their statements as theirs.
Izithakazelo and totem
The older books give Sitole as a royal salutation shared with Mvelase among the Thembu (Soga), but no full praise poem. If your family recites Sithole praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- A. T. Bryant, Olden Times in Zululand and Natal (London: Longmans, 1929); Internet Archive text (the Tembu, Sitole and Cunu chapters)
- J. H. Soga, The South-Eastern Bantu (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1930); Internet Archive text (the Aba-Tembu chapter)
Do you belong to the Sithole? Tell us your izithakazelo and what elders say about the family’s history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.