Xivongo · Xitsonga
Valoyi
Also spelled Baloyi, Ba-ka-Baloyi, Baloi, Vaka Valoyi, Thevu / Mathevula.
- PeopleVatsonga
- Totem mfenhe (baboon) — Malungana: the people of hosi N'wamitwa in Ritavi and other Valoyi sub-clans go
- Grouping N'walungu (Nwalungu) group (Junod); VaRozvi cluster with Makaringe, Mukansi and Mathevula (Wikipedia, uncited)
- Surnames recorded Baloyi, Valoyi, Mathevula / Mathebula, Makaringe, Mukansi, N'wamitwa
- Places recorded Limpopo-Olifants, Mozambique, Ritavi, Mariveni, N'wamitwa, Bolobedu, Modjadji, 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.
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: 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
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
Junod lists the Ba-ka-Baloyi as the first element of the N'walungu group and records their tradition of coming down the Limpopo valley from the Ba-Nyai or Kalanga country in remote times along a road so well trodden that grass never grew on it, with the Nwanati as companions; frightened by the sea, the Baloyi turned back north while the Nwanati stayed. He notes two Baloyi colonies with their own chiefs in the Modjadji country and their emigration to the Transvaal between 1835 and 1840. Malungana records that the Valoyi under N'wamitwa in Ritavi and sub-clans under Muhlava keep the baboon as totem, coin praise nicknames for it (Mdondolovhana, Thevula), and gave the clan poem of Wilson Valoyi (Mariveni, December 1992), which traces the line through Malengana and Hlungwana to Gwambe and closes by naming the Valoyi as Mathevula. Wikipedia calls the Baloyi, Mathebula and Nyai descendants of G. 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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- 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
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