Word: lobengula
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Matabele woman of 55 with a jolly face, a searching gaze, a European taste in clothes, and (according to her people) a proved ability to make rain. A white prospector who believed the old legends of buried treasure persuaded her to lead him to the secret burial cave of Lobengula...
...Manyanda River, north of Bulawayo. There, on high ground where elephants feed and the waters divide to flow toward the Zambesi and the "great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River," the rain-goddess showed the prospector a great stone. She rolled away the stone, and entered the cave of Lobengula. With the rain-goddess and the prospector was a Matabele named Ginyilitshe. The desecration of the cave filled Ginyilitshe with fear, and he ran straightway to Bulawayo, to a white man trusted by the Matabele: Arthur Huxtable, District Commissioner for Native Affairs...
...Huxtable saw that a stone had indeed been rolled from the mouth of the cave, that intruders had left footprints. He inspected the cave, then called forward the old men of the tribe, standing silent and afraid in this place of spirits. Would they not tell him, now, how Lobengula had died...
Place of Death. The old men said: "It was our wish that the grave should never be found, but why should we remain silent now?" They told how Lobengula fled only when the battle was clearly lost. By his order, his tribesmen did not follow, lest their spoor disclose the king's whereabouts to the white man. When Lobengula learned that his people had surrendered, he built a great fire and threw upon it the leather ring of his authority, his girdles, his sporran of blue monkey skin. Then he said to the chosen few who were with...
...outcast. ... Go now all of you to Rhodes and seek his protection. He will be your chief and your friend." The king turned to Magwegwe, the next in rank, and said: "Do you remember your words?" And Magwegwe answered: "Yes, King. When you die, so shall I die." Lobengula took a small bottle and drank. Magwegwe did likewise. They both died that...