Zulu Land — a timeline of defected blue people
I. The Great Homo Sapiens Split (300,000 years ago/0,3 Ma/300 ka) — after a small 10 million years in hominin development, the “wise man” with language and imagination emerges in central Africa hunting and gathering. Due to harsh climatic conditions which perennially flip Africa between wet and dry, some sapiens bask in the caves and are called ntu’s “the [lazy] thing-people who stayed home” while the agile roamers are labelled twa’s “the [crazy] thing-people who go and never return.” The capitalism feud of name-calling leads to the lazy ones being called Mu-Ntu’s (s. muntu, my [maternal] fixed person; pl. bantu, our [paternal] fixed persons) and the crazy ones being called Mu-Twa’s (s. mutwa, my [maternal] ever-going person; pl. batwa, our [paternal] ever-going persons) with the prefixes mu– and ba– denoting species leap to consciousness (me/my; I am/we; us/our) unlike any living being guided by the perfection of Sān (3), the sun [mental; mind], moon [emotional; soul], and earth [physical; body].
Previously, the people called animate creatures !nu (pron. kǃʼ-n-oo or q’nu), the black scary monsters (wildebeest; Anglicised as “gnu”), while the friendly bipeds called each other, the peaceful tuu. The wandering tuu’s would thus just twa like ants, intuthwane (the incredible wandering and gathering tiny sub-humans), all over the world with the special infix –wa– denoting a change of state with no return to the original and strong emotion/feeling/longing/belonging.
Deifying the seemingly mysterious mere sun star hovering above them (¹H +¹H → ²H; and ²H + ¹H → ³He; H for hydrogen, hydro — water; gen — creator; He for helium, helios — sun, Elohim in Hebrew, Haneullim in Korean, Mugulu in Luganda, Mulungu in Nyanja, Nkulunkulu in Zulu), the wise men collectively call themselves luu, children of the sky/sun/stars/heavens after recognising bigger night sun stars, Antares (12x Sun) and Alpha & Beta Centauri (1.1x Sun; dithutlwa/thudana “giraffes,” Sotho/Venda or “mura” the celestial eyes, Khwe), the closest star to the solar system. The oldest language of the people is called Nǀuu (“we are the animals who speak [the language] Nǀuu”, pron. see-Nc-o̅o̅ actually as a verb / see-N|-oo / see-ŋǀ-oo). Luu is in respect of the rain giving sky “god” “above” “place most high” which is the royal colour blue (aozora/青空, Japanese; azul, Portuguese; azuluu, Nyanja; azure, English; azuru/أزور, Arabic; azuur, Dutch; azzurro or blu, Italian; bluu, kibuluu Swahili; bulu, Yoruba; buluug; Somali; caelum, Latin; elu-igwe (blue sky), elu-uwa (blue earth), n’elu (heavens above), Igbo; ggulu, Luganda; gökyüzü, Turkish; goluboj/голубой, Russian; juru, Kinyarwanda, tadulu, Venda; (Ze)zuru, Shona; zulu, Ndebele/Swati/Xhosa/Zulu).
II. The Ubombo Mountains Scientists (200,000 years ago/0,2 Ma/200 ka) — the wandering Twa reach ESwatini overpowering Homo Naledi to extinction. The burying of a species is begun by remaining Homo Naledi hiding from the invaders in the Ubombo caves (“Lebombo/Lubombo [in seSotho]” — the high mountain ridge like an elephant’s long nose). The Twa women discover edible root and tuber starch thereby domesticating earliest cereals. The self-confessed ecologically sustainable Twa men abandon hunting the gnu in favour of the monkey, mncube (speaks Nǀuu sort of?) which “says” kwa when following the sun with the suffix –be denoting confusion/amazement. The Twa women create mathematics by making a tally of menstrual cycles, a lunar calendar, by marking monkey bone. Earth colored ochre pigments are collected for cave art.
Meanwhile, Out of Africa II is happening of people heading to Europe.
III. The Sān (40,000 years ago/40 ka) — “the people of divine perfection” try to do away with the terms Twa and Tuu while still refusing to domesticate plants and animals.
IV. The Khwe (5,000 years ago/5ka) — “the [brilliant] people of the morning star” diverge from the Sān choosing to partially combine nomadism and pastoralism based on domesticated animals, plants and “trees that align to the star” Canopus (8x Sun/10,000x brighter — once the brightest star in the sky for 4 million years until Sirus came near; Nǁum “nxum,” the Ant Eggs star, Nǀuu; Naka, Sotho; Nanga, Venda; iSandulela/inKhwekwezi/Khwezi/“brilliant star,” Zulu), a star which would disappear from the European sky and only be seen in the southern hemisphere and thousands of years later be used in navigation to confirm the earth is a globe.
