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| Overview
of the Culture and Religious beliefs of the Ndebele Tribe |
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The Ndebele state was divided
into three social groups, the Zansi, Enhla and Hole.
Due to the social
intermingling of the various classes
/ groups in Ndebele society,
Ndebele religious and cultural practice became a hybrid
of the beliefs and practices of the various peoples that
made up the society. However it is important to give a
profile of Ndebele culture as a product of cultural
practice in Zululand. This was the practice of the Zansi,
the original Ndebele who left Zululand with Mzilikazi.
Ndebele culture was centred on certain religious
rituals. The king was regarded as the High priest of the
nation, and unlike in Shona culture,
Ndebele chiefs had
no ritual functions beyond functioning as priests of
their households and their extended families.
Communication with the supernatural on problems such as
droughts and epidemics was thus limited to the king
only.
It must be noted that as the custodians of true Ndebele
culture, the Zansi were unable check the influence of
the Enhla and Hole on their beliefs and practices. The
Hole had some similarities with the Zansi, but the
greatest religious change to Ndebele society was the
acceptance of the Mwari cult into Ndebele cultural
beliefs and practice. |
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By and large, the Ndebele believed in a creator, uNkulunkulu
thought of as the first human being. Nkulunkulu and
his wife, Mvelengani are said to have emerged out
of a marshy place where they found cattle and grain
already awaiting them in abundance. They lived together
and had children to whom they passed on their culture and
tradition, when they were old, they returned to the ground
where they became snakes.
The Zansi, like the Nguni, had a notion of a high deity
linked with the heavens, but no rituals were celebrated to
this high god, as he was not distinguishable from the
first ancestor who lived in the ground. However through
possible influence from Christianity, Sotho-Tswana beliefs
and Shona religion, the Zansi have come to insist that
although they worshiped ancestral spirits directly, the
spirits also acted as intercessors between the living and
their high god. Zansi religious activity therefore centred
around the worship of the ancestral spirits whom were
called amadlozi.
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man as made up of three aspects, the material and two
spiritual beings. They believed that from birth to
death, a person lived with a spirit, which looked after
him and could bring good fortune of misfortune to him.
This spirit was also called idlozi and a fine
line of distinction existed between this spirit and the
one that passed onto the ancestral world.
Amadlozi were considered very powerful and they
had an active interest in the welfare of their living
relatives. They required of the living to maintain
proper relationships with them and wrong doers were
sometimes severely punished. Amadlozi also
secured their relatives from witchcraft and harmful
magic.
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| If you feel this is not an
accurate account and you have a more accurate one, or
you have a clarification , you can submit
your version of the account here |
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| Other
documents related to this Profile |
| Changes in
the Ndebele (Matabele) religion |
| Mzilikazi,
the Ndebele and Christianity religion |
| Ndebele
Religious beliefs |
| Ndebele
Social structure |
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