Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:25:35.877Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Mutapa Dynasty: A Comparison of Documentary and Traditional Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

D.N. Beach
D.N. Beach*
Affiliation:
University of Rhodesia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Mutapa state occupied a triangle of land between the Zambezi river in the north, the Hunyani river and Umvukwe range on the southwest, and the Mazoe and Ruenya rivers on the southeast. It thus consisted of a small segment of the southern Zambezian plateau and an arc of the Zambezi valley lowlands. The state dated back to at least the fifteenth century, and some branches of its ruling dynasty continue to control fragments of the state under the governments of Rhodesia and Mozambique. These descendants of the Mutapa dynasty, like their fellow-members of the Korekore dialect cluster of the Shona-speaking peoples, retain traditions of their past that are passed on from generation to generation by an informal learning process. These traditions are almost all devoted to the ruling dynasties rather than to the mass of the people and are especially concerned with lines of descent and land rights. They range from myths to relatively accurate factual accounts, with a wide variety of traditions between these two extremes. It was at one time thought that the mediums of mhondoro ancestral spirits were equivalent to the professional tradition-keepers of states such as Rwanda, but this theory has not been adequately proven.

The Mutapa state is of especial interest because it is the only one of four known major Shona states—Zimbabwe, Torwa, Mutapa, and Changamire—to escape being uprooted entirely by new settlements of people, and the only one that was close to Portuguese centers (in which information was recorded). It has thus been possible to compare traditions and documents in a way that cannot be done for the other states. Because of the reluctance or inability of many researchers to work in Rhodesia and Mozambique in the last fifteen years, the history of the Mutapa state has been heavily dependent upon the work of D.P. Abraham, at least as far as traditions are concerned. Abraham collected traditions from ca. 1950 to 1971; but so far the only works of his that are readily available are eight papers, of which the most important were produced in the period 1959-1963. These have formed the basis of most of the secondary writing on the Shona states; the inter-relationship between them and a developing archaeology has been discussed in an earlier article, and only a few points of this discussion need be brought in here.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 3 , 1976 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. By “state” is meant the area that was continuously under the close control of the nzou/samanvanga Mutapa dynasty, as opposed to areas that were occasionally tributary to it. See D.N. Beach, An Outline of Shona History (forthcoming), chap. 3.

2. Depending upon their fame, spirit mediums acquire followings from across traditional dynastic boundaries. This means that they are able to absorb traditions from different groups and are liable to merge them. See note 14 below and text referred to.

3. Abraham, D.P., “The Principality of Maungwe,” NADA 28 (1951): 56–83 Google Scholar; “The Monomotapa Dynasty,” NADA 36 (1959): 59–84 Google Scholar; “The Early Political History of the Kingdom of Mwene Mutapa (850-1589),” in Historians in Tropical Africa: Proceedings of the Leverhulme Inter-Collegiate History Conference, September 1960, ed. Stokes, E. (Salisbury, 1962), pp. 61–91 Google Scholar; “Maramuca: An Exercise in the Combined Use of Portuguese Records and Traditions,” JAH 2 (1961): 211–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Ethno-History of the Empire of Mutapa: Problems and Methods,” in The Historian in Tropical Africa: Studies Presented and Discussed at the Fourth International African Seminar at the University of Dakar, Senegal 1961, ed. Vansina, J., Mauny, R., and Thomas, L.V. (London, 1964), pp. 104–21Google Scholar; “The Political Role of Chaminuka and the Mhondoro Cult in Shona History” and “Tasks in the Field of Early History,” papers delivered to the History of Central African Peoples Conference, Lusaka, 1963, of which the former was published as “The Roles of ‘Chaminuka’ and the Mhondoro-cults in Shona Political History,” in The Zambesian Past, ed. Stokes, E. and Brown, R. (Manchester, 1966), pp. 28–46 Google Scholar; “Porcelain from Hill Ruin, Khami,” South African Archaeological Bulletin 17 (1962): 32–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a discussion of the relationship of these papers to the literature of the 1960s, see Beach, D.N., “The Historiography of the People of Zimbabwe in the 1960s,” Rhodesian History 4 (1973): 21–30 Google Scholar; and Alpers, E.A., “Dynasties of the Mutapa-Rozwi Complex,” JAH 11 (1970): 203–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Beach, “Historiography.”

