LOBENGULA'S GRAVE FINALLY 'DISCOVERED'.

A NDEBELE KING WHO WAS BURIED IN NGONILAND

There has been a long standing FIB that King Lobengula of the Ndebele empire died and was buried in Matabeleland. This distortion of truth conjured and fronted by the Muzungu (white man) has been there for a long time and told BLATANTLY to the world.

 Am not a Ndebele historian, thus in my own opinion, the truth should have been revealed by a someone of Ndebele roots. But since, it seems Ngonis (my tribe) have a traditional relationship with the Ndebeles, I have felt compelled to expose to the readers the TRUE accounts of King Lobengula’s fate.

 You see, after the battle of Shangani in October 1893, which led to overwhelming losses for the Ndebeles, Lobengula escaped from Ndebele territory fearing arrest if not possible execution by the British forces. But where did the Ndebele King escape to and what happened to him afterwards? 

Ngoniland! Yes, this is the kingdom which Lobengula deemed safe to escape to. Mpezeni and Lobengula had a terrific relationship, the latter even named his son and heir after Mpezeni. The boy (Mpezeni Khumalo) was born in 1880 in Bulawayo but died whilst still a teenager at Somerset Hospital on 9 December 1899 of pleurisy. 

Now back to Lobengula, it was a long journey for the then 60 plus year old Ndebele leader. He started the journey in late 1893 but only arrived in Mpezeni’s Ngoni area in early 1894. 

His Ndebele contingent included a colored man (am still researching on this Ndebele coloured man, but it seems he was son of a British man and a Ndebele woman of majestic legacy). 

Now, when Lobengula and his party arrived in NgoniLand, he discovered that his cousin, King Mpezeni had shifted his capital from Mtengeluni to the Luangeni area.

 Lobengula could have set up his base anywhere in this part of the country but he strategically chose the principal military area of Luangeni. Lobengula knew that there was no place in Mpezeni’s NgoniLand which was as guarded as the capital where Mpezeni was.

Lobengula knew very well that the area had tens of thousands of the finest ngoni warriors. He thus set up a village close to his cousin’s royal town as the royal residence offered protection and safety to the Ndebele king and his entourage. 

This Ndebele settlement is still recognizable today and its is referred to as Mashanga, a corruption of Mahlanga; the people however can no longer converse in Ndebele but speak the language of the natives. 

Lobengula did not live long in Luangeni area and died three years after; perhaps the long trek from the Zambezi River may have had an effect on the health of the king after all. 

However, what is critical is not the year of his death or what killed him but the fact that he did get there and lived there but soon died and his remains were interred in the land of the Ngoni. The Ngoni knew the burial practices of the Ndebele.

 If they did not, the surviving members of the royal party would have advised them accordingly.Now according to the tradition regarding royal burials among the Ndebele (I must emphasize again that am not Ndebele and this may have changed over time), the soil must never touch the remains of a Ndebele king. 

As a result, the king was to be buried in a cave so that rock boulders would cover him. Indeed, if one visits Mpezeni’s NgoniLand and asks where Lobengula’s remains are, one would will notice something interesting. Much of Mpezeni’s Ngoni Land or indeed Chipata as a whole is a craggy place. 

They are lot of hills and caves in the area where Lobengula is/was buried. But, in the beginning of the line of these hills, most of them could not have qualified to be Lobengula’s grave due to the traditional Ndebele burial customs that a King’s remains must not touch the soil. There, at the end, there is one rocky hill which is larger than the rest. 

That’s it! This is the cave that housed the remains of Lobengula. As if to signify the prestige of the person that lay in this hill or even guard the tomb, some white birds known in the local language as ‘nkundas’ were always present at this hill; the others rarely had these types of birds.

 When Ngoniland finally fell at the hands of the British, a white family got attracted to this hill due to these peculiar white birds; they wanted to domesticate the birds and also wanted to start mining on this same particular hill. 

This attention may have compelled the Ngonis and the surviving Ndebeles in the area to move the remains of Lobengula to a SECRET location, but within Mpezeni’s Ngoniland. Since his arrival in early 1894, Lobengula or indeed any of the people that he came with never LEFT Ngoniland alive neither did their remains.

 Lt-Colonel Poole, the high-ranking British soldier who executed Prince Nsingo Jere, the heir of the Mpezeni empire, knew very well that Lobengula was hiding in Ngoniland but he seemed to never have bothered to alert the BSA officials in now present-day Bulawayo. 

Perhaps, his promotion as the Petauke District Commissioner may have distracted him.

The Author is a 30-year-old Zambian Ngoni Historian. His home village is called Langa and is under Senior Chief Nzamane. He is the author of the yet to be published book dubbed, ‘MPEZENIS NGONIS:RISE OF AN EMPIRE’.