Xivongo · Xitsonga
Nkuna
Also spelled Ba-Nkuna, Vankuna, Nkuna wa Mavutana.
- PeopleVatsonga
- Totem nyarhi (buffalo); also homu (ox) in Juno — Junod: Nkuna men liked to be saluted with Nkuna! Homu! Nyari! (ox, buffalo), whi
- Grouping Dzonga/Hlabi region of origin (Junod); a major chiefdom in its own right in Limpopo
- Surnames recorded Nkuna, Mhuntanyana, Mashongana, Mbhalati, Kulala, Mushwana, Xipalana, Shiluvane / Shiluvana, Muhlaba / Muhlava
- Places recorded Originally, Olifants-Limpopo, Mozambique, Ritavi, Tzaneen, Shiluvane, Leydsdorp, Limpopo
Your Family's Praise Belongs Here
This clan has a praise. It is not on this page yet, and that is our doing, not anything about your family or the praise itself. If the people at home still say it, you can put the true one here.
Why It Is Not Here Yet
Everything else on this page is unaffected. The clan name, the Xitsonga terms, the totem, the grouping, the surnames and the places recorded are facts, and facts carry no copyright no matter which book they were read in. What is absent is one author's particular wording, which is the part copyright does protect.
H-A. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe (Attinger Frères, 1912)
Public domain. Age-expired in South Africa and the United States. The ten Xitsonga swiphato from this work are published in full.
S.J. Malungana, Vuphato: Praise Poetry in Xitsonga (D.Litt. et Phil. thesis, Rand Afrikaans University, 1994)
In copyright. A doctoral study whose swiphato were recorded from named performers in the author's own fieldwork. In copyright. The performers are the authority on the recitations; the thesis is the author's rendering of them.
The rendering that was read: Henri-Alexandre Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, Vol. I: The Social Life, Imprimerie Attinger Freres, Neuchatel — https://archive.org/details/lifeofsouthafric01junouoft (; MALUNGANA1994; IZITHAKAZELO_BLOG)
A praise belongs to the families who recite it, not to whoever wrote it down. A Xitsonga-speaking family that still holds this one holds the better version of it, and can put that version on this page.
Written down by families and by the people who recorded them.
About This Record
What Was Written Down
Part of this account was passed down by word of mouth.
Junod, whose informants included the regent Mankhelu and the court poet Mtnuewe, gives the fullest picture. The common ancestor Nkuna is said to have left Zululand some centuries before to settle on the lower Limpopo; his son was Shitlhelane and his grandson Rinono, whose sons founded the doors (tinyangwa) of the clan, the Mhuntanyana, Mashongana, Mbhalati, Kulala and Mushwana, each under a petty chief, while the chief Muhlaba descended from one of them. Junod's royal list runs Nkuna, Shitlhelane, Rinono, Kulalen, Nwarinyekana, Muhlari, Ribye-ra-ku-tika, Shiluvane, Mohlaba. The clan migrated to the Transvaal between 1835 and 1840 rather than submit to Manukosi and numbered about 6,000 near Leydsdorp under Muhlaba in Junod's day; some old men claimed to know the exact place in Zululand their forefather left. Malungana adds that the Nkuna under chief Muhlava II kept a royal mbongi, N'wahun. Recorded from the sources named on this entry; the wording here is Sibaya's own.
Families Tell This Differently
Families who carry this name tell parts of it differently. Each way it has been told is below.
Where This Comes From
- Written down by
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- izithakazelo.blog (community-compiled), Nkuna Clan Praises // Meaning & History, read 2026-09-05, izithakazelo.blog — https://izithakazelo.blog/nkuna-clan-praises/
- Henri-Alexandre Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, Vol. I: The Social Life, Imprimerie Attinger Freres, Neuchatel — https://archive.org/details/lifeofsouthafric01junouoft
- Shidjabadjaba John Malungana, Vuphato: Praise Poetry in Xitsonga (D.Litt. et Phil. thesis), 1994 — https://ujcontent.uj.ac.za/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Vuphato---praise-poetry-in/9913242107691
- Wikipedia contributors, Tsonga people, read 2026-09-05, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsonga_people
- Henri-Alexandre Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, Vol. I: The Social Life, Imprimerie Attinger Freres, Neuchatel — https://archive.org/details/lifeofsouthafric01junouoft (; MALUNGANA1994; IZITHAKAZELO_BLOG)
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If Your Family Holds More Of This
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