AFRICAN TALES AND STORIES - 25 illustrated tales and stories from around Africa E-Book

Anon E. Mouse

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

In this unique volume, you will find a collection of 25 illustrated folk tales and stories drawn from all four corners of Africa. Because each region has different cultures and customs, each story too, has it differences, some more distinct than others.
Herein you will find stories like:
The Elephant's Child
The Story Of Mzilikazi
Mophene, Leeba And Nkwe
How Ingwe Got His Spots
The Beast Of Prey,  Eater Of People
How The Kifaru  Came By His Skin
Why The Hare Has A Slit Nose
The Heart Of A Monkey
Anansi And The Lion
The One-Handed Girl, and many more.
10% of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities.
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KEYWORDS/TAGS: folklore, fairy tales, fairytales, legends, myths, children’s stories, fables, bedtime stories, allegories, Fairies Story Hour, childrens books, pixies, pixy, witchdoctor, tokoloshe, , Africa, Anansi, Baboon, Baldy, Baviaan, beast, Bi-Coloured Rock Python, birds, bones, bucket, bush, cake, crumbs, cattle, country, creature, Crocodile, daddy, Darai, Daudawar-batso, donkey, dove, dwala, earth, Elephant, enter, Ethiopian, fish, forest, Furaira, gazelle, Giraffe, girl, golden, grandmother, hare, Hassebu, Hendrik, herdsman, heron, Highveld, Honey Badger, husband, hyena, Jackal, journey, King, kraal, lady, Leopard, Limpopo, Lion, liver, Lowveld, maiden, Man among Men, Master, Milky Way, mine, mistress, money, monkey, Moon, Motikatika, mouse, Mzilikazi, Nunda, nyamatsanes, ogre, Oom, Owl, palace, Parsi, Pestonjee, pumpkin, queen, rabbit, Ratel, Rhinoceros, River, satiable, Seeunkie, shark, sky, slaves, snake, soldiers, soul, Stars, straight, Sultan, sun, surprise, sword, tink tinky, truth, village, water, words, young, youth, Zebra, Ugogo,

Leseprobe

African Tales & Stories

A collection of 25 Stories, tales, Myths and Legendsfrom around Africa

Compiled & Edited By

John Halsted

Published byAbela Publishing, London[2018]

African Folklore, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2018

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London

United Kingdom

2018

ISBN-13: 978-X-XXXXXX-XX-X

email

[email protected]

Website

Abela Publishing

Acknowledgements

John Halsted acknowledges the work the compilers, editors, authors and publishers of the original volumes from which these tales were sourced.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Contents

The Elephant's Child

The Story Of Mzilikazi

Mophene, Leeba And Nkwe

How Ingwe Got His Spots

The Beast Of Prey, Eater Of People

How The Kifaru Came By His Skin

Why The Hare Has A Slit Nose

The Heart Of A Monkey

Anansi And The Lion

The One-Handed Girl

Banyane Mmutla

When The Birds Chose A King - Which Tells Why The White Owl Only Flies At Night

The Skebenga And The Umalusi

The Lost Message

The Story Of Hassebu

Motiratika

The Jackal And The Hyena

The Story Of An Antelope

The Girl Of The Early Race, Who Made Stars

Miss Salt, Miss Pepper, The Sauces And The Onion Leaves

A Story About A Giant, And The Cause Of Thunder

Why The Honey Badger Is So Keen On Honey

The Honey Badger, Known As The Ratel (Raa-Til) In South Africa

A Story About A Maiden And A Pumpkin

Other African Folklore And Fairy Tale Ebooks

African Folklore, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends

A Zulu Warrior - James E. McConnell (1903-95)

The Elephant's Child

N the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant—a new Elephant—an Elephant's Child—who was full of 'satiable curtiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions. And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his 'satiable curtiosities. He asked his tall aunt, the Ostrich, why her tail-feathers grew just so, and his tall aunt the Ostrich spanked him with her hard, hard claw. He asked his tall uncle, the Giraffe, what made his skin spotty, and his tall uncle, the Giraffe, spanked him with his hard, hard hoof. And still he was full of 'satiable curtiosity! He asked his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, why her eyes were red, and his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, spanked him with her broad, broad hoof; and he asked his hairy uncle, the Baboon, why melons tasted just so, and his hairy uncle, the Baboon, spanked him with his hairy, hairy paw. And still he was full of 'satiable curtiosity! He asked questions about everything that he saw, or heard, or felt, or smelt, or touched, and all his uncles and his aunts spanked him. And still he was full of 'satiable curtiosity!

