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Wozekhaya

Xivongo · Xitsonga

Mabunda

Also spelled Ngove.

  • PeopleVatsonga
  • Totem ngove (a large eland-like antelope) — Malungana: the people of hosi Bason Mabunda have the totemic clan name Ngove and
  • Grouping Vahlave (the performer's own statement in Malungana)
  • Surnames recorded Mabunda
  • Places recorded Sikhunyani, Dzumeri, Giyani, Limpopo

Your Family's Praise Belongs Here

This clan has a praise. It is not on this page yet, and that is our doing, not anything about your family or the praise itself. If the people at home still say it, you can put the true one here.

Why It Is Not Here Yet

Everything else on this page is unaffected. The clan name, the Xitsonga terms, the totem, the grouping, the surnames and the places recorded are facts, and facts carry no copyright no matter which book they were read in. What is absent is one author's particular wording, which is the part copyright does protect.

S.J. Malungana, Vuphato: Praise Poetry in Xitsonga (D.Litt. et Phil. thesis, Rand Afrikaans University, 1994)

In copyright. A doctoral study whose swiphato were recorded from named performers in the author's own fieldwork. In copyright. The performers are the authority on the recitations; the thesis is the author's rendering of them.

The rendering that was read: Shidjabadjaba John Malungana, Vuphato: Praise Poetry in Xitsonga (D.Litt. et Phil. thesis), 1994 — https://ujcontent.uj.ac.za/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Vuphato---praise-poetry-in/9913242107691

A praise belongs to the families who recite it, not to whoever wrote it down. A Xitsonga-speaking family that still holds this one holds the better version of it, and can put that version on this page.

Written down by families and by the people who recorded them.

About This Record

What Was Written Down

Malungana recorded the Mabunda clan poem from Lerisa Mabunda at a cultural function at Sikhunyani in September 1990 and again a few days later at Dzumeri. Its first ten lines are a lineage (Hubu, Mbhandheni, Nyavana, Xake, Khomani, Makuri, Mbhatsana, Mbyele) ending in Xikhovetana, whom the clan regards as its founder; the praise proper boasts of the clan's women, of spilling beer, of pressing for lobola, and of marrying Sotho and Ndebele without segregation, and it closes with the call-and-response Xake / Mbhalati. Wikipedia records that the Mabunda supplied regiments to Joao Albasini's army in the 1800s. Recorded from the sources named on this entry; the wording here is Sibaya's own.

Families Tell This Differently

Families who carry this name tell parts of it differently. Each way it has been told is below.

Where This Comes From

Written down by
  • Shidjabadjaba John Malungana, Vuphato: Praise Poetry in Xitsonga (D.Litt. et Phil. thesis), 1994 — https://ujcontent.uj.ac.za/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Vuphato---praise-poetry-in/9913242107691

Recorded Alongside

  • Bila Also recorded among the Vatsonga.
  • Cawuke Also recorded among the Vatsonga.
  • Hlabi Also recorded among the Vatsonga.
  • Hlanganu Also recorded among the Vatsonga.
  • Hlungwani Also recorded among the Vatsonga.
  • Honwana Also recorded among the Vatsonga.

Are You Mabunda?

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If Your Family Holds More Of This

A family saying its own swiphato swa swivongo knows them better than any directory does. If yours has more than what is on this page, it belongs here.

This is also how this clan's praise gets onto the page. Your family's own words are yours to give.

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