Some facts about the Monomotapa Kingdom
Africa, South of the Sahara, knew a flourishing civilization in the region between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers (the area now known as Zimbabwe).
This era of the history was founded in the tenth or eleventh century by Shona-speaking people, and it became a large and prosperous state between the late thirteenth and late fifteenth centuries. The knowledge about this kingdom is based on the archaeological remains of approximately 150 settlements as well as Portuguese sources.
It is worth noting that the most impressive of these ruins is the apparent capital known today as “Great Zimbabwe,” a huge site encompassing two major building complexes. One, called the acropolis, is a series of stone enclosures on a high hill. It overlooks a larger enclosure that contains many ruins and a circular tower, all surrounded by a massive wall some 32 feet high and up to 17 feet wide. The acropolis complex may have contained a shrine, whereas the larger enclosure was apparently the royal palace and fort. The stonework reflects a wealthy and sophisticated society.
However, the site includes gold and copper ornaments, soapstone carvings and glass and porcelain of Chinese, Syrian, and Persian origins.
The State seems to have partially controlled the gold trade between inland areas and the east coast port of Sofala. Its territory lay East and South of substantial gold-mining enterprises. This large settlement was probably home to the ruling elite of a prosperous empire. Its wider domain was made up mostly of smaller settlements whose inhabitants lived by subsistence agriculture and cattle raising. Earlier Iron Age sites further South suggest that other large State entities may have preceded Great Zimbabwe. This statement ties in with the existence of civilization in the Klein Bolyai area.
It should be noted that the expansion of Great Zimbabwe may have been a significant immigration around 1000 C.E. of Late Iron Age-Shona speakers who brought with them mining techniques and farming innovations, along with their ancestor religion and customs.
Another factor played an essential role in the expansion of the kingdom or empire, this was due to the improvement of farming and animal husbandry which could have led to substantial population growth. The expanding gold trade linked the flourishing of Zimbabwe to that of the East African coast from about the thirteenth century. It may never be known why this impressive civilization declined after dominating its region for nearly 200 years. It appears that the Northern and Southern sectors of the State split up, and people moved away from Great Zimbabwe, probably because the farming and grazing land there was exhausted. The Southern successor kingdom, Changamire, was powerful from the late 1600s until about 1830. The Northern successor state, which stretched along the Zambezi, was known to the first Portuguese sources as the kingdom ruled by the Mwene Mutapa, or “Master Pillager“, the title of its sixteenth-century ruler, Mutota, and his successors.
Monomotapa – have tools, will travel (ca. 1430 to 1760)
According to Cari and Moz Mostert, between 1430 and 1760, there existed a great kingdom in Southern African, Monomotapa, known as the Mutapa Empire, which was ruled by the Shona people. This kingdom of Mutapa incorporated parts from what is today known as Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Because of their huge armies, the kings ruled and taxed – demanding tribute as in Roman times – from areas beyond their immediate borders, incorporating them into the structure of their vast kingdom. The Mutapa influence stretched from the Zambezi River to both the coasts of the Indian and Atlantic oceans and down as far as Cape Point. (The map indicating the original Monomotapa (Mutapa) area, dated 1635, [figure 25] gives perspective of the region the kingdom covered.)
The Shona, being a Bantu people and now mainly found in the Southern part of Zimbabwe, were not known as hunter-gatherers or pastoralists but as industrialists and farmers, including pasture with hunting. This is borne out by their cities, mining, and tools, having descended from the builders of the Great Zimbabwe.
The monarchy developed a system of statehood with a strong monotheistic religion structure and was not only advanced but well organised, even welcoming western advisors. Because of their knowledge in working metal – gold, steel, copper, and iron – they had the tools to maintain a high order of civilization. Farming, mining, and exports went to distant parts of the world.
The Mutapa traded with Arabia, Persia and India including leopard skins, tortoiseshells, ivory, horn, gold and copper, with many of these already fashioned into artifacts[2], sent from their ports – mainly Sofala – for shipment elsewhere in the Indian Ocean.
The ability to work iron was an enormous asset for farming, fishing, mining, woodworking, boat making and endless crafts, which remain with these people to this day. The influence of these iron-makers made them – and most of the Southern regions of Africa – a prosperous group of nations within themselves. These isolated nations have the tool-making ability to thank for their successful expansion over a period of some 4 000 years.
The seeming utopia that existed in Monomotapa was shattered by the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century and infighting among themselves, which brought this mighty kingdom to an end after a rule of over 300 years but not without leaving a rich heritage for the entire Southern African region.
Having searched most of Africa, the Portuguese first conquered the Mozambique territory with the aim to claim the great Monomotapa wealth that existed in this region, to export to Portugal. This action came about because of their unsuccessful occupation of South America – their El Dorado[3]. Consequently, they needed Southern Africa’s riches for export to Europe.
