The Venda succession wars of the 1880s: an overview
In the 1880s three Venda territories fought over who should rule: Tsianda (1881 to 1885), Lwamondo (1883) and, longest of all, Dzimauli, the Rambuda country, where a contest for the throne that began in 1882 ended only in March 1896. In each, a dispute between brothers drew in a greater ruler, Makhado of Dzanani and, at Dzimauli, Ligegise Tshivhase as well. This article sets the three side by side, mostly as told by the Venda historian M. H. Nemudzivhadi from oral accounts and the Transvaal archive.
The story
Why a succession could become a war. Nemudzivhadi explains that in Venda custom succession depended “to a large extent” on popular support and on the royal family, and that a prince who lacked both could not hold the throne even with an army (p. 226). It also meant that a losing brother could look for a patron outside the territory, and that a patron could answer. He reads Makhado’s interventions as part of a wider plan to bring the Venda under one centralised authority and keep the Soutpansberg safe from the Boers (pp. 216 to 218); that is his argument, and the Boer officials of the day read the same events very differently (see below).
Tsianda, 1881 to 1885. After Dingana of Tsianda died in 1881, his people sent to Makhado, partly because one of Dingana’s wives came from Dzanani; Makhado’s deputation found the country divided between Mugivhi and Mukhesi and proposed two mahosi, which Mukhesi refused (pp. 167 to 172). Mukhesi’s supporters installed him at Mikondeni; Mugivhi’s gathered at Hamutsha and refused tribute. The armies met at the stream that became the Tswororo, “the gushing out of blood”; Makhado’s army, under Matamela Mulelu, backed Mukhesi, and Maboho Nelwamondo of Lwamondo, whose daughter was Mugivhi’s wife, sent troops to Mugivhi (pp. 172 to 175). Makhado ordered the fighting stopped and the country divided along the Tswororo, each brother to pay tribute directly to him (pp. 175 to 176). Nemudzivhadi gives the decision as of 1885 and says it still stands: the territories of Hamutsha and Tsianda “remained unaltered” despite later attempts to join them (p. 177). See Tsianda succession war, 1882 to 1885, Mukhesi, Mugivhi, Matamela Mulelu, Tsianda and Hamutsha.
Lwamondo, 1883. After Maboho Nelwamondo died, his sons Raidimi and Phophi each claimed the throne; Raidimi, the older, could not withstand the other’s supporters and appealed through Funyufunyu to Makhado, who was concerned because Lwamondo was nominally part of his territory (pp. 178 to 179). Makhado’s army, said by the niece of Phophi to be a force Lwamondo had never seen, arrived on 5 February 1883; Phophi’s side “surrendered diplomatically” with a girl, a head of cattle and beads, the cattle were roasted for the army, and not a shot was fired (pp. 179 to 180). Makhado recognised Phophi, who had the larger following, and Raidimi, who felt betrayed, later made peace with him (pp. 180 to 182). Nemudzivhadi stresses that the Albasini report of 20 February 1883, that the army “wrought havoc” at Lwamondo, contradicts his informant. See Lwamondo succession dispute, 1883, Phophi Nelwamondo and Maboho Nelwamondo.
Dzimauli: the dynasty. Dzimauli lay north of the Mutale river. In Nemudzivhadi’s account Phophi Rambuda, a younger brother of Tshivhase, crossed the Mutale after Tshivhase’s death, conquered the country, drove out its earlier ruler (a woman, Nyamasi, who fled to her brother Ravhura of Makonde) and declared independence against his nephew Luvhengo, who had succeeded Tshivhase; his sons Tshivhenga and Vele fought, Vele won, and Vele ruled until he died in 1882, having beaten off attacks by Albasini’s Tsonga, the Swazi and the Malema (pp. 201 to 202). The Tshivhase house never accepted the loss, and Ligegise, Luvhengo’s son, “continued the war started by his father” (p. 202). See Rambuda and Ligegise.
Dzimauli: Bele, 1882 to 1883. After Vele’s death his eldest son Bele came down from Vhuhulwi and took the kingship; many in the family turned against him, since according to Van Warmelo it was alleged that he had interfered with his father’s young wives, which Venda law counted as placing him in his father’s generation and so barring him from the throne (pp. 202 to 203). Makhado also bore him a grudge: on a tour of the mahosi in 1865 Bele was said to have refused to praise the young Thovhele (p. 204). Bele’s aunt Masindi fled to Ligegise for help; Ligegise’s army invaded Dzimauli in the second week of December 1882, besieged the residence for about three weeks, and entered through a cave at Luheni on 31 December after one of Bele’s men, Mamphita, defected; the residence was burned (p. 204). Bele fled to Davhana at Mpheni, who may have advised him to make an affidavit to Commissioner Albasini, which he did in January 1883 claiming to be lawful heir; the government took no action (p. 205; see Davhana and Antonio Albasini). His brothers Muditambi and Tshikosi, with their mother, went to Makhado at Dzanani (p. 205).
Dzimauli: Mashila and Siphuma. Ligegise’s army installed another of Vele’s sons, Mashila, chosen because he had married Ligegise’s sister Nyatshitahela; Mashila “mysteriously passed away” within eight months, and Nemudzivhadi does not rule out poisoning (pp. 205 to 206). Ligegise then backed Siphuma, another son of Vele by a different house, whose sister Ligegise had married, and placed him at Gogogo and later Tshamulumbwi, while Makhado backed Tshikosi, whose sister Khangale had become Makhado’s eighteenth wife and whose sister Denga was married to Makhado’s elder brother Ramalamula (pp. 206 to 207, 210 to 211). Bele, meanwhile, tried the Swazi and the Ndebele for help and was refused; he returned to Makhado’s territory and settled at Lwandali (pp. 207 to 208).
