508 KUMDESIAN RUINS. 



to take the stones as the\- found them (as they had not time to 

 trim them. The son of tliis Mamho, whom we killed, went over 

 to Chibi to the Zimbabwe there. Inyaningwe is the name of the 

 mountain near the ruins (Zimbal)we). Inhamohamo was the 

 name of the cliief. J le was the son of this Maml)0. lie built 

 it first. 



"The same Mamijo (of Thaba's ka IMambo ) who built 

 1 )hlo-J_)hlo. when the .\niaswazi drove him out of Dhlo-Dhlo 

 eame over to '1 lialKi's ka Aiaml)o and built it. The stones were 

 onl}- for the fort ; the houses inside were ordinary hitts. They 

 were hidint,'- in the towers dm-ing" the hghtino-. The river at 

 Zimljal)we is a sliort distanee from Zimbabwe. (Here my in- 

 formant drew a plan, wonderfully aeeurate, to explain the posi- 

 tion of the various ruins at Zim1)abwe). He had taken his 

 first wife (would i)^' al)out iS or 20 years of a^^e). When he 

 tirst went to the ruins, he found }()un,<;- trees growing" in them. 

 They (the Alakaranga ) l)uilt them, as we do now, with dagga. 

 We Ijuilt f(jrmerly with sticks thatched over with grass. \\'hen 

 he was grown up these walls did not look new. I have lived 

 with the old slaves who liave actually seen with their own eyes 

 the Abagamaml)o (people of the Mambo = Mak'aranga) l)uild 

 these walls. The white i)eople from whom they (Abalozij 

 bought things first were Portuguese, h^or instance, the two old 

 camions were brought 1)\' the Abalozi ( Al)a;:;a".r.andjo ) from the 

 I'ortuguese to resist us." 



1 mav explain that Alakaranga in Shiswina or .Seshuna, as 

 it is popularly called, becomes Alakalanga in .Sindebele, so that 

 Abalozi, Alakaranga. Abagamambo and \'aroswe are ])ractically 

 synonymous terms for what we collectivelv call the ATashuiua 

 tribes. Alakalanga becomes Alakalaka in Sechuana, and so 

 on. In the al)ove statement I have not indicated the qttestions, 

 bttt they can be easily gathered from the context, and the words 

 in jjrackets are only added to coiuplete the sense. They were 

 written in at the timt- the conversation was taken down. It was 

 much more detailed than the above summary indicates, and was 

 re])eated in man\- different ways to test accuracy. But the old 

 man was quite clear and |H)sitive on one thing — that the Abalozi 

 or Abagamambo (Makaranga) built these ruined towns, at a 

 recent date, and that some of them were inhabited by the Alaka- 

 ranga at the time the Amaswazi and Matebele came into the 

 countrv. This is strengthened by evidence from another source. 

 It is stated that some of these defeated people fled to the Wankie 

 district, where the}- found a refuge amongst some of ihcir 

 brethren who had migrated about 50 years before, and had 

 l)ui]t a similar town on the Bombusi Valley. I shall give the 

 stor\ of the migration when dealing with the statement of my 

 third informant. With regard to what Chapa says about 

 Zimltaljwe. I do not place too much reliance upon it, as he 

 apparentlv had not been strtick with any difference between it 

 and the other castles, as he called the ruins, and I am of opinion 

 that Zimbabwe had been abandoned then. But it may only have 