One fine morning in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes this 'satiable Elephant's Child asked a new fine question that he had never asked before. He asked, 'What does the Crocodile have for dinner?' Then everybody said, 'Hush!' in a loud and dretful tone, and they spanked him immediately and directly, without stopping, for a long time.

By and by, when that was finished, he came upon Kolokolo Bird sitting in the middle of a wait-a-bit thorn-bush, and he said, 'My father has spanked me, and my mother has spanked me; all my aunts and uncles have spanked me for my 'satiable curtiosity; and still I want to know what the Crocodile has for dinner!'

Then Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, 'Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out.'

That very next morning, when there was nothing left of the Equinoxes, because the Precession had preceded according to precedent, this 'satiable Elephant's Child took a hundred pounds of bananas (the little short red kind), and a hundred pounds of sugar-cane (the long purple kind), and seventeen melons (the greeny-crackly kind), and said to all his dear families, 'Good-bye. I am going to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner.' And they all spanked him once more for luck, though he asked them most politely to stop.

Then he went away, a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating melons, and throwing the rind about, because he could not pick it up.

He went from Graham's Town to Kimberley, and from Kimberley to Khama's Country, and from Khama's Country he went east by north, eating melons all the time, till at last he came to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, precisely as Kolokolo Bird had said.

Now you must know and understand, O Best Beloved, that till that very week, and day, and hour, and minute, this 'satiable Elephant's Child had never seen a Crocodile, and did not know what one was like. It was all his 'satiable curtiosity.

The first thing that he found was a Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake curled round a rock.

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but have you seen such a thing as a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?'

'Have I seen a Crocodile?' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, in a voice of dretful scorn. 'What will you ask me next?'

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but could you kindly tell me what he has for dinner?'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake uncoiled himself very quickly from the rock, and spanked the Elephant's Child with his scalesome, flailsome tail.

'That is odd,' said the Elephant's Child, 'because my father and my mother, and my uncle and my aunt, not to mention my other aunt, the Hippopotamus, and my other uncle, the Baboon, have all spanked me for my 'satiable curtiosity—and I suppose this is the same thing.'

So he said good-bye very politely to the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, and helped to coil him up on the rock again, and went on, a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating melons, and throwing the rind about, because he could not pick it up, till he trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees.

But it was really the Crocodile, O Best Beloved, and the Crocodile winked one eye—like this!

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but do you happen to have seen a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?'

Then the Crocodile winked the other eye, and lifted half his tail out of the mud; and the Elephant's Child stepped back most politely, because he did not wish to be spanked again.

'Come hither, Little One,' said the Crocodile. 'Why do you ask such things?'

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but my father has spanked me, my mother has spanked me, not to mention my tall aunt, the Ostrich, and my tall uncle, the Giraffe, who can kick ever so hard, as well as my broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, and my hairy uncle, the Baboon, and including the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, with the scalesome, flailsome tail, just up the bank, who spanks harder than any of them; and so, if it's quite all the same to you, I don't want to be spanked anymore.'

'Come hither, Little One,' said the Crocodile, 'for I am the Crocodile,' and he wept crocodile-tears to show it was quite true.

Then the Elephant's Child grew all breathless, and panted, and kneeled down on the bank and said, 'You are the very person I have been looking for all these long days. Will you please tell me what you have for dinner?'

'Come hither, Little One,' said the Crocodile, 'and I'll whisper.'

Then the Elephant's Child put his head down close to the Crocodile's musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose, which up to that very week, day, hour, and minute, had been no bigger than a boot, though much more useful.

'I think,' said the Crocodile—and he said it between his teeth, like this—'I think to-day I will begin with Elephant's Child!'

At this, O Best Beloved, the Elephant's Child was much annoyed, and he said, speaking through his nose, like this, 'Led go! You are hurtig be!'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled down from the bank and said, 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.'

This is the way Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.

Then the Elephant's Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the Crocodile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.

And the Elephant's Child's nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant's Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant's Child's nose grew longer and longer—and it hurt him hijjus!

Then the Elephant's Child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, 'This is too butch for be!'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant's Child's hind legs, and said, 'Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck' (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), 'will permanently vitiate your future career.'

That is the way all Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.

