Cultural

To what extent did slavery exist in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe?
I have been told that slavery did not exist in the region of Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe;...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Examining how the author Richard Nicklin Hall (1853-1914) justified his thesis that Zimbabwe’s gold mines were dug in ancient times by foreign miners
IntroductionHall’s thesis that the gold mines found throughout then Southern Rhodesia, now...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
The death of Cecil John Rhodes at his Muizenberg cottage in 1902
Rhodes in 1901From March to May in 1901 Rhodes was at Kimberley overseeing De Beers business and...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
Rhodes Memorial, Cape Town
IntroductionThe Rhodes Memorial is a tribute to the English-born politician and mining magnate...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
Forbes’ retreat down the Shangani river in December 1893
For background information on the incidents leading up to this event read the article James Dawson...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Was Archibald Ross Colquhoun; first Administrator of Mashonaland 1890 – 92, a failure or was he actively undermined by Dr Jameson?
In his article ‘Colquhoun in Mashonaland: A Portrait of Failure’ in Rhodesiana...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
James Theodore Bent and Mabel Virginia Anna Bent gave many artefacts to the British Museum from Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) collected during and after their excavation at Great Zimbabwe in 1891
IntroductionThe story of the Bents’ excavation at Great Zimbabwe is told in the article The...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
‘Matabele’ Wilson looks back on his time at Umvutcha kraal
This article written by Benjamin ‘Matabele’ Wilson appeared in the publication of the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
The First Pioneers of Matabeleland; notes on the early Missionaries by Sir Robert Tredgold
This article was written by Sir Robert Clarkson Tredgold[1] and was published within the Occupation...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Snatched from death in a flooded river
This article is about the perils of maintaining the Telegraph line in 1893 with the incident...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
The Railway comes to Bulawayo – the town’s festivities in November 1897
The railway reached Bulawayo at about 3pm on the afternoon of Tuesday 22 October 1897. On that day...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
Article – When Bulawayo was young
This article comprises items in brief from early newspapers included in the Occupation of...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
The Carnegie Family – three generations in the country by 1933
The photograph below is of interest because it portrays four generations of family, three of which...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland South
Two of Lobengula’s Relics
The fortieth anniversary of the occupation of Matabeleland was commemorated by an official...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
Fenella Redrup who danced the Polka with Cecil Rhodes
This interview with Fenella Redrup was included in the souvenir brochure Occupation of Matabeleland...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
The Bent’s archaeological expedition to Great Zimbabwe in 1891 and the prominent part played by Mabel Bent
SourceMuch of the information in this article comes from the very comprehensive website Theodore...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
Ernest Hamilton South, the pioneer farmer who imported the 1903 Ivel tractor, now at the Mutare Museum, into Southern Rhodesia
BackgroundI am grateful to Barry South, the grandson of Ernest South, who contacted me and sent the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland West
Transparency International’s latest Index of Public Services Corruption
Transparency International released the latest version of their annual Corruption Perceptions Index...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Some History on Chief Sileya (Shona: Chireya) and the Vashangwe community in the Sebungwe district
This article is composed from a number of articles in NADA (The Southern Rhodesia Native Affairs...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
A Native Commissioner’s life in the Sebungwe District prior to World War I
IntroductionIn his autobiography, The Log of a Native Commissioner, Herbert Nassau Hemans (1871...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
The part played by religion in the Mashona Rebellion (First Chimurenga) in 1896-7 as told by Terence Ranger in Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896-7
Both this article and the article The part played by religious factors in the 1896-7 Matabele...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland East
The Kirby family and their Salvation Army connection in early Rhodesia with the Usher Institute from 1946 and the Tshelanyemba Institute in the Semokwe Reserve from 1948 – 1954 followed by international assignments in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia
Part 1 of 2 is under Mashonaland Central.Leonard Andrew Kirby, the father of the author of this...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland South
