Tshomane aMatayi, Great House Son of the amaTshomane

• Crampton, Hazel. ‘The Sunburnt Queen’. Johannesburg: Jacana. 2004. Print. Contact Sharon Doubell

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Contribution by David Abraham Swanepoel subject to disclaimer in my profile. Information may be used under license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International unless another legal entity's copyright is indicated.

The amaMpondo people could have been a unified polity as early as 500 AD, while they were still migrating from the Great Lakes area. The man who gave the nation its name, Mpondo kaNyanya, could have lived around 1300, about 14 generations from Tshomane. I say “about” as sources differ. Genealogies differ. They were recited during rituals, something that we can be thankful for by lack of the written word, but it is so more prone to distortion over so many centuries.

Tshomane married several mPondo women before Bessie “Gquma”, the white castaway. During this period he did not appoint a Great House Wife and Great House Son or heir to the throne. Bessie became the Great House Wife, but he died before they had any children together. The throne passed on to a relative of whose exact relationship is not known. Presently the Geni tree has it as that Sango was his son. There is no indication that the latter killed Tshomane for access to the throne, as it would for sure have been part of the oral history. Tshomane probably died from natural causes, like an infectious disease or being killed by an animal.

If we have Bessie Gcuma’s estimated birth date correct, she would be marriageable by 1745 to 1750. Tshomane’s death date was soon after that. Assuming he was somewhat older than her, as he already married other wives, he could have been born around 1710-1720. His death date could be somewhere between 1745 to 1760, reaching a maximum age of around 50.

His description is somewhat of a problem as he is technically the Great House Son of Matayi. You can’t be the Great House Son of yourself. However, since the amaTshomane clan still exists today, through Sango Xwebisa, it makes sense in another way.

On the Port St Johns Community Facebook page and even here on Geni even his father is indicated as “Matayi aPuta, Chief of the amaTshomane” So this must be seen in a retrospective, broader sense.

Succession stays a problem, so there was in 2011 a court case about whom must be recognised as the headman of Maphuzi Administrative Area 15A. Dudumayo and Others v Dalasile and Others (1842/10) 2011 ZAECMHC 8 (26 May 2011)