The Venda-Speaking People

Abstract Although not a culturally homogeneous or politically united nation, Venda-speaking communities across the Soutpansberg share certain traits that set them apart from neighboring Bantu-speaking groups. These include their distinctive language, the sacred status of their ruling families, bilateral kin groups among the elite, prominent females in the society, widely respected rainmakers, and varying burial modes. The development of these traits can be traced back to the emergence of a class-based social formation at Mapungubwe Hill, overlooking a fertile alluvial setting south of the Shashi–Limpopo confluence. During a relatively brief period, 1220–1310 ce, Mapungubwe’s control over the production and export of gold and ivory with the Indian Ocean coast in exchange for glass beads and cloth from Asia facilitated an unprecedented accumulation of economic wealth in the form of cattle, political power in the form of bilateral marriage practices, and privileged access to potent ancestral spirits by an elite residing behind stone walls on the hill. Knowing that Mapungubwe ceramics are ancestral Shona, the persistence of smaller Mapungubwe sites farther to the east and south along the Soutpansberg range until around the mid-14th century is indicative of a Soutpansberg stratum of Shona speakers surviving the collapse of the polity at Mapungubwe Hill. Moloko ceramics associated with Sotho speakers started appearing south and west of the mountains at the tail end of the Mapungubwe period. A century later, around 1450 ce, Khami-period ceramics associated with Shona dynasties from Zimbabwe appeared along with elite coursed stone-walled settlements north of the Soutpansberg. A few Khami sherds also occur on sites with central cattle pens that are dominated by Moloko ceramics south of the mountains. The movement of Moloko ceramics to elite Khami sites is indicative of Sotho women marrying into elite Shona families. Intermarriage between Sotho and Shona speakers across the mountains resulted in the merger of Moloko and Khami ceramic styles around 1500 ce. This interaction created a new, widespread, but short-lived ceramic style known as Tavhatshena. By 1550 ce, Tavhatshena had evolved into Letaba ceramics, a style still made by Venda-speaking potters in the early 21st century. Certain Singo oral traditions mention that the Venda language was already spoken when they first arrived in the Soutpansberg. By the time the Singo arrived in the central Soutpansberg from Zimbabwe in the late 17th century, Venda had already been spoken for at least a century. Also, long-distance trade in prestige goods with the east coast continued to be conducted from the elite Khami period centers north of the mountains prior to the Singo’s arrival. The Singo managed to subjugate various Venda and Sotho polities in the Soutpansberg and beyond, creating a more or less unified trading state that fragmented into three major divisions in the late 18th century. The western Ramabulana Singo division under Makhado resisted Boer attempts to wrest ivory trade and tribute payments away from its traditional control, marked by a series of conflicts, terminating in Boers abandoning Schoemansdal in 1867. The remainder of the 19th century witnessed conflicts between various Venda dynasties. Following the Boer defeat of the western Singo by the end of the 19th century, the western Singo moved to the central Soutpansberg in the early 20th century. Because the western Singo remained the dominant political group among the various Venda mitupo during the 20th century, their history eclipsed the histories of earlier Venda groups.

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