So he pulled, and the Elephant's Child pulled, and the Crocodile pulled; but the Elephant's Child and the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake pulled hardest; and at last the Crocodile let go of the Elephant's Child's nose with a plop that you could hear all up and down the Limpopo.

Then the Elephant's Child sat down most hard and sudden; but first he was careful to say 'Thank you' to the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake; and next he was kind to his poor pulled nose, and wrapped it all up in cool banana leaves, and hung it in the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo to cool.

'What are you doing that for?' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but my nose is badly out of shape, and I am waiting for it to shrink.'

'Then you will have to wait a long time,' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'Some people do not know what is good for them.'

The Elephant's Child sat there for three days waiting for his nose to shrink. But it never grew any shorter, and, besides, it made him squint. For, O Best Beloved, you will see and understand that the Crocodile had pulled it out into a really truly trunk same as all Elephants have to-day.

At the end of the third day a fly came and stung him on the shoulder, and before he knew what he was doing he lifted up his trunk and hit that fly dead with the end of it.

''Vantage number one!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'You couldn't have done that with a mere-smear nose. Try and eat a little now.'

Before he thought what he was doing the Elephant's Child put out his trunk and plucked a large bundle of grass, dusted it clean against his fore-legs, and stuffed it into his own mouth.

''Vantage number two!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'You couldn't have done that with a mear-smear nose. Don't you think the sun is very hot here?'

'It is,' said the Elephant's Child, and before he thought what he was doing he schlooped up a schloop of mud from the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo, and slapped it on his head, where it made a cool schloopy-sloshy mud-cap all trickly behind his ears.

''Vantage number three!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'You couldn't have done that with a mere-smear nose. Now how do you feel about being spanked again?'

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but I should not like it at all.'

'How would you like to spank somebody?' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.

'I should like it very much indeed,' said the Elephant's Child.

'Well,' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, 'you will find that new nose of yours very useful to spank people with.'

'Thank you,' said the Elephant's Child, 'I'll remember that; and now I think I'll go home to all my dear families and try.'

So the Elephant's Child went home across Africa frisking and whisking his trunk. When he wanted fruit to eat he pulled fruit down from a tree, instead of waiting for it to fall as he used to do. When he wanted grass he plucked grass up from the ground, instead of going on his knees as he used to do. When the flies bit him he broke off the branch of a tree and used it as a fly-whisk; and he made himself a new, cool, slushy-squshy mud-cap whenever the sun was hot. When he felt lonely walking through Africa he sang to himself down his trunk, and the noise was louder than several brass bands. He went especially out of his way to find a broad Hippopotamus (she was no relation of his), and he spanked her very hard, to make sure that the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake had spoken the truth about his new trunk.

This is the Elephant's Child having his nose pulled by the Crocodile. He is much surprised and astonished and hurt, and he is talking through his nose and saying, 'Led go! You are hurtig be!' He is pulling very hard, and so is the Crocodile; but the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake is hurrying through the water to help the Elephant's Child. All that black stuff is the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River (but I am not allowed to paint these pictures), and the bottly-tree with the twisty roots and the eight leaves is one of the fever-trees that grow there.

Underneath the truly picture are shadows of African animals walking into an African ark. There are two lions, two ostriches, two oxen, two camels, two sheep, and two other things that look like rats, but I think they are rock-rabbits. They don't mean anything. I put them in because I thought they looked pretty. They would look very fine if I were allowed to paint them.

The rest of the time he picked up the melon rinds that he had dropped on his way to the Limpopo—for he was a Tidy Pachyderm.

One dark evening he came back to all his dear families, and he coiled up his trunk and said, 'How do you do?' They were very glad to see him, and immediately said, 'Come here and be spanked for your 'satiable curtiosity.'

Pooh,' said the Elephant's Child. 'I don't think you peoples know anything about spanking; but I do, and I'll show you.'

Then he uncurled his trunk and knocked two of his dear brothers head over heels.

'O Bananas!' said they, 'where did you learn that trick, and what have you done to your nose?'

'I got a new one from the Crocodile on the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River,' said the Elephant's Child. 'I asked him what he had for dinner, and he gave me this to keep.'

'It looks very ugly,' said his hairy uncle, the Baboon.

'It does,' said the Elephant's Child. 'But it's very useful,' and he picked up his hairy uncle, the Baboon, by one hairy leg, and hove him into a hornet's nest.