The Kirby family and their Salvation Army connection in early Rhodesia with the Pearson Settlement Farm from 1920 and the Howard Institute from 1923 (Part 1 of 2)
Leonard Andrew Kirby, the father of the author of this article is referred to as “Dad,...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
This rotten Law does Zimbabwe no credit at all; Tendai Biti says, “Not even Apartheid Rhodesia passed such repugnant law”
How did this oppressive piece of legislation come about?At the same time as President Mnangagwa...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
The death of Frederick Courteney Selous (31 December 1851 – 4 January 1917)
IntroductionThis article concentrates on the end of Selous’ life. Two names on the Great War...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Frederick Courteney Selous’ hunting trips from 1876 – 1885 with records from his original game book
BackgroundFrederick Courteney Selous needs no introduction to readers interested in the history of...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
A letter written by Frederick Courteney Selous to his mother on 25 December 1878 from Inyati Mission
What set Selous apart from the other sporting pioneers of Zambesia in the 187-80’s were his...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Zimbabwe’s artisanal gold miners risk being poisoned with mercury (Hg)
Gold is integral to Zimbabwe’s economyArtisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM)[i]...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Midlands
Mugabe divorce papers expose their vast wealth
What’s the issue?Robert Mugabe’s 33 year-old daughter Bona Mugabe filed for divorce in...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Politics and thievery mean the same thing in Zimbabwe
The recent Al Jazeera documentary called Gold Mafia, a four-part investigation by their...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Thomas Leask’s elephant hunting trip to Matabeleland and Mashonaland in 1866 from his diary
IntroductionThomas Leask made the following journeys into the interior: Bechuanaland (1865)...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland West
Inyati and the activities of the London Missionary Society in Matabeleland from 1859
Introduction Most of what follows is taken from two sources. The first is the Reverend William...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
The Great Dance or Inxwala Festival
Background to the Great DanceThe Inxwala, or Great Ceremony, usually called the Great Dance, in the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
Early traveller’s impressions of Gubulawayo
A map of the approximate positions of the amaNdebele royal kraals of Kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
A Visit to Lobengula at the King’s Kraal or Umvutcha in 1889 – Lieut-Col. H. Vaughn-Williams recalls his stay after 57 years
IntroductionLieut-Col. H. Vaughn-Williams’ book A Visit to Lobengula in 1889 was published 57...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
The 1880 journey of Rev Father Augustus Henry Law S.J. and others to Mzila’s kraal in south-eastern Zimbabwe
AcknowledgementsThe Zambesi Mission itself is comprehensively covered in the book Journey to...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Manicaland
Wildfires: Zimbabwe’s scourge
The problem of wildfires is not peculiar to Zimbabwe alone, but Zimbabwe does has one of the worst...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland West
Richard Leakey, fossil hunter and champion of elephants
World-renowned Kenyan conservationist and fossil hunter Richard Erskine Frere Leakey, whose...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
ENACT’s Report on Corruption in Africa and Zimbabwe
BackgroundIn this report we look at the results of the ENACT report Africa Organised Crime Index...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Dr James Johnston’s account of a journey across Africa (Part 5 of 5 - From Massi-Kessi to Chinde via the mission stations of British Central Africa Protectorate, present day Malawi)
13 July 1892. They leave Massi-Kessi going east for 175 km (108 miles) because there has been...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Manicaland
Dr James Johnston’s account of a journey across Africa (Part 4 of 5 - From Palapye, formerly Palachwe, to Massi-Kessi, now Manica)
30 March 1892. We reached Palachwe, present-day Palapye, the main town of the Mangwato (referred to...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
Dr James Johnston’s account of a journey across Africa (Part 3 of 5 - From Sesheke to Bamangwato, including the Victoria Falls)
31 January 1892. We made a long run today, from 7am until we reached Sesheke where Dr Livingstone...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Dr James Johnston’s account of a journey across Africa in 1891-2 (Part 2 of 5 - Arrival in the Barotse Valley)
29 November 1891. “This morning, instead of starting, the carriers, led by two rascals, Bwete...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Dr James Johnston’s account of a journey across Africa in 1891-2 (Part 1 of 5 - Benguela, Angola to the Barotse Valley)
IntroductionJames (Jas) Johnston funded the expedition himself, he believed this was the only way...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Which Zimbabwean individuals and companies have been sanctioned by the USA / UK?