5. Ibid.

6. Abraham, , “Ethno-History,” p. 106 Google Scholar; “Chaminuka,” pp. 32-33.

7. Abraham, , “Chaminuka,” p. 33, n4.Google Scholar

8. Gelfand, M., Shona Ritual (Cape Town, 1959), pp. 30–31.Google Scholar

9. Abraham, , “Chaminuka,” p. 32, n4.Google Scholar

10. E. Morris, NC Marandellas to CNC Salisbury, 1 January 1904, National Archives of Rhodesia N 3/33/8; University of Rhodesia History Department Texts 105, 108 Wza. Svosve's people call the area around Mount Wedza “Mbire” after their old home in the north, which they appear to have left no earlier than the first half of the eighteenth century. There is no evidence that there was any major political unit or state around Wedza apart from some outlying Hera settlements. The new Mbire swiftly became famous, partly because it was the center of the Njanja hoe trade, partly because offshoots of the soko Mbire people travelled far to the south and east. There is no evidence for a Rozvi state at Wedza, whether called Mbire or not; the Rozvi lived north of the main watershed, between the Mazoe and Nyadiri rivers. The soko/vudzijena Mbire of NeMbire do have a tradition of having come from the more famous southern Wedza, but this appears to be a recent fiction overlying older origins among the formerly soko/vudzijena people of Chingowo.

11. Beach, D.N., “Ndebele Raiders and Shona Power,” JAH 15 (1974): 642–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also chaps. 2 and 3 in An Outline of Shona History.

12. The Changamire dynasty was first recorded as a subordinate of the Mutapa state in 1506, when it was described as being in revolt. It was defeated in 1547. By the late seventeenth century, it was based in the land between the Mazoe and Nyadiri, from which area it began its conquest of the Torwa dynasty in the southwest. See chap. 5 in An Outline of Shona History.

13. Posselt, F.W.T., Fact and Fiction (Bulawayo, 1935), pp. 141–43Google Scholar; URHD Texts 106-107 Rse. These texts are held at the University of Rhodesia history department, and both the bilingual transcripts and the original tapes can be examined there.

14. Gelfand, , Shona Ritual, p. 30.Google Scholar It should be noted that Abraham's fourteenth-century date for ChikuraWadyembeu's arrival at the site of Zimbabwe corresponded to what the archaeologists then thought was a break in the development of the Zimbabwe culture. This break is not now seen to exist, but it is possible that it influenced Abraham's reading of his evidence. Beach, , “Historiography,” pp. 24, 26.Google Scholar

15. Bourdillon, M.F.C., “Some Aspects of the Religion of the Eastern Korekore,” (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford, 1972), p. 15 Google Scholar; Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 60 Google Scholar; Hayes, M.E., “The Wanyombge,” NADA 20 (1943): 21 Google Scholar; Coley, D.M., “The Fate of the Last Bashankwe Chief,” NADA 5 (1927): 65 Google Scholar; Tapson, R.R., “Some Notes on the Mrozwi Occupation of the Sebungwe District,” NADA 21 (1944): 29 Google Scholar; Parkinson, D.K., “The Vashangwe of Chief Chireya: Gokwe,” NADA (1969): 20 Google Scholar; URHD Texts 92-96 Gta.

16. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” pp. 60–62.Google Scholar There is a widespread common origin-myth in Shona traditions based on origin north of the Zambezi in “Tanganyika,” or the “beginning-country” in Shona.