V. The New Bantu (3,000 years ago/3ka) — back in central Africa, the Niger-Kongo Bantu “the real people,” “abaBantu-Bantu” (Zulu Emphasis of actions/language, Impambosi yokwenzayenza; Reduplication/Repetition) after years of saving energy are uncomfortably pushed southwards by the drying climate after they had learned to farm. They encounter the Khwe-Sān, who by then were no longer speaking Nǀuu and instead ǁʼAu “Xawu” in Zulu or Nǁng “nXung” in Zulu, and easily decimate them south-west of Africa.
Bantu people generally/casually/linguistically do not consider other races to be “real people.”
The last three living Old-Old Bantu speakers, 2010, reject the term Nǀuu because historically the New Bantu and Europeans would mimic the near extinct language, shake heads and scorn “Nc! Nc! Nc!” (Zulu), “Tsk! Tsk! Tsk/Tut! Tut! Tut!” (Germanic) nasalising “Nǀ Nǀ Nǀ” (Nǀuu) or baby-talk sneer “Ncoo…” (Zulu), “Aww…” (Germanic) or tell them in “human-to-animal speak” to fuck off, “Nx!/Nxa!” (Zulu), “Tchick!” (Germanic), breaking “Nǁ” (Nǁng) of their “ugly language” of five click consonants [Doke, 1926]; ǀ (c in Zulu or erroneous as / in English), ǁ (x in Zulu or erroneous as // in English), ǃ (q in Zulu) and the other two [difficult] clicks the Zulu could not copy ǂ and ʘ.
VI. Ngwane — Thonga: Battle for the heart and soul of the Great Mother Nongoma (c. 100AD) — the descendants of mythic Mkhulu Ngwane (erroneously, Nguni), uzulu wonke, “[father of] the people who follow the sky” invade southern Africa and converge around the foot of Ubombo giving praise to Nongoma, “the Great Mother of all songs” or “the Great Mother of the sangoma/diviners/moon people/people with moon ability/the sleeping living-dead (amathonga derived from thongo, sleep). The Ngwane-Thonga people have been fighting for the kraal capital of Nongoma ever since with the Thonga people being driven in and out of South Africa and the Great Lakes for more than a thousand years to a degree that they re-emerge under different names; Tsonga, Tonga (Zambia-Zimbabwe), Tonga (Malawi), Kalanga, Karanga, Nambya, Ndau “dinga indawo/seeking refuge,” Baloyi, Venda and Ngoni who converge around the confluence of Mapungubwe-Luswingo. Most present-day Thonga people of southern Africa reject the term “Thonga” except those who know better.
Because early Thonga diviners had no spiritual guidance, thwasa, after conniving Bantu men convinced Bantu women to abandon mathematics leading to poor mental health (bipolar disorder or psychosis, or severely, bipolar psychosis — DSM-5), they were called Nyaka people, inyakanyaka “the [dirty, outcast] disorganized, possessed people” only for them to resurface with KiKongo/KiNyanga training as nganga/n’anga/nyanga “traditional healers” or the Anglicised “witch doctors” with the suffix –anga denoting spiritual wisdom i.e. ilanga, the sun day people, bakaLanga, (pastors, priests, presidents, poets, prostitutes, physicians, prophets), ultimately ukuganga, carnal knowledge of [the tree of] good and bad/entanglement sex or non-healing abuse of spiritual capability. The wild inyaka appearance (–aka suffix for dirt/foul play: daka [soil or intoxicate]; kaka [defecate]; faka [desecrate, poison or infect]; laka [intimidate], maka [agitate or self-style or tackle or scrutinize, among other meanings like the English mark] naka [female childbirth, i.e. figuratively “to ejaculate or urinate a person"]; phaka [levitate]; thaka [manipulate / concoct]; xhaka [confiscate and later “red-handed” capture] or Zulu Emphasis of actions/language, Impambosi yokwenziwa: Being [negatively] affected) is self-styled fear-mongering propaganda to exaggerate petty spiritual “powers” which have laughable contribution to science thoroughly cracking the ribs of white people who had other things to do with their time. And so the suffix –anga of wisdom could also be a serious lack thereof i.e. amanga, lies, and the subsequent ubu(n)yanga, poverty, of the so-called wise people which is an eternal running theme of all religions of the world which took hold at the time (Age of Pisces, 6BC–1996; blue delusions of Neptune) with dubious promise of riches on the Other Side from an imagined “Father” who has abandoned his children, baka/oka bani? (whose [bastard sperm] child/children are these? because when that question has to be asked, a prodigal impregnator could not be accounted for!) / saka, (male fertility i.e. literally “to ejaculate or urinate a person”). Zero science. Zero sum. Okay, okay, not zero, just slow.
