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Claude Maredza Correspondent
Now we go to the royalty which is our subject matter — the Norumedzo Royalty.

The uniqueness of the Nemeso or Norumedzo Royal House from all the other Fupajena royal houses has already been explained through the uniqueness of the Norumedzo founding father, Nemeso’s birth and the advance awarding of his inheritance by his father in the form of the place called Norumedzo as a way of isolating Nemeso from the rest of his Fupajena kith and kin because of his unique physical feature of having four eyes.

So, as already observed, Nemeso is one of Fupajena’s six sons.

Nemeso himself had three sons, namely, Nemahwi, Ragunha and Rapfirwa.

Because of the uniqueness of the way Nemeso was bequeathed with the territory called Norumedzo, he decided that his first born son, Nemahwi, would not be installed a King/Chief of Norumedzo.

Instead he was given the lofty position of being the installer of the King/Chief of Norumedzo.

Thus, Nemahwi takes a mhondoro/svikiro position in the affairs of the Norumedzo royalty.

The kingship/chieftainship of Norumedzo would therefore interchange between the houses of Ragunha and Rapfirwa.

Likewise, all sub-houses that would emanate from Nemahwi, i.e. all of Nemahwi’s direct children and descendants would, like Nemahwi himself, be installers of the Norumedzo Royalty and not be themselves kings/chiefs of Norumedzo.

Thus the Nemahwi house is the mhondoro/svikiro/zibambo house of Norumedzo.

Nemahwi’s sons are Rambanapasi (from where the late Professor Rambanapasi who created the Department of Rural and Urban Planning at the University of Zimbabwe descends), Tambara, Mugumisi and Mundirwira.

All these Nemahwi sons and their descendants are therefore installers of the Norumedzo Royalty, Mhondoro or Madzibambo makuru e Rumedzo and can themselves not become the kings/chiefs of Norumedzo although they hold a very lofty position — the highest position in fact in that royalty.

Rapfirwa’s sons are Rushambwa and Makukwa.

These rotate the Norumedzo Royalty with the Ragunha Royal House.

Ragunha seems to have had only one son called Muchinapaya.

Muchinapaya himself went on to have two sons, namely Chirume and Chikwira.

Chirume, the son of Muchinapaya, the son of Ragunha, then went on to have three sons, namely Maredza, Chikukuku and Muengererwa.

Unfortunately, Chikwira had no sons but daughters only in a palpably patriarchal set-up.

To solve this, a grandson of Chikwira’s called Mupura, the son of one of his daughters has been appointed to be Chirume’s envoy and representative in Norumedzo royal matters as they pertain to the Chikwira house which does not have a male representative as Chikwira had daughters only.

As we speak, the Royalty of Norumedzo is at the moment with Furanai Gwedegwe Chikwariro, commonly referred to as Gwedegwe, who descends from Rushambwa, who in turn is from the Rapfirwa Royal House.

From Gwedegwe, the Norumedzo Royalty will come to the Maredza Royal House which is a royal sub- house of the Norumedzo royal sub-house of Chirume, which itself is a Norumedzo royal sub- house of Muchinapaya, which itself is a Norumedzo royal sub-house of Ragunha Norumedzo Royal House.

Since Gwedegwe has not yet been officially installed as the official King/Chief Norumedzo, the Maredza Norumedzo Royal House is advised to prepare a beast, the n’ombe yenhurura, which will be slaughtered at Gwedegwe’s official installation but, more importantly, will serve as the official notification to the entirety of the Norumedzo Royalty of the Maredza Norumedzo Royal House being the next royal house from which the next Norumedzo Royal King/Chief after Gwedegwe will come, putting paid to all possible succession headaches.

The Norumedzo Royalty has had its fair share of succession squabbles.

This has been even more so given the economic benefits that the harurwa insects bring particularly to the person in the royal position of being King/Chief Norumedzo.

So we hope that the transition from Gwedegwe to Maredza will usher in a new more organised, recorded and therefore less problematic and peaceful succession era in the Norumedzo Royalty going forward.

There is an interesting matter of fact which is worth mentioning here. This again shows the importance of women in black African lives, deja vu Ngonya of the Gushungo clan.