17. Abraham, , “Early Political History,” pp. 62, 76 n9.Google Scholar

18. Abraham's main field research for the 1959 article was in July and August 1958 ( Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 59).Google Scholar For his second visit to the Mutota mhondoro's medium, see “Early Political History,” p. 84 n6.

19. Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rhodesia Per 5/Makope, “Story of Makope,” ca. 1940s; MIA DR Mazoe: Makope, 1968; Latham, C.J.K., “Munhumutapa: Oral Traditions,” NADA (1972), p. 82.Google Scholar

20. For example, Aspects of Central African History, ed. Ranger, T.O. (London, 1968), p. 12.Google Scholar

21. Garlake, P.S., “Rhodesian Ruins—A Preliminary Assessment of Their Styles and Chronology,” JAH 11 (1970): 505 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Huffman, T.N., “The Rise and Fall of Zimbabwe,” JAH 13 (1972): 356–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Huffman, T.N., “Radiocarbon Dates and Bibliography of the Rhodesian Iron Age,” Rhodesian Prehistory 11 (1973): 5 Google Scholar; Veloso, G., “Notes … 1512,” Documents on the Portuguese in Mocambique and Central Africa, 1498-1840, ed. Rego, A. da Silva (7 vols.: Lisbon, 1962–), 3: 182–83.Google Scholar

23. de Castro, Dionizio de Mello, “Notícia do Império Marave e dos Rios de Sena,” Anais da Junta de Investigações do Ultramar 9 (1954): 130–33.Google Scholar

24. de Miranda, António Pinto, “Memória sobre a costa de Africa,” Relações de Moçambique Setecentista, ed. Andrade, A.A. (Lisbon, 1955), pp. 303–6Google Scholar; Pinto de Miranda's main work is original, but his “Monarchia Africana” addition to his work of ca. 1766 is a rewrite of Mello de Castro's work of 1763, with variable spellings of names and some corrections and additions.

25. Pacheco, Albino Manoel, Uma Viagem de Tete ao Zumbo (Mozambique, 1883), pp. 23–28.Google Scholar

26. For an interesting account of George Kupara, see Matthews, J.B., “The Mhondoro of Mutota and His Village,” NADA 37 (1960): 66–74.Google Scholar

27. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” pp. 59–60.Google Scholar

28. MIA Per 5/Kasekete, Memorandum, n.d., of meeting held 12 December 1967, evidence of “Mutota” and attached Kasekete genealogy; MIA DR Sipolilo; Report on spirit mediums, 1965; MIA Per 5/Chitsungo nzou, Sipolilo, Genealogy of 6 April 1960.

29. de Castro, Mello, “Notícia,” pp. 130, 133.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 130.

31. Pacheco, , Viagem, pp. 24–25.Google Scholar

32. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” pp. 60–67.Google Scholar

33. MIA Per 5/Chitsungo, Sipolilo, Genealogy of 6 April 1960.

34. MIA DR Sipolilo; Report on spirit mediums, 1965.

35. MIA Per 5/Kasekete, Memorandum, n.d., of meeting held 12 December 1967, evidence of “Mutota.”

36. Ibid., Kasekete genealogy filed ca. 12 December 1967.

37. Pacheco, , Viagem, p. 24.Google Scholar; Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 65.Google Scholar

38. The fact that the Kasekete house has shown itself to be capable of remembering the name of the well-documented Mavura shows that at least part of the pre-Mukombwean list is real. Mukombwe is now treated in some cases as a culture hero, to the extent that a Chikunda group of recent origins claims to have been allocated land by him ( Bourdillon, M.F.C., “The Peoples of Darwin,” NADA [1970]: 105 Google Scholar), but in the 1750s he was simply treated as another ruler. This was, after all, only just over half a century from his death.

