rom one end of the realm to the other only in dialect. Thus an Ndau speaker from Chimanimani could easily understand another speaking the dialect of the Korekore in the northeast, or a Zezuru speaker living in the vicinity of Chief Harare where the capital of Zimbabwe is now sited. On the whole the various Mashona groups pursued a similar lifestyle as agriculturalists and herders, failing most of the time to fall under any leadership that could be regarded as central. Inter-tribal or clan warfare was rare, and on the whole the broad outlook of life was uniform, and the various groups were peaceful and tolerant of one another. They were, and remain highly creative, with developed art forms in terms of sculpture, art, dance and song, and in particular in the use of such instruments such as drums, mbira and marimba.
By comparison the amaNdebele show a striking lack of cultural expression. There is little art or music that has been uniquely developed by the amaNdebele of Zimbabwe, being primarily a martial society their expression was in war and military display. Individual creativity and expression tended to be brutally discouraged while no means for social advancement existed outside the pleasure and patronage of the king. War was the supreme expression of the nation and a kind of dull aristocratic expectation defined an existence that required nothing more elaborate than brute force to secure itself. In the world of the Mashona these men were like foxes in a chicken coop, and by using their innate military cohesion and vastly superior tactical ability they were able to do what they did best, achieving their most spectacular results thus far as a predatory nation.
As usual the twin objectives of amaNdebele raiding were cattle and slaves. Cattle added to the rapidly increasing wealth of the nation while slaves added to the strength of manpower. Mashona slaves were marched home and either claimed directly by Mzilikazi or allocated to their individual captors. As such they were acculturated and absorbed into amaNdebele life, assuming the lifestyle and social philosophy of their hosts, and in the case of young men being drafted into the army.
There are many students of amaNdebele military history who point to this moment as the beginning of the end of the amaNdebele military formation as it had previously been known. There are many reasons for this, namely the complacency that would inevitably have marked Mzilikazi himself as he began to age, the lack of a viable opposing force against which to maintain a high level of battle readiness, and the increasing dependence of regiments made up wholly of Mashona captives, or amaHoli, among whom discipline was noticeably lower and social standards perhaps less rigid. It would be interesting here to quote the observation of a Matabeleland Native Commissioner noticing the decline of the Ndebele after the white occupation of the country.
The ordinary native of this country is the dirtiest and laziest of his race I have ever encountered. They have no respect for themselves, no morals, no idea of truth and no sense of shame…Instead of being raised in the scale by the advent of the Zulus [Ndebele] with their good morals and cleanly customs, [they] have dragged the conquering race down to their own level.[v]
While this attitude fairly reflects the early colonial view that the amaNdebele were the most ‘leonine of mortals’ as Moffat saw them, and the Mashona the ‘dirtiest and laziest of his race’, there is no smoke without fire, and without doubt the amaHoli regiments reduced the extremely high standards upon which the amaNdebele army had up until then survived. It was also inevitable that in due course the amaHoli would come to outnumber both the abeZanzi, those of pure Nguni stock, and the abEnhla, or those of Sotho stock from the Transvaal period. It has been said that Mzilikazi attempted to compile and accurate census of the abeTshabi, but the process was thwarted by senior members of his inner circle who feared a public revelation of the degree to which the Zanzi had become outnumbered by 