BackgroundIn a recent survey by Afrobarometer[i] which examined Zimbabwean citizens’...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
UK Parliament postpones the trophy hunting ban yet again
Background to the current situationSources estimate that worldwide some 1.7 million trophies were...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Zimbabwe’s illicit Gold Market hinders the country’s development
BackgroundAlmost all the information below is sourced from the Global Initiative against...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Midlands
The Old and the New
By Alois MavenekaThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland East
The history of the Chiota tribe
By Patience TuhweThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland East
Origins and legends of the Shona-speaking people
By Samuel GudzaThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
Gore was a greedy man
By Darwin ChakabvaThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland West
Sharing and family unity
By Lamech MhondoroThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland East
Some important Shona customs and ceremonies
By Peter SangoThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the best...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
A rainmaking ceremony and the burial of a Chief
By Sydney NyatsanzaThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
Three Ceremonies for the Dead
By Taona T.H. ChabudapasiThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
The importance of the Ancestors and the installation of a Chief
By Mlambo Manyezu MathiasThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
Traditional Ceremonies which persist
By Dominic M. MandazaThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Types of Witchdoctors (N’angas)
By Emmanuel Asaph Tony NapataThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
Witches and Witchcraft
By Ignatius M. ZvarevasheThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
Shona Religion
By Ignatius M. ZvarevasheThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland West
Roora and Marriage
By Lydia JanhiThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the best...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
An analysis of Roora
By Jaison AndifasiThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland East
The uses of cattle in Shona Society
By Langton DoreThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
Cattle: the life-blood of Shona Society
By Fidelis Bere-Chikara These stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Cattle are our Bank
By T.K.M. TsodzoThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland West
Cattle and Social Status
By D.H. MakamureThese stories of Shona Customs were first published in 1970 and were amongst the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland East
O.C. Rawson (1874 – 1953) of Darwendale
The following story of Otto Christian Rawson[i] ‘O.C.'s’ early life in Darwendale...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland West
Patrick Campbell, husband of Mrs Patrick Campbell who went to Mashonaland and was killed in the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902
Patrick Campbell, husband of Mrs Patrick Campbell who went to Mashonaland and was killed in the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Could this breakthrough ‘that changes the course of public health history’ help Zimbabwe defeat the menace of malaria?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has given the go-ahead for the launch of an effective malaria...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
World Wildlife Crime Report – Rhino Horn
IntroductionThis article almost entirely relies on the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
World Wildlife Crime Report – Elephant Ivory
Introduction This article almost entirely relies on the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
World Wildlife Crime Report – Pangolins
IntroductionThis article almost entirely relies on the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
World Wildlife Crime Report: Trafficking in protected species 2020 - Overview
Background This website has highlighted the plight of Chinese farmed wildlife in previous articles...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Masvingo
Changing Chinese perceptions about elephant ivory
Singapore just banned ivory product sales; so will demand reduce?In Singapore sellers of elephant...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Midlands
The Mutapa (Mwenemutapa, Monomotapa) State in its heyday c.1480 – c.1623
IntroductionThe article The Rise of the Mutapa State and the early arrival of the Portuguese c.1450...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
The rise of the Mutapa State and the early arrival of the Portuguese c.1450 - c.1480
The first limitation in writing any article on the Mutapa state is the absence of original and...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
Traditional Leaders in Zimbabwe are still seen as influential, but in all provinces citizens overwhelmingly want them to stay out of politics
Background: Masvingo High Court rules that traditional leaders should stay out of partisan...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
Chinese mining companies are causing turmoil in the Mavuradonha Wilderness Area
