Posted on March 14, 2011
In July 2010 he started inviting his by-then close to two thousand friends to the 'Buthelezi Clan Get Together' at Zoo Lake. There were enthusiastic responses: many people based in Johannesburg said they were going; and many in Durban complained that the event was being held in Johannesburg, they wanted another one to be organised in Durban. I am told that of the more than two hundred who had said they would go, only a handful eventually pitched. So this meeting is meant to plot the way forward. Thabathaba asked people to volunteer to be in an interim committee that is going to drive the organisation of further events. Again a number of people volunteered but don't show up. Several more had misunderstood the idea of a committee and thought the meeting was a just a big jamboree for anyone, so they had said they would come. I had also piped in and asked to join as a visitor from the south. In the end, seven of us meet. In addition to Thabathaba and me, there is Themba from Ladysmith, Celumusa from Soweto, Gugu from Nquthu, Lihle from Eshowe, Mthokza also from Eshowe. It turns out that Lihle and Mthokza even know people in common.
Asked what his rationale for setting up a committee is, Thabathaba says he'd like to network Buthelezi people. He is from Harrismith in the Free State. He tells us that he also knows Buthelezi people in Lesotho. Like him, they hear stories that their ancestral home is in northern KwaZulu-Natal, but they don't know how their ancestors got to the Free State and Lesotho. He wants to trace his ancestors' journey and so he thinks a network of people who are similarly interested in learning about the past can help one another find out about their ancestors.
Themba tells the meeting that there is a monthly meeting of Buthelezi people that takes place in Jeppestown. This monthly event has been going on for a few years now. Every July the group 'returns home' to Mcakwini in the Babanango district of northern KwaZulu-Natal. Mcakwini was where the Buthelezi ubukhosi (chiefdom) had its base until it was defeated and incorporated into the Zulu kingdom in about 1817. I am reminded of the inaugural Mcakwini pilgrimage in 2003. I was there researching Buthelezi history for my reading of the representation of the Buthelezi is Shaka kaSenzangakhona's izibongo (praises) in my Master's dissertation. The event was held on open grassland surrounded by tree plantations. It was on the spot where Phungashe, the last inkosi ('chief') of an autonomous Buthelezi group, is thought to have had his capital. The land is owned by a farmer who leases it to one of the major corporations to grow timber for its paper mills. There was talk at the 2003 meeting of submitting a land claim.
The meeting discusses whether to fold into the Jeppestown group or to run a parallel group. It is resolved that this is a young people's group. It has been founded through Facebook and while many of its members want to connect with their Buthelezi kin, they might not want to do it in the same way as people in the Jeppestown group. It is imagined that the Jeppestown people believe in the ancestors, and that the trip to Mcakwini is about conducting ancestral ceremonies where animals are slaughtered and the ancestors called up. Some in the Facebook group might subscribe to different systems of belief. Members of the committee will attend the Jeppestown meetings and report back on Facebook.
The next step is for this interim committee to organise another event in Johannesburg. The event will be a chance for people take their cooler boxes and braai stands down to a park. They'll be able to kick back with a bunch of other people with whom they are connected by a family name and presumably group history.
On the 9th of March, the get together was announced. It will take place on the 3rd of April at 10:30 at the Zoo Lake.
Mbongiseni Buthelezi is the Archival Platform Ancestral Stories coordinator