Test de jarras

political and ritual spheres, although as we will see, these

are in the end dimensions of the same thing. Of the three it

is often ritual rivalries that are remembered most v i v idly today.

Explanations of conflict framed in ritual or magical terms must

obviously be treated with considerable caution, since they can

easily be no more than a convenient shorthand for a more complex

causation, or simply a device for explaining conflict away.

However, with the Swazi, there are signs that there are more

to such explanations than simply mystifying conflict of a more

material kind. S o b h u z a ’s attack on Mnjoli Magagula underlines

this point. When Sobhuza occupied central Swaziland, one of

his earliest campaigns was against M n j o l i fs branch of the

(4) Interview Mboziswa Mnisi; interview Mashabhane Magagula; interview Mhawu Gamedze, Loshina Gamedze, Moyeni Mamba, 29 June 1970, Mandlenya,Swaziland; interview Mandlabovu

Fakudze; interview Mjole Sifundza; interview Hehhane Ngwenya; Bryant, Olden T i m e s , 341-4; Kuper, A r i s t o c r a c y , 16; M.P., MS 1478, Miller, ^ h o r t History* 17; interview Mahloba G u m e d e .

(5) Interview Hehhane Ngwenya; interview Guzana Mncina; interview Loncayi Hlophe; interview Mahloba Gumede; interview Mankwempe Magagula.

doubly determined to break M n j o l i fs power were the rain-making

attributes he reputedly enjoyed. As a general rule in southern

Africa, Sotho chiefdoms have enjoyed a greater reputation for

rain-making than their Nguni counterparts, and Sobhuza was

sufficiently anxious to assure himself of M n j o l i fs medicines

to have him allegedly slit open when he thought they had been

swallowed (6). By this or some other means the M a g a g u l a 1s

rain-making powers were appropriated, and from this derived

much of his vaunted power in this field. However, what Sobhuza

neglected to do was to extend the same policy to other

Emakhandzambi1e chiefdoms, whose ritual authority remained

largely intact. The challenge that this came to represent to

royal authority is difficult to understand, unless one appreciates

the close identification between religious and political

activities in Swazi thought. In common with most other p r e ­

capitalist societies, nineteenth century Swazi society did not

conceptualise its various activities in terms of discrete and

sharply defined categories of religion, politics, economics and

so on. Religious and secular life were interwoven with each

other at all levels, and no hard and fast division existed in

every day life between religious and political roles.

Consequently, as in medieval Europe where religious schism was

automatically equated with political secession, in Swaziland

169

the assertion of independent religious or magical powers almost

invariably connoted an attempt to usurp political powers as

well. Moreover, because of the interchangeability of these

two fields of action, a political challenge was expressed as

often as not in religious or magical terms. The political

significance of this cosmology can be seen at its starkest in

the iNcwala celebrations, where ritual subordination to the king

was a declaration of personal loyalty, and where a failure to

participate represented an act of revolt (7). In much the same

way, the simple retention of magical and religious powers by

various of the Emakhandzambile chiefdoms was liable to be

interpreted by Mswati as a potential threat to his position,

for it not only challenged his ritual ascendency, but also

emphasised links with their independent past, which in turn

could be viewed as a kind of cultural separatism. As a result,

the desire to eliminate ritual autonomies figured prominently

in M s w a t i ’s motives for attacking Emakhandzambile chiefs. The

clearest and least ambiguous example can be found in the case

of the Mnisi, who were attacked because their pretensions as

rain-makers rivalled those of Mswati, but similar elements were

present in a number of other clashes (8). Thus, according to

some accounts, Shewula, the Sifundza chief, is supposed to have

compounded his other crimes by asserting his ritual autonomy,

while both the Mngometfulo and one section of the Mahlalela

seem to have underpinned their political ambitions with extensive

(7) Kuper, ’R i t u a l ’, 230, note 3, 239; Kuper, A r i s t o c r a c y , 223-5. (8) Interview Mboziswa Mnisi.

claims to magical and ritual powers (9).

Despite the emphasis placed on ritual factors in some accounts

of this period, it is also evident that Mswati was activated by

specifically political designs. Some kind of political or

institutional reform was certainly long overdue. Swaziland

remained the deeply stratified society it had been in S o b h u z a 1s

time, combining the elements of political exclusion at the centre

and a wide measure of autonomy outside, which was a ready-made

prescription for political unrest. Mswati tackled the problem

both positively and negatively by attempting to impose a greater

degree of integration, and by weakening the powers of the localities

to resist. Again the origins of these policies lie earlier in

his reign. Even before the 1847 invasion, Mswati set about

restructuring the administrative system by accelerating the

dispersal of Dlamini princes to the provinces; by mobilising

the regiments on a more permanent basis; and by setting up a

more comprehensive network of royal villages to monitor and

control a variety of local activities. Each of these measures

has been discussed in a previous chapter, as has the wave of

unrest that followed the reforms (10). Mswati was forced to

back-track for a while when faced with this resistence, but

once the capital was shifted from Ekufiyeni to Hhohho the process

was once again cautiously resumed. According to Tikuba, Mswati,

"constantly kept his regiments about him", and it is likely that

he sought an increasingly permanent mobilisation with the passage

(9) Interview Mjole Sifundza; Kuper, Arist o c r a c y , 198, note 1. (10) Above, 80, 84-7.

171

of time (11). The permanent presence of the regiments at the

royal capital conferred benefits of a variety of kinds. It