This is just a picture of the Elephant's Child going to pull bananas off a banana-tree after he had got his fine new long trunk. I don't think it is a very nice picture; but I couldn't make it any better, because elephants and bananas are hard to draw. The streaky things behind the Elephant's Child mean squoggy marshy country somewhere in Africa. The Elephant's Child made most of his mud-cakes out of the mud that he found there. I think it would look better if you painted the banana-tree green and the Elephant's Child red.

Then that bad Elephant's Child spanked all his dear families for a long time, till they were very warm and greatly astonished. He pulled out his tall Ostrich aunt's tail-feathers; and he caught his tall uncle, the Giraffe, by the hind-leg, and dragged him through a thorn-bush; and he shouted at his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, and blew bubbles into her ear when she was sleeping in the water after meals; but he never let any one touch Kolokolo Bird.

At last things grew so exciting that his dear families went off one by one in a hurry to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to borrow new noses from the Crocodile. When they came back nobody spanked anybody any more; and ever since that day, O Best Beloved, all the Elephants you will ever see, besides all those that you won't, have trunks precisely like the trunk of the 'satiable Elephant's Child.

The Story of Mzilikazi

A True Zulu Story (Mzilikazi – Im-zilli-kha-zee)

Chaka Bannishes Mzilikazi to a Land North of the Limpopo River

An artist’s impression of Mzilikhazi based on a description

Mzilikazi (meaning The Great Road), was a Southern African king who founded the Matabele kingdom (Mthwakazi), Matabeleland, in what became Rhodesia and is now called Zimbabwe. He was born ca. 1790 near Mkuze (Im-koo-zeh), Zululand (now part of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa). The son of Matshobana whom many had considered to be the greatest Southern African military leader after the Zulu king Shaka. In his autobiography, David Livingstone referred to him as the second most impressive leader he encountered on the African Continent.

The territory of the Northern Khumalo was located near the Black Mfolozi River, squeezed between the lands of two strong rival groups: the expanding Mthethwa chiefdom of Dingiswayo and the land of the equally ambitious and much more ferocious Zwide of the Ndwandwe. Mzilikazi's boyhood was spent in the household of his grandfather Zwide. Inevitably, as he grew to manhood he observed the less powerful Khumalo being drawn into the conflict between Dingiswayo and Zwide.

On the death of Chief Mashobane, who had been murdered by Zwide, Mzilikazi was duly installed as chief of the Northern Khumalo clan. But, after Dingiswayo's death, instead of siding with Zwide, in exchange for the protection of his people, Mzilikazi swore allegiance to Shaka, who had risen to power as a commander of Dingiswayo's army and had usurped the Zulu chieftainship and taken over the Mthethwa confederacy after Dingiswayo’s death.

Proving himself a fearless warrior, Mzilikazi soon became one of Shaka's advisers. Shaka's trust, however, was misplaced. Mzilikazi dreamed of being a potentate himself. Dissatisfied with a life of subservience, he plotted to free himself and his people from Shaka's influence. In June 1822, Shaka sent Mzilikazi's regiments to attack the Sotho chief Ranisi (Somnisi). They pounced on the Sotho chief's defenceless rabble and drove away their herds. Defying Shaka, Mzilikazi refused to give up the spoils of battle and in June 1822, he bolted with his followers.

He took his tribe, the Khumalo, on an 800 km journey from the Zulu Kingdom to what is now called Zimbabwe. Along the way, he showed considerable statesmanship, as he was able to weld his own people and the many tribes he conquered into a large and ethnically diverse but centralised kingdom.

He first travelled to Mozambique but in 1826 he moved west into the Transvaal, now called Limpopo province, due to continued attacks by his enemies. As he conquered the Transvaal he absorbed many members of other tribes and established a military despotism, so called because of Mzilikazi's attacks in the Nzunza kraal at Esikhunjini, where the Nzunza king Magodongo and others were kidnapped and subsequently killed at Mkobola river.

For the next ten years, Mzilikazi dominated the Transvaal. This period, known locally as the Mfecane (Im-feh-kaa-neh - crushing) was characterised by devastation and murder on a grand scale as Mzilikazi removed all opposition and remodelled the territory to suit the new Ndebele (In-deh-beh-leh) order. He used the method of scorched earth to keep distance to all surrounding kingdoms. The death toll has never been satisfactorily determined, but the region was so depopulated that the Dutch Boers (Voortrekkers) were able to occupy and take ownership of the Highveld area without opposition in the 1830s.[1]

Moving north and northwest, as he pillaged and slaughtered, Mzilikazi rounded up the strong men and women, turning the men into army recruits and the women into concubines for his warriors, his possessions increasing with his power and prestige, and his followers numbering, in due course, more Sotho youths than Zulu. Having cleared for himself a wide area, Mzilikazi temporarily joined forces with Nxaba, a chieftain of the Nguni-speaking Ndzundza Ndebele community who lived in the Middelburg area. Here, he built the royal kraal ekuPhumuleni (Place of Rest). By then, the size of the Khumalo clan was swollen by other Nguni-speakers who had settled in the area.

