The Killing of the two women by Mehlokazulu

I have read, they were stabbed, Shot, Strangled. Does anyone know how theses two women were killed.
Or were they Strangled, speared and Shot.

I recall reading, they were dispatched with a Knobkerry?

The oral history that I heard from the family also recounts that they were despatched with an iwisa, which bears out 24th's post.

JY

"Strangled" I read. Can't remember where?

As JY says..Mehlokazulu..He crossed the Tugela
with his uncle, found his father's younger wife,
and dragged her back across the river and turned
her over to a party of his supporters. they looped
a rawhide line around her neck, pulled the end's
tight, and then struck the back of her head with a
Knobkerrie. he got his ' mother ' a few day's later.
Kaqwelebana was said to have been shot.

"H.C. Lugg, Historic Natal and Zululand (Pietermaritzburg, 1949). Lugg identifies the location of the killings and is adamant that Mehlokazulu had the two women strangled, not shot as is sometimes claimed, because he ‘did not wish to shed the blood of his mothers’. Mehlokazulu himself admitted while in Pietermaritzburg jail in late 1879 that ‘he had strangled the two women’; E. Harding Steward, Royal Engineer Journal, 2 February 1880."

hiya chard1879, there are so many account's
of these murder's..Mehlokazulu, really did sing
like a bird, they must have been feeding him
trill.. 

heres another account..

On reaching the police camp they seized the
terrified refugee and one of the party struck
her with a knobkerrie smashing in all her front
teeth, she was bound with reims, dragged
along the ground for some distance, then picked
and slung across the backs of two ponies and
conveyed across the river into Zululand, en-
route to Sirayo's Kraal.

Shortly after crossing at Rorkes Drift, the cavalcade
was intercepted by a son of Sirayo's, named...
Mehlo-Ka-Zulu, who seized and pulled the woman
off the ponies, killed her, then threw her body
into a nearby donga.

xhosa2000 wrote:

heres another account..

That's the one I find most creditable.  But the account I read a LONG, LONG time ago explained that Mehlokazulu made sure the women were brought across the river into "Zululand" where British law (in his eyes, anyway) had no jurisdiction.  This did not stop him from being named casus belli however.  By hook or by crook, Frere was going to have his war -- the war that the scrupulous honesty of the Border committee had already once avoided...or delayed.  

There's also the question of who these women were and what they had done.  I believe that the first one was Sihayo's "Great Wife," which would have been Mehlo's birth mother, I believe.  

Does anyone here know exactly what the designation Great Wife entails?  My guess is that it either means the first woman he married and/or the one who is most entitled to his property as I believe women had rights to that...but I'm happy to be corrected.

The usual explanation is that they were killed for infidelity...but this was no one time thing.  The Great Wife was pregnant with a second child who was not Sihayo's I believe.  I've often wondered about the timing. Exactly what set Mehlokazulu off that night. The news that she was pregnant again perhaps?

In the end I think Mehlo's legal scruples did help prevent him from being accused of murder...but nothing could restore Sihayo's of his family's standing again because they were so close to Cetshwayo.

It is decribed in detail in Ian Knoght's Zulu Rising, although I don't know what his source(s) are with out looking it up, but I am not home atthe mo.

kopie wrote:

It is decribed in detail in Ian Knoght's Zulu Rising, although I don't know what his source(s) are with out looking it up, but I am not home atthe mo.

Knight mentions that there are various renditions based on oral history.  The biggest issue seems to be whether the women, MaMtshali and MaMthethwa, were shot or strangled.  He sites Lugg (6) as insisting they were strangled so as not to shed the blood of Mehlo's mothers, further dishonoring the family. His account does not answer my more basic questions about what actually triggered Mehlokazulu at that place and time.  Was it the second, younger wife deserting?  Maybe.

Knight's footnotes are:

4 - Statement of 'Umpahla," a witness in British Parlimentary Papers

5 - J.Y. Gibson, THE STORY OF THE ZULUS (London, 1911)

6 - H.C. Lugg, HISTORIC NATAL AND ZULULAND (Pietermaritzburg, 1949) and goes on to quote Mehlo's jail confession coming from: E. Harding Steward, ROYAL ENGINEER JOURNAL, 2 February 1880.

whether the women, MaMtshali and MaMthethwa.. i have the younger
victim as Kaqwelebana? xhosa

xhosa2000 wrote:

whether the women, MaMtshali and MaMthethwa.. i have the younger
victim as Kaqwelebana?

Yes that is the name I encountered when I looked into this years ago too...except in my mind she was the "Great Wife" (i.e. the older one.) I was just answering the post that pointed to Ian Knight's latest account. Knight acknowledges that there are multiple accounts of course.

Hi 6pdr,    

"In July of 1878 the Zulu inDuna named Sihayo discovered his Great Wife Kaqwelebana was having affairs with younger men while he was with the King in Ulundi.  Upon discovering this indiscretion, Kaqwelebana’s eldest son Mehlokazulu and four of Sihayo’s brothers (Zuluhlenga, Bhekzulu, Nkumbikazulu, and Shenkwana) decided that the Great Wife should be killed at once.  The first attempt ended in failure as the Great Wife and another wife, also involved in these affairs, escaped into Natal with their lovers.  The Zulu responded by crossing over into the Natal and returned the offenders to Zululand for execution"

Thanks Littlehand.   Where did you find that?

The comparison of the battles of the little big horn and isandhlwana.