“The hardest lesson of my life has come to me late. It is that a nation can win freedom without its people becoming free” — Joshua Nkomo (1917 – 1999).
Image (A-side): Bulawayo, Main St.
Image (B-side): Matebele Maidens by a Nguni Maize Granary
Product: Original, Black and White, Halftone print
Photographer: Unknown
Publisher: Double Day & Page
Grade: Very Fine +++
Dimensions: Approximately 5 x 7.5 inches; 13 x 19 cm (Light aging throughout. No creases. No natural defects. No surface rub. No tears. No water damage. Printing on verso.)
Authentication: Serial-Numbered Certificate of Authenticity w/ Full Provenance
Country: Mthwakazi-Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia)
Year: 1924
Price: Not for sale
This is a 100-year-old print* of the 130-year-old cityscape of New Bulawayo in 1924 which I obtained through a dealership in 2024.
“Ngingobulawayo, (they want to kill me),” [Clarke & Nyathi, 2010] were the iconic words of King Lobengula (1836 – unknown), son of King Mzilikazi kaMashobana (c.1790 – 1868) in 1868-70, a two-year period where his Right to the Mthwakazi Crown was hotly contested by Chief Mbiko kaMadlenya Masuku and his Zwangendaba regiment. Originally known as Gibixhegu (1870-2), King Lobengula burned down Old Bulawayo on 2 November 1893 at the height of the First “Matabele” War (October 1893 – January 1894), with the British South Africa Company’s “Pioneer Column” occupying it a day later coming from the neighbouring British Mashonaland Protectorate (1890–1923) in the east. The slower British Batswanaland Protectorate (“Benchuanaland”) column troops coming from the west arrived late on 15 November. The BSAC in 1894 created the illegal British Matabeleland Protectorate (Meredith, 2007) based on the Sesotho nickname “matebele” which was never the name of the Mthwakazi State (1840–1893). In the north, Bulawayo had been neighbouring the British Barotseland Protectorate (1889–1911).
While officially 130-years-old having been declared a town on 1 June 1894, the city is a combined 160-years-old. Bulawayo is thus a feeling. Working with Matabeleland rural communities in the early 2000s, I was pleasantly surprised to hear them identify as “being Bulawayo” – ngingo Bulawayo.
Neither ngingobulawayo nor ngingo Bulawayo refer or translate to “place of death/killing”.
*
The image shows the American-style design of the city’s famous Main Street at its intersection with 8th Avenue where the statue of Cecil Rhodes stood from 1905-1981. Rhodes is said to have wanted the city to have wide streets which could hitch horses and move their wagon carriages “to avoid the crowded conditions of Johannesburg”. Also pictured is a legendary Ford Model T automobile.
Present-day visitors to Bulawayo will note the remarkably wide streets. Main has since been renamed Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo St. after the political stalwart who shook colonial Rhodesia to its knees. His statue was installed on that spot post-humously in 2013 and has become a tourist attraction, Es’thombeni.
The City of Bulawayo may be named after KwaBulawayo, the once capital of King Shaka’s Zulu Empire whom the Nguni-branch of the Mthwakazi Empire are cousins of, having originated in the northeast present-day KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Before King Lobengula was born, King Shaka after surviving an assassination is said to have proclaimed, “ngingobulawayo!” Prior to that, King Shaka’s residence was also called Gibixhegu (Fynn, 1950:30). As history will have it, nostalgic pre-third millenium migrants used to name new places after their homelands of prestige:
e.g. Amsterdam, Nederland (1275) → a. New Amsterdam, US (1623, present-day New York); b. Nieuw Amsterdam, Nederland (1851); c. Amsterdam, South Africa (1868; 1882, present-day eMvelo); d. Amsterdam, Canada (1900s).
Emthumbankomo: King Mzilikazi’s first capital is ruined in Entumbane, South Africa, and the king is interred in Entumbane, Zimbabwe (Khumalo, 2022:44).
Legend
- Clarke, M.F. & Nyathi, P. (2010). Lozikeyi Dlodlo: Queen of the Ndebele.
- Meredith, M. (2007). Diamonds, Gold & War: The British, the Boers and the Making of South Africa.
- Fynn, H.F. (1950). The Diary of.
- Khumalo, P.Z. (2022). Ndebele Monarchy Revival (1990 – 2022): The Good, the Bad & the Ugly That You Did Not Know.
- Special mention to Phathisa Nyathi (1951 – 2024) who was the erstwhile historian to reclaim the meaning of Bulawayo as “ngingobulawayo” and not the incorrect “place of death”.
- Special mention to my mom Siboniso Ndhlovu (née Mlalazi: 1966 – 2020) who was the first person to teach me about King Mzilikazi when I was a child.
- * There is simply no way that this print is 100 years old. While the image shows Bulawayo in 1924, I believe this is a 1970s print – SJ (Joshua Nkomo Day, 1 July 2024).
Cite this:
Jermain, S. (2024, July 1). Bulawayo, Main St. (1924). Sonny Jermain Online. https://sonnyjermain.com/art/bulawayo-main-st-1924/
Parenthetical: (Jermain, 2024)
Narrative: Jermain (2024)
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