The Tshivhase Traditional Council in the sources
The Tshivhase Traditional Council is the governing body of the Tshivhase chiefdom in the Vhembe District of Limpopo, the largest of the 25 tribal authorities of the former Venda homeland by population and land area according to a 2003 University of Pretoria thesis. It was called the Tshivhase Tribal Authority or Tribal Council under apartheid and, by the thesis’s account, the Tshivhase Territorial Authority by the early 2000s. It is led by the head of the Tshivhase house, currently Kennedy Tshivhase.
What the sources say
How it was built. The apartheid government’s Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created tribal, regional and territorial authorities, and in Venda this produced 25 tribal authorities, three regional authorities and one territorial authority; the Thohoyandou Territorial Authority was formed in 1962 under Chief Patrick Mphephu and became the Venda Territorial Authority after 1969 (Fokwang, pp. 38 to 39). The Tshivhase authority was the most populous and largest in land area of the 25. When Venda was reintegrated in 1994, tribal councils carried on, with their powers reduced by the Municipal Structures Act of 1993, and 14 of the 25 authorities, Tshivhase among them, were placed inside the Thulamela municipality, with which Fokwang says the Tshivhase council was often in serious conflict.
How it works. Fokwang describes the council as the supreme judicial and administrative arm of the chiefdom, with each village electing a delegate to accompany its headman to grand meetings held four times a year, an executive council elected every five years of four chiefs and three commoners, a chairman who runs the weekly business and reports to the chief, and five more members the chief may appoint. He counts 74 villages and so 74 headmen in the early 2000s, and notes that some headmen were by then styled “chiefs” and the chief was often called “King”, though the government recognised no king in Limpopo. The thesis reads the change of name to “Territorial Authority” as an attempt to stress the chiefdom’s autonomy and a possible step towards recognition as a kingdom, though it says the reasons are not obvious (pp. 48 to 49). The Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims rejected the house’s claim to a kingship in its determination; see our Tshivhase page.
The homeland years. During the regency of John Shavhane, who headed the Tshivhase Tribal Authority, Fokwang says Patrick Mphephu co-opted the main chiefs, including the regent and an uncle of the heir, A. A. Tshivhase, who held a ministerial post; that the authority campaigned for Mphephu’s Venda National Party at elections; and that many headmen owed their posts to the apartheid system and to Mphephu. In the 1980s, rural anger at chiefs over taxes, tributes and unpopular policies merged with the United Democratic Front’s campaigns, and in Tshivhase the unrest was made worse, the thesis says, by the regent’s inability to quell it; police sent to several villages failed to make arrests. Venda became a centre of witchcraft-related violence, which the Ralushai Commission of 1996 investigated (pp. 44 to 47). Kennedy Tshivhase took office in 1993 and, Fokwang says, called for peace among his headmen.
Installing new leaders, 2013. In January 2013 the Tshivhase royal house said it had installed 12 senior Thovhele and chiefs in villages under its jurisdiction and would continue to do so. The Limpopo department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs issued a circular saying the installations did not comply with the Limpopo Traditional Leadership and Institutions Act 6 of 2005 or the amended national framework act of 2003, and that the new leaders would not be paid; the Thohoyandou High Court granted an urgent interdict against installing two new chiefs, at Phiphidi and Ramulongo, pending a hearing on 12 February. The house’s representative called its processes lawful and rejected claims that they harmed Venda culture. We have not seen the outcome.
A court case about municipal land, 2015. In 2012 the Thulamela municipality sold two erven in Thohoyandou to a company. Khosi Tshivhase and the council went to the High Court to review and set aside the sales, and the municipality argued they had to prove they were traditional leaders under the national and Limpopo acts. The High Court rejected the municipality’s plea on that point, and on 30 March 2015 the Supreme Court of Appeal struck the municipality’s appeal off the roll (SCA media summary), so there is no appeal ruling on the merits.
Levies and land, 2025. In January 2025 residents and the Make It Happen Foundation marched to the Mukumbani Royal Palace and handed in a memorandum accusing the chief of mismanaging projects, of charging developers and residents high levies, and of presenting himself as the owner and sole beneficiary of restituted land. They cited a High Court ruling, which they said the Constitutional Court confirmed in December 2024, that such levies are illegal. Mr Tshivhase said the payments, called nduvho, are a traditional voluntary contribution and not a tax, that nobody is charged for services, and that he would study the judgment; the Legal Resources Centre, which represented the applicants in that case, says voluntary contributions are allowed only after community consultation. A tariff list quoted by the marchers gave charges such as R100 to the musanda and R500 to the khoro for a permission-to-occupy letter. The Royal Council secretary said the council was reviewing the memorandum and would respond. These are the protesters’ allegations and the council’s replies, not findings of any court.
Makonde, 2025. On 18 June 2025 Judge Semenya, in the Thohoyandou High Court, sitting at Waterval, interdicted a man claiming to be regent of Makonde from acting as headman or regent, and barred him and Thovhele Kennedy Tshivhase from processing or approving land allocation, sand mining or other village matters in Makonde unless Vhamusanda Tshinetise Tshedza Ravhura, the leader installed in 2014 and given a headmanship certificate gazetted on 28 May 2024, signs. Mr Tshivhase told the press that an appeal had been lodged, that he did not oppose Ravhura leading Makonde as such but said the process was flawed, and that the officials who issued the certificate had acted improperly. Makonde and 18 other villages under the Tshivhase dynasty planned to take a memorandum of grievances to the Union Buildings on 11 July 2025. We have not seen the appeal outcome. See our Ravhura page for the Ravhura house.
Cautions
This page deals with an institution whose recent business is contested, and its head is a living public figure. We report allegations and replies as the press recorded them and make no finding. The thesis dates from about 2003, so its numbers (such as 74 villages) will have changed. We have read court media summaries, not the judgments, and the SAFLII and LawLibrary sites were blocked to us. We found no information from the council’s own communications.
Sources and further reading
- J. T. D. Fokwang, thesis (2003), University of Pretoria electronic theses, chapter 2, “Historical background to the Tshivhase chiefdom, Venda” (read in this chapter only)
- Limpopo Mirror, 21 January 2013: “We will continue to install new traditional leaders” Tshivhase
- Supreme Court of Appeal, media summary, Thulamela Municipality and Another v Tshivhase and Others (78/2014) [2015] ZASCA 57 (30 March 2015); the summary is not part of the judgment, which we have not read
- Limpopo Mirror, 24 January 2025: It’s “nduvho”, and not a tax, says Tshivhase
- Zoutnet and Limpopo Mirror, 25 January 2025: Disgruntled residents march against Thovhele Tshivhase
- Zoutnet and Limpopo Mirror, 27 June 2025: Interdict granted to stop “false leaders” from ruling in Makonde
- Luonde: Ha-Tshivhasa (community site; no author or sources given)
See also Tshivhase, Ligegise and Rambuda.
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