Last week a local friend of ours was part of a Zombodze delegation that was summoned to meet with the King, His Majesty Mswati III, at his royal residence in nearby Embangweni. And he came back with interesting news for the chiefdom.
The king wants to build another royal residence here, on the grounds of Zombodze’s umphakatsi (the chief’s homestead and center of community life), and preparations will begin within the year. What that means is this: once the residence is built, one of the queens will live here. Not the Queen Mother, mind you, but one of the others.
The king currently has 10 royal residences (and 13 wives,) the nearest one being about 25km away at Embangweni… so why build another one here at Zombodze? Well, there happens to be a lot of historical significance to this particular location. Our friend explained that the Zombodze umphakatsi is the site of what’s called a “royal kraal,” a kraal being a place where cattle are kept (read: corral). And, according to our friend, this is actually where Swaziland’s first king lived, King Ngwane (which explains why Zombodze is more commonly known as Ngwane).
It goes back to ancient times, when the Swazi people parted ways with and warred against the Zulu and the Nkosi people. This Chiefdom was where King Ngwane and his Swazi warriors established their territorial boundary with the Zulu. In fact, the neighboring South African state, which we can see from our homestead, is called KwaZulu-Natal, “home of the Zulu.’ So the royal family from which King Mswati III descends has ancient ties to this specific location. The first king (Ngwane) is apparently buried on the other side of a nearby hill. And here in Southern Africa, ancestral connections are nothing less than spiritual connections.
Because of all this ancestral significance, the royal family often comes to Zombodze’s royal kraal to perform certain important rituals and ceremonies. If there’s an election, for example, or some auspicious occasion requiring a certain ancestral ceremony they’ll come at night, do their thing, and then be gone before sunrise. And I guess the King figures it would be much easier in all of this coming and going to have a royal residence here.
I’m sure we’ll be gone before the residence is completed. It will undoubtedly change things for this community. Having high fences and walls and armed guards at umphakatsi will be different, and having a Queen as a local resident will surely change public life here. Perhaps certain community-development projects will be fast-tracked, and perhaps the local economy will get a boost… I don’t know. But regardless, it’s exciting news for the Chiefdom and I think there’s a certain amount of community pride about the whole thing. Which is good; everyone deserves to feel proud about where they’re from.
By the way, if you happen to have a copy of Shaka Zulu, please send it our way. We’d like to watch it now, as much of it apparently takes place in these surroundings.
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