Modern Zulu, obviously, no longer uses the terms nyanga, naka or saka for a person the same way English no longer uses the term witch.
The perennially outcast KiNyanga people thus comfortably export Nyanga [River] into mountains, districts, provinces, towns, townships and shopping malls from ǁHui !Gaeb, “veiled in the clouds,” (original name for Cape Town) to Togo (definitely not Cairo) inspiring a future railway line colonisation project in what would become popularly known as Africa.
VII. The Sotho (c. 300AD) — the “[cruel] light brown” people of ba-phalaborwa “better than the [dark ones] south” arrive and by c. 1500 in Mfecane I have split into three; South Sotho (later became the ‘Basuto’/Lesotho and Sotho/South Africa), the West Sotho (later the Tswana/Botswana), and the North Sotho (later the Pedi/South Africa). The West Sotho are nicknamed the BaTswana “new comers” by the Khwe-Sān, who themselves are called the Basarwa, “the long lost [bush] people.”
Bantu people generally/casually/linguistically use colorism and body features to identify each other at face value.
Bantu people generally/casually/ linguistically give nicknames for everything and everyone. “It’s a Mloyi thing!” (Mloyi, “Zimbabwean Zulu”; Moloi, South Africa-Botswana-Lesotho — the beautiful traditional healing Sotho people of the North highly desired by the “ugly” tebele people of the South to be their sebele, in-laws i.e. daughters of Kgosi/King Sebele married off to the Zulu).
VIII. Swati-Xhosa-Ndebele I and Mfecane I (c. 400AD) — The thousand-year contest for Nongoma is so hot that it has already driven tired eldest brother Xhosa (c. 400AD), [Nǁsa; later pron. kǁʰɔ́ːsa] “the fierce newcomer Zulu King,” as named by the terrified Khwe-Sān, further south and making them the Old-Old-Old Zulu. As Mfecane War I (c. 1480–1550) ravages the Middle Ages, the Swati (c. 1480), “Mswati, the king who does not spare the stick-rod,” the Old-Old-Old-Old Zulu, hide in the Ubombo mountains while the Ndebele I, iSkhethu, (c. 1500), the Old-Old Zulu, lebele (Sotho) → lide ibele (Zulu), “the farmers of pearl millet (which had a long grain stalk unlike the finger millet stalk)” escape Zululand into Basutholand way before the tebele, invaders, who were coming soon.
The ability of the small Ndebele I clan to retain Ngwane identity in 500 years of living in Sotho-Tswana-Pedi-lands is viewed as “remarkable” by the West.
IX. Mthethwa-Ndwande-Qwabe-Zulu-Gaza-Ndebele II and Mfecane II (c. 1709) — As the seed of Ngwane spread, the 3rd prominent Zulu fief Malandela kaGumede has two children; Qwabe (AmaQwabe, saluted as Gumede) and Ntombela (AmaZulu, saluted as Ndabezitha “Your Highness,” sp. Ntabezitha i.e. ntaba yezitha, copied from the Bele-Xhosa fief “ruler who towers like a mountain over the enemy.) Ntombela kaMalandela had Zulu kaNtombela/Fief Zulu I (Zulu monarchy ca. 1709–present). Although large, the Qwabe fiefdom did not rise to history while neighbours, half-brothers really, Mthethwa (c. 1780–1817) and Ndwandwe (c. 1780–1825) became prominent empires which however collapsed to Zulu domination by despot King Shaka of Langeni maternity. The Ndwandwe fleeing Zulu control rebrand as the Gasa [anglicised as Gaza] (1824–1895) in Mozambique, and Zwangendaba’s Ngoni in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania.
In 1821, also breaking away from Ndwandwe control and later Zulu control was the Ndebele II (c. 1830–1893), “the Mathebele,” later the Mthwakazi, the Old Zulu under King Mzilikazi who adopted the Ndebele name from their lost Ntungwa cousins in the Highveld, after attacking them of course. To spite his bitter foe King Shaka, rebel Mzilikazi before becoming king himself re-issues the letter T in tsh– words mocking King Shaka as “Tshaka — the disease” from which King Shaka had dropped the unflattering T from his past. Therefore in Zimbabwe, King Shaka is still referred to as King Tshaka to date as well as the t remaining in tsh– words. A keen historian, Mzilikazi names the Ndebele II state Mthwakazi federating with the scrambled Thonga in Zimbawe offering them military protection and respecting the hundreds of thousands of years of poor treatment the Old Bantu/Twa had had the hands of the New Bantu and thus ending Mfecane War II (1815–1843), exiling his 14-year-old heir Nkulumane to Sotholand who had briefly been installed king while Ndwandwe-supporting Zulu refugees back in Zululand went knocking on the British’s “door” in Natal.
