Nongoma, which can be interpreted as ‘The Mother of Songs’ is named after King Zwide’s homestead which was located where Nongoma town still is even today. In the 1700s, Northern kwaZulu was the Ndwandwe territory which kept growing as Zidwe’s, king of the Ndwandwe tribe, conquest continued. This region was knows as elakwaNdwandwe. Zwide’s victory over the Mncwango and Mthethwa tribes almost cemented him as a giant force of this region. It was yet to be confirmed as he had not met head-on with the unstoppable force of King Shaka of the Zulu tribe, who was also dropping kings and taking tribes under him. The praise singers started calling him ‘Ndaba’s Hitman’, uGasane lukaNdaba.
The two new superpowers collided in 1818 where the massively numbered Ndwandwe tribe took on the Zulu’s, and king Shaka’s war tactics came up top.
Indeed the kingdom of the Son of Langa(sun) had followed the Sun(iLanga) to its sunset.
King Shaka gave this new territory to his cousin brother uMntwana Maphitha kaSojiyisa kaJama, in recognition to role played by him and his father, prince Sojiyisa kaJama who died on the battlefield leading that war against Zwide. King Senzangakhona and prince Sojiyisa were both King Jama’s children, Shaka kaSenzangakhona headed up the royal and ‘righthand’ house of the kingdom and prince Maphitha kaSojiyisa headed up the lefthand house of kingdom known as ‘Indlu yaseKhohlwa’.
Prince Maphitha kaSojiyisa looked after this huge territory called kwaMandlakazi and report to his majesty, the King Shaka as abaMnumzane were supposed to.
Concerns started during King Mpande’s reign, that the king got worried that prince Maphitha was not serving the royal house through sending cattle that the people of Mandlakazi were bringing to him. Wayengasakhonzi endlukulu njengemfanelo. King Mpande then deployed a new royal house closer to the Mandlakazi territory to manage visibility of the royal house and ensure close monitoring of the dealings of indlu yaseKhohlwa. This homestead, isigodlo, was placed closer to Nongoma, just above the iVuna river and it was named kwaGqikazi. The queen deployed to this royal house was okaMbondi who was initially at kwaNodwengu royal palace. This is how royalty began moving closer to Nongoma.
After king Mpande, his son, king Cetshwayo took over the throne. It was not an easy take over as he had to face internal fight with his brother prince Mbuyazi for the throne, who was the son born of the second queen Monase daughter of Mntungwa Nxumalo. Cetshwayo received very strong support from the Mandlakazi.
It is not surprising that Mandlakazi would be supporting Cetshwayo against his brother Mbuyazi on his fight for the throne as prince Cetshwayo, himself, grew up in kwaMandlakazi and was very close to his cousin prince Zibhebhu the son of Maphitha. Cetshwayo was guaranteed support from this house yaseKhohlwa.
Prince Zibhebhu, who headed the Mandlakazi house after prince Maphitha also proved to be a strong military force and a war tactician himself, in Mandlakazi they also gave him praises almost similar to that of Shaka, that of being the Hitman, they called him Magasa. Magasa was one of the key generals on which King Cetshwayo relied as Britain was knocking on Zululand territory borders. He was very instrumental in the Sandlwana war.
After the victory of uZulu against Britain in eSandlwane, the British armies came and invaded uLundi palace, burning it down and eventually arrested the king. This left the Zulu kingdom totally unstable. The British empire then negotiated land governance with abaMnumzane that were put in place by the king to look after the land, telling them that they can continue looking after the land but not for the king anymore but for the British empire. Some of the early accepters of this arrangement were the Mthethwa’s, and from Zulu royal houses it was Mandlakazi and Ngenetsheni, these were 13 in total which then received the new position of Chieftaincy, still more later to follow in taking the chief positions. This change left uNongoma with a total of 3 Traditional Authorities, uSuthu, uMandlakazi and Matheni. There was a fourth tribal authority of the Ntombela’s around the Dabhazi area which was discontinued with the agreement with King Zwelithini later.
When these agreement were reached the British Empire then brought its Magistrate offices to iVuna, closer to the Gqikazi royal palace. The uptake of the British chieftaincy by the Mandlakazi and Ngenetsheni houses brought about a big conflict that resulted in 4 battles between the three Zulu royal houses, which Mandlakazi allied with Ngenetsheni. Britain obviously benefited a lot from the internal infightings and eventually enforced the two leaders from uSuthu, king Dinuzulu and the Mandlakazi side led by prince Zibhebhu to continually sign at the magistrate offices to confirm the peace agreement.
The Magistrate office was in oSuthu territory which did help the situation as tensions were still very high between uSuthu and Mandlakazi. There was almost another was by iVuna. This resulted in the British powers moving the offices to the neutral place for ease of access by both uSuthu and Mandlakazi. That is how the Magistrate move to Nongoma Town, where it is even today.
Nongoma is indeed iHlalankosi, six of the seven palaces of uSuthu royalty are located in Nongoma. oSuthu royal palace (King Dinuzulu’s), Dlamahlahla Royal Palace (King Solomon’s) and uKhethomthandayo Royal Palace (King Bhekuzulu’s), the longest reigning king of the Zulu kingdom, king Zwelithini had Naleni Royal House in Khethomthandayo plot, also build Khangelamankengane, Enyonkeni and Lindizwe Royal Palaces, and , reviving oNdini Royal Palace which is King Cetshwayo’s palace. There is also Matheni Royal Palace and Mandlakazi Royal palace eBanganoma. With a lot of villages named after Zulu princes’ homestead names and a lot of schools named after princes from all Zulu royal houses, Nongoma is indeed the capital of Zulu Heritage, and you will find the traces of this history everywhere.