The Lie of 1652. Patric Tariq Mellet
with different material culture identities were present in the Shashe Limpopo Confluence area. These identities are visible in Leopard’s Kopje ceramics, Zhizo-Leokwe ceramics and hunter-gatherer (ancestral San) stone tools. Clearly then the K2-Mapungubwe area was occupied by people with different modes of production as well as ethnic origins. Together these communities shaped the Mapungubwe state, and it is likely that these communities intermarried (Calabrese 2007; Schoeman 2006a, b; van Doornum 2005, 2008).
While I would not give credence to a term as such as ‘racial’, this observation of Schoeman and Pikirayi resonates with the historical complexity and layered and interconnected landscape.
The formation of states in southern Africa
It is from about 1100 CE that the age of the creation of states began across southern Africa. These include those already mentioned as well as the Butua state of the Torwa dynasty and the mighty Mutapa state (also known as Monomutapa), formed initially as an offshoot of the Butua state by 1430. The first revolt by Changa Amir (Changamire) in 1490 resulted in a progression of events that led to the foundation of the Rozvi empire of the maMbos (Mambos) by 1660. For 150 years the Rozvi empire dominated trade with the world beyond Africa through the ports along the Mozambique coast after defeating the Portuguese attempt to control the inland gold trade.
Again this is a complex and vital part of southern African history, as it is from this revolutionary time of pastoral states with multi-ethnic foundations and from the technological advances within those states that the foundations of South African states and ethnic communities emerged. It was this rather than sudden mass migrations from far-off countries across the African continent that gave birth to local societies. The key to cultural-ethnic diversity in South Africa today lies in understanding the continued migrations from the Great Lakes region and beyond, to the West and the East, as infusions with cultural influences on the Mutapa state and the Rozvi empire.
By this time, each of the San-Khoe-Kalanga societies were also being infused with further West African, Central African and East African migratory drifts. As new states spread, so too did this continued influence, as Huffman131 demonstrates with the findings of Blackburn pottery and Moor Park pottery, and defensive walling in what is now KwaZulu-Natal.
We know that Arab slave raiders and their collaborators were putting communities to flight all along the Azania132 coast. The name of the African coast from Somalia to the land of Sofala (northern Mozambique) from the 7th century was Azania – ‘the place of the Zanj’.133 The term Zanj (or Zanjis, Zenjis or Azanians) was the Arab name for the people enslaved on this eastern stretch of Africa. In the main it was the people of Ethiopia and the upper Zanj coast of East Africa that were the most sought after on the slave market of Basra in Persia.
In the land of Sofala off the coast of Nacala, an Arab trader known as Musa ibn Mbiki established his base on an island that became known by his name – Mozambique Island. This name was extended in use by the Portuguese colonial power as Mozambique. Before the migratory drift from the Azanian coast, which grew as people fled the Arab slave trade, the land of Sofala was inhabited by San communities. The Arab traders moved southwards to the northern reaches of the land of Sofala over five centuries in search of gold, ivory and slaves. In 1498 the Portuguese established a relationship with Musa ibn Mbiki. Together with Musa ibn Mbiki, Mozambique Island and Delagoa Bay (Maputu) were turned into fortresses for despatching enslaved people.134 Previously the southernmost slave-trading island stronghold had been the island Zanjibar (Zanzibar).
By the 10th century the Arab slave raiders had also extended their operations to what they called the Waq Waq coast (from Sofala down to present-day South Africa). As has been noted, by 900 CE they were coming far inland along the Zambezi waterways, in search of gold, ivory and slaves. A phenomenon such as slavery and natural disasters such as floods across the Zambezi Delta were the most likely reasons for a new wave of cultures from Central Africa and East Africa to have started filtering southwards into the territory of Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and later down into the south. This ties up with new pottery styles such as Blackburn and Moor Park appearing in Eshowe dating to about 1100.
