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Poltergeists · Possessions and exorcisms

Mbuya Nehanda – the Medium Whose “Bones Will Rise”

When
since 1898 date from records made at the time
Where
Harare (formerly Salisbury), Zimbabwe
Verdict
Disputed

In 1898 the British hanged Charwe, medium of the spirit Nehanda. For Zimbabweans her spirit did not die – it returned in later generations of struggle.

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-17.83°, 31.05° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

In Shona religion, mhondoro are powerful royal ancestor spirits who speak through chosen mediums. One of the most important is Nehanda, a female spirit traced to Nyamhita, daughter of the first ruler of the Mutapa state in the 15th century. In the 19th century the medium of Nehanda was Charwe Nyakasikana of the Mazowe valley; according to the historian David Beach, the spirit “entered” her around 1884. She prophesied, performed rites for rain and good harvests, and commanded great authority. When Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company imposed taxes and began seizing land, the Ndebele and Shona rose in revolt in 1896–1897, in what is now called the First Chimurenga. Nehanda and the medium Kaguvi were seen as the voice of the god Mwari, who would turn the white men's bullets to water. After the defeat, Charwe was accused of ordering the killing of Native Commissioner Henry Pollard and sentenced to death. She was hanged in Salisbury in 1898. To the end she refused baptism.

Witnesses

The Jesuit Francis Richartz, who attended the condemned before the execution and described it in “The Zambesi Mission Record” (November 1898); the trial records of Nehanda and Kaguvi in the National Archives of Zimbabwe, added to UNESCO's Memory of the World register in 2015.

Explanations and hypotheses

This is not a ghost story in the Western sense but the history of a living religion: the Shona believe a mhondoro passes from medium to medium, so Charwe's death was not the end of Nehanda. In the 1970s guerrillas fighting for independence invoked her, and words attributed to her before her death – that “her bones will rise” – became a rallying cry; whether she actually said them is unknown. The historian David Beach, going through the records, asked whether she was “an innocent woman, unjustly accused” – the evidence of her part in Pollard's killing rested on witness statements and is still debated. Sources differ on the date: some give March, others April 1898. In 2021 a statue of Mbuya (“Grandmother”) Nehanda was unveiled in Harare.

Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.

Sources

  1. D. N. Beach, An Innocent Woman, Unjustly Accused? Charwe, Medium of the Nehanda Mhondoro Spirit, and the 1896–97 Central Shona Rising in Zimbabwe (History in Africa, 1998)
  2. UNESCO Memory of the World – Nehanda and Kaguvi mediums' judgement dockets (April 1897)
  3. Fr Francis Richartz SJ, The End of Kakubi and the other Condemned Murderers (The Zambesi Mission Record, 1898)
  4. Deutsche Welle – Zimbabwe unveils statue of icon 'Grandmother' Nehanda (2021)

More: Wikipedia (en)