39. Hayes, , “Wanyombge,” p. 21 Google Scholar; Bourdillon, M.F.C., “The Manipulation of Myth in a Tavara Chiefdom,” Africa 42 (1972): 113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40. White, J.D., “Some Notes on the History and Customs of the Urungwe District,” NADA (1971): 38 Google Scholar; MIA DR Sipolilo: Chisunga, 1965.

41. MIA Per 5/Nyajina, DR Copy, 1965; this does show a link with Nyombwe.

42. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” pp. 61, 65.Google Scholar

43. Alpers, E., “The Mutapa and Malawi Political Systems,” in Aspects of Central African History, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar Depersonalized, the argument remains valid.

44. I am indebted to Dr. A. Livneh for this suggestion.

45. Diogo de Alcaçova to the King, 20 November 1506, Documents 1: 393.Google Scholar

46. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 78.Google Scholar

47. Abraham, , “Early Political History,” p. 24 n8.Google Scholar

48. MIA DR Mtoko: Mtoko, Chimoyo, Nyamukoho, Mkota, etc., 1965.

49. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 65 Google Scholar; Abraham, , “Early Political History,” p. 67.Google Scholar

50. Abraham, , “Early Political History,” p. 24 n48.Google Scholar

51. MIA DR Mtoko; Nyakuchena, Chimoyo, Nyamkoho, Mkota, Goronga, Chiwizu, Goze, Zinhu, 1965.

52. da Conceição, Antõnio, “Tratado dos Rios de Cuama,” O Chronista de Tissuary 2 (1867): 67.Google Scholar

53. [João Julião da Silva] “Memoria respectiva a Villa de Sofala … (1836-1847),” cited in Randles, W.G.L., L'empire du Monomotapa du XVe au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1975), p. 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54. Pacheco, , Viagem, p. 23 Google Scholar; Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 60.Google Scholar

55. Abraham, , “Early Political History,” p. 68.Google Scholar

56. H.C.K. Flynn, NC Darwin to CNC, 1 January 1904, N 3/33/8; Bourdillon, , “Eastern Korekore,” pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

57. Ibid., pp. 46-47; Bourdillon, , “Peoples of Darwin,” p. 106.Google Scholar

58. MIA Per 5/Chitsungo nhari Rushinga, NC Mrewa to CNC 27 March 1944; A.D. Campbell, NC Salisbury to CNC, 29 January 1896, NAR N 1/1/9; R.C. Nesbitt, NC Salisbury to CNC, 1 January 1904, NAR N 3/33/8.

59. Bourdillon, , “Darwin,” pp. 104–7.Google Scholar

60. de Rezende, Pedro Barreto, “Do estado da India, 1634,” Records of Southeast Africa (Cape Town, 1898–1901), 2: 416.Google Scholar

61. de Rezende, Barreto, “Estado,” p. 416.Google Scholar

62. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” pp. 65, 78 Google Scholar; Smith, H. Stanford, “Monomotapa,” NADA 35 (1958): 84 Google Scholar; von Sicard, H., “Tentative Chronological Tables,” NADA 23 (1946): 34.Google Scholar

63. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 67 Google Scholar; Abraham, , “Early Political History,” pp. 65, 85 n56.Google Scholar

64. Beach, D.N., “Historians and the Shona Empires, I,” URHD Henderson Seminar Paper 19, 1972.Google Scholar

65. “Testimony of Baptism of Monomotapa, 1652,” Records 2: 445–46.Google Scholar

66. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 67.Google Scholar

67. Axelson, E., Portuguese in Southeast Africa, 1600-1700 (Johannesburg, 1960), p. 136.Google Scholar

68. “Descripçãao dos Rios de Cuama, 1683,” Ajuda Lisbon, 51-VII-43; de Castro, Mello, “Notícia,” p. 133.Google Scholar