Monomotapa (ca. 1450 to 1917)
When Great Zimbabwe began its economic and military decline in the late 1400s, some of the city’s elites migrated 200 miles north to the Zambezi River and established the short-lived Shona state of Monomotapa (Mutapa). The state emerged around 1500 under Nyatsimba Mutota, the first “mwene” (king) who gained control of the surrounding gold producing region and much of the Zambezi River Valley. Mutota established a new capital at Zvongombe, near the Zambezi River.
At the height of its power under Mutota’s son Mwene Matope, Monomotapa included the entire Zambezi River Valley (modern day Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe) from Zumbo in what North Central Mozambique to the Indian Ocean is now. Matope’s title, Mwene Mutapa, means literally the “lord of the plundered lands”. His regal costume included an exquisitely decorated small hoe as part of the belt. The hoe had an ivory handle and suggested peace through the ability to gain wealth from the earth. Other symbols of the kingship included granaries, animal horns, and spears or weapons. The monarchy also relied on the principle of divine kingship. The Mwene Matope was believed to be the “god of the sun, and the moon, king of the land and the rivers and conqueror of enemies”.
Growing wealthy through a system of vassalage (taxation), Mwene Matope also controlled long distance trade with special state-sponsored markets called feiras. Excavations have revealed feiras at towns along the Zambezi River including Luanze, Dambarare and Masappa. These excavations show tools such as iron tongs and fine goods such as Chinese white and blue porcelain and glass beads from India, indicating that Monomotapa continued to participate in the Trans-Indian Ocean trade that had helped establish Great Zimbabwe.
By the 1590s, Monomotapa had begun a cultural, political, and military decline intensified by increasingly frequent civil wars. The fragmented central government allowed provincial governors to gain more power. The political leaders of one province, Changamire, broke free and began building a successor state to Monomotapa. Additionally, the Portuguese colony along the coast gained more power at the expense of Monomotapa. By the 1630s, the Portuguese overran all Monomotapa and appointed a new mwene, Mavura Mhande Felipe, to the throne in 1629. From that point, Monomotapa survived by exploiting the rivalries between other African states and the Portuguese. The last mwene, Mambo Chioko, was killed in battle against the Portuguese in 1917.
The Big Question
The big question is: “Did the people of Monomotapa lose their roots during the period 1450 to 1917?“
The answer may lie within the affected people of the eight areas involved in the Monomotapa, namely Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia/Zimbabwe.
Most of the said black people were influenced by the western lifestyle which colonialism brought. A strong presence by the Portuguese (and to a lesser extent the Dutch and English) played a significant role in the black people moving slowly away from their cultural roots and traditions. With that, the black people lost their history and mainly lived under the European influences.
If the words of the spirit of Thandi is to be believed that “tell my people to go back to their roots“, a significant mind shift must be invoked. The matriarchism way of reigning over the people must be restored. It is that the Modjadji is queen over her people, with headsmen/advisors being the “mediators” between the queen and the people.
The building of a palace for the Monomotapa kingdom on the farm Dongola for the queen, and residences for the headsmen to advise her continually, is the start of the process of restoring the Monomotapa. However, to achieve this project, a crusher must be opened to provide the infrastructure to be built with stone (as part of the concrete mix) and a dam must be built to provide water to the mining activities which will start with the restoration of the Monomotapa. These latter steps are essential to the process as a kingdom is built from the bottom up (finding stone, opening mines and building a palace) to demonstrate the importance with which the rulers perceive their subjects. (This seems to stand in stark contrast with the current (ca. 2022) view of the Arabic people infiltrating the Venda community by first building/establishing the palace (me first) and then the rest will follow for the people (local people as an afterthought seemingly).
There are two areas to play an important role in the restoration of the Monomotapa. The first area is the Dongola area where around 400 hectares of land are to be purchased to build a palace and the headsmen residences. The second area is the area currently (ca. 2022) consisting of the farm Klein Bolayi around 700 hectares and the “proefplaas” (an experimental farm in State-ownership) of around 8 000 hectares which must be combined. On the latter land, the city of the Monomotapa will arise with each of the above-mentioned countries having a cultural village specific to the relevant country, but which would also have the modern facilities to attract tourism to each village. The tourists could then enjoy each country’s culture without direct contact with the surrounding cultural villages.
Since the “spider” forms the structure of this community (figure 27), the “body” will be the “assembly point” where visitors will start their experience, and the visitors could then choose which culture they would like to experience – see an idea of the possible lay-out:
The future of the Monomotapa people is in their own hands and how they will manage that part to the benefit of all will depend on the participation and attitude of the people. No-one outside of the Monomotapa circle can assist or prescribe how the activities should take place – that would be the choice of the Monomotapa people.
