In this section of Sekuru’s Stories, Sekuru Chigamba offers a detailed origin story of the Shona people and their neighbors. His account begins with the heroic feats of a legendary founding ancestor known by three different names: Soko, Pfumojena, and Murenga.
After his death, Murenga’s children migrate to a region of thick grasses. While this region is most frequently referred to as Guruuswa, Sekuru Chigamba calls it by the alternate name of Guniuswa. In Guniuswa, Murenga’s begin to hear their father’s voice emanating from the grass, prompting a series of events that will ultimately result in the emergence of the institution of spirit mediumship.
After departing from Guniuswa, a group of Murenga’s descendants arrive at the banks of the Zambezi River, prompting a significant event in Shona oral history. This event, which Sekuru Chigamba also identifies as the subject of the mbira song “Mahororo,” involves the influential female ancestor known as Biri parting the waters of the Zambezi, enabling her fellow travelers to cross into the land now known as Zimbabwe.
Sekuru Chigamba’s account identifies Biri’s faction as the first group of Murenga’s descendants to enter Zimbabwe. Yet they are soon joined by other groups who followed different migration routes on their journey south from Guniuswa. These include the Mahungwe, who pursued an eastern migration route, and the Matonga, who pursued a western route.
Upon settling in Zimbabwe, Sekuru Chigamba’s account recounts how Murenga’s descendants built their king a great city of stone, or masvingo. Yet population growth led to the city’s eventual collapse, prompting its inhabitants to migrate once more, crossing north over the Zambezi River and into present-day Zambia. After staying here for some time, they then returned to present-day Zimbabwe.
In a particularly segment of this origin story, Sekuru Chigamba describes how Murenga’s descendants acquired personal names only after arriving in a place called Dzivarasekwa. Prior to this moment, he suggests that only Murenga possessed a personal name, while all of his descendants simply referred to each other as iwe, or “you.” This part of Sekuru Chigamba’s story is tied to the emergence of the foundational ancestral figures of Mutota, Chingoo, and Murozvi.
Sekuru Chigamba’s account proceeds to identify Murozvi as holding the position of Chigovanyika, which gave him power to allocate chiefly territories. At the same time, it describes a process of continual movement in which various groups of people migrate in and out of Zimbabwean territory. This includes the present-day Ndebele, whom Sekuru Chigamba identifies as venturing south of the Limpopo river before returning to Zimbabwean territory.
In the following part of his story, Sekuru Chigamba suggests that totems were first adopted in order to enable people to track relationships in the face of population growth. His account suggests that contemporary totems have diverse origins. Among them, some totems are linked to specific animal species, others correspond to particular organs, and still others are derived from the personal names of significant ancestral figures. These include Sekuru Chigamba’s own totem of Soko, which he identifies as among the names of the foundational figure of Murenga.
Sekuru Chigamba then returns to the figures of Mutota and Chingoo, who first acquired their names at Dzivarasekwa. Here, Sekuru Chigamba describes Mutota’s migration from his original home near Gweru to the northern reaches of Guruve, where he would establish his rule over the Dande Valley. His descendants would continue to rule over the valley until 1903, when Chief Mapondera was arrested by British colonial police.
In the final sections of his account, Sekuru Chigamba recounts the European struggle for territory that played out prior to Mapondera’s arrest. His account places particular emphasis on how the British wrested control over areas of Zimbabwe from the Portuguese. Following European expansion, the concluding segment of Sekuru Chigamba’s account describes the desecration of shrines that formerly played a prominent role in precolonial political and religious life.