User:Andisa mncunzwa

Mzongwana

Mzongwana is an administrative area of Nhlangwini tribe located in the outskirts of the Eastern Cape under Matatiele local municipality in the Alfred Ndzo District Municipality.

The Nhlangwini kaNombalela nation is made up of tribes and clans. Clans are groups of families with different surnames but sharing one clan name. For example, Dlamini is the clan, Baleni is a surname. The clan name originated from the first ancestor or family that gave birth to the clan. Clans make up tribes e.g (Nhlangwini) and tribes make up nations (Mzongwana).

Mzongwana was the first son of Chief Sidoyi and Masithole Baleni the fist wife of the ten (10) wives of Sidoyi ka Baleni ka Sikhwashe ka Nongcama ka ka Mkhwebu ka Mabandla ka Dlamini wesibini ka Sibalukhulu. Sidoyi was the chief of

Sidoyi kaBaleni was the inkosi of a branch of the Nhlangwini people from 1850 to 1882. In 1857, after attacking a neighbouring chiefdom, he fled Natal and settled at Mzimkhulu. Here, he and his followers lived under the authority of the Griqua and later Cape governments. Sidoyi is viewed in colonial records as a minor but potentially problematic chief. He is regarded as a man who was misled by malcontents among the Griqua, but eventually became a useful ally to the Cape government after being convinced to co-operate with local officials.

In 1880 Chief Sidoyi was approached by the colonial government to go and invade the Basotho from Lesotho who illegally crossed borders and took occupancy of the land which was then under a small town called Swartburg in KZN. The fight with Basotho- Sidoyi took from his Nhlangwini tribe of AmaDlamini strong soldiers to go and fight Basotho who were under Chief Matiase occupying about 265 h actors of the land of the South African colonial government whom also took it from our forefathers. Sidoyi was promised to be given the portion of the land if he succeeded in driving away the Basotho’s to their country of origin.

MfelaMadoda- Sidoyi and his Soldiers successfully drove the Basotho away across the Lesotho and South African borders on Drakensburg mountains. When the soldiers were on their way back still going down those mountains in small groups. Apparently the Basotho’s hide their families in the caves of those mountains so that they may be safe from the fighting. Then the small group that was behind saw the beauty of these women and they decided to help themselves and little did they know that Basotho’s are on their way to look for their families, found them there at their weakest moments and killed them. Sidoyi discovered that his men died on those mountains and they come to burry them at the foot of the mountains. That place is called even today MfelaMadoda (where men died). 140 years later their graves are still there now a private farm.

Sidoyi then gave the land to mamaDlamini and his son Mzongwana became a chieftain of Nhlangwini kaNombalela.

In 1883 Mzongwana and the first few amaDlamni families officially moved to occupy the land and the Area is called after the Mzongwana the first chieftain to rule.