X. The New South Africa Royals (c. 1977) — relegated to a Bantustan (apartheid segregation “Bantu homelands”), the now ceremonial Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini marries the world’s longest recorded reign Swati King Sobusa II’s (Sobusa, we reign with might [82 years and 254 days including 20 years of his grandmother’s regency]) daughter Princess Mantfombi on condition that she is made Great Wife, Queen Consort, the future Queen Mother of the Zulus, upstaging existing senior wives in 1977 to prevent an invasion of Nongoma with a ball-busting 200 cows of Bantu record lobola bride price to appease the fuming absolute Swati monarch who wanted to annex all things Ngwane split by colonial borders. In 1992, King Goodwill is again forced to marry, this time an ordinary Xhosa maiden, in what easily could have become a “red wedding” like the streets already were. Luckily, like all monarchies of the world, the intermarriages worked out like a charm as the New York Times reports imbongi, the king’s personal praise poet, bellowing frothing and forming at the politically charged and paparazzi-loaded wedding about how this was a modern Zulu King-slayer who “attacked the Swati and Xhosa not with AK-47s, but with love” much to the cheer of sloppy-stuffed guests, begavile, who were well fed with decadent prime cuts of a breezy 16 Ngwane beasts for single meal.
The lavish Swati’s royals, siyinqaba “we are a fortress,” whom with an iron grip maintain the world’s last absolute monarchy change name from Swaziland to avoid being “mistaken for [average] Switzerland” and most importantly to remove the Zulu feminisation/Zunda suffix –zi for the Swati/Tekela one –ti. Sly King Sobusa II made sure to fold in Zenani, the daughter of megastar prisoner and Xhosa royal Nelson Mandela (who would be sidelined at the Zulu ’92 wedding amid allegations of scrambling King Goodwill colluding with the Mozambicans) to marry his heir Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini whom he however yanked the throne from his grave, memuka iswiji emloyeni, to give it to the younger 14-year-old Makhosetive, king of all nations, King Mswati III maintaining Ngwane “culture/s” of circumcisions, lobola, human trafficking of young girls “child marriages,” polygamy, pitting co-wives against each other and favouring younger-son-over-his-elder-half-brother, all of which are 4,000-year-old foreign Bad-husband-101, Bad-parenting-101, Bad-patriarchy-101 behaviours of one mentally unstable Abraham proudly copied by monogamous Bantus all over Africa from Abrahamic slave traders 1,300 years ago.
As it were, recluse Prince Misuzulu, touted as future king of the Zulu before he was even born, is at the center of jostling for the Crown Prince role, and his mom for the Queen Mother role among the six wives, in pairs of 3 factions, sending the Swati press into frenzy about their daughter and their money educating him in America and of the Swati kingdom regularly saving the Zulu Empire [and South Africa] from other Zulu’s like the Qwabe, Hlubi (not to be confused with their cousins who ended up Xhosa), et al of the “12 Kings saga” who want nothing to do with the words Zulu/Natal while across the Limpopo in Mthwakazi-Zimbabwe, Prince Peter Zwide kaLanga/King Nyamande Lobhengula, and South African citizen Prince Collins Bulelani/King Lobhengula II (clandestine) are both ceremonial kings of the Ndebele II since 2018 depending on who you ask, and the Rozvi Kingdom-led by ceremonial Mambo/King Mike Moyo (clandestine) revived 2019 in Matabeleland South with a 54-strong Mashonaland chieftains present and a conspicuous absence of Matabeleland chieftains who suddenly appeared “to pass by and say hello” and a later strong statement issued by the BaThwa-federated Kalanga-Nambya-Venda-Tonga’s condemning the Zimbabwe government-funded Mambo installation in true fashion of other bubbling Muthwakazi/Mutu wa kazi/Mtu wa kazi movements by Twa people in the Great Lakes fed-up with Bantu marginalisation.
Oh but of course, the quiet storm that are the Swati royals have long mooted a Ngwane superstate, a Ngwanestan. The Supreme Ngwane king is…?
Sonny Jermain is a verbalist (verb-a-list: one who heals people with words) and a Mutwa-Bantu custodian. He is author of I Deserve to Be: Self-worth Is a Silent Killer.