While the Mutapa state had been started by the Kalanga moving from the state of Butua, with its roots in Great Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe before that, it quickly absorbed other peoples and cultures. In a continuum of migratory drifts from Central Africa, East Africa and the Zambezi Delta, new cultures flowed into the Mutapa state. Here we should keep in mind that, over ten previous centuries, peoples flowing from the Kgalagadi (Botswana) in the southwest, Ndongo and Kongo (Angola) and Central and East Africa had given birth to the Kalanga at Mapungubwe and to the BaKalanga (Botswana). The circular movement of people in the past now drew in a further mix of ethnicities or communities of people, from the Bembe, Mbundu, Lala, Manyika, Kiteve, Mandanda, Lozi, Lunda and many more from the Central African territories through to the East African coast. This started a new circular migratory drift.
Micro multi-ethnic groups from the Mutapa state would slowly drift down to what is now South Africa as a result of the first unrest in that state brought on by the pressures exerted by the Portuguese. The catalyst of a new, more rapid southwards exodus was when Changamire revolted against the Mutapa state over its development of relations with the exploitative Portuguese. It was this revolt that gave birth to the Rozvi empire of the maMbos or Mambos with its expansionist history. The Rozvi, also known as Balozwi, were the most powerful regional force from 1660 through to the rise of the Zulu kingdom in the 19th century. The term ‘Rozvi’ means the ‘destroyers’, and the Rozvi would incorporate the old Butua state and extend its presence to the territory of the old Mapungubwe state right across the immediate territory on the southern side of the Limpopo as well as to most of Zimbabwe and into Mozambique.
As we can see, the establishment of South African kingdoms (and new infusions of peoples and cultures from East Africa and the Great Lakes) tracks back to Arab slave-raiding, as well as to Portuguese colonial incursion into the land of Sofala, and to the Mutapa kingdom and its dynamics and the early Rozvi empire.
This era is at the roots of several South African ethnic communities and states that arose, where one can see that the earliest leaders or dynasty progenitors are usually dated from about 1300–1400 CE. Oral histories also generally go back to this period with blurred references that indicate small snapshots of the ancient past, such as descriptions of the Zambezi Delta or the region of the Mutapa state, or shades of Rozvi culture or older Kalanga, Khoe and San cultures.
While ethnicity was porous until this era and had a strong base of San, Khoe, Kalanga, Kalundu, Nkope and Kwale foundations, from this period onwards the multi-ethnic Mutapa-Rozvi culture with strong cultural overlays from Central African communities presented a strong stamp. This was despite the fact that the core background of the Rozvi was Kalanga. An emergent Koni eastern coast culture laid the foundations of what later became labelled Nguni culture. Koni or Nguni culture was a mix of Drakensberg San; migrant Khoe from the west Limpopo; Sotho and Kalanga from the southwestern traditions; Rozvi maMbo with its mix of Kalanga and the range of Central and East African infusions; Tsonga with its mix of East African and southern infusions, and other later migratory drifts. The Nguni are a locally developed people with multiple roots rather than simply the result of a sudden migration from elsewhere, as has been propagated in popular history.
Some of the influence also spread southwards, where the older mix of San, Khoe, Kalundu and Zhizo-Kalanga progressed to establish the earliest Xhosa and Thembu root cultures before the effects of the northeastern peoples from what we today know as KwaZulu-Natal.
It is equally important to note that underpinning any successful and advanced civilisation and state is a complex and successful economy. When we look at the advanced society and state of Mapungubwe and its successors, we see that they were operating far beyond a subsistence economy. They were civilisations that were mining, controlling wildlife and putting a value on ivory and on gold. They were smelting iron ore and gold and fashioning both utilitarian and artistic objects other than rock art and engravings. They had a trade corridor with the world and were using it to trade for products they did not possess. Deposits of objects identified as having originated from Southeast Asia, China, Arabia, South Asia and North Africa have been found at key archaeological sites.
Huffman135 elaborates on the 9th-century Swahili expansion southwards to