Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
NTUNJAMBILI, a cave located 46km from Bulawayo along Old Gwanda Road, rises majestically from the ground in Matobo District, Matabeleland South Province, dwarfing all else around it.
With its picturesque appearance, the cave is unmissable when one travels down this rough road, giving an apt illustration of the rocky beauty that Matobo is known for.
On Old Gwanda Road, one passes many milestones and attractions that are on the bucket lists of many a tourist.
There’s Mhlahlandlela, the site of the King Mzilikazi Memorial, which now attracts hundreds every year as people flock from all corners of Zimbabwe and beyond to remember the Ndebele monarch.
Further along the road, one is given a detour to the king’s last resting place which carries immense cultural significance on its own.
Even further down the road, one is confronted by the Elephant’s Ear, massive rock boulders that were named after their resemblance to an elephant’s organ of hearing.
On a stretch of earth with such significant milestones, Ntunjambili stands out. The cave shares its name with a massive red sandstone cliff that rises above the Thukela Valley in KwaZulu-Natal.
That mountain is better known for the Zulu folk tales surrounding it, many of them dating back to the time of King Shaka, and all involving the appearance of cannibals. One tale has it that a Zulu prince and princess were able to hide in a cleft of the rock face to avoid a band of pursuing cannibals, and a second that resident cannibals had the power to open the rock face and lure unsuspecting victims inside.
The Ntunjambili in Matobo has stories of its own to tell. While its beauty is alluring, what makes the cave truly remarkable is its historical significance. Once upon a time, local legend has it, the cave is where King Mzilikazi’s soldiers made a brave stand against Boer forces that had been sent to retrieve cattle he had raided from them. Two weapons were subsequently embedded in the cave, giving it its name, Ntunjambili — the two weapons.
“The cave has two weapons kept on top of it, that’s why it was named that way,” said Webster Sibanda, the village head of Ntunjambili Village.
“This name is also present in KZN and so it was brought by Mzilikazi when he came here. There is a history that says that Boers tried to pursue their cattle all the way here then this was where they were defeated. A boundary was created and they were told not to come across Limpopo because they would be trounced again if ever they did so.”
Recently, Sibanda said, the mountain had started to take significance as elders began using it to discuss matters of great importance to the local community. Ntunjambili is a National Heritage Site. Before any business is conducted, elders are supposed to make the great trek up to the cave and announce to the ancestors anything that might be in store for the community.
“It is a National Heritage site and the same goes for the Elephant’s Ear which will not be disturbed even when a new road is constructed. There’s another one Lukadzi, which are boulders that take on the shape of a woman with breasts. These were spoilt when there were disturbances in this area but they are still very important.
“We started using the place when deliberating about the road, that’s when we started using the mountain again. This is because the guys that are doing the construction said they want to be announced to the elders in the community.
They thought they were bringing good developments and so they wanted the elders to welcome them,” he said.
According to Sibanda, Ntunjambili possesses on it a rock called Dula, where elders who are no longer sexually active go to announce significant developments in the area.
It is said the late nationalist, Vice-President Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, used to visit the rock as he plotted complex operations during the liberation struggle.
“There’s a rock where everything that is happening in the community is announced. The place is called Dula and it is where even the likes of Joshua Nkomo used to come and announce what they were doing during the liberation struggle. There was a lady who was a custodian of the place and she was the one who would deliver their messages.
It was not a place that people could go to willy-nilly but it was the preserve of elders. By saying that, I mean it was a place for men who no longer slept with women or women who were now beyond the touch of men,” he said.
Recently, however, Ntunjambili has taken a new dimension. Overlooking the cave is a shopping centre that it gave its name. Ntunja, as the centre is known, is always a hive of activity, teeming with life during most hours of the day.
However, while the young might claim to be having clean fun, for community elders, the centre has come to signify moral decay, as prostitution and the abuse of dangerous alcohol, popularly known as njengu, have taken hold.
On 25 July, elders in the community invited young people to make the great trek to the top of the mountain with them to confront this pandemic.
“What we have noticed is that young people are diving headlong into the consumption of these substances,” said one elder, Micah Moyo.
“We have alcohol that is sold in shops which is consumed in excess. They buy this stuff for $1 for two and it attracts our children because it is cheap. We are therefore saying most of the stuff that we see from our distillers is not good for them. We have no way to stop this because we are dealing with licensed products.
There is no way for us to confront this legally and that is why we are saying, as a community, we have to come together and try and groom our children,” he said
Already, one nightspot has been closed after the local community complained that there were now too many deaths associated with it.
“At some point, we noticed that there was now a lot of prostitution in the area. There was a place that never seemed to turn off its lights, day or night. Elders in the community were worried because it seemed expected that each month at least one person would die.
The gold panners would come after they struck gold and they would settle there with girls and the next day, you would hear that someone had died. The place would be alive 24/7 and the owner would provide girls. So in the end, the community decided that he should close shop because they felt that he was a person whose business seemed to thrive from the loss of life,” said Sibanda.
As the traditional leader in the area, Sibanda said while they acknowledged that they had no legal recourse to stop the sale of certain types of alcohol, they wanted to use the getaway to the cave to start educating young people on the hazards of taking such substances.
“We have been feeling disabled when it comes to this fight because these are young people who are buying something legal that is killing them. We have lost a lot of young people in the area.
After every short interval, you hear so and so has died after a short illness. So, since legally, we are constrained, we have decided to go the traditional route and try to train our young people and make them aware that what they are doing will kill them.
These are baby steps but even regulation against the advertisement of cigarettes took time. This is also what we are trying to do to effect change,” he said.