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| Mpezeni
Khumalo a.k.a Mpezeni
LOBENGULA |
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| Mpezeni was born in Bulawayo
in about 1880, the second of the four 'royal' sons of Lobengula who survived into the white settler Occupation period.
His mother was Lomalongwe, according to Ntabeni Khumalo,
she was the most important wife after Lozigeyi and
consequently Mpezeni might have been chosen to succeed
his father Lobengula. |
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Ginyilitshe, the royal Khumalo
family praise-singer in the twentieth century, differed
in this view though of the likely successor. Of all
Lobengula's sons, Mpezeni was considered to the best of
the bunch. As with Njube and Nguboyenja, the real
importance of Mpezeni was that when he was of the age, he was taken by Cecil J Rhodes to Cape Town for education in 1894. |
Mpezeni's career at Zonnebloem College, however, was very brief, for in October 1899 he contracted pleurisy and was sent to Somerset Hospital where he died on 9
December. For some reason Mpezeni's death was not formally reported to the Administration in Salisbury
(now Harare) or the London Office or, presumably, his relatives in Matabeleland although they would have soon learned the news from Njube and Nguboyenja.
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| This
naturally upset the Ndebele, Mpezeni's death aroused considerable feeling among the Ndebele and many indunas went to pay their condolences to his mother.
It was probably as a consequence of this unfortunate episode that the Administration reconsidered its former opposition to a visit home by Njube and later in 1900 agreed to his leaving Zonnebloem and returning to Matabeleland in order to allay any fear among the Ndebele that the boys were in effect being detained and not properly cared for. |
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| It appears that the Ndebele have never made any attempt to mark Mpezeni's grave, even with a headstone, and nothing is named after him in
Bulawayo. The conclusion must be that he was not regarded as of great importance by the Khumalo family. |
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| Other
documents related to this Profile |
| The
Khumalo Royal family |
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