Wiki-Afripedia

The Wikidemocracy ensures that nothing one says about Wiki remains true for very long, but like N. Baker I like the idea of recalling periods of implication, two examples. I can't do links right now, sorry.

The first: I wanted to see whether the reigns of major Barolong chiefs existed in a reputable web environment. I found one Wikipedia entry for Barolong chiefs, which appeared to be a plausible version (there are several) of Barolong genealogy, except two chiefs' names were missing. The first was replaced with:

Fred Uh Want Mah Cookie

The second one was replaced with:

Bob Uh No Took Mah Cookie

I declined to rely on the entry after I had stopped laughing.

Secondly, "Chimurenga," a nice entry gives the leader of the Ndebele-oriented uprising comprising Shona as well as SeNdebele speakers, as named "Mlimo." This word means ancestor, and hovers about every major movement of the era on the subcontinent. The missionaries used it to mean "God."

At the time of the first Chimurenga, 1896-7, the New York Times announced in a headline:

KILLED THE MATABELE GOD
Burnham, the American Scout, May End the Uprising.
Pretoria, June 24 [1896]. — Burnham, the American scout, found in a cave in the Matoppo Hills the famous Matabele god Mlimo, the prompter and fosterer of the Matabele outbreak, and vainly tried to capture Mlimo alive, but, being unable to do so, killed him. It is believed that the death of their god will discourage the natives and lead to the suppression of the revolt.

Recent historians (I seem to remember) want to paint Mlimo as a conduit, a prophet, connecting people to a higher Power, to God, or to a local version of God, Mwali. The "high god cult" of Mwali, whether it is related to historical contacts between Muslims and Zambesi farmers, or Catholic missions with their martydoms and altars, or some pre-existing . . . because God is . . . because, say the believing historians, God is there.

So Mlimo (God/Ancestor) survives now not in the paper of record, but on Wikipedia as a "name," like "Fred" or "Bob." Which is it? Did he "think he was God," or was his name God? Or is this a misunderstanding . . .

Back to Wikipedia:

The same site gave the translation of "Ndebele" as "People of the Long Shields," which has no basis in fact: "Long Shields" is just descriptive of Nguni-style warriors in the field. "Khumalo," the ancestral name and the name of the chiefdom of Mzilikazi, was also said to "mean" "People of the Long Shields." How copacetic! All roads lead to Rome!

Ndebele comes from AmaDebele, which was a variant pronunciation of Ma-Tebele. Tebele is often paired with a junior version of itself, Tebeyane, say, in "twin court" pattern one discerns over much of the highveld and beyond in South Africa. There are chiefs of the past named Tebele and variants therein. Ma-Tebele "indicated" People of the Long Shields just as it did "Invaders from the other side of the Drakensberg." It means warriors are coming. Run.