The whole area occupied by the Vatombe people referred to as Mutsimba or KwaMutsimba actually belongs to Norumedzo. This area covers the whole expanse of land from where most of the Mutsimba people live (including the homestead of the just deceased erstwhile Bikita District Education Officer Mr Lawrence Jenjezwa Mutsimba, who untimely passed on from a diabetes complication on Saturday 17 September 2016 — May his soul rest in eternal peace), to Mudzami, Museti, Padenga, the Maturure area and the whole area where Silveira Mission is situated on.

This whole area now under Chief Mutsimba was once part of Norumedzo.

What then happened was that one of the Norumedzo royals, it’s not clear whether it was Ragunha or Rapfirwa or one of their descendants, married a Mutsimba girl called Sambi Matodzaani.

As bride prize, roora; amalobolo; the Mutsimba people asked to be given land in exchange for their daughter and they ended up with this vast expansive piece of land where most of the Vatombe in Bikita are found.

One wonders how beautiful this Sambi Matodzaani was because the size of land which she was exchanged for could be perhaps 20 or 30 times the size of the Principality of Monaco or a very significant chunk of Israel!

Or the Mutsimba Vatombe elders just schemed that now that their daughter had hit the jackpot and married into royalty, they must really hit hard and get the best out of this opportunity.

Yes, they did and in the end they created a little royalty for themselves too because now there is a Chief Mutsimba who came about because of this deal.

Well, the deal was made eons ago and has been respected to this very day and the Vatombe in Mutsimba and their Norumedzo royal in-laws live very happily and peacefully side by side without much ado which is the way it should be.

No surprises there. Prince Charles of England’s father changed his surname from Battenberg to Mountbatten so that he could shed his tainted German ancestry and adapt a politically correct English surname thus became an Englishman and this process gave him the legal wherewithal and legitimacy to marry Prince Charles’s mother, Elizabeth, the Queen of England.

And the man now lives in untold luxury. Even if the English royal protocol orders Prince Philip, English Prince Charles’ father, to walk at least five metres behind the English Queen Elizabeth, his wife, during the numerous official occasions which they attend together so that its clearly and undoubtedly physically established to the world who is in charge and in control, that is all water under the bridge which counts for nothing.

Battenberg changed his name to Mountbatten so that he would become more English than German and in the process got himself a jackpot when this change of name allowed him to marry the Queen of England. And from the moment he married Elizabeth, the Queen of England, the man has been living large and continues to live large and will continue to hear about poverty on radio and television news till the day he dies!

So whether he walks five metres or five kilometres behind his wife so that the world clearly sees that Queen Elizabeth is the English royal and Prince Philip is a mere royal companion of his wife, the Queen, that is neither here nor there.

The man is in the lap of untold luxury because he married royalty.

So such matters which are aimed at further deepening already cordial bilateral relations between people happen all the time in this mystery called life.

Nothing untoward about that at all.

So the above just about very accurately captures the present calibration of the Norumedzo royalty and also accurately attempts to show how the Norumedzo royalty relates to the vast retinue of its Moyo Chirandu (Duma) Karanga relatives of Bikita/Masvingo, other Moyo Chirandus and Karangas in Zimbabwe and indeed other Zimbabweans and Africans.

As we unravel our history on our own, we hope this encourages others, not just the Moyo Chirandus but the generality of Zimbabweans and indeed Africans and black people in general to try and piece their different stories as far back as they can go as indeed this restores our pride of being and our sense of who we are and also strengthens our resolve to claim our legitimate share of this cake called Zimbabwe, this cake called Africa, this cake called the global village because if we don’t, somebody else will claim our share of this cake and eat it on our behalf.

We will not be forgiven if we allow that to happen. We cannot even start forgiving ourselves for such a reckless act. There is a share of this world’s wealth specifically meant for us and us only and us alone. It is our duty to claim that share of this world’s wealth which is meant for us and make that wealth generational and in the process bring generational happiness to us, our children, their children and the rest of progeny to follow.

Claude Maredza is a member of the Moyo Chirandu (Duma) Dynasty, specifically of Norumedzo Village ( KuHarurwa), Bikita, Masvingo, Zimbabwe and is, in fact, a Crown Prince of the Norumedzo Moyo Chirandu (Duma) Kingdom Royalty.  He has doctoral level formal education and everything else below that besides other professional qualifications. He is also a well known published author and film writer/producer/director/actor. His contact details are: e mail: [email protected]; phone: 00 263 (0) 77 2 382 099.