Historic Debates- Lobengula and the subjugation of Changamire

It is disputed whether the Rozvi people were Shona or whether they emerged from the Mutapa Kingdom. Changamire Dombo, the founder of was in fact called Tombolaikonachimwango Chimuloyichamavengeni. He got the name Changamire from the Portuguese after defeating them in war and driving them away from Zimbabwe. “mire” is supposed to be a Portuguese title.

His people were originally called the baTetsi but they got the nickname “varozvi” again from the Portuguese and this was because they like the Zulu and Ndebele after them were raiders and used to take by force. Kurozva has now been incorporated into Shona and it has roughly the same meaning.

The Rozvi were therefore a tribe on their own and history books in Botswana say the Rozvi actually migrated from Botswana and they were known there as the baKalanga. It was the tendency that tribes were given their names by their neighbours and this is why the Ndebele got their name from the Sotho.

It is also disputed that the Rozvi were defeated by the Ndebele. There was unending war in Matabeleland and Mzilikazi couldn’t stop it. Tohwetjipi or Sibumbamu continued to fight and peace was only obtained in Matabeleland through the shrewd political architecture of Lobengula who unlike his father was more interested in building a nation and consolidating it. This then gave rise to the emergence of the Ndebele kaMambo who are Rozvi and Kalanga.

It is also important to realise that up to the early 20th Century tjiKalanga, the language of the Rozvi, was still the official language in Zimbabwe since Lobengula had among other things made the Rozvi religion the supreme religion in the whole of Matabeleland and this was the same for Mashonaland. Kalanga language still has lots of traces even in Mashonaland and in the Mashonaland places that the Rozvi settled after the succesion dispute in BuLozvi at the start of the nineteenth century, still have Kalanga words and this is true of Nyamweda and Ngezi in Mhondoro, Dombotombo in Marondera and also in Bhasvi’s area in Wedza where we have names such as Chaza, Hangi etc.

Submission By: Julius Mutyambizi-Dewa