The death of Bele. In the account of Tshikosi’s son J. M. Rammbuda, which Nemudzivhadi follows, Makhado welcomed Bele’s overtures, promised to install him at Lwandali, and sent messengers with the installation regalia; their leader Mashige strangled Bele with a cord during the feast, the celebrations were ordered to continue, and Bele was buried the same day (pp. 208 to 210). Nemudzivhadi calls it a “bloody deed” by Makhado and Tshikosi which the people could not resist, and says whether Tshikosi joined the plot willingly is unclear (pp. 209 to 210). The Luonde community site tells it differently, saying Bele was lured to Mphego and killed there (see Rambuda).
“Sendedza Tshikosi”: the gradual push, 1884 to 1895. Tshikosi waited at Maname for about two years, until Nefefe of Fefe, fearful that Siphuma’s presence at Gogogo foretold his own turn, asked him to attack; Makhado’s forces joined his in an attack on Gogogo (pp. 212 to 213), which one footnote dates as the real start of the fighting, in 1884 (p. 229, note 124). Tshikosi then took Vhuhulwi, failed on his own at Tshixwadza and, after Makhado raided Tshivhase’s lands to draw Ligegise’s army away, took it; he accepted the surrender of Dzamba, defeated Ligegise’s son Ratshitanga at Luheni, and held Luheni against a large night attack by Ligegise (pp. 214 to 221). Makhado and Tshikosi then failed at Tshamulumbwi, where Siphuma “openly ridiculed them from the top of his mountain stronghold”; a second siege, with no gunfire, forced it to surrender by hunger and thirst (pp. 221 to 224). Kone Nengovhela called the whole campaign Sendedza Tshikosi, “the gradual pushing by Tshikosi” (p. 216). Nemudzivhadi calls it a planned sequence, not the “piece-meal” affair Van Warmelo saw (p. 216).
The end, March 1896. Tshikosi’s last obstacle was Tshavhadinda, the royal headquarters, which Siphuma occupied; Siphuma was unpopular with the makhotsimunene, the uncles whose support he needed, and Makhado’s death in 1895 did not stop the Ramabulana helping Tshikosi, since Makhado’s successor Mphephu “considered it his duty” to finish what his father started (pp. 226 to 227). In the account Nemudzivhadi gives, Tshikosi’s men dropped in through hanging creepers (matembele) and killed two of Siphuma’s sons, while some of the uncles lured Siphuma away to a marula drink; Tshikosi met him that evening, told him not to fight, and Siphuma crossed to Tshivhase’s territory and later made peace with his brother (pp. 227 to 229). Tshikosi entered the capital in March 1896, “six months after Makhado’s death”; the struggle, in Nemudzivhadi’s count, lasted from 1882 for fourteen years (p. 229). The Rambuda praise name “who falls through creepers” is said to come from this attack (p. 228, note 118).
What the Boers made of it. The Commissioner for the Klein Spelonken, Adolf Schiel, reported in July 1891 that Makhado had attacked Tshivhase to annex Dzimauli, and the Commandant-General ordered a mounted show of force at Fort Hendrina; affidavits from Tshivhase’s men in August said Tshikosi, helped by a Makhado commando under his brother Ramalamula, had burned kraals (pp. 251 to 254). Makhado, asked about it, said the matter was between the princes of Rambuda, Tshikosi and Siphuma (p. 253). Nemudzivhadi says the Boer reports were wrong in making Tshivhase’s land the target, and describes District Landdrost G. G. Munnik as advising President Kruger that a war on Makhado would be unwise (p. 254). The Boers’ readiness to treat a Venda succession dispute as a threat to the Republic is part of the story in Tribute, land and the Boer state in the Soutpansberg, 1855 to 1898.
Cautions
This article rests on one thesis, Nemudzivhadi’s 1998 doctoral study of Makhado, which is written from the Ramabulana side and argues that Makhado’s interventions were part of a master plan; other historians may read the same facts as ordinary dynastic politics, and the Tshivhase house’s account of Dzimauli, which the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims heard separately, is not used here. The Dzimauli chapter leans heavily on interviews with J. M. Rammbuda, a surviving son of Tshikosi, and on A. Ramabulana, Makhado’s grandson, so it favours the winning side; Bele’s death is told only from that side, and the Luonde site gives a different place for it. Dates are not tidy: Vele’s death in 1882, an invasion in December 1882, “the actual conflict” beginning in 1884, a siege and Makhado’s 1895 death, then March 1896; we give his figures and do not reconcile them. Names of places and people (Tshixwadza, Tshamulumbwi, Mutodani, Mashige, Mamphita) are as our OCR scan gave them and may be misread. These disputes concern royal houses whose traditional councils exist today; nothing here is a statement about present-day claims to any office.
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), chapters 7 and 8; open access at the North-West University repository (a scanned copy; read by OCR, printed page numbers cited)
- The linked pages on this site for Tsianda, Lwamondo, Rambuda and Ligegise, each with its own sources and cautions
See also Makhado, Tshivhase and The Soutpansberg war, 1863 to 1869.
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