The Nyubi of Zimbabwe and the Nubi of Egypt:  Are They Identical?

From the very beginning of their arrival in precolonial Zimbabwe, European adventurers, hunters, gold prospectors, proselytizers anthropologists and agents of colonial syndicates have never accepted that the cities of ancient Zimbabwe with stonewalls were built by Bantu people. By Bantu, we have to understand that they mean non-Africans.

We read books in which the writers initially gave credit to Phoenicians. When this one fell flat on its face, credit was given to the Arabs. Now that the Arabs are being called destructive terrorists, the Lemba are getting the credit --- it must be Anyone-But-Africans (ABA).

The Lemba angle is quite curious in that the narrative cleverly says that they are black but this is something that befell them after they left the comforts of their homeland in the Arab peninsular. In other words, the Lemba are Arabs or some Semitic people and therefore the only acceptable candidate for having put the massive stone edifices at Great Zimbabwe, Khami Zimbabgi, Mapungmbwe, Chamningwa, Nhandare, Nyanga and more than 100 other such ancient cities.

Furthermore, it does not seem to matter that the Portuguese who visited the Munhumutapa Empire actually witnessed and recorded Bantu people constructing walls out of stone. You will read a book by a colonial scribe citing a Portuguese source that points out the indigenous people as the stone masonry but the colonial writer ignores the Portuguese’s eyewitness account.

The colonial officers had the opportunity to talk to the African people of Zimbabwe so as to ascertain the builders of these massive ancient cities. Had they done that, our elders were going to tell them that, indeed, Bantu were responsible. Although I am Rozvi myself, I will openly say it was a collective effort. Every group played a part. The outsiders trying to tell our story may choose to give credit to Arabs or some mysteriously Africanized Arabs.

Having said that, we cannot ignore the fact that the construction of the edifices required highly skilled stone masons. There were people who were specifically trained for this demanding and professional task. We have these stone masons unto this day. These people are called Moyo Nematombo/Netombo, a title or salutation that may very well have its origins in antiquity. The Moyo Nematombo people were the stone masons. For now and for the sake of argument, however, let us say names mean nothing.

Be that as it may, a few months ago a friend posted a picture of a modern Nubian compound, in present-day Egypt. There was an enclosure/wall, see attached montage. Lo and behold, the enclosure had the same chevron design. There can be no doubt that this design is identical to what was constructed by the architectures of Great Zimbabwe, whoever they may have been. This is one picture that is worth a thousand words.

If we cannot give the credit to the Bantu people, and assuming that these people have nothing in common with the current black people in the southern parts of Egypt, why can we not give it to the Nubian first before we give it to Arabs or Africanized Arabs?

With Margaret Shenton, this is the African factoid of the day (FOTD), I’m Bvumavaranda BTechno Murozvi.