Oral Poetry from Africa
This is a second version of the Praises of Sobhuza II. This version of Sobhuza’s tibongo, sung by Mhlabeleli Dlamini, another member of the royal house, focuses on the later part of Sobhuza’s reign after his position had been secured.
The hurrying one of Mahlokohla
Who hurries to Egypt…
While Mswati II (1840–1868), who expanded Swazi land beyond its present boundaries, is celebrated as the greatest Swazi king, his son Mbandzeni (1875–1889) was beyond all doubt the worst. Historians dispute whether Mbandzeni was a kind man out of his depth, or a vain and greedy man who cared little for his subjects. Imbongi Maboya Fakudze presents him, in this tibondo, as an unmitigated disaster.
Eater at noon,
By eating in the sun…
Mswati, also called Mavuso III, succeeded Sobhuza I as king, ruling from 1840 to 1868. There are seven modern versions of Mwsati’s tibongo, all sharing the same emphasis on the scale of his conquests from the Indian ocean to the Drakensberg Mountains and from Zululand into what is today southern Mozambique.
You of the inner circle!
Agitator of Mbelebeleni…
Sobhuza I (1780–1836) who ruled Swaziland from 1815 until his death, was also called Somholo, ‘the wonder’, because just before his birth his father Nduvungunye was struck by lightning. It was he who led his people away from the turmoil of the wars associated with the rise of Shaka Zulu, settling them in what is now central Swaziland.
Let him alone, the son of Langa.
Let him go upstream the Crocodile river…
Sobhuza II (1899–1982), one of the most remarkable Africans of the last century, was king of Swaziland for 61 years. Educated at the Lovedale Institution in South Africa and an early member of the African National Congress, he was at the same time a passionate traditionalist, pledged as he once put it “to extricate Africa from this idea of one man one vote”…
The praises of Ndlela kaSompisi, a key general in the Zulu army, who rose to power after defeating the Ndwandwe on Shaka’s behalf (see also Shaka’s Praises).
Rattler of spears!
He who is unable to lie down,
one side being red with wounds…
