Talk:Mutapa Empire

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A much better time frame should be established... --Joy [shallot] 17:58, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The sentence: "Johannesburg is still often referred to a the "city of gold" and in fact it's name in nearly all indigenous languages translates as exactly that (compare Gauteng in Sotho and Egoli in Zulu)." is absolutely nonsence if related to Munhumutapa. You can't related an expression from the 19th and 20th centrury to the medivial age, where this expression did not exist. To win gold in Witwatersrand needs a technological knowledge, which could not exist in that time in Africa. - compare it with the German version here in Wiki.

Contents 1 Maps 2 Spelling of Empire name for article? 3 Clarification of lists 4 Racism and White Supremacism 5 Mutapa and Great Zimbabwe the same or not? 6 Zulu from north of Zambezi??

[edit] Maps

What, no maps?

;>

I wonder where the best sources of GIS maps is for pre-european african states.

Pazouzou 05:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling of Empire name for article?

I think that we should choose one spelling of the name and stick with it to simplify things.

--Thefirechild 12:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC).

Please, this is garbage. It was not an Empire. It was a an area where a particular people(s)lived with a very modest 'city' built largely by Arab slave-labourers who had stonemasonry knowledge. There was no central administration or anything remotely like it, no literature or anything else. For 1500 in the rest of the world that is absurd. Don't make such futile attempts to give credit to this lot when it is undeserving. Revisionist history should be kept out of this project. 81.131.57.137 09:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Given that older descriptions of Great Zimbabwe and other African archaeological sites have been made in environments of institutionalised racism, disregarding newer research as “revisionism” would be absurd. However, in order to maintain NPOV it would be good if the article covered more perspectives, current and historical. Incidentally, Wikipedia defines masonry as “the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar“; Great Zimbabwe (and the two hundred or so lesser zimbabwes) are entirely dry stone. -Ahruman 12:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification of lists

The article has two lists of "Mwenes or Monomatapas." It looks like those are lists of names of individuals, but I'm just guessing because the article doesn't say what "Mwene" or "Monomatapa" means. Is it some kind of title borne by the rulers of the empire? If so, does "Monomatapa Empire" basically mean something like "Empire of the Emperor"? Someone please clarify. PubliusFL 06:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Clarified. --Ghirla^-трёп- 21:14, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Much clearer, thank you! PubliusFL 14:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is my analysis of "mwenemutapa" and "munhumutapa". I am a first language speaker of the Shona language of Zimbabwe.

"mwene", in the Karanga dialect of the Shona language of Zimbabwe, means "the owner". "ku-tapa" means "to capture or to conquer" whereas "ku-tapwa" means "to be conquered or captured". "mu-tapa" means "the one who conquers or captures" and "mu-tapwa" means "the conquered one" or "the captured one". Synthesising the two gives either "mwene wemutapa", which means "the owner of conquerors", or "mwene wemu-tapwa", which means "the owner of the conquered ones".

"Monomotapa" is a foreign rendering and does not mean anything to us Shona speakers ... so I will not bother analysing it.

"Munhumutapa" is a contraction of "munhu mu-tapa". "munhu" means the same as "umuntu" in Zulu and Ndebele and means "a person" in a gender neutral sense derived from the concept of "unhu" in Shona or "ubuntu" in Zulu/Ndebele. BTW the term "unhu" or "ubuntu" cannot be easily translated into English and is not exclusively a ZULU/South Aftican concept as the Ubuntu Linux people seem to claim - its a concept that spans and permeates all cultures of Sub-Saharan African cultures including Shona culture. "munhu mutapa" literally translates to "to be a person (munhu) is to be (mu-) a conqueror (-tapa)". This give us a totally different meaning to the one above. This is essentially due to the difference in meaning between "mwene" (owner) and "munhu" (a person who embodies "ubuntu" or "unhu").

"Ravager of the Lands" is not a correct translation of either Mwenemutapa or Munhumutapa. The idea was not to "ravage" the lands and the peoples it was more the idea of conquering for the purpose of bringing the lands and peoples under the dominion of the conqueror.