69. Manamotapa to Viceroy, 8 June 1679, Arquivo Historico Ultramarino, Lisbon, Caixa Moçambique.

70. Conceição, , “Tratado,” pp. 67, 107–10.Google Scholar

71. Joseph da Fonesca Coutinho to the Viceroy, 29 June 1698, Ajuda, 51-VIII-40, 282/1; de Castro, Mello, “Notícia,” p. 131 Google Scholar; de Miranda, Pinto, “Memõria,” p. 303 Google Scholar; Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 69.Google Scholar

72. de Moraes, Henrique Bravo, “Continuam as Noticias do Arcebispado de Goa, 1726,” in da Rocha, Leopoldo, (ed.), “Uma informação inedita sobre Moçambique Setecentista (1700-1703),” Monumenta 9 (1973): 28 Google Scholar; de Castro, Mello, “Notícia,” p. 131.Google Scholar

73. Bravo de Moraes, p. 29; Goa Archives, Panaji, Livros dos Mongoes do Reino, vol. 75, 217v, letter dated Sena, 12 June 1710.

74. de Castro, Mello, “Notícia,” p. 131 Google Scholar; King to Viceroy, 16 August 1110, Records 5: 23 Google Scholar; Goa Archives, Panaji, Livros dos Monções do Reino, vol. 75, 217v, letter dated Sena, 12 June 1710; vol. 89B, 506, letter to King dated Sena, 19 June 1723.

75. Pacheco, , Viagem, pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

76. King to Viceroy, 23 March 1712, Records 5: 50–51 Google Scholar; Luis de Menezes to Manuel Gonçalves Guião, 26 January 1719, Records 5:65 Google Scholar; Viceroy to Dom João, King Manamotapa, 26 January 1719, Records 5: 67 Google Scholar; Goa Archives, Panaji, Livros dos Monções do Reino, vol. 89B, 506-10, letter to King dated Sena, 19 June 1723.

77. de Castro, Mello, “Notícia,” pp. 131–32Google Scholar; letters of Joãoquinto to King, 8 February and 9 May 1735, AHU Caixa, Moçambique.

78. Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” p. 69 Google Scholar; de Castro, Mello, “Notícia,” p. 131 Google Scholar; Pacheco, , Viagem, p. 26.Google Scholar

79. Pacheco, , Viagem, p. 26 Google Scholar; de Miranda, Pinto, “Memõria,” p. 305 Google Scholar; Hoppe, F., A África Oriental Portuguesa no tempo do Marquês de Pombal 1750-1777 (Lisbon, 1970), p. 422.Google Scholar

80. Pacheco, , Viagem, pp. 26–27 Google Scholar; de Eça, Filipe Gastão de Almeida, Historia das Guerras no Zambeze (Lisbon, 1953), 1: 393, 395, 82, 115-16.Google Scholar

81. Pacheco, , Viagem, pp. 26–27 Google Scholar; Santana, Francisco, ed., Documentação Avulsa Moçambique do Arquivo Historico Ultramarino (Lisbon, 1974–), 1:518–19, 726–27, 922; 2:330, 527, 649, 650Google Scholar; Manoel Joaquim Mendes de Vasconcellos e Cirne to Conde de Bastos, Quelimane, 28 July 1830, AHU Moçambique, Maço 14.

82. Pacheco, , Viagem, p. 27 Google Scholar; Alpers, , “Mutapa-Rozwi,” p. 209 Google Scholar; Bourdillon, , “Korekore,” pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

83. Pacheco, , Viagem, pp. 25–28 Google Scholar; Abraham, , “Monomotapa,” pp. 70–71 Google Scholar; Tabler, E.C., ed., The Zambezi Papers of Richard Thornton (2 vols.: London, 1963), 1: 135 Google Scholar; Capello, H. and Ivens, R., De Angola a Contra-Costa (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1886), 2: 321 Google Scholar; Newitt, M.D.D., Portuguese Settlement on the Zambezi (London, 1973), pp. 306–8Google Scholar; Bourdillon, , “Korekore,” pp. 16–17.Google Scholar