OUR civilised brethren from the West have been wailing themselves hoarse as they commiserated with us over the loss of our dear Cecil.
They are quite outraged at the barbarism of one of their own, a dentist for that matter, in trophy hunting an iconic Zimbabwean lion.
They are now pushing for an end to trophy hunting.
The brethren are quite worried that trophy hunting, previously confined to celebrating subjugation of foreign armies/races, has now been extended to the animal kingdom!
For centuries our brethren from the West have been engaged in the practice of human trophy collecting to demonstrate dominance over the deceased.
Today Britain and America continue to display, in their museums, human remains that are human trophies of their massacres and subjugation of indigenous populations.
Disrespecting the foreign dead and exaggerated fascination with the remains is a stereotype that has burdened the archaeology profession for the last century plus.
In an earlier life as an archaeologist, the remark, “You are the grave diggers” was a common chorus from white farmers I met during fieldwork.
American world war veterans have been known to keep souvenirs of Japanese soldiers’ skulls in their homes.
Our brethren must thus have been embarrassed when President Robert Mugabe gently reminded them of their more heinous trophy hunting during the First Chimurenga.
Not far from Unyetu, at Makowoshori, at the confluence of Nyahoni and Chimwamakudo rivers, a hero of the First Chimurenga in Chikomba, Chiwashira, Muchecheterwa of the Masarirambi/Nyashanu/Musiyamwa clan, was put down, decapitated and head taken to the United Kingdom as a royal trophy.
Europeans had been in the Chikomba area since the 1850s.
The area was already occupied by the Hera, Njanja, Maromo and Rozvi people.
The Chiwashiras were settled near today’s Featherstone, at Pfimbi yaMasarirambi, from where Pimbi River gets its name from.
By the time Fort Charter was established by the British Pioneer Column, a sizeable Boer community was forming in this area such that by 1891, the area had become an Afrikaner stronghold that was renamed Enkeldoorn or ‘Ingiridhori’ as my mbuya used to call it.
Both the English and Afrikaner settlers cast an envious look at Chiwashira’s impressive cattle herd.
They befriended him and waited for their time to pounce.
The Boers had settled in a country of resisters.
Whites were attracted to Chiwashiras because of their cattle wealth.
The neighbouring Njanja people also refused to accept the supremacy of the Union Jack flag that was hoisted at Fort Charter.
When most English men signed up as mercenaries in British colonialist Leander Starr Jameson’s ill-fated mission to attack Paul Kruger’s Transvaal from December 29 1895 to January 2 1896, the white settlers around Chikomba looked very vulnerable.
Around that time the Njanja people, against the advice of their leadership, sjamboked and shot at a party of BSACo tax collectors.
The shooting of these Native Department tax collectors is now generally accepted as the incident that ignited the First Chimurenga.
The First Chimurenga in Chikomba is best remembered around four individuals; Bhonda, Sango of Chigara fame, Maromo and Chiwashira.
Chiwashira and Maromo were chiefs, Bhonda was a Mwari priest and Sango was a headman and spiritual figure.
A fifth influential name came from outside the district; this was of Chief Mashayamombe from the neighbouring Mhondoro.
Chiwashira Masarirambi was chief of the vaHera people.
Bhonda managed to influence and incite Chiwashira to rise against the settlers.
This was made possible partly through the influence of a spiritualist, Mutangadura (son of Masarirambi).
The Hera people, like most Africans of this time also had serious grievances against settler rule and were also inspired by the Mashayamombe resistance.
Chiwashira was eventually captured at Makoshori, bringing to an end a gallant resistance.
According to oral accounts, Chiwashira died a violent death.
He was tied to a horse and pulled all the way to Dhirongo at Gomba, where other captured resisters were being ‘roasted’ alive.
Today legend remembers Chiwashira more for his exploits with a white woman, or white women as some allege.
One account says he was trusted with looking after a sick white woman and ended up fathering children with her.
Another account says at the start of the Jameson raid, British pioneers left their women in Chiwashira’s custody.
By the time they returned, they found most of them pregnant from Chiwashira.
Chiwashira descendants’ dispute these accounts saying all Chiwashira did was to shave off the women’s lice laden hair.
The confusion partly results from the fact that initially Chiwashira co-existed peacefully with whites and in 1893 his sister even married one of them, a trader named Short.
However, when the First Chimurenga broke out, Chiwashira joined forces with other resisters.
He is thus cast initially as a collaborator and later as a resister.
Once Sango, Chiwashira and Maromo resistances were put down at battles of Chigara, Gona, Kuiparima and Zave the First Chimurenga had ended in Chikomba.
The Maromo chieftainship was banned and only recently restored.
Chiwashira’s house is still exiled from the Mutekedza chieftainship and there has been no progress in restoring the Masarirambi chieftainship.
But Chiwashira’s spirit refuses to rest and his skull is violently shaking the walls and foundations of the British establishment.
All look set for the reburial of an icon of the First Chimurenga.
The authorities must however, carry out meticulous research to ensure that we collect remains of our heroes.
We must be wary of the British deliberately creating confusion to set us up for ngozi.
I am reminded of an incident in which a team of geologists from a field trip in the Zambezi Valley packed their labelled rock samples in the back of their van where their assistant sat.
Upon arrival they discovered that their assistant had neatly packed all the labels in one corner and the rock samples in another corner.
The British could replay the field assistant’s mischief.
Lastly we need conclusive DNA tests to support the museological research findings.
Welcome back Musiyamwa Chiwashira.
Masarirambi amuka!