Shona names ALWAYS HAVE A MEANING in the Shona language. Shona names are always an embodiment of history. The word "ravage" translates to the Shona word "kuparadza". "ravager of lands" translates to "muparadzi wematunhu", which contracts to "Muparadzidunhu" and this is nowhere near "munhumutapa" or "mwenemutapa". Whoever contributed the translation that involve any notion of "ravaging" does not understand Shona language and is certainly not a native speaker of the language.

To answer the above question:

• "Mwenemutapa Empire" means "empire of the owner of the conquerors"
• "Munhumutapa Empire" means "empire of the one who conquers"

As to which one is correct, I cannot tell at this point. Wikipedia might have to include these two and DISCARD "monomotapa", which has no meaning in the Shona language, being a foreign rendering. -- Mwana wevhu 18:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

ok, it looks like the history section was written by a 5 year old. for example, "great king" is an opinionated statement, and has no place in an encyclopedia like entry. second of all, I know there were arguments about the spelling of "monomotapa", but the article entry should not clarify that "monomotapa" is in fact the correct spelling. also, the general tone of the history section sounds like it was written as a lower school history paper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.199.162.154 (talk) 21:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Racism and White Supremacism

I have deleted the following statement:

"African folklore has it that this polity was preceded and loosely based on the empire of "the strange ones", reported to have had white skins, red hair and green eyes."

The above statement has no real foundation except the usual racist and white supremacist and evil machinations. Being an African and a Shona person borne and bred at and around Great Zimbabwe and whose ancestors have lived near this ancient city, I am not aware of any African folklore that makes this preposterous claim. The only time in Zimbabwean folklore that we encounter white skinned people is long after the establishment of and not at the inception of the Mwenemutapa Empire. In our folklore, Zimbabwean folklore, there is also no notion of "the strange ones" or their role in shaping the people's history. Also, in Zimbabwean folklore, there exists no description of a people with the attributes given in this statement. Whoever contributed this statement does not know Zimbabwean folklore. Furthermore, white people in Zimbabwean folkore do not exist as rulers up until 1890 when Rhodes and his Pioneer Column appeared. Besides, why talk of "African folklore" when you can be specific. The only folklore that would be directly relevant and worth considering with respect to the Munhumutapa/Mwenemutapa Empire is specifically Shona Folklore of Zimbabwe and part of Mozambique. -- Mwana wevhu 19:40, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mutapa and Great Zimbabwe the same or not?

Going through my old world history textbook (World History: Patterns of Interaction by Dr. Roger B. Beck, Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Dr. Phillip C. Naylor, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka) the book states that Great Zimbabwe was in great decline by the begining of the 15th century and completely abandoned by 1450 while the seperate Mutapa Empire established by one Mutota conquering the lands formerly controlled by Great Zimbabwe. Does anyone hav information on this contradiction? --Harel Newman 23:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree , I think the article needs to be changed as Great Zimbabwe was abandoned sometime in the 1400s. I recall that Goncalo de Silveira was at the court of the Mwenemutapa in what is now Mashonaland North around 1560 and when Antonio Fernandes explored the Manicaland around 50 years earlier nobody knew anything about an inhabited city where Great Zimbabwe now stands.--AssegaiAli 22:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Zulu from north of Zambezi??

I have never heard of this origin for the Amazulu, who did not exist as a unit people but were welded together by amalgamation of smaller Nguni-derived peoples in what is now South Africa during the mfeqane/difiqane in 18 and 19th century. (see Dingane, Chaka zulu, etc). As far as I know the Nguni came down through waht is now Mocambique. Unless you are referring to the Barotse now in the NW of Zambia. I think the statement that Zulu weakened Mwenemutapa is suspect and should be changed or bettter researched. Khumalo/Zulu people went to Zambia under Mzilikazi but that was in 1825 or thereabouts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.27.90.186 (talk) 23:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC)