Mbuya Nehanda

Who is Mbuya Nehanda?

Mbuya Nehanda, born Nehanda Nyakasikana, was a Zezuru Shona spirit medium (svikiro) from the Mazowe Valley in what is now northern Zimbabwe, believed to channel the ancestral spirit of a royal Nehanda lineage. In 1896-97 she became one of the central spiritual and political leaders of the First Chimurenga, the uprising of Shona and Ndebele communities against the British South Africa Company's colonial administration, working alongside fellow medium Sekuru Kaguvi to encourage resistance across the region. After the rebellion was suppressed, colonial authorities arrested Nehanda and tried her for the killing of Native Commissioner Henry Hawkins Pollard; she was convicted and executed by hanging in Salisbury (now Harare) on 27 April 1898. Oral tradition holds that she went to her death declaring that her bones would rise again, words later invoked by guerrilla fighters during the Second Chimurenga, the 1960s-70s war of liberation. She remains one of Zimbabwe's most revered historical figures, commemorated in songs, street names, and a large bronze statue unveiled in central Harare in 2021.

Sources: David Lan, Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe (James Currey, 1985) · Terence Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896-97 (Heinemann, 1967) · National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe records