Who is Shona?

Remember... remember.... the term was coined by the Ndebele. It was then misintepreted by colonialists, for the main purpose of colonising an area as big as they could.

It was extended to include a very large collection of ethnic groups with whom the Ndebele never had contact. Because of strong similarity of language and culture from Hwange, Plumtree to Chimoio, Mukumbura most ethnic groups in this geographic region have grown to accept being called Shonas, not because that is the name they gave themselves, but because that is the name that is in popular use.

That umbrella term, applies to clans who were already in the region for thousands of years such as VaRozvi, maShangwe, etc and clans that are recent arrivals such as my own clan vaBarwe, vaNjanja, etc.

Do not make the mistake of trying to attribute the Shona to a single ethnic origin. Yes some Shona clans came from great lakes region such as VaTsunga, vaBarwe, etc. Other Shona clans such as vaRozvi, vaRemba, maUngwe etc have been in the region much longer. Some of these clans may be offshoots of other neighbouring cultures such as Kalanga and Venda.

But because of the way the recently coined term Shona has been applied to the region, it now applies to all of these clans, newcomers and oldcomers alike. It is more a marker of common culture than a marker of ethnic origin.

If you now say the older clans should not be called Shona but be solely referred to by their old names, then why should the newcomer clans not be referred to by their old names too and not be called Shona.

If you do not accept use of the term Shona for some clans such as vaRemba (with surnames like Hove, Zvakavapano, Hamandishe, Mukwakwami, etc) then you should also reject it for all the other clans and use their original names such as vaBarwe, vaTsunga, vaHera, etc. In other words you should not use the term Shona at all because in such a context it applies to noone.

Take for example myself. My surname is not even characteristically Shona like Hamandishe, Zvakavapano and Mukwakwami. These are the surnames of known vaRemba families. Mine does not have a meaning in the Shona language as those other surnames do.

It is more commonly rendered as Ponongwe in chiChewa chakuNyanja, Sena and Tumbuka. VaBarwe folklore says we came from around Sena in Mozambique.

Why should you apply the term Shona to us vaBarwe and remove it from vaRemba, who are right next door to where the term was invented?

When we consider the origins ofthe term Shona (abantu betshonalanga) it most likely applied to the Kalanga and Nambya who were to the West of the Ndebele as they arrived in the region. It is only later misinterpretation by the colonialists that extended it to the rest of the country.

Of course this was helped by the similarities of language and culture throughout the region. Take for example a typical Kalanga book, Nhau dzabaKalanga. Rendered in Karanga dialect it would be Nhau DzavaKaranga, in Zezuru dialect Nhau DzevaKaranga, in chiManyika Nhau dzowaKaranga. These dialects cover the geographic area from Mberengwa to Chimoio in Mozambique.

The problem seems to be that the communities in close contact with the Ndebele who are often throwing insults at anything 'Shona' are now trying to remove the term from themselves in order to escape the insults.

People if the term was invented to insult you, you will still be insulted by other means even if you reject the term.

A Ndebele friend once told me that Dabengwa is the Kalanga/Nambya rendition of Tavengwa. He was explaining to me that the Dabengwas were offspring of Mzilikazi who ran away because of internal disputes to settle among the Kalanga. According to him the surname came about because they explained to the Kalanga that they were hated by their fellow Ndebele which in Shona would be tavengwa.