Where is the Mavuradonha Wilderness Area?Ask most Zimbabweans if they ever heard of the Mavuradonha...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
Kenneth Kaunda who died on 17 June 2021 aged 97; the last of Africa’s true Independence leaders and one of the few that stepped down
Kenneth Kaunda, first president of Zambia following Zambia’s independence in 1964 and the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Francisco Barreto’s military expedition up the Zambesi river in 1569 to conquer the gold mines of Mwenemutapa (Monomotapa)
The background to the military expedition J. Boxer writes that there was no doubt that in seeking...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
Oh dear, another foiled gold smuggling attempt is linked to the Zimbabwe President’s family
Some months ago, we reported that on 26 October 2020 Henrietta Rushwaya was caught at Robert...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Midlands
When THIEVES fall out, honest men come by their own
How a ZANU-PF politician amassed wealth through corruptionHow did we learn about all this wealth...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
South Africa makes the correct decision on the future of wildlife including lion breeding, rhino horn and the elephant ivory trade
South Africa makes the correct decision on the future of wildlife including lion breeding, rhino...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Corruption in Zimbabwe - Transparency International reveals the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2020
The organisation ranks 180 countries by how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. ...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
The 1561 martyrdom of Dom Gonçalo da Silveira, S.J.
The 1561 martyrdom of Dom Gonçalo da Silveira, S.J.Like Antonio Fernandes, Silveira was one of the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
Zimbabwe’s artisanal miners, popularly known as makorokoza, risk their lives to make a decent living
SourcesThis article is a very abbreviated summary from the following publications which readers may...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Midlands
Saving the Pangolin from the Wildlife trade where they are being increasingly trafficked
Pangolins are the most endangered mammal that you have never heard of. There are eight species of...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Big game hunters in present-day Zimbabwe until 1880
 E.E. Burke in the Foreword to Bethell’s Notes on South African Hunting says the story...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
Canned Lion hunting and the horrible trade to the Far East in wild animal parts
The Daily Telegraph on 15 June 2020 carried an editorial promoting Michael Ashcroft’s newly...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Carl Peters and The Eldorado of the Ancients
IntroductionCarl Peters (1856 – 1918) was a German explorer, author, self-publicist and...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Manicaland
The first European Visitors to view the Victoria Falls before the end of 1880
The first European Visitors to view the Victoria Falls before the end of 1880The list below...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
The naturalist Frank Oates who visited the Victoria Falls on 31 December 1874 and died only 36 days later of fever
Frank Oates (1840 - 1875) was the quintessential Victorian naturalist; his discoveries are...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
The adventures and hardships of a shooting trip to Barotseland and the Victoria Falls in 1875 – 76
The following account is from the diary[i] of Norman MacLeod (entries are in Italics) and the...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Modern humans originated from Botswana, the ancestral homeland for all anatomically modern humans today, but left due to climate change
Three hundred kilometres south of Victoria Falls are the Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana – a...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Thomas Baines – more paintings from his Zambezi journey
Thomas Baines – more paintings from his Zambezi journeyMuch of the detail of the Zambezi...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Thomas Baines’ disastrous 1858-9 Zambezi Expedition with David Livingstone
The Zambezi expedition There is no consistency in the Victorian descriptions of the 1858-9 Zambezi...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Matabeleland North
Baden-Powell in Matabeleland during 1896 where he learned the principles of Scouting
IntroductionRobert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (22 February 1857 – 1941) (he pronounced his...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Bulawayo
Next year will be better and the verse of ‘T’
Hylda Richards and her husband Tom farmed in Kent before the tobacco boom of the mid 1920’s...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Mashonaland Central
The Loyal Women’s Guild and the Pioneer Memorial Crosses
In the five years of writing articles for my website, I have come across a few of the remaining...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare
Avondale and the story of Countess Billie
AvondaleEdward O’Connell Farrell (1850 – 1910)Edward O’Connell Farrell, a pioneer...
Category: Cultural
Location:
Harare

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