During the early years of their migrations Sotho-speakers of the highveld called Nguni-speakers ‘maTebele', a name they used for all people who came from the coast, whereas the Nguni-speakers called themselves Ndebele. After the arrival of Mzilikazi on the highveld, the name Matabele became especially attached to his fearful hordes, and historians later wrote of this period referring to the Matabele wars. While living among the Ndzundza, Mzilikazi subjugated the old baPedi kingdom of Chief Thulare, killing five of his nine sons, but one son, Sekwati, fled north to the Soutpansberg Mountains, where his people were able to repulse Mzilikazi's attacks.

Mzilikazi settled for a while along the Vaal River until Korana cattle raiders became a threat. In the winter of 1827, Mzilikazi decided to move northwards. The Matabele army swept through the Magaliesberg via Kommandonek near the present Hartbeespoort Dam West of Tshwane, formerly Pretoria. Mzilikazi established temporary settlements near present-day Rustenburg, then launched into action against the baKwena, roasting some alive, clubbing most to death, and piling the infants onto mounds of brushwood, which were set ablaze. After falling on the Kwena at Silkaatsnek the Matabele turned on the Po who were easily overwhelmed. Kgatla Chief Pilane fled to the hills that now bear his name. Mzilikazi ruthlessly, massacred the remaining Tswana groups in the area. Using the Magaliesberg as his centre, Mzilikazi expanded his kingdom, which by then stretched from the Vaal River in the south to the confluence of the Crocodile and Limpopo Rivers.

Between 1827 and 1832, Mzilikazi built himself three military strongholds. The largest was Kungwini, situated at the foot of the Wonderboom Mountains on the Apies River, just north of present day Tshwane (Pretoria.) Another was Dinaneni, north of the Hartbeespoort Dam, while the third was Hlahlandlela in the territory of the Fokeng near Rustenburg.

By 1829, the total Matabele population numbered about 70,000, consisting of the Matabele elite and a vast number who had been enslaved. Most of the Tswana settlements were desolate.

In 1836 the (Dutch) Voortrekkers were invading the area occupied by the Ndebele without permission. Mzilikazi regarded this as trespassing. He was also unhappy with the fact that the Voortrekkers were poaching his game. So his troops attacked the Erasmus party, which were wiped out, and apart from two girls and a boy, who were sent to Mzilikazi as gifts, the Liebenburg party was also wiped out. The parties of Steyn and Botha withstood the attacks.

The party of Potgieter drew their wagons in a defensive circle, called a laager, at a hill east of the Renoster (Rhinoceros) River. The hill was later named Vechtkop (or Battle Hill). On 16 October 1836 General Kalipi of Mzilikazi's army attacked the party. They were unable to overpower the Voortrekker, but left with the Europeans' cattle. The Rolong people came to the asistance of the Voortrekkers, and they all left for Thaba Nchu, where they joined the party of Gert Maritz.

On 17 January 1837 the Voortrekkers (Afrikaaners) under Potgieter attacked Mosega and destroyed it.

In November 1837 the parties of Potgieter, Maritz and Uys attacked eGabeni. This attack lasted nine days, and eGabeni as well as other settlements along the Groot (big) Marico River were destroyed.

After this Mzilikazi and his people moved further north, first to the areas today in Botswana and Zambia, and later to the Matabeleland region of contemporary Zimbabwe, where they finally settled in 1840.

Mzilikazi organised the Ndebele people into a military system with regimental kraals. The Dutch-Afrikaans Boers were unable to defeat them in the attacks between 1847 and 1851. The Zuid-Arikaansche Republiek (South African Republic) signed a peace treaty with Mzilikazi in 1852.

David Livingstone regarded Mzilikazi as the second-most impressive African king he had ever met.

Mzilikazi had 200 wives. His main village was at Ko-Bulawayo which means "place of slaughter"

Mzilikazi was succeeded by his son Lobengula who lived from 1845 to 1894.

Mophene, Leeba and Nkwe